Journey to the East

When H.H. awakes, Leo is in his living room. Leo says that the high officials of the League wish to see him before the High Throne: “There was still a League and the High Throne! There were still the officials; they had sent for me! I went hot and cold at the realization” (82). H.H. has been wondering whether he is the last member of the League. Now he is eager to show that he is still loyal to their cause.

On the way to the High Throne, Leo stops twice to pray at churches. When they at a large building, they go inside. The artist Klingsor is there and is painting. As they wait, Leo begins to sing, and H.H. recognizes the tune as one of the League’s favorites. They go to a room with a long succession of benches, ending in a Throne. The benches begin to fill with people. The Speaker steps forward and H.H. stands alone before the Throne. The Speaker asks, “Did you confess that you wanted to write a story of the Journey to the East? Did you consider yourself hampered by your vow of silence about the League’s secrets?” (87). The Speaker continues to question him, and H.H. answers “yes” to every question. After the interrogation, the Speaker says that H.H. is now allowed to reveal every secret of the League that is known to him, and he will have access to the League’s archives to prepare his report.

The officials leave the room, and H.H. sees his in-progress manuscript recounting the Journey to the East on a nearby table. The more of it he reads, the less he likes it: “Everything seemed so confused and stupid; the clearest relationships were distorted, the most obvious were forgotten, the trivial and the unimportant pushed into the foreground. It must be written again, right from the beginning” (89). H.H. finds his work disappointing because formerly, he had tried to write it circumspectly, focusing only on experiences while avoiding the secrets of the League. He begins to explore the archives at random. He finds what he calls the League “document” (90), but it is written in Greek, and he can’t understand much of it: “With a start, I came across my own name, but I did not dare consult the archives about it—who could bear the verdict of an omniscient Court of Law on oneself?” (91).

He finds a filing cabinet labeled “Fatima” and begins to look at its contents. He finds a locket with a picture of a woman he believes to be Fatima. The locket is wrapped in a kerchief. Its perfumed scent sends H.H. into a reverie in which he recalls the Journey to the East with joy, and then cries at the memory of how bleak his life became after leaving the League members. The officials return, and the Speaker says that it is time for H.H. to be judged. He then asks if H.H. is willing to be judged by the President of the League. H.H. agrees and a man in an ornate robe steps forward and sits on the High Throne. It is Leo.

H.H. is surprised that Leo is the leader of the League:

But I was still more stirred, amazed, startled, and happy at the great discovery of the day: that the League was as completely stable and mighty as ever, that it was not Leo and the League who had deserted and disillusioned me, but only that I had been so weak and foolish as to misinterpret my own experience, to doubt the League, to consider the Journey to the East a failure (99).

He becomes aware of what he calls a “new sin” (99). He no longer possesses the League ring that he had received as part of his initiation ceremony, and did not realize that he had lost it until this day.

Leo speaks, and calls H.H.’s desire to become the historian of the League a “failing and a folly” (100), but also dismisses his errors as “novitiate stupidities that can be dismissed with a smile” (100). H.H. is relieved, but Leo continues, saying that H.H. is unaware of his worst sins, each of which could warrant grave punishment. Leo asks H.H. if he remembers walking to the building with him and not accompanying him when he stopped to pray in the two churches. Leo explains that H.H. had “slighted religion” in doing so: “[Y]ou have been contemptuous towards a League brother, you have impatiently rejected an opportunity an invitation to prayer and meditation” (102). H.H. considers the accusations just and feels humiliated that he had not been more pious.

Leo reminds H.H. of the evening on which they walked, and H.H. asked if Leo did not recognize him as a League brother: “[T]his was impossible, for you had made yourself unrecognizable as a League brother” (103). Leo then asks H.H. if he is ready for judgement, and he says he is.

Leo speaks to the gathered officials and says that many of them have had experiences similar to H.H. He affirms that they will welcome H.H. to the League anew and restore his League ring to him. He then explains how the “servant Leo” (106) has been keeping the ring the whole time. The Speaker appears and puts the ring on H.H.’s finger. The ring has four stones set at equal distances apart. Each stone represents a core precept of the League. H.H. remembers that he had been required to turn the ring four times a day and think on one of the precepts. He had not only forgotten the ring, but he had forgotten to repeat the precepts four times each day while the ring was lost.

Leo announces that H.H. is acquitted, but now he must serve as one of the officials. However, he must first pass “a test of faith and obedience” (107). He asks H.H. if he is prepared to tame a wild dog. H.H. says he cannot do it. Leo asks if H.H. will burn the League archives, and again H.H. says he cannot obey. Then Leo asks if H.H. is willing to consult the archives about himself and says that the tasks will become more difficult if he continues to refuse to accept one. H.H. agrees and the Speaker leads him to a filing cabinet marked with the letter H. Everyone leaves, and H.H. is alone in the archives. He is unable to make himself look at the documents pertaining to himself, so he begins to read other papers. One is marked “Morbio Inferiore” (110). When he reads it, he finds an account of his group of the League from when they were in the Morbio Gorge. There the group had been put to a test, which had been Leo’s disappearance: “In the end, the whole group, contrary to the spirit of the League, had broken up into factions and disbanded” (111).

The document states that three members of the group attempted to write histories of the Journey to the East. H.H. reads the manuscripts of the other two and finds that they are different than his in most ways. One of them describes H.H.’s focus on the sacred document after Leo’s disappearance and calls it an “absurd assertion” (112). The writer maintains that on the day H.H. failed to accompany the group farther, it was the final step in the group’s disintegration: “Two apparently harmless members were to blame for the collapse, the musician H.H. and Leo, one of the servants” (113). The document says that the group believed that H.H. and Leo had been bribed to leave the group to its destruction. H.H. is disturbed, knowing that if he reads more accounts of that day, he will find accounts that contradict one another. The nature of truth is now unreliable to him.

H.H. goes to the part of the archives marked with his name. He finds only a figure that he calls “a kind of deity or barbaric idol” (116). He describes it as incomprehensible and as a double figure, but without elaborating on the details of its composition: “It represented a figure which was myself, and this likeness was unpleasantly weak and half-real” (117). He believes that the figure looks as if it wishes to die. Then he notices that the second figure that is joined to his represents Leo. He sees two candles on the wall and lights them, which illuminates the figure and makes them transparent: “Inside the figures I saw something moving, slowly, extremely slowly, in the same way a snake moves when it has fallen asleep” (117).

He sees that his image is flowing into Leo’s and giving it strength: “It seemed that, in time, all the substance from one image would flow into the other and only one would remain: Leo. He must grow, I must disappear” (118). H.H. remembers talking with Leo at Bremgarten about poetry and art and how an artist’s creation is more alive than the artist himself. The candles go out, and H.H. looks for a place to lie down and sleep.