The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux/Chapter 20

by L'Abbé Prévost

Chapter XX.

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We set sail, and were fortunate enough to have favorable winds throughout the entire passage. I succeeded in pursuading the Captain to assign a separate cabin to Manon and myself. He was good enough to make a distinction between us and the common herd of our wretched associates. Before a day had passed, I took him aside and confided part of my unhappy story to him, in the hope of securing considerate treatment at his hands. I did not feel that I was guilty of any very atrocious falsehood in telling him that I was married to Manon. He pretended to believe it, and took me under his special protection, evidences of which we received during the whole voyage. He took care that we had good food; and the marked attentions which he showed us resulted in our being treated with the utmost respect by our companions in misery.

I made it my constant study to save Manon from suffering the slightest discomfort. My efforts to this end did not escape her observation; and her recognition of them, together with her deep sense of the extraordinary sacrifices which I had made for her sake, rendered her so tender and devoted, so full of solicitude on her side concerning my most trifling wants, that there grew up between us an incessant emulation in kindly offices and loving attentions to one another.

I felt no regret at having left Europe. On the contrary, the nearer we drew to America the more did I feel my heart expand and fill with a sense of peace. Could I have been certain that when we arrived there, we should not lack the absolute necessaries of life, I should have thanked Fortune for having given so happy a turn to all our troubles.

After a voyage of two months' duration, we at last came in sight of the long-looked-for shores.

The aspect of the country, as we gazed upon it for the first time, presented no inviting features to our eyes. Nothing was to be seen but a wide sweep of barren and uninhabited plain, dotted here and there with a scanty growth of reeds and a few trees, with branches stripped bare by the wind. There was not a trace of either animals or human beings.

However, the Captain ordered several of the ship's cannon to be discharged, and shortly afterwards we descried a number of the citizens of New Orleans running towards us with lively demonstrations of joy. We had not observed the town, which is hidden by a low hill on the side from which we had approached it.

We were welcomed as though we were visitors from heaven. Thronging eagerly around us, the poor colonists besieged us with questions concerning the state of France and the various provinces in which they had been born. They embraced us affectionately, as brothers and as beloved comrades who had come to share the miseries and loneliness of their exile.

We walked with them towards New Orleans; but, as we drew near to it, we were surprised to discover that what had been hitherto cried up to us as a town of no mean proportions, was, in reality, nothing but a collection of a few wretched huts, inhabited by some five or six hundred persons. The Governor's residence was a little distinguished from the others by its superior height and situation. It stood within some earthwork fortifications, around which ran a wide ditch or intrenchment. We were first taken to pay our respects to him. He conferred with the Captain for some time in private, and then, advancing towards us, he carefully scanned the women who had come by our ship, one after another. There were thirty in all; for at Havre we had found another band of them who had joined our own. After a long inspection of them, the Governor sent for a number of the young men of the town who were anxious to have wives, and assigned the comeliest girls to the leading ones among them, while lots were cast for the rest. He had not, as yet, spoken to Manon, but when he ordered the others to withdraw, he told us both to remain.

"The Captain informs me," he then said, "that you are married, and that he became convinced during the voyage that you are both persons of superior intelligence and worth. I will not enter now into the question of what has brought you to your present pass; but if you are, in truth, as well-bred as your appearance would indicate, I shall spare no pains to mitigate the hardships of your lot; while you, for your part, can do much towards rendering my life in this wild and desolate spot less disagreeable than it has hitherto been."

I replied in such terms as I thought best calculated to confirm the impression which he had formed of us. He gave directions that a lodging should be prepared for us in the town, and then invited us to remain and take supper with him.

His manners, I thought, were remarkably courteous for a man who was, at best, only the chief of a wretched band of exiles. While there were others present, he studiously refrained from asking us any questions regarding the leading incidents of our story. The conversation was of a general nature, and, despite our heavy hearts, Manon and I did our best to help in making it agreeable and amusing.

In the evening the Governor had us conducted to the dwelling which had been prepared for us. This we found to be a miserable hut, roughly constructed of logs and clay, and consisting of two or three rooms on the ground floor, with a garret overhead. It had been furnished, by his orders, with five or six chairs, and a few of the commonest necessaries of life.

The sight of this sorry abode seemed to dismay poor Manon sadly. Her distress was on my account far more than on her own. No sooner were we left alone together than she sat down and began to weep bitterly. At first I endeavored to console her, but when she admitted that she was grieving only for my sake, and that her sole thought, in our common misfortunes, was of how much I had to suffer, I quickly assumed an air of such confidence and even cheerfulness as, I hoped, might serve to encourage her.

"Why should I complain?" I said to her: "I possess all that I ever desired. You love me, dearest, do you not? What greater happiness have I ever asked for than that? Let us trust the guidance of our fortunes to Providence. They do not appear to me to be in such a very desperate plight, after all. The Governor seems a kind and obliging man. He has already shown a disposition to befriend us, and he will not, I am sure, allow us to suffer from absolute want. As for this poor cabin and its rude furniture, comfortless as they are, you may have noticed that there seem to be but few persons here who are better housed or furnished than ourselves; and besides," I added, with a kiss, "you are the most wonderful of alchemists: you transform all things into gold!"

"Then you shall be the richest man in all the world," she replied; "for, as there never yet was love like yours, so it is impossible for man to be loved more tenderly than you are loved by me. I am not blind to my own faults," she continued. "I am well aware that I have never been worthy of the matchless devotion you have shown me. I have vexed and grieved you so that you could never have forgiven me, had it not been for your infinite affection and forbearance. I have been thoughtless and fickle; and, even while loving you, as I have always done, passionately and almost to distraction, I have shown you nothing but the basest ingratitude. But a change has come over me; how great a change you can scarcely conceive. The tears which you have so often seen me shed since our departure from France have not once been called forth by my own misfortunes. They ceased to distress me from the moment when you began to share them with me. I wept only out of love and compassion for you. I am inconsolable to think that I should have caused you a single moment's pain in all my life. Incessantly do I reproach myself for my infidelities, and bow my heart in contrition as I marvel at the sacrifices which love has inspired you to make for the sake of a miserable girl who has been so little worthy of them, and who," she concluded, with a flood of tears, "though she were to lay down her very life, could never fully repay you for one half of the pangs which she has caused you."

Her tears, her words, the tone in which she uttered them, all combined to make such a powerful impression upon me, that I felt my heart throbbing as if it would leap from my bosom.

"Have a care!" I said to her, "have a care, my dearest Manon! Such fervent expressions of your love are more than my poor strength can bear; for rapturous joy like this is an unaccustomed sensation to me. Kind Heaven!" I then exclaimed, "I have now nothing more to ask of you. Manon's heart is mine—mine beyond all fear or doubt; mine, as I have longed for it to be that I might be completely happy! Come what may now, nothing can shake my happiness: it is firmly established from this day forward!"

"It is, indeed," she responded, "if it depends upon me; and well do I know where my own happiness is always to be found."

I retired to rest with my mind filled with these delightful thoughts, which transformed my humble cabin into a palace fit for the proudest monarch on earth. Thenceforth America was, in my eyes, an abode of perfect bliss.

"Whoever would taste the true delights of love," I would often say to Manon, "should come to New Orleans. Here it is that the tender passion holds its sway, unruffled by self-interest, by jealousy, or by inconstancy. Our fellow-countrymen come to these shores in quest of gold: little do they dream of the far more precious treasures which we have discovered here!"

We carefully cultivated the Governor's friendship; and a few weeks after our arrival he was kind enough to appoint me to an unimportant post which had recently become vacant in the fort. Humble as it was, I accepted it as a godsend; for it enabled me to earn an independent livelihood. I hired a man-servant for myself, and a maid for Manon, and set about regulating our affairs in keeping with our modest income. My way of life was blameless and exemplary, and Manon's was no less so. We lost no opportunity of serving our neighbors and doing them acts of kindness. This obliging disposition on our part, and the amiability of our manners, gained us the confidence and affection of the whole colony, and we advanced so rapidly in the general esteem that we soon ranked as the leading persons in the town, after the Governor.

The innocence of our occupations and the undisturbed tranquillity of our lives served insensibly to revive our early feelings of piety. Manon had never been an irreligious girl; nor was I to be classed among those reckless libertines who glory in adding godlessness to depravity of morals. Youth and its passions had been to blame for all our past transgressions, and now experience was beginning to supply the place of age for us, producing the same results that increasing years would have brought about.

Our conversations, which were habitually of a serious turn, gradually inspired us with a longing for virtuous love. I was the first to propose this change to Manon, knowing, as I did, the principles which ruled in her breast. She was upright and sincere in all her sentiments; and these are qualities which invariably predispose their possessor towards virtue. I explained to her that there was one thing lacking to make our happiness complete, "and that," said I, "is the approval of Heaven. We are both of us too high-minded and pure-hearted to be content to live on in the voluntary violation of our plain duty. We did so live in France, I own; and there it was excusable; for it was impossible for us to cease to love one another, and equally so for us to satisfy our passion legitimately. But in America, where we have no one to consult but ourselves, where we need no longer pay any heed to the arbitrary decrees of rank and conventional usage, where we are even supposed to be married already, what is there to prevent our soon actually becoming so, and thus consecrating our love by the vows to which religion lends its sanction? "As for myself," I added, "I offer you nothing new in offering you my heart and hand; but I am ready to ratify the gift at the foot of the altar."

My words seemed to fill her with joy.

"Believe me," she said, "I have thought of this a thousand times since we came to America. The fear of displeasing you has made me lock the wish as a secret in my own heart; for I feel that it would be presumption on my part to aspire to the honor of being your wife."

"My wife!" replied I; "why, Manon, you should soon be a queen had it been my fate to be born a king. Let us hesitate no longer; we have no obstacles to dread. I will speak of the matter to the Governor this very day, and confess that we have hitherto been deceiving him. Let vulgar natures be deterred by the indissolubility of the marriage tie; they would not fear it were they sure, as we are, of its never being other than a bond of love."

Manon was in raptures of delight when I left her, after this expression of my resolve. I am convinced that my intentions would have commended themselves to the approval of any man of honor, considering the circumstances in which I was placed; hopelessly enslaved, that is to say, by a passion which it was beyond my power to conquer, and assailed by a remorse which I should have done wrong to stifle. Can any one, then, accuse me of murmuring without just cause when I bewail the harshness of Providence in spurning a design which I had formed only in the thought of pleasing it? In spurning it, do I say? Alas! it punished it as though it had been a crime! Strange! Heaven had borne with me patiently while I was rushing blindfold along the high-road of vice, and reserved its severest chastisement for the hour when I should seek to return to the path of virtue! I almost fear that my strength will fail me before I can finish this recital of the saddest events that ever fell to the experience of man!

I waited upon the Governor, as I had arranged with Manon, to obtain his consent to the solemnization of our marriage. I would gladly have avoided mentioning the subject to him, or to any one else, could I have been sure that his chaplain, who was then the only priest in the town, would have rendered me this service without his knowledge; but as I did not dare to hope that he would promise to keep it a secret, I had determined to act openly in the matter.

The Governor had a nephew, named Synnelet, for whom he entertained the deepest affection. This Synnelet was thirty years of age, and a man of honor and spirit, but violent and headstrong in temper. He was unmarried. Manon's beauty had made an impression upon him from the day of our first arrival; and the numerous opportunities he had had of seeing her during the nine or ten months which had gone by since then, had so inflamed his passion that he was secretly pining to possess her. As he supposed, however, in common with his uncle and all the people of the town, that I was really her husband, he had mastered his love so far as to let no signs of it escape him; and had even given evidence of a warm friendship for me on several occasions when it had been in his power to serve me.

I found him with his uncle when I reached the fort. I had no reason for keeping him in ignorance of my intentions; and consequently spoke out freely, without raising any objections to his being present. The Governor listened to me with his usual kindness. I told him part of the story of my life, which he heard with interest; and when I asked him to favor me by his presence at the coming ceremony he was generous enough to insist upon being allowed to defray all the expenses of the wedding festivities. I took my leave in the happiest frame of mind imaginable.

An hour afterwards I received a visit from the chaplain. I supposed that he had come to give me some instructions concerning my marriage; but, after greeting me coldly, he informed me abruptly that the Governor commanded me to abandon all further idea of it, as he had other views for Manon.

"Other views for Manon!" I exclaimed, as my heart sank within me: "and what may those views be, your reverence?"

"As you are well aware," he replied, "the Governor is master here, and, Manon having been sent out from France for the benefit of the colony, it is for him to dispose of her as he thinks fit. He has not done so as yet, because he believed her to be married; but now that he has learned from your own lips that she is not, he has decided to give her to M. Synnelet, who is in love with her."

At this my hot indignation got the better of my prudence. I haughtily ordered the chaplain out of my house, vowing the while that if the Governor, or Synnelet, or the whole town together, should dare to lay hands on my wife or my mistress, whichever they chose to call her, they would do so at their peril.

I then hastened to acquaint Manon with the terrible message which I had just received. We came to the conclusion that Synnelet must have worked upon his uncle's mind since my return, and that it was all the outcome of a long premeditated design on his part.

What were we to do? They had power on their side; we were helpless. Had we been in mid-ocean instead of at New Orleans, we could not have been more completely isolated, separated as we were from the rest of the world by countless leagues on every hand. Whither could we flee, in a land of which we knew nothing save that it was a lonely wilderness, inhabited, if at all, by ferocious beasts and by savages as inhuman as themselves?

I was esteemed by the townspeople, but I could not hope to stir up their sympathies in my behalf sufficiently to enable me to count upon their rendering me such assistance as would meet the exigencies of my case. To accomplish that, money was necessary; and I was poor. Moreover, the success of a popular uprising was more than doubtful, and, had fortune failed us in the attempt, we should have been irretrievably ruined.

All these thoughts passed in quick succession through my mind. Some of them I imparted to Manon, and then, without heeding her reply, plunged into a new train of reflection. No sooner had I come to one decision than I threw it aside to adopt another. I talked to myself, answering aloud the suggestions of my own mind, and, in short, was in a state of agitation which no comparison I can think of will help me to describe, so utterly did it transcend anything I have ever experienced before or since.

Manon was observing me closely all the while, and read, in the troubled expression of my face, the full extent of our danger. More alarmed on my account than on her own, the affectionate girl did not even dare to give free expression to her fears.

After long and anxious reflection, I at last resolved to go to the Governor and make an effort to move him by appealing to his sense of honor, and to the remembrance of my unvarying respect for him and of the friendship he had hitherto professed for me.

Manon tried her best to dissuade me from my purpose.

"You are rushing to certain death," she said, with tears in her eyes; "they will murder you, and I shall never see you again. If you must die, I will die first!"

Only after much persuasion did I succeed in convincing her that it was absolutely necessary that I should go and that she should remain at home. I promised her that I would not be absent long. Little did we either of us dream that it was she herself who was to be the victim of the whole wrath of Heaven and the cruel rancor of our enemies.