FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258  
259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   >>   >|  
of love could purify so sharply every emotion but that of pity too profound for words. He wondered if his father had loved with such a devotion of self-destruction as had inspired des Grieux. It was strange himself should have been so greatly moved by a story of love at the moment when he was making ready to enter the world. He had not thought of love during all the time he had been up at Oxford. Now he went back in memory to the days when Lily had the power to shake his soul, even as the soul of des Grieux had been shaken in that inn-yard of Amiens, when coming by the coach from Arras he first beheld Manon. How trivial had been Lily's infidelity compared with Manon's: how shallow had been his own devotion beside the Chevalier's. But the love of des Grieux for Manon was beyond the love of ordinary youth. The Abbe by his art had transmuted a wild infatuation, a foolish passion for a wanton into something above even the chivalry of the noblest lover of the Middle Ages. It was beyond all tears, this tale; and the dry grief it now exacted gave to Michael in some inexplicable way a knowledge of life more truly than any book since Don Quixote. It was an academic tale, too: it was told within the narrowest confines of the most rigid form. There was not in this narrative one illegitimate device to excite an easy compassion in the reader: it was literature of a quality marmoreal, and it moved as only stone can move. The death of Manon in the wilderness haunted him even as he sat here: almost he too could have prostrated himself in humiliation before this tragedy. "There is no story like it," said Michael to the sleek river. _N'exigez point de moi que je vous decrive mes sentiments, ni que je vous rapporte mes dernieres expressions._ And it was bought by an undergraduate for half a crown because he wanted to stare like the peasant-folk. _C'est une douzaine de filles de joie._ How really promising that illustration must have looked: how the coin must have itched in his pocket: how carefully he must have weighed the slimness of the book against his modesty: how easy it had been to conceal behind those magazines. But he could not sit here any longer reconstructing the shamefaced curiosity of a dull young freshman, nor even, with so much to arrange this last morning, could he continue to brood upon the woes of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut. It was time to go and rouse Lonsdale. Lonsdale had slept long enough in those
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258  
259   260   261   262   263   264   265   266   267   268   269   270   271   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Grieux
 
Michael
 
Chevalier
 

Lonsdale

 
devotion
 

dernieres

 
expressions
 
decrive
 

sentiments

 

rapporte


wilderness

 
haunted
 

reader

 

compassion

 

literature

 
quality
 

marmoreal

 

tragedy

 

bought

 

prostrated


humiliation

 

exigez

 

illustration

 

freshman

 

curiosity

 

shamefaced

 

magazines

 

longer

 
reconstructing
 
arrange

Lescaut

 
morning
 

continue

 

conceal

 

douzaine

 

peasant

 

wanted

 

filles

 

weighed

 

carefully


slimness

 
modesty
 

pocket

 

itched

 

promising

 
looked
 
undergraduate
 

memory

 

shaken

 
Oxford