“I beg your pardon,” the young man said, “but the Magister Ludi’s car is at your disposal.”
“How is that?”
“His Reverence came by car yesterday. He has just left word that he is continuing his journey on foot and leaving the car here at your disposal.”
“Very well, I’ll take the Waldzell car tomorrow. Repeat, please.”
The servant repeated: “The visitor will be received in an hour; he is to be brief. The First Secretary is to convoke the Board for the day after tomorrow, attendance mandatory, absence excused only on grounds of severe illness. Departure for Waldzell at seven o’clock tomorrow morning in the Magister Ludi’s car.”
Master Alexander took a deep breath once the young man had gone. He went over to the table where he had sat with Knecht. Still echoing in his ears were the footsteps of that incomprehensible man whom he had loved above all others and who had inflicted this great grief upon him. He had loved this man ever since the days he had first helped him; and among other traits it had been Knecht’s way of walking that had appealed so strongly to him — a firm, rhythmic step that was also light, almost airy, expressing something between dignity and childlikeness, between priestliness and the dance — a strange, lovable, and elegant walk that accorded with Knecht’s face and voice. It accorded equally well with his peculiar way of being a Castalian and Magister, his kind of mastership and serenity, which sometimes reminded Alexander of the aristocratically measured manner of his predecessor, Master Thomas, sometimes of the simple, heartwarming former Music Master. So he had already left, in his haste, and on foot, who could say where, and probably he, Alexander, would never see him again, never again hear his laugh and watch the fine, long and slender fingers of his hand drawing the hieroglyphs of a Glass Bead Game phrase. Alexander reached for the sheets of paper that had been left lying on the table and began reading them. They amounted to a brief testament, extremely terse and matter-of-fact, frequently consisting only of cue words rather than sentences; their purpose was to facilitate the Board’s work in the forthcoming investigation of the Vicus Lusorum and the appointment of a new Magister. The laconic, sensible remarks stood there in neat, small letters, the words and handwriting just as uniquely and unmistakably typical of Joseph Knecht as his face, his voice, his gait. The Board would scarcely find a man of his stature for his successor; real masters and real personalities were all too rare, and each one was a matter of good luck and a pure gift, even here in Castalia, the province of the elite.
Joseph Knecht enjoyed walking; it was years since he had last traveled on foot. In fact, when he reviewed the matter it seemed to him that his last real walking tour had been the one that had long ago taken him from Mariafels monastery back to Castalia and to that annual game in Waldzell which had been so overshadowed by the death of Magister Thomas von der Trave and had resulted in his own appointment to succeed the Magister Ludi. Ordinarily, when he thought back upon those days, let alone upon his student years and the Bamboo Grove, it had always been as if he were gazing from a cool, dull room out into broad, brightly sunlit landscapes, into the irrevocable past, the paradise of memory. Such recollections had always been, even when they were free of sadness, a vision of things remote and different, separated from the prosaic present by a mysterious festiveness. But now, on this bright and cheerful September afternoon, with the strong greens and browns all around him and the ethereal, gently misted tones of blue verging into violet in the distance, as he trudged along at an easy pace, with frequent pauses to look about him, that walking tour of so long ago did not seem a distant paradise cut off from a resigned present. Rather his present journey was the same as that of the past, the present Joseph Knecht was close as a brother to the Knecht of those days. Everything was new again, mysterious, promising; all that had been could recur, and many new things as well. It was long, long since he had looked out upon the day and the world and seen them as so unburdened, so beautiful and innocent. The happiness of freedom, of commanding his own destiny, flooded through him like a strong drink. How long it was since he had last had this feeling, last entertained this lovely and rapturous illusion. He pondered that, and recalled the time this precious feeling had first been bruised, then given a fatal blow. It had happened during a conversation with Magister Thomas, under the latter’s friendly and ironic glance. He now recalled the strange sensation of that hour in which he had lost his freedom. It had not really been a pang, a burning anguish, but rather an onset of timidity, a faint shiver at the nape of his neck, an organic warning somewhere above his diaphragm, a change in the temperature and especially in the tempo of his consciousness of life. That anxious, constricting sensation, the hidden threat of suffocation of that fateful hour, was being recompensed now, or healed.
The day before, during his drive to Hirsland, Knecht had decided that whatever might happen there, he would not repine. Now he forbade himself to think over the details of his conversations with Alexander, of his struggle with him and his struggle to win him. He left himself entirely open to the feeling of relaxation and freedom that filled him like the approach of evening leisure for a peasant whose day’s work lies behind him. He was conscious of being safe and under no obligations. For a moment he was utterly dispensable, exempt from all responsibilities, not required to perform any tasks, to do any thinking. The bright, varicolored day surrounded him with a gentle radiance, wholly visual, wholly present, imposing no demands, having neither yesterday nor tomorrow. Now and then as he walked he contentedly hummed one of the marching songs he and his schoolmates used to sing in three or four parts on outings, when he was an elite pupil at Eschholz, and out of that serene early morning of his life small bright memories and sounds came fluttering to him like the chirping of birds.
Under a cherry tree with leaves already showing glints of purple he stopped to rest and sat down in the grass. He reached into the pocket of his coat and took out a thing that Master Alexander would never have guessed he would be carrying, a small wooden flute, which he contemplated for a moment with tenderness. He had not owned this naive, childish-looking instrument for long, perhaps half a year, and he recalled with pleasure the day he had acquired it. He had ridden to Monteport to discuss some problems of musical theory with Carlo Ferromonte. Their conversation had turned to the woodwinds of certain ages, and he had asked his friend to show him the Monteport instrument collection. After an enjoyable stroll through several halls filled with old organ manuals, harps, lutes, and pianos, they had come to a building where instruments for the schools were stored. There Knecht had seen a whole drawer full of such little flutes; he had examined and tried one, and asked his friend whether he might have one. Laughing, Carlo had invited him to choose; still laughing, he had presented him with a receipt to sign; but then he had seriously explained the structure of the instrument, its fingering, and the technique of playing it. Knecht had taken the pretty little toy with him, and practiced on it occasionally — for he had not played a wind instrument since the recorder of his boyhood in Eschholz, and had often resolved to learn one again. In addition to scales, he had used a book of old melodies which Ferromonte had edited for beginners, and every so often the soft, sweet notes of the flute had sounded from the Magister’s garden or from his bedroom. He was far from a master of the instrument, but had learned to play a number of chorales and songs; he knew the music by heart, and also the words of a good many of them. One of these songs now sprang into his mind; it seemed highly suitable to the moment. He sang a few lines under his breath: