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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.

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.