That Franval’s hardened heart was able to resist this spectacle, those who are beginning to know this scoundrel will have no trouble believing; but that Eugénie remained unmoved by it is quite inconceivable.
“Madame,” said this corrupted girl with the cruelest show of impassivity, “I must admit I find it hard to believe you in full possession of your reason, after the scene you have just made in your husband’s room. Is he not the master of his own actions? And when he approves of mine, what right have you to blame them? Do we worry our heads or pry into your indiscretions with Monsieur Valmont? Do we disturb you in the exercise of your pleasures? Therefore deign to respect ours, or do not be surprised if I urge your husband to take whatever steps are required to oblige you to do so. . . .”
At this point Madame de Franval could no longer control her patience, and the full force of her anger was turned against the unworthy creature who could so forget herself as to speak to her in such terms. Struggling to her feet, Madame de Franval threw herself furiously upon her daughter, but the odious and cruel Franval, seizing his wife by the hair, dragged her in a rage away from her daughter out of the room. He threw her violently down the stairs of the house, and she fell, bloody and unconscious, at the door of one of the chambermaids’ rooms. Awakened by this terrible noise, the maid quickly saved her mistress from the wrath of her tyrant, who was already on his way downstairs to finish off his hapless victim. . . .
They took her to her room, locked her in, and began to administer to her, while the monster who had just treated her with such utter fury flew back to his detestable companion to spend the night as peacefully as though he had not debased himself lower than the most ferocious beasts by assaults so execrable, so designed to degrade and humiliate her . . . so horrible, in a word, that we blush at the necessity of having to reveal them.
Poor Madame de Franval no longer had any illusions left, and there was no other for her to espouse. It was all too clear that her husband’s heart, that is, the most beloved possession of her life, had been taken from her. And by whom? By the very person who owed her the most respect, and who had just spoken to her with utter insolence. She also began to suspect strongly that the whole adventure with Valmont had been nothing more than a detestable trap set to ensnare her in a web of guilt, if ’twere possible or, failing that, to ascribe the guilt to her in any event, in order to counterbalance, and hence justify, the thousand times more serious wrongs which they dared to heap upon her.
Nothing could have been more certain. Franval, informed of Valmont’s failure, had prevailed upon him to replace the truth by imposture and indiscretion, and to noise it abroad that he was Madame de Franval’s lover. And they had decided that they would forge abominable letters which would document, in the most unequivocal manner, the existence of the illicit commerce in which, however, poor Madame de Franval had actually refused to involve herself.
Meanwhile, in deep despair, Madame de Franval, whose body was covered with numerous wounds, fell seriously ill. Her barbarous husband, refusing to see her and not even bothering to inform himself of her condition, left with Eugénie for the country, on the pretense that since there was fever in the house he did not care to expose his daughter to it.
During her illness, Valmont several times came to call at her door, but was each time refused admission. Locked in her room with her mother and Monsieur de Clervil, Madame de Franval absolutely refused to see anyone else. Consoled by such dear friends as these, who were so fully worthy of being able to influence her, and nourished back to health by their loving care, forty days later Madame de Franval was in a condition to see people again. At which time Franval brought his daughter back to Paris and, with Valmont, mapped out a campaign intended to counter the one it appeared that Madame de Franval and her friends were preparing to direct against him.
Our scoundrel paid his wife a visit as soon as he judged she was well enough to receive him.
“Madame,” he said coldly, “you must be aware of my concern for your condition. I cannot conceal from you the fact that your condition is the sole factor restraining Eugénie. She was determined to bring a complaint against you for the way you have treated her. However she may be persuaded of the basic respect due a mother by her daughter, still she cannot ignore the fact that this same mother threw herself on her daughter with a drawn dagger. Such a violent and unseemly act, Madame, could well open the eyes of the government to your conduct and, inevitably, pose a serious threat to both your honor and your liberty.”
“I was not expecting such recriminations, Monsieur,” Madame de Franval replied. “And when my daughter, seduced by you, becomes at the same time guilty of incest, adultery, libertinage, and ingratitude—ingratitude of the most odious sort—toward her who brought her into the world, . . . yes, I must confess, I did not imagine that after this complexity of horrors that I would be the one against whom a complaint would be brought. It takes all your cunning, all your wickedness, Monsieur, to accuse innocence the while excusing crime with such audacity.”
“I am not unaware, Madame, that the pretense for your scene was the odious suspicion you dared to formulate regarding me. But chimeras do not justify crimes. What you have imagined is false. But, unfortunately, what you have done is only too real. You evinced astonishment at the reproaches my daughter directed at you at the time of your affair with Valmont. But, Madame, she has only discovered the irregularities of your conduct since they have been the talk of all Paris. This affair is so well known, and the proofs of it unfortunately so solid, that those who speak to you about it are at the very most guilty of indiscretion, but not of calumny.”
“I, Sir,” said this respectable woman, rising to her feet, indignantly, “I have an affair with Valmont! Just Heaven! ’Tis you who have said it!” (Breaking into tears:)
“Ungrateful wretch! This is how you repay my tenderness. . . . This is my recompense for having loved you so. It is not enough for you to outrage me so cruelly. It is not enough that you seduce my daughter. You have to go even further and, by ascribing crimes which for me would be more terrible than death, dare to justify your own. . . .” (Regaining her composure:) “You say, Monsieur, that you have the proofs of this affair. All right, show them. I demand that they be made public, and I shall force you to show them to everyone if you refuse to show them to me.”
“No, Madame, I shall not show them to the whole world; it is not generally the husband who openly displays this sort of thing; he bemoans it, and conceals it as best he can. But if you demand it, Madame, I shall certainly not refuse you. . . .” (And then taking a letter case from his pocket:) “Sit down,” he said, “this must be verified calmly. Ill-humor and loss of temper would be harmful but would not convince me. Therefore, I beg you to keep control of yourself, and let us discuss this with composure.”
Madame de Franval, thoroughly convinced of her innocence, did not know what to make of these preparatory remarks. And her surprise, mingled with fright, kept her in a state of extreme agitation.
“First of all, Madame,” said Franval, emptying one side of the letter case, “here is all your correspondence with Valmont over the past six months. Do not accuse this worthy gentleman either of imprudence or indiscretion. He is doubtless too honorable a man to have dared fail you so badly. But one of his servants, more adroit than Valmont is attentive, discovered the secret way to procure for me this precious monument to your extreme fidelity and your eminent virtue.” (Then, leafing through the letters which he spread out on the table:) “Please allow me,” he went on, “to choose one from among many of these ordinary displays of chitchat by an overheated woman . . . overheated, I might add, by a most attractive man; one, I say, which seemed to me more lascivious and decisive than the others. Here it is, Madame:
My boring husband is dining tonight in his maisonette on the outskirts of Paris with that horrible creature . . . a creature it is impossible I brought into the world. Come, my love, come and comfort me for all the sorrows which these two monsters give
me. . . . What am I saying? Is this not the greatest service they could be doing me at present, and will that affair not prevent my husband from discovering ours? Let him then tighten the bonds as much as he likes; but at least let him not bethink himself to desire breaking those which attach me to the only man whom I have ever adored in this world.
“Well, Madame?”
“Well, Monsieur, I must say I admire you,” Madame de Franval replied. “Each day adds to the incredible esteem you so richly deserve. And however many fine qualities I have recognized in you hitherto, I confess I was yet unaware you were also a forger and a slanderer.”
“Ah, so you deny the evidence?”
“Not in the least. All I ask is to be persuaded. We shall have judges appointed . . . experts. And, if you agree, we shall ask that the most severe penalty be exacted against whichever of the two parties is found guilty.”
“That is what I call effrontery! Well, the truth is I prefer it to sorrow. . . . Now, where were we? Ah, yes; that you have a lover, Madame,” said Franval, shaking out the other side of the letter case, “a lover with a handsome face, and a boring husband, is most assuredly nothing so extraordinary. But that at your age you are supporting this lover—at my expense—I trust you will allow me not to find this quite so simple. . . . And yet here are 100,000 écus in notes, either paid by you or made out in your hand in favor of Valmont. Please run through them, I beg of you,” this monster added, showing them to her without allowing her to touch them. . . .
To Zaide, jeweler
By the present note I hereby agree to pay the sum of twenty-two thousand livres on the account of Monsieur de Valmont, by arrangement with him.
FARNEILLE DE FRANVAL
“Here’s another made out to Jamet, the horse merchant, for six thousand livres. This is for the team of dark bay horses which today are both Valmont’s delight and the admiration of all Paris. . . . Yes, Madame, the whole package comes to three hundred thousand, two hundred and eighty-three livres, and ten sous, a third of which total you still owe, and the balance of which you have most loyally paid. . . . Well, Madame?”
“Ah, Monsieur, this fraud is too crude and vulgar to cause me the least concern. To confound those who have invented it against me, I demand but one thing: that the people in whose names I have, so it is alleged, made out these documents, appear personally and swear under oath that I have had dealings with them.”
“They will, Madame, of that you may be sure. Do you think they themselves would have warned me of your conduct if they were not determined to back up their claims? Indeed, without my intervention, one of them would have signed a writ against you today. . . .”
At this point poor Madame de Franval’s beautiful eyes filled with bitter tears. Her courage failed to sustain her any longer, and she fell into a fit of despair with the most frightful symptoms: she began to strike her head against the marble objects around her, bruising her face horribly.
“Monsieur,” she cried out, throwing herself at her husband’s feet, “please do away with me, I beseech you, by means less slow and less torturous. Since my life is an obstacle to your crimes, end it with a single blow . . . refrain though from inching me into my grave. . . . Am I guilty of having loved you? of having rebelled against what was so cruelly stealing your heart from me? . . . Well then, barbarian, punish me for these transgressions. Yes, take this metal shaft,” she said, throwing herself on her husband’s sword, “and pierce my breast with it, with no pity. But at least let me die worthy of your esteem, let me take as my sole consolation to the grave the certainty that you believe me incapable of the infamies of which you accuse me . . . solely to cover your own. . . .”
She was on her knees at Franval’s feet, her head and bust thrown back, her hands wounded and bleeding from the naked steel she had tried to seize and thrust into her breast. This lovely breast was laid bare, her hair was in disarray, its strands soaked by the tears that flowed abundantly. Never had sorrow been more pathetic and more expressive, never had it been seen in a more touching, more noble, and more attractive garb.
“No, Madame,” Franval said, resisting her movement, “no, ’tis not your death I desire, but your punishment. I can understand your repentance, your tears do not surprise me, you are furious at having been discovered. I approve of this frame of mind, which leads me to believe you plan to amend your ways, a change that the fate I have in mind for you, and because of which I must depart in order to give it my every care, will doubtless precipitate.”
“Stop, Franval,” the unhappy woman cried, “do not voice abroad the news of your dishonor, nor tell the world that you are a perjurer, a forger, a slanderer, and guilty of incest into the bargain. . . . You wish to have done with me, I shall run away, I shall leave in search of some refuge where your very memory shall disappear from my mind. . . . You will be free, you can exercise your criminal desires with impunity. . . . Yes, I shall forget you, if I can, oh heartless man. Or, if your painful image remains graven in my heart, if it still pursues me in my distant darkness, I shall not obliterate it, traitor, that effort is beyond my abilities; no, I shall not obliterate it, but I shall punish my own blindness, and shall bury in the horror of the grave the guilty altar which committed the error of holding you too dear. . . .”
With these words, the final outcry of a soul overwhelmed by a recent illness, the poor woman fainted and fell unconscious to the floor. The cold shadows of death spread over the roses of her beautiful complexion, already withered by the stings of despair. She appeared little more than a lifeless mass, from which, however, grace, modesty, and seemliness . . . all the attributes of virtue, had refused to flee. The monster left the room and repaired to his own chambers, there to enjoy, with his guilty daughter, the terrible triumph which vice, or rather low villainy, dared to win over innocence and unhappiness.
Franval’s abominable daughter infinitely savored the details of this encounter. She only wished she could have seen them. She would have liked to carry the horror even further and see Valmont vanquish her mother’s resistance, and then have Franval surprise them in the act. What means, if that were to happen, what means of justification would their victim then have had left? And was it not important for them to deprive her of any and all means? Such was Eugénie.
Meanwhile, Franval’s poor wife had only the refuge of her mother’s breast for her tears, and it was not long before she revealed to her the reasons for her latest sorrow. It was at this juncture that Madame de Farneille came to the conclusion that Monsieur de Clervil’s age, his calling, and his personal prestige perhaps might exercise a certain good influence on her son-in-law. Nothing is more confident than adversity. As best she could, she apprised this worthy ecclesiastic of the truth about Franval’s chaotic conduct; she convinced him of the truth which he had hitherto been disinclined to believe, and she beseeched him above all to employ with such a scoundrel only that persuasive eloquence which appeals to the heart rather than to the head. And after he had talked with this traitor, she suggested that Monsieur de Clervil solicit a meeting with Eugénie, during which he could similarly put to use whatever he should deem most appropriate toward enlightening the poor child as to the abyss that had opened beneath her feet and, if possible, to bring her back to her mother’s heart and to the path of virtue.
Franval, informed that Clervil intended to request to see both him and his daughter, had time enough to conspire with Eugénie, and when they had settled on their plans they sent word to Madame de Farneille that both were prepared to hear him out. The credulous Madame de Franval held out the highest hopes for the eloquence of this spiritual guide. The wretched are wont to seize at straws with such avidity, in order to procure for themselves a pleasure which the truth disowns, that they fabricate most cunningly all sorts of illusions!
Clervil arrived. It was nine in the morning. Franval received him in the room where he was accustomed to spending the night with his daughter. He had embellished it with every imaginable elegance, but had nonetheless allowed
it to retain a certain disorder which bore witness to his criminal pleasures. In a neighboring room, Eugénie could hear everything, the better to prepare herself for the conversation with her which was due to follow.
“It is only most reluctantly, and with the greatest fear of disturbing you, Monsieur,” Clervil began, “that I dare to present myself before you. Persons of our calling are commonly so much a burden to those who, like yourself, spend their lives tasting the pleasures of this world, that I reproach myself for having consented to Madame de Farneille’s desires and having requested to converse with you for a moment or two.”
“Please sit down, Monsieur, and so long as reason and justice hold sway in your conversation, you need never fear of boring me.”
“Sir, you are beloved of a young wife full of charm and virtue and whom, it is alleged, you make most miserable. Having as arms naught but her innocence and her candor, and with only a mother’s ear to hear her complaints, still idolizing you despite your wrongs, you can easily imagine the frightful position in which she finds herself!”
“If you please, Monsieur, I should like us to get down to the facts. I have the feeling you are skirting the issue; pray tell me, what is the purpose of your mission?”
Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings Page 43