During all the next month or six weeks, M. Coignard applied himself, day and night, just as he had promised, to the reading of Zosimus the Panopolitan. During the meals we partook of at the table of M. d’Asterac the conversation turned on the opinions of the gnostics and on the knowledge of the ancient Egyptians. Being only an ignorant scholar I was of little use to my good master. I did my best by making such researches as he wanted me to make; I took no little pleasure in it. Truly, we lived happily and quietly. At about the seventh week, M. d’Asterac gave me leave to go and see my parents at their cookshop. The shop appeared strangely smaller to me. My mother was there alone and sad. She cried aloud on seeing me fitted out like a prince. “My Jacques,” she said, “I am very happy!” And she began to cry. We embraced, then wiping her eyes with a corner of her canvas apron she said: “Your father is at the _Little Bacchus_. Since you left he often goes there; in your absence the house is less pleasant for him. He’ll be glad to see you again. But say, my Jacques, are you satisfied with your new position? I regretted letting you go with that nobleman; I even accused myself in confession to the third vicar of giving preference to your bodily well-being over that of your soul and not having thought of God in establishing you. The third vicar reproved me kindly over it, and exhorted me to follow the example of the pious women in the Scriptures, of whom he named several to me; but there are names there that I’ll never be able to remember. He did not explain his meaning minutely as it was a Saturday evening and the church was full of penitents.” I reassured my good mother as well as I could and told her that M. d’Asterac made me work in Greek, which was the language in which the New Testament was written; this pleased her, but she remained pensive.