The cure was not too ready to acknowledge the superiority of this untutored intellect.  Still, he was quite astonished at passing so many winter evenings by his fireside with this peasant without feeling either bored or tired; and he would wonder how it was that the village schoolmaster, and even the prior of the convent, in spite of their Greek and Latin, appeared to him, the one a bore, the other a sophist, in all their discussions.  Knowing the perfect purity of the peasant’s life, he attributed the ascendency of his mind to the power of virtue and the charm it spreads over all things.  Then, each evening, he would humbly accuse himself before God of not having disputed with his pupil from a sufficiently Christian point of view; he would confess to his guardian angel that pride in his own learning and joy at being listened to so devoutly had carried him somewhat beyond the bounds of religious instruction; that he had quoted profane writers too complacently; that he had even experienced a dangerous pleasure in roaming with his disciple through the fields of the past, plucking pagan flowers unsprinkled by the waters of baptism, flowers in whose fragrance a priest should not have found such delight.

On his side, Patience loved the cure dearly.  He was his only friend, his only bond of union with society, his only bond of union, through the light of knowledge, with God.  The peasant largely over-estimated his pastor’s learning.  He did not know that even the most enlightened men often draw wrong conclusions, or no conclusions at all, from the course of progress.  Patience would have been spared great distress of mind if he could have seen for certain that his master was frequently mistaken and that it was the man, not the truth, that was at fault.  Not knowing this, and finding the experience of the ages at variance with his innate sense of justice, he was continually a prey to agonizing reveries; and, living by himself, and wandering through the country at all hours of the day and night, wrapped in thoughts undreamed of by his fellows, he gave more and more credit to the tales of sorcery reported against him.

The convent did not like the pastor.  A few monks whom Patience had unmasked hated Patience.  Hence, both pastor and pupil were persecuted.  The ignorant monks did not scruple to accuse the cure to his bishop of devoting himself to the occult sciences in concert with the magician Patience.  A sort of religious war broke out in the village and neighbourhood.  All who were not for the convent were for the cure, and vice versa.  Patience scorned to take part in this struggle.  One morning he went to see his friend, with tears in his eyes, and said to him: