He willingly followed his friend into the nocturnal regions of man's feeling and thought: it seemed a duty to keep him company and be at hand to aid him.
The lives of the saints were the first object of their studies. Once Ivo said, "I am rejoiced to see that revelation is still upon its march through the haunts of men; saints arise wherever the Lord has revealed himself and thereby imparted his wonder-working power, and whoso truly sanctifies himself may hope to be favored in like kind. Nowadays every town has once more its true patron saint, as of old, among the Greeks, its false tutelary deity. God is personally near us everywhere."
Clement, without answering, kissed Ivo's forehead. Presently, however, he spoke warmly of the heroes who with empty hand had conquered the world.
The life of St. Francis of Assisi enlisted their special interest: the story of his conversion from the stormy life of the world, and the manner in which he first cured a leper with a kiss, was particularly attractive to Clement. Ivo was pleased by the childlike harmony of the holy man with nature, and by his miraculous power over it; how he preached to the birds, and called upon them to sing the glory of God; how they listened devoutly until he had made the sign of the cross over them and blessed them, and how then they broke into a sounding chorus; how he contended in song with a nightingale for the honor of God until midnight, and how at last, when he was silent from fatigue, the bird flew upon his hand to receive his blessing. Whenever he read of the lamb rescued by the saint from slaughter, which always kneeled down during the singing of the choir, Ivo thought fondly of his Brindle.
On reading that the saint was so highly favored as miraculously to experience in his own body the wounds of Christ, the pierced hands and feet, and the thrust of the lance in his side, Clement wept aloud. He repeated his vow to become a Franciscan monk, and called upon Ivo to do the same, so that, according to the rules of the Order, they might walk about the world together, courting tortures and troubles and living upon alms.
With insatiable thirst Clement drank of the streams of mysticism and hurried his friend along with him.
12.
THE COLLEGE CHAP.
In the holidays Ivo was again powerfully attracted to the realities of life. It was not so easy then to exclude the doings of the outer world, and wrap oneself up into self-suggested thoughts and feelings. Such exaltations are, in fact, only feasible outside of the family circle, and therefore outside of the sphere of real life. Scarcely had he returned to the village, when the family ties once more asserted their claims, and the manifold and interlaced fates and fortunes of the villagers forced themselves upon his interest and sympathy. He knew what lived and moved behind all their walls. He awoke to his former life as from a dream.
One evening he met Constantine standing before his house, chewing a straw and looking sullen.