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 and Lescaut, and
about the little chapels of which he supposed I must have had time to
erect a great many in St. Lazare, as I was so fond of that occupation.
But he happened, unluckily both for me and for himself, to add, that he
hoped Manon had also employed herself in the same edifying manner at
the Magdalen. Notwithstanding the thrill of horror I felt at the sound
of the name, I had still presence of mind enough to beg, in the
gentlest manner, that he would explain himself. 'Oh! yes,' he replied,
'she has been these last two months at the Magdalen learning to be
prudent, and I trust she has improved herself as much there, as you
have done at St. Lazare!'

"If an eternal imprisonment, or death itself, had been presented to my
view, I could not have restrained the excitement into which this
afflicting announcement threw me. I flung myself upon him in so
violent a rage that half my strength was exhausted by the effort. I
had, however, more than enough left to drag him to the ground, and
grasp him by the throat. I should infallibly have strangled him, if
his fall, and the half-stifled cries which he had still the power to
utter, had not attracted the governor and several of the priests to my
room. They rescued him from my fury.

"I was, myself, breathless and almost impotent from rage. 'Oh God!' I
cried--'Heavenly justice! Must I survive this infamy?' I tried again
to seize the barbarian who had thus roused my indignation--they
prevented me. My despair--my cries--my tears, exceeded all belief: I
raved in so incoherent a manner that all the bystanders, who were
ignorant of the cause, looked at each other with as much dread as
surpri