Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/94

98 from your grasp. The most terrible of all punishments God could inflict on you would be to leave you to enjoy it undisturbed. All my admonitions," he added, "have been wasted upon you; and I foresee only too clearly that they are in danger of becoming irksome to you. Farewell, therefore, weak and ungrateful friend! May your guilty pleasures vanish like shadows; may your good fortune and your money be lost to you irretrievably; and, as for yourself, may you be left, destitute and alone, to realize the vanity of those joys which have so madly infatuated you! Then, and only then, will you find me ready to love and to aid you. For the time being, I break off all intercourse with you, in detestation of the life you are leading!"

This apostolic tirade he delivered to me in my own room, in Manon's presence, and then rose to depart. I made an effort to detain him, but was checked by Manon, who said that he was a madman whom we were well rid of.

His words, however, did not fail to leave some impression upon me. I thus note the various occasions when I felt my heart revert toward rectitude, because it was to the memory of such moments that I afterwards owed much of the strength which supported me during the unhappiest hours of my life.