H. Adler - Panorama

Three times the Great Commander pounds hard on the table with his fist, which is what is always done if someone wants to speak, for that way you can be heard and the others will quiet down. The Great Commander then asks those knights who have a knave assigned to them to tell the high assembly of their virtues and heroic acts in order that the illustrious circle of knights can savor and be refreshed by their uplifting examples, and so that it will be clear whether the aspiring knaves will be worthy of being accorded the distinction and honor of becoming a knight. At this, one knight after another pounds three times on the table in order to praise his knave, whereby an extended adventure unfolds which the Great Commander of the circle of knights allows to proceed. Pony is the knave of Hans, who tells of what he thinks is the truly considerable achievement of his knave’s wandering off and being rescued from the ancient forest on the first night after their arrival, which the entire circle of knights acknowledges is a truly heroic feat, all of them proposing (with only FHF abstaining, since as a sanctioned guest of the circle of knights he is not allowed to propose anything) that the new knight be known by the name of Pony the Night Wanderer, which is supported unanimously. Then Pony has to walk with Hans up to the Great Commander, as Pony kneels down with Hans standing behind him, the Great Commander standing up and placing a cookie in Pony’s mouth and tapping him three times on the shoulder with the flat of his hand, at which the honor is bestowed.

Bambus bangs on the table and proceeds to depict in glowing color the life and accomplishments of his knave, Edgar, who more than anyone surely deserves to be promoted from the rank of knave to that of knight, for if other knights may have achieved unsurpassable accomplishments they pale in comparison with the heroic glow that surrounds the humble Edgar, since in the glorious history of our order surely there is no one who has provided the knights with such uplifting and stomach-filling exhilaration, because although all the cooks of Landstein Castle know how to swing a spoon in masterly fashion, next to Edgar they are mere hacks. This is received with loud applause, but the court jester pounds on the table and says, “Indeed, not even in the Sun King’s court at Versailles was such scrumptious food served as that which Edgar magically coaxed from our meager kettles. Lucullus himself would have compared his fortune with Polycrates and Midas if he had been lucky enough to be a guest at Edgar’s table. Nor should anyone laugh! It certainly is possible. Couldn’t Lucullus indeed have visited the legio decima in the woods surrounding Landstein? The only catch lies in the slight time difference between the eras of Edgar and Lucullus which certainly exists. Thus Lucullus had to bite the dust without having tasted Edgar’s rice pudding. However, because of the great service done to us by our cook I ask that this time difference not be seen as a hindrance. I also ask that the knights honor him with the name Edgar the Cook of Lucullus.”

This request by the court jester is also agreed to unanimously, but the jester pounds on the table three times again and says that the only reason he has gone back in world history to the Romans is that there is a real connection between ancient and modern Landstein through the legio decima , though this also made him aware of Fabi’s feelings, for he didn’t want to upset Fabi, knowing how much he was against the damnable monarchy, though Fabi yelled straight back, “There’s no need to bring that up here!” He, however, is immediately called to order as the Great Commander says, “No one is allowed to interrupt someone who has banged on the table three times!” Then the court jester asserts that he can say what he wants, for he is after all the court jester, and he has to confess that at first he wanted Edgar’s name to be Head Cook to the Sun King. At this Fabi bangs three times on the table so hard that the tankards rattle, as he yells that it doesn’t matter to him in the least, and that it’s a joke whether Edgar is called Head Cook to the Sun King, nor is he among the knights necessarily against monarchy, but rather just the present monarchy, since it’s so worthless, at which Josef pounds on the table and says, “In some youth organizations everything is voted upon. They even vote about friendships, asking who is for someone and who is against. But there’s no sense in voting about something that can’t be decided or that nothing can be done about. But if folks want to vote, then the knights can put to a vote whether they are for or against the monarchy.” Everyone laughs at this, though Fabi adds in all seriousness, “Of course we can vote about it!” Willi then states, “We can take that up at the annual gathering, if everyone thinks it’s important.” Then Alfred pounds on the table and says, “My noble knights, courageous knaves, and my dear court jester! We should not ignore the important issue of the monarchy, but perhaps instead at the Festival of the Great Commander we could hold a debate between Knight Fabi and the court jester. There is not enough time now, we need to move ahead with our nominations for knighthood. The noble Knight Bambus has presented his knave, Edgar, before me so that I may commemorate the promotion of this knave to knighthood.”

Bambus then steps forward with Edgar, Edgar kneels down, and then the same thing happens as with Pony, though as soon as a cookie is held out to Edgar and he takes a bite of it he begins to spit it out in disgust and yells, “Ugh, that’s soap!” What his eyes couldn’t see in this light, the tongue tasted immediately, for shortly before the evening began Alfred and Willi had cut a piece off a soft bar of soap and shaped it exactly like the cookie Pony was given, this being a bit of payback for the burned rice pudding and even more for the hard work of having to clean the kettles afterward, though graciousness is still the order of the day, for the legitimacy of Edgar’s promotion is still recognized, even though he has decidedly refused to swallow his soap cookie. Meanwhile, more promotions follow, the tankard passing quickly around the circle a number of times, each new knight receiving two cookies as Pony did, Edgar indeed getting three, though he looks closely at each before he eats them. After this the berries are passed out, a rule of the bal paré forbidding the use of a spoon or one’s hands, as instead you must either pick out the berries with your mouth or pour the berries from the bowl directly into your mouth. Most of the berries are blackberries, and soon all the knights’ faces are as black as after a battle, most of them heading down to the creek in the dark in order to wash up, the next morning the stains still visible on their faces, and they have to wash up yet again in order to look like Wanderers and not philistines.

A couple of days later, Alfred learns at the ranger’s house that on the evening of the bal paré a boy from Sichelbach, who had been visiting a girl in Markl, passed by the bal paré at about ten o’clock at night on his way home, the scene around the campfire frightening him a good deal, for he thought it was Gypsies, of whom this boy was deeply afraid, while probably as a result he thought that evil spirits and magicians had been let loose, which then caused him to run wild with fear back to Markl, from which he dared set foot on the path home again only at first light, the farmers from Markl and Sichelbach indeed laughing so much over the scaredy-cat, since everyone in the villages had long known about the pack, as did the boy, for he had walked repeatedly by the camp by day and by night. The Wanderers also all laughed, the younger ones proud that they had already passed the test of staying alone in the woods for a night, nor had they ever really trembled during Willi’s ghost stories. FHF, however, makes a serious face and says that perhaps not everything is as it usually is once the Wanderers transform themselves into an order of knights, for that goes back to the Middle Ages, when the world was a strange place full of mystery and terror, leading to fear and uncertainty, FHF believing as well that this has not entirely disappeared, for each of them is still lost amid a sea of fear, able at best to watch out for himself as long as he knows how to swim, though the ability to swim like this is the true goal of the Wanderers, for the world — so says FHF — is only partially visible on its surface, there being behind it an endless darkness, the philistines living in the darkness and not realizing it, since they themselves are a part of the darkness, unable to distinguish black from black, while when a light appears in the darkness that’s when spirits appear, which could just be a bunch of philistines, though also Wanderers, people learning the strangeness that exists as they sit as if looking through a peephole behind which there is light, though to the philistines the light is unbearable, and that is why they are afraid.