The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux/Chapter 6

by L'Abbé Prévost

Chapter VI.

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For a time my happiness appeared to be established on the firmest of foundations. Manon was all gentleness and affection. She lavished such tender attentions upon me that I felt myself more than repaid for all the sufferings which I had undergone.

As we had both of us gained some share of practical experience, we prudently discussed the extent of our resources. The sixty thousand francs, which formed the bulk of our little fortune, was not a sum that would last us all our lives; especially as we were not inclined to put over-much restraint upon our expenditure. Economy was not Manon's chief virtue, any more than it was my own.

The arrangement I proposed to myself was as follows: "Sixty thousand francs," as I said to her, "ought to be enough to support us for ten years. Two thousand crowns a year will be as much of an income as we shall need if we continue to live at Chaillot. We will adopt a genteel, but simple mode of life. Our only extravagances shall consist in keeping a coach, and visiting the theatres. We will lay down rules for ourselves. Thus, as you are fond of the Opera, we will go to hear it twice a week. As to cards we will limit ourselves at play so that our losses shall never exceed two pistoles.^[1] In the course of ten years some change must inevitably occur in my family affairs. My father is advanced in years, and may die; in which case I shall come into property which will place us beyond the reach of any further anxiety."

I have been guilty of many worse follies in my life than this arrangement would have been, had we been wise enough to persevere in our strict adherence to it; but our resolutions lasted barely more than a month. Manon was devoted to pleasure: I was devoted to her. Fresh occasions for extravagance were incessantly arising; and—so far from grudging the money which she spent, often with lavish prodigality—I was the first to procure her everything which I thought likely to afford her gratification.

Even our residence at Chaillot soon began to grow irksome to her. Winter was drawing near; every one was returning to town, and the country was commencing to look deserted. She suggested that we should take a house in Paris. To this I refused my consent; but, in order to partially satisfy her, I told her that we might hire furnished apartments in town, where we could spend the night when we chanced to be very late in leaving the Assembly Ball, to which we were in the habit of going three or four times a week; for the inconvenience of returning to Chaillot at so late an hour was the pretext she advanced for her wish to move away from that village. Thus we indulged ourselves in two sets of lodgings: one in town and the other in the country. This change soon threw our affairs into the utmost confusion, by bringing about two occurrences which were fraught with ruinous consequences to us.

Manon had a brother who was an officer of the Royal Guard. By an unlucky coincidence, his lodgings in Paris happened to be in the same street as our own. Seeing his sister at her window one morning, he recognized her, and at once hurried to our apartment. He was a rough and churlish fellow, devoid of all honorable feeling. He burst into our room, cursing horribly; and, knowing something of his sister's adventures, proceeded to load her with reproaches and abuse. I had gone out a moment before, which was probably a fortunate circumstance for one or the other of us, as an insult was the last thing I was disposed to tolerate.

I did not return home until after he had left, and then Manon's air of dejection led me to suspect that something unusual had occurred. I drew from her an account of the painful scene through which she had just passed, and of her brother's brutal threats. So unmeasured was my indignation that I should at once have hastened after him to chastise him as he deserved, had she not restrained me by her tearful appeals. While we were talking the matter over, the guardsman re-entered the room in which we were sitting, without waiting to be announced. Had I known who he was, I should not have received him as civilly as I did; but, before I had time to inquire, he had greeted us with an air of cheerful self-assurance, and was rapidly telling Manon that he had come to apologize to her for his violence. He had, he explained, been under the impression that she was leading a dissolute life, and this idea had aroused his indignation; but, having made inquiries about me from one of our servants, he had received such favorable accounts of me that they had made him desirous of being on good terms with us. Grotesque and offensive as was the recommendation thus obtained from one of my own lackeys, I acknowledged his intended compliment courteously, thinking that it would please Manon for me to do so. She appeared delighted, for her part, to find that he was willing to effect a reconciliation. We invited him to remain to dinner; and, before many minutes had elapsed, he had placed himself on a footing of such familiarity with us that, hearing us speak of returning to Chaillot, he insisted on accompanying us thither. There was nothing for it but to give him a seat in our carriage. This was tantamount, on his part, to entering into possession; for he soon fell into the way of finding so much pleasure in our society, that he made our house his own, and installed himself as virtual master of all that belonged to us.

He called me his brother, and, under the pretext of fraternal intimacy, took upon himself to invite all his friends to our house and to entertain them there at our expense. He dressed in the most costly style, drawing upon our purse for the means of doing so; and even saddled us with all his debts. Out of consideration for Manon, I closed my eyes to this tyranny, and went so far as to feign ignorance of the fact that every now and again he extorted considerable sums of money from her. It is true that when fortune favored him—for he was an ardent gamester—he was honorable enough to repay her part of what she had lent him. But our means were too limited to meet the demands of such reckless extravagance for any length of time, and I was on the point of expressing myself very emphatically to him on the subject, in order to rid ourselves of his importunities, when a most unfortunate accident saved me the trouble, by bringing in its train another calamity which impoverished us beyond all recovery.

One night we had slept in Paris, as we were in the habit of doing very frequently. The maid-servant, who, on these occasions, was left alone at Chaillot, came to me in the morning with the intelligence that our house had taken fire during the night, and that the flames had been extinguished with great difficulty. I asked her whether any damage had been done to our furniture. She replied that the crowd of strangers who had come to give assistance had created so much confusion, that she could not answer for the safety of anything. I trembled for our money, which had been left there, locked up in a small chest; and hastened back to Chaillot at once. My promptitude was in vain; the chest had already disappeared!

In that bitter moment I realized that one need be no miser in order to love money. So keen was my anguish at our loss, that I thought it would cost me my reason. I saw at one glance all the new miseries to which I was about to be exposed. Poverty was the least of them. I understood Manon's nature; I had already learned, only too well, that however faithful and devoted she might be while fortune smiled on me, she could not be trusted in adversity. She loved pleasure and luxury too much to sacrifice them for my sake. "I shall lose her!" I cried to myself. "Unhappy wretch that I am, must I again be robbed of all that I hold dear?"

This thought threw me into such an agony of apprehension that I hesitated for some moments as to whether it would not be best to seek a refuge from all my sorrows in death. I retained enough presence of mind, however, to desire, before I took that fatal step, to satisfy myself whether there were, indeed, no other resource left open to me, and, as I pondered, Providence mercifully inspired me with an idea which checked my despair. It would not be impossible, I thought, to conceal our loss from Manon; and by my own industry, or some stroke of good fortune, to gain sufficient means to maintain her comfortably and prevent her feeling any sense of want.

"Did I not calculate," said I, by way of consoling myself, "that twenty thousand crowns would suffice for all our needs for the next ten years? Well, let us suppose that those ten years have gone by, and that none of the changes I had hoped for have occurred in my family; what course should I adopt? I am scarcely prepared to say, it is true; but, what is there to prevent my doing now whatever I should do then? Are there not many persons now living in Paris who have neither my intelligence nor my natural endowments, and who yet owe their support to their talents, such as they are? Has not Providence," I continued, as I reflected on the different conditions of life, "ordered things with profound wisdom? The majority of the great and rich are fools—that fact is obvious to every one who knows anything of society. Now, the justice of this is admirable. If, to their riches, they added the possession of intelligence, they would be unduly happy, and the remainder of mankind unduly wretched. To the latter, therefore, are accorded superior physical and mental faculties as means of raising themselves above misery and poverty. Some of them gain a share of the wealth of the higher classes by ministering to their pleasures, and so making them their dupes. Others devote themselves to their instruction, and try to make worthy and upright citizens of them. It is rarely, in truth, that they succeed; but that is not the object contemplated by Divine wisdom. What they do succeed in accomplishing is, to reap the fruit of their labors by living at the expense of those whom they teach. Thus, from whatever point of view one looks at it, the folly of the rich and great forms an excellent source of revenue for humbler folk."

These reflections served to restore me to some degree of cheerfulness and composure. My first resolution was to go and consult M. Lescaut, Manon's brother. He knew Paris thoroughly; and only too many opportunities had been afforded me of observing that it was neither from his own property nor from the King's pay that he drew the main part of his income. I had barely twenty pistoles left—that amount having luckily been in my pocket. I showed him my purse, and told him of my misfortune and my fears, and then asked him whether, in his opinion, there remained any other alternative for me to choose than to die of starvation, or blow out my brains in despair.

He replied that suicide was the refuge of fools; while, as for starvation, many an able man found himself reduced to it simply because he refused to make proper use of his talents. It lay with me to ascertain what I was capable of doing, but he assured me of his readiness to aid and advise me in whatever I might attempt.

"All this is very vague, M. Lescaut," said I. "The necessities of my case would seem to demand a more immediate remedy; what am I to tell Manon, for instance?"

"You need be under no anxiety about Manon, I should say," was his reply. "With her you have always the means of putting an end to your embarrassments whenever you please. A girl such as she is ought to support us all three."

I was about to rebuke him as he deserved for this insolent suggestion, when he cut me short by going on to say that he would guarantee my having, before night, a thousand crowns, to be divided between us, if I would consent to be guided by his advice. He knew a nobleman, he continued, who was so liberal in all that concerned his pleasures, that he was sure he would think nothing of pacing that amount to secure the favors of a girl like Manon. Here I stopped him.

"I entertained a higher opinion of you than this," I exclaimed. "I was under the impression that your motive in according me your friendship was based upon sentiments entirely opposed to those which you now profess."

He unblushingly avowed that he had been of this way of thinking from the first; and that his sister having once violated the laws of her sex, though in favor of a man for whom he had the warmest regard, he had become reconciled with her only in the hope of turning her misconduct to some account.

It became very evident to me that we had so far been his dupes. Deep as was my disgust at his words, however, the need in which I stood of his assistance forced me to reply, laughingly, that this proposal of his was a last resource which we must reserve for the direst extremity; and to beg him to suggest some other course. He advised that I should take advantage of my youth and of the pleasing presence which nature had bestowed upon me, to form an intrigue with some elderly lady of fortune and liberality.

I did not relish this project any better, involving, as it did, infidelity to Manon; and I suggested gaming as the easiest and most appropriate expedient for one in my situation. Gaming, he agreed, was certainly a resource; but it demanded some initiation into its secrets. To undertake to play, simply, with the ordinary chances of success, would be the surest method of completing my ruin; while to attempt, alone and unaided, to make use of those little devices which are employed by the skilful to correct the partialities of fortune, was a perilous business. There was, he admitted, a third alternative—that of joining the Fraternity; but I was so young that he feared the honorable body of Confederates would not consider me as yet possessed of the requisite qualifications for membership of the League.

He promised me, however, to use his good offices with them on my behalf, and—with a generosity of which I did not think him capable—offered to let me have some money, should I find myself in pressing need of it. The only favor I asked of him for the time being was to tell Manon nothing about my loss, nor about the subject of our conversation.

1. Twenty francs.