Son Of Tears
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Shields 1
Chapter 1
Augustine and his friends are wrong doing, running through fields, and taking peoples fruit. Him and his best friend Alypius get caught behind and have to hide out. Then, they meet up with the others at the center of town they called the Hollow. Here, Augustine told his story he had with a lady, who had a husband. Then an argument occurred.
Chapter 2
Augustines parents, Monica and Patricius, talk about sending their son away. While talking, they realize that Augustine has become a man. Monica then asks for Patricius to be baptized, and convert to Christianity. He says he can not because he would make a poor follower of Christ, and does not want to upset his local gentry. At the end of this chapter, the conversation ends when Monica goes to pray, and Augustine comes home only to have a word with his father.
Chapter 3
Augustines talk with his father is not bad. He finds out that he might be going to the university in Carthage. This made Augustine happy, but not Monica. Monica and Augustine talk about the choice she made to not have him baptized, and about his future and how important his education is. Monica ends the night by giving advice to Augustine on women.
Shields 2
Chapter 4
A banquet was held for Augustine celebrating the event and the donning of the toga viriles. The family and their guests have a few discussions including one about the emperor, Valentinian. Finally, Augustine made his “debut” and walked in his toga, and read out loud to everyone. The people were amazed by his readings, but not by his own poems.
Chapter 5
Augustine talks to his best friends before he leaves. They dispute over the fact that Augustine hates the Greeks. Then, Augustine tells his friends to come to Carthage with him. Alypius agreed to ask his father if he could go. Suddenly, Augustine came filled with anger when he heard women talking about his mother, and the men she encountered. Then, Augustine ran away to where he sees his father, mother, and grandmother. His mother knows of the rumor about her, but tells Augustine not to worry.
Chapter 6
Augustine arrives in Carthage a month early, to get some culture out of it. He looks around and acknowledges its beauty after it as rebuilt. In Carthage, he meets Romanianus slave, Marcus, who takes him out to see the town. Marcus took him to eat, to the parade, and lastly to a strip club.
Shields 3
Chapter 7
Alypius joined Augustine in Carthage in October. As roommates, with Nebridius, the boys invited a lot of people to their dorm. An upperclassman, Octatus, barged in and asked the men if they wanted to come with him. Octatus took them to a professors house, in which they wrecked. Augustine and his new friend Honoratus did not like this, so they left and went for a walk.
Chapter 8
Augustine wrote a loving letter home to his mother telling her how much he loved Carthage but missed his old self. Augustine and his three roommates go to see a play called The Brothers. After watching the play, they relate themselves and their fathers to the characters involved. They also discuss other issues in the play.
Chapter 9
For the first time since he has been to Carthage, Augustine went to the basilica. He first had trouble going into it, and more trouble sitting there and listening. Then, he came to believe that there really was a God. This chapter ends with Augustine seeing this beautiful girl, dressed in purple with a white flower, that he says he must have. She disappears before the mass is over, and Augustine tries to look for her.
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Chapter 10
In response to his letter, Augustine gets back a couple of letters from his mother back at home. In these letters, Augustine receives back news that his father has passed away. Augustine is upset, but not as upset as he would be if his mother passed away. He tells his mother about the girl he has been looking for, for months, and she suggests he keep his head in his studies. Augustine does not listen and eventually finds the girl. In finding her, he encounters her father, who lets him meet her because he tells him he is a student at the university.
Chapter 11
Augustine is led by Leporius, Melanies father into their home. They are obviously poor. Augustine expresses his uncertainty about getting married while in school, and gets a chance to talk to Melanie privately. He expresses his obsessive love for her, but she declines his advances and asks him to leave. He does so, with a broken heart.
Chapter 12
Augustine, distraught but resolute, decides to win the heart of Melanie. He gets a haircut and brings her a canary. The two get to talking, and despite herself, finds herself attracted to Augustine.
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Chapter 13
Augustine, with his head still spinning with love, talks to Alypius about love and the possibility of moving out of the apartment and getting his own apartment to live with Melanie in. Augustine goes to see Melanie and finds her in the company of a roman soldier. Augustine promptly hits the soldier, then gets knocked out and awakens to the sight of Melanie kneeling over him. They speak more of love and moving in together.
Augustine later gets a note from Melanie telling him that her father is gone for Syracuse, and he goes to her and she, for the first time professes her love for him.
Chapter 14
Now, after some time of living together, tensions are building in the apartment. Augustine first accuses Melanie of being wasteful, then unfaithful. Augustine recalls their two years together as being six months of passion followed by a year and a half of bickering and fighting. Melanie later comes home and explains that the men that she was seen with were merely being polite and chivalrous, and that she has had no relations with any of them. Then Melanie tells Augustine that she is pregnant.
Chapter 15
Augustine does not like the idea of having a child,