There remains one other matter outstanding between us: the letters you are asking me to return. I am indeed sorry to add a further refusal to the offences which you already attribute to me but I beg you to listen to my reasons and, in order to appreciate them, I ask you, with the greatest respect, to remember that my only consolation for my misfortune in losing your friendship is the hope of not forfeiting your esteem.
I have always treasured Mademoiselle de Volanges’s letters; now they have become even more precious. They are all that is left me; only they are capable of reviving the memory of a feeling which is the light of my life. Nevertheless, you must believe me when I say that I should still not hesitate for one second to sacrifice them to you, and my regrets at being deprived of them would be swept away by my desire to prove my respect and deference; but I am constrained by powerful considerations whose validity I do not think even you, Madame, will be able to deny.
True, you hold Mademoiselle de Volanges’s secret, but allow me to suggest that I have strong reasons for believing that it was acquired by stealth rather than by persuasion. I am not seeking to blame you for your action, perhaps justified by motherly concern. I respect your rights but they do not extend to exempting me from my duties and the most sacred duty of all is never to betray any trust we have been given. To divulge to a third person the secrets of a heart which wished to reveal them to me alone would mean betraying that trust. Should your daughter wish to confide her secrets to you, so be it; you do not need her letters. If on the other hand she prefers to keep them to herself, you will certainly not expect me to inform you of them.
As for your wish that this incident may remain veiled in obscurity, here, Madame, I can set your mind at rest: in any matter which concerns Mademoiselle de Volanges, I can vie even with a mother’s heart. In order to remove any misgivings you may have, I have made appropriate arrangements: the precious packet of letters originally marked, ‘To be burnt’, now bears the inscription: ‘Papers belonging to Madame de Volanges.’ This decision of mine must also confirm that my refusal to let you have them does not spring from any fear that you might find in these letters a single sentiment that could give you personal cause to complain.
This is an extremely long letter, Madame. It would still not be long enough if it left you in any doubt of the honourable nature of my feelings, of my genuine regret at having incurred your displeasure, and of the deep respect with which I have the honour, etc.
65
The Chevalier Danceny to Cécile Volanges (sent unsealed to the Marquise de Merteuil in letter 66) 9 September 17—
Ah, what’s going to become of us, Cécile, my Cécile? What kind God will save us from the calamities which threaten us? May our love at least give us strength to endure them! How can I describe my shock and despair when I saw my letters and read Madame de Volanges’s note? Who can have given us away? Do you suspect anyone? Have you inadvertently said or done anything? What are you going to do now? What have they said to you? I’d like to know everything and I know nothing at all. Perhaps you yourself know as little as I do?
I’m sending you your mother’s note and a copy of my reply. I hope you approve what I’ve said to her. And I need your approval, too, for the various steps I’ve taken since that disastrous event. They’re all aimed at providing me with news of you and giving you my news. And who can tell? Perhaps even giving me a chance of seeing you again and more freely than ever before.
Can you imagine, dear Cécile, my Cécile, the bliss of being together again, being once again able to swear to love each other for ever, to read in each other’s eyes and feel in our souls that it won’t be an empty vow? Surely such a wonderful moment will make us forget all our woes. Well, I have hopes that moment will come as a result of these plans which I am asking you to approve. In fact, it’s really because of the kindest of friends and I’d like you to accept him as your friend, too.
Perhaps I should have waited for your permission before telling him our secret? My excuse is my unhappiness and the urgency of our need. Love made me do it and it’s in his name that I beg you not to be cross with me and to forgive me for betraying a secret. It was the only possible thing to do because otherwise we might have been parted for ever.* You know the friend I’m referring to, he’s the friend of the woman you like best: the Vicomte de Valmont.
In turning to him my plan was at first to ask him to persuade Madame de Merteuil to agree to deliver a letter to you. We didn’t think this would be feasible but if she can’t help, he vouches for her maid who is under some obligation to him. She will be handing you this letter and you can let her have your reply.
This arrangement will hardly be of much use to us if, as Monsieur de Valmont believes, you’re leaving immediately for the country. But then he is ready to help us himself. The woman you’re going to stay with is a relative of his. He’ll take advantage of this to invite himself at the same time as you and our correspondence will all go through him. He’s even promised that if you do as he tells you, he’ll find a way for us to meet there without the slightest risk of your being compromised.
And now my darling, if you love me and pity my misery and, I hope, even feel as unhappy as me, you won’t refuse to trust a man who will be our guardian angel, will you? Without him I’d be in despair, I’d be helpless to do anything at all to alleviate the troubles I’m causing you. I hope they’ll soon be at an end. But dear, loving, Cécile, promise me never to despair yourself, keep hoping always. The thought of how you must be suffering is excruciating for me.
I would sacrifice my life to make you happy. You know that, don’t you? So I hope that knowing I adore you will comfort your heart a little! And my own heart needs you to reassure my love that it is forgiven for all the sorrows it’s brought you.
Goodbye, my Cécile, my dear, tender, loving Cécile.
66
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil 9 September 17—
When you read the two enclosed letters* you’ll see, fairest of the fair, how well I’ve carried out your plan. Although they both bear today’s date, they were written yesterday, in my house and under my own eyes: the little girl’s letter says everything we wanted. When one considers the success of your manœuvres, one can only feel humility at the depth of your insight. Danceny’s all set to go: at the next opportunity, you’ll certainly not find anything to complain about with him. So if our charming little innocent is ready to play, the game will be up for her very soon after she arrives in the country. I’ve already drawn up dozens of plans. Thanks to your good offices, I’m definitely Danceny’s friend; it only remains for him to be the Prince.*
However, our young hero is still very wet behind the ears. Would you believe, I was quite unable to prevail on him to promise her mother to give up his love? As if giving your word was any problem when you’re determined not to keep it! He kept on saying: ‘It’d be dishonest.’ What an edifying scruple, especially as he wants to seduce her daughter! That’s what men are like! Thoroughly dishonourable intentions and when they’re too feeble to carry them through, they say it’s their sense of decency.
It’s up to you to stop Madame de Volanges from becoming scared by these antics in which our young fellow indulged. You must save us from the convent! And try to make her stop insisting on the return of the girl’s letters. In the first place he won’t give them back if he doesn’t want to and I agree with him: love and good sense coincide here. I’ve read those letters, they’re impossibly boring. But they may come in handy. Let me explain.
However careful we are, there may be a fuss and that would put an end to the marriage, wouldn’t it? And put paid to our Gercourt schemes? But as I myself have a little score to settle with Mama, should that happen I want to retain the possibility of ruining the girl’s reputation. Who can say? There may be a lawsuit and with a careful choice and some selective editing those letters could be used to depict the Volanges girl taking the initiative and simply throwing herself at Danceny’s head. Some of them might
even compromise her mother or at least smear her as showing inexcusable neglect of her daughter.* I realize of course that at first our high-minded Danceny would be shocked, but as he’d be personally in the front line, I think we could bring him round. The odds are strongly against things turning out like that but we have to plan for every eventuality.
Farewell, lovely lady. Be an angel and come and have supper at the Maréchale de B ——’s tomorrow. I couldn’t manage to get out of it.
I fancy I don’t need to recommend the utmost discretion with Madame de Volanges concerning my proposed trip into the country: she’d immediately change her mind and stay in town; but once she’s down there, she can hardly leave the very next day; and if she gives us just a week, I guarantee the rest.
67
Madame de Tourvel to the Vicomte de Valmont 9 September 17—
I was intending never to write to you again, Monsieur de Valmont, and the embarrassment I feel is proof that I ought not to be doing so. However, I do not wish to leave you with the slightest possible cause for complaint against me. I want to convince you that I have done everything for you that I could.
You tell me that I gave you permission to write to me? I agree; but when you remind me of that permission, do you imagine that I forget the conditions which I set? If I had been as strict in observing them as you have been remiss, would you have received a single letter? Yet here is my third, and while you are doing everything necessary to force me to break off this correspondence, I spend my time finding ways of continuing it! There is a way, but only one; should you reject it, it will be proof enough of how little importance you attach to our correspondence, despite your protestations.
So, you must stop using language to which I cannot and will not listen; refuse to give way to a feeling which both offends and frightens me; and when you consider that it is the obstacle standing in our way, ought you not, perhaps, to be less set on it? Is this really the only feeling you are capable of? And to all the other faults I can see in it, does love add that of excluding friendship? Could it be that you yourself are at fault in not wanting as your friend a woman in whom you had hoped to arouse more tender feelings? That I must refuse to believe: such a humiliating thought would appal me and alienate me from you irrevocably.
In offering you my friendship, I am offering you all that I have, all that is in my power to offer. What more can you want? In order to surrender to this gentle emotion, so dear to my heart, I am waiting for you to utter just one word: friendship; tell me that friendship is enough to make you happy. Then I shall forget everything else I may have been told and put my trust in you to justify my choice.
You see how frank I am and this must prove to you how strong my trust is; it is for you to make it even stronger; but I must warn you that the first word of love will destroy that trust and revive all my fears; more particularly, it will mean that from then on, you will never hear from me again.
If, as you say, you have repented the error of your ways, would you not rather enjoy a good woman’s friendship than be the cause of a guilty woman’s remorse?
Goodbye, Monsieur. You will understand that after speaking to you as I have, there is nothing I can add until you have given me your reply.
68
The Vicomte de Valmont to Madame de Tourvel 10 September 17—
How can I reply, Madame, to your last letter? How can I dare to speak the truth when being sincere can ruin me in your eyes? Never mind; I must and I shall be brave: I say to myself again and again that it is far better to deserve your love than to win it and even were you to deny me a happiness that I shall never cease to desire, I must at least prove to you that my love is worthy of you.
Isn’t it a pity that, as you say, I have repented of the error of my ways! In what an ecstasy of delight I would have read that same letter which I feel so terrified in answering today! In it, you speak of being frank, you have trust in me, and finally you offer me your friendship! What a cornucopia of good things, Madame; and how much I regret being unable to take advantage of them! Why am I no longer the man I used to be?
If I hadn’t in fact changed, if I had merely taken a fancy to you, a light-hearted fancy based on physical attraction and pleasure which these days nevertheless goes by the name of love, I should leap at the chance of enjoying every advantage I could grasp. I shouldn’t be too particular about the means as long as they achieved success: I should encourage you to be frank, for I’d be eager to read your mind; I should worm my way into your trust the better to betray it; I’d accept your friendship in the hope of leading it astray. Ah, Madame, doesn’t this prospect appal you? Well, it would exactly represent what I should be doing were I to agree to be merely your friend.
Do you really think that I can be persuaded to share with anyone an emotion that has emanated from your soul? If I ever were to tell you so, you must never believe me. From that moment onwards I should be trying to lie to you. I might still desire you but I should assuredly no longer love you.
Not that engaging frankness, gentle trust, heartfelt friendship have no value for me. But love! True love such as you inspire, combining all these feelings and multiplying them a hundredfold, cannot, unlike them, accept that cool-headedness, that coldness of heart which allows comparisons to be made and even preferences to be shown. No, Madame, I shall not be your friend. I shall love you, with the most tender, the most passionate yet respectful love. You may drive it to despair, you will never destroy it.
And what right have you to determine the fate of a heart whose devotion you refuse to accept? By what subtle, cruel twist do you begrudge me even the happiness of loving you? That happiness is mine alone, it is independent of you: and I can defend it. It may be causing my sufferings but it may cure them.
No, no, and again no! Be as cruel as you like, spurn me, but do not deny me my love. You enjoy making me unhappy! Very well, try to wear down my courage but I shall at least force you to decide my fate; perhaps one day, you will be more fair. Not that I hope ever to soften your heart; but even if I cannot prevail upon you, I shall convince you. You’ll say to yourself: I judged him wrongly.
But to speak frankly, it is you who are being unfair to yourself. To know you and not love you, to love you and not love you for ever: both these things are equally impossible; and despite your charming modesty, the feelings which you inspire are surely more likely to cause you to protest than to be surprised. As for me, whose only virtue is to have come to revere you, that is something I have no intention of forfeiting and so far from accepting your insidious suggestion, I fall at your knees and repeat my pledge to love you always.
69
Cécile Volanges to the Chevalier Danceny (written in pencil and copied out by Danceny) 10 September 17—
You ask me what I’m doing: I love you and I’m crying. My mother is refusing to talk to me; she’s taken away my paper, pen, and ink.* I’m using a pencil that I fortunately managed to keep and I’m writing on a torn-off corner of your own letter. Of course, I can’t do anything but agree to everything you’ve arranged, I love you too much not to use every possible way of getting news of you and letting you have mine. I didn’t like Monsieur de Valmont and I didn’t know he was such a great friend of yours; I’ll try to get to know him and like him because of you. I don’t know who gave us away; it can only be my maid or my confessor. I’m so miserable. We’re leaving for the country tomorrow, I don’t know how long for. O Heavens, how dreadful not to be able to see you any more! I’ve run out of space. Goodbye, hope you can read my writing. These words in pencil may perhaps get rubbed out but the feelings engraved in my heart never will!
70
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil 11 September 17—
I’ve a serious word of warning for you, dear lady. As you know, I had supper yesterday at the Maréchale de B ——’s. Your name came up and as you may imagine, I did not say all the nice things about you which I think are true but all those which aren’t. Everybody seemed to share my view
and the conversation was flagging, as it always does if people are speaking nothing but well of their neighbour, when a dissenting voice was heard: Prévan’s.
‘God forbid,’ he said, rising to his feet, ‘that I should cast doubt on Madame de Merteuil’s excellent reputation. But may I hazard the guess that she owes it more to her flightiness than to her principles. Perhaps it’s harder to keep up with her than to please her and when you’re chasing a woman you can scarcely fail to come across some other women on the way and as, by and large, those others may be just as good or even better, some men get attracted elsewhere, while some give up exhausted. So perhaps she’s had less need to defend herself than any other woman in Paris. For my part,’ he went on, encouraged by some of the women’s smiles, ‘I shan’t believe in Madame de Merteuil’s virtue until I’ve ridden half a dozen horses to death in her pursuit.’
This bad joke, like all such malicious tittle-tattle, enjoyed a success for just as long as the laughter it aroused. Prévan sat down again and the conversation took another turn. But the two Comtesses de B—— sitting beside our doubting Thomas continued their private conversation on the subject with him and luckily I was close enough to overhear them.
The challenge to soften your heart was accepted; a promise to tell everything was given and methinks that of all the promises likely to be made in the course of this episode, this will be the one most religiously observed. But now you are forewarned, and you know the proverb.
It remains for me to tell you that this Prévan, whom you don’t know, is infinitely charming and even more clever. If you’ve sometimes heard me assert the opposite, it’s only because I can’t stand the man, that I enjoy putting a spoke in his wheel, and because I’m not unaware of the weight which my opinion carries with thirty or so of the smartest of the smart women of our society.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses Page 19