The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux/Chapter 12

by L'Abbé Prévost

Chapter XII.

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There is something marvellous in the way in which Providence links one event with another. We had scarcely been walking for more than five or six minutes when a man, whose features I could not distinguish, recognized Lescaut. He had evidently been searching for him in the neighborhood of his house, with the terrible purpose which he now carried into execution.

"Ah, Lescaut! 'Tis you!" said he, discharging his pistol at him. "You shall go and sup with the devil to-night!"

With these words he turned and fled. Lescaut fell to the ground lifeless.

I urged Manon to hasten away, for a dead man was beyond all need of aid from us, and I was in terror lest we should be arrested by the Watch, who would be sure to make their appearance before long. With her and the turnkey I turned into the first narrow street that crossed the one we were in. Manon was so completely prostrated by what had happened that it was with difficulty that I prevented her from falling. At last I saw a hackney carriage at the end of the street. We got into it; but when the driver asked me whither he should take us, I was at a loss for an answer. I knew of no secure place of refuge, and of no trusty friend to whom I should be safe in appealing. I was almost penniless, having barely more than half a pistole in my purse. Manon was so overcome with terror and fatigue that she was nearly swooning beside me. My imagination, moreover, was filled with the murder of Lescaut, and I was not yet free from apprehension regarding the Watch. What was to be done?

By a happy inspiration I thought of the inn at Chaillot, at which I had spent some days with Manon when we first went to make our home in that village. There I hoped we might not only find a safe retreat, but be able to live for some time without being pressed for payment.

"Drive to Chaillot," I said to the coachman. He refused to go there at so late an hour for less than a pistole—and I was again in a quandary. Finally we agreed upon six francs, which was all I had left in my purse.

On our way I did my best to console Manon, but, in my secret heart, I was overwhelmed with despair. I should have resolved upon suicide, had I not held in my arms the one treasure that made life worth living. This thought alone gave me courage.

"Come what may," I said to myself, "I at least possess her now—she loves me—she is mine! Let Tiberge talk as he will; this is no mere delusive phantom of happiness. The rest of the universe might crumble to atoms before my eyes, and I should look unmoved upon the scene of destruction. And why? Simply because I am utterly indifferent to all else that it contains!"

Such were undoubtedly my actual sentiments; yet, even while setting such slight store on the goods of this world, I could not help realizing how necessary it was to possess some small share of them in order to regard all the rest with truly sovereign contempt. Love has a stronger hold on the heart than luxury, treasures, and wealth, but it cannot afford to despise their help; and nothing is more galling to a sensitive lover than to find that the lack of them is dragging him down, in spite of himself, to the level of the coarsest and most vulgar natures.

It was eleven o'clock when we reached Chaillot. We were welcomed at the inn as old acquaintances. No surprise was expressed at Manon's being in male attire, for in Paris and the surrounding neighborhood it is a common thing to see women in all sorts of disguises.

I had her wants supplied as liberally as though I commanded a well-filled purse. She was not aware of my penniless condition, and I took good care not to give her any inkling of it, as I had made up my mind to go back to Paris the next day and endeavor to find some remedy for this most vexatious kind of ailment.

At supper I observed that Manon looked pale and thin. This had escaped my notice at the Hôpital, as the room in which I saw her was very dimly lighted. I asked her whether the whiteness of her cheeks was not a lingering result of the horror she had felt on seeing her brother murdered before her very eyes. She assured me that, deeply shocked as she had been by that awful event, her paleness was simply the effect of having undergone three months' separation from me.

"You love me very dearly, then?" I asked.

"A thousand times more dearly than I can express," she responded.

"And you will never again desert me?"

"Never, while I live!" was her reply; and she confirmed this assurance by so many caresses and vows of constancy that it seemed indeed impossible that she could ever forget them.

I have always been convinced that she was sincere: what motive could she have had for carrying duplicity to such a length as this? But sincere though she was, she was still more fickle, nay, it became impossible to say what she was—she did not know herself—when she beheld other women living in affluence, and found that she had to face poverty and want. I was on the eve of receiving a final proof of this fact, which was to eclipse all the former ones, and to result in the most surprising adventure that ever befell a man of my rank and fortune.

Knowing her disposition to be such as I have described I lost no time in starting for Paris on the morrow. The death of her brother, and the necessity of obtaining some linen and other clothes for her and myself, were such good reasons that I had no occasion to invent a pretext for going. I left the inn, telling Manon and the landlord that I intended taking a hackney-coach; but this, of course, was mere bravado on my part. As necessity compelled me to travel on foot, I walked very rapidly as far as the Cours-la-Reine, where I purposed resting for awhile. There was high need of my securing a few moments' solitude and quiet in order to collect my thoughts and to decide upon what I was to do in Paris. I seated myself upon the grass, and was soon immersed in a sea of reflections and speculations, which gradually grouped themselves under three main heads:

I had to obtain immediate assistance to enable me to provide for a host of present and pressing needs.

I had to settle upon a course of action that would, at any rate, hold out some hope for the future; and, though last, not least in importance, I had to make careful inquiries and take whatever measures might be necessary for insuring Manon's safety and my own.

After exhausting my ingenuity in thinking out plans and contrivances to meet these three principal requirements, I finally came to the conclusion that it would be as well to leave the latter two out of consideration for the time being. We were lodged comfortably enough in our room at Chaillot; while, as for future necessities, I decided that it would be soon enough to think of them when I had provided for those of the moment.

The immediate question, then, was how to replenish my purse. M. de T——— had generously offered me his, but the idea of reminding him of the subject myself was extremely repugnant to me. Could there be anything more humiliating than to go and lay bare one's destitution to a stranger, and beg for charity from him? To be capable of such an act one must have a soul so sordid as to prevent one's realizing the degradation it would involve, or possess a Christian humility which, by the very excess of its nobility, lifts one above any such sense of shame. As I, for my part, was neither devoid of all self-respect, nor, on the other hand, a good Christian, I would have sacrificed half the blood in my veins to escape such humiliation.

"There is Tiberge, too," I soliloquized; "he, good soul, would refuse me nothing that it was in his power to grant. My distress would touch him to the heart, I know; but he would weary me to death with his moralizing. I should have to submit to his reproaches, his exhortations, and his warnings; and in that way pay so dear a price for his assistance, that I would give the other half of my blood rather than expose myself to a scene so unpleasant in it self, and one which would be sure, moreover, to leave me full of agitation and remorse. "The conclusion, then, would seem to be," I continued, "that I must renounce all hope, since there is no third alternative open to me, and since I am so little inclined to adopt these two that I would rather shed half my blood than accept either one of them; all of it, that is to say, rather than accept them both."

"Yes," I added, after a moment's reflection, "I certainly would rather pour out my whole life's blood than stoop to abject begging. But what, pray, has my blood to do with the question? My present concern is to provide for Manon—to insure the continuance of her love and fidelity. Where is the consideration that can outweigh her in my mind? None have ever yet done so. She is, to me, all that glory, happiness, and fortune are to other men!

"There are, doubtless, many things which I would lay down my life to gain or to avoid; but to value a thing more than my own life is no reason for prizing it as much as I do Manon."

This train of thought soon brought me to a decision. I rose and walked on, with the determination of first going to see Tiberge, and then M. de T———.

On reaching Paris, I took a hackney-carriage, in spite of the fact that I had no means of paying for it, trusting entirely to my success in obtaining the assistance I was about to solicit. Driving to the Luxembourg, I sent word to Tiberge that I was awaiting him there. My impatience was gratified by the promptness with which he made his appearance. Without any waste of words, I told him of the extremity I was in. He asked me whether the hundred pistoles which I had repaid him would be sufficient to meet my wants, and then, without opposing a single word of objection, he hastened away to get them for me, with that ungrudging manner and that evident pleasure in making a gift which are known only to love and to true friendship.

Although I had not entertained the slightest doubt of his complying with my request, I was surprised at obtaining what I asked so cheaply—that is to say, without being upbraided for my continued impenitence. But I was mistaken in supposing that I was to escape his reproaches altogether, for, when he had finished counting out the money to me, and I was about to leave him, he asked me to walk once or twice up and down the path with him. I had not mentioned Manon, and he was not aware that she was at liberty, so that his sermon had for its text only my rash flight from St. Lazare, and his own misgivings lest I should fail to profit by the virtuous teachings which I had received there, and return to my vicious courses.

He told me that he had gone to pay me a visit at St. Lazare the day after my escape, and had been inexpressibly shocked to hear of the way in which I had left it. He had had a conversation on the subject with the Superior. That worthy Father had not as yet recovered from the effects of his fright; but he had, nevertheless, been generous enough to conceal the circumstances of my departure from the Lieutenant-General of Police, and had prevented the death of the porter from being noised abroad. I had thus nothing to fear from that quarter, continued Tiberge, but he added, if I had not lost all sense of rectitude, I would take advantage of the happy turn which Providence had given to my affairs, and begin a new life by writing to my father and effecting a reconciliation with him. He concluded by saving that, if I would for once be governed by his advice, he was of opinion that my wisest course would be to leave Paris and return to the bosom of my family.

I heard him patiently to the end. There was a great deal in what he said that gave me no little satisfaction. I was delighted, in the first place, to find that I need have no fears as far as St. Lazare was concerned. This made the streets of Paris free ground for me again. In the second place, I congratulated myself on the fact that Tiberge had not the vaguest suspicion of Manon's escape and of her being with me once more. I even noticed that he had avoided mentioning her to me, under the impression, evidently, that she had lost her former hold on my heart, as I displayed so little anxiety regarding her.

I resolved, if not to go home to my family, at least to follow Tiberge's advice so far as to write to my father, and intimate to him that I was anxious to return to the path of duty and of obedience to his wishes. My hope was that I might be able to induce him to send me some money, by pretending that I required it in order to complete my course of study at the Academy; for I knew that it would be useless for me to try to make him believe that I had any inclination to re-enter the Church. At bottom, moreover, I was by no means indisposed to keep the promise I intended making him. I was glad, on the contrary, to see any prospect of occupying myself in some honorable and rational manner, as far as I could do so without prejudice to my love.

The plan I had in contemplation was to live with my mistress and to pursue my studies at the same time; the two were perfectly compatible. I was so well satisfied with all these projects that I promised Tiberge that I would despatch a letter to my father that very day; and, in fact, I had no sooner left him than I went into a public writing-office^[1] and composed such an affectionate and dutiful epistle that, on reading it over, I flattered myself that the paternal heart would be unable to resist my appeal.

Although, on leaving Tiberge, I could have well afforded to hire a coach, and pay for it, I took pleasure in walking proudly through the streets to M. de T———'s house. I enjoyed a sense of delight in this exercise of my new-found liberty, which, as my friend had assured me, there was now no further danger of my losing. It suddenly occurred to me, however, that his assurances referred only to St. Lazare, and that, besides this, I had the affair of the Hôpital still to answer for, not to mention the murder of Lescaut, in which I was concerned, if only as a witness. The recollection of these circumstances so terrified me that I retreated into the nearest alley-way, and sent for a coach, in which I drove straight to M. de T———'s. He laughed heartily at my fright, and, indeed, I could not help smiling at it myself, when he informed me that there were no unpleasant consequences to be apprehended either from the Hôpital adventure or Lescaut's death. He told me that, thinking he might be suspected of having taken part in Manon's abduction, he had gone to the Hôpital that morning and asked to see her—pretending to know nothing of what had happened. So far from accusing either him or myself of any complicity in the affair, the authorities at the Hôpital had eagerly related the whole occurrence to him, as an extraordinary piece of news; and had expressed their astonishment that such a pretty girl as Manon should have condescended to run away with a turnkey. He had merely remarked, indifferently, that he was not surprised at it, as people would do anything for the sake of liberty.

M. de T——— went on to relate that he had then gone to Lescaut's lodgings, in the hope of finding me there with my charming mistress. The landlord of the house, who was a coach-builder, declaimed that he had seen nothing of either Manon or myself, adding that if we had been looking for Lescaut it was no wonder we had not been to his house, as we must doubtless have heard of his having been murdered at about the very time in question; whereupon he had willingly proceeded to give all the particulars he knew regarding the cause and circumstances of Lescaut's death.

It seemed that, about two hours earlier in the evening, one of Lescaut's friends—a Guardsman—had gone to see him, and had proposed a game of cards. Lescaut had won so rapidly that within an hour the other had parted with a hundred crowns—in other words, with all the money he possessed. The unfortunate fellow, finding himself penniless, had begged Lescaut to lend him half the sum which he had lost. This had given rise to some dispute, the upshot of which was a violent quarrel between them. Lescaut refused to go out and settle it at the point of the sword, and the other left him, swearing to shoot him down like a dog when they met again—a threat which he had carried out that very evening. M. de T——— had the courtesy to add that he had felt much uneasiness on our account, and that I must continue to count upon his serving me in any way that he could. I did not hesitate to inform him of our place of retreat. He begged that I would permit him to go and take supper with us.

As I had nothing further to attend to, beyond obtaining some dresses and linen for Manon, I told him that we might start at once, if he would have the goodness to stop with me for a few moments at one or two shops. I do not know whether he thought that I made this proposition with a view to exciting his generosity, or whether it was simply from the impulse of a noble heart; but, having consented to set out immediately, he took me to the shops at which his family dealt, and insisted on my selecting several much more costly stuffs than it had been my intention to buy; and when I was about to pay for them, he forbade the shop-keepers, in the most positive terms, to accept a penny from me.

This kindly act was performed with such good grace, that I felt I might profit by it without a blush. We then started together for Chaillot, where I arrived in less anxious frame of mind than I had been in on leaving there that morning.

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As the above narrative had occupied the Chevalier des Grieux more than an hour in the telling, I begged him to pause awhile for rest, and to favor us with his company at supper. Our close attention gave him every reason to believe that we had listened to him with pleasure. He assured us that we should find the sequel of his story even more interesting; and, as soon as we had finished supper, he continued as follows.

End of the first part.

1. Bureau d'écriture.