Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/86

90 ing in any respect from the truth, or glossing over my faults with a view to making them appear more excusable, I dwelt upon my passion with all the vehemence with which it inspired me. I described it to him as one of those special fatalities which single out their unhappy victim for inevitable ruin, and against which it is as impossible for virtue to struggle successfully as it is for Wisdom to foresee their coming.

I drew a vivid picture of my mental agitations, of my fears, and of the despair which had taken possession of me two hours before I saw him; as well as of that in which I should again be plunged if I were abandoned by my friends as pitilessly as I had been by fortune. In short, I so touched good Tiberge's kind heart, that I saw he was suffering as much out of sympathy with me as I was from the sense of my own troubles.

He embraced me again and again, and exhorted mo to take courage and be consoled. As he assumed all the while, however, that I must part from Manon, I gave him distinctly to understand that the very prospect of such a separation was what I regarded as the greatest of my misfortunes; and that I was prepared to suffer the worst extremes of misery—aye, death in its cruelest form—before I would submit to a remedy more intolerable than all my sorrows combined.

"Let me understand you, then," he said. "What help can I give you if you rebel against all my proposals?"

I dared not confess that what I wanted from him was pecuniary aid. He comprehended at last that such was the case, however; and, after telling me that he thought he saw my meaning, he sat for some time buried in reflection, as though he were carefully weighing his decision.

"Do not imagine," he resumed before long, "that my hesitation arises from any diminution of the warmth of