Les Liaisons Dangereuses

by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos

  So that’s Prévan’s story. It’s up to you to see if you want to add to his fame and be harnessed to his triumphal chariot. Your letter made me really worried and I can’t wait to get a clear and more sensible reply from you.

  Farewell, dear lady. Beware of those amusing or eccentric ideas of yours which you find it so hard to resist. Don’t forget that with the sort of life you are leading, sheer intelligence isn’t enough; one false step and you’re condemned without reprieve. And please, please allow a cautious friend to guide your pleasures, just occasionally.

  Farewell. I still love you as much as if you were sensible.

  80

  The Chevalier Danceny to Cécile Volanges Paris, 18 September 17—

  Cécile, my Cécile, whenever shall we meet again? How can I possibly get used to living so far away from you? Where can I find the strength and the courage? No, no, I shall never, never be able to bear this dreadful exile! As each day goes by, my misery grows worse; and never an end in sight! Valmont had promised to help and comfort me and now he is ignoring me, perhaps even forgetting me! He is close to the woman he loves and he no longer thinks how greatly one can suffer when one is far away from one’s beloved. When he arranged for your letter to be delivered to me, he didn’t put in any letter of his own. But it’s he who is going to let me know when I shall be able to see you and how. Hasn’t he got anything to tell me? And you don’t mention it either. Don’t you still feel the same longing for us to meet? Oh, Cécile, Cécile, I’m so miserable. I love you more than ever and though that love is the light of my life, it is turning into an agony. I can’t go on like this, I must see you, I must, I must, if only for a second. Every day when I get up, I say to myself: ‘I shan’t be seeing her’; and when I go to bed, I say: ‘I haven’t seen her.’ My days drag on and on with never one single moment of happiness; I’m just sunk in misery and despair; and all this comes from something that I was expecting to bring me every imaginable joy! And if you add my anxiety over your problems to my own dreadful worries then you have some idea of my state of mind. I think of you every minute of the day but never without foreboding. If I imagine you unhappy and suffering, I suffer with you; if I imagine you calm and collected, my own sufferings become far greater. All around I can see only misery.

  Oh, how different it was when we were both living in Paris! Then everything was pure joy. Even the times when you weren’t there were made brighter by the certainty of seeing you; every minute of the hours I spent away from you brought me nearer to you. And what I did during those hours was always in some way related to you. If I was working at some task, I felt I was making myself more worthy of you; if I was pursuing some artistic interest, it was in the hope of giving you greater pleasure. Even when the social whirl took me away from your company, I was still with you in spirit. In the theatre, I tried to guess which things would have interested you; at the concert, I remembered how well you played and the lovely times we’d spent together. In a drawing-room or driving out in a carriage, I’d seize on the slightest sign of similarity to you, I compared you with everybody and you were always the loveliest. For every moment of my day I paid tribute to you and every evening I placed my tributes at your feet.

  And now what’s left? Pain, regret, endless frustration, and the slight hope that Valmont will break his silence—a hope that your own silence turns into anxiety. You’re only a bare twenty-five miles away, no distance at all, yet for me—for me alone—those few miles are an insurmountable obstacle! And when I plead with my friend and my love to help me overcome this obstacle, they both remain calm and aloof. And not only do they not help me, they don’t even bother to reply!

  Whatever happened to Valmont’s promise to help? And above all, what has happened to your tender affection which gave you all those ingenious ideas for ways and means to see each other every day? Sometimes I remember how, very unwillingly, I was obliged to sacrifice my longing to see you because of other commitments or considerations: what didn’t you have to say to me then! What arguments didn’t you find to s top me! And you will remember, Cécile, how my arguments always gave way before yours. I’m not claiming any credit for that;’ didn’t even see it as a sacrifice at all, I was so anxious to let you have everything you wanted. But now it’s my turn to ask for something. What is it? To see you just for a second, to be able to renew my pledge to love you for ever and ever and to hear you say those very same words … Isn’t your happiness still inextricably bound up with mine? Ah, if not, that is a hateful thought that I utterly reject; it would be the death-blow to all my hopes. You love me and you always will: that’s what I believe, that’s something I’m certain of, something I can never doubt… But my situation is frightful and I can’t bear it any longer. Goodbye, Cécile.*

  81

  The Marquise de Merteuil to the Vicomte de Valmont Paris, 20 September 17—

  Oh, my dear Vicomte, how my heart bleeds for you! And how your fears do indeed prove my superiority! And you want to be my guide and tutor? Oh, you poor dear, what a gap still exists between us! And not even all your male pride would ever succeed in bridging it! Just because you couldn’t carry through my schemes, you think they’re impossible. And this weak, vain character actually has the effrontery to assess my capabilities and my resources! Truly, Vicomte, I can’t conceal the fact that your advice had made me very cross indeed.

  If, to disguise your incredibly inept handling of your judge’s wife, you try to parade triumphantly your success in having, for one short second, disconcerted that shy young woman who loves you, all right, I’ll agree. If you manage to extract a glance, one single glance, from her, well, I shall merely smile and let you enjoy your glance. If, realizing, in spite of yourself, the pettiness of your conduct, you hope to distract my attention by humouring me with an account of your sublime effort to bring together two young people, both positively yearning to meet and who, by the way, owe that yearning entirely to my efforts, all right again, I’m prepared to grant you that, too. If, finally, basing yourself on these glorious actions, you claim the right to inform me pompously that it’s better to spend your time carrying out your plans than talking about them, well, that’s merely a bit of harmless vanity that doesn’t affect me and I forgive you. But if you imagine that I need your prudential wisdom, that I’d be lost if I didn’t defer to your advice and that I should in consequence refuse myself a pleasure, something that tickles my fancy, well there, Vicomte, you really are taking the trust I’m prepared to have in you too much for granted.

  In point of fact, what have you ever done that I haven’t done a thousand times better? You’ve seduced and even ruined large numbers of women but what difficulties did you ever encounter in making all your conquests? What obstacles did you have to overcome? What credit can you actually claim for yourself in all that? Good looks? Pure chance. Social graces? How could anybody avoid picking those up if he spends a lot of time in society. Wit? Certainly; but at a pinch fashionable jargon will work just as well. Highly commendable impudence? Yes, but perhaps entirely attributable to your first easy conquests. Unless I’m much mistaken, that’s your entire equipment. After all, with regard to any fame you may have acquired, I imagine you won’t mind if I don’t attach much importance to your skill in creating or taking advantage of scandal?

  As for prudential wisdom or subtlety, I won’t speak for myself, but is there a single woman who hasn’t got more than you? Take your own case: that judge’s wife is leading you by the nose.

  Believe me, Vicomte, people rarely acquire qualities they can do without.* When there’s no danger, why give a damn? In fact, for you males, defeats merely mean fewer successes. In this highly unfair contest, if we don’t lose, it’s our good luck and if you don’t win, it’s just bad luck for you. Even if I were to grant that you have as many gifts as we have, we’d still be that much better than you because we need to make use of them all the time.

  Very well, let’s assume that you require as much skill to conquer us as we do to defend—or not
to defend—ourselves; but you must at least agree that once you’ve succeeded, your skill has lost its point. You’ll be completely absorbed in your new enjoyment and abandon yourselves to it unconditionally, without any qualms: for you, it’s quite unimportant how long it lasts.

  In fact, in this mutual exchange of the bonds of love, to use the current jargon, only you men are able to decide whether to strengthen them or break them. We can consider ourselves lucky indeed if, in your flighty way, you prefer to lie low rather than show off and are content merely to humiliate us by deserting us and not turn the woman you worshipped yesterday into today’s victim!

  But should some unfortunate woman find her shackles irksome before the man does, what risks she has to run if she attempts to slip out of them or even dares to shake them! What fear and trembling, should she try to escape from a man whom in her heart she finds repugnant! And if he stubbornly clings on, then fear will force her to grant him what she used to grant out of love: her arms still open though her heart is closed; and to undo those bonds which you men would merely have snapped she will need great care and cunning. She’s at her enemy’s mercy; if he acts shabbily, she’s helpless. And how can he be expected to behave otherwise when, though he may sometimes be praised for being generous, he’s never blamed for being the opposite?

  You’ll surely not deny such self-evident truths which have now become commonplaces. If, however, you have noticed me, regardless of the circumstances and of public opinion, making these males jump like puppets to my fads and fancies, imposing my will on some and rendering the others powerless to harm me; if, following the vagaries of my likes and dislikes, I’ve either enrolled into my following of admirers or else sent packing those throneless tyrants who have become our slaves;* if, in the course of all these frequent and violent changes, my reputation has remained unscathed, mustn’t you have been forced to conclude that, having been born to avenge my sex and subjugate yours, I must have succeeded in elaborating certain methods hitherto unknown?

  Oh, Vicomte, you must save your advice and your misgivings for those frenzied women, self-styled women of feeling, whose heated imagination would lead one to think that nature had put their senses in their heads, who have never given the matter proper thought and continually confuse love with the lover, who suffer from the wild delusion that the man whom they have chosen for their pleasure is the only one capable of providing them with it and are so truly superstitious that they offer the priest the respect and belief which properly belongs only to Eros himself.

  And please reserve your fears also for those women whose vanity outruns their caution and, when it comes to the point, can’t face the prospect of getting their lover to leave them.

  But above all, reserve your greatest fears for those restless, idle females whom you call sensitive and who fall so easily and so helplessly into the grip of love, who feel the need to think about it even when they’re not experiencing it and hurl themselves headlong into the turmoil of their ideas, producing those letters so full of tenderness and so dangerous to write and who aren’t afraid of entrusting this evidence of weakness to the object of their affection: foolhardy women who are incapable of recognizing in their current lover their future enemy.

  But what have I got in common with these feckless women? When did you last see me depart from the rules which I’ve laid down for myself and be untrue to my principles? I say my principles deliberately since I don’t mean other women’s haphazard principles, accepted uncritically and followed out of sheer habit; mine are the fruit of deep cogitation, created by myself. I can truly say that I am a self-made woman.

  When I went into society I was still a child, required to be seen and not heard; but I made use of my inactivity to observe and reflect. While people thought me scatterbrained or dreamy, paying little attention to the words of wisdom they were so keen to impart, I was carefully noting everything they were trying to conceal.

  This curiosity helped my education by teaching me how to dissemble; being frequently obliged to hide what I was observing from the eyes of those around me, I tried to control my own and ever since I’ve been able to put on that dreamy look which you’ve so often admired. Encouraged by this early success, I tried similarly to control my facial expressions.

  If I felt distressed I made a great effort to look composed or even delighted; I even went so far as to deliberately cause myself pain and practise looking pleased at the same time. I made a similar effort, though this was harder, to repress the outward signs of any unexpected joy. This is how I’ve managed to achieve that mastery over my features that I’ve noticed sometimes so surprises you.

  I was still young and not very interesting; but my thoughts were the only things that belonged to me and I felt indignant that someone might snatch them from me or detect them against my will. Thus armed, I was keen to try my hand: not content with preventing people from reading my thoughts, I delighted in showing off different aspects of myself: having mastered my gestures, I directed my attention to my words and controlled both of them according to the situation or even as my whims dictated. From that time onward, I was in complete command of my thoughts and I revealed only the ones it was useful for me to show.

  Analysing myself had made me interested in faces and the way they reveal character; it gave me that insight which experience has taught me not to trust completely but which, all things considered, has rarely let me down.

  I still wasn’t fifteen and I already possessed the skills to which the majority of our politicians owe their success; yet I was still a novice in the science which I wished to master.

  You can imagine that like all young girls, I was curious to learn about love and pleasure; but not having been brought up in a convent, without any close friend of my own sex and under the ever-watchful eye of my mother, I had only the vaguest of notions which I couldn’t exactly define. Even nature, which has certainly been very kind to me since, didn’t as yet give me any hint; it seemed almost as if she was working silently to bring her work to perfection. But my head was seething: I didn’t want the delights of love, I wanted to know about it. This desire for information suggested to me how I might approach the matter.

  I had the feeling that the only man whom I could talk to about it without compromising myself was my confessor. I made up my mind on the spot; swallowing my slight embarrassment, I boldly laid claim to a sin which I hadn’t committed, accusing myself of doing everything that women do. That was how I put it but I honestly didn’t know what I was talking about. My hopes were neither completely dashed nor entirely satisfied: I was prevented from finding out what I wanted to know by fear of giving myself away; but the good reverend father made my trespass sound so cataclysmic that I concluded it must be extremely pleasurable and my desire for knowledge was replaced by the desire to enjoy it.

  I’ve no idea where that particular desire might have led me; being completely innocent, I might perhaps have been ruined by just one experience. Luckily for me, a few days later my mother announced that I was going to be married, so being now certain of learning all about it, my curiosity immediately evaporated and I landed up in Monsieur de Merteuil’s arms virgo intacta.

  When the moment of truth eventually came, I felt so calm and collected that I had to keep my wits about me to put on the proper embarrassment and reluctance. That first night which girls normally look forward to as something very nice or expect to be rather horrid, I believed purely as an experience: I took accurate note of the pain and the pleasure and saw my various sensations merely as a means of gathering information for later evaluation.

  I soon developed a taste for this sort of study but true to my principles and perhaps instinctively sensing that my husband must be the last person to be taken into my confidence, I resolved, just because I was attracted by love, to show myself as completely unfeeling with him. This apparent frigidity was later to provide the basis for his blind and unhesitating trust in me. After careful thought, I added to this an image of a scatterbrain, justified by my
tender years. He never thought me more of a child than when I was giving my most barefaced impersonation of one.

  However, I admit that at first I allowed myself to be carried away in the whirl of society and gave myself up entirely to its futile distractions. But a few months later, after Monsieur de Merteuil had carried me off into his gloomy country estate, dread of being bored revived my interest in my studies and as the people surrounding me down there were so inferior in rank as to preclude any suspicion, I was able to extend my field of operations. In particular, it was now that I was able to satisfy myself that love, so highly commended as the cause of our pleasures, is at most nothing but the pretext for them.*

  These agreeable pastimes were cut short by Monsieur de Merteuil’s illness; I was obliged to follow him back to Paris where he went for treatment. As you know, he died a short time later and though, by and large, I had no grudge against him, nevertheless I keenly appreciated the freedom I’d be enjoying as a widow and I made myself a solemn promise not to waste it.

  My mother was expecting me either to go into a convent or to go back and live with her. I refused both these courses and my only concession to the proprieties was to return to the same country estate where I still had some investigations to complete.

  I complemented them from books but you mustn’t assume that they were purely the ones you think.* I studied our manners and customs in novels, our views on life in the philosophers, I even tried to discover how our most high-minded moralists want us to behave, thereby ascertaining what you could do, what you ought to think, and the appearances you must keep up. Once I knew these three things, the only one that presented any problems was the last: I hoped to solve them and I set my mind to it.