which M. de Valmont is to bring you, on the part of Madame de
Rosemonde, to come and spend some time with her. I hope that you have
no doubt of the pleasure it will give me to see you; and, in truth,
you owe us this recompense. I shall be most delighted to have this
opportunity of making an earlier acquaintance with Mademoiselle de
Volanges, and to have the chance of convincing you more and more of the
respectful sentiments, etc.
At the Château de ..., 29th August, 17**.
LETTER THE FORTY-SIXTH
THE CHEVALIER DANCENY TO CÉCILE VOLANGES
WHAT has happened to you then, my adored Cécile? What can have caused
in you so sudden and cruel an alteration? What has become of your vows
of never changing? It was only yesterday that you repeated them with so
much pleasure! Who can have made you forget them to-day? It is useless
for me to examine myself; I cannot find the cause of it in me; and it
is terrible that I should have to seek it in you. Ah! doubtless you are
neither light nor deceitful; and even in this moment of despair, no
insulting suspicion shall defile my soul. Yet, by what fatality comes
it that you are no longer the same? No, cruel one, you are no longer
the same! The tender Cécile, the Cécile whom I adore, and whose vows I
have received, would not have avoided my gaze, would not have resisted
the happy chance which placed me beside her; or, if any reason which I
cannot understand had forced her to treat me with such severity, she
would, at least, have condescended to inform me of it.
Ah, you do not know, you will never know, my Cécile, all that you have
made me suffer to-day, all that I suffer still at this moment. Do you
suppose then that I can live, if I am no longer loved by you? None the
less, when I asked you for a word, one single word to dispel my fears,
instead of answering me you pretended to be afraid of being overheard;
and that difficulty which did not then exist, you immediately brought
about yourself by the place which you chose in the circle. When,
compelled to leave you, I asked you at what hour I could see you again
to-morrow, you pretended that you could not say, and Madame de Volanges
had to be my informant. Thus the moment, ever desired so fondly, which
is to bring me into your presence, to-morrow, will only excite in me
anxiety; and the pleasure of seeing you, hitherto so dear to my heart,
will give place to the fear of being intrusive.
I feel it already, this dread irks me, and I dare not speak to you
of my love. That _I love you_, which I loved so well to repeat when
I could hear it in my turn; that soft phrase which sufficed for my
felicity, offers me, if you are changed, no more than the image of an
eternal despair. I cannot believe, however, that that talisman of love
has lost all its power, and I am fain to employ it once more.[16] Yes,
my Cécile, _I love you_. Repeat after me then this expression of my
happiness. Remember that you have accustomed me to the hearing of it,
and that to deprive me of it is to condemn me to a torture which, like
my love, can only end with my life.
Paris, 29th August, 17**.
LETTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL
TO-DAY again I shall not see you, my lovely friend, and here are my
reasons, which I beg you to meet with indulgence.
Instead of returning here directly, I stopped with the Comtesse de ***,
whose _château_ lay almost upon my road, and of whom I asked a dinner.
I did not reach Paris until about seven o’clock, and I alighted at the
Opera, where I hoped to find you.
The Opera over, I went to see my fair friends of the green-room; I
found there my whilom Émilie, surrounded by a numerous court, women
as well as men, to whom she was offering a supper that very evening
at P----. I had no sooner entered this assemblage than I was invited
to the supper by acclamation. I also received one from a little fat
and stumpy person, who stammered his invitation to me in the French
of Holland, and whom I recognized as the true hero of the _fête_. I
accepted.
I learned upon my way that the house whither we were going was the
price agreed upon for Émilie’s favours towards this grotesque figure,
and that this supper was a veritable wedding-breakfast. The little
man could not contain himself for joy, in expectation of the pleasure
which awaited him; he seemed to me so satisfied with the prospect that
he gave me a longing to disturb it; which was, effectually, what I did.
The only difficulty I found was that of persuading Émilie, who was
rendered somewhat scrupulous by the burgomaster’s wealth. She agreed,
however, after raising some objections, to the plan which I suggested
of filling this little beer-barrel with wine, and so putting him _hors
de combat_ for the rest of the night.
The sublime idea which we had formed of a Dutch toper caused us to
employ all available means. We succeeded so well that, at dessert, he
was already without the strength to lift his glass: but the helpful
Émilie and myself vied with one another in filling him up. Finally, he
fell beneath the table, in so drunken a state, that it ought to last
for at least a week. We then decided to send him back to Paris; and, as
he had not kept his carriage, I had him carried into mine, and remained
in his stead. I thereupon received the congratulations of the company,
which soon afterwards retired, and left me in possession of the field.
This gaiety, and perhaps my long rustication, made Émilie seem so
desirable to me that I promised to stay with her until the Dutchman’s
resurrection.
This complaisance on my part is the price of that which she has just
shown me, that of serving me for a desk upon which to write to my fair
puritan, to whom I found it amusing to send a letter written in the
bed, and almost in the arms, of a wench, a letter interrupted even to
complete an infidelity, in which I send her an exact account of my
position and my conduct. Émilie, who has read the epistle, laughed like
a mad girl over it, and I hope that you will laugh as well.
[Illustration: C. Monnet del. Lingée sculp.]
As my letter must needs bear the Paris post-mark, I send it to you; I
leave it open. Will you please read it, seal it up, and commit it to
the post. Above all, be careful not to employ your own seal, nor even
any amorous device; a simple head. Adieu, my lovely friend.
P.S. I open my letter; I have persuaded Émilie to go to the
_Italiens_.... I shall take advantage of that moment to come and see
you. I shall be with you by six o’clock at the latest; and if it be
agreeable to you, we will go together, about seven o’clock, to Madame
de Volanges. Propriety commands that I do not postpone the invitation
with which I am charged for her from Madame de Rosemonde; moreover, I
shall be delighted to see the little Volanges.
Adieu, most fair lady. I shall be as pleased to embrace you, as the
Chevalier will be jealous.
At P..., 30th August, 17**.
LETTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL
(Bearing the postmark of Paris)
IT is after a stormy night, during which I have not closed my eyes;
it is after having been ceaselessly either in the agitation of a
devouring ardour, or in an utter annihilation of all the faculties of
my soul, that I come to seek with you, Madame, the calm of which I have
need, and which, however, I have as yet no hope to enjoy. In truth,
the situation in which I am, whilst writing to you, makes me realize
more than ever the irresistible power of love; I can hardly preserve
sufficient control over myself to put some order into my ideas; and
I foresee already that I shall not finish this letter without being
forced to interrupt it. What! Am I never to hope then that you will
some day share with me the trouble which overcomes me at this moment?
I dare believe, notwithstanding, that if you were well acquainted with
it, you would not be entirely insensible. Believe me, Madame, a cold
tranquillity, the soul’s slumber, the imitation of death do not conduce
to happiness; the active passions alone can lead us thither; and, in
spite of the torments which you make me suffer, I think I can assure
you without risk that at this moment I am happier than you. In vain do
you overwhelm me with your terrible severities; they do not prevent me
from abandoning myself utterly to love, and forgetting, in the delirium
which it causes me, the despair into which you cast me. It is so that
I would avenge myself for the exile to which you condemn me. Never
had I so much pleasure in writing to you; never have I experienced,
during such an occupation, an emotion so sweet and, at the same time,
so lively. Everything seems to enhance my transports; the air I breathe
is laden with pleasure; the very table upon which I write to you,
consecrated for the first time to this office, becomes love’s sacred
altar to me; how much it will be beautified in my eyes! I shall have
traced upon it the vow to love you for ever! Pardon, I beseech you,
the disorder of my senses. Perhaps, I ought to abandon myself less to
transports which you do not share: I must leave you for a moment to
dispel an intoxication which increases each moment, and which becomes
stronger than myself.
I return to you, Madame, and doubtless, I return always with the same
eagerness. However, the sentiment of happiness has fled far away from
me; it has given place to that of cruel privation. What does it avail
me to speak of my sentiments, if I seek in vain the means to convince
you of them? After so many efforts, I am equally bereft of strength
and confidence. If I still tell over to myself the pleasures of love,
it is only to feel more keenly my sorrow at being deprived of them. I
see no other resource, save in your indulgence; and I am too sensible
at this moment of how greatly I need it, to hope to obtain it. Never,
however, has my love been more respectful, never could it be less
likely to offend you; it is of such a kind, I dare say, as the most
severe virtue need not fear: but I am myself afraid of describing to
you, at greater length, the sorrow which I experience. Assured as I am
that the object which causes it does not participate in it, I must at
any rate not abuse your kindness; and it would be to do that, were I to
spend more time in retracing for you that dolorous picture. I take only
enough to beg you to reply to me, and never to doubt of the sincerity
of my sentiments.
Written at P...; dated from Paris, 30th August, 17**.
LETTER THE FORTY-NINTH
CÉCILE VOLANGES TO THE CHEVALIER DANCENY
WITHOUT being either false or frivolous, Monsieur, it is enough for me
to be enlightened as to my conduct, to feel the necessity of altering
it; I have promised this sacrifice to God, until such a time when I can
offer Him also that of my sentiments towards you, which are rendered
even more criminal by the religious character of your estate. I feel
certain that it will only bring me sorrow, and I will not even hide
from you that, since the day before yesterday, I have wept every time
I have thought of you. But I hope that God will do me the grace of
giving me the needful strength to forget you, as I ask of Him morning
and evening. I expect also of your friendship and of your honour
that you will not seek to shake me in the good resolution which has
been inspired in me, and in which I strive to maintain myself. In
consequence, I beg you to have the kindness to write no more to me, the
more so as I warn you that I should no longer reply to you, and that
you would compel me to acquaint Mamma with all that has passed; and
that would deprive me entirely of the pleasure of seeing you.
I shall, none the less, retain for you all the attachment which one may
have without there being harm in it; and it is indeed with all my soul
that I wish you every kind of happiness. I quite feel that you will no
longer love me as much as you did, and that, perhaps, you will soon
love another better than me. But that will be one penance the more for
the fault which I have committed in giving you my heart, which I ought
to give only to God and my husband when I have one. I hope that the
Divine mercy will take pity on my weakness, and that it will give me no
more sorrow than I am able to support.
Adieu, Monsieur; I can truly assure you that, if I were permitted to
love anybody, I should never love anybody but you. But that is all I
may say to you; and perhaps even that is more than I ought to say.
Paris, 31st August, 17**.
LETTER THE FIFTIETH
THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
Is it thus then, Monsieur, that you carry out the conditions upon which
I consented sometimes to receive your letters? And have I _no reason
for complaint_ when you speak to me of a sentiment to which I should
still fear to abandon myself, even if I could do so without violating
all my duties? For the rest, if I had need of fresh reasons to preserve
this salutary dread, it seems to me that I could find them in your last
letter. In effect, at the very moment when you think to make an apology
for love, what else are you doing but revealing to me its redoubtable
storms? Who can wish for happiness bought at the expense of reason,
whose short-lived pleasures are followed at any rate by regret, if not
by remorse?
You yourself, in whom the habit of this dangerous delirium ought to
diminish its effect, are you not, however, compelled to confess that
it often becomes stronger than yourself; and are you not the first
to lament the involuntary trouble which it causes you? What fearful
ravages then would it not effect on a fresh and sensitive heart, which
would still augment its empire, by the sacrifices it would be forced to
make to it?
You believe, Monsieur, or you feign to believe that love leads to
happiness; and I--I am so convinced that it would render me unhappy
that I would not even hear its name pronounced. It seems to me that
only to speak of it destroys tranquillity; and it is as much from
inclination as from duty that I beg you to be good enough to keep
silence on this subject.
After all, this request should be very easy for you to grant me at
present. Returned to Paris, you will find there occasions enough to
forget a sentiment which, perhaps, only owed its birth to the habit
you are in of occupying yourself with such subjects, and its strength
to the idleness of country life. Are you not then in that town where
you had seen me with so much indifference? Can you take a step there
without encountering an example of your readiness to change? And are
you not surrounded there by women who, all more amiable than myself,
have better right to your homage?
I am without the vanity with which my sex is reproached; I have still
less of that false modesty which is nothing but a refinement of pride;
and it is with the utmost good faith that I tell you here, I know
how few pleasing qualities I possess: had I all there were, I should
not believe them sufficient to retain you. To ask you then to occupy
yourself no longer with me is only to beg you to do to-day what you had
already done before, and what you would most assuredly do again in a
short time, even if I were to ask the contrary.
This truth, which I do not lose sight of, would be, itself, a reason
strong enough to disincline me to listen to you. I have still a
thousand others, but without entering upon a long discussion, I
confine myself to begging you, as I have done before, to correspond
with me no further upon a sentiment to which I must not listen, and to
which I ought even less to reply.
At the Château de ..., 1st September, 17**.
LETTER THE FIFTY-FIRST
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
REALLY, Vicomte, you are insupportable. You treat me as lightly as
though I were your mistress. Do you know that I shall get angry, and
that at the present moment I am in a fearful temper? Why! you have
to see Danceny to-morrow morning; you know how important it is that
I should speak to you before that interview; and without troubling
yourself any more about it, you keep me waiting all day to run off I
know not where. You are the cause of my arriving at Madame de Volanges’
_indecently_ late, and of my being found _surprising_ by all the old
women. I was obliged to flatter them during the whole of the evening in
order to appease them: for one must never annoy the old women; it is
they who make the young one’s reputations.
It is now one o’clock in the morning; and instead of going to bed,
which I am dying to do, I must needs write you a long letter, which
will make me twice as sleepy from the _ennui_ it causes me. You are
most fortunate that I have not time to scold you further. Do not
believe for that reason that I forgive you: it is only that I am
pressed for time. Listen to me then, I hasten to come to the point.
However little skill you may exert, you are bound to-morrow to have
Danceny’s confidence. The moment is favourable for confidence: it is
the moment of unhappiness. The little girl has been to confession: like
a child, she has told everything; and ever since she has been tormented
to such a degree by the fear of the devil that she insists on breaking
it off. She related to me all her little scruples with a vivacity
which told me how excited she was. She showed me her letter announcing
the rupture, which was a real sermon. She babbled for an hour to me,
without uttering one word of common sense. But she embarrassed me none
the less; for you can imagine that I could not risk opening my mind to
such a wrong-headed creature.
I saw, however, through all this verbiage, that she is as fond of her
Danceny as ever; I even remarked one of those resources which love
never fails to find, and of which the little girl is an amusing dupe.
Tormented by her desire to occupy herself with her lover, and by the
fear of being damned if she does so, she has invented the plan of
praying God that she may be able to forget him; and as she repeats
this prayer at every moment of the day, she finds a means thereby of
thinking of him unceasingly.
With any more _experienced_ than Danceny, this little incident would
perhaps be more favourable than the reverse; but the young man is so
much of a Céladon that, if we do not help him, he will require so much
time to overcome the slightest obstacles that there will be none left
for us to carry out our project.
You are quite right; it is a pity, and I am as vexed as you, that he
should be the hero of this adventure: but what would you have? What is
done is done; and it is your fault. I asked to see his reply;[17] it
was really pitiful. He produces arguments till he is out of breath, to
prove to her that an involuntary sentiment cannot be a crime: as if
it did not cease to be involuntary once one ceases to fight against
it! That idea is so simple that it even suggested itself to the little
girl. He complains of his unhappiness in a manner that is touching
enough: but his grief is so gentle, and seems so strong and so sincere,
that it seems to me impossible that a woman who finds occasion to
reduce a man to such a degree of despair, and with so little danger, is
not tempted to get rid of her fancy. Finally he explains that he is not
a monk, as the little one believed; and that is, without contradiction,
the best thing he has done: for, if it is a question of going so far as
to abandon yourself to monastic loves, it is assuredly not the Knights
of Malta who would deserve the preference.
Be that as it may, instead of wasting time in arguments which would
have compromised me, perhaps without convincing, I approved her project
of rupture: but I said that it was nicer, in such a case, to tell your
reasons rather than to write them; that it was customary also to return
letters and any other trifles one might have received; and appearing
thus to enter into the views of the little person, I persuaded her to
grant an interview to Danceny. We formed our plans on the spot, and
I charged myself with the task of persuading the mother to go abroad
without her daughter; it is to-morrow afternoon that this decisive
moment will take place. Danceny is already informed of it; but for
God’s sake, if you get an opportunity, please persuade this pretty
swain to be less languorous, and teach him--since he must be told
everything--that the true fashion to overcome scruples is to leave
nothing to be lost by those who possess them.
For the rest, in order to save a repetition of this ridiculous scene,
I did not fail to excite certain doubts in the little girl’s mind, as
to the discretion of confessors; and I assure you, she is paying now
for the fright which she gave me, by her terror lest hers should go and
tell everything to her mother. I hope that, after I have talked once or
twice more with her, she will give up going thus to tell her follies to
the first comer.[18]
Adieu, Vicomte; take charge of Danceny and guide his way. It would be
shameful if we could not do what we will with two children. If we find
it more difficult than we had thought at first, let us reflect, to
animate our zeal--you, that it is the daughter of Madame de Volanges
who is in question, I, that she is destined to become the wife of
Gercourt. Adieu.
Paris, 15th September, 17**.
LETTER THE FIFTY-SECOND
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL
YOU forbid me, Madame, to speak to you of my love; but where am I to
find the necessary courage to obey you? Solely occupied by a sentiment
which should be so sweet, and which you render so cruel; languishing in
the exile to which you have condemned me; living only on privations and
regrets; in prey to torments all the more dolorous in that they remind
me unceasingly of your indifference; must I lose the only consolation
which remains to me? And can I have any other, save that of sometimes
laying bare to you a soul which you fill with trouble and bitterness?
Will you avert your gaze, that you may not see the tears you cause to
flow? Will you refuse even the homage of the sacrifices you demand?
Would it not be worthier of you, of your good and gentle soul, to pity
an unhappy one who is only rendered so by you, rather than to seek to
aggravate his pain by a refusal which is at once unjust and rigorous?
You pretend to be afraid of love, and you will not see that you
alone are the cause of the evils with which you reproach it. Ah, no
doubt, the sentiment is painful, when the object which inspires it
does not reciprocate; but where is happiness to be found, if mutual
love does not procure it? Tender friendship, sweet confidence--the
only one which is without reserve--sorrow’s alleviation, pleasure’s
augmentation, hope’s enchantment, the delights of remembrance: where
find them else than in love? You calumniate it, you who, in order to
enjoy all the good which it offers you, have but to give up resisting
it; and I--I forget the pain which I experience in undertaking its
defence.
You force me also to defend myself; for, whereas I consecrate my life
to your adoration, you pass yours in seeking reason to blame me:
already you have assumed that I am frivolous and a deceiver; and,
taking advantage of certain errors which I myself have confessed to
you, you are pleased to confound the man I was then with what I am at
present. Not content with abandoning me to the torment of living away
from you, you add to that a cruel banter as to pleasures to which you
know how you have rendered me insensible. You do not believe either
in my promises or my oaths: well! there remains one guarantee for me
to offer you, which you will not suspect. It is yourself. I only ask
you to question yourself in all good faith: if you do not believe in
my love, if you doubt for a moment that you reign supreme in my heart,
if you are not sure that you have fixed this heart, which, indeed, has
thus far been too fickle, I consent to bear the penalty of this error;
I shall suffer, but I will not appeal: but if, on the contrary, doing
justice to us both, you are forced to admit to yourself that you have
not, will never have a rival, ask me no more, I beg you, to fight with
chimeras, and leave me at least the consolation of seeing you no longer
in doubt as to a sentiment which _indeed_, will not finish, cannot
finish, but with my life. Permit me, Madame, to beg you to reply
positively to this part of my letter.
If, however, I give up that period of my life which seems to damage me
so severely in your eyes, it is not because, in case of need, reasons
had failed me to defend it.
What have I done, after all, but fail to resist the vortex into which I
was thrown? Entering the world, young and without experience; passed,
so to speak, from hand to hand by a crowd of women, who all hasten to
forestall, by their good-nature, a reflexion which they feel cannot but
be unfavourable to them; was it my part then to set the example of a
resistance which was never opposed to me? Or was I to punish myself for
a moment of error, which was often provoked, by a constancy undoubtedly
useless, and which would only have excited ridicule? Nay, what other
cause, save a speedy rupture, can justify a shameful choice?