Part 19

"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.

Harrowed by anxiety, Ivo hastened home with the messenger who had brought the letter. He learned that his mother had broken her arm some time previously by falling down-stairs; that she had disregarded the injury, and that now she could only be saved by another artificial fracture and resetting of the limb; that she would have preferred death had she not thought it her duty to reserve herself for her children. Ivo was stung to the soul to find that the messenger always spoke of his mother as if she were already dead or, at least, beyond all hopes of recovery. "You couldn't find a better woman wherever cooking is done," was the curious proverbial expression which formed the burden of his answers.

The meeting between mother and son was heart-rending. "So, now! I can bear it all better," said she, "because you are here."

The surgeon came next day. He offered to blindfold the patient; but she said, "No: put the bed into the middle of the room, where I can see the Savior, and you will see that I won't budge nor murmur."

After much reluctance, her wish was complied with. In one hand--the hand of the injured arm--she grasped the rosary, while the other clasped that of her son. Her eyes rested on the crucifix, and she said, "Dear Savior, Thou hast borne the most cruel pain with a heavenly smile: dear Savior, give me Thy power, hold me when I would tremble; and, when the sharp swords pierce my soul, I will think of thee, O Mother of God, and suffer in silence. Pray with me, dear Ivo."