Manon Lescaut - The Abbé Prévost (best free ebook reader .txt) 📗

“She thanked me for the good opinion I entertained of her, and promised to receive G–- M–-‘s offers in a way that should prevent a repetition of them. `No,’ said I, `you must not irritate him by incivility: he has it in his power to injure us.

But you know well enough, you little rogue,’ continued I, smiling, `how to rid yourself of a disagreeable or useless lover!’ After a moment’s pause she said: `I have just thought of an admirable plan, and I certainly have a fertile invention.

G–- M–- is the son of our bitterest enemy: we must avenge ourselves on the father, not through the son’s person, but through his purse. My plan is to listen to his proposals, accept his presents, and then laugh at him.’

“`The project is not a bad one,’ said I to her; `but you forget, my dear child, that it is precisely the same course that conducted us 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 I’ 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;