Ivo went silently to the field in which he had once spent a whole day ploughing with Nat: it seemed as if some clue to his whereabouts must be hidden among the stones. He envied his brothers who were at work here, who shared their joys and sorrows at a common board, who had no one to obey but their natural superiors.
On his return to the convent he attached himself still more closely to Clement, as if to indemnify himself for the loss of his earlier friend.
The last summer spent in Ehingen was a little less monotonous than the others. Clement, whose home was in a largely Protestant town, had acquaintances among the pupils of the neighboring Protestant convent, (for by that name the classical school was still called,) of Blaubeuren, who were a little less rigidly restrained than those of Ehingen. They sometimes came to Ehingen and went to the principal, one of them saying that he was a "fellow-countryman" of Clement's, and the other that he sustained the same mysterious relation to Ivo, and so on: the principal allowed the "countrymen" to make a half-holiday of it: they would saunter to the next village, and there, with festive songs and over the social glass, Ivo exchanged many a pledge of good-fellowship with the Protestant conventuaries. Neither they nor he were free,--although the Blaubeuren men had one or two immunities more than the others.
The time of student-life stood before the eyes of all these youths much like a taper-girt Christmas-tree before the visions of a German baby: they stretched out their hands impatiently to grasp the gilded nuts suspended from the boughs; and, though their clerical vocation was destined to cut down much of the liberties to which they looked forward, yet even what remained was far too slow in coming.
At last autumn set in. On the eve of their departure, Ivo and Clement went to the hawthorn where their friendship took its rise, and each of them broke off a twig and set it in his cap: then, taking each other's hand, they renewed their vow of eternal devotion. Ivo also promised to pay Clement a visit at Crailsheim during the holidays.
To quit a place of long abode, whether we have been happy or unhappy in living there, is always attended with regret: the mantle of the past drops away, and we know that we shall never return to the spot the same as we leave it: these houses, these gardens, and these streets are the birthplaces of a lot in life. Here the friends had first met, here their minds had risen to heights unthought of before, and here they separated with heartfelt sorrow. They vowed that in old age they would travel hither again and seek out the silent playgrounds of their youthful thoughts.
10.
A MEETING.
Having rested but a few days at Nordstetten, Ivo set out to visit his friend, whose home was at the other end of Wurtemberg, on the borders of Franconia. This brought him for the first time to the hill-top which had occupied his thoughts on the evening before Gregory's first mass, when he had thought that from there he might climb into heaven at once. Now he knew that there is no place on earth whence the entrance into heaven is open: alas! the goal itself now eluded his sight, and he asked, hopelessly, "Whither?" He looked for heaven upon earth, and knew not how to grasp it.
In silent thought he wandered through the towns and villages, watching the busy doings of men with curious eyes: the riddle of existence became more and more inexplicable. The vintagers were out in the fields, singing songs, firing off salutes of triumph; but Ivo only asked, "Are you making the wine which shall turn into blood?"