During these same years young Joseph Knecht wrote those poems which have been preserved in Ferromonte’s copy. It is quite possible that there were originally more of them than have come down to us, and it may be assumed that the poems, the earliest of which dates back to a time before Knecht’s introduction to the Glass Bead Game, helped him to carry out his role and to withstand the many tests of those critical years. Here and there in these poems, some skillfully wrought and some hastily scribbled, every reader will discover traces of the profound upheaval and crisis through which Knecht was then passing under the influence of Plinio. A good many of the lines sound a note of profound disturbance, of fundamental doubts about himself and the meaning of his life — until, in the poem entitled “The Glass Bead Game” he seems to have attained belief and surrender. Incidentally, a measure of concession to Plinio’s world, an element of rebellion against certain unwritten laws of Castalia, is contained in the mere fact that he wrote these poems and even on occasion showed them to several schoolmates. For while Castalia has in general renounced the production of works of art (even musical production is known and tolerated there only in the form of stylistically rigid composition exercises), writing poetry was regarded as the most impossible, ridiculous, and prohibited of conceivable acts. Thus these poems were anything but a game, anything but an idle calligraphic amusement; it took high pressure to start this flow of productivity, and a certain defiant courage was required to admit to the writing of these verses.
It should also be mentioned that Plinio Designori likewise underwent considerable change and development under the influence of his antagonist. This was reflected in more than the refinement of his methods of argument. During the comradely rivalry of those school years Plinio saw his opponent steadily rising and maturing into an exemplary Castalian. The figure of his friend more and more vigorously and vividly embodied for him the spirit of the Province. Just as he himself had infected Joseph with some of the atmospheric turbulence of his own world, he for his part inhaled the Castalian air and succumbed to its charm and power. In his last year at the school, after a two-hour disputation on the ideals and perils of monasticism, fought out in the presence of the highest Glass Bead Game class, Plinio took Joseph out for a walk and made a confession to him. We quote it from a letter of Ferromonte’s:
“Of course I’ve known for a long time, Joseph, that you are not the credulous Glass Bead Game player and Castalian saint whose part you have been playing so splendidly. Each of us stands at an exposed spot in this battle, and each of us probably knows that what he is fighting against rightfufiy exists and has its undeniable value. You yourself take the side of intensive cultivation of the mind, I the side of natural life. In our contest you have learned to track down the dangers of the natural life and have made them your target. Your function has been to point out how natural, naive living without discipline of the mind is bound to become a mire into which men sink, reverting to bestiality. And I for my part must remind you again and again how risky, dangerous, and ultimately sterile is a life based purely upon mind. Good, each defends what he believes to be primary, you mind and I nature. But don’t take offense — it sometimes seems to me that you actually and naively consider me an enemy of your Castalian principles, a fellow who fundamentally regards your studies, exercises, and games as mere tomfoolery, even though he briefly joins in them for one reason or another. How wrong you would be if you really believed that, my friend. I’ll confess to you that I am infatuated with your hierarchy, that it often enthralls me like happiness itself. I’ll confess to you that some months ago, when I was at home with my parents for a while, I had it out with my father and won his permission for me to remain a Castalian and enter the Order if this should be my desire and decision at the end of my schooldays. I was happy when he at last gave his consent. As it happens, I shall not make use of his permission; I’ve recently realized that. Not that I’ve lost my taste for it, not at all. But I more and more see that for me to remain among you would mean escaping. It would be a fine, a noble escape perhaps, but still an escape. I shall return and become a man of the outside world, but one who continues grateful to your Castalia, who will go on practicing a good many of your exercises, and will come every year to join in the celebration of the great Glass Bead Game.”
Knecht informed his friend Ferromonte of Plinio’s confession with deep emotion. And Ferromonte himself added, in the letter we have just cited: “To me, as a musician, this confession of Plinio, to whom I had not always been entirely fair, was like a musical experience. The contrast of world and Mind, or of Plinio and Joseph, had before my eyes been transfigured from the conflict of two irreconcilable principles into a double concerto.”
When Plinio had come to the end of his four-year course and was about to return home, he brought the headmaster a letter from his father inviting Joseph Knechf to spend the coming vacation with him. This was an unusual proposal. Leaves for journeys and stays outside the Pedagogic Province did exist, chiefly for purposes of study. They were not so very rare, but were exceptional and generally granted only to older and more seasoned researchers, never to younger students still at school. But since the invitation had come from so highly esteemed a family and personage, Headmaster Zbinden did not presume to reject it on his own, but presented it to a committee of the Board of Educators. The reply was a laconic refusal. The friends had to say good-by to each other.
“We’ll try the invitation again sometime,” Plinio said. “Sooner or later it will work out. You must someday see my home and meet my family, and realize that we are not just commercial-minded scum. I shall miss you very much. And make sure, Joseph, that you rise quickly in this complicated Castalia of yours. Of course you’re highly suited to become a member of the hierarchy, but in my opinion more at the top than the bottom of the heap — in spite of your name. I prophesy a great future for you; one of these days you’ll be a Magister and be counted among the illustrious.”
Joseph gave him a sad look.
“Go ahead and make fun of me,” he said, struggling with the emotion of parting. “I am not so ambitious as you, and if I should ever attain to some office, you will long since have become president or mayor, university professor, or deputy. Think kindly of us, Plinio, and of Castalia; don’t become entirely estranged from us. After all, there have to be a few people in the outside world who know more about Castalia than the jokes they make about us out there.”
They shook hands, and Plinio departed.
For his last year in Waldzell, Joseph remained out of the limelight. His exposed and strenuous function as a more or less public personality had suddenly come to an end. Castalia no longer needed a defender. Joseph devoted his free time during that year chiefly to the Glass Bead Game, which enthralled him more and more. A notebook of jottings from that period, dealing with the meaning and theory of the Game, begins with the sentence: “The whole of both physical and mental life is a dynamic phenomenon, of which the Glass Bead Game basically comprehends only the aesthetic side, and does so predominantly as an image of rhythmic processes.”
THREE
YEARS OF FREEDOM
JOSEPH KNECHT WAS about twenty-four years old at this time. With graduation from Waldzell, his school days were over, and there now began his years of free study. With the exception of his uneventful boyhood in Eschholz, these were probably the most serene and happy years of his life. There is, after all, always something wonderful and touchingly beautiful about a young man, for the first time released from the bonds of schooling, making his first ventures toward the infinite horizons of the mind. At this point he has not yet seen any of his illusions dissipated, or doubted either his own capacity for endless dedication or the boundlessness of the world of thought.