Next morning, very early, he went to Hecht's to get his money: but as he was passing the bridge which bears the name of the archangel of battle--"the brother in Paradise" of Joan of Arc--he could not help stopping. He found the precious book once more in the bookseller's box, and read it right through: he stayed reading it for nearly two hours and missed his appointment with Hecht: and he wasted the whole day waiting to see him. At last he managed to get his new commission and the money for the old. At once he rushed back to buy the book, although he had read it. He was afraid it might have been sold to another purchaser. No doubt that would not have mattered much: it was quite easy to get another copy: but Christophe did not know whether the book was rare or not: and besides, he wanted that particular book and no other. Those who love books easily become fetish worshipers. The pages from which the well of dreams springs forth are sacred to them, even when they are dirty and spotted. In the silence of the night, in his room, Christophe read once more the Gospel of the Passion of Joan of Arc: and now there was nothing to make him restrain his emotion. He was filled with tenderness, pity, infinite sorrow for the poor little shepherdess in her coarse peasant clothes, tall, shy, soft-voiced, dreaming to the sound of bells--(she loved them as he did)--with her lovely smile, full of understanding and kindness, and her tears, that flowed so readily--tears of love, tears of pity, tears of weakness: for she was at once so manlike and so much a woman, the pure and valiant girl, who tamed the savage lusts of an army of bandits, and calmly, with her intrepid sound good sense, her woman's subtlety, and her gentle persistency, alone, betrayed on all hands, for months together foiled the threats and hypocritical tricks of a gang of churchmen and lawyers,--wolves and foxes with bloody eyes and fangs--who closed a ring about her. What touched Christophe most nearly was her kindness, her tenderness of heart,--weeping after her victories, weeping over her dead enemies, over those who had insulted her, giving them consolation when they were wounded, aiding them in death, knowing no bitterness against those who sold her, and even at the stake, when the flames roared about her, thinking not of herself, thinking only of the monk who exorcised her, and compelling him to depart. She was "gentle in the most bitter fight, good even amongst the most evil, peaceful even in war. Into war, the triumph of Satan, she brought the very Spirit of God." And Christophe, thinking of himself, said: "And into my fight I have not brought enough of the Spirit of God." He read the fine words of the evangelist of Joan of Arc: "Be kind, and seek always to be kinder, amid all the injustice of men and the hardships of Fate.... Be gentle and of a good countenance even in bitter quarrels, win through experience, and never let it harm that inward treasure...."