Dangerous Liaisons

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by Choderlos De Laclos


  The time is past, alas, when, entirely given over to these praiseworthy sentiments, I was unacquainted with those which affect the soul with mortal anguish and take away one’s strength to fight, while at the same time necessitating the duty to do so. Oh, this fateful journey has been my downfall…

  What can I say? I am in love, hopelessly in love. Alas, that word, which I have written here for the very first time, that word so often asked for in vain, I should give my life for the sweet delight of uttering it just once to the person who has inspired it. Yet I must forever deny myself that pleasure! He will still be in doubt about my feelings for him. He will believe he has reason to grieve. How unhappy I am! Why is it not as easy for him to read my heart as to reign supreme in it? Yes, I should suffer less if he were aware of all my suffering. But you yourself, to whom I am saying this, will still have only the faintest notion of it.

  In a few moments I shall leave him and cause him pain. While he imagines he is still near me I shall already be far away. At the time when I was in the habit of seeing him every day I shall be in places he has never been, where I must never allow him to come. Already I have made all my preparations. Everything is here before my eyes. I can rest them upon nothing that does not announce this cruel departure. Everything is ready, except my self! And the more my heart denies it, the more it proves to me the need to submit to it.

  For submit I surely shall. It is better to die than to live a guilty life. I feel I am already more than guilty. All I have rescued is my good conduct – my virtue has vanished. And I must admit that what is left still I owe to his generosity. Intoxicated with the pleasure of seeing him, of listening to his words, of the sweet delight of feeling him near, of the greater happiness of being able to make him happy, I have lost all power and strength. I had almost none left to be able to fight back, no more strength to resist. I trembled at the danger, unable as I was to escape. Well, he saw my plight and took pity on me. How should I not cherish him? I certainly owe him more than my life.

  Oh, if by staying near him it was only my life I had to fear for, do not suppose I should ever have brought myself to leave. What is my life without him? Should I not be more than glad to lose it? Condemned to his and my own eternal misery; unable to complain or console him; defending myself every day against him, against my own self; putting my energies into causing him pain when I wish to devote them entirely to his happiness; living like that, is it not like dying a thousand times over? Yet that is to be my fate. But I shall bear it, I shall be brave. I herewith make this vow to you, whom I have elected to be my mother.

  I also vow not to hide any of my actions from you. I beg you will receive this vow. I am asking you this as in my hour of need. Thus obliged to tell you everything, I shall acquire the habit of believing myself to be always in your presence. Your virtue will take the place of mine, for I shall certainly never allow myself to blush in your sight. And under this powerful constraint, while I shall cherish in you the indulgent friend, confidante of my weakness, I shall still honour in you the guardian angel who will save me from my shame.

  It is shame enough simply to make such a request, the inevitable effect of a presumptuous trust! Why did I not fear sooner this desire that I have felt growing inside me? Why did I flatter myself I could master it or conquer it at will? Fool! I knew so little of love! Ah, if I had fought it more diligently, perhaps it would not have seized hold of me in this way! Perhaps then this departure would not have been necessary; or even if I had submitted to this painful decision, I might have been able to avoid destroying a liaison which it would have perhaps sufficed to render only less frequent! But to lose everything all at once! And for ever! Oh my friend! But alas! Even as I write, my thoughts stray and become wicked desires. Ah, let me leave, let me leave, and at least let these involuntary sins be expiated by my sacrifices.

  Farewell, my honourable friend. Love me as a daughter, adopt me as your own and be assured that, in spite of this weakness of mine, I should die rather than render myself unworthy of your choice.

  From —, 3 October 17** at one o’clock in the morning

  LETTER 103

  Madame de Rosemonde to the Présidente de Tourvel

  My dearest friend, I am more affected by your departure than surprised by the reason for it. Long experience and my concern for you were enough for me to realize the condition of your heart. And, to be perfectly honest, you have told me in your letter almost nothing I did not know already. If I had only your letter to go by, I should still be in ignorance of whom it is that you love. For while you speak of him all the time, you have not once written his name. I did not need it. I know very well who it is. But I make that observation because I remember that love was always so. I see it has not changed.

  I never thought I should be in the position of recalling old memories which are so distant from me and so strange to one of my years. Yet since yesterday I have beeen dwelling on them a great deal in the hope of discovering in them something which could prove useful to you. But what can I do except admire you and sympathize? I approve of the sensible decision you have taken, but it alarms me because I conclude from this that you have judged it necessary. When one has reached that stage it is very difficult to keep oneself remote from the man to whom one’s heart is constantly drawn.

  Do not, however, be discouraged. Nothing is impossible to your beautiful soul. If you were to have the misfortune to give in to it one day (God grant it may not be so!), believe me, my dear, you must reserve for yourself at least the consolation of having fought with all your might. What human wisdom cannot achieve, divine grace may bring about when it pleases. Perhaps you are on the verge of receiving that help, and your virtue, sorely tried in these painful struggles, will emerge more pure and more resplendent than ever. The fortitude that you do not possess today, pray that you will receive tomorrow. Do not, however, count upon it to support you, but rather to encourage you to use every ounce of your own strength.

  Leaving it to Providence to protect you from a danger against which I can do nothing, I confine myself to sustaining and consoling you as best I can. I shall not assuage your pain, but I shall share it. It is in that capacity that I willingly accept your confidences. I feel that your heart must needs pour out its pain. I open my heart to you. Age has not yet cooled it to the point of being insensitive to friendship. You will always find it ready to receive you. It will be a feeble comfort to your pain but at least you shall not weep alone. And when your unhappy love, gaining too much power over you, forces you into speaking about it, it is better that it should be with me than with him. Now I am talking like you. I believe that we two will never come to the point of naming him: in any case we understand each other.

  I do not know if I should tell you that he seemed to me greatly affected by your departure. Perhaps it would be wiser not to tell you about this. But I do not care for the sort of wisdom that hurts one’s friends. I am obliged, however, not to speak of it any longer. My failing sight and my shaking hand do not allow me to write lengthy letters, when I have to write them myself.

  So farewell, my dear. Farewell, sweet child. Yes, I shall willingly take you for my daughter, and you certainly have everything necessary to make a mother proud and delighted.

  From the Chateau de —, 3 October 17**

  LETTER 104

  The Marquise de Merteuil to Madame de Volanges

  I must admit, my dear, good friend, that I could not help feeling a rush of pride when I read your letter. Can it be that you really are honouring me by taking me entirely into your confidence and even going so far as to ask my advice? If I truly deserve your favourable opinion and do not simply owe it to your predisposition as my friend, it makes me very happy. Well, whatever prompted it, it is most precious to me, and, in my view, obtaining it is but one more reason why I should strive harder to deserve it. I shall therefore tell you frankly (but without presuming to give you advice) my own opinion. I am rather mistrustful of it, as it differs from yours. But after I have expounde
d my reasons to you, you may be the judge. And if you think ill of them, I bow to your judgement in advance. I shall at least be wise enough not to imagine that I am wiser than you.

  If, this once, however, my view were to be preferred, we should seek the reasons in the illusions of maternal love. Since this is such a praiseworthy sentiment, it must dwell in your heart. And how evident it is in the decision you are inclined to take! If occasionally you chance to make a mistake, it is only ever when you have to choose between two virtues.

  Prudence is the course which should be adopted, or so it seems to me, when the fate of others is in one’s own hands, and especially when an indissoluble, holy bond like that of matrimony is in question. It is then that a wise and tender mother must give her daughter the benefit of her own experience, as you put it so well. I ask you, what does she have to do to give her that – other than distinguish for herself between what she may wish to do and what is right and proper?

  So would it not debase and reduce a mother’s authority to nothing, if she were to subordinate it to some idle fancy, whose illusory power only makes itself felt to those who are fearful of it and vanishes as soon as scorn is poured upon it? I must say that, as far as I am concerned, I never set great store by these passionate, irresistible love affairs which it is apparently quite acceptable now to use as a general excuse for flouting the conventions. I do not comprehend how an inclination, here one moment and gone the next, can have more force than the immutable principles of decency, modesty and respectability. And I do not understand either that a woman who betrays those qualities can feel her so-called passion justified, any more than a thief would be by his passion for money or an assassin by his thirst for revenge.

  For who can in all honesty say they have never had to struggle? I have always sought to convince myself that to resist it was enough simply to want to resist. And my experience, so far at least, has confirmed me in that opinion. What would virtue be without the duties she imposes? Devotion to her demands sacrifices; she rewards us in our hearts. These truths cannot be denied except by those in whose interest it is to misconceive them. Already depraved, they hope to create a moment’s illusion by trying to justify their bad conduct with bad reasons.

  But could one fear such a thing from an innocent, timid child? And from a child of yours, whose pure, modest education has only served to reinforce a naturally happy temperament? Yet it is to this apprehension, which I would venture to call humiliating, that you wish to sacrifice the advantageous marriage you have so carefully arranged for your daughter! I like Danceny a great deal and I have not seen much of Monsieur de Gercourt for some time now, as you know; but my friendship for the one and my indifference to the other do not prevent me from appreciating the enormous difference which exists between these two.

  They are equal in birth, I admit. But one is without fortune, and the other’s wealth is such that even without his high birth it would have taken him anywhere. I allow that money does not equal happiness. Still, one has to admit that it is a great help. Mademoiselle de Volanges is, as you rightly say, rich enough for two. However, the sixty thousand livres of income that she will enjoy are not so very much when one bears the name of Danceny, or when one has to furnish and keep up an establishment that befits that name. We are no longer in the days of Madame de Sévigné.6 Luxury has overtaken everything. One may criticize it, but one must nevertheless do as others do. And in the end superfluities deprive one of necessities.

  As far as personal qualities go, and you so rightly hold them in high regard, Monsieur de Gercourt’s are certainly beyond reproach, and he has given us proof of them. I like to think, and do truly believe, that Danceny is no less a man than he is. But can we be so sure? It is true that so far he has seemed exempt from the faults of youth, and despite the manners of our age he exhibits a taste for good society which augurs well for him. Yet who can tell if he does not owe this apparent wisdom to the mediocrity of his fortune? However afraid a man may be of becoming corrupt or dissolute, he needs money to be a gambler or a libertine, and it is still possible to love vice and yet fear its excesses. When all’s said and done he would not be the first to have frequented good society only for lack of anything better to do.

  I am not saying – God forbid – that I do believe all of this about him. But it would be a risk, and you would have only yourself to blame if things did not work out well! How would you answer your daughter if she said: ‘Mother, I was young and inexperienced. I was even the victim of a mistake pardonable at my age. But God, who foresaw my weakness, granted me a mother wise enough to remedy this and preserve me from it. So why, forgetting your wisdom, did you consent to my misfortune? Was it up to me to choose a husband when I knew nothing of the estate of marriage? If this was my desire, was it not up to you to oppose it? But I never was so foolish. Determined to obey you, I awaited your decision with respectful resignation. Never did I depart from the obedience I owed you, and yet today I bear the pain which only rebellious children should have to suffer. Oh, your weakness has been my downfall…’? Perhaps she would suppress these complaints out of respect for you. But your maternal love would divine her feelings. And your daughter’s tears, though they may be hidden from you, would still flow into your heart. So where will you then seek consolation? Will it be in this foolish love against which you should have armed her, but by which instead you have allowed yourself to be persuaded?

  My dear friend, I do not know whether I have too strong a mistrust of such a passion. But even within marriage I think it something to be feared. It is not that I disapprove of a true feeling of tenderness coming to enhance the marriage bed and in some wise sweeten the duties it requires. But it is not its place to create this. It is not for the illusion of a moment to regulate our choices of a lifetime. In fact, in order to make a right choice we need to be able to make comparisons. And how can we do so when our attention is entirely taken up by one single being? When we are in a state of blind infatuation and cannot even understand that one person properly?

  As you may imagine, I have met several women suffering from this dangerous complaint. I have received the confidences of some. To hear them speak, there is not one whose lover is not perfection itself. But these perfections are chimerical and exist only in their imagination. Their heads are in the clouds. Dreaming of nothing but charming qualities and virtues, they freely adorn the man of their choice with them, which all too often is like dressing some contemptible dummy in the vestment of a god. But whoever it is, hardly have they clothed him thus, than, duped by their own creation, they go down on their knees and adore him.

  Either your daughter does not love Danceny or she is under the same illusion. If they love one another, both of them share it. So your reason for uniting them for ever boils down to this, to the certainty that they do not and cannot know one another. ‘But,’ you will object, ‘do my daughter and Monsieur de Gercourt know each other any better?’ No, I am sure they do not. But at least they are not deceiving each other; they are simply unaware of each other. What happens in such cases between two married people, assuming they behave correctly? Each studies the other; they observe how they behave to one another, seek and soon recognize what compromises they must make in their tastes and desires for mutual happiness. These small sacrifices are made painlessly because they are reciprocal and have been anticipated. Soon this gives rise to mutual benevolence. And habit, which strengthens all the inclinations that it does not destroy, brings about, little by little, that loving friendship, that tender trust which, together with respect, form, or so it seems to me, the true and solid basis of a happy marriage.

  The illusions of love may be sweeter. But everyone knows that they are also less durable. And what danger the instant they are destroyed! It is then that the slightest faults seem shocking and unbearable by contrast with the ideal of perfection which had seduced us. Yet each party believes that it is the other who alone has changed, and that they themselves should still be appreciated for what a momentary illusion once re
ndered attractive. They are astonished that they no longer inspire the charm they no longer feel. They are humiliated by this. Hurt pride embitters their spirits, increases wrongs, produces bad feelings, gives birth to hatred. And in the end frivolous pleasures are paid for by long periods of misery.

  So that, my dear friend, is my view of the matter under discussion. I do not defend it, I merely state it. It is up to you. But if you continue to hold to your opinion I ask you to acquaint me with your arguments, which are opposed to mine. I shall be very happy to know your views, and especially to be reassured upon the fate of your lovely daughter, whose happiness I most ardently desire both because of my friendship for her and because of our own, which unites us as long as we live.

  Paris, 4 October 17**

  LETTER 105

  The Marquise de Merteuil to Cécile Volanges

  Well, my dear, so you are very ashamed and angry! And Monsieur de Valmont is a wicked man, isn’t he? What! Does he dare treat you like the woman he loves best in the world? Has he taught you those things that you were simply dying to know? What unforgivable behaviour! And you for your part wish to keep your virtue for your lover (who has not abused it). You attend only to the pain of love, not to its pleasures! What could be better? You would make a marvellous character in a novel. Passion, misfortune and, most of all, virtue. What a wonderful array! One is sometimes bored, it is true, with all this glittering display, but one cuts a fine figure.

 

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