Many years later Knecht told his pupil that when he stepped out of the building, he found the town and the world far more transformed and enchanted than if there had been flags, garlands, and streamers, or displays of fireworks. He had experienced his vocation, which may surely be spoken of as a sacrament. The ideal world, which hitherto his young soul had known only by hearsay and in wild dreams, had suddenly taken on visible lineaments for him. Its gates had opened invitingly. This world, he now saw, did not exist only in some vague, remote past or future; it was here and was active; it glowed, sent messengers, apostles, ambassadors, men like this old Magister (who by the way was not nearly so old as he then seemed to Joseph). And through this venerable messenger an admonition and a call had come from that world even to him, the insignificant Latin school pupil.
Such was the meaning of the experience for him. It took weeks before he actually realized, and was convinced, that the magical events of that sacramental hour corresponded to a precise event in the real world, that the summons was not just a sense of happiness and admonition in his own soul and his own conscience, but a show of favor and an exhortation from the earthly powers. For in the long run it could not be concealed that the Music Master’s visit had been neither a matter of chance nor a real inspection of the school. Rather, Knecht’s name had stood for some time on the lists of pupils who seemed deserving of education in the elite school. At any rate, on the basis of his teachers’ reports he had been so recommended to the Board of Educators. The boy had been recommended for good character and as a Latinist, but the highest praise had come from his music teacher. Therefore the Music Master had chosen to stop off for a few hours in Berolfingen, in the course of an official mission, in order to see this pupil. In his examination he was not so much interested in Joseph’s Latin or his fingering (in these matters he relied on the teachers’ reports, which he nevertheless spent an hour going over) as whether the boy had it in him by nature to become a musician in the higher sense of the word, whether he had the capacity for enthusiasm, subordination, reverence, worshipful service. As a rule, and for very good reasons, the teachers in the public schools were anything but liberal in their recommendations of pupils for the “elite.” Nevertheless, now and then someone would be pushed out of more or less unsavory motives. Quite often, too, from sheer lack of insight a teacher would stubbornly recommend some pet pupil who had few virtues aside from diligence, ambition, and a certain shrewdness in his conduct toward the teachers. The Music Master particularly disliked this kind of boy. He could tell at once whether a pupil was aware that his future career was at stake, and woe to the boy who approached him too adroitly, too cannily, too cleverly, let alone one who tried to flatter him. In a good many cases such candidates were rejected without even an examination.
Knecht, on the other hand, had delighted the old Music Master. He had liked him very much. As he continued his journey he recalled the boy with pleasure. He had made no notes and entered no marks for him in his notebook, but he took with him the memory of the unspoiled, modest boy, and upon his return he inscribed his name in his own hand on the list of pupils who had been examined personally by a member of the Board of Educators and been found worthy of admission.
Joseph had occasionally heard talk in school about this list, and in a great variety of tones. The pupils called it “the golden book,” but sometimes they disrespectfully referred to it as the “climbers’ catalogue.” Whenever a teacher mentioned the list — if only to remind a pupil that a lout like him could never hope to win a place on it — there would be a note of solemnity, of respect, and also of self-importance in his voice. But if the pupils mentioned the catalogue, they usually spoke in a jeering tone and with somewhat exaggerated indifference. Once Joseph had heard a schoolmate say: “Go on, what do I care about that stupid climbers’ catalogue. You won’t see a regular feller’s name on it, that’s one sure thing. The teachers keep it for all the worst grinds and creeps.”
