Chapter IX: Part 9

Another old acquaintance who greatly affected Ivo's companionship was Constantine. He knew every thing but what he ought to have studied: how to skulk the recitation and gain an hour for the tavern; how to get a free evening and join a gay carouse: all his efforts were for a time directed to the noble task of converting the new "freshmen" into well-seasoned sophomores. With Ivo he succeeded but indifferently; but Clement was doubly tractable: his adventurous spirit found in such pranks its most acceptable field of action. To let himself down from a window by a rope of handkerchiefs tied together, to sing and yowl in the taverns, then to go roystering through the streets, and finally to return to the cloister with double risk of detection, was the dearest joy of his heart. He knew not whether most to enjoy the pleasure of giving vent to all the wild fancies that were in him, or the satisfaction of setting the laws at defiance.

Though Ivo frequently admonished Clement to think more of the future, yet once he was persuaded to join in one of these nightly excursions himself. They were, as Constantine phrased it, "hard as bricks," wore many-colored caps, and Ivo was the noisiest of them all. But just this time they were caught in returning, and Ivo had to expiate his sins for several days in the "carcer."

Constantine was delighted to find that his friend had so thoroughly "seen the ropes." He often said, "You'll never see me a parson: the shears are not sharpened that will shave my head; only I must wait for something first." At another time he cried, "If you were the right sort of fellows we'd all make an agreement to leave the cloister, every one of us, and let the Lord see how to get through with his vineyard by himself. I don't see why that shouldn't do as well, anyhow."

"What do you mean to be?" asked Ivo, who was blushing up to the eyes at this ungodly speech.

"Just a Nordstetten farmer, and nothing more."

"To say the truth, I should like that best myself; but it is not to be."

"I'm going to make it be if you'll just wait a little," said Constantine.

Many of the college-men received visits from their parents, who were generally peasants and came in their ordinary costume, sometimes but meanly clad. It pained Ivo to see that the students were generally ashamed of their parents and disliked going out with them. When his mother came, he walked hand in hand with her through the town and never left her all day.

One February morning Constantine came to Ivo's room, which still wore the appellation of "Zion" conferred upon it in more religious times. Taking from his pocket a bunch of artificial flowers tied with red ribbons, he said, "This is what Hannah of the Hauffer has sent me. I am a recruit: I should have come out this year, but have drawn a clear ticket. And now, hurrah! I'm going out of the convent."

"How so?"

"Why, you lambkin pure as snow once followed to the pasture, I'll tell you how so; but, on your drinking-oath, you must swear to let nobody know it. If I were to leave of my own accord, I should have to pay my board and lodging and be a soldier: now I am free from the latter, and, if I manage to get myself expelled from this Wallachian hostelry, I shall have nothing to pay; as for the principal, I've an extra plum or two for him."

He stuck the red-ribbon bunch into his hat and walked swaggeringly across the convent-yard. He did not return all day, but occupied himself with the other students who had been drawn as recruits that year in walking arm in arm across the market-place with them, and singing, drinking, and shouting everywhere. Late at night he came home, and was immediately summoned into the awful presence of the principal.

That august personage was alone. Constantine remained near the door, holding the latch behind him with both his hands. The principal stepped toward him with a volley of denunciations. Constantine laughed, stumbled forward, and trod so heavily on the principal's toes that he screamed with pain and intensified his epithets; but Constantine continued to advance upon him, and backed him round the room without mercy. The poor principal seized the only chair in the room and attempted to make a shield of it; but Constantine only pressed him the harder, and drove him from side to side, crying, "Ya, hupp!" like the ring-master of a circus. At last the victim succeeded in reaching the bell-rope: the "famulus" came, and Constantine was thrown into the darkest "carcer."

For four weeks he had to languish here. When Ivo went to see him, he confessed that it was sinful to wreak his ill-will against the law upon its innocent administrator. Ivo said, justly, "It is doubly sinful. These old folks are the jailers who watch us; but they are in the prison themselves and worse off than we: the key to let them out is lost."

"Yes," said Constantine, laughing. "You know the old rhyme says,--

'England is lock'd,
And the key-hole is block'd;'--

and so I've gone to work and staved in one of the walls."

Constantine was expelled from the convent in disgrace.

When Ivo came home at Easter, Constantine gave him a hand in which three fingers were tied up. He had greatly distinguished himself in a row between the Nordstetters and Baisingers, which dated from the feud of the manor-house farmer, and a bottle had been shivered in his hand. The "college chap," as he was called, had already taken rank as the wildest scapegrace in the village. He had assumed the peasant-garb, and took a pleasure in divesting himself of every lingering trace of higher cultivation. With his two comrades--George's son Peter, and Florian, the son of a broken-down butcher--he played the wildest pranks: the three were always in league, and never admitted a fourth to fellowship with them. The behavior of Constantine toward Peter was particularly interesting. A mother's eye does not watch with more solicitude over the welfare of an ailing child--a gentle wife is not more submissive to a petulant husband--than Constantine was to Peter: he even suppressed his liking for George the saddler's Magdalene because he found Peter in love with her, and did every thing in his power to aid him. When Constantine was furious and apparently beyond all pacifying, Peter had but to say, "Please me, Constantine, and be quiet," and he was as tame and docile as a lamb.

Ivo had some difficulty in getting rid of Constantine; but at last he succeeded. He was quiet and serious: Constantine's wildest sallies failed to win a smile from him, and at last he gave himself no more trouble about the "psalm-singer."

On his return to the convent he found that a great change had gone on in Clement. He had been attached, while at home, to the daughter of the judge at whose court his father was employed, and his whole being was now in a glow of devotion. He would leave the convent and study law: he bitterly despised the ministry, and made it the object of the most vindictive sarcasms: he cursed himself and his poverty, which seemed to chain him to a hated calling: with all the irregular impetuosity of his character, he rattled unceasingly, and yet idly, at the chains which bound him. He saw nothing but slavery on every side: he walked from place to place abstractedly, pale as death, and often with gnashing teeth. With all the power of his love, Ivo strove to rescue his friend; but, soon convinced that a higher agency was at work, he contented himself with grieving for his heart's brother, whose tortures and whose frenzy he could but half appreciate. In the lectures, Clement sat staring into vacancy: while the others, with the conscienscious eagerness of German students, strove to record every word that fell from the teacher's lips, he occasionally wrote the name of Cornelia, and then crossed and recrossed it till it became illegible.

The spark of discontent which had slumbered in Ivo's heart threatened to burst into flame; but as yet the firm walls of obedience, and the habit of resignation to the dictates of fate, kept it half smothered beneath the ashes. But even here the fundamental difference in the character of the two friends displayed itself on all occasions. Clement sought amusement and noisy distractions, as means of _self-forgetfulness_; while Ivo became more and more retired and meditative, as if he knew that _knowledge of self_ was the only escape from his dilemmas. Yet, although he kept the road, he travelled but slowly. His soul was hung in sables: he was less fond of life than formerly, and often declared that he should like to die and sleep the sleep that knows not waking.

"After all," he remarked one night to Clement, who lay beside him, "the best thing in the world is a bed. A bird in a cage is to be pitied, for he doesn't rest well even when he sleeps. He sits on his perch and must hold on with his claws; so that he still has something to do, and is never perfectly at rest. So, too, man does not rest well when he sits; for he must always exert some of his muscles to keep himself upright: it is only when he lies down that all exertion is dissolved and every muscle relieved of its strain. That is the reason birds are so fond of their nests and men of their beds.

"Plato calls man a featherless biped: never mind; he decks himself with borrowed feathers.

"Nat once told me that if you cage a bird of prey in a mill, where he cannot sleep, you can make him as tame as a sucking dove: that is just like the tyrant we used to read about at Ehingen, who had his prisoners waked out of sleep every hour of their lives. How ingenious men are in devising tortures! When it comes to giving pleasure, their wits are far less ready. The greatest miracles, in my eyes, were the saints of the pillars, who never sat down. That is the quintessence of self-denial. Just think of standing all one's life, until one's feet gather fur on them! 'Thank the Lord for a soft nest, a good rest, and a quick zest,' is what they taught us to say at home."

Clement listened to this dissertation in silence, only murmuring "Cornelia" from time to time. Ivo fell soundly asleep.

The world-spirit looks down at night upon convents and weeps with averted face.

At the last stroke of eleven Clement glided into the convent-yard. It was a balmy night in summer: a thunderstorm had rent the clouds, and their shattered masses still lingered in mid-air, now veiling, now releasing, the beams of the full moon. Clement knelt and cried, trembling and wringing his hands, "Devil! Beelzebub! Ruler of Hell! Appear and bestow thy treasures upon me, and my soul is thine! Appear! Appear!"

He listened with bated breath, but all was silent: nothing stirred, and nothing was audible but the distant baying of a watch-dog. Clement long remained cowering on the ground: at length, seeing and hearing nothing, he returned shivering to his bed.

Next day he sat at his desk pale and haggard. The black characters in his open book seemed to crawl around each other like snakes before his jaundiced eye. A letter was brought him. He had hardly read it when he sank fainting from his chair. An engagement-card slipped from his hand, on which was engraved "Cornelia Mueller and Herman Adam, betrothed." He was carried to his bed, where Ivo waited, trembling and in tears, until his friend drew breath again. A fever now ensued, in which Clement's teeth chattered and his frame writhed with convulsive starts. For three days he was delirious. He spoke of the devil, and barked like a dog: once only he said, gently closing his eyes, "Good-night, Cornelia." Ivo read the letter, as the footing upon which he and Clement stood fully justified him in doing; and here, at last, he found a slight clue to the jumble of occurrences which bewildered him. A wealthy uncle of Clement's mother had died, leaving her all his property: the brightest prospects opened to the future of the family. Ivo rarely left his friend's bedside, and, when compelled to do so, Bart usually took his place.

It was a painful duty. Clement generally brooded in a half-doze, with his eyes open, but apparently seeing nothing. He would ask Ivo to lay his hand upon his burning forehead, and then, closing his eyes, he said, "Ah!" as if the touch had expelled torturing spirits from the narrow tenement of his brain. At times he started up and furiously denounced the world and its heartlessness. If Ivo undertook to pacify him, he only turned his wrath against the comforter, struck at him with trembling hands, and cried, "You heartless loon, you can torture me, eh?"

Ivo bore all this calmly, though with tears. Sometimes he even experienced a sort of inward satisfaction at the thought that he was favored to suffer in the cause of friendship.

When Clement awoke on the fourth day, it seemed as if, somewhere in the infinity of space, and yet very, very near to him, a niche had opened filled with light: something around him, and something from within him, cried, "Clement!" He was restored to himself. For years after he was wont to tell how at that moment God seemed to shine upon him with all the rays of His glory, and to bring him back to Him and to himself. When he had recovered his composure, he said, lifting up his hands, "I hunger after the Lord's table." Calling for the confessor, he told him all,--how he had conjured the devil to aid him, how the devil had heard his prayer and then struck him to the earth. In deep contrition, he begged for a heavy chastisement and for absolution. The confessor imposed a slight penance, and urgently exhorted him to look upon what had taken place as a warning to flee from all worldly wishes and devote himself to the service of God alone.

Could any one have observed the face of Clement as he lay with his eyes closed in faith, while the confessor spoke the benediction over him and made the sign of the cross over his body in token of the forgiveness of his sins,--could any one have watched the tension of his muscles and the pulsation of his checks,--he would have felt with Clement the happy change which was going on within him. It seemed really and truly as if the ethereal hand of God were upon him, gently luring out the burden which oppressed him, and inspiring him with a new life and a better courage.

The new Clement was a different being from the old one. He moved about noiselessly, often looking around as if in dread of something. Then again he would suddenly stand still. Ivo could not encourage him; for not even to him had Clement dared to disclose the whole enormity of his wickedness.

After the next holidays, Clement was changed again. He looked fresh and blooming as before; but fires of a mysterious import darted from his eyes. One day, as they walked in the little wood called the "Burgholz," he drew his friend to his breast, and said, "Ivo, thank God with me, for the Lord has given me grace. It is our fault if the Lord does not do miracles in us, because we do not purify ourselves to be the vessels of his inscrutable will. I have made a vow to be a missionary and to announce to the heathen the salvation of the world. I have seen her again who stole my soul from the Lord; but in the midst of my gazes the world vanished from my eyes, the All-Merciful laid his hand upon me and gave me peace. I was drawn up into a mountain. There I sat until the sun went down and the night came on. All around was still and dead. Suddenly, afar off in the woods. I heard the voice of a boy singing, but not in earthly tones,--

"'Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.'

"I knelt down, and the Lord heard my vow. My heart was no longer in my flesh: I held it in my hand. Kissing the rock beneath and the tree beside me, I inhaled the Spirit of God from them: I heard the leaves rustle and the clefts wail in whispered sorrow, weeping and yearning for the day when the cross shall be erected as the tree of life, standing aloft between earth and heaven, when the Lord shall appear and the world be saved,--when the rocks shall bound, and the trees sing songs of joy."

Falling on his knees, Clement continued:--"Lord, Lord, be gracious unto me! lay thy words upon my tongue, make me worthy to feel the love of the seraphs; pour out thy goodness richly over the brother of my heart; crush him; let him feel the swords which have pierced thy breast, and which rend the heart of the world. I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast wedded me unto holy poverty: yea, I will devote myself wholly to the bliss of the folly that is in thee, and will suffer men to revile and persecute me until the tenement of my body shall be taken away, until I shall have outlived the corruption of this life. Lord, thou had made me rich that I may be as one of the poor. Blessed are the poor! Blessed are the sick!"

Kissing the feet of his friend, he remained prostrate for a long time, with his head pressed upon the earth: then he rose, and both went home in silence.

A nameless fear agitated the mind of Ivo: he felt the fulness of the self-sacrifice to which Clement had given himself; but he saw also its dreadful aberration: a sword pierced his heart.

He willingly followed his friend into the nocturnal regions of man's feeling and thought: it seemed a duty to keep him company and be at hand to aid him.

The lives of the saints were the first object of their studies. Once Ivo said, "I am rejoiced to see that revelation is still upon its march through the haunts of men; saints arise wherever the Lord has revealed himself and thereby imparted his wonder-working power, and whoso truly sanctifies himself may hope to be favored in like kind. Nowadays every town has once more its true patron saint, as of old, among the Greeks, its false tutelary deity. God is personally near us everywhere."

Clement, without answering, kissed Ivo's forehead. Presently, however, he spoke warmly of the heroes who with empty hand had conquered the world.

The life of St. Francis of Assisi enlisted their special interest: the story of his conversion from the stormy life of the world, and the manner in which he first cured a leper with a kiss, was particularly attractive to Clement. Ivo was pleased by the childlike harmony of the holy man with nature, and by his miraculous power over it; how he preached to the birds, and called upon them to sing the glory of God; how they listened devoutly until he had made the sign of the cross over them and blessed them, and how then they broke into a sounding chorus; how he contended in song with a nightingale for the honor of God until midnight, and how at last, when he was silent from fatigue, the bird flew upon his hand to receive his blessing. Whenever he read of the lamb rescued by the saint from slaughter, which always kneeled down during the singing of the choir, Ivo thought fondly of his Brindle.

On reading that the saint was so highly favored as miraculously to experience in his own body the wounds of Christ, the pierced hands and feet, and the thrust of the lance in his side, Clement wept aloud. He repeated his vow to become a Franciscan monk, and called upon Ivo to do the same, so that, according to the rules of the Order, they might walk about the world together, courting tortures and troubles and living upon alms.

With insatiable thirst Clement drank of the streams of mysticism and hurried his friend along with him.

12.
THE COLLEGE CHAP.

In the holidays Ivo was again powerfully attracted to the realities of life. It was not so easy then to exclude the doings of the outer world, and wrap oneself up into self-suggested thoughts and feelings. Such exaltations are, in fact, only feasible outside of the family circle, and therefore outside of the sphere of real life. Scarcely had he returned to the village, when the family ties once more asserted their claims, and the manifold and interlaced fates and fortunes of the villagers forced themselves upon his interest and sympathy. He knew what lived and moved behind all their walls. He awoke to his former life as from a dream.

One evening he met Constantine standing before his house, chewing a straw and looking sullen.

"What's the matter?" asked Ivo.

"Pshaw! Nothing you can do any good to."

"Well, you'd better tell me."

"You've no taste for the world, and can't understand it. Whitsuntide is almost come, and then there's the bel-wether dance, and I haven't a sweetheart. I might have had one, but I was too saucy; and yet I don't want any other, and I'd be unconscionably mad if she were to take up with some one else. Such a bel-wether dance as this will be I would'nt give a copper for."

"Who is the proud beauty?"

"You know her well enough: Emmerence?"

Ivo barely repressed a start. He asked, quickly,--

"Have you gone with her long?"

"Why, that's what I'm telling you. She won't look at me. She's just as prudish and coy as a Diana."

"Do you mean to act fairly by her, and marry her?"

"What? Fairly? Of course. But I can't talk about marrying yet. Don't you know the old student-song?--

"I will love thee, I will love thee;
But to marry, but to marry,
Is far, far, far, far above me."

"Then I must agree with Emmerence."

"Fiddle! No offence, but you don't know any thing about it. These girls must be content just to get sweethearts like me. The squire's Babbett would stretch out her ten fingers to get hold of me: but she couldn't represent the Church any more, as at Gregory's first mass, and I don't want her."

During this colloquy Peter and Florian had come up to where they were standing.

"Ah!" said the latter, "does the doctor give us the light of his countenance? I thought the like of us weren't worth his while to waste words in talking to."

"Yes," added Peter; "all the boys in the village say that the like of you was never seen, Ivo. You behave as if you were born in Stuttgard and not in Nordstetten."

"My goodness!" said poor Ivo, thus beset on all sides, "I never thought of such a thing as being proud. Come; let's go get a drink."

"That's the way to talk," said Florian. "It's my blowout, for I am going off to-morrow."

The villagers opened their eyes at seeing Ivo passing through the street in company with the trio. It was an extraordinary quartette.

"Have we so much honor?" said the hostess of the Eagle, as Ivo entered with the others. "I'll put a candle into the back-room right-away. What'll you have? A stoup from the other side the Rhine?"

"We'll stick to Wurtemberg for the present," said Constantine, "and Ivo is going to drink with us. He's a Nordstetten boy, like ourselves."

"Not like you for good luck," replied the hostess.

"I'll give you a riddle, you chatter-box: why are women like geese?" retorted Constantine.

"Because such gooseheads as you want to rule 'em," answered the hostess.

"Babbett, just you be glad stupidity isn't heavy to carry, or you'd 'a' been laid up this many a year. I'll tell you why they're like. Geese and women are first-rate, all except their bills. Go get us a quart of sixen."

"You're not good for a creutzer," said the hostess, laughing, as she went to execute the order. We have perhaps already recognised her as the Babbett who played a part in the story of the gamekeeper of Muehringen. Caspar had bought the Eagle; and Babbett was an excellent hostess. She could entertain all the guests, and had an answer ready for every question and a retort for every sally. The "gentlemen" no longer confined their custom to the Dipper, but now honored the Eagle with their visits likewise.

When all had "wetted their whistle," Florian began the song--

"A child of freshest clay
Doth at our table stay:
Hey! Hey!"--

with which students usually welcome a new arrival. This was followed by

"Ca, Ca! be merry,"

in which the words

"Edite, bibite"

had been paraphrased into "eating it, beating it." This introduction of university civilization into the retreats of village life was the work of Constantine. The boys were very proud of their new songs. Ivo joined in, lest he should appear "stuck up."

The three comrades were well drilled. Peter sang the air; and, though he had a fine voice, he spoiled it by bawling,--for peasants when they sing, and parsons when they preach, are equally apt to suppose that an overstrained voice is more beautiful and impressive than a natural one. Constantine always moved up and down as he sang, clenching his fists and buffeting the air. Florian rested his elbows on the table and sang with closed eyes, to exclude all outside distraction.

The first pint having been despatched in short order, the college chap cried, "Babbett, one more of them: it takes two legs to walk on," and then sang,--

"Wine, ho! Wine, ho!
Or I'll stagger to and fro.
I won't stagger, and I can't stand,
And I won't be a Lutherand.
Wine, ho! Wine, ho!
Or I'll stagger so."

Then, without a pause, he sang again:--

"She I don't want to see,
She's every day with me;
And she I love so dear,
She's far away from here.

"Can't get a pretty one,
Won't take a homely one;
Must have some sort o' one:
What shall I do?"

"Why, Constantine, are you so smart at Polish begging?" asked Babbett. "Is it true that Emmerence sent you next door with a 'God help you'?"

"I'll bet you three pints of the best that she'll go to the bel-wether dance with me, and with nobody else."

Florian sang,--

"Fret for a pretty girl?
That would be a shame:
Turn to the next one,
And ask for her name."

Peter fell in:--

"If I have no sweetheart,
I live without distress;
There's morning every day,
And evening no less."

Constantine sang,--

"When it snows the snow is white,
And when it freezes the frost is bright;
What noodles do with fear and fright
I do with all my might."

Florian began:--

"It's just a week to-day, to-day,
My sweetheart told me to go away:
She cried, and she sobb'd,
But I was gay."

And

"Three weeks before Easter
The snow will be flush,
My girl will be married,
And I in the slush."

"That's not the way," said Constantine: "turn round the handle:"--

"Three weeks before Easter,
There'll be slush in the snow:
The jade will be married
And I'll courting go."

Laughter and applause from all sides of the room were the reward of this poetic effort. Peter then struck up:--

"Sweetheart, you thief,
You're all my grief;
And while I live,
No comfort you'll give."

And

"If I but knew
Where my sweetheart has gone,
My heart wouldn't be
Half so weary and lone."

Florian sang again:--

"If you would live like a little bird,
And have no cares to shend ye;
Just marry, till the summer's round,
Whome'er the spring may send ye."

Constantine sang again:--

"I come to see you;
It pleased me to come;
But I won't come any longer:
It's too far from home.

"It wouldn't be too far,
And it wouldn't be too rough,
But, just understand,
You're not near good enough."

Ivo sat at the table, absorbed in unpleasant reflections. He called to mind how at this hour he was usually to be found at his solitary lamp, struggling to penetrate the mysteries of creation and redemption,--how far he was then removed from all the doings of men, from all the wishes and aims of individuals; and he contrasted all this with what he now saw of the life led by his natural comrades in age and station. The nucleus of all their thoughts and actions was love, whether they made it the subject of wanton jibes or of strains of tender longing. Once more existence lay before him, severed, as by a sharp steel, into two irreconcilable halves,--the secular and the ecclesiastical. Babbett, who had watched him closely, had not failed to perceive the irksome twitches of the muscles of his face: she now approached the singers, saying,--

"Why, a'n't you ashamed of yourselves? Can't you sing a single decent song?"

Constantine replied,--

"Well, if you don't like it,
I like it the more;
And, if you can do better,
Just put in your oar."

"Yes," said Florian: "we'll sing a good song if you'll join in."

"Oh, yes, I'll join in."

"What shall it be?" asked Peter.

"'Honest and true.'"

"'Is my wealth and my store'? no, I don't like that," said Constantine.

"Well, then, 'Ere the morning dew was wasted.'"

"Yes." Babbett sang lustily, and the others fell in:--

"Ere the morning dew was wasted,
Ere the night-blown grass was shrunk,
Ere another's eye had tasted,
On my love mine eyes were sunk.

"Shoot the fox and rabbit early,
Ere they travel in the wood;
Love the girls ere they grow surly,
Or forget how to be wooed.

"Till with vines the millstone teemeth,
And the mill-race runs with wine,
While life's current in us streameth,
Thou art mine and I am thine."

Ivo thanked Babbett warmly for the pretty song; but Constantine immediately followed it up with

"I'm as poor as a mouse:
There's no door to my house,
There's no lock to my door,
And I've no sweetheart more.

"It's all up with me
Over land and sea:
When the Danube dries up
Our wedding shall be.

"And it will not dry up,
And is wet to this day;
To find another sweetheart
I must up and away."

"Now let's have 'A boy he would a walking go,'" said Babbett.

"Keep your boy at home," replied Constantine.

"Oh, you! If you'd been kept at home, they wouldn't have turned you out like a dog in the wrong kennel."

"Strike up," said Florian; and they sang:--

"Blithe let me be,
If 'tis but well with thee,
Although my youth and freshness
Must wither hopelessly.

"No streamlet on the hill-side
But finds its course to run;
But not a hand to open
My pathway to the sun.

"The sun, the moon, the stars,
And all the firmament,
Shall hang in mourning for me
Till my long night be spent."

Ivo fidgeted in his chair: this song was the expression of his own fate.

"Don't go," said Constantine, perceiving his uneasiness.

"Babbett, you don't do like the host at Cana: you give the good wine first and the bad afterward. You've brought Lutheran and Catholic wine together: that'll be a mixed marriage."

"'When the mice have had enough, the flour is bitter,'" answered the hostess.

"'Tell you what," cried Constantine; "we'll drink hot wine now."

"You've had enough for to-day," said Barbara.

"What we can't drink we can pour into our shoes. Let's make a night of it. Are you for it?--and you? and you?"

Every one nodded, and sang,--

"Brothers, let's go it
And drink while we're young;
Age will come quickly
And dry up the tongue.
For the gentle wine
Was made for good fellows:
Brothers, be mellow,
And drink the good wine."

The "warm wine" which was brought would have provoked a smile from any American or English boon companion. It bore about the same relation to mulled wine which water-gruel has to pepper-pot. The heat it had received from the fire was counterbalanced by the infusion of water until a child might have fattened upon it unharmed. But Germans can sing more drinking-songs over a cup of vinegar than would be heard in an American bar-room where brandy enough has been swallowed to account for a dozen murders.

Constantine welcomed the arrival of the beverage with a song, which he accompanied with his fists on the table:--

"I and my old wife,
We go the whole figure;
She carries the beggar's pouch,
And I sing the jigger.
Bring some Bavarian beer;
Let's be Bavarians here;
Bavarians, Bavarians let us be here.

"She's gone to town to beg,
I wait and snicker;
What she'll bring back with her
I'll spend for liquor.
Bring some Bavarian beer," &c.

It grew late. A boy had brought Ivo the key to his father's house. The beadle had come to announce the hour for silence, but Constantine quieted him with a glass of wine: the same deep artifice succeeded with the watchman, who came an hour later. Constantine began to mimic the professors and boast of his student's pranks. Ivo rose to go. The others tried to hold him, but Constantine made room for him: in Ivo's absence there was nothing to interfere with his making himself the hero of the adventures of other students. He called after him, however, to "take the room-door into bed with him;" but Ivo did not hear it, for he was already in the open air.

The soft light of the summer moon was poured over the land, and seemed to strew the earth with calm and quiet. Ivo frequently stood still, laid his hand on his beating breast, and took off his cap to permit the gentle gales to fan him. When, at home, he undertook to undress himself, he felt doubly how his quick pulses were chasing each other: he left the house once more, therefore, to find refreshment in the peaceful silence of night. He walked along the highroad and across the fields: he was happy, he knew not why; he could have walked on forever: with his heart beating joyfully, the love of life was revived in him, and carried him aloft over the lovely, peaceful earth. Having returned home at last, he saw that the door of the first-floor chamber was open. Almost unconsciously, he entered, and stood spell-bound; for there lay Emmerence. The moon shone on her face: her head lay under her right arm, and her left hand rested on the frame. Ivo's breast heaved: he trembled from head to foot; he knew not what befell him; but he bent over Emmerence and kissed her cheek, almost as gently as the moonbeam itself. Emmerence seemed to feel it, for, turning upon her side, she murmured, "A cat, cat, cat." He waited a while to see if she would wake. But she slept on, and the august stillness recalled him to himself. Striking his forehead, he left the room. Arrived at his own bedside, he threw himself upon the floor, and, torturing his inmost soul, he cried, "God forgive me! let me die! I have sinned! I am a castaway, a villain! Lord God, stretch out thy right hand and crush me!"

Shivering with cold, he awoke, and found it broad day. He crept into his bed. His mother brought him coffee, found him looking very ill, and urged him not to get up; but he would not be dissuaded, for he had made up his mind to go to church that morning.

In passing the stable he heard Emmerence singing within:--

"No house to live,
No farm to tend,
No gauds to give,
No money to lend,
And such a lassie
As I am
Will never find a friend."

"What makes you so down-hearted?" Ivo could not refrain from asking. "Didn't you sleep well?"

"I don't know any thing about sleeping well or ill. I am tired when I go to bed, and my eyes shut. I just happened to think of the song, and so I sang it."

"You needn't deny it: you would like to have Constantine for your sweetheart, wouldn't you?"

"Him! I'd rather take the French simpleton, or Blind Conrad: I've no mind to make up the balance of his half-dozen. I don't want any sweetheart: I am going to remain single."

"That's what all the girls say."

"You shall see whether I am in earnest about it or not."

"But if you can get a good husband you oughtn't to be too dainty."

"What could I get? Some old widower who has furnished the gravedigger with two or three wives already. No! whenever I can't stay in your house any more, my mind's made up: I promised Mag when she went away to go to America. But I'm so glad to see you care about what's to become of me: sure, if you _are_ going to be a clergyman, that's no reason why you should never look after your old friends."

"I should like nothing better than to do something for your comfort and happiness in the world."

Emmerence looked at him with beaming eyes. "That's what I always said," cried she: "I knew you were good, and I never would believe you were proud. Ask your mother: we talk of you often and often. Don't your ears ever tingle?"

Thus they chatted for some time. Emmerence told him that she read his letters to his mother, and that she almost knew them by heart. Ivo thought it his duty to say that he too had not forgotten her, and that he hoped she would always be good and pious. He said this with a great effort of self-command, for the girl's warm-hearted candor had made a great impression upon him.

The church-bell rang, and some old women who passed with their prayer-books under their arms made Ivo aware that he was too late for matins.

"Where are you going to work to-day?" he asked, before leaving.

"Out by the pond."

He went into the fields, but in the opposite direction: a violent yearning drew him toward the spot where he knew Emmerence to be; but he only walked the faster, to suppress the cry of his heart. At length he returned home and took up a book; but he could not rivet his thoughts to the subject. He began a letter to Clement, intending to pour out his heart to his friend; but he soon tore it up, and consoled himself with the reflection that he would soon see Clement again.

Contrary to all his former habits, Ivo was now rarely at home. He frequently spent half a day at a time in Jacob's smithy. Smithies in Germany, as here, are the resorts of various drones, old men, and idlers: wagoners from a distance, and from the village, come and go, to have their horses shod or their tools or vehicles repaired. As the bellows fan the fire, so the arrivals and departures keep up the stream of conversation. Ivo often asked himself how things would have been if the wish of his early childhood had been fulfilled and he had become a blacksmith. He resolved, when in the ministry, to frequent these places and endeavor at times to edge in a wholesome word of counsel or encouragement. Sometimes the thought struck him that possibly it would not be his lot to take orders, after all. "So be it, then," he would say: "only let me never be like the 'college chap.'"

13.
DISCORD.

On his return to the convent, Ivo suffered several days to pass before informing his now pale and wasted-looking friend Clement of the emotions which had gone on within him: he had a natural dread of this disclosure.

As they walked in the Burgholz together, Clement grasped Ivo's hand and said, "I saw in a dream how Satan laid his snares to entrap you."

Ivo confessed his love for Emmerence.

"Alas!" cried Clement, "alas! you too are pursued by the tempter. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. You must trample this spark of hell-fire out of existence, though life itself should follow."

Ivo went to confession. He never disclosed the penance imposed upon him; but he agreed readily to Clement's proposal to sleep on the ground in future and to subject themselves to various deprivations. Clement always slept upon the ground in a sitting posture and with his arms spread out to represent the form of the cross.

With the whole force of his will, Ivo disengaged his thoughts from the affairs of this world, and succeeded in confining them once more to subjects of ecclesiastical learning. But a new demon soon dogged him even into the sacred precincts. He never dared to tell Clement of this last machination of the evil one; for Clement would have raised a fresh hue and cry. This made a rupture of their intimacy inevitable, and accident soon brought it about. Clement was speaking of the Godhead of Christ as manifested in his having assumed the bitterness of death upon his cross, and said that this was needed to complete the revelation of him as God and as the Savior of the world.

"I see nothing so superhuman in death upon the cross," said Ivo, very calmly. "It is holy and grand, but it is not superhuman, to die innocently in the promotion of a great cause. I should have esteemed him equally if there had been no occasion for a martyrdom to prove the truth of his divine mission, and if the blind Jews had acknowledged him without it, and had suffered him to live. Not the crucified, but the living Christ, His divine life and divine doctrines, are my salvation and my faith."

Clement stood trembling from head to foot: his lips swelled, and his eyes rolled wildly. With clenched fist he struck Ivo's face, making sparks of fire start from his eyes and causing his cheek to tingle. Ivo stood unmoved, or motionless; but Clement fell to the ground before him, seized his hand, and cried,--

"Down into the dust, forsaken one! Verily, the heaviest chastisement which could befall thy blasphemy has the Lord visited upon thee by my hand: it was not my will, but the Lord's, which hurled my arm against thee. Thou art the brother of my heart, and by me thou must be smitten; for thou must feel two-edged swords piercing thy flesh.

"If thou thrust me away, the Lord's wrath is thereby visited upon thee still more: thou shalt lose the best friend thou hast. Do what thy spirit will, put me away, and thou shalt be doubly wretched. The Lord must plunge thee into the depths of darkness, that thine eye may be opened to receive the light. He must give thee sadness to drink and gall to feed upon, until the spirit of lies shall depart and the slime of sin fall away from thee. Lord, let this offering be pleasing in thy sight: I offer thee half of my heart,--my friend. Thou art my friend, O Lord! Forgive me that my soul still clings to one who is the food of worms. Be gracious unto me, O Lord! give me the full cup of sorrow, and lead me in the thorny path to thee, thee!"

Ivo stood sadly regarding his friend, whose rashness grieved but did not surprise him. He offered to raise him up; but Clement refused, and Ivo soon saw the entire meaning of this fit of ecstasy. With a sensation of indescribable pain, he thought he saw the corpse of his friend in the place of his living body; and then again his own disembodied spirit seemed to stand before his own lifeless frame and look upon its last convulsive movements. He was giddy. He offered again to assist Clement in rising; but the latter sprang to his feet, and demanded, peremptorily,--

"Will you do penance? Will you wash the rust from your soul with tears of repentance?"

"No."

"To hell with you, then!" cried Clement, again seizing him by the throat. Ivo, however, defended himself stoutly, and the savage said, imploringly, "Smite me; tread me under foot: I will undergo all things willingly: but I must save you, for the Lord wills it."

Ivo turned on his heel without another word, and quitted his friend in silence.

For days Ivo walked about in thoughtful silence. The string of his heart which had the fullest tone was cruelly snapped asunder: he had buried the bright promise of youthful friendship. Besides, the excess of religious frenzy which he had witnessed had given fresh vitality to many half-slumbering doubts and scruples. He was "doubly wretched," as Clement had foretold; but he knew not how to help himself.

The chaplain of Horb had come to Tuebingen as a professor: he had never lost his preference for Ivo, who now sought his friendship and acquainted him with his troubles.

Strange to say, it was the Virgin Mary who had provoked his doubts especially. He first inquired "whether, as a saint, she was also omnipresent?" as he thought she ought to be, seeing that prayers were everywhere offered up to her.

The professor looked at him with some astonishment, and said, "The notion of omnipresence is a purely human one, deduced from bodily things, and, in strictness, applicable to them alone. In coupling '_omnis_' (all) with 'present' we merely seek to comprehend the totality of existence: we do not really add to the number of our ideas, though we may seem to do so. Nothing which is not earthly can become, as such, the subject of our conceptions: for the same reason, we cannot legitimately undertake to subject a spirit to the measure of what is, in fact, a merely physical standard,--that of 'presence.' We must renounce, once for all, the idea of comprehending supernatural things logically: faith is the proper organ of their function, and no other."

Ivo was entirely satisfied with this answer, and only ventured timidly to ask how the _Virgin_ Mary could be spoken of, when the Bible makes mention of brothers of Christ.

The professor answered, "The Greek word [Greek: adelphos][12] is not to be taken literally: it is an Oriental expression, taken from the Hebrew, and signifies as much as 'kinsman,' or 'friend.'"

"Then I suppose the expression [Greek: huios theou][13] is not to be taken literally either, but is also an Oriental expression?"

"By no means! Such an idea is at once repelled by the Messianic passages of the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the tenets of the Church. And, besides," added he, watching Ivo's features narrowly, "the incarnation of God has no other purpose than to give a hold to our human faculties, because, as I said before, we can form no conception of that which is not earthly: its essence is and must remain a mystery, which we can do nothing but believe in, and faith will be given you, if you take pains to keep your soul pure, childlike, and innocent."

"But that is not so easy," said Ivo, with some timidity.

"I will give you some advice which is founded on experience," answered the professor, laying his hand upon Ivo's shoulder: "as often as a thought arises within you which threatens to drift you away from the moorings of faith, banish it immediately by prayer and study, and do not suffer it to abide in your heart. We stand with our God much as we do with our friends: once estranged from them, it is not an easy matter to revive the old affection."

The advice and the illustration made a great impression on Ivo; but they came too late.

It must not be supposed, however, that inquiries of this kind carried Ivo out of the pale of the Church, and to the furthermost bounds of thought. He remained a believing spirit: he was firmly convinced of the reality of the miraculous: and only the soul which holds fast to this conviction is really within the pale prescribed for the genuine Churchman: faith is the surrender of the mind to the inexplicable, to a miracle.

His distaste to a clerical life was caused, in a far greater degree, by other considerations, which now pressed upon him with increasing vividness: he longed for a life of active energy. An early chain of reflections which had first manifested itself to his consciousness at Ehingen once more appeared on the surface of his thoughts. "Not the hard drudgery of hands," said he to himself, "is the punishment of sin; but, because mankind have once tasted of the tree of knowledge, they are now condemned everlastingly to seek it, without ever enjoying it to repletion. In the sweat of their brows they seek food for their minds: the dry rustling leaves of books are the foliage under which the fruit of knowledge is supposed to be concealed. Happy he to whom the Christmas-tree, with its tapers lighted by unseen hands, has proved this better tree of knowledge. Labor, Labor! Only the beast lives without labor: it goes forth to seek its food without preparing it: man, on the contrary, mingles his powers with the generative forces of mother earth, lends his aid to the activity of the universe, and thus the blessings of labor, rest, and peace of soul, fall to his share. Blind Roman, how vapid was your motto, that life is warfare! how tawdry the triumphs you held over subjugated brethren! Life is labor. True, even that is a strife with the silent forces of nature; but it is a strife of freedom, of love, which renovates the world. The stone's obduracy yields to the chisel's industry, and helps to form the shelter of the homestead. And more than all let me praise thee, tiller of the soil! Into the furrowed wounds of the earth thou strewest sevenfold life. The heart glows, the spirit moves, in thee. And as we subjugate the earth and make it serve us, so also we learn to govern and guide the earthly portion of our own natures; and as we wait for rain and sunshine from above to make our work take root and flourish, so it is thy will, O God, to pour out thy grace over us, to make the seed sown in our spirits to thrive and sanctify our bodies. Give me, O Lord, a little speck of earth, and I will plough it seven times over, so that its hidden juices may sprout forth in blades which bow their heads before the breath of thy mouth: I will raise the warts of my hands aloft to praise thee, until thou shalt draw me up into thy kingdom."

"I should like well enough," he once said to himself, "to be a parson on Sunday; but to spend a whole week occupied with nothing but the Lord and the nothing we know about him,--to be as much at home in the church as in one's bedroom,--why, that is to have no church and no Sunday at all. Oh, heavens! how happy was I when I used to go to church of a Sunday and say, 'Good-morning, God!' The sun shone more brightly, the houses looked better, and all the world was different from what it was on working-days." Perhaps he thought of Emmerence, for he continued,--"A Lutheran parson's life wouldn't suit me, either. To support a wife and a houseful of children on preaching? No, no!" Then his theological scruples returned, and he said, "Theology is the bane of religion: what need of so much subtlety? Love God: love thy neighbor. What more?"

Thus his whole being was racked and tossed. The thought of Emmerence would drive the fever-heat to his face, and then icy coldness returned when he thought of his own future. He was at a loss how to inform his parents of his irrevocable determination to leave the convent: it was hard to explain to them that he could not look upon a clerical life as his vocation, and that he did not find the faith within him strong enough to justify such a step.

This train of thought was interrupted by a letter from the squire of Nordstetten to the principal, requesting permission for Ivo to come home, as his mother had to undergo a severe surgical operation, which she wished to be performed in his presence.