Knecht had an extraordinary aptitude for fitting his students and officials into their proper place in the service of the hierarchy. He chose his men for every assignment, for every post, with great care. His reports on them show keen judgment, especially of character. Other officials often sought his advice on the handling of personality problems. There was, for example, the case of the student Petrus, the former Music Master’s last favorite pupil. This young man, the typical quiet fanatic, had done remarkably well in his unique role of companion, nurse, and adoring disciple. But when this role came to its natural end with the former Magister’s death, he lapsed into melancholia that was understood and tolerated for a while. Soon, however, his symptoms began to cause Music Master Ludwig, the present director of Monteport, serious concern. For Petrus insisted on remaining on in the pavilion where the deceased Master had spent his last days. He guarded the cottage, continued to keep its furnishings and arrangements painstakingly in their former state, and especially regarded the room in which the Master had died, with its armchair, deathbed, and harpsichord, as a sort of shrine. In addition to caring for these relics, his only other activity consisted in tending the grave of his beloved Master. His vocation, he felt, was to devote his life to a permanent cult of the dead man, watching over the places associated with his memory as if he were a temple servant. Perhaps he hoped to see them become places of pilgrimage. During the first few days after the funeral he had taken no food; afterward he limited himself to the tiny and rare meals with which the Master had been content during his last days. It appeared that he intended to go so far in imitatio of the Master that he would soon follow him into death. Since he could not sustain this for long, however, he shifted to the mode of conduct which would presumably entitle him to become guardian of house and grave, permanent custodian of this memorial site. From all this it was plain that the young man, naturally obstinate in any case and having enjoyed for some time a distinctive position, was bent on holding on to that position and had not the slightest desire to return to the commonplace duties of life; no doubt he secretly felt that he could no longer cope with them. “By the way, that fellow Petrus who was assigned to the late Master is cracked,” Ferromonte reported acidly in a note to Knecht.
Strictly speaking, a Monteport music student was no concern of the Waldzell Magister, who should have felt no call to add to his own responsibilities by interfering in a Monteport affair. But things went from bad to worse. The unfortunate young man had to be removed by force from his pavilion. His agitation did not subside with the passage of time. Distraught, still mourning, he had lapsed into a state of withdrawal in which he could not very well be subjected to the usual punishments for infractions of discipline. And since his superiors were well aware of Knecht’s benevolent feelings toward the young man, the Music Master’s office applied to him for advice and intervention. In the meantime the refractory student was being kept under observation in a cell in the infirmary.
Knecht had been reluctant to become involved in this troublesome affair. But once he had given some thought to it and had decided to try to help, he took the matter vigorously in hand. He offered to take Petrus under his wing as an experiment, on condition that the young man be treated as if he were well and permitted to travel alone. With his letter to the Music Master’s office he enclosed a brief, cordial invitation to Petrus, asking him to pay a short visit if it were convenient, and hinting that he hoped for an account of the former Music Master’s last days.
The Monteport doctor hesitantly consented. Knecht’s invitation was handed to the student, and as Knecht had rightly guessed, nothing could have been more welcome to the young man, trapped as he was in the deplorable situation he had created for himself, than a swift escape from the scene of his difficulties. Petrus immediately agreed to undertake the journey, accepted a proper meal, was given a travel pass, and set out on foot. He arrived in Waldzell in fair condition. On Knecht’s orders, everyone ignored the jitteriness in his manner. He was put up among the guests of the Archive and found himself treated neither as a delinquent nor as a patient, nor for that matter as a person in any way out of the ordinary. He was after all not so ill as to fail to appreciate this pleasant atmosphere; and he took the road back into life thus offered him, although during the several weeks of his stay he remained a considerable nuisance to the Magister. Knecht assigned him the sham task of recording, under strict supervision, his Master’s last musical exercises and studies, and in addition systematically employed him for minor routine jobs in the Archives. This on the pretext that the Archives personnel were overburdened at the moment, and it would be good of him to lend a hand whenever he had the time.
In short, the temporary deviant was guided back to the right road. After he had calmed down and seemed ready to fit himself into the hierarchy, Knecht began exerting a direct educational influence upon him. In a series of brief talks the Magister relieved the youth of his delusion that setting up the deceased Music Master as the subject of an idolatrous cult was either a religious act or one tenable in Castalia. Since, however, Petrus was still terror-stricken at the prospect of returning to Monteport, although he seemed otherwise cured, a post of assistant music teacher in one of the lower elite schools was provided for him. In that capacity he henceforth behaved quite acceptably.
We might cite a good many other examples of Knecht’s psychiatric and educative work. Moreover, there were many young students who fell under the gentle sway of his personality and were won over to a life in the genuine spirit of Castalia much the way Knecht himself had been won over by the Music Master. All these examples show us the Magister Ludi as anything but a problematical character; all are testimonies to his soundness and balance. But his kindly efforts to help unstable and imperiled personalities such as Petrus or Tegularius do suggest an unusually alert sensitivity to such maladies or susceptibilities on the part of Castalians. They suggest that since his first “awakening” he had remained keenly alive to the problems and the dangers inherent in Castalian life. No doubt the majority of our fellow citizens thoughtlessly or smugly refuse to see these dangers; but he in his forthright courage could not take such a course. And presumably he could never follow the practice of most of his associates in authority, who were cognizant of these dangers but as a matter of principle treated them as nonexistent. He recognized their existence, and his familiarity with the early history of Castalia led him to regard life in the midst of such dangers as a struggle, and one which he affirmed. He loved these very perils, whereas most Castalians considered their community, and the lives they led within it, as a pure idyll. From Father Jacobus’s works on the Benedictine Order he had also absorbed the concept of an order as a militant community, and of piety as a combative attitude. “No noble and exalted life exists,” he once said, “without knowledge of devils and demons, and without continual struggle against them.”
In our Province explicit friendships among the holders of high office are most rare. We need therefore not be surprised that during his first years in office Knecht entered into no such ties with any of his colleagues. He cordially liked the classical philologist in Keuperheim, and felt profound esteem for the directors of the Order; but in these relationships personal affection is almost entirely excluded, private concerns objectified, so that intimacies beyond the joint work on an official level are scarcely possible. Nevertheless, one such friendship did develop.