several times called on the director of the Waldzell elite school, who lived in the vicinity. There could scarcely be any doubt that the man had been sent as an observer to determine whether there were any traces of negligence in the Players’ Village, whether the Magister was in good health and at his post, the officials diligent, the students stimulated. He had stayed for a full week and missed none of Knecht’s lectures. Two of the officials had even commented on his quiet ubiquitousness. Evidently the directorate of the Order had waited for the report from this investigation before dispatching its reply to the Magister.
What was he to think of this answer, and who had probably been its author? The style betrayed nothing; it was the conventional, impersonal officialese the occasion demanded. But on subtler analysis the letter revealed more individuality than he had thought at first reading. The basis of the entire document was the hierarchic spirit, a sense of justice and love of order. It was plain to see how unwelcome, inconvenient, not to say troublesome and annoying Knecht’s petition had been. Its rejection had undoubtedly been decided at once by the author of this reply, without regard to the opinions of others. On the other hand, the vexation was leavened by another emotion, for there was a clear note of sympathy present in the letter, with its mention of all the more lenient and friendly comments Knecht’s petition had received during the meeting of the Board. Knecht had no doubt that Alexander, the President of the Order, was the author of this reply.
We have now reached the end of our journey, and hope that we have reported all the essentials of Joseph Knecht’s life. A later biographer will no doubt be in a position to ascertain and impart a good many additional details about that life.
We forbear to present our own account of the Magister’s last days, for we know no more about them than every Waldzell student and could not tell the story any better than the
TWELVE
THE LEGEND
WHEN WE LISTEN to our fellow students talk about our Master’s disappearance, about the reasons for it, the rightness or wrongness of his decisions and acts, the meaning or meaninglessness of his fate, it sounds to us like Diodorus Siculus explaining the supposed causes for the flooding of the Nile. We would think it not only useless but wrong to add to such speculations. Instead, we wish to preserve in our hearts the memory of our Master, who so soon after his mysterious departure into the world passed over into a still more mysterious beyond. His memory is dear to us, and for this reason we wish to set down what we have learned about these events.
After the Master had read the letter in which the Board denied his petition, he felt a faint shiver, a matutinal coolness and sobriety which told him that the hour had come, that from now on there could be no more hesitating or lingering. This peculiar feeling, which he was wont to call “awakening,” was familiar to him from other decisive moments of his life. It was both vitalizing and painful, mingling a sense of farewell and of setting out on new adventures, shaking him deep down in his unconscious mind like a spring storm. He looked at the clock. In an hour he had to face a class. He decided to devote the next hour to meditation, and went into the quiet Magister’s garden. On his way a line of verse suddenly sprang into his mind:
He murmured this under his breath, uncertain where he had read it. The line appealed to him and seemed to suit the mood of this hour. In the garden, he sat down on a bench strewn with the first faded leaves, regulated his breathing, and fought for inner tranquility, until with a purged heart he sank into contemplation in which the patterns of this hour in his life arranged themselves in universal, suprapersonal images. But on the way to the small lecture room, the line of verse came back to him. He turned the words over in his mind, and thought that he did not have them quite right. Suddenly his memory cleared. Under his breath he recited:
But it was not until nearly evening, long after his lecture was over and he had passed on to all sorts of other routine matters, that he discovered the origin of the verses. They were not the work of some old poet; they came from one of his own poems, which he had written in his student days. He remembered now that the poem had ended with the line:
That very evening he sent for his deputy and informed him that on the morrow he would have to leave for an indefinite time. He put him in charge of all current affairs, with brief instructions, and bade good-by in a friendly and matter-of-fact way, as he would ordinarily have done before departing on a brief official journey.
He had realized some time earlier that he would have to leave without informing his friend Tegularius and burdening him with farewells. This course was essential, not only to spare his oversensitive friend, but also in order not to endanger his whole plan. Presumably Fritz would make his peace with the accomplished fact, whereas an abrupt disclosure and a farewell scene might lead to a regrettable emotional upheaval. Knecht had for a while even thought of departing without seeing Fritz for the last time. But now he decided that it would seem too much like evading a difficult encounter. However wise it was to spare his friend agitation and an occasion for follies, he had no right to make the thing so easy for himself. A half-hour remained before bedtime; he could still call on Tegularius without disturbing him or anyone else.
Night had already settled in the broad inner courtyard as he crossed to his friend’s cell. He knocked with that strange feeling of: this is the last time, and found Tegularius alone. Delighted, Fritz laid aside the book he had been reading and invited Knecht to sit down.
“An old poem came to my mind today,” Knecht remarked casually, “or rather a few lines from it. Perhaps you know where the rest can be found.” And he quoted: “In all beginnings dwells a magic force…”
Tegularius traced it with no great trouble. After a few minutes of reflection he recognized the poem, got up, and produced from a desk drawer the manuscript of Knecht’s poems, the original manuscript which Knecht had once presented to him. He looked through it and brought out two sheets of paper containing the first draft of the poem. Smilingly, he held them out to the Magister.
“Here,” he said, “your Excellency may examine them himself. This is the first time in many years that you have deigned to remember these poems.”
Joseph Knecht studied the two sheets attentively and with some emotion. In his student days, during his stay in the College of Far Eastern Studies, he had covered these two sheets of paper with lines of verse. They spoke to him of a remote past. Everything about them, the faintly yellowed paper, the youthful handwriting, the deletions and corrections in the text, reminded him painfully of almost forgotten times. He thought he could recall not only the year and the season when these verses had been written, but even the day and the hour. There came to him now the very mood, that proud and strong feeling that had gladdened him and found expression in the poem. He had written it on one of those special days on which he had experienced that spiritual shock which he called “awakening.”
The title of the poem had obviously been written even before the poem itself, and had seemingly been intended as the first line. It had been set down in a large impetuous script, and read: “Transcend!”
