Viscount de Valmont _to the_ Presidente de Tourvel.
This instant only have I received your letter, Madam. I could not read
it without shuddering, and have scarcely strength to answer it. What a
horrible opinion have you, then, conceived of me! Doubtless, I have my
faults, and such as I shall never forgive myself, if even you should
hide them with your indulgence. But how distant from my thoughts are
those you reproach me! Who, me insult you! Me make you contemptible,
at a time when I reverence as much as cherish you! when you raised my
vanity by thinking me worthy of you! Appearances have deceived you. I
will not deny they make against me: but had you not sufficient within
your own heart to contend against them? Did it not revolt at the idea
of having a cause of complaint against me? Yet you believed it! Thus
you not only thought me capable of this atrocious frenzy, but even
dreaded you had exposed yourself to it by your indulgence. Ah! if you
think yourself so much degraded by your love, I must be very despicable
in your sight. Oppressed by the painful sense of this idea, I lose the
time I should employ in destroying it, endeavouring to repel it. I will
confess all: another consideration still prevents me. Must I go back to
facts I would wish to forget for ever, and recall your attention and
my own to errors I shall ever repent; the cause of which I cannot yet
conceive, which fill me with mortification and despair. If I excite
your anger by accusing myself, the means of revenge will not be out of
your reach; it will be sufficient to abandon me to my own remorse.
Yet the first cause of this unhappy event is, the all-powerful charm I
feel in being with you: it was it made me too long forget an important
business that could not be put off. I stayed with you so long, I did
not find the person at home I wanted to see; I expected to have met her
at the opera, where I was also disappointed. Emily, who I met there,
and knew at a time when I was a stranger to you and love, Emily had not
her carriage, and requested I would set her down at a little distance
from thence; I consented, as a matter of no consequence. It was then I
met you. I was instantly seized with the apprehension you would think
me guilty.
The dread of afflicting or displeasing you is so powerful, it is
impossible for me to conceal it, and was soon perceived. I will even
own, it induced me to prevail on this girl not to show herself; this
precaution, the result of delicacy, was unfavourable to love: but she,
like the rest of her tribe, accustomed to the abuse of her usurped
power, would not let slip so splendid an opportunity. The more she
observed my embarrassment increase, the more she affected to show
herself; and her ridiculous mirth, which I blush to think you could for
a moment imagine yourself to be the object, had no other foundation
than the cruel anxiety I felt, which proceeded from my love and respect.
So far, doubtless, I am more unfortunate than guilty. Those crimes
being thus done away, I am clear of reproach. In vain, however, are you
silent on those of love, which I must break through, as it concerns me
so much.
Not but, in my confusion for this unaccountable misconduct, which
I cannot without great grief recall to my remembrance; yet I am so
sensible of my error, I would patiently bear the punishment, wait my
pardon from time, from my excessive love, and my repentance; only what
I yet have 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 acknowledge, nor ever will, this
humiliating error can be a crime of love. For where is the analogy
between a surprise of the sensations, a moment of inadvertency, which
is soon replaced by shame and regret, and an immaculate sentiment,
which delicate souls are only capable of, supported by esteem, and of
which happiness is the fruit? Ah! do not thus profane love; or, rather,
do not profane yourself, by uniting in the same point of view what
never can be blended. Leave to despicable and degraded women the dread
of a rivalship, and experience the torments of a cruel and humiliating
jealousy; but turn your eyes from objects that would sully them: and
pure as the Divinity, punish the offence without feeling it.
What punishment can you inflict on me will be more sorrowful than what
I already feel—that can be comparable to the grief of having incurred
your displeasure—to the despair of giving you affliction—to the
unsufferable idea of being unworthy of you? Your mind is taken up with
punishing, whilst I languish for consolation; not that I deserve it,
but only that I am in want of it, and that it is you alone can console
me.
If on a sudden, forgetful of our mutual love as of my happiness,
you will abandon me to perpetual sorrow, I shall not dispute your
right—strike: but should you incline to indulgence, and again recall
those tender sentiments that united our hearts; that voluptuousness
of soul, ever renewing, ever increasing; those delightful days we
passed together; all the felicities that love only can give; you will,
perhaps, prefer the power of renewing to that of destroying them. What
shall I say? I have lost all, and lost it by my own folly: but still
all may be retrieved by your goodness. You are now to decide. I shall
add but one word more. Yesterday you swore my happiness was certain
whilst it depended on you. Ah! will you this day, then, Madam, give me
up to everlasting despair?
_Paris, Nov._ 15, 17—.