Previous  - next

It was nothing,
however, but rank hypocrisy--I blush to confess it. Instead of
studying, when alone I did nothing but curse my destiny. I
lavished the bitterest execrations on my prison, and the tyrants
who detained me there. If I ceased for a moment from these
lamentations, it was only to relapse into the tormenting
remembrance of my fatal and unhappy love. Manon's absence--the
mystery in which her fate was veiled--the dread of never again
beholding her; these formed the subject of my melancholy
thoughts. I fancied her in the arms of G---- M----. Far from
imagining that he could have been brute enough to subject her to
the same treatment to which I was condemned, I felt persuaded
that he had only procured my removal, in order that he might
possess her in undisturbed enjoyment.

"Oh! how miserable were the days and nights I thus passed! They
seemed to be of endless duration. My only hope of escape now,
was in hypocrisy; I scrutinised the countenance, and carefully
marked every observation that fell from the governor, in order to
ascertain what he really thought of me; and looking on him as the
sole arbiter of my future fate, I made it my study to win, if
possible, his favour. I soon had the satisfaction to find that I
was firmly established in his good graces, and no longer doubted
his disposition to befriend me.

"I, one day, ventured to ask him whether my liberation depended
on him. He replied that it was not altogether in his hands, but
that he had no doubt that on his representation M. G---- M----,
at whose instance the lieutenant-general of police had ordered me
to be confined, would consent to my being set at liberty. `May I
flatter myself,' rejoined I, in the mildest tone, `that he will
consider two months, which I have now spent in this prison, as a
sufficient atonement?' He offered to speak to him, if I wished
it. I implored him without delay to do me that favour.

"He told me two days afterwards that G---- M---- was so sensibly
affected by what he had heard, that he not only was ready to
consent to my liberation, but that he had even expressed a strong
desire to become better acquainted with me, and that he himself
purposed to pay me a visit in prison. Although his presence
could not afford me much pleasure, I looked upon it as a certain
prelude to my liberation.

"He accordingly came to St. Lazare. I met him with an air more
grave and certainly less silly than I had exhibited at his house
with Manon. He spoke reasonably enough of my former bad conduct.
He added, as if to excuse his own delinquencies, that it was
graciously permitted to the weakness of man to indulge in certain
pleasures, almost, indeed, prompted by nature, but that
dishonesty and such shameful practices ought to be, and always
would be, inexorably punished.

"I listened to all he said with an air of submission, which
quite charmed him. I betrayed no symptoms of annoyance even at
some jokes in which he indulged about my relationship with Manon

Previous  - next