Goodbye, Vicomte. Don’t come and see me tomorrow unless it’s in the morning. I’ve yielded to Belleroche’s urgent plea to spend a night at my little house.
55
Cécile Volanges to Sophie Carnay 4 September 17—
Sophie dear, you were right. Your prophecies are better than your advice. As you forecast, Danceny beat my confessor, you, and even me. So we’re back to exactly where we started. I don’t feel any remorse and if you tell me off, it’s because you’ve no idea how wonderful it is loving Danceny. It’s all very well for you to say what ought to be done, there’s nothing to stop you. But if you’d actually experienced how dreadful it is when someone you love is miserable and how difficult it is to say no when you want to say yes, you wouldn’t be surprised at anything any more. For instance, do you imagine I can see Danceny crying without wanting to cry myself? I assure you, it’s definitely impossible for me. And when he’s pleased, I’m as happy as he is. You can say what you like, what people say doesn’t change the way things are and I’m certain that’s how it is.
I’d just like to see you in my place … No, that’s not what I really mean, because I’d certainly hate to give up my place to anybody; but I would like you to love someone as well, not only because you’d understand me better and not keep on telling me off so much but also because you’d be happier or perhaps I should say, it’s not until then that you’d start being happy.
You see, all our fun and laughter and larking about was really only childish. Once it was over, there wasn’t anything left. But love, O Sophie, love! … a word, a look, just knowing he’s there, well, that’s what happiness is. When I see Danceny, I don’t want anything more; and when I can’t see him, I don’t want anybody else. I don’t know how it is but it seems that everything I like looks like him. When he’s not there I think of him and when I can concentrate on thinking of him without anything to distract me, for example when I’m completely alone, I’m still happy. I just close my eyes and I can see him straight away. I remember what he said and I seem to hear his voice. I start longing for him and then I get all hot and excited and restless and just can’t keep still, it’s agony but it’s so wonderful, I just can’t tell you!
I even think that once you’ve experienced love, it spreads to friendship as well. My friendship for you hasn’t changed, of course, it’s still just like it was in the convent, but what I’m talking about is my feelings towards Madame de Merteuil. I seem to love her more like I do Danceny than you and sometimes I wish she was him. Maybe that’s because it’s not a childhood friendship like ours or else because I see them so often together that I tend to mix them up. Anyway it’s certainly true that the two of them together make me feel very happy and after all I don’t think there’s any great harm in what I’m doing. I’d really rather like to stay just as I am. The only thing that worries me is the thought of getting married because if Monsieur de Gercourt is the sort of man I’ve been told, and I feel sure he is, I don’t know what will happen to me. Goodbye, Sophie mine, from your as ever very affectionate and loving Cécile.
56
Madame de Tourvel to the Vicomte de Valmont 5 September 17—
What would be the point of answering the question you ask me? Wouldn’t believing in your feelings be a further reason for being afraid of them? And without either doubting or defending their sincerity, mustn’t it be sufficent for me and for you to know that I neither will nor ought to respond to them?
Assuming that you did indeed love me—and it’s only to avoid ever coming back to this subject that I make this assumption—would the obstacles standing in our way be any less insurmountable? And would there be anything else I could do but hope that you would quickly succeed in overcoming that love and, above all, do everything in my power to help you by removing any hope of it as soon as possible? You agree yourself that it is a sad emotion when it is not shared by the person inspiring it. You are by now quite well aware that I cannot possibly share it and even if such a misfortune were to befall me, I should be the more to be pitied, without your being any the happier. I hope that you have a sufficiently high opinion of me not to doubt that for one second. My heart has great need of peace and quiet and I appeal to you to stop trying to unsettle it. Don’t force me to regret having known you.
I enjoy the affection and esteem of a husband whom I love and respect, in whom my duty and my pleasure are both combined. I am happy, I am bound to be happy. If there are more intense pleasures, I do not want them and I have no wish to indulge in them: is there any purer pleasure than being at peace with one-self, enjoying tranquil days and restful nights, to wake up with a clear conscience? What you call happiness is a turmoil of the senses, a storm of passion dreadful to watch even from the safety of the shore. How could anyone face such frightful squalls? How could one dare to embark on a sea scattered with the flotsam of thousands and thousands of shipwrecks? And in what company? No, Monsieur, I shall stay on firm ground; I value the links that bind me to it. Even if I could break them, I should never want to do so. If I did not have them, I should make every effort to forge them as quickly as possible.
Why are you dogging my footsteps? Why do you persist in pursuing me? Your letters were to have been written occasionally; they are coming thick and fast. They were supposed to be sensible and they talk of nothing but your mad love. Your obsession is hemming me in even more than your presence. After having been banished in one form, you have been reborn in another. Having been asked not to say certain things, you merely find other ways of saying them. You enjoy tying me up in quibbles; you avoid answering my arguments. I no longer want to reply to you and I intend to stop doing so. And what a way to treat the women you’ve seduced! The scorn with which you refer to them! I’m prepared to believe that some of them deserve it but are they all so contemptible? Oh, surely they were, since they were false and faithless and succumbed to guilty love. From that moment, they lost everything, even the respect of the man to whom they had sacrificed everything. It is a savage punishment and a fair one: but the very thought sends a shudder through me.*
In any case, what importance has all this for me? Why should I concern myself with them or with you? What right have you to disturb my peace of mind? Leave me alone, stop seeing me and writing to me, I beg you. I demand it. This letter is the last you will receive from me.
57
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil 5 September 17—
Your letter was awaiting me when I got back yesterday. I was delighted to see how angry you were. You couldn’t have reacted more spiritedly to Danceny’s shortcomings if they had been deliberately aimed at you. I imagine that you are inculcating in his mistress the habit of being unfaithful, just slightly, to him, in retaliation? What a real bad lot you are! Yes, you’re charming and I’m not surprised that you’re less easy to resist than Danceny.*
I’ve finally got to know him thoroughly well, this wonderful hero of romance!—he no longer has any secrets from me. I kept dinning into his ears so relentlessly that honourable love was the supreme good, that one genuine emotion was worth a dozen petty intrigues, that for the moment I became a timid lover myself; in fact he found my way of thinking so congenial and was so delighted by my candour that he told me all and promised me his unconditional friendship. It hasn’t furthered the progress of our plan very much.
First of all, I gathered that his idea is that a girl deserves to be treated with far greater consideration than a woman since she has more to lose. In particular, he feels that nothing can justify a man’s placing a girl in a position where she has either to marry him or face public disgrace, when that girl is infinitely better off financially than the man, which is the case with him. The mother’s vigilance, the girl’s own trusting nature, both combine to intimidate him and make him hesitate. The problem isn’t how to refute his arguments, justified though they may be: a sly word or two and a little help from youthful passion could soon make nonsense of them, all the more easily as they’re open to ridicul
e and the weight of custom is on our side. But we’re prevented from having any hold over him by the fact that he’s perfectly happy as he is. Indeed, if our first loves seem generally more honourable and, as they say, purer, or in any case, if they proceed more slowly, it’s not, as people think, because of shyness or scruples; it’s because the heart is surprised by an unfamiliar emotion and halts, so to speak, at every stage to enjoy the charm of the experience; and for a young man’s heart this charm is so powerful that it fills it to the point of excluding every other pleasure. This is so true that from the very moment a rake falls in love, assuming a rake can be in love, he becomes less eager to consummate his pleasure and in fact, between Danceny’s behaviour towards the Volanges girl and mine with the prudish Madame de Tourvel, there’s only a difference of degree.
To spur our young man on, he would have needed to face more obstacles than he has done; in particular, more mystery was required, for mystery fosters boldness. I’m almost tempted to think that you’ve done him a disservice by giving him so much help. With a sophisticated man feeling nothing but desire, your activity would have been admirable; but you should have been able to foresee that an honourable young man in love values his sweetheart’s favours primarily because they are the proof of her love for him and consequently the more certain he is of being loved, the less enterprising he becomes. What’s to be done now? I’ve no idea but I don’t see any chance of the girl’s being had before her marriage and we’ll have taken all our trouble for nothing; it’s tiresome, but I can’t see any way round it.
And while I’m laying down the law in this letter, you’re doing far better things with your knight. Which reminds me that you promised me a little deviation from constancy in my favour. I’ve got your promissory note in writing and I shouldn’t like to see it turned into one of La Châtre’s* I agree that it isn’t yet due to be honoured but it would be an act of generosity on your part not to wait till then. I’d be happy to arrange a discount on the interest. What do you say, fairest of the fair? Aren’t you getting tired of remaining so constant? Is this knight so phenomenal? Oh, just leave that to me, I intend to force you to admit that if you thought he was quite good, it was because you’d forgotten me …
Goodbye, dear lady: I embrace you as ardently as I desire you and I defy any kisses of your knight’s to match mine.
58
The Vicomte de Valmont to Madame de Tourvel 7 September 17—
What have I done to deserve such rebukes, such anger? The deepest yet most respectful affection, the most complete subservience to your slightest desire, these few words sum up all my feelings and my behaviour towards you. In his distress, your unhappy lover had only the consolation of seeing you, which you ordered him to forgo and he obeyed without daring to utter a word of complaint. To reward me for this sacrifice you allowed me to write to you and now you want to deprive me of even this one pleasure. Can I let you rob me of it without a fight? Certainly not! How could I fail to treasure it in my heart? It’s the only thing I have left and it was you who gave it to me.
You accuse me of writing to you too often! I would ask you to reflect that since you exiled me ten days ago, I’ve not stopped thinking of you for a single second, yet you’ve only had two letters from me. In them, I talk of nothing but my love! Can you tell me what I am to say if I cannot say what I think? The only thing I have succeeded in doing is restraining my expression of it and I promise you that I have only told you that part of it which I found impossible to hold back. You conclude by threatening to stop answering me, the man for whom you mean more than anything in the world, who respects you even more than he loves you! You’re not content to treat him harshly, you intend to spurn him with contempt. And why do you threaten me? Why are you so angry? Do you need to do such things when you can be sure I shall obey your every command, even if they are unjust? Is it possible for me to refuse you anything? Haven’t I already abundantly proved that? After making me miserable, after behaving so unfairly towards me, will you find it so easy to enjoy that peace of mind which you claim to find so necessary? Won’t you ever have to say to yourself: he placed his fate in my hands and I destroyed him? He pleaded for help and I showed him no mercy? Do you know to what lengths despair can drive a man? No. And to plumb the depths of my misery you would need to know how great my love is. You do not know my heart.
To what are you sacrificing me? Preposterous fears! and who is causing these fears? A man who worships you, a man whom you will never cease to have at your mercy. What is there, what can there be to fear from a feeling which you will always have the power to control absolutely as you think fit? But your imagination is conjuring up monsters and you blame the terror they are causing you on love. Show a little more trust and these spectres will vanish.
A sage has said that to cure one’s fears it is nearly always sufficient to investigate their source.* This truth is particularly applicable to love. Just love and your fears will melt away. Instead of these frightening apparitions, you’ll discover a delightful emotion, a devoted and submissive lover, and as one blissful day follows another, your only regret will be for those you lost through your indifference. Ever since I repented of my errors and have lived only to love, I myself have come to regret my past life, when I imagined I was living only for pleasure. I feel in my heart that only you can make me happy. But I beseech you not to spoil the pleasure I feel in writing to you by making me frightened of incurring your displeasure. I do not want to disobey you but I fling myself on my knees and beg you at least to let me continue to enjoy the only happiness you have left me and which you wish me to forgo. I plead with you: see my tears, hear my prayers. Ah, Madame, have you the heart to refuse me?
59
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil 8 September 17—
Do tell me if you can make head or tail out of this gibberish of Danceny’s. What’s happened to him? What’s he lost? Has his beloved got fed up with his unshakeable respect for her? Let’s be fair to the girl, that would be more than enough. What am I to say to him tonight when we meet, as he’s asked me to and which I’ve agreed to do, just in case? I’m certainly not going to waste my time listening to him moaning if it’s not going to get us anywhere. Lovers’ laments are only worth listening to as an instrumental recitative or as a big arietta.* So do please let me know what it’s all about and what I’m supposed to be doing or else I shall abscond to avoid the boredom which I can foresee. Can I have a word with you this morning? If you’re occupied,* at least drop me a line and give me the cues for my part.
Where on earth were you yesterday? I never manage to see you these days. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t worth getting me to stay on in Paris for September. But make up your mind because I’ve just received a pressing invitation from the Comtesse de B—— to go and stay with her in the country. And, as she informs me rather engagingly, her husband has the finest preserve imaginable ‘which he keeps in prime condition for his friends’ sport’. Well, as you know, I have certain shooting rights over that preserve* and if you haven’t any use for me, I’ll go down and shoot over it again. Goodbye, don’t forget Danceny’s going to be here about four o’clock.
60
The Chevalier Danceny to the Vicomte de Valmont (enclosed with the previous letter) 8 September 17—
Ah, Monsieur, I’m in despair! My life’s shattered. I’m afraid to tell you the tragic details in a letter but I absolutely must unburden my heart to some sympathetic and trusty friend. When can I see you? I need your comfort and advice. How happy I was that day when I opened my heart to you. But how different everything is now! My own unhappiness is the least of my troubles; what is unbearable is my anxiety for a person far dearer to me. You are luckier than I, you can go and see her, and I am relying on you as my friend not to refuse me this kindness; but I need to talk to you and tell you all about it. You must take pity on me and help me; you’re my only hope. You are a man of feeling, you know what love is and you are the only one to whom I can speak freel
y. Don’t refuse me your help.*
Goodbye, Vicomte: the thought that I have such a friend as you is my only relief for my sorrows. I beg you to tell me at what time I can come and see you. If it’s not possible this morning, please make it early in the afternoon.
61
Cécile Volanges to Sophie Carnay 7 September 17—
O Sophie, dear, dear Sophie, pity your poor Cécile, she’s so miserable! Mummy’s found me out!! I just can’t imagine how she came to suspect me but she’s discovered everything. It’s true that yesterday evening she did seem a bit grumpy but I didn’t pay much attention and even while I was waiting for her to finish her game of cards I was chatting very cheerfully with Madame de Merteuil who came to supper and we talked a lot about Danceny, but I don’t think anyone could have overheard us. Then she left and I went up to my room.
As I was getting undressed, Mummy came in and sent my maid away. She asked me for the key to my secretaire in a tone of voice that made me tremble so much that I could hardly stay on my feet. I pretended I couldn’t find it but in the end I had to do what she asked. The very first drawer she opened was the one where I keep Chevalier Danceny’s letters! I was so confused that when she asked me what they were, I couldn’t think what to say except that it wasn’t anything. But when I saw her start reading the one on top, I felt so bad that I only just had time to get to an armchair before fainting. When I came to, my mother, after sending for the maid, told me to go to bed and then went away, taking all Danceny’s letters with her. I get a cold shiver down my back every time I think that I’m going to have to face Mummy again. I cried all night.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses Page 17