Knecht, then, helped the Magister analyze the suggestion. The half-hour passed swiftly. He came punctually the next day, and so for two weeks came daily for a half-hour session with the Magister Ludi. During the first few days it struck him that the Master was asking him to work carefully and critically through altogether inferior memoranda, whose uselessness was evident at first glance. He wondered that the Master had time for this sort of thing, and gradually became aware that the purpose was not just to lighten the Master’s work load. Rather, this assignment, although necessary in itself, was giving the Master a chance to subject him, the young adept, to an extremely courteous but stringent examination. What was taking place was rather similar to the appearance of the Music Master in his boyhood; he suddenly became aware of it now by the behavior of his associates, who treated him more shyly, reservedly, and sometimes with ironic respect. Something was in the wind; he sensed it; but now it was far less a source of joy than it had been then.
After the last of these sessions the Magister Ludi said in his rather high, courteous voice and in that carefully enunciated speech of his, but without the slightest solemnity: “Very well; you need not come tomorrow. Our business is completed for the moment. But I shall soon be having to trouble you again. Many thanks for your collaboration; it has been valuable to me. Incidentally, in my opinion you ought to apply for your admission to the Order now. There will be no difficulties; I have already informed the heads of the Order.” As he rose he added: “One word more, just by the way. Probably you too sometimes incline, as most good Glass Bead Game players do in their youth, to use our Game as a kind of instrument for philosophizing. My words alone will not cure you of that, but nevertheless I shall say them: Philosophizing should be done only with legitimate tools, those of philosophy. Our Game is neither philosophy nor religion; it is a discipline of its own, in character most akin to art. It is an art
Joseph was surprised. His excitement was so great that he almost failed to hear the last cautionary remarks. It had flashed through his mind that this meant the end of his freedom, the completion of his period of study, admission to the Order, and his imminent enrollment in the ranks of the hierarchy. He expressed his thanks with a low bow, and went promptly to the secretariat of the Order in Waldzell, where sure enough he found himself already inscribed on the list of new nominees to the Order. Like all students at his level, he knew the rules of the Order fairly well, and remembered that the ceremony of admission could be performed by every member of the Order who held an official post in the higher ranks. He therefore requested that this be done by the Music Master, obtained a pass and a short furlough, and next day set out for Monteport, where his patron and friend was staying. He found the venerable old Master ailing, but was welcomed with rejoicing.
“You have come just in time,” the old man said. “Soon I would no longer be empowered to receive you into the Order as a younger brother. I am about to resign my office; my release has already been granted.”
The ceremony itself was simple. On the following day the Music Master invited two brothers of the Order to be present as witnesses, as prescribed by the statutes. Previously, he had given Knecht a paragraph from the rules as the subject of a meditation exercise. It was the familiar passage: “If the high Authority appoints you to an office, know this: every step upward on the ladder of offices is not a step into freedom but into bondage. The higher the office, the tighter the bondage. The greater the power of the office, the stricter the service. The stronger the personality, the less self-will.”
