He brought the instrument to his lips and blew the melody, looking out into the radiant plain that arched toward the distant mountains, listening to the serenely devout song ringing out in the sweet notes of the flute, and feeling at one and content with the sky, the mountains, the song, and the day. With pleasure, he felt the smooth wand between his fingers and reflected that aside from the clothes on his body this toy flute was the only piece of property he had allowed himself to take from Waldzell. In the course of years he had accumulated a good many things that could be more or less regarded as personal property, above all writings, notebooks, and so on. He had left all these things behind; the Players’ Village might use them as it wished. But he had taken the flute, and he was glad to have it with him; it was a modest and lovable traveling companion.
On the second day he arrived in the capital on foot and called at the Designori home. Plinio sped down the steps to meet him and embraced him with emotion.
“We have been longing for you, and anxiously waiting for you!” he exclaimed. “You have taken a great step, friend — may it bring good things to all of us. But to think that they let you go! I never would have believed it.”
Knecht laughed. “You see, I am here. But I’ll tell you about it by and by. But now I’d like to greet my pupil, and of course your wife, and discuss everything with you — how we are going to arrange my new position. I am eager to start on it.”
Plinio called a maid and told her to bring his son at once.
“The young gentleman?” she asked, seemingly astonished, but hurried off while Plinio showed his friend to the guest room. He began eagerly describing what preparations he had made for Knecht’s arrival, and how he imagined the tutoring of young Tito would work out. Everything had been arranged as Knecht wished it, he said; Tito’s mother, after some initial reluctance, had also grasped the reasons for these wishes and assented to them. The family owned a vacation cottage in the mountains, called Belpunt, pleasantly situated on a lake. There Knecht would live with his pupil for the time being. An elderly servant would keep house for them; she had already left several days ago to put the place in order. Of course they could stay there only for a short time, at most till the onset of winter; but such isolation would certainly be beneficial, especially for the initial period. Fortunately, Tito loved the mountains and Belpunt, so the boy made no difficulties about going there. He was even looking forward to the project. At this point Designori remembered that he had an album of photos of the house and its environs. He drew Knecht along into his study, searched eagerly for the album, and when he had found it began showing his guest the house and describing the big farm kitchen-living room, the tile stove, the arbors, the lake shore, the waterfall.
“Does it seem nice to you?” he asked insistently. “Will you feel comfortable there?”
“Why not?” Knecht said calmly. “But I wonder where Tito is. It’s been quite some time since he was sent for.”
They chatted for a while longer. Then they heard footsteps outside. The door opened, but neither Tito nor the maid dispatched for him entered. It was Tito’s mother, Madame Designori. Knecht rose to greet her. She extended her hand, smiling with a somewhat artificial friendliness; he could see beneath this polite smile an expression of anxiety and vexation. She barely managed a few words of welcome and then turned to her husband and impetuously burst out with what was troubling her.
“It’s really so awkward,” she exclaimed. “Imagine, the boy has vanished and is nowhere to be found.”
“Oh well, I imagine he has gone out,” Plinio said soothingly. “He’ll be along.”
“Unfortunately that isn’t likely,” his wife said. “He’s been gone all day. I noticed his absence early this morning.”
“And why am I only now being told about it?”
“Because I naturally expected him back any minute and saw no reason to trouble you needlessly. At first I took it for granted that he had simply gone for a walk. When he didn’t return by noon I began to worry. You were not lunching with us today or I would have spoken to you. Even then, I tried to persuade myself that it was simply carelessness on his part to make me wait so long. But it seems it wasn’t that.”
“Permit me a question,” Knecht said. “The young man knew I would be arriving soon, didn’t he, and about your plans for him and me?”
“Of course, Magister. And he seemed to be agreeable to those plans — or at least he preferred having you as his teacher to being sent back to some school.”
“Oh well,” Knecht said, “then there is nothing to worry about. Your son is used to a great deal of freedom, Signora, especially of late. It’s understandable that the prospect of a tutor and disciplinarian should be rather dreadful to him. And so he’s made off at just the moment he was to be turned over to his new teacher — probably less with the hope of actually escaping his fate than with the thought that he’ll lose nothing by postponement. Besides, he probably wanted to play a trick on his parents and the schoolmaster they’ve found for him, and so show his defiance to the whole world of grown-ups and teachers.”
Designori was glad that Knecht took the incident so lightly. He himself was full of anxiety; with his intense love for his son, he imagined all sorts of dangers. Perhaps, he thought, the boy had run away in all earnest; perhaps he even intended to do himself some harm. It seemed as if they were going to pay for all their faults of omission and commission in the boy’s upbringing, just when they were hoping to remedy things.
Against Knecht’s advice, he insisted that something must be done; he could not take this latest crisis passively, and worked himself up to a pitch of impatience and nervous agitation which his friend found deplorable. It was therefore decided to send messages to the homes of a few of Tito’s friends, where he sometimes stayed overnight. Knecht was relieved when Madame Designori left to attend to this, and he had Plinio to himself for a while.
“Plinio,” he said, “you look as if your son had just been carried dead into the house. He is no longer a small child and is not likely to have been run over or to have eaten deadly nightshade. So get a grip on yourself, my dear fellow. Since the boy isn’t here, permit me for a moment to teach you something in his stead. I have been observing you and find that you’re not in the best of form. The moment an athlete receives an unexpected blow or pressure, his muscles react of their own accord by making the necessary movements, stretching or contracting automatically and so helping him master the situation. You too, my pupil Plinio, the moment you received the blow — or what you exaggeratedly thought a blow — should have applied the first defensive measure against psychic assaults and resorted to slow, carefully controlled breathing. Instead you breathed like an actor when he seeks to represent extreme emotion. You are not sufficiently armored; you people in the world seem to be singularly exposed to suffering and cares. There is something helpless and touching about your state; though often, when real suffering is involved and there is meaning to such pangs, it is also magnificent. But for everyday life these protective measures are most valuable and should not be ignored. I will make sure that your son will be better armed when he needs such equipment. And now, Plinio, be so kind as to do a few exercises with me, so that I can see whether you have really forgotten it all.”