Manon Lescaut
formerly to the penitentiary.' I represented to her the danger of such
an enterprise; she replied, that the only thing necessary was to take
our measures with caution, and she found an answer to every objection I
started. 'Show me the lover who does not blindly humour every whim of
an adored mistress, and I will then allow that I was wrong in yielding
so easily on this occasion.' The resolution was taken to make a dupe
of G----M----, and by an unforeseen and unlucky turn of fortune, I
became the victim myself.
"About eleven o'clock his carriage drove up to the door. He made the
most complaisant and refined speeches upon the liberty he had taken of
coming to dine with us uninvited. He was not surprised at meeting M.
de T----, who had the night before promised to meet him there, and who
had, under some pretext or other, refused a seat in his carriage.
Although there was not a single person in the party who was not at
heart meditating treachery, we all sat down with an air of mutual
confidence and friendship. G---- M---- easily found an opportunity of
declaring his sentiments to Manon. I did not wish to annoy him by
appearing vigilant, so I left the room purposely for several minutes.
"I perceived on my return that he had not had to encounter any very
discouraging austerity on Manon's part, for he was in the best possible
spirits. I affected good humour also. He was laughing in his mind at
my simplicity, while I was not less diverted by his own. During the
whole evening we were thus supplying to each other an inexhaustible
fund of amusement. I contrived, before his departure, to let him have
Manon for another moment to himself; so that he had reason to applaud
my complaisance, as well as the hospitable reception I had given him.
"As soon as he got into his carriage with M. de T----, Manon ran
towards me with extended arms, and embraced me; laughing all the while
immoderately. She repeated all his speeches and proposals, without
altering a word. This was the substance: He of course adored her; and
wished to share with her a large fortune of which he was already in
possession, without counting what he was to inherit at his father's
death. She should be sole mistress of his heart and fortune; and as an
immediate token of his liberality, he was ready at once to supply her
with an equipage, a furnished house, a lady's maid, three footmen, and
a man-cook.
"'There is indeed a son,' said I, 'very different from his father! But
tell me truly, now, does not such an offer tempt you?' 'Me!' she
replied, adapting to the idea two verses from Racine--
Moi! vous me soupconnez de cette perfidie?
Moi! je pourrais souffrir un visage odieux,
Qui rappelle toujours l'Hopital a mes yeux?
'No!' replied I, continuing the parody--
J'aurais peine a penser que l'Hopital, madame,
Fut un trait dont l'amour l'eut grave dans votre ame.
'But it assuredly is a temptation--a furnished house, a lady's maid, a
cook, a carriage, and three servants--gallantry can offer but few more
seductive temptations.'
"She protested that her heart was entirely mine, and that it was for
the future only open to the impressions I chose to make upon it. 'I
look upon his promises,' said she, 'as an instrument for revenge,
rather than as a mark of love.' I asked her if she thought of
accepting the hotel and the carriage. She replied that his money was
all she wanted."
The difficulty was, how to obtain the one without the other; we
resolved to wait for a detailed explanation of the whole project in a
letter which G---- M---- promised to write to her, and which in fact
she received next morning by a servant out of livery, who, very
cleverly, contrived an opportunity of speaking to her alone.
She told him to wait for an answer, and immediately brought the letter
to me: we opened it together.
"Passing over the usual commonplace expressions of tenderness, it gave
a particular detail of my rival's promises. There were no limits to
the expense. He engaged to pay her down ten thousand francs on her
taking possession of the hotel, and to supply her expenditure in such a
way as that she should never have less than that sum at her command.
The appointed day for her entering into possession was close at hand.
He only required two days for all his preparations, and he mentioned
the name of the street and the hotel, where he promised to be in
waiting for her in the afternoon of the second day, if she could manage
to escape my vigilance. That was the only point upon which he begged
of her to relieve his uneasiness; he seemed to be quite satisfied upon
every other: but he added that, if she apprehended any difficulty in
escaping from me, he could find sure means for facilitating her flight.
"G---- M---- the younger was more cunning than the old gentleman. He
wanted to secure his prey before he counted out the cash. We
considered what course Manon should adopt. I made another effort to
induce her to give up the scheme, and strongly represented all its
dangers; nothing, however, could shake her determination.
"Her answer to G---- M---- was brief, merely assuring him that she
could be, without the least difficulty, in Paris on the appointed day
and that he might expect her with certainty.
"We then resolved, that I should instantly hire lodgings in some
village on the other side of Paris, and that I should take our luggage
with me; that in the afternoon of the following day, which was the time
appointed, she should go to Paris; that, after receiving G---- M----'s
presents, she should earnestly entreat him to take her to the theatre;
that she should carry with her as large a portion of the money as she
could, and charge my servant with the remainder, for it was agreed that
he was to accompany her. He was the man who had rescued her from the
Magdalen, and he was devotedly attached to us. I was to be with a
hackney-coach at the end of the street of St. Andre-des-arcs, and to
leave it there about seven o'clock, while I stole, under cover of the
twilight, to the door of the theatre. Manon promised to make some
excuse for quitting her box for a moment, when she would come down and
join me. The rest could be easily done. We were then to return to my
hackney-coach, and quit Paris by the Faubourg St. Antoine, which was
the road to our new residence.
"This plan, extravagant as it was, appeared to us satisfactorily
arranged. But our greatest folly was in imagining that, succeed as we
might in its execution, it would be possible for us to escape the
consequences. Nevertheless, we exposed ourselves to all risk with the
blindest confidence. Manon took her departure with Marcel--so was the
servant called. I could not help feeling a pang as she took leave of
me. 'Manon,' said I, 'do not deceive me; will you be faithful to me?'
She complained, in the tenderest tone, of my want of confidence, and
renewed all her protestations of eternal love.
"She was to be in Paris at three o'clock. I went some time after. I
spent the remainder of the afternoon moping in the Cafe de Fere, near
the Pont St. Michel. I remained there till nightfall. I then hired a
hackney-coach, which I placed, according to our plan, at the end of the
street of St. Andre-des-arcs, and went on foot to the door of the
theatre. I was surprised at not seeing Marcel, who was to have been
there waiting for me. I waited patiently for a full hour, standing
among a crowd of lackeys, and gazing at every person that passed. At
length, seven o'clock having struck, without my being able to discover
anything or any person connected with our project, I procured a pit
ticket, in order to ascertain if Manon and G---- M---- were in the
boxes. Neither one nor the other could I find. I returned to the door,
where I again stopped for a quarter of an hour, in an agony of
impatience and uneasiness. No person appeared, and I went back to the
coach, without knowing what to conjecture. The coachman, seeing me,
advanced a few paces towards me, and said, with a mysterious air, that
a very handsome young person had been waiting more than an hour for me
in the coach; that she described me so exactly that he could not be
mistaken, and having learned that I intended to return, she said she
would enter the coach and wait with patience.
"I felt confident that it was Manon. I approached. I beheld a very
pretty face, certainly, but alas, not hers. The lady asked, in a voice
that I had never before heard, whether she had the honour of speaking
to the Chevalier des Grieux? I answered, 'That is my name.' 'I have a
letter for you,' said she, 'which will tell you what has brought me
here, and by what means I learned your name.' I begged she would allow
me a few moments to read it in an adjoining cafe. She proposed to
follow me, and advised me to ask for a private room, to which I
consented. 'Who is the writer of this letter?' I enquired. She
referred me to the letter itself.
"I recognised Manon's hand. This is nearly the substance of the
letter: G---- M---- had received her with a politeness and
magnificence beyond anything she had previously conceived. He had
loaded her with the most gorgeous presents. She had the prospect of
almost imperial splendour. She assured me, however, that she could not
forget me amidst all this magnificence; but that, not being able to
prevail on G---- M---- to take her that evening to the play, she was
obliged to defer the pleasure of seeing me; and that, as a slight
consolation for the disappointment which she feared this might cause
me, she had found a messenger in one of the loveliest girls in all
Paris. She signed herself, 'Your loving and constant, MANON LESCAUT.'
"There was something so cruel and so insulting in the letter, that,
what between indignation and grief, I resolutely determined to forget
eternally my ungrateful and perjured mistress. I looked at the young
woman who stood before me: she was exceedingly pretty, and I could have
wished that she had been sufficiently so to render me inconstant in my
turn. But there were wanting those lovely and languishing eyes, that
divine gracefulness, that exquisite complexion, in fine, those
innumerable charms which nature had so profusely lavished upon the
perfidious Manon. 'No, no,' said I, turning away from her; 'the
ungrateful wretch who sent you knew in her heart that she was sending
you on a useless errand. Return to her; and tell her from me, to
triumph in her crime, and enjoy it, if she can, without remorse. I
abandon her in despair, and, at the same time, renounce all women, who,
without her fascination, are no doubt her equals in baseness and
infidelity.'
"I was then on the point of going away, determined never to bestow
another thought on Manon: the mortal jealousy that was racking my heart
lay concealed under a dark and sullen melancholy, and I fancied,
because I felt none of those violent emotions which I had experienced
upon former occasions, that I had shaken off my thraldom. Alas! I was
even at that moment infinitely more the dupe of love, than of G----
M---- and Manon.
"The girl who had brought the letter, seeing me about to depart, asked
me what I wished her to say to M. G---- M----, and to the lady who was
with him? At this question, I stepped back again into the room, and by
one of those unaccountable transitions that are only known to the
victims of violent passion, I passed in an instant from the state of
subdued tranquillity which I have just described, into an ungovernable
fury 'Away!' said I to her, 'tell the traitor G---- M----and his
abandoned mistress the state of despair into which your accursed
mission has cast me; but warn them that it shall not be long a source
of amusement to them, and that my own hands shall be warmed with the