Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/24

28 Vacation being now at hand, I was preparing to return home to my father, who had promised soon to send me to the Academy. My only regret on leaving Amiens was that I had to part with a friend there to whom I had always been tenderly attached. He was my elder by a few years. We had been brought up together; but, as his family was far from wealthy, he was obliged to enter the Church, and had to remain at Amiens after I left, in order to pursue the studies demanded by that calling.

He was possessed of so many good qualities that I could not even begin to enumerate them now. You will find him displaying the best of them in the course of my story; and, above all, a zeal and unselfishness in friendship which surpass the most renowned examples of antiquity. Had I, in those days, followed his counsels, I should have always been a virtuous and happy man. Had I even heeded his rebukes when deep in the gulf into which my passions dragged me, I should have rescued something from the shipwreck of my fortune and reputation. But he has reaped no other fruit from his brotherly solicitude than the grief of finding it all in vain, and of being sometimes harshly requited for it by an ungrateful wretch, who has more than once actually resented it as officious.

I had settled on the time for my departure from Amiens. Alas, that I did not fix it for one day sooner! I should then have gone home to my father with my innocence all unsullied.

The very evening before I was to have left Amiens, as I was taking a walk with my friend, whose name was Tiberge, we saw the Arras diligence arrive, and strolled after it to the inn at which these conveyances set down their passengers. We were actuated merely by idle curiosity. Some women alighted, and withdrew at once; but one, a very young girl, remained standing in the