set of obstinacy which my vanity might conceivably have borne but which would have assuredly proved too much for my purse I gave my name asked for the volume to be put aside and left by the stairs. I must have greatly intrigued the onlookers who having witnessed this scene doubtless wondered why on earth I had gone there to pay a hundred francs for a book that I could have got anywhere for ten or fifteen at most. An hour later I had sent round for my purchase,hello kitty vans. On the first page written in ink in an elegant hand was the dedication of the person who had given the book,vans cheap shoes. This dedication consisted simply of these words: 'Manon to Marguerite Humility.' It was signed: Armand Duval,vans shoes. What did this word 'Humility' mean? Was it that Manon in the opinion of this Monsieur Armand Duval acknowledged Marguerite as her superior in debauchery or in true love? The second interpretation seemed the more likely for the first was impertinently frank and Marguerite could never have accepted it whatever opinion she had of herself. I went out again and thought no more of the book until that night when I retired to bed. Manon Lescaut is a truly touching story every detail of which is familiar to me and yet whenever I hold a copy in my hand an instinctive feeling for it draws me on. I open it and for the hundredth time I live again with the abbe Prevost's heroine. Now his heroine is so lifelike that I feel that I have met her. In my new circumstances the kind of comparison drawn between her and Marguerite added an unexpected edge to my reading and my forbearance was swelled with pity almost love for the poor girl the disposal of whose estate I could thank for possessing the volume. Manon died in a desert it is true but in the terms of the man who loved her with all the strength of his soul and who when she was dead dug a grave for her watered it with his tears and buried his heart with her; whereas Marguerite a sinner like Manon and perhaps as truly converted as she had died surrounded by fabulous luxury if I could believe what I had seen on the bed of her own past but no less lost in the desert of the heart which is much more arid much vaster and far more pitiless than the one in which Manon had been interred. Indeed Marguerite as I had learned from friends informed of the circumstances of her final moments had seen no true consolation settle at her bedside during the two months when she lay slowly and painfully dying. Then from Manon and Marguerite my thoughts turned to those women whom I knew and whom I could see rushing gaily towards the same almost invariable death. Poor creatures! If it is wrong to love them the least one can do is to pity them. You pity the blind man who has never seen the light of day the deaf man who has never heard the harmonies of nature the mute who has never found a voice for his soul and yet under the specious pretext of decency you will not pity that blindness of heart deafness of soul and dumbness of conscience which turn the brains of poor desperate women and prevent them despite themselves from seeing goodness Related articles:

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