As he reviewed his life, he remembered Pamphilius, and his last meeting with him, and how Pamphilius had invited him to come there, to the Christians. And it occurred to him not to return home, but to go straight to the Christians, and remain with them.

“But was his position so desperate?” he asked himself, and again he proceeded to review what had happened, and again he was horror-struck because no one seemed to love him, and he loved no one. His mother, father, friends, did not love him, and must wish he were dead; but whom did he himself love? His friends? He was conscious that he did not love anyone. All were rivals of his, all were pitiless toward him, now that he was in disgrace. “His father?” he asked himself, and horror seized him when at this question he looked into his heart. Not only did he not love him, but he hated him for his stinginess, for the affront he had put on him. He hated him, and, moreover, he saw plainly that for his own happiness his father’s death was essential.