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."