He paused to catch his breath, then continued: “But let me try to examine this matter from another angle. Do you recall the legend of St. Christopher? Yes? Well now, Christopher was a man of great strength and courage, but he wanted to serve rather than to be a master and govern. Service was his strength and his art; he had a faculty for it. But whom he served was not a matter of indifference to him. He felt that he had to serve the greatest, the most powerful master. And when he heard of a mightier master, he promptly offered his services. I have always been fond of this great servant, and I must in some way resemble him. At any rate, during the one period in my life when I had command over myself, during my student years, I searched and vacillated for a long time before deciding what master to serve. For years I remained mistrustful of the Glass Bead Game and fended it off, although I had long ago recognized it as the most precious and characteristic fruit of our Province. I had tasted the bait and knew that there was nothing more attractive and more subtle on earth than the Game. I had also observed fairly early that this enchanting Game demanded more than naive amateur players, that it took total possession of the man who had succumbed to its magic. And an instinct within me rebelled against my throwing all my energies and interests into this magic forever. Some naive feeling for simplicity, for wholeness and soundness, warned me against the spirit of the Waldzell Vicus Lusorum. I sensed in it a spirit of specialism and virtuosity, certainly highly cultivated, certainly richly elaborated, but nevertheless isolated from humanity and the whole of life — a spirit that had soared too high into haughty solitariness. For years I doubted and probed, until the decision had matured within me and in spite of everything I decided in favor of the Game. I did so because I had within me that urge to seek the supreme fulfillment and serve only the greatest master.”
“I understand,” Master Alexander said. “But no matter how I regard it and no matter how you try to represent it, I come up against the same reason, for your singularities. You have an excessive sense of your own person, or dependence on it, which is far from the same thing as being a great personality. A man can be a star of the first magnitude in gifts, will-power, and endurance, but so well balanced that he turns with the system to which he belongs without any friction or waste of energy. Another may have the same great gifts, or even finer ones, but the axis does not pass precisely through the center and he squanders half his strength in eccentric movements which weaken him and disturb his surroundings. You evidently belong to this type. Only I must admit that you have contrived to conceal it remarkably. For that very reason the malady seems to be breaking out now with all the greater virulence. You spoke of St. Christopher, and I must say that although there is something grand and touching about this saint, he is not a model for a servant of our hierarchy. One who wishes to serve should abide by the master he has sworn to serve for good and ill, and not with the secret reservation that he will change as soon as he finds a more magnificent master. In assuming such an attitude the servant makes himself his master’s judge, and this indeed is what you are doing. You always want to serve the highest master, and are naive enough to decide for yourself the rank of the masters among whom you make your choice.”
