be able. Ah God! When I think of my last letter, which my excessive
happiness prevented me from continuing! It is the thought of my despair
which overwhelms me now, which leaves me only strength enough to feel
my sorrows, and deprives me of the power of expressing them.
Valmont--Valmont no longer loves me, he has never loved me. Love
does not vanish thus. He deceives me, betrays me, outrages me. All
misfortunes and humiliations that can be heaped together I experience,
and it is from him that they come!
Do not suppose that this is a mere suspicion: I was so far from having
any! I have not even the consolation of a doubt: what could he say to
justify himself?... But what matters it to him! He will not even make
the attempt.... Unhappy wretch! What will thy reproaches and tears
avail with him? He is far from thinking of thee!
’Tis true, then, that he has sacrificed me, exposed me even ... and to
whom?... A low creature.... But what am I saying? Ah, I have even lost
the right to despise her! She has been false to fewer duties, she is
not so guilty as I. Oh, how bitter is the sorrow which is founded upon
remorse! I feel my torments redouble.
Adieu, my dear friend; however unworthy I may have made myself of your
pity, you will still feel it for me, if you can form any idea of what I
suffer.
I have just read over my letter, and I perceive it can tell you
nothing; I will try, then, to master up courage to relate the cruel
incident. It was yesterday; for the first time since my return I was
going to sup abroad. Valmont came to see me at five o’clock; never had
he seemed so fond. He gave me to understand that my project of going
out vexed him, and you may judge that I soon formed that of remaining
with him. However, two hours and a half later, and suddenly, his air
and tone underwent a sensible change. I know not whether I had let fall
something which may have displeased him; be that as it may, shortly
afterwards he pretended to recollect some business which compelled
him to leave me, and went away: not without displaying a very lively
regret, which seemed affectionate, and which I then believed to be
sincere.
Being left alone, I judged it more proper not to excuse myself from
my first engagement since I was at liberty to fulfil it. I completed
my toilette and entered my carriage. Unfortunately, my coachman took
me by way of the Opera, and I was involved in the crowd of people
leaving; four yards in front of me, and in the rank next to my own, I
perceived Valmont’s carriage. My heart instantly palpitated, but it
was not from fear; and my only idea was the desire that my carriage
should go forward. Instead of that, it was his own which was forced to
retreat, and came alongside of mine. I instantly advanced; what was my
astonishment to find a courtesan at his side, one well known as such! I
withdrew, as you may well believe, and I had already seen quite enough
to wound my heart; but you would hardly believe that this same woman,
apparently informed by an odious confidence, never quitted the window
of the carriage, nor ceased to stare at me, with peals of scandalous
laughter.
In the condition of prostration to which I was reduced, I let myself,
nevertheless, be driven to the house where I was to sup; but it was
impossible for me to remain; I felt each instant on the point of
swooning away, and, above all, I could not restrain my tears.
On my return, I wrote to M. de Valmont, and sent him my letter
immediately; he was not at home. Wishing, at any price, to issue from
this state of death, or to confirm it for ever, I sent again with
orders to wait for him; but before midnight my servant returned,
telling me that the coachman, who was back, had told him that his
master would not be home that night. I thought this morning that I had
nothing else to do than ask him for the return of my letters, and beg
him to visit me no more. I have, indeed, given orders to this effect,
but doubtless they were superfluous. It is nearly noon; he has not yet
presented himself, and I have not received a word from him.
Now, my dear friend, I have nothing further to add: you are informed of
everything, and you know my heart. My sole hope is that I may not long
afflict your tender friendship.
Paris, 15th November, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIXTH
THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
DOUBTLESS, Monsieur, after what passed yesterday, you will not expect
me to receive you again; nor, doubtless, are you at all desirous that
I should! This note, therefore, is written less with the intention of
begging you to come no more, than to request you to return the letters,
which should never have existed, and which, if they may have interested
you for a moment, as proofs of the infatuation you had occasioned, can
only be indifferent to you now that this is dissipated, and that they
only express a sentiment which you have destroyed.
I admit and confess that I am to blame for having shewn in you a
confidence of which so many before me have been victims; in that I
accuse myself alone: but I believed, at least, that I had not deserved
to be handed over by you to insult and contempt. I believed that, in
sacrificing all for you, and losing for you alone my rights to my
own and others’ esteem, I could, nevertheless, expect to be judged
by you not more severely than by the public, whose opinion still
discriminates, by an immense interval, between the frail woman and the
woman who is depraved.
These wrongs, which would be wrongs in the case of anybody, are the
only ones I shall mention. I shall be silent on those of love; your
heart would not understand mine. Adieu, Monsieur.
Paris, 15th November, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL
THIS instant only, Madame, has your letter been handed to me; I
shuddered as I read it, and it has left me with barely the strength
to reply to it. What terrible idea, then, do you form of me? Ah,
doubtless, I have my faults, and such faults as I shall never forgive
myself, all my life, even were you to cover them with your indulgence.
But how far from my soul have those ever been with which you reproach
me! What, I! Humiliate you! Degrade you! When I respect you as much as
I cherish you; when I have never felt a moment of pride save when you
judged me worthy of you! You are deceived by appearances, and I admit
they may have seemed against me: but did not your heart contain the
wherewithal to contend against them, and did it not rebel at the mere
thought that it could have a cause of complaint against mine? However,
you believed it. So you not only judged me capable of this atrocious
madness, but you even feared you had exposed yourself to it through
your bounty to me. Ah, if you consider yourself to such a degree
degraded by your love, I am myself, then, all that is vile in your eyes!
Oppressed by the painful emotion which this idea causes me, I am
losing, in repelling it, the time I should employ in destroying it. I
will confess all: I am restrained also by quite another consideration.
Must I retrace facts which I would fain obliterate, and fix your
attention and my own upon a moment of error which I would fain redeem
with the rest of my life, the cause of which I cannot even now
conceive, and the memory of which must for ever be my humiliation and
my despair? Ah, if my self-accusation is to excite your anger, you
will not, at any rate, have to seek far for your revenge; it will be
sufficient to hand me over to my remorse.
However, who would believe it? The first cause of this incident is the
supreme charm which I experience when I am by you. It was this which
caused me too long to forget important business which could not be
postponed. I left you too late, and did not find the person of whom I
was in search. I hoped to meet him at the Opera, and my visit there was
equally unsuccessful. Émilie, whom I met there, whom I had known in
days when I was far from knowing you or love; Émilie was without her
carriage, and begged me to set her down at her house, not a dozen yards
away, and to this I consented. But it was just then that I met you, and
I felt immediately that you would be driven to hold me guilty.
The fear of displeasing or of grieving you is so potent with me that it
was bound to be, and indeed was, speedily noticed. I admit even that
it induced me to try and persuade the girl not to show herself; this
precaution of delicacy was fatal to love. Accustomed, like all those of
her condition, never to be certain of an empire, ever usurped, save by
means of the abuse which they allow themselves to make of it, Émilie
was by no means willing to allow so splendid an occasion to slip. The
more she saw my embarrassment increase, the more she affected to shew
herself; and her mad merriment--and I blush to think that you could for
a moment have thought yourself its object--was only caused by the cruel
pain I experienced, which itself was but due to my respect and love.
So far, doubtless, I am more unfortunate than guilty, and those wrongs,
_which would be wrongs in the case of anybody, and the only ones you
mention_; those wrongs, being wiped away, cannot be a cause of reproach
to me. But ’tis in vain you pass over in silence those of love: I
shall not maintain a like silence concerning them; I have too great an
interest in breaking it.
In the confusion in which I am thrown by this unaccountable deviation,
it is not without extreme sorrow that I can bring myself to recall the
memory of it. Penetrated with a sense of my failings, I would consent
to pay the penalty for them, or I would wait for time, my eternal
tenderness, and repentance to bring my pardon. But how can I be silent,
when what is left for me to say concerns your delicacy?
Do not think I seek a pretence to excuse or palliate my fault: I
confess my guilt. But I do not confess, I will never admit, that this
humiliating error can be looked upon as a fault in love. Nay, what
can there be in common between a surprise of the senses, a moment’s
self-oblivion, soon followed by shame and regret, and a pure sentiment
which can only be born in a delicate soul and sustained by esteem, and
of which, finally, happiness is the fruit? Ah, do not profane love
thus! Above all, fear to profane yourself by uniting in the same point
of view things which can never be confounded. Leave vile and degraded
women to dread a rivalry which they feel may be established in their
own despite, and to know the pangs of a jealousy as humiliating as it
is cruel: but do you turn away your eyes from objects which might sully
their glance; and, pure as the Divinity, punish the offence without
feeling it.
But what penalty will you impose on me that is more grievous than
that which I undergo? What can be compared to the regret at having
displeased you, the despair at having grieved you, the overwhelming
idea of having rendered myself less worthy of you? You are absorbed in
punishing me, and I ask you for consolations: not that I deserve them,
but because they are necessary to me, and they can only come to me from
you!
If, on a sudden, forgetful of our love, and setting no further price
on my happiness, you wish, on the contrary, to hand me over to eternal
sorrow, you have the right; strike: but if, more indulgent or more
sensitive, you remind yourself once more of those tender sentiments
which united our hearts; of that voluptuousness of the soul, always
being born again and always felt more keenly; of those sweet and
fortunate days which each of us owed to the other; all those benefits
of love which love alone procures; perhaps you will prefer the power of
renewing to that of destroying them. What can I say more? I have lost
all, and lost it by my fault; but I can retrieve all by your bounty. It
is for you to decide now. I will add but one word. Only yesterday you
swore to me that my happiness was quite secure so long as it depended
on you! Ah, Madame, will you abandon me to-day to an eternal despair?
Paris, 15th November, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHTH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL
I INSIST, my charming friend: no, I am not in love, and it is not my
fault if circumstances force me to play the part. Only consent, and
return; you shall soon see for yourself how sincere I am. I made proof
of it yesterday, and it cannot be destroyed by what occurs to-day.
Know then I was with the tender prude, and was quite without any other
business: for the little Volanges, in spite of her condition, was
to pass the whole night at Madame V***’s infants’ ball. My lack of
employment had, at first, inclined me to prolong the evening, and I
had even demanded a slight sacrifice with this view; but hardly was it
granted, when the pleasure I had promised myself was disturbed by the
idea of this love which you persist in ascribing to me, or at least,
in reproaching me with; so much so that I felt no other desire except
that of being able to assure myself, and convince you, that it was pure
calumny on your part.
I made a violent resolve therefore; and, under some trivial pretext,
left my fair much surprised and, doubtless, even more grieved. For
myself, I went tranquilly to meet Émilie at the Opera; and she could
testify to you, that, until this morning, when we separated, no regret
came to trouble our pleasures.
I had, however, fine cause enough for uneasiness, had not my utter
indifference saved me from it; for you must know that I was hardly four
doors away from the Opera, with Émilie in my carriage, when that of the
austere Puritan drew up exactly beside mine, and a block which occurred
left us for nearly half a quarter of an hour side by side. We could see
each other as clearly as at noon, and there was no means of escape.
Nor is this all; I took it into my head to confide to Émilie that it
was the woman of the letter. (You will remember, perhaps, that piece
of folly, and that Émilie was the desk).[13] She had not forgotten it,
and, as she is a laughter-loving creature, she could not be at peace
until she had examined, at her ease, _this piece of virtue_, as she
said, and this with peals of such scandalous laughter as would have
angered anyone.
Still this is not all; the jealous woman sent to my house the very same
night! I was not there; but, in her obstinacy, she sent a second time,
with orders to wait for me. As soon as I had made up my mind to sleep
with Émilie, I had sent back my carriage, with no other order to the
coachman but to return and fetch me this morning; and as, on reaching
home, he found the messenger of love, he told him very simply that I
should not be back that night. You can well imagine the effect of this
news, and that on my return I found my dismissal announced with all the
dignity proper to the occasion.
Thus this adventure, which in your view was never to be determined,
could have been finished, as you see, this morning; if it is not
finished, that is not, as you will believe, because I set any price on
its continuation: it is, first, because I did not think it decent that
I should let myself be quitted; and again, because I wished to reserve
for you the honour of the sacrifice.
I answered this severe note, therefore, in a long letter full of
sentiment; I gave lengthy reasons and relied on love to make them
acceptable. I have already succeeded. I have just received a second
note, still very rigorous and confirming the eternal rupture, as it
ought to be; the tone of it, however, is not the same. Above all, I
am not be seen again: this resolution is announced four times in the
most irrevocable fashion. I concluded thereby, that I was not to lose
a moment before I presented myself. I have already sent my _chasseur_
to win over the porter; and, in an instant, I shall go myself, to have
my pardon sealed: for in sins of this nature, there is only one formula
which carries a general absolution; and that can only be performed at
an audience.
Adieu, my charming friend; I fly to make trial of this great event.
Paris, 15th November, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH
THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL TO MADAME DE ROSEMONDE
HOW I reproach myself, my tender friend, for having spoken to you
too much and too soon of my passing sorrows! I am the cause if you
are grieved at present; those sorrows which you derive from me still
endure; and I--I am happy. Yes, all is forgotten, pardoned; rather
let me say, all is redeemed. Peace and delight have succeeded to this
state of sorrow and anguish. O joy of my heart, how can I express you!
Valmont is innocent; no one is guilty who loves so well. Those serious,
offensive wrongs for which I reproached him with so much bitterness
he had not committed; and if on a certain point, my indulgence was
necessary, had I not also my injustice to repair?
I will not enter into the details of the facts or reasons which justify
him; perhaps, even, the mind would but ill appreciate them: it is the
heart alone which is capable of feeling them. If, however, you were to
suspect me of weakness, I would summon your judgment to the aid of my
own. With men, you have said yourself, infidelity is not inconstancy.
’Tis not that I do not feel that this distinction, which opinion
justifies in vain, none the less wounds our delicacy; but of what
should mine complain, when that of Valmont suffers even more? For the
very wrong which I forget do not believe that he forgives himself, or
is consoled. And yet how greatly has he retrieved this trivial error by
the excess of his love and my happiness!
Either my felicity is greater, or I know the value of it better, since
I have been afraid that I had lost it: but what I may tell you is that,
if I felt I had sufficient strength to support again sorrows as cruel
as those I have just undergone, I should not deem I paid too high a
price for the excess of happiness I have tasted since. O my tender
mother, scold your inconsiderate daughter for having grieved you by too
much hastiness; scold her for having judged rashly and calumniated him
whom she should ever adore: but, whilst recognizing her imprudence, see
her happy, and enhance her joy by sharing it.
Paris, 15th November, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND FORTIETH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL
How comes it, my lovely friend, that I receive no reply from you? Yet
my last letter seemed to me to deserve one; these three days I could
have received it, and I am awaiting it still! Indeed, I am vexed; I
shall not speak to you at all, therefore, of my grand affairs.
That the reconciliation had its full effect; that, instead of
reproaches and distrust, it but called forth fresh proofs of fondness;
that it is I, at present, who receive the excuses and reparation due
to my suspected candour, I shall tell you no word of this: and but for
the unexpected occurrence of last night, I should not write to you at
all. But, as that concerns your pupil, who probably will not be in a
condition to tell you of it herself, at any rate for some time to come,
I have charged myself with the task.
For reasons which you may or may not guess, Madame de Tourvel has not
engaged my attention for some days past; and as these reasons could
not exist in the case of the little Volanges, I became more attentive
to her. Thanks to the obliging porter, I had no obstacles to overcome,
and we led, your pupil and I, a comfortable and regular life. But
habit leads to negligence: during the first days, we could never take
precautions enough for our safety; we trembled even behind the bolts.
Yesterday, an incredible piece of forgetfulness caused the accident
of which I have to inform you; and if, for my part, I escaped with a
fright, it has cost the little girl considerably more.
We were not asleep, but were in that state of repose and abandonment
which succeeds to pleasure, when we heard, on a sudden, the door of the
room open. I at once seized my sword, as much for my own defence as
for that of our common pupil; I advanced, and saw no one: but, indeed,
the door was open. As we had a light, I made a search, but found no
living soul. I remembered, then, that we had forgotten our ordinary
precautions, and no doubt the door, which had been only pushed to or
badly shut, had opened of itself.
On rejoining my timid companion, with a view to calming her, I no
longer found her in the bed; she had fallen, or hidden herself, betwixt
the bed and wall: she was stretched there without consciousness,
with no other movements than violent convulsions. You may imagine my
embarrassment! I succeeded, however, in putting her back in the bed,
and even in bringing her to, but she had hurt herself in her fall, and
it was not long before she felt the effects.
Pains in the loins, violent colic pains, symptoms even less ambiguous,
had soon enlightened me as to her condition: but, to acquaint her with
it, I had first to tell her of that in which she was before; for she
had no suspicion of it. Never perhaps, before her, did anyone preserve
so much innocence, after doing so well all that is necessary to get rid
of it! Oh, this one loses no time in reflection!
But she lost a great deal in bewailing herself, and I felt it was
time to come to a resolution. I agreed with her, then, that I would
go at once to the physician and to the surgeon of the family, and,
informing them they would be sent for, would confide the whole truth to
them, under a promise of secrecy; that she, on her side, should ring
for her waiting-maid; that she should, or should not, take her into
her confidence, as she liked, but that she should send her to seek
assistance, and forbid her, above all, to awake Madame de Volanges; a
natural and delicate attention on the part of a daughter who fears to
cause her mother anxiety.
I made my two visits and my two confessions with what speed I could,
and thence returned home, nor have I gone abroad since; but the
surgeon, whom I knew before, came at noon to give me an account of
his patient’s condition. I was not mistaken; but he hopes that, if no
accident occurs, nothing will be noticed in the house. The maid is in
the secret; the physician has given the complaint a name; and this
business will be settled like a thousand others, unless it be useful
for us to speak of it hereafter.
But have we still any interests in common, you and I? Your silence
would lead me to doubt it; I should not even believe it at all, did not
my desire lead me to seek every means of preserving the hope of it.
Adieu, my lovely friend; I embrace you, though I bear you a grudge.
Paris, 21st November, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIRST
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
GOOD God, Vicomte, how you trouble me with your obstinacy! What does my
silence matter to you? Do you suppose, if I maintain it, that it is for
lack of reasons to justify it? Ah, would to God it were! But no; it is
only that it is painful for me to tell you them.
Tell me truly: are you under an illusion yourself, or are you trying to
deceive me? The disparity between what you say and what you do leaves
me no choice between these two sentiments: which is the true one? Pray,
what would you have me say to you, when I myself do not know what to
think?
You appear to make a great merit of your last scene with the
Présidente; but, pray, what does it prove for your system, or against
mine? I certainly never said that you loved this woman well enough not
to deceive her, or not to seize every occasion which might seem to you
easy or agreeable: I never even doubted but that it would be very much
the same to you to satisfy with another, with the first comer, the same
desires which she alone could have raised; and I am not surprised that,
in the licentiousness of mind which one would be wrong to deny you, you
have done once from deliberation what you have done a thousand times
from opportunity. Who does not know that this is the simple way of the
world, and the custom of you all, whoever you are, to whatever class
you belong, from the rascal to the _espèces_? Whoever abstains from it,
nowadays, passes for a romantic; and that is not, I think, the fault
with which I reproach you.