Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost

Author:Abbe Prevost [Prevost, Abbe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics
ISBN: 9780141958774
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-10-26T05:00:00+00:00

THE next day he succeeded in getting through to see me by passing himself off as my brother. I was overjoyed at seeing him safely in my room, and shut the door carefully. ‘There is not a moment to lose,’ I said. ‘First tell me what news of Manon, and then how to get out of here.’ He explained that he had not seen his sister since the day before I was imprisoned, that he had found out her fate and mine only by dint of careful investigation. He had presented himself two or three times at the Hôpital, but had not been allowed to speak to her. ‘Curses on G. Μ.!’ I cried. ‘He’ll pay dearly for this!’

‘Now about setting you free,’ said Lescaut. ‘This is not such an easy job as you think. Two of my friends and I spent all yesterday evening looking at the outside of the building and we came to the conclusion that it would be very difficult to get you out, with your windows looking on to a courtyard surrounded by bricks and mortar, as you yourself told me. What’s more, you are on the third floor and we can’t bring in any ladders or ropes. So I can’t see any chance from the outside. Something will have to be worked out for an inside job.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I have looked into everything, especially since I have not been watched so closely, thanks to being in the Superior’s good books. They no longer lock my door, and I am free to walk about in the monks’ galleries, but all the staircases are cut off by heavy doors that are kept shut night and day. There is no way of getting out by mere skill.’ I paused to think things out, and an excellent notion came to my mind – or it seemed so to me. ‘Just a minute!’ I said. ‘Could you bring me a pistol?’ ‘Quite simple,’ said Lescaut, ‘but you don’t want to kill somebody, do you?’ I assured him that so far from my wanting to kill anybody I did not even mind whether the pistol was loaded or not. ‘Bring it tomorrow,’ I said, ‘and don’t fail to be opposite the main entrance at eleven o’clock at night, with two or three friends. I hope to be able to join you there.’ He did his best to make me tell him some more, but in vain. I said that the enterprise I had in mind was of the sort that could seem feasible only after it had succeeded. I then asked him to cut his visit short so as to have no trouble about being admitted the next day. He was allowed in with as little trouble as the first time. He wore a very dignified look, and nobody would have taken him for anything but an honourable man.

When I found myself possessed of the instrument that was to gain me my freedom, I had scarcely any doubt left that my scheme was going to come off successfully.

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