“Oh no,” Knecht replied with strong feeling. “I’ve never believed anything of the sort. When I say that I have reached the border of this space, I mean only that I have done all that I as an official could do here. In this sense I have reached my limits. For some time I have been standing at the frontier where my work as Magister Ludi has become eternal recurrence, an empty exercise and formula. I have been doing it without joy, without enthusiasm, sometimes even without faith. It was time to stop.”
Alexander sighed. “That is your view, but not the view of the Order and its rules. A brother in our Order has moods, and at times he wearies of his work — there is nothing new and remarkable about that. The rules show him the way to regain harmony, to find his center again. Had you forgotten that?”
“I do not think so, your Reverence. My administration is open to your inspection, and only recently, after you had received my circular letter, you conducted an investigation of the Players’ Village and of me personally. You learned that the work was being done, that Secretariat and Archive were in order, that the Magister Ludi showed no signs of illness or vagary. I was able to carry on, and sustain my strength and composure, because of those very rules which you so skillfully taught me. But it cost me great effort. And now, unfortunately, it is costing me almost as much effort to convince you that I am not giving in to moods, whims, or vague yearnings. But whether or not I succeed, I insist at least on your acknowledging that my personality and my work were sound and useful up to the moment you last evaluated them. Is that asking too much of you?”
Master Alexander’s eyes twinkled rather sardonically.
“My dear colleague,” he said, “you address me as if we were two private individuals holding a casual conversation. But that applies only to yourself; you are now in fact a private individual. I am not, and whatever I think and say, I do not speak for myself, but as President of the Order, and he is responsible to his Board for every word. What you are saying here today will remain without consequences. No matter how earnest your intentions, yours is the speech of a private person urging his own interests. But for me, my office and responsibility continue, and what I say or do today may have consequences. I shall plead your cause before the Board. You want the Board to accept your account of the circumstances, or perhaps even acknowledge that you have made a correct decision. Your case then is that until yesterday, though you may have had all sorts of weird ideas in your head, you were an irreproachable Castalian, an exemplary Magister; that you may have experienced temptations, spells of weariness, but that you consistently fought and overcame them. Let us assume that I accept that; but then how am I to understand that the upright Magister who only yesterday obeyed every rule today suddenly defects? You must admit this is more understandable in terms of a Magister whose mind had in fact been impaired, who was suffering from psychic illness, so that he went on considering himself an excellent Castalian long after he had in reality ceased to be one. I also wonder why you make such a point of your having been a dutiful Magister up to the very end. Since you have after all taken the step, broken your vow of obedience, and committed the act of desertion, why be concerned about establishing such a point?”
Knecht protested. “I beg your pardon, your Reverence, but why should I not be concerned about that? My name and reputation is involved, the memory I shall leave behind here. Also involved is the possibility of my working for Castalia on the outside. I am not here to salvage something for myself, or even to win the Board’s approval of my action. I counted on being regarded by my colleagues henceforth as a dubious phenomenon, and am prepared for that. But I don’t want to be regarded as a traitor or madman; that is a verdict I cannot accept. I have done something you must disapprove of, but I have done it because I had to, because it was incumbent upon me, because that is my destiny, which I believe in and which I assume with good will. If you cannot concede this much, then I have been defeated and have spoken with you in vain.”
