Chapter 7, In Office Summary

Knecht's promotion to the office of Magister is a strain on him. Even so, it brings him new observations and experiences. "The greatest of these, now that the battle was won, was his collaboration with the elite on the basis of mutual trust and friendliness. He conferred with his Shadow. He worked with Fritz Tegularius, whom he tried out as an assistant on his correspondence. He gradually studied, checked over, and supplemented the reports and other notes on students and associates which his predecessor had left. And in the course of this work Knecht familiarized himself, with increasing affection, with this elite whom he had imagined he knew so well" (Chap. 7, pp. 232-233).

He does not feel himself to be an intimate part of the community as he had before because he now is the head of the community...