"Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath found him safe and sound;" which made the elder brother angry, and he would not go in; therefore his father came out and entreated him. But his son replied to him: "These many years have I served thee, neither have I at any time transgressed thy command; and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this, thy son, who has squandered his living with harlots, is returned, thou hast had the fatted calf killed for him."'

'Oh! how wicked is the eldest son!' said the child; 'he is jealous of his poor brother, who returns, however, very unhappy to the house. God will not love this jealous son; will he, my good Jesus?'

Mary's son shook his head, as if to reply to the child that the Lord did not indeed love the jealous: he then continued,—

'But the father said to the son: "My son, thou art always with me, and all that I have is thine; it was fit that we should make merry and be glad; for this, thy brother, was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found."'

All who were present seemed moved to tears at this recital. Mary's son having stopped to drink a glass of wine, which Judas, his disciple, poured out for him, Banaias, who had listened to him with profound attention, exclaimed: 'Friend, do you know that this is very much my own history, and that of many others. For if, after my own first folly of youth, my father had imitated the father in your parable, and had tendered me his hand as a sign of pardon, instead of driving me from the house with his stick, I should be at this hour, perhaps, seated at my honest fireside, in the midst of my family; whereas, now my home is in the highway, misery my wife, and my children evil projects, sons of misery, that mother with the ferocious eye. Ah! why had I not for a father the man in the parable?'

'This indulgent father pardoned,' replied Oliba the courtezan, 'because he knew that God, having given youth to his creatures, sometimes abuse it; but those who, reviled, miserable and repentant, return humbly to demand the smallest place in the paternal mansion, these, far from being repulsed, ought they not to be received with pity?'

'I,' said another, 'would not give a grapestone for this elder brother, this man of wealth, so harsh, so coarse, and so jealous, to whom virtue costs nothing.'

Genevieve heard one of the two emissaries of the Pharisees say to his companion, 'The Nazarene pretty well flatters the bad passions of these vagabonds. Henceforth, every debauched idler who may quit the paternal mansion will think himself entitled to send his father to Beelzebub, if the father, wrongly advised, instead of killing the fatted calf, drives from him, as he ought, this villainous son, whom hunger alone brings back to the fold.'

'Yes; and all the honest and prudent will pass for men of hard heart and jealous.'

And the man resumed aloud, thinking that no one would know who it was that thus spoke: 'Glory to thee, Jesus of Nazareth, glory to thee, the protector, the defender of us dissipaters and prostitutes! It is folly to be wise and virtuous, since the fatted calf is to be killed for the most debauched.'