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And he offered his own example, for he, too, had been a Manichee. But Monnica pressed him with entreaties and tears. At last the bishop, annoyed by her persistence, but at the same time moved by her tears, answered with a roughness mingled with kindness and compassion: "Go, go! Leave me alone. Live on as you are living. It cannot be that the son of such tears should be lost."
She wanted to keep him near her, both to bring him to the faith and also to love him this Augustin who had been her only human love. And then he was doubtless the chief support of the widow. Without him, what was going to become of her? The fugitive was forced to put a trick on Monnica so as to carry out his plan.
As a last resource, Monnica begged a bishop she knew, a man deeply read in the Scriptures, to speak with her son and refute his errors. But so great was the reputation of Augustin as an orator and dialectician that the holy man dared not try a fall with such a vigorous jouster. He answered the mother very wisely, that a mind so subtle and acute could not long continue in such gross sophisms.
Monnica sat down on the ground under her heap of veils among other poor people and travellers, who were come like her to try to find a little cool air on this stifling night near the relics of the blessed Cyprian.
In Africa, the Count Romanus persecuted the Donatists. All the Christians in Thagaste were Catholic. What was the good of keeping up a useless and dangerous resistance? Perhaps the end of Patricius which was near was as edifying as Monnica could wish.
She would not leave him a moment, folded him in her arms, implored him with tears not to go. The night he was to sail she followed him down to the dock, although Augustin, to allay her suspicions, had told her a lie. He pretended that he was only going down to the ship with a friend to see him off. But Monnica, only half believing, followed. Night fell.
Thanks to this exemplary punishment, and the good sense of the young wife, peace reigned once more in the family. Women, friends of Monnica, were amazed that the good understanding was not oftener upset, at least in an open manner, between husband and wife. Everybody in Thagaste knew the quick-tempered and violent character of Patricius. And yet there were no signs that he beat his wife.
Monnica was making all haste to have the sacrament administered, when suddenly, against all expectation, the child recovered. Again was baptism postponed, and from the same reason: to lessen the gravity of the sins which young Augustin was bound to commit. His mother, who no doubt foresaw some of them, again fell in with the custom.
Here, as at Thagaste, in these beautiful villas on the shores of the Italian lakes, the son of Monnica gave himself up once more to the sweetness of life. "I liked an easy life," he avows in all simplicity. He felt himself to be more Epicurean than ever. He might have chosen Epicureanism altogether, if he had not always kept a fear of what is beyond life.
As for Monnica, who long since had taken the widow's veil, she had to make no change in her ways to lead a saintly life in the company of her son and grandson. It was agreed among them all to go back to Africa, and to start as soon as possible.
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