Anyone reading your letters would take me to be unfair or even unbalanced. I think that I in no way deserve that description; in particular, it seems to me that you have less right than anybody to think so. Doubtless you felt that by requiring me to justify myself you would be forcing me to go back over all that has happened between us. Apparently you thought that such a review would work only to your advantage; and since, on my part, I do not think I have anything to lose by it, at least in your eyes, I am not afraid of undertaking it. It may perhaps even, indeed, be the only way to discover which of us two has the right to feel aggrieved.
From the very first day you arrived in this château you will admit, I think, that your reputation justified me at the very least in adopting a somewhat wary attitude and that without fear of being accused of excessive prudery, I could reasonably have confined myself to treating you politely but coolly. You yourself would have been indulgent towards me and found it perfectly understandable for a woman as unsophisticated as myself to lack the qualities necessary to appreciate yours. That was surely the path of caution and it would have been all the easier for me to follow since I shall not hide the fact that when Madame de Rosemonde told me you were coming it was only the thought of my friendship for her and of hers for me that prevented me from showing her how vexed I was to hear it.*
I am ready to admit that at first you made a more favourable impression on me than I had expected; but you must admit that this could not last long and that you soon grew tired of the constraints which were apparently an inadequate reward for the good opinion of you which I had been led to form.
Then it was that you took advantage of my good faith and sense of security and had no scruples in speaking to me of a feeling which you must have realized would have offended me; and while you did nothing but aggravate your offence by your continuing misconduct, I tried to find some way of ignoring it by offering you the chance to make amends, at least in part. My request was so fair that you yourself did not feel able to refuse it; but banking on my indulgence, you took advantage of it to ask for my permission to do something to which I should not have agreed but which I granted, with certain conditions, none of which you have observed. Your correspondence took on such a tone that each one of your letters made it my duty not to answer you any more. It was at the very moment that your persistence was forcing me to keep you at arm’s length that I humoured you, perhaps wrongly, by trying the only permissible way open to me to reconcile us. But what value do you attach to decent feelings? You despise friendship, pay no heed to the shame and unhappiness you cause by your mad passion, and seek only pleasure and victims for your pleasure.
Your conduct is irresponsible, your accusations absurd; you ignore your promises or rather you wantonly violate them and having agreed to stay away from me, you have come back here without being invited, regardless of my pleas and my arguments, without even being considerate enough to warn me. You had no qualms in subjecting me to a surprise whose effects, though perfectly natural, might well have been interpreted unfavourably by the people there. And far from trying to minimize or divert their attention from this momentary embarrassment which you had provoked, you seemed anxious to aggravate it. You carefully chose a seat next to me; when a slight indisposition compelled me to leave the room before the others, instead of respecting my wish for privacy, you brought everybody along with you to disturb me. After I came back into the drawing-room, whenever I made the slightest move I find you at my elbow; if I say a single word, you’re always the one who replies. My most casual remark provides you with an excuse to bring the conversation back to a subject which I don’t want to hear about, which could even be compromising for me because after all, Monsieur, however undoubted your skill, I think that something which I notice can equally well be noticed by other people.
So I am prevented from moving or talking freely and still you persist in pursuing me. I cannot raise my eyes without meeting yours. I am continually being forced to look away and then, as a quite incomprehensible consequence, you manage to make everybody turn round to look at me at the very moment when I should have preferred even to have avoided looking at myself.
And then you complain of the way I’m treating you! And you are surprised how anxious I am to avoid you! You would do better to blame me for tolerating you and to be surprised that I didn’t leave the moment you arrived! I ought perhaps to have done so and unless you stop persecuting me, you may well force me to take this drastic but necessary step. No, I do not, nor shall I ever, forget the duty I owe to myself, to the bonds which I have and which I respect and hold dear, and I ask you to believe that were I ever to be reduced to the sad choice of sacrificing them or myself, I should never hesitate for a second. Goodbye, Monsieur de Valmont.
79
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil From the Château de ——, 18 September 17—
I was intending to go shooting this morning but the weather’s appalling. My only reading matter is a new novel which would bore even a convent girl. We won’t be dining for a couple of hours at the earliest so in spite of my long letter of yesterday, I shall continue our chat. And I’m absolutely certain that I shan’t bore you because I’ll be telling you about that definitely very pretty Prévan. How did you come to miss hearing about his famous escapade, the one which separated the inseparables? I bet you’ll remember it as soon as I start. Anyway, since you’re so anxious to know all about it, here it is.
You’ll recall that the whole of Paris was amazed that three women, all three pretty and equally talented, remained on terms of such close friendship from the very first time they went into society. At first people put it down to their extreme shyness but they were soon surrounded by a swarm of eager admirers whose gallant attentions, equally distributed amongst all three, soon proved how popular they were; yet this merely made them all the better friends; the success of one was looked on as the success of all. People were hoping that at least love would introduce a note of rivalry. All our smart young men about town clamoured for the honour of being the apple of discord.* I’d even have joined in the fray myself if the high favour attained at that time by the Comtesse de ——had allowed me to look elsewhere until I’d been fully rewarded …
Meanwhile, as if by joint agreement, our three beauties made their choice at the same carnival ball and, far from whipping up the squalls we’d been looking forward to, it only made their friendship all the more interesting by adding the charm of swapping secrets.
The throng of disappointed suitors then joined forces with the jealous females and this positively scandalous constancy became the butt of public disapproval. Some claimed that this club of inseparables (as it came to be called) was based, on the principle of joint ownership, with love itself falling into this category. Others maintained that while there was no male competition, a certain feminine rivalry wasn’t excluded; some even went so far as to claim that the lovers had been let into the club purely as a sop to propriety, honorary members with no executive rights whatsoever.
Be that as it may, this gossip didn’t lead to the hoped-for outcome; on the contrary, the three couples realized that if they split up now their reputation would be in tatters. They decided to weather the storm. Public opinion, which tires of everything, soon grew tired of this idle backbiting; with its natural fickleness it turned to other subjects and then, true to form, made a wild swing from disapproval to praise. As in such matters fashion sets the pace, enthusiasm grew and grew until it reached frenzied proportions. It was then that Prévan decided to put these prodigies to the test and settle the question to his own and indeed everyone else’s satisfaction.
He started cultivating these paragons and had no difficulty in making their acquaintance. This seemed to him a promising omen, for he was well aware that happy people are not so easily accessible. He quickly discovered that this much vaunted happiness was, as with royalty, more envied than enviable. He noticed that these so-called inseparables were beginning to look for entertainment outs
ide their little circle and were even finding it enjoyable. He reached the conclusion that the bonds of love or friendship were already loosening or severed and that only vanity and force of habit were holding the group together.
However, while the women needed to stick together and maintained a semblance of intimacy, the men, less inhibited in their actions, began to discover other duties and business to attend to; they still grumbled about them but were no longer neglecting them. At evening gatherings, you’d seldom see all six in a group.
This state of affairs was assiduously exploited by Prévan, who naturally used to find himself seated every day beside the unaccompanied lady and was thus able to pay court to each of the three in turn, as circumstances permitted. He soon realized that it would be fatal for him to discriminate in favour of any one of the three: the coy young woman thus singled out would be scared at the thought of being the first to fall, the hurt vanity of the other two would lead them to join forces against the new lover and they would infallibly unleash a barrage of the highest of high principles against him; what is more, jealousy would inevitably bring back the ousted lover who might prove dangerous. He would have faced insuperable odds; his threefold operation made everything easy: women turned a blind eye because each was involved, the men did the same because none of them thought he was.
At that time, Prévan had only one woman to give up and by a stroke of good luck she achieved a certain notoriety: her foreign origin and the attentions of a royal prince, whom she rather astutely turned down, had made her the cynosure of all eyes, at court and in town; some of the honour rubbed off on to him and it stood him in good stead with his new mistresses. His only problem was keeping all three intrigues in step, since they had necessarily to keep pace with the slowest. In fact, one of his close friends told me that he had extreme difficulty in holding one of them back when she came to the boil a fortnight before the other two.
Finally the great day arrived. Having obtained the three women’s consent, Prévan was now in complete control of the operation which he now finished off as you’ll see. Of the three husbands, one was away, another was due to leave early next day, and the third was in town. The three girls were intending to have supper with the prospective grass-widow but their new master had refused permission for their former attendants to be invited. That morning he made up three packets of his mistress’s letters. In one of them he put a portrait of herself which she’d given him; in the second, the lady’s monogram lovingly painted by herself; in the third, a lock of her hair. Each of the three received this third part of his sacrifice in full settlement and in return agreed to send a resounding letter of dismissal to her disgraced lover.
So far, so good; but more was in store. As the one with the husband in town was free only during the day, a diplomatic illness was invented to excuse her from going to supper with her friends; Prévan could spend the whole evening in her company. The woman whose husband was away offered him that night, while the third one, whose man was due to leave at daybreak, reserved that time as her hour for love.
Prévan, as ever the perfect organizer, now dashes round to his foreign lovely armed with the appropriate foul temper which he passes on to his beloved and departs only after he has sparked off a row guaranteed to provide him with twenty-four hours’ leave. These arrangements completed, he went home hoping for some rest; but here further business awaited him.
Their letters of dismissal had suddenly opened the disgraced lovers’ eyes; none of them could possibly doubt that Prévan was the culprit and in their resentment at having been tricked, along with the annoyance almost always associated with the minor humiliation of having been given their marching orders, all three had, independently but as it were by common agreement, decided to demand satisfaction from their fortunate rival.
So on arriving home Prévan found three challenges waiting for him. He accepted these without demur but not wanting to forfeit any of the pleasures or the glory of his escapade, he arranged all three encounters for the following morning, at the same time and place—at one of the gates of the Bois de Boulogne.
That night he completed his triple run, all with equal success—at least he later bragged that each of his new lady-loves received three pledges and proofs of his love. As you no doubt realize, any historical evidence for this is lacking. All that an objective historian can do is to point out to any cynical reader that an inflated vanity and a heated imagination are capable of working miracles; and moreover, that his brilliant performance that night was going to be followed by a morning that seemed bound to excuse him from having any concern for the future. Be that as it may, the following facts are better authenticated.
Prévan arrived punctually at the spot he’d indicated and found his three rivals waiting, rather taken aback at meeting each other and maybe already somewhat mollified by seeing they were brothers in misfortune. He approached them in his affable, casual manner and made the following speech, which has been accurately reported to me:
‘Gentlemen, seeing yourselves gathered together here, you have no doubt guessed that you all have the same grievance against me. I am ready to give you satisfaction. I suggest you draw lots to decide who will be the first to try to settle his account with me, as you are all entitled to do. I haven’t brought along any witnesses or any seconds. I didn’t have any whilst perpetrating the offence and I shan’t ask for any in answering for it.’
At this point the gambler in him led him to add: ‘I know that one hardly ever wins when one goes for seven* but whatever the fate awaiting me this morning, if we’ve had time to win the love of the ladies and the esteem of men, we’ve lived long enough.’
While his opponents looked at each other in surprise, perhaps already having scruples as to the fairness of this triple contest, Prévan went on:
‘I shan’t deny that last night’s exertions have left me in pretty poor shape. If you could give me a chance to recover, I should appreciate your generosity. I’ve ordered breakfast to be prepared. Won’t you do me the honour of being my guests? We can have breakfast together and we must try to make it a cheerful affair. We can fight over such trifles but above all, don’t let us allow them to spoil our good humour.’
The invitation was accepted. It’s said that Prévan had never been more charming. He skilfully avoided humiliating any of his rivals and persuaded them that they would all have succeeded just as easily; in particular, he got them to agree that they wouldn’t have let the opportunity slip either. This having been established, the whole affair collapsed of its own accord. Before breakfast was over, they had already repeated a dozen times that gentlemen had better things to do than fight over such worthless women. This thought produced a feeling of good fellowship, further stimulated by the wine, and it wasn’t long before they’d not only forgotten all their grievances but were swearing eternal friendship.
While no doubt preferring this outcome to its alternative, Prévan didn’t want to forgo any of the fame. Cleverly adapting his plan to the circumstances, he said to the three men he’d offended: ‘In fact, it’s your three mistresses whom you ought to be settling your score with, not me. I’ll give you the chance. I can already see that it won’t be long before I’m likely to suffer the same humiliating fate as you; if each of you wasn’t able to keep one woman faithful, what hope have I got of doing it with three of them? I’ll have the same grudge as you. So, please accept an invitation to supper tonight in my little house and I hope your revenge won’t be long delayed.’ They all accepted and having embraced their new-found friend, parted until the evening, looking forward to seeing the result of his promises.
Prévan returned to Paris without delay and in accordance with the prescribed custom called on his three new conquests. He persuaded all three to come to supper with him that evening, tête-à-tête in his little house. Two of them did, in fact, raise some objections but what can you refuse on the morning after? He arranged for them to come at hourly intervals, long enough for him to carry out his plan. Having settled
this, he went off to warn his fellow-conspirators and all four left together in high spirits to wait for their victims.
In comes the first one: Prévan appears alone, welcomes her with a great play of eagerness and takes her into his sanctuary of which she thought she was the tutelary goddess. Then, on some slight excuse, he slips away to be immediately replaced by the outraged lover.
You can imagine how at such a moment, a bewildered woman still not used to having affairs was a very easy prey: any accusation not made was taken as a pardon and the runaway slave was once more at the mercy of her former master and only too glad to be forgiven by accepting her former chains. The peace treaty was then ratified in a more private place and the empty stage was now filled by the other actors in their turn, more or less in the same roles and above all with the same ending.
Till now each woman had thought she was the only one involved. It was an even greater shock and embarrassment when all three couples came together again at supper-time. But their confusion reached its peak when Prévan appeared in their midst too and apologized to the three faithless women, thereby mercilessly exposing their secret and bringing home to them without any shadow of doubt how badly they’d been tricked.
However, they all sat down to supper and it wasn’t long before all their embarrassment evaporated: the men let themselves go and the women took it… lying down. Every heart was full of hatred but tender words were exchanged; the high spirits aroused desire which lent added charm. This amazing orgy lasted till dawn and when they parted, the women must have felt that they were forgiven; but the very next day, the men, still resentful, sent all three packing. And not content with leaving their fickle mistresses, they completed their revenge by making their escapade public. Since then, one of them has gone into a convent, the two others are moping around in exile on their country estates.*
Les Liaisons Dangereuses Page 22