Chapter VIII: Part 8

"On Sunday, when we go to church, we take salt with us, and what we need besides; and Mechtilde once said we get heavenly salt for it in the mass and the sermon, and salt our souls with it. Mechtilde often makes fine riddles and jokes. We've bought a story-book, too, about Rinaldo Rinaldini: it's a shuddersome story of knights and robbers, and we've read it move than ten times and the other day, when I overslept myself, she sang a song out of it and waked me. Talking of songs, I want to ask a favor of you, but you mustn't laugh at me.

"You see, when a fellow gets out alone into the world and wants to sing by himself, he finds out, all of a sudden, that of ever so many songs he only knows the beginning, and that the rest of it he has only just sung after somebody else; and then I want to pull my head off because it won't come into my mind; but it won't come in, nohow. There's a good many things just so you think you know them until somebody says, 'Now, old fellow, do it alone, will ye?'

"Now, I'd like to ask you--but you mustn't laugh at me--to please get the old schoolmaster to write down all the Nordstetten songs. I'll pay him for it well. You won't forget, will you? And then send it to me, or bring it when you come.

"I must tell you something else, too. Only think, mother! last Tuesday three weeks, as I was sitting at my wagon and mending the tongue,--you can't run to the wagoner's here every five minutes: you must do such things yourself,--what should I hear but somebody say to me, 'Hard at it, Aloys?' and, as I looked up, who should stand there but Long Heartz's Jake, who was in the Guards? We didn't use to be the best of friends; but I forgot all about it, and fell on his neck and almost hugged him to death. I do believe if George himself was to come I'd shake hands with him just to think he came from Nordstetten. I called the whole house together and cut the throat of a turkey. Jake ate his dinner with me just as anybody else would. The laws about eating with Jews, and so on, are for the Old World, and not for the New.

"Jake stayed a week and helped me work in the field: he can do it just as well as a Christian. I was so glad to see he's come to understand that, for a soldier who has honor in him, it isn't the thing to run about peddling. He's going to buy land somewhere hereabouts. I'm helping him do it. I must have my dear Nordstetten Jews here too, for it wouldn't be Nordstetten without them. After that, he's going to join the militia. He'll be an officer before long, most likely. In the evening we used to sit together, I and my Mechtilde, my brothers-in-law and my sisters-in-law, and their boys and girls, and Jake, and we'd sing the songs we used to sing at home; and then I felt just as I did that time Mary Ann got her new distaff. But you mustn't suppose I think very often of Mary Ann. I love my Mechtilde very much, and she loves me too. I wish every couple loved each other as much as we do, and lived as happily together.

"Now, about your coming here. I don't want to beg you too hard: Mat'll write all about it. But, if it's possible---- No, no, I won't beg you. Jake tells me that our Xavier goes to see Valentine's Mag: well, she won't be afraid of the sea I guess, and he can bring her over too. It's all one now, Nordstetten here or Nordstetten there.

"Write me an answer right soon. Only send the letter to Mat, as you did before: he goes to town oftener than I do.

"Now, good-bye to you, and I hope this will find you very well indeed. Think of me sometimes. My Mechtilde and my Bat and my parents-in-law send you their best loves. My sister-in-law has taught little Bat to say, when they ask him, 'Where's your grandmother?' 'Over there in the Black Forest.' I am your loving son.

"ALOYS SCHORER.

"See how I reach my little hand
Far over to your distant land.

"That's my Bat's hand: I drew it, dear mother, just as he laid it on the paper, because there was room enough."

Ivo was asked to read Mat's letter also; but he promised to do so another time, and took his leave, the grateful mother, who was wiping the tears from her eyes, having accompanied him to the door. Outside of the village he saw his sister Mag walking in the meadow with Xavier. He now understood what it was that often made her so disputatious and discontented: her father would not tolerate her acquaintance with "the American," as he called Xavier.

With a skip and a bound, Ivo shook off the oppressive dignity of his station. He danced and sung as he had formerly done, always clearing the heaps of broken stones at the roadside at a bound. The letter of Aloys had made a great impression upon him. He saw in it the picture of a truly honest living,--a life rendered happy by hard work and independence. For the first time he perceived how all the corporal powers of a student lie fallow, and learned to see that it was this which often so greatly "unsettles" the minds of those most favored by natural endowments among the youth of a country. He thought of going to America to be parson and farmer at one and the same time, to go visiting his sister, to travel from farm to farm, instructing the children, and fostering the effort to look upward among all with whom he conversed.

Absorbed with such reflections, he reached Horb. The town did not look near so fine, nor the houses so large, as before: he had seen larger ones. The chaplain was delighted with his former pupil, and Mrs. Hankler, who was ill in bed, said that it made her well only to see him. The Judge's sons were no longer there; for, as it may be remembered, their father had been transferred to another district.

It was night when Ivo returned home. In the village he found Constantine leading Peter by the hand, and walking the street with the half-grown boys, singing. He taught them new songs, and made them laugh uproariously by recounting all sorts of tricks which he had played upon his teacher at the convent. Ivo walked with them quietly till they reached his father's house, when he said, "Good-night," and went in.

Throughout the holidays he was left much to himself. He would either take solitary walks in the fields, or practise at home on a bugle which he had borrowed from Conrad the baker. His mother always urged him to go out and not mope about the house. Sometimes he would walk out with the new schoolmaster. Constantine he never associated with, except when it was not to be avoided.

A deep sorrow stole into his heart when he became aware of the half-concealed dissensions existing between his parents. Before leaving home he had been so habituated to all the incidents of the household that it did not occur to him to speculate about them. At the convent his imagination had pictured home-life as a paradise embosomed in endless peace: all harsh and uninviting associations had disappeared from his memory. Thus, he returned to contrast with a highly-wrought ideal the sober realities of every-day existence; and much that he saw could not fail to shock him, and perhaps to appear even worse than it really was. He came fresh from a household where all things moved according to external laws fixed by unvarying regulations,--where discussion or contradiction was out of the question as much as in the interior of a piece of mechanism; and, though depressed by the rigor of these ordinances, he did not understand that in the free constitution of a family, where each one acts for the whole according to his individual judgment, much difference of opinion and many an altercation is almost inevitable. Even the loud tone of voice in which everybody spoke was not pleasant; and his father's manner, in particular, was such as to cause him frequently to shake his head. When his mother listened in silence to Valentine's expositions of his plans of building houses "for sale" and without previous orders, he would cry out, "There it is, you see: you never care a button for what I say: whether a dog barks, or whether I talk, it's all one to you." If she made objections, he said, "It's the old story: whatever I want to do never suits you." If Christina treated him gently and kindly, like one who needed indulgence, he would perceive it at once, and curse and swear. If, on the contrary, she was firm and decided, and stood her ground, he said, "All the world knows you don't live for me, but for your children: wouldn't you be glad if I was to die?" And then he would sit down, refusing to eat, or drink, or speak: he would go to the inn, but without getting any thing to eat there,--as he feared it would make people talk and grieve his wife,--so that he generally went to bed without his supper.

When such things happened, Christina would look at Ivo with indescribable pain. She saw all the anguish which her troubles wrote upon his face, and redoubled her efforts to conceal all things and smooth them over. The other children were accustomed to such scenes and no longer distressed by witnessing them.

Seeing the necessity of an explanation with her youngest son, she sat down one evening by his bedside and said,--

"Do you see? your father is the best and most upright man in the world; but he has an unlucky disposition, and is not well pleased with himself, because he sometimes neglects things and spoils a job, and things won't go as he likes; and then he wants other people to be all the better pleased with him. When he sees that that isn't so, and it can't be so, his spirit rises up in him still more: and yet I owe it to my children not to let things go backward. As for myself, I'm willing to eat dry bread all my life; but, for the sake of my children, I can't sit by and see us beggared in five years and my children jostled about among strangers. I know he loves me better than anybody else in the world. He would shed his last drop of blood for me, and I for him; but he wants to mortgage the house and the fields, and to go to work with Koch, the other carpenter, to build houses for sale; and that's what I won't do, and no ten horses shall drag me into it. It's my children's property, and I must be a good mother to them. We're not rich people any more, and the poor mustn't suffer by our losses, either: they must have their gifts just as before, if I must squeeze it out of my own eating. Yes, my dear Ivo, take your mother's advice, and don't forget the poor. The corn grows on the lea, though you give away some of it; and our Lord blesses the bread in the cupboard, so that it nourishes better. You love your father dearly too, don't you, dear Ivo? He is the best man in the world. You honor him, don't you? You are his pride, though he don't tell you so, for it's not in him to say it. When he comes home from the Eagle, where they're always praising you so much because Christian the tailor's son Gregory writes so well of you, you could twist him round your little finger. Just make up your mind not to be distressed by any thing, and don't be sad. What one firmly resolves to do, one can do, believe me."

Ivo nodded and kissed his mother's hand; but a deep sadness stole over him. The paradise of his parental home had sunk in ruins, over which the figure of his mother alone hovered like an angel of light; and once he said to himself, very softly, "Her name is not Christina in vain: she is just like the Savior. She bears the heaviest cross with a smile, and thinks not of herself, but of others."

Thus it came to pass that he looked forward to the end of the holidays with far less regret than he would have supposed when he first returned home.

9.
THE FRIENDS.

In the first few days of his renewed convent-life the old home-sickness returned. He reproached himself with not having enjoyed his holidays to the full, with having suffered himself to be put out by things which were not so bad as they seemed; but he had made up his mind to profit by the example of Aloys, and not add to his mother's troubles by writing her sorrowful letters.

During his former stay at the convent his thoughts had been so much at home that he had not identified himself with the peculiar circumstances and associations of this abode. All this was now otherwise. "My mother says we can do any thing we really want to do," he said to himself, "and that shall henceforth be my motto."

Ivo and Clement had welcomed each other warmly in the presence of the other boys. Everybody had a great deal to tell. At noon, when the class were taking their usual ramble, Ivo and Clement, as if by a tacit understanding, lagged behind; and, under a blooming hawthorn, where no one could see them, they fell upon each other's necks and kissed each other fervently. The larks roystered in mid-air, and the hawthorn waved to a gentle breeze. With faces radiant with joy, their arms flung around each other's necks, they went back to the road and rejoined their comrades. Ivo made a long imaginary speech, of which he only pronounced aloud the words "still and holy," and looked into the shining depths of Clement's eye, and they grasped each other's hands. Then Clement struck Ivo and ran away to the others. Ivo well understood this as a hint to conceal their league and covenant from general observation. They mingled with the others; but, soon finding themselves side by side again, they struck, chased, and dodged each other, until they were again separated from the crowd; then they began a sham wrestle, which soon turned to a warm embrace, and each murmured, "Dear Ivo," "Dear Clement." So inventive was this young friendship in its early bud.

Both of the boys now entered upon a new and happy life. Ivo had never had a brother's heart of his own age; Clement, in the frequent migrations of his father's family, had never attached himself to any one but an elder sister. Now Ivo, when he awoke in the morning, looked up joyfully and said, "Good-morning, Clement," although Clement slept in another apartment. Though away from home, he was a stranger no longer. The convent had ceased to be a place of coercion and unpitying law: he did all things willingly, because his Clement was with him. It cost him no further resolution to write cheerful letters home. All his life was a life of pleasure; and his mother often shook her head when she read his sounding periods. Clement, who had read innumerable fairy-tales and books of knight-errantry, introduced his friend to a world of wonders and strange delights. He made two banished princes of Ivo and himself, and a giant Goggolo of the director; and for a time they always addressed each other by the names of their imaginary characters.

The world of wonders and fairy-tales, which strive to outdo the riddle of existence by still more puzzling combinations and thus in a manner to expound the world of every day, this self-oblivious dream of a toying, childish fancy, had not hitherto met the mental gaze of Ivo. What Nat had told him was too much intertwined with the rude and simple experiences of field and forest life, and knew nothing of subterranean castles of gold and precious stones. He was entirely unprepared for the gorgeous trappings of these magic gardens and these cities at the bottom of the sea.

The hawthorn was venerated by both as the trysting-tree of their friendship, and they never passed it without looking at it and at each other. Ivo, whom we already know as well versed in the Bible, once said, "We have just had the same luck as Moses. Jehovah appeared to him in the bush, and it was burning, but yet was not consumed. Do you know what Jehovah means? I am he who shall be: it is the future of Hava. We shall be friends in future too, as we are now, sha'n't we?"

"I'll tell you a story," replied Clement. "Once there was a princess on an island: her name wasn't Leah, like the old lady in the Bible, but Hawa. She hadn't red eyes, either, but beautiful dark-blue ones. But she couldn't abide thorns: the least little thorn was a thorn in her eye, and the moment she saw one she always cried out, 'Oh dear! it is in me; I feel it in my fine dark-blue eyes.' So to please her they had to cut off every thing on the island which bore thorns, and to grub up every bit of the roots; and when the princess died they buried her; and, to punish her for hating thorns, a thorn grew out of each of her two eyes, and they bear beautiful blue eyes to this day, just like those the princess had, and they call them hawthorns."

Thus Clement ended his story with a triumphant smile. Ivo regarded him with a bright, merry face. Whatever Clement told was so delightful! His words clung to each other like the pearls of a beautiful necklace: all Clement did or said was far beyond compare with any thing else in the wide, wide world.

At Ivo's suggestion they had vowed to each other to be great men, and they now encouraged each other to the most unremitting industry. Every thing was easily done, as each did it for the other's sake. Ivo even kept the head-place in the class for a whole year. Clement was not so lucky, because his imagination always ran away with him. Whatever he saw excited him, and he forgot the subject on which he should have been engaged: when the teacher addressed questions to him he awoke as from a dream and answered awry.

The secret league, however, could not long remain concealed from their companions; for, as lovers often think themselves unperceived while giving the most unmistakable signs of affection, so fared our friends. Nevertheless, Ivo's high position soon put a period to the bantering which was at first attempted, and it was not long before others endeavored to thrust themselves into the league of friendship. But the gates were closed against them: Clement was particularly vigilant, and the advances ceased. Only when Bart persisted, with great submissiveness, in frequenting their company, did Ivo make an exception. He was favored to walk by their side after dinner, and to be near them when they were playing in the yard. When Bart had eaten his fill he was quite a bright lad and anxious to learn. He was ready to do any thing which could bring him near the head of the class, too. Fond as he was of Ivo and Clement, therefore, their high position in the class was one of the causes of his attachment; nor, by a special stipulation of Clement's, was he ever admitted into the inmost sanctuary of their friendship.

Leaving fairy-tales behind them, our friends entered upon another field, somewhat nearer the domain of reality: they began to look for historic examples to strive after for ideals. Once, on a long walk in the direction of Blaubeuren, they found themselves on a lofty hill on the edge of a rooky precipice, with the lovely valley of the Blau before them, and the cathedral of Ulm and the Danube visible in the distance. This spot Clement had specially ordained as the one where they were to disclose their aspirations to each other.

"Who is your ideal, Ivo?" asked Clement.

"Sixtus. My mother always says any thing can be achieved if you really will it. Sixtus showed that in his own example."

"So you want to be a pope?"

"If it should come about, why not? No harm trying."

"I have a much less saintly personage: my ideal is Alexander the Great." He did not explain in what respect he desired to emulate him; for Bart fell in, in a whimpering tone,--

"And whom shall I take for my ideal?"

"Ask the principal," said Clement, solemnly, tipping the wink to Ivo.

The moment they returned home, Bart knocked at the principal's door; and, on being invited to come in, he said, trembling and stammering,--

"I beg your pardon, sir; but I wished to ask you,--I wished to choose an ideal, and I don't know whom to take."

The principal stood still a while, and then said, with uplifted finger, "God."

"I am very much obliged to you, sir," said Bart, bowing and scraping himself out. He ran to his friends and told them, joyfully, "I've got one: I've got an ideal now."

"Whom?"

"God," said Bart, holding up his finger.

"Who told you so?" asked Clement, pulling Ivo by the sleeve.

"The principal."

Ivo, disregarding the stolen hints of his friend, explained to Bart that God could never be an ideal to any man except in a figurative sense, because it is impossible for any man to become almighty or omniscient: God must be the highest and final goal, of course; but the saints were to be found on the way to him, and were nearer to us and more accessible to our prayers, and perhaps we might come in some degree to resemble them.

"Saintly Ivo, I'll have nothing to do with you," said Clement, angrily, turning away. He was vexed to have his good jokes spoiled in this way, and did not speak a word to Ivo all that night and the next morning.

In many other respects Bart was the occasion of disagreements between his friends. Clement had taken it into his head that the interloper deprived him of a part of the friendship of his Ivo. He now seized various opportunities of feeding this jealousy. Once he did not exchange a word with Ivo for a whole week; while his eyes followed him everywhere as with a passion bordering on insanity. On the last evening he threw a bit of paper on the book Ivo was reading, on which he had written, "Come to the top of the church-steeple at the stroke of twelve to-night, or we part forever."

Ivo tossed about his bed in an agony of fear lest he should oversleep the time. When the first stroke of twelve was heard, he stole from his chamber; Clement came out of the one in which he slept at the same instant. They went up the turret-stairs in silence, and, when the last stroke had sounded and died away, Clement began:--

"Give me your hand and promise me to have nothing more to do with Bart, or I'll throw myself down this instant."

Ivo took his friend's hand, shuddering.

"Not a word! Yes or no!" muttered Clement.

"Yes, yes. But I pity the poor fellow. You've grown very strange this last week."

Clement embraced and kissed him, descended the steps in silence, and returned to his chamber.

Next day Clement was, as he had always been, cheerful and warm. He never permitted Ivo to speak by daylight of their nightly meeting. Bart's grief at his dismissal was not of long duration.

While Clement's restless spirit thus flitted about in search of adventure, Ivo experienced a different sort of disquietude. His body had grown with almost greater rapidity than his mind, and he was tall and broad-shouldered; but, when he sat at the desk with his books, the blood seemed to foam through his veins in torrents, often obliging him to get up and restore his internal balance by violent motions. He would fain have carried a heavy load suspended in his arms; but nothing offered resistance to his powers except sometimes a knotty construction in a classic author. Gymnastic exercises were not very assiduously cultivated, nor did Ivo take much interest in them: he longed to accomplish some real task with a definite object. In walking with his friend he would often complain that he was not allowed to plough or to reap. Inured from his childhood to bodily activity, during his visit to the grammar-school the long daily walk had compensated for the inaction of his arms: now he felt like a giant whose club has been taken from him and a sewing-needle thrust into his fingers.

Once he said to Clement, "Do you know I am so much troubled at having a scruple in regard to the Bible? it says that the great chastisement for original sin is that in the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread: now, to my mind hard work, instead of a punishment, is the greatest delight."

"Oh," said Clement, "that's in the Old Testament. It's meant for the Jews, and it just suits them; for hard work is their favorite aversion."

Thus early did he stumble on the familiar device of the theologians when hard pushed in regard to some passage in the Old Testament. Clement did not suffer the matter to rest here, however. He confessed his own longing to incur dangers and to wander through distant countries. They even talked frequently of a flight from the convent. They pictured to themselves the romance of arriving on a distant island, struggling with wild beasts and subjugating the virgin soil. Of course the project was never executed. The laws of the convent and the ties of home were too strong for them.

The warmth of their friendship increased from day to day and bridged over all the chasms which the difference of their dispositions might have caused. Ivo forfeited his place at the head of the class without regret, and allowed even Bart to rise above him. This external abasement almost pleased him, for it marked his distaste for his studies. The consciousness of being better than he seemed was grateful to him and gave him a certain independence of the outward world. He formed a secret league with the wood-cutters, the lowest servants of the convent. He swung the axe with a vigor as if he would have cleft the globe. At length one of the professors detected these irregularities; and Ivo atoned for them in the lock-up of the establishment.

Thus, from having been one of the best and most diligent of the pupils, Ivo had sunk to be the lowest in the class and the most obstreperous.

At the arrival of the holidays the friends would part with almost feverish sorrow, consoling themselves with the hope of meeting again, and yet wishing never to return to the convent. On the way home, the world without had lost its lustre in Ivo's eyes, and the people he met no longer appeared so good and kind: the world within him had altered. At home he was not so shy of Constantine as formerly, and the state of things in his father's house had ceased to weigh upon his spirits: having learned that no man on earth is entirely happy within himself, he had no more reason to wonder at the marks of unhappiness which characterized the social relations of life and of men.

The gorgeous fabric of the ideal had sunk into ashes before him. Occasionally a fervent prayer would lift him above the jars and discords of earthly being; but even into these heavenly arcana would the misgiving of an insufficiency pursue him: he was very unhappy. People took his disordered air for a mark of over-application. It stung him to the soul when his mother begged him not to study too hard: he could not explain to her what troubled him; it was not even clear to himself. Thus, in the fulness of youth and health, he felt tired of life and weary of the earth: he had not mastered the riddle of existence, and fancied that death was the only solution.

In his last vacation before going to Tuebingen, he experienced a heavy loss: he no longer found Nat in the house. Mag, having overcome the opposition of her father, had married Xavier and gone with him to America. There was thus a lack of female help about the house, and Valentine's sons were old enough to do the field-work themselves. Nat was discharged: no one knew whither he had gone: the pigeon-cote was empty, and the beasts in the stable seemed to share Ivo's sorrow for his departed friend.

On the other hand, Emmerence now lived in the house as maid-of-all-work. She had grown up to be a strong, hearty girl, a little short and square in figure,--what is usually called "buxom:" she would have been classed with the comelier half of the village girls. It was long since Ivo had bestowed any attention upon her, so entirely had Clement occupied his heart. Whole vacations had passed without his even exchanging a word with her. Now he sometimes eyed her askance, but always turned away the moment she detected him. Once only, when he found her so cheerfully engaged in the stable, he said, "That's right in you, Emmerence, to take good care of the cattle: only don't forget the dun and the cow."

"I know they're your favorites," she replied; "I'm so glad you haven't given up liking them." And, as if to wake a reminiscence of his childhood, she sang, while filling the cow's manger,--

"Far up on the hill is a white, white horse,
A horse as white as snow;
He'll take the little boys that are good little boys
To where they want to go.

"The little boys and the good little boys
Sha'n't go too far away;
The little girls that are good little girls
Must go as far as they."

Ivo went silently to the field in which he had once spent a whole day ploughing with Nat: it seemed as if some clue to his whereabouts must be hidden among the stones. He envied his brothers who were at work here, who shared their joys and sorrows at a common board, who had no one to obey but their natural superiors.

On his return to the convent he attached himself still more closely to Clement, as if to indemnify himself for the loss of his earlier friend.

The last summer spent in Ehingen was a little less monotonous than the others. Clement, whose home was in a largely Protestant town, had acquaintances among the pupils of the neighboring Protestant convent, (for by that name the classical school was still called,) of Blaubeuren, who were a little less rigidly restrained than those of Ehingen. They sometimes came to Ehingen and went to the principal, one of them saying that he was a "fellow-countryman" of Clement's, and the other that he sustained the same mysterious relation to Ivo, and so on: the principal allowed the "countrymen" to make a half-holiday of it: they would saunter to the next village, and there, with festive songs and over the social glass, Ivo exchanged many a pledge of good-fellowship with the Protestant conventuaries. Neither they nor he were free,--although the Blaubeuren men had one or two immunities more than the others.

The time of student-life stood before the eyes of all these youths much like a taper-girt Christmas-tree before the visions of a German baby: they stretched out their hands impatiently to grasp the gilded nuts suspended from the boughs; and, though their clerical vocation was destined to cut down much of the liberties to which they looked forward, yet even what remained was far too slow in coming.

At last autumn set in. On the eve of their departure, Ivo and Clement went to the hawthorn where their friendship took its rise, and each of them broke off a twig and set it in his cap: then, taking each other's hand, they renewed their vow of eternal devotion. Ivo also promised to pay Clement a visit at Crailsheim during the holidays.

To quit a place of long abode, whether we have been happy or unhappy in living there, is always attended with regret: the mantle of the past drops away, and we know that we shall never return to the spot the same as we leave it: these houses, these gardens, and these streets are the birthplaces of a lot in life. Here the friends had first met, here their minds had risen to heights unthought of before, and here they separated with heartfelt sorrow. They vowed that in old age they would travel hither again and seek out the silent playgrounds of their youthful thoughts.

10.
A MEETING.

Having rested but a few days at Nordstetten, Ivo set out to visit his friend, whose home was at the other end of Wurtemberg, on the borders of Franconia. This brought him for the first time to the hill-top which had occupied his thoughts on the evening before Gregory's first mass, when he had thought that from there he might climb into heaven at once. Now he knew that there is no place on earth whence the entrance into heaven is open: alas! the goal itself now eluded his sight, and he asked, hopelessly, "Whither?" He looked for heaven upon earth, and knew not how to grasp it.

In silent thought he wandered through the towns and villages, watching the busy doings of men with curious eyes: the riddle of existence became more and more inexplicable. The vintagers were out in the fields, singing songs, firing off salutes of triumph; but Ivo only asked, "Are you making the wine which shall turn into blood?"

On the evening of the third day he was wandering toward the good town of Schwaebisch-Hall, in a bright sunset, just as that had been which he had seen in the field with Nat. He stood still, and thought sadly of the humble friend he had lost forever. His eyes fell upon a shepherd who stood with his back to the road, leaning upon his staff and looking into the fire of the sky. He sang,--

"Up yonder, up yonder,
At the heavenly gate,
A poor soul is standing
In sorrowful strait."

Something like a thrill of premonition passed through Ivo's veins: he ran into the field to ask the shepherd how far it was to Hall. The dog barked at him, and the shepherd turned round, saying, "Be quiet, Bless." With a cry of "Is it you?" Ivo lay in the arms of Nat.

There was no end of questions and answers. Late in the evening Ivo said, "Oh, I must go already; I must see to get a night's lodging somewhere."

"Why?" asked Nat, pointing to his red van: "don't you like the Red Cart Hotel? Stay with me; I'll huddle into one corner, and you shall sleep well enough; or, if you'd rather, I'll stay up all night: there's a beautiful star going to rise at two o'clock."

Ivo was quite ready to sleep with Nat.

"Are you hungry?" inquired Nat, again. "There's a cellar to my house."

He brought bread and milk and made a little fire to warm the milk for Ivo. Then, taking away the prop by which the rear end of the van was held above ground during the day, he said, "There! now we can sleep soundly: the face must be turned toward sunrise."

It often happens that we begin to talk of the most indifferent things precisely when our minds are full of the most important matters. Ivo asked, "What do those queer characters mean, formed by the brass studs in this leather strap?"

"Those are the three great heavenly signs, and they protect the cattle against evil spirits. That's all I know about them."

As formerly in the days of childhood, Ivo sat at the field-side with Nat and partook of his frugal fare: but it was night; they were far from home, and many things had occurred in the mean time.

"How is Emmerence doing?" asked Nat.

"She is my mother's maid now."

"If you weren't going to be a parson, by George, you ought to have married her."

"So I would have done," said Ivo, with a firm voice, the darkness concealing the blush which overspread his features.

In answer to Ivo's inquiries in regard to Nat's fortunes, the latter answered, at length:--

"You're old enough now to be told all about it. Who knows whether I shall ever see you again? and I want you to hear it all from my own lips; for you're my heart's brother. I wasn't born in your parts, but on the other side of the Black Forest, toward the Rhine. As you come out of Freiburg, and go through the 'Kingdom of Heaven' and the 'Valley of Hell,' just as you get to the top of the 'Hell-Scramble' you see on your right a valley in which runs the Treisam, turning the wheels of ever so many foundries, saw-mills, and gristmills; and, if you go up the hill on the other side,--they call it the 'Wind-Corner,'--you see a great farm-house, the Beste farmer's house,--and he was my father. You may think it's a pretty fine sort of farm: it has sixty or seventy cows, and no need of buying a handful of hay.

"They don't live in villages there, as you do and as they do hereabout. Each farmer lives by himself in the midst of his own lands. The house is all made of wood: only the foundation is of stone. The windows are close to each other on the east side: a porch runs all round the house, and the roof hangs far over. It is a straw roof, which has grown gray with age, and makes the house warmer than the finest castle. If you ever can, you must go there some day, just to see where your Nat was raised. Our fields reach far up the hill and away down to the Treisam, and we had two hundred acres of woodland,--enough to cut ten thousand florins' worth of wood every year. It was glorious. Wherever you look, it's all your own, and all in apple-pie order. We were three children. I was the oldest, and I had a brother and a sister. In those parts, when the father dies or gives up farming, the farm isn't divided, but the eldest son takes it all, and the father makes an estimate how much money he ought to pay his brothers and sisters. If one of the children is dissatisfied and goes to law, the Government divides the farm. But such a thing was never done except once or twice, and never turned out well. Four hundred yards from our house, on a little patch of field, a widow had a lonely cabin, and lived there with her only daughter. They were the third generation of the descendants of younger children, and poor, very poor, but good as angels,--or, at least, I thought so. The mother was one of those lean, lank women that can always be pleasant and agreeable: as for Lizzie,--no, there wasn't a false vein about her; I will say that to my dying day. They supported themselves by making straw hats; for over there, on the other side of the mountain, in the Glotter Valley, the women-folks wear round, yellow straw hats, just as the gentlemen do in the cities, and the men wear black straw hats. A hat made by Lizzie of the Wind-Corner always sold for three groats more than another; and if a girl was ever so ugly and put one of her hats on it made her pretty. Lizzie had hands as delicate and smooth as a saint's; and yet she could work hard enough in the fields, too. When she sat at the window sewing, I often used to stand outside and watch her, and if she stuck her finger it seemed to go through all my bones. My father soon saw how matters stood between me and Lizzie, and would not hear of it; but I would sooner have died than live without Lizzie: so my father sent me away to the saw-mill. The saw-mill doesn't belong to our inheritance, but my father bought it. There I stayed; and through the week I never cast eyes on a living creature except the child that carried me my dinner and the workmen bringing down the logs and hauling off the boards. At night I used to run for miles, just to have one word with Lizzie. Then, all of a sudden, my father died, and left the whole property to my brother; and I was to have ten thousand florins, and my sister the same. You can't see ten thousand florins: it's hardly as much as you can cut timber for in a year. My sister married a watchmaker in Naustadt. I was wild with rage, and said I wouldn't go out of the house: I would go to law. One night I went over to Lizzie, and, when I looked into the window, who do you think was sitting in there, with his arm round Lizzie's waist, kissing her? My brother! And the old witch was standing beside them, smirking till her face was as long again as usual. I up and into the house, out with my knife, and my brother lay on the floor with a cut in his side,--all done before I knew where I was."

Nat sighed deeply, and was silent a long time. At last he continued:--"My brother never moved: Lizzie fell on her mother's neck, and cried, 'Oh, mother, this is your doing! Go away, Nat: I can't see you any more.'

"I ran away as if the devil was dragging me in chains, and every now and then I stopped and wished to hang myself on a tree. I met George the blacksmith, and went home with him, and hid myself in his house till the next day. A thousand times I prayed to God to take my life and save me from the guilt of my brother's death. I laid my hand on my heart, and swore from that time forth to lead a penitent life; and the Lord heard me. Next morning, very early, George the blacksmith came to the shed where I was lying buried in the hay, and said, 'Your brother is living yet, and may get well.'

"I went off over hill and dale, left every thing to my brother, and hired myself to Buchmaier as a shepherd. I did not like to be among men any more, but wanted to live alone in the fields. Singout, my dog, was my only friend. I used to tell you about him, you remember? I lost him shamefully."

Here Nat stopped again: his new dog crept to his side and looked sadly into his face, as if to show his regret that he could not compensate him for his loss.

"As I lived alone in the fields," Nat went on, "I used to study the herbs, and to gather them and make drinks of them: once in winter one of the hands at Buchmaier's had the ague so badly that it almost shook him out of his bed; and I helped him. From that time on the people in the neighborhood used to come to me whenever one of them was sick, and made me give them a drink. Do you remember the time you came home sick from the fields? Then I helped you too, and that was the first time afterward that I gave any thing to anybody. The doctor heard of it that time and complained of me at court. Then I received a notice to do no more quackery, on pain of great punishment. After that I never listened to anybody's begging or crying.

"Something happened about that time: you can't remember it; you were too little. Dick, who lives out in one of the houses off the main street of the village, had two sons. One was like a count: he was with the Guard in Stuttgard, and was home on furlough. His best friend was his younger brother,--a wild, half-grown boy whom they called Joachim. The guardsman went to see pretty Walpurgia the seamstress: you know her, I guess, she has such a white, delicate face, and always runs about in slippers: but she had another lover besides, from Betra. Dick's boys, the two brothers, once lay in wait for this chap to give him a good drubbing; but the Betra boy held his own: so little Joachim takes out his knife, makes a stab at him, and stabs his brother through the body.

"I was lying in my shepherd's van, and suddenly I heard people crying and calling. I got up, and there was a crowd of men, and Joachim among them, all begging me to do something for the wounded man. All this made me think of that awful night at home: Walpurgia even looked a little like Lizzie; and, in short, I let little Jake mind the sheep, and went with them. As I saw the guardsman lying at the point of death, my heart seemed to turn within me. I cried like a child, and people praised my good heart: they didn't know what was the matter with me, and I couldn't tell them. I gave the guardsman a drink to keep off mortification; but afterward the doctors got at him, and he died after all. In short, they locked me up and put me in the penitentiary for a year. Joachim got into the penitentiary too. He was bad, and tried for a long time to put all the blame on the Betra man; but at last it was proved that it was nobody but him. Brother-heart," said Nat, taking Ivo's hand, "what I suffered in the penitentiary is more than can be told; you couldn't find worse company in hell itself. But I bore it all willingly, and thought it was a chastisement for my past life.

"Once I made shrift to the parson, and told him all about it. He said that I had done the greatest wrong in not getting all the property into the hands of the Church. I would rather be torn to pieces than go to a confessional again after that. When I got out of prison, my first thought was to find Singout again: Dick had taken charge of him. They told me that after I was gone the dog had gone mad, and they had knocked him on the head. Dick's people would have liked to keep me, but their household was all out of gear: the mother didn't gee daylight for a year, and only at night she took a lantern and went to pray on John's grave. She wore black all her life, as you may remember. As I was going out of the village again alone, and without even my dog, your mother met me. She know I wasn't bad, though I had been in the workhouse: and in this way I came to work in your father's house. I would not be a shepherd any more. I wanted to live among men. What happened afterward you know. I have a good place again now, on the Deurer farm here; but yet I always feel as if I ought to go back to my brother, and as if my penitence wasn't of the right kind until I took service in his house."

Nat paused, and pressed his hands to his eyes. Ivo said, "You ought to go into a monastery and be a monk; that would be the real thing for you."

"A priest!" said Nat, with more severity than was usual to him. "I'd rather have my hand cut off. To live on piety is poor fare. Don't take offence at my silly talk: I am a stupid fellow. You are going to be a parson, and you are right: your heart is pure. But come," he said, looking up to the stars, "it is near eleven o'clock: let's go to sleep."

With much agitation of mind, Ivo took his place beside Nat in the van.

"Do tell me," said Nat, "you've got learning: how is it that love brings all the trouble on men that they have? Wouldn't it be better if there were no such thing?"

Ivo was puzzled: it was a subject on which he had never reflected. In a sleepy tone he answered, "It comes from the fall,--from original sin. I will think about it, though. Good-night."

Ivo's weary soul and jaded body fell an easy prey to the advances of sleep. When he awoke next morning all yesterday had turned into a dream. Nat was gone from his side; and, when he looked out of the van, the shepherd stood whistling by his sheep.

After a simple morning relish the two friends separated, and Nat cried after Ivo, "If you ever go to Freiburg, come to the Beste farmer's: there you'll find me."

Ivo spent some happy days with Clement. Once only he shook his head at his young friend. He had told him of his meeting with Nat, when Clement exclaimed, "Thunder and Doria! what a magnificent adventure! You are a child of fortune, and I envy you. It is a fine piece of the terrible, that story of the serving-man: a ghost or a spook is all that is wanting."

Ivo could not understand how the hard realities of human fortune could be abused as footballs for the diversion of overheated imaginations.

11.
THE COLLEGE.

Without the escort of any of his family, Ivo went to his new place of abode. He had outgrown the ties of family, and went his way independent of them. The good city of Tuebingen seemed to smile upon him. He dreamed of the delights which awaited him there, although he well knew that a cloister-life, with only some partial alleviations, was all he had to hope.

The life of free science was now within his reach. He attended various philosophical lectures; but, in the recesses of his mind, all he heard assumed a theological, or, more strictly speaking, a Catholic signification. The drowsy lucubrations of the old professors, who seemed to be planting definitions like dry posts, idly imagining that they would bear fruits and flowers, were not calculated to raise his mind to the heights of science whence the structures of theology are seen in their circumscribed and confined positions.

He attached himself more closely than ever to Clement, with whom he was now privileged to take a daily walk without supervision. Other acquaintances turned up also: among the rest, the sons of the President-Judge. They were condescending. Their father had become Government-Councillor, and had received the order of merit: he was "Von Rellings." Although this did not ennoble the sons, they courted the society of the nobility, and were especially devoted to the son of a mediatized prince then studying at Tuebingen. Ivo met them one day as they were riding out with their noble companion. He ran up to them and held out his hand; but, as they had the whip and reins to hold, they could only give him one of their fingers. With an encouraging nod the elder said,--

"Ah! you've come here too, have you? Glad to see it."

And, putting spurs to their horses, they rode away. Ivo remembered the day on which he had walked with them through the village, and regarded the treatment he now received as a well-deserved punishment for his then vain-glory. Just as he had then superciliously acknowledged the salutations of the passing peasants, so the Rellingses now gave him the go-by to devote themselves to their illustrious acquaintance. Thus Ivo met with the rare mischance of finding the differences of station to intrude themselves even into the charmed circle of his university life; for in general this is the very point where alone these subdivisions are forgotten, and where young minds mingle untrammelled by any thing unconnected with their natural gifts and tendencies.