that confidence might hurt me, it was impossible for me to conceal from
you the sentiments by which I was penetrated; and that which was the
result of my good faith you consider as the fruit of my audacity. As
a reward for the most tender, the most respectful, the truest love,
you cast me afar from you. You speak to me, lastly, of your hatred....
What other than myself would not complain at being so treated? I alone
submit; I support it all, and murmur not; you strike, and I adore.
The inconceivable power which you have over me renders you absolute
mistress of my feelings; and if only my love resists you, if you cannot
destroy that, it is because it is your work and not my own.
I do not ask for a love which I never flattered myself I should
receive. I do not even ask for that pity for which the interest you had
sometimes displayed in me might have allowed me to hope. But, I admit,
I think I can count on your sense of justice.
You inform me, Madame, that people have sought to damage me in your
opinion. If you had believed the counsels of your friends, you would
not even have let me approach you: those are your expressions. Who then
are these officious friends? No doubt those people of such severity,
and of so rigid a virtue, consent to be named; no doubt they would not
cover themselves in an obscurity which would confound them with vile
calumniators; and I shall not be left ignorant either of their names
or of their accusations. Reflect, Madame, that I have the right to
know both, since it is after them you judge me. One does not condemn
a culprit without naming his accusers. I ask no other favour, and I
promise in advance to justify myself, and to force them to retract.
If I have, perhaps, too much despised the vain clamours of a public
of which I make so little case, it is not thus with your esteem; and
when I devote my life to meriting that, I shall not let it be ravished
from me with impunity. It becomes all the more precious to me, in
that I shall owe to it doubtless that request which you fear to make
me, and which would give me, you say, _rights to your gratitude_.
Ah! far from exacting it, I shall believe myself your debtor, if you
procure me the occasion of being agreeable to you. Begin then to do me
greater justice by not leaving me in ignorance of what you desire of
me. If I could guess it, I would spare you the trouble of saying it.
To the pleasure of seeing you, add the happiness of serving you, and
I will congratulate myself on your indulgence. What then can prevent
you? It is not, I hope, the fear of a refusal: I feel that I could not
pardon you that. It is not only that I do not return you your letter.
More than you do I desire that it be no longer necessary to me: but
accustomed as I am to believing in the gentleness of your soul, it is
only in that letter that I can find you such as you would appear. When
I frame the vow to render you less hard, I see there that, rather than
consent, you would place yourself a hundred leagues away from me; when
everything in you augments and justifies my love, it is that still
which repeats to me that my love is an outrage to you; and when, seeing
you, that love seems to me the supreme good, I needs must read you to
feel that it is but a fearful torture. You can imagine now that my
greatest happiness would be to be able to return you this fatal letter:
to ask me for it now would be to authorize me to believe no longer what
it contains; you do not doubt, I hope, of my eagerness to return it to
you.
At the Château de ..., 21st August, 17**.
LETTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL
(Bearing the postmark of Dijon)
YOUR severity augments daily, Madame; and, if I dare say it, you seem
to be less afraid of being unjust than of being indulgent. After
having condemned me without a hearing, you must have felt, in fact,
that ’twere easier for you not to read my arguments than to reply to
them. You refuse my letters obstinately; you send them back to me with
contempt. You force me, at last, to have recourse to a ruse, at the
very moment when my only aim is to convince you of my good faith. The
necessity in which you have put me to defend myself will doubtless
suffice to excuse my means. Convinced, moreover, by the sincerity of my
sentiments that, to justify them in your eyes, it is sufficient merely
that you should know them thoroughly, I thought that I might permit
myself this slight artifice. I dare believe also that you will pardon
me, and that you will be little surprised that love is more ingenious
in presenting itself than indifference in repelling it.
Allow then, Madame, my heart to be entirely revealed to you. It belongs
to you, and it is just that you should know it.
I was very far from foreseeing, when I arrived at Madame de
Rosemonde’s, the fate which awaited me. I did not know that you were
there, and I will add, with the sincerity which characterizes me, that,
if I had known, my sense of security would not have been troubled: not
that I did not render to your beauty the justice which one could not
refuse it; but, accustomed as I was to feel only desires, and to yield
myself only to those which were encouraged by hope, I did not know the
torments of love.
You were a witness of the efforts which Madame de Rosemonde made to
keep me for some time. I had already passed one day with you, and yet I
yielded, or at least believed that I yielded, only to the pleasure, so
natural and so legitimate, of showing respect to a worthy relative. The
kind of life which one led here doubtless differed greatly from that
to which I was accustomed; it cost me nothing to conform to it; and,
without seeking to penetrate into the cause of the change which was
operating within me, I attributed it as yet solely to that easy-going
character of which I believe I have already spoken to you.
Unfortunately (yet why need it be a misfortune?), coming to know you
better, I soon discovered that that bewitching face, which alone had
struck me, was but the least of your attractions; your heavenly soul
astonished and seduced my own. I admired the beauty, I worshipped the
virtue. Without pretending to win you, I bestirred myself to deserve
you. In begging your indulgence for the past, I was ambitious of your
support for the future. I sought for it in your utterance, I spied
for it in your eyes, in that glance whence came a poison all the more
dangerous in that it was distilled without design, and received without
distrust.
Then I knew love. But how far was I from complaining. Determined to
bury it in an eternal silence, I abandoned myself without fear, as
without reserve, to this delicious sentiment. Each day augmented its
sway. Soon the pleasure of seeing you was changed to a need. Were you
absent for a moment? my heart was sore with sadness; at the sound which
announced your return, it palpitated with joy. I only existed for you
and through you. Nevertheless, it is yourself whom I call to witness:
in the merriment of our heedless sports or in the interest of a serious
conversation, did ever one word escape me which could betray the secret
of my heart?
At last a day arrived when my evil fortune was to commence; by an
inconceivable fatality, a good deed was to be the signal for it.
Yes, Madame, it was in the midst of those unfortunates whom I had
succoured that, abandoning yourself to that precious sensibility which
embellishes even beauty and adds value to virtue, you completed your
work of destroying a heart which was already intoxicated with excess of
love. You will remember, perhaps, what a moodiness came over me on our
return! Alas! I was seeking to fight against an affection which I felt
was becoming stronger than myself.
It was after I had exhausted my strength in this unequal contest,
that an unforeseen hazard made me find myself alone with you. There,
I confess, I succumbed. My heart was too full, and could withhold
neither its utterance nor its tears. But is this then a crime? and if
it be one, is it not amply punished by the dire torments to which I am
abandoned?
Devoured by a love without hope, I implore your pity and I meet only
with your hate: with no other happiness than that of seeing you, my
eyes seek you in spite of myself, and I tremble to meet your gaze.
In the cruel state to which you have reduced me, I pass my days in
dissimulating my grief and my nights in abandoning myself to it; whilst
you, peaceful and calm, know of these torments only to cause them and
to applaud yourself for them. None the less, it is you who complain and
I who make excuse.
That, however, Madame, is the faithful relation of what you call my
injuries, which it would, perhaps, be more just to call my misfortunes.
A pure and sincere love, a respect which has never belied itself,
a perfect submission; such are the sentiments with which you have
inspired me. I would not fear to present my homage of them to the
Divinity Himself. O you, who are His fairest handiwork, imitate Him in
His indulgence! Think on my cruel pains; think, above all, that, placed
by you between despair and supreme felicity, the first word which you
shall utter will for ever decide my lot.
At the Château de ..., 23rd August, 17**.
LETTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH
THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL TO MADAME DE VOLANGES
I YIELD, Madame, to the counsels which your friendship gives me.
Accustomed as I am to defer in all things to your opinions, I am ready
to believe that they are always based on reason. I will even admit that
M. de Valmont must be, indeed, infinitely dangerous, if he can, at the
same time, feign to be what he appears here and remain such a man as
you paint him. However that may be, since you request it, I will keep
him away from me; at least I will do my utmost: for often things which
ought to be at bottom the most simple become embarrassing in practice.
It still seems to me impracticable to make this request to his aunt;
it would be equally ungracious both to her and to him. Neither would
I adopt the course, without the greatest repugnance, of going away
myself: for apart from the reasons I have already given you relative
to M. de Tourvel, if my departure were to annoy M. de Valmont, as is
possible, would it not be easy for him to follow me to Paris? And his
return, of which I should be--or at least should appear--the motive,
would it not seem more strange than a meeting in the country, at the
house of a lady who is known to be his relation and my friend?
There is left me then no other resource than to induce himself to
consent to going away. I know that this proposal is difficult to make;
however, as he seems to me to have set his heart on proving to me that
he has, effectually, more honesty than is attributed to him, I do
not despair of success. I shall not be sorry even to attempt it, and
to have an occasion of judging whether, as he has often said, truly
virtuous women never have had, and never will have, to complain of
his behaviour. If he leaves, as I desire, it will indeed be out of
consideration for me; for I cannot doubt but that he proposes to spend
a great part of the autumn here. If he refuses my request and insists
upon remaining, there will still be time for me to leave myself, and
that I promise you.
That is, I believe, Madame, all that your friendship demanded of me;
I am eager to satisfy it, and to prove to you that in spite of the
_warmth_ I may have used to defend M. de Valmont, I am none the less
disposed, not only to heed, but also to follow, the counsels of my
friends.
I have the honour to be, etc.
At the Château de ..., 25th August, 17**.
LETTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
YOUR enormous budget, my dear Vicomte, has this moment arrived. If
the date on it is exact, I ought to have received it twenty-four
hours earlier; be that as it may, if I were to take the time to read
it, I should have none left to reply to it. I prefer then simply to
acknowledge it now, and we will talk of something else. It is not that
I have anything to say to you on my own account; the autumn leaves
hardly a single man with a human face in Paris, so that for the last
month I have been perishing with virtue; and anyone else than my
Chevalier would be fatigued with the proofs of my constancy. Being
unable to occupy myself, I distract myself with the little Volanges,
and it is of her that I wish to speak.
Do you know that you have lost more than you believe, in not
undertaking this child? She is really delicious! She has neither
character nor principles; judge how sweet and easy her society will
be. I do not think she will ever shine by sentiment; but everything
announces in her the liveliest sensations. Lacking wit and subtilty,
she has, however, if one may so speak, a certain natural falseness
which sometimes astonishes even me, and which will be all the more
successful, in that her face presents the image of candour and
ingenuousness. She is naturally very caressing, and I sometimes amuse
myself thereby: her little head grows excited with incredible rapidity,
and she is then all the more delightful, because she knows nothing,
absolutely nothing, of all that she so greatly desires to know. She
is seized with quite droll fits of impatience; she laughs, pouts,
cries, and then begs me to teach her with a truly seductive good faith.
Really, I am almost jealous of the man for whom that pleasure is
reserved.
I do not know if I have told you that for the last four or five days
I have had the honour of being in her confidence. You can very well
guess that, at first, I acted severity: but as soon as I perceived that
she thought she had convinced me with her bad reasons, I had the air
of taking them for good ones; and she is intimately persuaded that she
owes this success to her eloquence: this precaution was necessary in
order not to compromise myself. I have permitted her to write, and to
say _I love_; and the same day, without her suspecting it, I contrived
for her a _tête-à-tête_ with her Danceny. But imagine, he is still such
a fool that he did not even obtain a kiss. The lad, however, writes
mighty pretty verses! La, how silly these witty folks are! This one is,
to such a degree that he embarrasses me; for, as for him, I cannot well
drive him!
It is at this moment that you would be very useful to me. You are
sufficiently intimate with Danceny to obtain his confidence, and, if he
once gave it you, we should advance at full speed. Make haste, then,
with your Présidente; for, indeed, I will not have Gercourt escape: for
the rest, I spoke of him yesterday to the little person, and depicted
him so well to her that, if she had been his wife for ten years, she
could not hate him more. I preached much to her, however, upon the
subject of conjugal fidelity; nothing could equal my severity on this
point. By that, on the one side, I restore my reputation for virtue
with her, which too much condescension might destroy; on the other, I
augment in her that hatred with which I wish to gratify her husband.
And, finally, I hope that, by making her believe that it is not
permitted her to give way to love, except during the short time that
she remains a girl, she will more quickly decide to lose none of that
time.
Adieu, Vicomte; I am going to attend to my toilette, what time I will
read your volume.
Paris, 27th August, 17**.
LETTER THE THIRTY-NINTH
CÉCILE VOLANGES TO SOPHIE CARNAY
I AM sad and anxious, my dear Sophie. I wept almost all night. It is
not that I am not, for the moment, very happy, but I foresee that it
will not last.
I went yesterday to the Opera with Madame de Merteuil; we spoke much
of my marriage, and I have learned no good of it. It is M. le Comte de
Gercourt whom I am to wed, and it is to be in the month of October. He
is rich, he is a man of quality, he is colonel of the Regiment of ----.
So far, all very well. But, to begin with, he is old: imagine, he is
at least thirty-six! and then, Madame de Merteuil says he is gloomy
and stern, and she fears I shall not be happy with him. I could even
see quite well that she was sure of it, only that she would not say
so for fear of grieving me. She hardly talked to me of anything the
whole evening, except of the duties of wives to their husbands: she
admits that M. de Gercourt is not at all lovable, and yet she says I
must love him. Did not she say also that, once married, I ought not to
love the Chevalier Danceny any longer? as though that were possible!
Oh, you can be very sure I shall love him always! Do you know, I would
prefer not to be married. Let this M. de Gercourt look after himself,
I never went in search of him. He is in Corsica at present, far away
from here; I wish he would stay there ten years. If I were not afraid
of being sent back to the convent, I would certainly tell Mamma that
I don’t want a husband like that; but that would be still worse. I am
very much embarrassed. I feel that I have never loved M. Danceny so
well as I do now; and when I think that I have only a month more left
me, to be as I am now, the tears rush suddenly to my eyes; I have no
consolation except the friendship of Madame de Merteuil; she has such a
good heart! She shares in all my troubles as much as I do myself; and
then she is so amiable that, when I am with her, I hardly think any
more of them. Besides, she is very useful to me, for the little that I
know she has taught me: and she is so good that I can tell her all I
think, without being in the least ashamed. When she finds that it is
not right, she scolds me sometimes; but only quite gently, and then I
embrace her with all my heart, until she is no longer cross. Her, at
any rate, I can love as much as I like, without there being any harm in
it, and that pleases me very much. We have agreed, however, that I am
not to have the appearance of being so fond of her before everybody,
and especially not before Mamma, so that she may have no suspicions
about the Chevalier Danceny. I assure you that, if I could always live
as I do now, I believe I should be very happy. It’s only that horrid M.
de Gercourt.... But I will say no more about him, else I should get sad
again. Instead of that, I am going to write to the Chevalier Danceny; I
shall only speak to him of my love and not of my troubles, for I do not
want to distress him.
Adieu, my dear friend. You can see now that you would be wrong to
complain, and that however _busy_ I have been, as you say, there is
time left me, all the same, to love you and to write to you.[13]
LETTER THE FORTIETH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL
NOT content with leaving my letters without reply, with refusing to
receive them, my inhuman wretch wishes to deprive me of the sight of
her; she insists on my departure. What will astonish you more is that
I am submitting to her severity. You will blame me. However, I thought
I ought not to lose the opportunity of obeying a command, persuaded as
I am, on the one side, that to command is to commit one’s self; and on
the other, that that illusive authority which we have the appearance
of allowing women to seize is one of the snares which they find it
most difficult to elude. Nay, more, the skill which this one has shown
in avoiding a solitary encounter with me placed me in a dangerous
situation, from which I thought I was bound to escape, whatever might
be the cost: for, being constantly with her, without being able to
occupy her with my love, there was reason to fear that she might grow
accustomed to seeing me without trouble, a disposition from which you
know how difficult it is to return.
For the rest, you may guess that I did not submit without conditions. I
was even at the pains to impose one which it was impossible to grant,
as much for the sake of remaining always free to keep my word or break
it, as to promote a discussion, either by word of mouth or in writing,
at a time when my beauty is more contented with me, or has need that I
should be so with her: not to reckon that I should show a signal lack
of skill if I did not find a means to obtain some compensation for my
desisting from this pretension, untenable as it may be.
After having explained my motives in this long preamble, I come to the
history of the last two days. I enclose as documentary evidence my
beauty’s letter and my reply. You will agree that few historians are as
precise as I.
You will remember the effect produced by my letter from Dijon, on
the morning of the day before yesterday; the rest of the day was
most stormy. The pretty prude only appeared at dinner-time, and gave
out that she had a violent headache: a pretext with which she masked
one of the most furious fits of ill-humour that a woman could have.
It absolutely altered her face; the expression of gentleness, which
you know, was changed into a rebellious air which gave it a fresh
loveliness. I promise myself to make use of this discovery, and to
replace sometimes the tender mistress with the sullen.
I foresaw that the time after dinner would be dull; and, to escape
from ennui, I made a pretext of having letters to write, and retired
to my own rooms. I returned to the salon about six o’clock; Madame de
Rosemonde suggested a drive, which was agreed to. But just as we were
getting into the carriage, the pretended invalid, with infernal malice,
alleged in her turn--perhaps to avenge herself for my absence--an
increase of the pain, and compelled me pitilessly to support a
_tête-à-tête_ with my old aunt. I know not whether the imprecations
which I called down on this feminine demon were heeded; but we found
her gone to bed on our return.
On the following day, at breakfast, it was not the same woman. Her
natural sweetness had returned, and I had reason to believe myself
pardoned. Breakfast was hardly over, when the sweet person rose with an
indolent air, and went into the park; as you may believe, I followed
her. “Whence can spring this desire for walking?” said I, accosting
her. “I wrote much, this morning,” she answered, “and my head is a
little tired.” “I am not fortunate enough,” I went on, “to have to
reproach myself with this fatigue?” “Indeed, I have written to you,”
she answered again, “but I hesitate to give you my letter. It contains
a request, and you have not accustomed me to hope for success.” “Ah! I
swear, if it be possible--” “Nothing could be easier,” she broke in;
“and although you ought, perhaps, to grant it out of justice, I consent
to obtain it as a grace.” As she said these words, she handed me her
letter; seizing it, I also seized her hand, which she drew away, but
without anger, and with more embarrassment than vivacity. “The heat is
even greater than I thought,” she said, “I must go indoors.” And she
retraced her steps to the _château_. I made vain efforts to persuade
her to continue her walk, and I needed to remind myself that we might
be observed, in order to employ no more than eloquence. She entered
without a word, and I saw plainly that this pretended walk had no
other object than to hand me my letter. She went up to her own room as
soon as we came in, and I withdrew to mine, to read the epistle, which
you will do well to read also, as well as my reply, before proceeding
further....
LETTER THE FORTY-FIRST
THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
IT seems to me, Monsieur, by your behaviour, as though you did but seek
to multiply daily the causes of complaint which I have against you.
Your obstinacy in wishing unceasingly to approach me with a sentiment
which I would not and may not heed, the abuse which you have not feared
to take of my good faith, or of my timidity, in order to put your
letters into my hands; above all the method, most indelicate I venture
to call it, which you employed to make the last reach me, without the
slightest fear of the effect of a surprise which might have compromised
me; all ought to give occasion on my part to reproaches as keen as
they are merited. However, instead of returning to these grievances, I
confine myself to putting a request to you, as simple as it is just;
and if I obtain it from you, I consent that all shall be forgotten.
You yourself, have said to me, Monsieur, that I need not fear a
refusal; and, although, by an inconsistency which is peculiar to you,
this very phrase was followed by the only refusal which you could make
me,[14] I would fain believe that you will none the less keep to-day
that word, given to me formally so few days ago.