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own family sat on wooden benches for our meals. I worried about dropping food on
    the silk cushions.
    I lowered myself onto one of the couches and fidgeted into a reclining position. Aurelius lay
    beside me on the couch, completely at ease. I, on the other hand, felt as if my tongue had been
    cut out. I didn’t know if it would be polite to start eating before the other guests arrived, I wasn’t
    sure if there was some order in which we were supposed to eat the foods, or whether the host or
    the guests were supposed to eat first. For all my resentment of them, I was naïve about how the
    noble people lived. I realized suddenly that I knew nothing about these people, other than to envy
    from afar their carriages and gardens and fine clothes.
    “Eat!” Urbanus repeated. “Is there something you’d like that isn’t on the table?” he asked me.
    “I can have more fetched.”
    It was a wonder to me that the great man was being so solicitous to please us, and I found my
    voice. “No, nothing else.” I couldn’t imagine anything else. I looked pleadingly at Aurelius, and
    he seemed to awaken from some dream, and beckoned to one of the slaves and pointed to a plate
    of snails, glistening with oil and sprinkled with parsley. As each dish was served to him, he
    indicated that it should be offered next to me and I either accepted or declined each offering. By
    the time the slaves had finished serving us, a large goblet of wine stood in front of me and I had
    on my plate helpings of the snails, some spiced goat meat, asparagus and leeks covered in a
    yellow sauce, olives both ripe and unripe, stuffed and unstuffed, and some fish which I accepted
    only because Aurelius urged me to try it. It looked like an enormous, many-legged bug from a
    child’s nightmare. I had no idea how I would manage to eat such a large quantity of food. At
    home, we ate bread and cheese and porridge at most meals, eggs and goat meat rarely, and
    whatever vegetables and fruits were in season.
    While we were being served, Aurelius and Urbanus talked about the events of the day. “Well,
    Aurelius Augustine, what do you think of the governor’s decision?” he asked.
    “It was the right one, sir,” Aurelius replied confidently. “The Caecelians have held the church
    for many years. Even if the Donatists are right and the Caecelian priest’s ordination is suspect,
    they should get another priest, not be forced to forfeit their property.”
    “Who’s right in the larger situation, though? Say I’m a priest back at the time of the
    persecution. Was I right to obey the law and hand over sacred texts for destruction”?
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    “Yes,” Aurelius answered immediately.
    “Even if I had the only copy?” Urbanus prodded.
    Aurelius shifted a little on the couch and hesitated. “Well, maybe not in that case.”
    “So I was wrong if I had the only copy. Why?”
    “Well, because it’s the only copy. Then that truth is lost to time forever.”
    “I see, I see.” Urbanus rubbed his chin and smiled a little. It came to me that he was playing
    with Aurelius, and I wondered that Aurelius failed to see this and kept rising to his bait and
    answering impulsively. “So, right and wrong are situational, then? You can only tell what’s right
    or wrong by knowing all the particulars of a situation.” He held up his cup and immediately one
    of the slaves refilled it with wine.
    Aurelius flushed. “No! I didn’t mean that at all.”
    “Then … ?” Urbanus spread his hands, as if pleading for enlightenment.
    “Then…” Aurelius hesitated, frowning. “Then, I would say that right is always right and
    wrong is always wrong, but human wisdom is perhaps insufficient to make the correct
    determination.”
    “Ah.” This seemed to be the answer that Urbanus had been seeking. “Then,” he concluded,
    “there’s no point in my financing your further education in Carthage, is there? Since no amount
    of education could ever hope to ordain you with even so