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.