Pastor Prosper Vedel is too busy; Madame Vedel, who is rather foolish, lives plunged in a religio-poetico day-dream, in which she loses all sense of reality; the young people’s moral bringing-up, as well as their education, has been taken in hand by their grandfather. Once a month at the time when I lived with them, I used to assist at a stormy scene of explanations, which would end up by effusive and pathetic appeals of this kind: “Henceforth we will be perfectly frank and open with one another.” (He likes using several words to say the same thing--an odd habit, left him from the time of his pastorship.) “There shall be no more concealments, we won’t keep anything back in the future, will we? Everything is to be above board. We shall be able to look each other straight in the face. That’s a bargain, isn’t it?” After which they sank deeper than ever into their bog--he of blindness--and the children of deceit. These remarks were chiefly addressed to a brother of Laura’s, a year younger than she; the sap of youth was working in him and he was making his first essays of love. (He went out to the colonies and I have lost sight of him.) One evening when the old man had been talking in this way, I went to speak to him in his study; I tried to make him understand that the sincerity which he demanded from his grandson was made impossible by his own severity. Azaïs almost lost his temper: “He has only to do nothing of which he need be ashamed,” he exclaimed in a tone of voice which allowed of no reply. All the same he is an excellent man--a paragon of virtue, and what people call a heart of gold; but his judgments are childish. His great esteem for me comes from the fact that, as far as he knows, I have no mistress. He did not conceal from me that he had hoped to see me marry Laura; he is afraid Douviers may not be the right husband for her, and he repeated several times: “I am surprised at her choice”; then he added, “Still he seems to me an excellent fellow.... What do you think?...” To which I answered, “Certainly.” The deeper the soul plunges into religious devotion, the more it loses all sense of reality, all need, all desire, all love for reality. I have observed the same thing in Vedel upon the few occasions that I have spoken to him. The dazzling light of their faith blinds them to the surrounding world and to their own selves. As for me, who care for nothing so much as to see the world and myself clearly, I am amazed at the coils of falsehood in which devout persons take delight. I tried to get Azaïs to speak of Olivier, but he takes more interest in George.