“Shall I describe to you my heart-rending interviews with Manon during this journey, and what my sensations were when I obtained from the guards permission to approach her caravan?  Oh! language never can adequately express the sentiments of the heart; but picture to yourself my poor mistress, with a chain round her waist, seated upon a handful of straw, her head resting languidly against the panel of the carriage, her face pale and bathed with tears, which forced a passage between her eyelids, although she kept them continually closed.  She had not even the curiosity to open her eyes on hearing the bustle of the guards when they expected our attack.  Her clothes were soiled, and in disorder; her delicate hands exposed to the rough air; in fine, her whole angelic form, that face, lovely enough to carry back the world to idolatry, presented a spectacle of distress and anguish utterly indescribable.

“I spent some moments gazing at her as I rode alongside the carriage.  I had so lost my self-possession, that I was several times on the point of falling from my horse.  My sighs and frequent exclamations at length attracted her attention.  She looked at and recognised me, and I remarked that on the first impulse, she unconsciously tried to leap from the carriage towards me, but being checked by her chain, she fell into her former attitude.

“I begged of the guards to stop one moment for the sake of mercy; they consented for the sake of avarice.  I dismounted to go and sit near her.  She was so languid and feeble, that she was for some time without the power of speech, and could not raise her hands:  I bathed them with my tears; and being myself unable to utter a word, we formed together as deplorable a picture of distress as could well be seen.  When at length we were able to speak, our conversation was not less sorrowful.  Manon said little:  shame and grief appeared to have altered the character of her voice; its tone was feeble and tremulous.

“She thanked me for not having forgotten her, and for the comfort I gave her in allowing her to see me once more, and she then bade me a long and last farewell.  But when I assured her that no power on earth could ever separate me from her, and that I was resolved to follow her to the extremity of the world—­to watch over her—­to guard her—­to love her—­and inseparably to unite my wretched destiny with hers, the poor girl gave way to such feelings of tenderness and grief, that I almost dreaded danger to her life from the violence of her emotion:  the agitation of her whole soul seemed intensely concentrated in her eyes; she fixed them steadfastly upon me.  She more than once opened her lips without the power of giving utterance to her thoughts.  I could, however, catch some expressions that dropped from her, of admiration and wonder at my excessive love—­of doubt that she could have been fortunate enough to inspire me with a passion so perfect—­of earnest entreaty that I would abandon my intention of following her, and seek elsewhere a lot more worthy of me, and which, she said, I could never hope to find with her.