_The_ Marchioness de Merteuil _to_ Viscount Valmont.
Upon my word, Viscount, you are intolerable; you treat me with as
little ceremony as if I was your mistress. Do you know you will make me
angry, and that I am this instant in a most horrible passion? so you
are to meet Danceny to-morrow morning? you know how important it is I
should see you before that interview; yet, without giving yourself any
farther trouble, you make me wait the whole day, while you run about I
know not where. You are the cause of my having been _indecently_ late
at Madame de Volanges’, which all the old women thought _exceedingly
strange;_ I was under the necessity of amusing them the rest of the
evening, to keep them in temper; for one must be on good terms with old
women; they decide on the reputation of the young ones.
Now it is one o’clock; and instead of going to bed as I ought, I must
sit up to write you a long letter, which will add to my drowsiness
by its disagreeable subject. You are very lucky that I have not time
to scold you. Do not imagine, however, I forgive you: you have only
to thank my hurry. Hear me, then: with a little address, you may,
to-morrow, obtain Danceny’s confidence. The opportunity is favourable:
it is that of distress. The little girl has been at confession, has
told all like a child, and has been since so terrified with the fear of
hell, that she is absolutely determined on a rupture. She related to
me all her little scruples in a manner that I am confident her head is
turned. She showed me that letter, declaring her breaking off, which is
in the true style of fanatical absurdity. She prattled for an hour to
me without a word of common sense, and yet she embarrassed me; for you
will conceive I could not risk to open my mind to such an idiot.
I observe, however, amidst all this nonsense, that she is not the less
in love with her Danceny; I even took notice of one of those resources
which love always supplies, and to which the girl is curiously enough a
dupe. Tormented with the thoughts of her lover, and the fear of being
damned for those thoughts, she has taken it into her head to pray to
God to make her forget him; and as she renews this prayer every hour in
the day, she is thus incessantly thinking of him.
To any one more _formed_ than Danceny, this little circumstance would
be more favourable than impropitious; but the youth is such a Celadon,
that unless we assist him, it will take him so much time to conquer the
slightest obstacles, that we shall not have time enough to carry our
project into effect.
You are quite right, it is a pity, and I am as sorry as you that he
should be the hero of this adventure; but what can be done? What is
past is not to be recalled, and it’s all your fault. I desired to see
his answer; it was wretched stuff. He gives her numberless reasons to
prove that an involuntary passion is not criminal; as if it became
involuntary in the moment of desiring to resist it. This idea is so
simple, that it even struck the girl herself. He laments his misfortune
in a manner somewhat pathetic; but his grief is so cold, and yet bears
the appearance of being so fixed and sincere, I think it impossible
that a woman, who has an opportunity of driving a man to despair with
so small a risk, should not gratify the whim. He informs her he is not
a monk, as the little one imagined; and that is certainly the best
part of his letter: for, were a woman absurd enough to be seized with
a propensity to monastic love, the gentlemen who are Knights of Malta
would not deserve the preference.
However, instead of throwing away time in arguments which would have
committed me, and perhaps without persuasion, I approved the scheme of
breaking off; but told her in such cases it was more genteel to declare
the reasons in conversation, than write them; that it was also usual to
return the letters and other trifles that might have been received; and
thus seeming to enter into her views, I determined her to give Danceny
a meeting. We immediately concluded the method of bringing it about;
and I undertook to prevail upon her mother to go on a visit without
her; and to-morrow evening is the decisive hour of our meeting. Danceny
is apprised of it. For God’s sake, if you possibly can, prevail on
this lovely swain to be less languid; and tell him, since he must be
told every thing, that the true method of overcoming scruples, is to
leave nothing to lose, to those who are subject to scruples: that this
ridiculous scene may not be renewed, I did not omit raising doubts in
her mind, on the discretion of confessors; and I assure you she repays
me the fright she put me into, by her present apprehensions, lest her
confessor should tell her mother all. I hope, after I have had one
or two more conferences with her on this subject, she will not be so
ridiculous to tell her foolish nonsense to the first comer[1].
Adieu, Viscount! Seize on Danceny, give him his lesson; it would be
shameful we should not do as we pleased with two children. If we meet
more difficulty than we first imagined in this business, let us reflect
to animate our zeal; you, that your object is Madame de Volanges’
daughter; and I, that she is intended to be Gercourt’s bride. Adieu!
_Sept_. 2, 17—.
[1] The reader must have long since observed, from Madame de Merteuil’s
manners, that she paid little regard to religion. All this detail would
have been suppressed; but it was thought, that to show effects, it was
necessary to touch upon the causes of them.