From that time forward Lazare visited the priest almost every morning in his garden, He would sit down on the old tombstone and forget his thoughts as he watched the Abbé cultivating his vegetables; he even gained a temporary tranquillity by the contemplation of the other's blind faith which enabled him to live in the midst of death without disquiet. Why couldn't he himself, he thought, become a simple child again, like that old man? In the depths of his heart he harboured some lurking hope that his dead faith might be fanned into life again by his converse with the guileless, simple-minded priest, whose tranquil ignorance had such a charm for him. He began to bring a pipe with him, and the pair of them smoked together while they chatted about the slugs that devoured the salad plants, or the manure that was too expensive, for it was seldom that the priest spoke of God. With his spirit of tolerance and long experience he reserved the Divinity for his own personal salvation. Other people looked after their affairs in their way and he looked after his in his fashion. After thirty years of unavailing preaching and warning he now strictly confined himself to the observance of his ministerial duties. It was very kind of that young man, he thought, to come and see him every day, and as, with his tolerant and charitable disposition, he did not want to cavil with him nor to inveigh against the theories which he must have brought back from Paris, he preferred to keep on talking with him about the garden; and thus Lazare, with his head buzzing with all the priest's simple gossip, sometimes thought that he was really on the point of relapsing into that happy age of ignorance when fear is unknown. But though the mornings thus glided away, Lazare every night, up in his room, still brooded over the memory of his mother, without being able to summon up enough courage to put out his candle. His faith was dead. One day, as he sat smoking with Abbé Horteur, the latter hastily put his pipe out of sight on hearing the sound of footsteps behind the pear-trees. It was Pauline, who had come to look for her cousin. 'The Doctor is in the house,' said she, 'and I have asked him to stay to lunch. You'll come in soon, won't you?' She was smiling, for she had caught sight of the Abbé's pipe beneath his blouse. The priest quickly pulled it out again, with that cheerful laugh to which he was addicted whenever he was discovered smoking. 'It's very silly of me,' he said. 'People would think I had been committing a crime. See! I am going to light it again before you!' 'I tell you what, your reverence!' Pauline exclaimed gaily; 'come and lunch with us and the Doctor, and you can smoke your pipe afterwards.' The priest was delighted, and immediately replied: 'Well yes, I accept. I will follow you directly. I must just put my cassock on. And I will bring my pipe with me; I promise I will.'