I might have told you of the beginning of this liaison in a few lines,
but I wanted you to see every step by which we came, I to agree to
whatever Marguerite wished, Marguerite to be unable to live apart from
me.

It was the day after the evening when she came to see me that I sent her
Manon Lescaut.

From that time, seeing that I could not change my mistress's life, I
changed my own. I wished above all not to leave myself time to think
over the position I had accepted, for, in spite of myself, it was a
great distress to me. Thus my life, generally so calm, assumed all
at once an appearance of noise and disorder. Never believe, however
disinterested the love of a kept woman may be, that it will cost one
nothing. Nothing is so expensive as their caprices, flowers, boxes at
the theatre, suppers, days in the country, which one can never refuse to
one's mistress.

As I have told you, I had little money. My father was, and still is,
receveur general at C. He has a great reputation there for loyalty,
thanks to which he was able to find the security which he needed in
order to attain this position.

It is worth forty thousand francs a year, and during the ten years that
he has had it, he has paid off the security and put aside a dowry for
my sister. My father is the most honourable man in the world. When
my mother died, she left six thousand francs a year, which he divided
between my sister and myself on the very day when he received his
appointment; then, when I was twenty-one, he added to this little income
an annual allowance of five thousand francs, assuring me that with
eight thousand francs a year I might live very happily at Paris, if, in
addition to this, I would make a position for myself either in law or
medicine. I came to Paris, studied law, was called to the bar, and, like
many other young men, put my diploma in my pocket, and let myself drift,
as one so easily does in Paris.