The monastery of Mariafels, through the many centuries of its existence, had shared in the making and the suffering of the history of the West. It had experienced periods of flowering and decline, had passed through rebirths and new nadirs, and had been at various times and in assorted fields famous and brilliant. Once a center of Scholastic learning and the art of disputation, still possessing an enormous library of medieval theology, it had risen to new glory after periods of slackness and sluggishness. It then became famous for its music, its much-praised choir, and the Masses and oratorios composed and performed by the Fathers. From those days it still retained a fine musical tradition, half a dozen nut-brown chests full of music manuscripts, and the finest organ in the country. Then the monastery had entered a political era, which had likewise left behind a tradition and a certain skill. In times of war and barbarization Mariafels had several times become a little island of rationality where the better minds among the opposed parties cautiously sought each other out and groped their way toward reconciliation. And once — that was the last high point in its history — Mariafels had been the birthplace of a peace treaty which for a while met the longings of the exhausted nations. Afterward, when a new age began and Castalia was founded, the monastery took an attitude of wait-and-see, was in fact rather hostile, presumably on instructions from Rome. A request from the Board of Educators to grant hospitality to a scholar who wished to work for a time in the monastery’s Scholastic library was politely turned down, as was an invitation to send a representative to a conference of musicologists. Intercourse between Castalia and the monastery had first begun in the time of Abbot Pius, who in his latter years became keenly interested in the Glass Bead Game. Ever since then a friendly though not very lively relationship had developed. Books were exchanged, reciprocal hospitality granted. Knecht’s patron, the Music Master, had spent a few weeks in Mariafels during his younger years, copying music manuscripts and playing the famous organ. Knecht knew of this, and rejoiced at the prospect of staying in a place of which his venerated Master had occasionally spoken with pleasure.
The respect and politeness with which he was received went so far beyond his expectations that he felt rather embarrassed. This was, after all, the first time that Castalia had offered the monastery a Glass Bead Game player of high distinction for an indefinite period. Joseph had learned from Dubois that he was not to regard himself as an individual, especially during the early period of his stay, but solely as the representative of Castalia, and that he was to accept and respond both to courtesies and possible aloofness solely as an ambassador. That attitude helped him through his initial constraint.
He likewise soon overcame the feelings of strangeness, anxiety, and mild excitability which troubled his first few nights and kept him from sleeping. And since Abbot Gervasius displayed a good-natured and merry benevolence toward him, he quickly came to feel at ease in his new environment. The freshness and vigor of the landscape delighted him. The monastery was situated in rough, mountainous country, full of abrupt cliffs and pockets of rich pasture where handsome cattle grazed. He savored with deep pleasure the massiveness and size of the ancient buildings, in which the history of many centuries could be read. He enjoyed the beauty and simple comfort of his apartment, two rooms on the top floor of the guest wing. For recreation he went on exploratory walks through the fine little city-state with its two churches, cloisters, archives, library, Abbot’s apartment, and courtyards, with its extensive barns filled with thrifty livestock, its gurgling fountains, gigantic vaulted wine and fruit cellars, its two refectories, the famous chapter house, the well-tended gardens and the workshops of the lay brothers: cooper, cobbler, tailor, smith, and so on, all forming a small village around the largest courtyard. He was granted entry to the library; the organist showed him the great organ and allowed him to play on it; and he was strongly attracted to the chests in which an impressive number of unpublished and to some extent quite unknown music manuscripts of earlier ages awaited study.
