Knecht had been staying with the Benedictine Fathers for some two years when a visitor appeared at the monastery who was kept apart from him with great care. Even a casual introduction was avoided. His curiosity roused by these procedures, he observed the stranger for the few days of his visit and indulged in all sorts of speculations. He became convinced that the stranger’s religious habit was a disguise. The unknown held long conferences behind closed doors with the Abbot and Father Jacobus, and was always receiving and sending urgent messages. Knecht, who by now had at least heard rumors about the political connections and traditions of the monastery, guessed that the guest must be a high-ranking statesman on a secret mission, or a sovereign traveling incognito. As he reflected on the matter, he recalled several guests of the past few months whose visits, in hindsight, seemed to him equally mysterious or significant. Now he remembered the chief of the Castalian “police,” his friendly mentor Dubois, and the request that he keep an eye on such events in the monastery. And although he still felt neither the urge nor the vocation for making such reports, his conscience troubled him for having not written to the kindly man for so long a time. No doubt Dubois was disappointed in him. So he wrote him a long letter, tried to explain his silence, and in order to give some substance to his letter said a few words about his association with Father Jacobus. He had no idea how carefully and by how many important persons his letter would be read back in Castalia.
FIVE
THE MISSION
KNECHT’S FIRST STAY at the monastery lasted two years. At this time he was in his thirty-seventh year. One morning, some two months after his long letter to Dubois, he was called into the Abbot’s office. He expected the affable Abbot would want to chat a bit about Chinese, and made his appearance promptly. Gervasius came forward to meet him, a letter in hand.
“I have been honored with a commission for you, my esteemed friend,” he said gaily in his amiably patronizing manner, and promptly dropped into the ironically teasing tone that had developed as an expression of the still unclarified amity between the religious and the Castalian Orders — the tone that was actually a creation of Father Jacobus. “Incidentally, my respects to your Magister Ludi. What letters he writes! The honorable gentleman has written to me in Latin, Heaven knows why. When you Castalians do something, one never knows whether you intend a courtesy or mockery, an honor or a rap on the knuckles. At any rate, the venerable dominus has written to me in the kind of Latin that no one in our whole Order could manage at this time, except possibly Father Jacobus. It’s a Latin that might have come directly out of the school of Cicero, but laced with a carefully measured dash of Church Latin — and of course it’s again impossible to tell whether that is intended naively as bait for us padres, or meant ironically, or simply springs from an irresistible impulse to playact, stylize, and embellish. At any rate, his honor writes that your esteemed authorities wish to see and embrace you once again, and also to determine to what extent your long stay among semi-barbarians like us has had a morally and stylistically corrupting effect upon you. In brief, if I have correctly interpreted the lengthy epistle, a leave has been granted you, and I have been requested to send my guest home to Waldzell for an indefinite term, but not forever; on the contrary, the authorities contemplate your returning by and by, if that seems agreeable to us. I must beg your pardon; I am scarcely capable of appreciating all the subtleties of the letter. Nor do I imagine that Magister Thomas expected me to. I have been asked to transmit to you this notice; and now go and consider whether and when you wish to depart. We shall miss you, my friend, and if you should stay away too long we shall not fail to demand your return.”
In the envelope the Abbot had given him Knecht found a terse notice from the Board informing him that a leave had been granted him both as a vacation and for consultation with his superiors, and that he was expected in Waldzell in the near future. He need not see the current Game course for beginners through to the end unless the Abbot specifically asked him to. The former Music Master sent his regards. As he read that line, Joseph started and grew pensive. How had the writer of the letter, the Magister Ludi, been asked to pass on this greeting, which in any case did not really fit the official tone of the letter? There must have been a conference of the entire Board, to which the former Music Master had been invited. Very well, the meetings and decisions of the Board of Educators did not concern him, but the tone of these greetings struck him as strange. The message sounded curiously as if it were directed to an equal. It did not matter what question had been discussed at the conference; the regards proved that the highest authorities had also talked about Joseph Knecht on that occasion. Was something new in the offing? Was he to be recalled? And would this be a promotion or a setback? But the letter spoke only of a leave. To be sure he was eager for this leave; he would have gladly left the next day. But at least he must say good-by to his pupils and leave instruction for them. Anton would be very saddened by his departure. And he also owed a farewell visit to some of the Fathers.
At this point he thought of Jacobus, and to his mild astonishment he felt a slight ache, an emotion which told him that his heart was more attached to Mariafels than he had realized. Here he lacked many of the things which he was used to, and which were dear to him; and in the course of the two years, distance and deprivation had made Castalia even more beautiful in his imagination. But at this moment he saw clearly that what Father Jacobus meant to him was irreplaceable, and that he would miss it in Castalia. At the same time he realized more clearly than ever how much he had learned in the monastery. Because of his experiences here, he looked forward with rejoicing and confidence to the journey to Waldzell, to reunions, to the Glass Bead Game, and his holiday. But his happiness would have been far less were it not for the prospect of returning.
Coming to an abrupt resolution, he called on Father Jacobus. He told him of his recall, and of his surprise to find underneath his pleasure at going home and seeing friends a joyful anticipation of returning. This joy, he said respectfully, was chiefly connected with Father Jacobus himself. Therefore he had summoned up his courage and was venturing to ask a great favor: when he returned, would Father Jacobus be his mentor, if only for an hour or two a week?