Designori, struggling with his agitation, broke off and with a tormented expression looked across at the Magister. Knecht sat there, all attention, absorbedly listening, but not in the least upset; he sat looking at his old friend with a smile that was full of friendly sympathy. Since Designori did not continue, Knecht rested his eyes on him, with a look of good will and satisfaction, in fact with a touch of amusement. For a minute or longer Plinio bleakly met that gaze. Then he cried out forcefully, although not angrily: "You're laughing! Laughing? You think it was all fine?"
   "I must admit," Knecht said smilingly, "that you have described that episode remarkably well, splendidly. That is exactly how it was, and perhaps the lingering sense of insult and accusation in your voice was needed for you to bring it out as effectively as you did and to recall the scene to my mind with such perfect vividness. Also, although I'm afraid you still see the whole affair in somewhat the same light as you did then, and have not fully come to terms with it, you told your story with objective correctness -- the story of two young men in a rather embarrassing situation in which both had to dissemble, and one of whom -- that is, you -- made the mistake of concealing the painfulness of the whole matter behind a gay exterior, instead of dropping the masquerade. It seems as if you were to this day blaming me more than yourself for the fruitlessness of that encounter, although it was absolutely up to you to have set its terms. Have you really failed to see that? But still you have described it very well, I must say. You've called back the whole sense of oppression and embarrassment over that weird evening. For a while I've felt as if I had to fight for composure again, and I've been ashamed for the two of us. No, your story is exactly right. It's a pleasure to hear a story so well told."
   "Well now," Plinio began, rather astonished, and with an offended and mistrustful note lingering in his voice, "it's good that my story has amused at least one of us. If you want to know, it didn't amuse me."
   "But you do see," Knecht said, "how merrily we can now regard this story, which isn't exactly to the credit of either of us? We can laugh at it."
   "Laugh? Why should we?"
   "Because this story about the ex-Castalian Plinio who struggled to master the Glass Bead Game and worked so hard for his former friend's appreciation is now past and over with for good, exactly like the story of the tutor Knecht who in spite of all his training in Castalian manners was a total duffer when it came to dealing with this Plinio who suddenly blew in on him, so that today after so many years that clumsy behavior can be held up to him as in a mirror. Once again, Plinio, you have an excellent memory and you've told the story well -- I couldn't have done it justice. It's fortunate that the tale is over and done with and we can laugh at it."
   Designori was perplexed. He could not help feeling the warmth and pleasantness of the Magister's good humor. It was obviously far removed from mockery. And he felt also that an intense seriousness lay behind this gaiety. But in telling his story he had too painfully relived the bitterness of that episode, and his narrative had been so much in the nature of a confession that he could not change key so readily.
   "Perhaps you forget," he said hesitantly, already half persuaded, "that what I related was not the same for me as it was for you, For you it was at most chagrin; for me it was defeat and collapse, and incidentally also the beginning of important changes in my life. When I left Waldzell that time, just as soon as the course ended, I resolved never to return here, and I was close to hating Castalia and all of you. I had lost my illusions and had realized that I would never again belong among you, perhaps had never belonged as much as I had imagined. It would not have taken much more to make me into a renegade and an outright enemy of everything Castalian."
   Knecht fixed him with a look at once cheerful and penetrating.
   "Certainly," he said, "and of course you're going to tell me all about that soon, I very much hope. But for the present I see our relationship as this: In our early youth we were friends, were parted and took very different paths. Then we met again -- this at the time of your unlucky holiday course. You'd become half or entirely a person of the world; I was a rather conceited Waldzeller, much preoccupied with Castalian forms; and today we have recalled this disappointing and shaming reunion. We have seen ourselves and our awkwardness at that time and we have been able to laugh at it, because today everything is completely different. I freely admit that the impression you made on me at that time did in fact embarrass me greatly; it was an altogether unpleasant, negative impression. I could make nothing of you; to me you unexpectedly, disturbingly, and annoyingly seemed unfinished, coarse, worldly. I was a young Castalian who knew nothing of the world and actually wanted to know nothing of it. And you, well, you were a young foreigner whose reason for visiting us I could not rightly understand. I had no idea why you were taking a Game course, for you seemed to have almost nothing of the elite pupil left in you. You grated on my nerves as I did on yours. Of course I could not help striking you as an arrogant Waldzeller without any basis for his arrogance who was bent on keeping his distance from a non-Castalian and amateur at the Game. And to me you were a kind of barbarian, semicultured, who seemed to be making bothersome and groundless claims upon my interest and my friendship. We fended each other off; we came close to hating each other. There was nothing we could do but part, because neither of us had anything to give the other and neither of us could be fair to the other.
   "But today, Plinio, we have been able to revive that shamefully buried memory and we may laugh at that scene and at the pair of us, because today we have come together as different men and with quite different intentions and potentialities -- without sentimentality, without repressed feelings of jealousy and hatred, without conceit. Both of us grew up long ago; both of us are men now."
   Designori smiled with relief. But still he asked: "Are we so sure of that? After all, we had good will enough even then."
   "I should think we had," Knecht said, laughing. "And with all our good will we drove and strained ourselves until we couldn't bear it any longer. At that time we disliked each other instinctively. To each of us the other was unfamiliar, disturbing, alien, and repugnant, and only an imaginary sense of obligation, of belonging together, forced us to play out that tedious farce for a whole evening. I realized that soon after your visit. Neither of us had properly outgrown either our former friendship or our former opposition. Instead of letting that relationship die we thought we had to exhume it and somehow continue it. We felt indebted to it and had no idea how to pay the debt. Isn't that so?"
   "I think," Plinio said thoughtfully, "that even today you are still being somewhat overpolite. You say 'we both,' but in fact it was not the two of us who were seeking and unable to find each other. The seeking, the love, was all on my side, and so the disappointment and suffering also. And now I ask you: What has changed in your life since that meeting? Nothing. In my case, on the other hand, it was a deep and painful dividing line, and I cannot accept your laughing way of dismissing it."
   "Forgive me," Knecht amiably apologized. "I have probably rushed matters. But I hope that in time you too will be able to laugh at that incident. Of course you were wounded then, though not by me, as you thought and still seem to think. You were wounded by the gulf between yourself and Castalia, by the chasm between your world and mine which we seemed to have bridged in the course of our schoolboy friendship but which suddenly yawned before us so fearfully wide and deep. Insofar as you blame me personally, I beg you to state your accusation frankly."
   "Oh, it was never an accusation. But it was a plaint. You didn't hear it at the time, and it seems you don't want to hear it even now. At the time you answered it with a smile and a show of good manners, and you're doing the same thing again."
   Although he sensed the friendship and profound good will in the Magister's eyes, he was impelled to stress this point; it was necessary for this burden he had borne for so long to be at last thrown off.
   Knecht's expression did not change. After a moment's reflection he said cautiously: "Only now am I beginning to understand you, friend. Perhaps you are right and we must discuss this too. Still, may I remind you that you could legitimately have expected me to enter into what you call your plaint only if you had really expressed it. But the fact was that during that evening's conversation in the guest house you expressed no plaints whatsoever. Instead you put as brisk and brave a face as possible on the whole thing, just as I did. Like me, you acted the fearless warrior who has no grievances. But secretly you expected, as you now tell me, for me to hear the hidden plaint somehow and to recognize your true face behind your mask. Well, I fancy I did notice something of the sort at the time, though far from everything. But how was I to suggest to you that I was worried about you, that I pitied you, without offending your pride? And what would have been the good of my extending my hand, since my hand was empty and I had nothing to give you, no advice, no comfort, no friendship, because our ways had parted so completely? As a matter of fact, at the time the hidden uneasiness and unhappiness that you concealed behind a brash manner annoyed me; to be frank, I found it repugnant. It contained a claim on my sympathy which was contradicted by your manner. I felt there was something importunate and childish about it, and it made my feelings chill toward you all the more. You were making claims on my comradeship. You wanted to be a Castalian, a Glass Bead Game player; and at the same time you seemed so uncontrolled, so odd, so lost in egotistic emotions. That was the tenor of my opinion at the time, for I could see clearly that virtually nothing was left of the Castalian spirit in you. You had apparently forgotten even the elementary rules. Very well, that wasn't my affair. But then why were you coming to Waldzell and wanting to hail us as your fellows? As I've said, I found that annoying and repugnant, and at the time you were absolutely right if you interpreted my assiduous politeness as rejection. I did instinctively reject you, and not because you were a worldly person, but because you were asserting a claim to be regarded as a Castalian. But when you recently reappeared after so many years, there was no longer any trace of that. You looked worldly and talked like a man from outside. I noticed the difference especially in the expression of sadness, grief or unhappiness on your face. But I liked everything about you, your bearing, your words, even your sadness. They were beautiful, suited you, worthy of you. None of that bothered me; I could accept you and affirm it all without the slightest inner resistance.  This time no excessive politeness and good manners were necessary, and so I promptly met you as a friend and tried to show you my affection and concern. But this time the situation was reversed; this time it was I who tried to win you while you held back. My only encouragement was that I tacitly understood your appearance in our Province and your interest in our affairs as a sign of attachment  and loyalty. So then, finally you responded to my wooing, and we have now come to the point of opening our hearts to each other and in this way, I hope, being able to renew our old friendship.

   "You were just saying that our meeting at that time was painful for you, but insignificant for me. We won't argue about that; you might be right. But our present meeting, amice, is by no means insignificant for me. It means a great deal more to me than I can possibly tell you, more than you can possibly guess. Just to give you the briefest of hints, it means more to me than the return of a lost friend and the resurrection of times past with new force and in a new light. Above all it represents to me a kind of call, an approach toward me from outside. It opens a way for me into your world; it confronts me once more with the old problem of a synthesis between you and us. And this occurs at the right moment. This time the call does not find me deaf; it finds me more alert than I have ever been, because it does not really surprise me. It does not come to me as something alien, something from outside which I may or may not respond to, as I please. Rather, it comes out of myself; it is the twin to a very powerful and insistent desire, to a need and a longing within myself. But let us talk of this some other time; it is already late and we both need our rest.
   "You spoke of my good cheer and your sadness, and you meant, it seems to me, that I was not being fair to what you call your 'plaint,' and that I have not been fair to it today either, since I respond to this plaint with smiles. There is something here I don't quite understand. Why should not a complaint be listened to with cheerfulness; why must one wear a doleful face instead of a smile? From the fact that you came to Castalia again, and to me, with your grief and your burden, I think I may conclude that our cheerful serenity means something to you. But if I do not go along with your sadness, do not let myself be infected by it, that does not mean I don't recognize it or take it seriously. I fully recognize and honor your demeanor, which your life in the world has imprinted upon you. It becomes you and belongs to you; it is dear to me and deserves respect, although I hope to see it change. Of course I can only guess at its source; you will tell me or not tell me about it later, as seems right to you. I can see only that you seem to have a hard life. But why do you think I would not or cannot be fair to you and your burdens?"
   Designori's face had clouded over once more. "Sometimes," he said resignedly, "it seems to me that we have not only two different languages and ways of expressing ourselves, each of which can only vaguely be translated into the other, but that we are altogether and fundamentally different creatures who can never understand each other. Which of us is really the authentic and integral human being, you or me? Every so often I doubt that either of us is. There were times when I looked up to you members of the Order and Glass Bead Game players with such reverence, such a sense of inferiority, and such envy that you might have been gods or supermen, forever serene, forever playing, forever enjoying your own existences, forever immune to suffering. At other times you seemed to me either pitiable or contemptible, eunuchs, artificially confined to an eternal childhood, childlike and childish in your cool, tightly fenced, neatly tidied playground and kindergarten, where every nose is carefully wiped and every troublesome emotion is soothed, every dangerous thought repressed, where everyone plays nice, safe, bloodless games for a lifetime and every jagged stirring of life, every strong feeling, every genuine passion, every rapture is promptly checked, deflected, and neutralized by meditation therapy. Isn't it an artificial, sterilized, didactically pruned world, a mere sham world in which you cravenly vegetate, a world without vices, without passions, without hunger, without sap and salt, a world without family, without mothers, without children, almost without women? The instinctual life is tamed by meditation. For generations you have left to others dangerous, daring, and responsible things like economics, law, and politics. Cowardly and well-protected, fed by others, and having few burdensome duties, you lead your drones' lives, and so that they won't be too boring you busy yourselves with all these erudite specialties, count syllables and letters, make music, and play the Glass Bead Game, while outside in the filth of the world poor harried people live real lives and do real work."
   Knecht had listened to him with unswervingly friendly attentiveness.
   "My dear friend," he said deliberately, "how strongly your words remind me of the spirited battles of our schooldays. The difference is that today I no longer need play the same part as I did then. My task today is not defense of the Order and the Province against your assaults, and I am very glad that this troublesome task, which overtaxed me at the time, is mine no longer. You see, it's become rather difficult to repel the sort of glorious cavalry charge you've once again mounted. You talk, for example, of people out in the rest of the country who live real lives and do 'real work'. That sounds so fine and absolute -- practically axiomatic -- and if one wanted to oppose it one would have to rudely remind the speaker that his own 'real work' consists partly in sitting on a committee for the betterment of Castalia. But let us leave joking aside for the moment. It is apparent from your words and your tone that your heart is still full of hatred for us, and at the same time full of despairing love toward us, full of envy and longing. To you we are cowards, drones, or children playing in a kindergarten, but at times you have also seen us as godlike in our serenity. From all this, though, I think I may rightly conclude one thing: Castalia is not to blame for your sadness, your unhappiness, or whatever we choose to call it. That must come from elsewhere. If we Castalians were to blame, your accusations against us would not be just what they were in the discussions of our boyhood. In later conversations you must tell me more, and I don't doubt that we shall find a way to make you happier and more serene, or at least to change your relationship toward Castalia into a freer and more pleasant one. As far as I can see right now, you have a false, constrained, sentimental attitude toward us. You have divided your own soul into a Castalian and worldly part, and you torment yourself excessively about things for which you bear no responsibility. Possibly you also do not take seriously enough other things for which you do bear responsibility. I suspect that it is some time since you have done any meditation exercises. Isn't that so?"
   Designori gave an anguished laugh. "How keen you are, Domine! Some time, you say? Many, many years have passed since I gave up the magic of meditation. Now you are suddenly so concerned about me! That time you met me here in Waldzell during the vacation course and showed me so much courtesy and contempt, and turned down my plea for comradeship in so polished a manner, I left here with the firm resolve to put an end to everything Castalian about me. From then on I gave up the Glass Bead Game, ceased meditating; even music was spoiled for me for a considerable time. Instead I found new friends who gave me instruction in worldly amusements. We drank and whored; we tried all available narcotics; we sneered at decency, reverence, idealism. Of course the thing didn't go on very long at such a crude level, but long enough to remove completely the last traces of Castalian veneer. And then, years later, when I occasionally realized that I had gone too far and badly needed some of the techniques of meditation, I had become too proud to start again."
   "Too proud?" Knecht murmured.
   "Yes, too proud. I had meanwhile plunged into the world and become a man of the world. I wanted nothing more than to be one with the others; I wanted no other life than the world's life -- its passionate, childlike, crude, ungoverned life vacillating forever between happiness and fear. I disdained the idea of procuring a degree of relief and some transcendence over others by employing your methods."
   The Magister gave him a sharp look. "And you endured that, for many years? Didn't you use any other methods to cope with it all?"
   "Oh yes," Plinio confessed. "I did and still do. At times I go back to drinking, and usually I need all kinds of sedatives so that I can sleep."
   For a second Knecht closed his eyes, as though suddenly weary; then he fixed his gaze upon his friend once more. Silently, he looked into his face, earnestly probing at first, but with his own expression gradually growing gentler, friendlier, serener. Designori has recorded that he had never before encountered such a look in anyone's eyes, a look at once so searching and so loving, so innocent and so critical, radiating such kindness and such omniscience. He admits that this look disturbed him unpleasantly at first, but gradually reassured and overcame him by its gentle insistence. But he was still trying to fight back.
   "You said that you know ways to make me happier and more serene. But you don't ask whether that is what I really want."
   "Well," Joseph Knecht said, laughing, "if we can make a person happier and more serene, we should do it in any case, whether or not he asks us to. And how could you not want that and not be seeking it? That's why you are here, that's why we are once again sitting face to face, that's why you returned to us, after all. You hate Castalia, you despise it, you're far too proud of your worldliness and your sadness to wish to find relief through the use of reason and meditation. And yet a secret, unquenchable longing for us and our serenity remained with you all through these years, luring you to return, to try us once more. And I must tell you that you have come at the right moment, when I too have been longing intensely for a call from your world, for an opening door. But we'll talk about that next time. You've confided a great deal to me, friend, and I thank you for it. You will see that I too have some things to confess to you. It is late, you're leaving tomorrow, and another day of official routines awaits me. We must go to bed. But please give me another fifteen minutes."
   He stood up, went to the window, and looked up at the starry, crystalline night sky overlaid by the scudding clouds. Since he did not return to his chair at once, his guest also stood up and came over to the window beside him. The Magister stood there, drinking in the cool, thin air of the autumnal night with rhythmic inhalations. He pointed toward the sky.
   "Look," he said. "This landscape of clouds and sky. At first glance you might think that the depths are there where it is darkest; but then you realize that the darkness and softness are only the clouds and that the depths of the universe begin only at the fringes and fjords of this mountain range of clouds -- solemn and supreme symbols of clarity and orderliness. The depths and the mysteries of the universe lie not where the clouds and blackness are; the depths are to be found in the spaces of clarity and serenity. Please, just before going to sleep look up for a while at these bays and straits again, with all their stars, and don't reject the ideas or dreams that come to you from them."
   A strange quiver went through Plinio's heart -- he could not tell whether it was of grief or happiness. An unimaginably long time ago, he recalled, in the lovely, serene beginnings of his life as a Waldzell student, he had been summoned in similar words to his first meditation exercises.

   "And let me say one word more," the Glass Bead Game Master resumed, again in his low voice. "I would like to say something more to you about cheerful serenity, the serenity of the stars and of the mind, and about our Castalian kind of serenity also. You are averse to serenity, presumably because you have had to walk the ways of sadness, and now all brightness and good cheer, especially our Castalian kind, strikes you as shallow and childish, and cowardly to boot, a flight from the terrors and abysses of reality into a clear, well-ordered world of mere forms and formulas, mere abstractions and refinements. But, my dear devotee of sadness, even though for some this may well be a flight, though there may be no lack of cowardly, timorous Castalians playing with mere formulas, even if the majority among us were in fact of this sort -- all this would not lessen the value and splendor of genuine serenity, the serenity of the sky and the mind. Granted there are those among us who are too easily satisfied, who enjoy a sham serenity; but in contrast to them we also have men and generations of men whose serenity is not playful shallowness, but earnest depth. I knew one such man -- I mean our former Music Master, whom you used to see in Waldzell now and then. In the last years of his life this man possessed the virtue of serenity to such a degree that it radiated from him like the light from a star; so much that it was transmitted to all in the form of benevolence, enjoyment of life, good humor, trust, and confidence. It continued to radiate outward from all who received it, all who had absorbed its brightness. His light shone upon me also; he transmitted to me a little of his radiance, a little of the brightness in his heart, and to our friend Ferromonte as well, and a good many others. To achieve this cheerful serenity is to me, and to many others, the finest and highest of goals. You will also find it among some of the patriarchs in the directorate of the Order. Such cheerfulness is neither frivolity nor complacency; it is supreme insight and love, affirmation of all reality, alertness on the brink of all depths and abysses; it is a virtue of saints and of knights; it is indestructible and only increases with age and nearness to death. It is the secret of beauty and the real substance of all art. The poet who praises the splendors and terrors of life in the dance-measures of his verse, the musician who sounds them in a pure, eternal present -- these are bringers of light, increasers of joy and brightness on earth, even if they lead us first through tears and stress. Perhaps the poet whose verses gladden us was a sad solitary, and the musician a melancholic dreamer; but even so their work shares in the cheerful serenity of the gods and the stars. What they give us is no longer their darkness, their suffering or fears, but a drop of pure light, eternal cheerfulness. Even though whole peoples and languages have attempted to fathom the depths of the universe in myths, cosmogonies, and religions, their supreme, their ultimate attainment has been this cheerfulness. You recall the ancient Hindus -- our teacher in Waldzell once spoke so beautifully about them. A people of suffering, of brooding, of penance and asceticism; but the great ultimate achievements of their thought were bright and cheerful; the smile of the ascetics and the Buddhas are cheerful; the figures in their profound, enigmatic mythologies are cheerful. The world these myths represent begins divinely, blissfully, radiantly, with a springtime loveliness: the golden age. Then it sickens and degenerates more and more; it grows coarse and subsides into misery; and at the end of four ages, each lower than the others, it is ripe for annihilation. Therefore it is trampled underfoot by a laughing, dancing Siva -- but it does not end with that. It begins anew with the smile of dreaming Vishnu whose hands playfully fashion a young, new, beautiful, shining world. It is wonderful -- how these Indians, with an insight and capacity for suffering scarcely equalled by any other people, looked with horror and shame upon the cruel game of world history, the eternally revolving wheel of avidity and suffering; they saw and understood the fragility of created being, the avidity and diabolism of man, and at the same time his deep yearning for purity and harmony; and they devised these glorious parables for the beauty and tragedy of the creation: mighty Siva who dances the completed world into ruins, and smiling Vishnu who lies slumbering and playfully makes a new world arise out of his golden dreams of gods.
   "But to return to our own, Castalian cheerfulness, it may be only a lateborn, lesser variety of this great universal serenity, but it is a completely legitimate form. Scholarship has not been cheerful always and everywhere, although it ought to be. But with us scholarship, which is the cult of truth, is closely allied to the cult of the beautiful, and allied also with the practice of spiritual refreshment by meditation. Consequently it can never entirely lose its serene cheerfulness. Our Glass Bead Game combines all three principles: learning, veneration of the beautiful, and meditation; and therefore a proper Glass Bead Game player ought to be drenched in cheerfulness as a ripe fruit is drenched in its sweet juices. He ought above all to possess the cheerful serenity of music, for after all music is nothing but an act of courage, a serene, smiling, striding forward and dancing through the terrors and flames of the world, the festive offering of a sacrifice. This kind of cheerful serenity is what I have been concerned with ever since I began dimly to sense its meaning during my student days, and I shall never again relinquish it, not even in unhappiness and suffering.
   "We shall go to sleep now, and tomorrow morning you are leaving. Come back soon, tell me more about yourself, and I shall begin to tell you, too. You will hear that even in Waldzell and even in the life of a Magister there are doubts, disappointments, despairs, and dangerous passions. But now I want you to take an ear filled with music to bed with you. A glance into the starry sky and an ear filled with music is a better prelude to sleep than all your sedatives."
   He sat down and carefully, very softly, played a movement from the Purcell sonata which was one of Father Jacobus's favorite pieces. The notes fell into the stillness like drops of golden light, so softly that along with them the song of the old fountain in the yard could be heard. Gently, austerely, sparingly, sweetly, the lovely separate voices met and mingled; bravely and gaily they paced their tender rondo through the void of time and transitoriness, for a little while making the room and the night hour vast as the universe. And when the friends bade each other good night, the guest's face had changed and brightened, although his eyes had filled with tears.

TEN
PREPARATIONS

   Now THAT KNECHT had managed to break the ice, a vital association, revitalizing to the two of them, began between himself and Designori. The latter, who for long years had lived in resigned melancholia, had to admit that his friend was right: what had drawn him back to the Pedagogic Province was in fact the longing for a cure, for brightness, for Castalian cheerfulness. While Tegularius observed the new development with jealous mistrust, Plinio began visiting frequently, even when he had no commission business. Soon Magister Knecht knew all he needed to know about him. Designori's life had been neither so extraordinary nor so complicated as Knecht had imagined after those initial revelations. In his youth Plinio had suffered certain disappointments and humiliations, the more painful to one of his active, enthusiastic temperament, of which we have already heard. He had failed in his efforts to become a mediator between the world and Castalia; he had not contrived to create a synthesis of the worldly and Castalian components in his background and character, and had instead turned into an isolated and embittered outsider. Nevertheless, he was not simply a failure. In defeat and renunciation he had in spite of everything shaped a selfhood.
   In him Castalian education seemed to have miscarried. At least it had so far produced nothing but conflicts and disappointments for him, and a profound loneliness difficult for a man of his sort to bear. It seemed, moreover, that since he had once stumbled into this thorny path of maladjustment, he was driven to commit all kinds of acts that increased his isolation and his difficulties. Thus while still a student he found himself irreconcilably at odds with his family, in particular with his father.
   Although not reckoned among actual political leaders, his father like all the Designoris had been a lifelong supporter of the conservative, pro-government party. He was hostile to all innovations, opposed to the claims of the underprivileged to new rights and a fair share in the economy. He was suspicious of men without name or rank, devoted to the old order, and prepared to make sacrifices for everything he regarded as legitimate and sacred. Without having any special religious vein, he was friendly toward the Church. And although he did not lack a sense of justice, benevolence, charity, and helpfulness, he was obstinately and on principle opposed to the efforts of tenant-farmers to better their lot. He was wont to cite the program and slogans of his party as a rationalization for this harshness. In reality, what motivated him was neither conviction nor insight, but blind loyalty to his class and the traditions of his family. This spirit was in keeping with a deep chivalrousness and feeling for chivalric honor, and an outspoken contempt for everything that pretended to be modern, progressive, and contemporary.
   It was a bitter blow to a man of this sort when his son Plinio, while still in his student days, joined a distinctly oppositional and modernistic party. In those days a youthful left wing of an old middle-class liberal party had been formed, led by a man named Veraguth, a publicist, deputy, and forceful orator. He was a highly emotional populist and libertarian with a tendency to become intoxicated by his own rhetoric. This man courted the students by giving public lectures in university towns, and met with considerable success. Among other enthusiastic followers, he won over Designori. The young man, disappointed with the university and seeking something to sustain him, some substitute for the Castalian morality which had lost its hold on him, seeking some kind of new idealism and program, was carried away by Veraguth's lectures. He admired the man's passion and fighting spirit, his wit, his hortatory style, his good looks and fine speech. Soon Plinio joined a faction of students who had been converted by Veraguth's lectures and were working for his party and aims.
   When Plinio's father learned of this, he set out at once for the university town. In a thundering rage, shouting at his son for the first time in his life, he charged him with conspiracy, betrayal of his father, his family, and the traditions of his house, and ordered him to undo his error at once by severing all ties with Veraguth and his party. This was certainly not the right way to influence the young man, who saw his position turning into a kind of martyrdom. Plinio stood up to his father's thunder. He hadn't attended the elite school for ten years and the university for several, he declared, in order to give up his power of judgment. He was not going to let a clique of selfish landowners prescribe his views on government, economics, and justice. In framing this reply, he profited by the example of Veraguth, who modeled himself on the great tribunes of the people in never speaking of his own or class interests, but only of pure absolute justice and humanity.
   Plinio's father burst into bitter laughter and suggested that his son at least finish his studies before he meddled in grown-up affairs and fancied that he knew more about human life and justice than venerable generations of noble families whose degenerate scion he was and whom he was now traitorously stabbing in the back. With every word the quarrel grew more bitter and insulting, until the father suddenly stopped in icy shame, as though a mirror had shown him his own face distorted with rage. In silence, he took his leave.
   From then on, Plinio's old pleasant and intimate relationship to his paternal home was never restored. He remained loyal to his faction and its neo-liberalism. What is more, after completing his studies he became Veraguth's disciple, assistant, and intimate associate, and a few years later his son-in-law. Since Designori's psychic equilibrium had been disturbed by his education in the elite schools, or perhaps we should say by his difficulties in readjusting to the world and to life back home, so that he was already beset by problems, these new relationships threw him into an exposed, complex, and delicate situation. He gained something of indubitable value, a kind of faith, political convictions, and membership in a party which satisfied his youthful craving for justice and progressiveness. In Veraguth he acquired a teacher, leader, and older friend whom at first he uncritically admired and loved, and who moreover seemed to need him and appreciate him. He gained a direction and goal, work and a mission in life. That was a good deal, but it had to be dearly bought. To some degree the young man came to terms with the loss of his natural position in his father's family and among his peers; to some degree he managed to meet expulsion from a privileged caste, and its subsequent hostility, with a sort of relish in martyrdom. But there were some things he could never get over, above all the gnawing sense that he had inflicted pain on his beloved mother, had placed her in an uncomfortable position between his father and himself, and by doing so had probably shortened her life. She died soon after his marriage. After her death Plinio scarcely ever visited his home, and when his father died he sold the ancient family seat.
   Among those who have made heavy sacrifices for a position in life, a government post, a marriage, a profession, there are some who contrive to love their position and affirm it the more on the strength of these very sacrifices. What they have suffered for constitutes their happiness and their fulfillment. Designori's case was different. Although he remained loyal to his party and its leader, his political beliefs and work, his marriage and his idealism, he began to doubt everything connected with these things. His whole life had become problematical to him. The political and ideological fervor of youth subsided. In the long run, the struggle to prove oneself right no more made for gladness than had the trials undertaken out of defiance. Experience in professional life had its sobering effect. Ultimately he wondered whether he had become a follower of Veraguth out of a sense of truth and justice or whether he had not been at least half seduced by the man's gifts as a speaker and rabble-rouser, his charm and nimble wit in public appearances, the sonority of his voice, his splendid virile laughter, and the intelligence and beauty of his daughter.
   More and more he began to doubt whether old Designori with his class loyalty and his obduracy toward the tenant-farmers had really held the baser view. He became uncertain whether good and bad, right and wrong, had any absolute existence at all. Perhaps the voice of one's own conscience was ultimately the only valid judge, and if that were so, then he, Plinio, was in the wrong. For he was not happy, calm, and balanced; he was not confident and secure. On the contrary, he was plagued by uncertainty, doubts, and guilts. His marriage was not unhappy and mistaken in any crude sense, but still it was full of tensions, complications, and resistances. It was perhaps the best thing he possessed, but it did not give him that tranquility, that happiness, that innocence and good conscience he so badly missed. It required a great deal of circumspection and self-control. It cost him much effort. Moreover, his handsome and gifted small son Tito very soon became a focal point of struggle and intrigue, of courting and jealousy, until the boy, pampered and excessively loved by both parents, inclined more and more to his mother's side and became her partisan. That was the latest and, so it seemed, the bitterest sorrow and loss in Designori's life. It had not broken him; he had assimilated it and found an attitude toward it, a dignified, but grave, worn, and melancholy way of bearing it
   While Knecht was gradually learning all this from his friend in the course of frequent visits, he had also told him a great deal about his own experiences and problems. He was careful not to let Plinio fall into the position of the one who has made his confession only to regret it at a later hour or, with a change of mood, to wish to take it all back. On the contrary, he won Plinio's confidence by his own candor and strengthened it by his own revelations. In the course of time he showed his friend what his own life was like -- a seemingly simple, upright, regulated life within a clearly structured hierarchic order, a career filled with success and recognition, but nevertheless a hard and completely lonely life of many sacrifices. And although as an outsider there was much that Plinio could not entirely grasp, he did understand the main currents and basic emotions. Certainly he could comprehend Knecht's craving to reach out to the youth, to the younger pupils unspoiled by miseducation, and sympathize with his desire for some modest employment such as that of a Latin or music teacher in a lower school, free of glamor and of the eternal obligation to play a public role. It was wholly in the style of Knecht's methods of teaching and psychotherapy that he not only won over this patient by his frankness, but also planted the thought in Plinio's mind that he could help his friend, and thus spurred him really to do so. For in fact Designori could be highly useful to the Magister, not so much in helping him to solve his main problem, but in satisfying his curiosity and thirst for knowledge about innumerable details of life in the world.

   We do not know why Knecht undertook the difficult task of teaching his melancholy boyhood friend to smile and laugh again, or whether any thought of a reciprocal service was involved. Designori, at any rate, who was certainly in a position to know, did not think so. He later said: "Whenever I try to fathom how my friend Knecht managed to do anything with a person as confirmedly unhappy as myself, I see more and more plainly that his power was based on magic and, I must add, on a streak of roguishness. He was an arch-rogue, far more than his own underlings realized, full of playfulness, wit, slyness, delighting in magician's tricks, in guises, in surprising disappearances and appearances. I think that the very moment I first turned up at the Castalian Board meeting he resolved to snare me and exert his special sort of influence on me -- that is, to awaken and reform me. At any rate he took pains to win me over from the very first. Why he did it, why he bothered with me, I cannot say. I think men of his sort usually do such things unconsciously, as a kind of reflex. When they encounter someone in distress they feel it as their task to respond to that appeal immediately. He found me distrustful and shy, by no means ready to fall into his arms, let alone ask him for help.
   "He found me, his once frank and communicative friend, disillusioned and reticent; yet this very obstacle seemed to stimulate him. He did not give up, prickly though I was, and he finally achieved what he wanted. Among other things he made it seem that our relationship was one of mutual aid, as though my strength were equal to his, my worth to his, my need of help paralleled by an equal need on his part. In our very first long conversation he implied that he had been waiting for something like my appearance, that he had in fact been longing for it, and gradually he admitted me into his plan of resigning his office and leaving the Province. He always made me aware of how much he counted on my advice, my assistance, my secrecy, since aside from me he had not a single friend in the world outside, and no experience at all with that world. I admit that I liked to feel this, and that it contributed a good deal toward my trusting him completely and my putting myself more or less at his mercy. I believed him absolutely. But later, in the course of time, the whole thing began to seem totally dubious and improbable, and I would have been unable to say whether and to what extent he really expected something from me, and whether his way of capturing me was innocent or politic, naive or sly, sincere or contrived and a kind of game. He was so far superior to me, and did me so much good, that I would never have ventured to look deeper into the matter. In any case, nowadays I regard the fiction that his situation was similar to mine, and he just as dependent on my sympathy and aid as I on his, as merely a form of politeness, an engaging and pleasant web of suggestion that he wove around me. Only that to this day I cannot say to what extent his game with me was conscious, preconceived, and deliberate, to what extent it was in spite of everything naive and a pure product of his nature. For Magister Joseph was certainly a great artist. On the one hand his urge to educate, to influence, to heal and help and develop the personalities of others, was so strong that he scarcely scrupled about the means he used; on the other hand it was impossible for him to undertake even the smallest task without devoting himself totally to it. But one thing is certain: that at the time he took me under his wing like a friend and like a great physician and guide. He did not let go of me once he held me, and ultimately he awakened me and cured me as far as that was possible. And the remarkable thing, so utterly typical of him, was that while he pretended to be asking me to help him escape from his office, and while he listened calmly and often with actual approval to my crude and simple-minded jibes at Castalia, and while he himself was struggling to free himself from Castalia, he actually lured and guided me back there. He persuaded me to return to meditation. He schooled and reshaped me by means of Castalian music and contemplation, Castalian serenity, Castalian fortitude. He made me, who in spite of my longing for your way had become so utterly un-Castalian and anti-Castalian, into one of your sort again; he transformed my unrequited love for you into a requited love."
   Such were Designori's comments, and no doubt he had reason for his admiring gratitude. It may not be too difficult to teach boys and young men the lifestyle of the Order, with the aid of our tried and true methods. It was surely a difficult task in the case of a man who was already approaching his fiftieth year, even if this man were himself full of good will. Not that Designori ever became anything like a model Castalian. But Knecht succeeded fully in what he had set out to do: in lifting the bitter weight of unhappiness, in leading Designori's touchy, vulnerable soul back to something like harmony and serenity, and in replacing a number of his bad habits by good ones. Naturally the Magister Ludi could not himself undertake all the detailed work that was involved. He enlisted the apparatus and energies of Waldzell and the Order in behalf of this honored guest. For a while he even dispatched a meditation master from Hirsland, the seat of the Order's directorate, to stay a while with Designori and supervise his exercises. But the whole plan and direction of the cure remained in Knecht's hand.
   It was in his eighth year as Magister that he at last yielded to his friend's repeated invitations and visited him at his home in the capital. With permission from the directorate of the Order, with whose President, Alexander, he had close and affectionate relations, he devoted a holiday to his visit. Although he expected a great deal of it, he had been putting it off for a whole year, partly because he first wished to be sure of his friend, partly, no doubt, out of a natural timidity. This was, after all, his first step into that world from which his friend Plinio had brought his stony sadness, the world which held so many important secrets for him.
   He found the modern house which his friend had exchanged for the old Designori townhouse presided over by a stately, highly intelligent, and reserved lady. She, however, was dominated by her handsome, cheeky, and rather ill-behaved son who seemed to be the center of everything here and who had apparently taken over from his mother a supercilious and rather insulting attitude toward his father.
   Initially rather cool and suspicious of everything Castalian, both mother and son soon came under the spell of the Magister, whose office gave him, in their eyes, an almost mythical aura of mystery and consecration. Nevertheless, the atmosphere during this first visit was stiff and forced. Knecht remained rather quiet, observing and awaiting events. The lady of the house received him with formal politeness and inner distaste, as if he were a high officer of some enemy army being quartered on her. Tito, the son, was the least constrained of the three; probably he had often enough looked on in amusement on similar situations. No doubt he had also profited by them. His father seemed to be only playing the part of master of the house. Between him and his wife the prevailing tone was one of gentle, cautious, rather anxious politeness, as if each of them were walking on tiptoe. This tone was maintained far more easily and naturally by the wife than by her husband. As for the son, Plinio was always making overtures of comradeship to the boy which were at times taken up for selfish reasons, at other times impudently rebuffed.
   In short, the three lived together in a sultry atmosphere of effort, guiltiness, and sternly repressed impulses, filled with fear of friction and eruptions, in a state of perpetual tension. The style of behavior and speech, like the style of the whole house, was a little too careful and deliberate, as though a solid wall had to be built against eventual breaches and assaults. Knecht also noted that a great deal of Plinio's regained serenity had vanished from his face again. Though in Waldzell or in the guest house of the Order in Hirsland he was by now almost free of gloom, in his own house he still stood in the shadows, and provoked as much criticism as pity.
   The house was a fine one. It bespoke wealth and luxurious tastes. In each room the furnishings were of the right proportions for the space; each was tuned to a pleasant harmony of two or three colors, with here and there a valuable work of art. Knecht looked about him with pleasure; but in the end all these delights to the eye struck him as a shade too handsome, too perfect, and too well thought out. There was no sense of growth, of movement, of renewal. He sensed that this beauty of the house and its belongings was also meant as a land of spell, a defensive gesture, and that these rooms, pictures, vases, and flowers enclosed and accompanied a life of vain longing for harmony and beauty which could be attained only in the form of tending such well-co-ordinated surroundings.
   It was in the period after this visit, with its somewhat unedifying impressions, that Knecht sent a meditation teacher to his friend's home. After having spent a single day in the curiously taut and charged atmosphere of this house, the Magister understood much that he had not wished to know but needed to learn for his friend's sake. Nor was this first visit the last. He came again, several times, and on some of these occasions the talk turned to education and the difficulties with young Tito. In these conversations Tito's mother took a lively part. The Magister gradually won the confidence and liking of this highly intelligent and skeptical woman. Once, when he said half jokingly that it was a pity her boy had not been sent to Castalia early, while there was still time for him to be educated there, she took the remark seriously as if it were a reproof, and came to her own defense. She doubted, she said, whether Tito would have been admitted; he was gifted enough, certainly, but hard to handle, and she would never have wished to impose her own ideas on the boy. After all, a similar attempt in the case of his father had not worked out well. Besides, neither she nor her husband had ever thought to claim the old Designori family privilege for their son, since they had broken with Plinio's father and the whole tradition of the ancient house. Finally, she added, with a painful smile, that in any case she would not have been able to part with her child, since he was all that made her life worth living.
   Knecht gave a great deal of thought to this last remark, which obviously had been made without reflection. So her house, in which everything was so distinguished, elegant, and harmonious, so her husband, her politics, her party, the heritage of the father she had once adored -- so all this was not enough to give meaning to her life. Only her child could make it worth living. And she would rather allow this child to grow up under the harmful conditions that prevailed in this house than be separated from him for his own good. For so sensible and seemingly so cool and intellectual a woman, this was an astonishing confession. Knecht could not help her as directly as he had her husband, nor did he have the slightest intention of trying. But as a result of his rare visits and of the fact that Plinio was under his influence, some moderation and a reminder of better ways were introduced into the warped and wrong-headed family situation. The Magister himself, however, as he gained increasing influence and authority in the Designori household with each succeeding visit, found himself more and more puzzled by the life of these worldly people. Unfortunately we know very little about his visits in the capital and the things he saw and experienced there, so that we must content ourselves with the matters we have already indicated.
   Knecht had not hitherto approached the President of the Order in Hirsland any more closely than his official functions demanded. He probably saw him only at those plenary sessions of the Board of Educators which took place in Hirsland, and even then the President generally performed only the more formal and ornamental duties, the reception and congé of his colleagues, with the principal work of conducting the session being left to the Speaker. The previous President, who at the time of Knecht's assuming office was already an old man, had been highly respected by the Magister Ludi, but had made not a single gesture toward lessening the distance between them. For Knecht he was scarcely a human being, no longer had any personality; he hovered, a high priest, a symbol of dignity and composure, silent summit and crowning glory, above the entire hierarchy. This venerable man had recently died, and the Order had elected Alexander its new President.

   Alexander was the same Meditation Master whom the heads of the Order had assigned to our Joseph Knecht years ago, during the early period of his magistracy. Ever since, the Magister had retained an affectionate gratitude for this exemplary representative of the spirit of hierarchy. And Alexander himself, during the time he daily watched over the Magister Ludi and became virtually his father confessor, had seen enough of his personality and conduct to come to love him. Both grew aware of the hitherto latent friendship from the moment that Alexander became Knecht's colleague and President of the Order. Henceforth they saw each other frequently and had work to do together. It was true that this friendship lacked a foundation in everyday, commonplace tasks, just as it lacked shared experiences in youth. It was rather the mutual sympathy of two colleagues at the summit of their respective vocations, who expressed their friendliness by a slightly greater warmth in greetings and leave-takings, by the deftness of their mutual comprehension, at most by a few minutes of chatting during brief breaks at a sitting of the Board.
   Constitutionally, the President, who was also called Master of the Order, was in no way superior to his colleagues, the other Magisters. But he had acquired an indefinable superiority due to the tradition that the Master of the Order presided over the meetings of the Supreme Board. And as the Order had grown more meditative and monastic during the last several decades, his authority had increased -- although only within the hierarchy and the Province, not outside it. Within the Board of Educators, the President of the Order and the Master of the Glass Bead Game had more and more become the twin exponents and representatives of the Castalian spirit. As against the ancient disciplines handed down from pre-Castalian eras -- such as grammar, astronomy, mathematics, or music -- the Glass Bead Game and discipline of the mind through meditation had become the truly characteristic values of Castalia. It was therefore of some significance that the two present leaders in these fields stood in a friendly relationship to each other. For each it was a vindication of his own worth, for each an extra dash of warmth and satisfaction in his life; for both it was an additional spur to the fulfillment of their task of embodying in their own persons the deepest values, the sacral energies of the Castalian world.
   To Knecht, therefore, this meant one more tie, one more counterpoise to his growing urge to renounce everything and achieve a breakthrough into a new and different sphere of life. Nevertheless, this urge developed inexorably. Ever since he himself had become fully aware of it -- that may have been in the sixth or seventh year of his magistracy -- it had grown steadily stronger. Subscribing as he did to the idea of "awakening," he had unfalteringly received it into his conscious life and thinking. We believe we may say that from that time on the thought of his coming departure from his office and from the Province was familiar to him. Sometimes it seemed like a prisoner's belief in eventual freedom, sometimes like knowledge of impending death as it must appear to a man gravely ill.
   During his first frank conversation with Plinio, he had for the first time expressed the thing in words. Perhaps he had done so only in order to win over his friend and persuade him to open his heart; but perhaps also he had intended, by this initial act of communication, to turn this new awakening of his, this new attitude toward life, in an outward direction. That is, by letting someone into his secret he was taking a first step toward making it a reality. In his further conversations with Designori, Knecht's desire to shed his present mode of life sooner or later, to undertake the leap into a new life, assumed the status of a decision. Meanwhile, he carefully built on his friendship with Plinio, who by now was bound to him not only by his former admiration, but also by the gratitude of a cured patient. In that friendship Knecht now possessed a bridge to the outside world and to its life so laden with enigmas.
   It need not surprise us that the Magister waited so long before allowing his friend Tegularius a glimpse of his secret and of his plan for breaking away. Although he had shaped each of his friendships with kindness and with regard for the good of the other, he had always managed to keep a clear, independent view of these relationships, and to direct their course. Now, with the re-entry of Plinio into his life, a rival to Fritz had appeared, a new-old friend with claims upon Knecht's interest and emotions. Knecht could scarcely have been surprised that Tegularius reacted with signs of violent jealousy. For a while, until he had completely won over Designori, the Magister may well have found Fritz's sulky withdrawal a welcome relief. But in the long run another consideration took a larger place in his thoughts. How could he reconcile a person like Tegularius to his desire to slip away from Waldzell and out of his magistracy? Once Knecht left Waldzell, he would be lost to this friend forever. To take Fritz along on the narrow and perilous path that lay before him was unthinkable, even if Fritz should unexpectedly manifest the desire and the courage for the enterprise.
   Knecht waited, considered, and hesitated for a very long time before initiating Fritz into his plans. But he finally did so, after his decision to leave had long been settled. It would have been totally unlike him to keep his friend in the dark, and more or less behind his back prepare steps whose consequences would deeply affect him as well. If possible Knecht wanted to make him, like Plinio, not only an initiate, but also a real or imaginary aide, since activity makes every situation more bearable.
   Knecht had, of course, long ago made his friend privy to his ideas about the doom threatening the Castalian organization, as far as he cared to communicate these ideas and Tegularius to receive them. After he resolved to tell Fritz of his intentions, the Magister used these ideas as his link. Contrary to his expectations, and to his great relief, Fritz did not take a tragic view of the plan.
   Rather, the notion that a Magister might fling his post back at the Board, shake the dust of Castalia from his feet, and seek out a life that suited his tastes, seemed to please Fritz. The idea actually amused him. Individualist and enemy of all standardization that he was, Tegularius invariably sided with the individual against authority. If there were prospect of fighting, taunting, outwitting the powers of officialdom, he was always for it.
   His reaction gave Knecht a valuable clue as to how to go on. With an easier conscience, and laughing inwardly, the Magister promptly entered into his friend's attitude. He did not disabuse Fritz of his notion that the whole thing was a kind of coup de main against bureaucracy, and assigned him the part of an accomplice, collaborator, and conspirator. It would be necessary to work out a petition from the Magister to the Board, he said -- an exposition of all the reasons that prompted him to resign his office. The preparation of this petition was to be chiefly Tegularius's task. Above all he must assimilate Knecht's historical view of the origins, development, and present state of Castalia, then gather historical materials with which Knecht's desires and proposals could be documented. That this would lead him into a field he had hitherto rejected and scorned, the field of history, seemed not to disturb Tegularius at all, and Knecht quickly taught him the necessary procedures. Soon Tegularius had immersed himself in his new assignment with the eagerness and tenacity he always had for odd and solitary enterprises. This obstinate individualist took a fierce delight in these studies which would place him in a position to challenge the bigwigs and the hierarchy in general, and show them their shortcomings.
   Joseph Knecht took no such pleasure in these endeavors, nor had he any faith in their outcome. He was determined to free himself from the fetters of his present situation, leaving himself unencumbered for tasks which he felt were awaiting him. But he fully realized that he could not overpower the Board by rational arguments, nor delegate Tegularius any part of the real work that had to be done. Nevertheless, he was very glad to know that Fritz was occupied and diverted for the short while that they would still be living in proximity to each other. The next time he saw Plinio Designori he was able to report: "Friend Tegularius is now busy, and compensated for what he thinks he has lost because of your reappearance on the scene. His jealousy is almost cured, and working on something for me and against my colleagues is doing him good. He is almost happy. But don't imagine, Plinio, that I count on anything concrete coming out of this project, aside from the benefit to himself. It is most unlikely that our highest authority will grant this petition of mine. In fact, it's out of the question. At best they will reply with a mild reprimand. What dooms my request is the nature of our hierarchy itself. A Board that would release its Magister Ludi in response to a petition, no matter how persuasively argued, and would assign him to work outside Castalia, wouldn't be to my liking at all. Besides, there is the character of our present Master of the Order. Master Alexander is a man whom nothing can bend. No, I shall have to fight this battle out alone. But let us allow Tegularius to exercise his mind for the present. All we lose by that is a little time, which I need in any case so as to leave everything here so well arranged that my departure will cause no harm to Waldzell. But meanwhile you must find me some place to live on the outside, and some employment, no matter how modest; if necessary I shall be content with a position as a music teacher, say. It need only be a beginning, a springboard."
   Designori said he thought something could be found, and when the time came his house was at his friend's disposal for as long as he liked. But Knecht would not accept that.
   "No," he said, "I wouldn't do as a guest; I must have some work. Besides, my staying more than a few days in your house, lovely as it is, would only add to the tensions and troubles there. I have great confidence in you, and your wife, too, nowadays treats me in a friendly way, but all this would look entirely different as soon as I ceased to be a visitor and Magister Ludi, and became a refugee and permanent guest."
   "Surely you're being a little too literal-minded about it," Plinio said. "Once you've made your break and are living in the capital, you'll soon be offered a suitable post, at least a professorship at the university -- you can count on that as a certainty. But such things take time, as you know, and of course I can only begin working in your behalf after you have won your freedom."
   "Of course," the Master said. "Until then my decision must remain secret. I cannot offer myself to your authorities before my own authority here has been informed and has made its decision; that goes without saying. But for the present, you know, I am not at all seeking a public appointment. My wants are few, probably fewer than you can imagine. I need a little room and my daily bread, but above all work to do, some task as a teacher; I need one or a few pupils to whom I can be near and whom I can influence. A university post is the last thing on my mind. I would be just as glad -- no, I would by far prefer -- to work with a boy as a private tutor, or something of the sort. What I am seeking and what I need is a simple, natural task, a person who needs me. Appointment at a university would from the start mean my fitting into a traditional, sanctified, and mechanized bureaucracy, and what I crave is just the opposite of that."
   Hesitantly, Designori brought up the project that had been on his mind for some time.

   "I do have something to propose," he said, "and hope you will at least think it over. If you can possibly accept it, you would be doing me a service too. Since that first day I visited you here you have given me a great deal of help. You've also come to know my household and know how things stand there. My situation isn't good, but it is better than it has been for years. The thorniest problem is the relationship between me and my son. He is spoiled and impudent; he's made himself a privileged position in our house -- as you know, this was virtually pressed on him while he was still a child and courted by both his mother and myself. Since then he's decidedly gone over to his mother's side, and gradually whatever authority I might have had over him has been adroitly taken out of my hands. I had resigned myself to that, as I have to so much else in my botched life. But now that I have recovered somewhat, thanks to you, I've regained hope. You can see what I am driving at. I would think it a piece of great good fortune if Tito, who is having difficulties in school anyhow, were to have a tutor who would take him in hand. It's a selfish request, I know, and I have no idea whether the task appeals to you at all. But you've encouraged me to make the suggestion, as least."
   Knecht smiled and extended his hand.
   "Thank you, Plinio. No proposal could be more welcome to me. The only thing lacking is your wife's consent. Furthermore, the two of you must be prepared to leave your son entirely to me for the time being. If I am to do anything with him, the daily influence of his home must be excluded. You must talk to your wife and persuade her to accept this condition. Go at it cautiously; give yourselves time."
   "Do you really think you can do something with Tito?" Designori asked.
   "Oh yes, why not? He has good blood and high endowments from both parents. What is missing is the harmony of these forces. My task will be to awaken in him the desire for this harmony, or rather to strengthen it and ultimately to make him conscious of it. I shall be happy to try."
   Thus Joseph Knecht had his two friends occupied with his affair, each in a different way. While Designori in the capital presented the new plan to his wife and tried to couch it in terms acceptable to her, Tegularius sat in a carrel in the library at Waldzell following up Knecht's leads and gathering material for the petition. The Magister had put out good bait in the reading matter he had prescribed. Fritz Tegularius, the fierce despiser of history, sank his teeth into the history of the warring epoch, and became thoroughly infatuated with it. With his enthusiasm for any pastime, he ferreted out more and more anecdotes from that epoch in the dark prehistory of the Order. Soon he had collected such copious notes that when he presented them to his friend, Knecht could use only a tenth of them.
   During this period Knecht made several visits to the capital. Because a sound, integrated personality often finds easy access to troubled and difficult people, Designori's wife came to trust him more and more. Soon she consented to her husband's plan. Tito himself, on one of these visits, boldly informed the Magister that he no longer wished to be addressed with the familiar pronoun, as if he were a child, since everyone nowadays, including his teacher, used the polite pronoun to him. Knecht thanked him with perfect courtesy and apologized. In his Province, he explained, the teachers used the familiar form to all students, even those who were quite grown up. After dinner he invited the boy to go for a walk with him and show him something of the city.
   In the course of the walk Tito guided him down a stately street in the old part of the city, where the centuries-old houses of wealthy patrician families stood in an almost unbroken row. Tito paused in front of one of these substantial, tall, and narrow buildings and pointed to a shield over the doorway. "Do you know what that is?" he asked. When Knecht said he did not, he explained: "Those are the Designori arms, and this is our old house. It belonged to the family for three hundred years. But we are living in our meaningless, commonplace house just because after grandfather's death my father took it into his head to sell this marvelous old mansion and build himself a fashionable place that by now isn't so modern any more. Can you understand anyone's acting like that?"
   "Are you very sorry about the old house?" Knecht asked.
   "Very sorry," Tito said passionately, and repeated his question: "Can you understand anyone's acting like that?"
   "Things become understandable if you look at them in the right light," the Magister said. "An old house is a fine thing, and if the two had stood side by side and your father were choosing between them, he probably would have kept the old one. Certainly, old houses are beautiful and distinguished, especially so handsome a one as this. But it is also a beautiful thing to build one's own house, and when an ambitious young man has the choice of comfortably and submissively settling into a finished nest, or building an entirely new one, one can well see that he may decide to build. As I know your father -- and I knew him when he was a spirited fellow just about as old as you are -- the sale of the house probably hurt no one more than himself. He had had a painful conflict with his father and his family, and it seems his education in our Castalia was not altogether the right thing for him. At any rate it could not deter him from several impatient acts of passion. Probably the sale of the house was one of those acts. He meant it as a thrust at tradition, a declaration of war upon his family, his father, the whole of his past and his dependency. At least that is one way to see it. But man is a strange creature, and so another idea does not appear altogether improbable to me, the idea that by selling this old house your father wanted primarily to hurt himself rather than the family. To be sure, he was angry at the family; they had sent him to our elite schools, had given him our land of education, only to confront him on his return with tasks, demands, and claims he could not handle. But I would rather go no further in psychological analysis. In any case the story of this sale shows how telling the conflict between fathers and sons can be -- this hatred, this love turned to hate. In forceful and gifted personalities this conflict rarely fails to develop -- world history is full of examples. Incidentally, I could very well imagine a later young Designori who would make it his mission in life to regain possession of the house for the family at all costs."
   "Well," Tito exclaimed, "wouldn't you think he was right?"
   "I would not like to judge him. If a later Designori recalls the greatness of his family and the obligations that such greatness imposes, if he serves the city, the country, the nation, justice, and welfare with all his energies and in the process grows so strong that he can recover the house, then he will be a worthy person and we would want to take our hats off to him. But if he knows no other goal in life besides this house business, then he is merely obsessed, a fanatic, a man surrendering to a passion, and in all probability someone who never grasped the meaning of such youthful conflicts with a father and so went on shouldering their load long after he became a man. We can understand and even pity him, but he will not increase the fame of his lineage. It is fine when an old family remains affectionately attached to its residence, but rejuvenation and new greatness spring solely from sons who serve greater goals than the aims of the family."
   Although on this walk Tito listened attentively and quite willingly to his father's guest, on other occasions he exhibited dislike and fresh defiance. In this man, whom his otherwise discordant parents both seemed to hold in high esteem, Tito sensed a power which threatened his own pampered freedom, so that at times he treated Knecht with outright rudeness. Each time, however, he would be sorry and try to make up for such breaches, for it offended his self-esteem to have shown weakness in the face of the serene courtesy that surrounded the Magister like a coat of shining armor. Secretly, too, in his inexperienced and rather unruly heart, he sensed that this was a man he might love and revere.
   He felt this particularly one half-hour when he came upon Knecht alone, waiting for his father, who was busy with affairs. As Tito entered the room he saw their guest sitting still, with eyes half closed, in a statuesque pose, radiating such tranquility and peace in his meditation that the boy instinctively checked his stride and began to tiptoe out of the room again. But at that point the Magister opened his eyes, gave him a friendly greeting, rose, indicated the piano in the room, and asked whether he liked music.
   Tito said he did, although he had not had music lessons for quite some time and had left off practicing because he was not doing so well in school and those drill-masters who called themselves teachers were always keeping after him. Still and all he'd always enjoyed listening to music. Knecht opened the piano, sat down at it, found it was tuned, and played an andante movement of Scarlatti's which he had recently used as the basis for a Glass Bead Game exercise. Then he stopped, and seeing the boy rapt and attentive, began outlining more or less what took place in such an exercise. He dissected the music, giving examples of some of the analytical methods that could be used and the ways the music could be translated into the hieroglyphs of the Game.
   For the first time Tito saw the Magister not as a guest, not as a learned celebrity whom he resented as a danger to his own self-esteem. Rather, he saw him at his work, a man who had acquired a subtle, exacting art and practiced it with a masterly hand. Tito could only dimly sense the meaning of that art, but it seemed to be deserving of full devotion and to call forth all the powers of an integrated personality. That this man thought him grown-up and intelligent enough to be interested in these complicated matters also gave him greater assurance. He grew quiet, and during this half-hour he began to divine the sources of this remarkable man's cheerfulness and unruffled calm.
   During this last period Knecht's official activities were almost as strenuous as they had been in the difficult time after his assumption of office. He was determined to leave all the areas under his control in exemplary condition. Moreover, he achieved this aim, although he failed in his further aim of making his own person appear dispensable, or at least easily replaceable. That is almost always the case with the highest offices in our Province. The Magister hovers rather like a supreme ornament, a gleaming insigne, above the complex affairs of his domain. He comes and goes rapidly, flirting amiably by, says a few words, nods an assent, suggests an assignment by a gesture, and is already gone, already talking to the next subordinate. He plays on his official apparatus like a musician on his instrument, seems to expend no force and scarcely any thought, yet everything runs as it should. But every official in this apparatus knows what it means when the Magister is away or ill, what it means to find a substitute for him even for a few hours or a day.

   Knecht spent his time rushing once more through the whole principality of the Vicus Lusorum, checking everything and especially taking pains to secretly groom his Shadow for the task the man would soon confront, that of representing him in all earnest. But all the while he could observe that at heart he had already liberated himself from all this, had moved far away from it. The preciosity of this well-arranged little world no longer enraptured him. He saw Waldzell and his magisterial function as something that already virtually lay behind him, a region he had passed through, which had given him a great deal and taught him much, but which could no longer tempt him to new accomplishments, to a fresh outpouring of energy. More and more, during this period of slow breaking loose and bidding farewell, he came to see the real reason for his alienation and desire to escape. It was probably not, he thought, his knowledge of the dangers to Castalia and his anxiety about her future, but simply that a hitherto idle and empty part of his self, of his heart and soul, was now demanding the right to fulfill itself.
   At this time he once again carefully studied the Constitution and Statutes of the Order. His escape from the Province would not, he saw, be so hard to accomplish, so nearly impossible as he had initially imagined. He did have the right to resign his office on grounds of conscience, and even to leave the Order. The Order's vow was not a lifetime matter, although members had claimed this freedom seldom, and a member of the highest Board never. What made the step seem so difficult to him was not so much the strictness of the law but the hierarchic spirit itself, the loyalty within his own heart. Of course he was not planning to skip out; he was preparing a circumstantial petition for release, and that dear fellow Tegularius was working day and night at it. But he had no confidence in the success of this petition. He would receive soothing assurances, admonishments, would perhaps be offered a vacation in Mariafels, where Father Jacobus had recently died, or perhaps in Rome. But the authorities would not let him go; that seemed more and more clear. To release him would violate all the traditions of the Order. If the Board were to do so, it would be admitting that his request was justified, admitting that life in Castalia, and what was more in such a high post, might in some circumstances not be satisfying to a man, might mean renunciation and imprisonment.

ELEVEN
THE CIRCULAR LETTER

   WE ARE APPROACHING the end of our tale. As we have already indicated, our knowledge of this end is fragmentary, rather more in the nature of a legend than of a historical narrative. We shall have to be content with that. We therefore take all the more pleasure in being able to fill out this next-to-last chapter of Knecht's life with an authentic document, namely with that voluminous memorandum in which the Glass Bead Game Master himself presents the authorities with the reasons for his decision and asks them to release him from his office.
   As we have repeatedly stated, Joseph Knecht no longer believed in the success of this memorandum which he had had so conscientiously prepared. We must admit, moreover, that when the time came he wished he had neither written nor handed in this "petition." He suffered the fate of all who exercise a natural and initially unconscious power over other men: this power is not exercised without a certain cost to its possessor. Although the Magister had been glad to win his friend Tegularius's support for his plans, and to have made him a promoter and associate in them, the consequences went far beyond what he had conceived or wished. He had coaxed or misled Fritz into undertaking a task whose value he himself, as its author, no longer believed in; but when his friend at last presented him with the fruits of his labors, he could no longer undo the work. Nor, since the purpose of the assignment had been to make Fritz better able to bear their separation, could he lay the data aside and leave them unused without thoroughly offending and disappointing his friend. At the time, we are convinced, Knecht would much rather have brusquely resigned his office and declared his withdrawal from the Order instead of choosing the roundabout mode of the "petition," which in his eyes had become virtually a farce. But consideration for Tegularius caused him to restrain his impatience for a while longer.
   It would no doubt be interesting if we had his industrious friend's manuscript at our disposal. It consisted mainly of historical material meant to serve as proof or illustration; but we may safely assume that it contained a good many sharp and witty epigrams on the hierarchy, as well as on the world and world history. But even if this document, composed as it was in months of tenacious labor, were still in existence -- as it quite possibly may be -- we would have to forbear from publishing it here, since this book of ours would not be the proper place for it.
   Our concern is only with the use the Magister Ludi made of his friend's work. When Tegularius solemnly presented this document to him, he accepted it with cordial words of gratitude and appreciation, and knowing what pleasure this would give, asked Fritz to read it aloud. For several days, therefore, Tegularius spent half an hour in the Magister's garden, for it was summertime, and read with gusto the many pages of his manuscript. Often the reading was interrupted by peals of laughter on the part of both. These were good days for Tegularius. Afterward, however, Knecht went into seclusion in order to compose his letter to the Board. We present here its exact text. No further commentary on it is necessary.


The Magister Ludi's Letter to the
Board of Educators

   Various considerations have prompted me, the Magister Ludi, to present to the Board a special request in this separate and somewhat more private memorandum, instead of including it in my official report. Although I am appending this memorandum to the official accounting that is now due, and await an official reply, I regard it rather as a circular letter to my colleagues in office.
   Every Magister is required to inform the Board of any hindrances or danger to his conducting his office in keeping with the Rule. Although I have endeavored to serve with all my strength, the conduct of my office is (or seems to me to be) threatened by a danger which resides in my own person, although that is probably not its sole origin. At any rate, I see my suitability to serve as Magister Ludi as imperiled, and this by circumstances beyond my control. To put it briefly: I have begun to doubt my ability to officiate satisfactorily because I consider the Glass Bead Game itself in a state of crisis. The purpose of this memorandum is to convince the Board that the crisis exists, and that my awareness of it demands that I seek a position other from the one I now hold.
   Permit me to clarify the situation by a metaphor. A man sits in an attic room engaged in a subtle work of scholarship. Suddenly he becomes aware that fire has broken out in the house below. He will not consider whether it is his function to see to it, or whether he had not better finish his tabulations. He will run downstairs and attempt to save the house. Here I am sitting in the top story of our Castalian edifice, occupied with the Glass Bead Game, working with delicate, sensitive instruments, and instinct tells me, my nose tells me, that down below something is burning, our whole structure is imperiled, and that my business now is not to analyze music or define rules of the Game, but to rush to where the smoke is.
   Most of us brothers of the Order take Castalia, our Order, our system of scholarship and schooling, together with the Game and everything associated with it, as much for granted as most men take the air they breathe and the ground they stand on. Hardly anyone ever thinks that this air and this ground could sometime not be there, that we might some day lack air or find the ground vanishing from under us. We have the good fortune of living well protected in a small, neat, and cheerful world, and the great majority of us, strange as it may seem, hold to the fiction that this world has always existed and that we were born into it. I myself spent my younger years in this extremely pleasant delusion, although I was perfectly well aware of the reality that I was not born in Castalia, but only sent here by the educational authorities and raised here. I knew also that Castalia, the Order, the Board, the colleges, the Archives, and the Glass Bead Game have not always existed, are by no means a product of nature, but a belated and noble creation of man's will, and transitory like all such things. I knew all this, but it had no reality for me; I simply did not think of it, ignored it, and I knew that more than three-quarters of us will live and die in this strange and pleasant illusion.
   But just as there have been centuries and millennia without the Order and without Castalia, there will again be such eras in the future. And if today I remind my colleagues and the honorable Board of this platitude, and call upon them to turn their eyes for once to the dangers that threaten us, if I assume for a moment the unenviable and often ludicrous role of prophet, warner, and sermonizer, I do so fully prepared to accept mocking laughter; but I hope nevertheless that the majority of you will read my memorandum to the end and that some of you may even agree with me on a few of its points. That in itself would be a good deal.
   An institution such as our Castalia, a small Province dedicated to the things of the mind, is prone to internal and external perils. The internal perils, or at least a good many of them, are known to us; we keep watch for them and take the necessary measures. Every so often we send individual pupils back, after having admitted them to the elite schools, because we discover in them ineradicable traits and impulses which would make them unfitted for our community and dangerous to it. Most of them, we trust, are not lesser human beings on that score, but merely unsuited to Castalian life, and after their return to the world are able to find conditions more appropriate to them, and develop into capable men. Our practice in this respect has proved its value, and on the whole our community can be said to sustain its dignity and self-discipline and to fulfill its task of being and constantly recruiting a nobility of the mind. Presumably we have no more than a normal and tolerable quota of the unworthy and slothful among us.
   The conceit that can be observed among the members of our Order is rather more objectionable. I am referring to that class arrogance to which every aristocracy inclines, and with which every privileged group is charged, with or without justification. The history of societies shows a constant tendency toward the formation of a nobility as the apex and crown of any given society. It would seem that all efforts at socialization have as their ideal some kind of aristocracy, of rule of the best, even though this goal may not be admitted. The holders of power, whether they have been kings or an anonymous group, have always been willing to further the rise of a nobility by protection and the granting of privileges. This has been so no matter what the nature of the nobility: political, by birth, by selection and education. The favored nobility has always basked in the sunlight; but from a certain stage of development on, its place in the sun, its privileged state, has always constituted a temptation and led to its corruption. If, now, we regard our Order as a nobility and try to examine ourselves to see to what extent we earn our special position by our conduct toward the whole of the people and toward the world, to what extent we have already been infected by the characteristic disease of nobility -- hubris, conceit, class arrogance, self-righteousness, exploitativeness -- if we conduct such a self-examination, we may be seized by a good many doubts. The present-day Castalian may not be lacking in obedience to the rules of the Order, in industry, in cultivated intelligence; but does he not often suffer from a severe lack of insight into his place in the structure of the nation, his place in the world and world history? Is he aware of the foundation of his existence; does he know himself to be a leaf, a blossom, a twig or root of a living organism? Does he have any notion of the sacrifices the nation makes for his sake, by feeding and clothing him, by underwriting his schooling and his manifold studies? And does he care very much about the meaning of our special position? Does he have any real conception of the purpose of our Order and life?

   There are exceptions, granted, many and praiseworthy exceptions. Nevertheless I am inclined to answer all these questions with a No. The average Castalian may regard the man of the outside world, the man who is not a scholar, without contempt, envy, or malice, but he does not regard him as a brother, does not see him as his employer, does not in the least feel that he shares responsibility for what is going on outside in the world. The purpose of his life seems to him to be cultivation of the scholarly disciplines for their own sake, or perhaps even to be taking pleasurable strolls in the garden of a culture that pretends to be a universal culture without ever being quite that. In brief, this Castalian culture of ours, sublime and aristocratic though it certainly is, and to which I am profoundly grateful, is for most of those associated with it not an instrument they play on like a great organ, not active and directed toward goals, not consciously serving something greater or profounder than itself. Rather, it tends somewhat toward smugness and self-praise, toward the cultivation and elaboration of intellectual specialism. I know there are a large number of Castalians who are men of integrity and worth, who really desire only to serve. I mean the teachers who are the products of our system, who then go out into the country to engage in unselfish and incalculably important service far from the pleasant climate and the intellectual luxuries of our Province. These fine teachers out there are, strictly speaking, the only ones among us who are really carrying out the purpose of Castalia. Through their work alone we are repaying the nation for the many benefits we receive from it. Granted that every one of us brothers of the Order knows that our supreme and most sacred task consists in preserving the intellectual foundation of our country and our world. That foundation has proved to be a moral element of the highest efficacy, for it is nothing less than the sense of truth -- on which justice is based, as well as so much else. But if we examine our real feelings, most of us would have to admit that we don't regard the welfare of the world, the preservation of intellectual honesty and purity outside as well as inside our tidy Province, as the chief thing. In fact, it is not at all important to us. We are only too glad to leave it to those brave teachers out there to pay our debt to the world by their self-sacrificing work, and so more or less justify the privileges we enjoy, we Glass Bead Game players, astronomers, musicians, and mathematicians. It is part of the above-mentioned arrogance and caste spirit that we do not much care whether we earn our privileges by accomplishments. Even though our abstemious way of life is prescribed by the Order, a good many of us plume ourselves on it, as if it were a virtue we were practicing purely for its own sake instead of its being the least that we owe to the country that makes our Castalian existence possible.
   I shall content myself with merely referring to these internal defects and dangers. They are not insignificant, although in peaceful times they would not come anywhere near imperiling our existence. But as it happens, we Castalians are dependent not only on our own morality and rationality. We depend vitally on the condition of the country and the will of the people. We eat our bread, use our libraries, expand our schools and archives -- but if the nation no longer wants to authorize this, or if it should be struck by impoverishment, war, and so on, then our life and studying would be over in a minute. Some day our country might decide that its Castalia and our culture are a luxury it can no longer afford. Instead of being genially proud of us, it may come round to regarding us as noxious parasites, tricksters, and enemies. Those are the external dangers that threaten us.
   To portray these dangers in any graphic form, I would probably have to draw upon examples from history. And if I were talking to the average Castalian, I would surely encounter a measure of passive resistance, an almost childish ignorance and indifference. As you know, among Castalians interest in world history is extremely weak. Most of us, in fact, not only lack interest but also respect for history. We fail to do it justice, I might say. Over the years I have done considerable searching into the sources of this feeling -- this mixture of indifference and arrogance toward world history -- and I have found that it derives from two causes. First, the content of history strikes us as rather inferior -- I am not speaking of intellectual and cultural history, which is of course within our purview. Insofar as we have any notions at all about world history, we see it as consisting in brutal struggle for power, goods, lands, raw materials, money -- in short, for those material and quantitative things which we regard as far from the realm of Mind and rather contemptible. For us the seventeenth century is the age of Descartes, Pascal, Froberger, not of Cromwell or Louis XIV.
   The second reason we fight shy of history is our traditional and I would say valid distrust of a certain kind of history writing which was very popular in the age of decadence before the founding of our Order. A priori we have not the slightest confidence in that so-called philosophy of history of which Hegel is the most brilliant and also most dangerous representative. In the following century it led to the most repulsive distortion of history and destruction of all feeling for truth. To us, a bias for this sham philosophy of history is one of the principal features of that era of intellectual debasement and vast political power struggles which we occasionally call the Century of Wars, but more often the Age of the Feuilleton. Our present culture, the Order and Castalia, arose out of the ruins of that age, out of the struggle with and eventual defeat of its mentality -- or insanity.
   But it is part of our intellectual arrogance that we confront world history, especially in modern times, in much the same spirit that the hermits and ascetics of early Christianity confronted the theatrum mundi, the great theater of the world. History seems to us an arena of instincts and fashions, of appetite, avarice, and craving for power, of blood lust, violence, destruction, and wars, of ambitious ministers, venal generals, bombarded cities, and we too easily forget that this is only one of its many aspects. Above all we forget that we ourselves are a part of history, that we are the product of growth and are condemned to perish if we lose the capacity for further growth and change. We are ourselves history and share the responsibility for world history and our position in it. But we gravely lack awareness of this responsibility.
   Let us glance at our own history, at the periods in which the present pedagogic provinces arose, in our own country and in so many others. Let us glance at the origins of the various Orders and hierarchies of which our Order is one. We see immediately that our hierarchy and our homeland, our beloved Castalia, was certainly not founded by people who held so proudly detached an attitude toward world history as we do. Our predecessors and founders began their work in a shattered world at the end of the Age of Wars. Our official explanation of that age, which began approximately with the so-called First World War, is all too one-sided. The trouble was, we say, that the things of the mind did not count in those days; that the powerful rulers considered intellect itself merely a weapon of inferior quality, and meant only for occasional use. This attitude, we say, was a consequence of "feuilletonistic" corruption.
   Very well -- the anti-intellectuality and brutality of that period are all too visible to us. When I call it anti-intellectual, I do not mean to deny its imposing achievements in intelligence and methodology. But we in Castalia are taught to consider intellect primarily in terms of striving for truth, and the kind of intellect manifested in those days seems to have had nothing in common with striving for truth. It was the misfortune of that age that there was no firm moral order to counter the restiveness and upheaval engendered by the tremendously rapid increase in the human population. What remnants there were of such a moral order were suppressed by the contemporary sloganizing. And those struggles produced their own strange and terrible conflicts. Much like the era of Church schism introduced by Luther four centuries earlier, the entire world was gripped by an immense unrest. Everywhere lines of battle formed; everywhere bitter enmity sprang up between old and young, between fatherland and humanity, between Red and White. We in our day can no longer reconstruct, let alone comprehend and sympathize with the impetus and power of such labels as Red and White, let alone the real meanings of all those battle cries. Much as in Luther's time, we find all over Europe, and indeed over half the world, believers and heretics, youths and old men, advocates of the past and advocates of the future, desperately flailing at each other. Often the battlefronts cut across frontiers, nations, and families. We may no longer doubt that for the majority of the fighters themselves, or at least for their leaders, all this was highly significant, just as we cannot deny many of the spokesmen in those conflicts a measure of robust good faith, a measure of idealism, as it was called at the time. Fighting, killing, and destroying went on everywhere, and everywhere both sides believed they were fighting for God against the devil.
   Among us, that savage age of high enthusiasms, fierce hatreds, and altogether unspeakable sufferings has fallen into a kind of oblivion. That is hard to understand, since it was so closely linked with the origin of all our institutions, was the basis and cause of those institutions. A satirist might compare this loss of memory with the kind of forgetfulness that parvenu adventurers who have at last obtained a patent of nobility have for their birth and parentage.
   Let us continue to dwell a little longer on those warlike times. I have read a good many of their documents, taking less interest in the subjugated nations and destroyed cities than in the attitude of the intellectuals of the day. They had a hard time of it, and most of them did not endure. There were martyrs among the scholars as well as among the clergy, and the example of their martyrdom was not entirely without some effect, even in those times so accustomed to atrocities. Still and all, most men of mind did not stand up under the pressures of that violent age. Some capitulated and placed their talents, knowledge, and techniques at the disposal of the rulers -- let us recall the well-known statement of a university professor in the Republic of the Massagetes: "Not the faculty but His Excellency the General can properly determine the sum of two and two." Others put up a struggle as long as it was possible to do so in a reasonably safe fashion, and published protests. A world-famous author of the time -- so we read in Ziegenhalss -- in a single year signed more than two hundred such protests, warnings, appeals to reason, and so on -- probably more than he had actually read. But most learned the art of silence; they also learned to go hungry and cold, to beg and hide from the police. They died before their time and were envied for this by the survivors. Countless numbers took their own lives. There was truly no pleasure and no honor in being a scholar or a writer. Those who entered the service of the rulers and devised slogans for them had jobs and livelihoods, but they suffered the contempt of the best among their fellows, and most of them surely suffered pangs of conscience also. Those who refused such service had to go hungry, live as outlaws, and die in misery or exile. A cruel, an incredibly harsh weeding out took place. Scientific research that did not directly serve the needs of power and warfare rapidly sank into decadence. The same was true for the whole educational system. History, which each of the leading nations of any given period referred exclusively to itself, underwent revision and fantastic simplification. Historical philosophy and feuilletonism dominated the field.
   So much for details. Those were wild and violent times, chaotic and Babylonian times in which peoples and parties, old and young, Red and White, no longer understood each other. After sufficient bloodletting and debasement, it came to its end; there arose a more and more powerful longing for rationality, for the rediscovery of a common language, for order, morality, valid standards, for an alphabet and multiplication table no longer decreed by power blocs and alterable at any moment. A tremendous craving for truth and justice arose, for reason, for overcoming chaos. This vacuum at the end of a violent era concerned only with superficial things, this sharp universal hunger for a new beginning and the restoration of order, gave rise to our Castalia. The insignificantly small, courageous, half-starved but unbowed band of true thinkers began to be aware of their potentialities. With heroic asceticism and self-discipline they set about establishing a constitution for themselves. Everywhere, even in the tiniest groups, they began working once more, clearing away the rubble of propaganda. Starting from the very bottom, they reconstructed intellectual life, education, research, culture.