"`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 heart's blood of both!' I sank back upon a chair; my hat fell on one side, and my cane upon the other: torrents of bitter tears rolled down my cheeks. The paroxysm of rage changed into a profound and silent grief: I did nothing but weep and sigh. `Approach, my child, approach,' said I to the young girl; `approach, since it is you they have sent to bring me comfort; tell me whether you have any balm to administer for the pangs of despair and rage--any argument to offer against the crime of self-destruction, which I have resolved upon, after ridding the world of two perfidious monsters. Yes, approach,' continued I, perceiving that she advanced with timid and doubtful steps; `come and dry my sorrows; come and restore peace to my mind; come and tell me that at least you love me: you are handsome--I may perhaps love you in return.'
The poor child, who was only sixteen or seventeen years of age, and who appeared more modest than girls of her class generally are, was thunderstruck at this unusual scene. She however gently approached to caress me, when with uplifted hands I rudely repulsed her. `What do you wish with me?' exclaimed I to her.
`Ah! you are a woman, and of a sex I abhor, and can no longer tolerate; the very gentleness of your look threatens me with some new treason. Go, leave me here alone!' She made me a curtsy without uttering a word, and turned to go out. I called to her to stop: `Tell me at least,' said I, `wherefore-- how--with what design they sent you here? how did you discover my name, or the place where you could find me?'
"She told me that she had long known M. G---- M----; that he had sent for her that evening about five o'clock; and that, having followed the servant who had been dispatched to her, she was shown into a large house, where she found him playing at picquet with a beautiful young woman; and that they both charged her to deliver the letter into my hands, after telling her that she would find me in a hackney-coach at the bottom of the street of St. Andre. I asked if they had said nothing more. She blushed while she replied, that they had certainly made her believe that I should be glad of her society. `They have deceived you too,' said I, `my poor girl--they have deceived you; you are a woman, and probably wish for a lover; but you must find one who is rich and happy, and it is not here you will find him. Return, return to M. G---- M----; he possesses everything requisite to make a man beloved. He has furnished houses and equipages to bestow, while I, who have nothing but constancy of love to offer, am despised for my poverty, and laughed at for my simplicity.'
