“These thoughts restored me a little to my spirits and to my reason.  I determined first to consult M. Lescaut, the brother of Manon.  He knew Paris perfectly; and I had too many opportunities of learning that it was neither from his own estates, nor from the king’s pay, that he derived the principal portion of his income.  I had about thirty-three crowns left, which I fortunately happened to have about me.  I showed him my purse, and explained to him my misfortune and my fears, and then asked him whether I had any alternative between starvation and blowing out my brains in despair.  He coolly replied that suicide was the resource of fools.  As to dying of want, there were hundreds of men of genius who found themselves reduced to that state when they would not employ their talents; that it was for myself to discover what I was capable of doing, and he told me to reckon upon his assistance and his advice in any enterprise I might undertake.

“`Vague enough, M. Lescaut!’ said I to him:  `my wants demand a more speedy remedy; for what am I to say to Manon?’ `Apropos of Manon,’ replied he, `what is it that annoys you about her?  Cannot you always find in her wherewithal to meet your wants, when you wish it?  Such a person ought to support us all, you and me as well as herself.’  He cut short the answer which I was about to give to such unfeeling and brutal impertinence, by going on to say, that before night he would ensure me a thousand crowns to divide between us, if I would only follow his advice; that he was acquainted with a nobleman, who was so liberal in affairs of the kind, that he was certain he would not hesitate for a moment to give the sum named for the favours of such a girl as Manon.

“I stopped him. `I had a better opinion of you,’ said I; `I had imagined that your motive for bestowing your friendship upon me was very different indeed from the one you now betray.’  With the greatest effrontery he acknowledged that he had been always of the same mind, and that his sister having once sacrificed her virtue, though it might be to the man she most loved, he would never have consented to a reconciliation with her, but with the hope of deriving some advantage from her past misconduct.

“It was easy to see that we had been hitherto his dupes.  Notwithstanding the disgust with which his proposition inspired me, still, as I felt that I had occasion for his services, I said, with apparent complacency, that we ought only to entertain such a plan as a last resource.  I begged of him to suggest some other.

“He proposed to me to turn my youth and the good looks nature had bestowed upon me to some account, by establishing a liaison with some generous old dame.  This was just as little to my taste, for it would necessarily have rendered me unfaithful to Manon.