I was beginning to become bored with countrified pastimes which didn’t provide the necessary variety for my lively mind. I was feeling the need to be flirtatious and this reconciled me to love, not of course to feeling it but to inspiring it and shamming it. In spite of reading and being told that it was impossible to fake love, I could see that all I needed was a writer’s wit and the gifts of an actor. I practised both of these skills, perhaps not unsuccessfully; but instead of courting the empty applause of theatre audiences, I resolved that whereas so many people squander their talents to satisfy their vanity, I would use mine for pleasure.
A year passed in these different pursuits. As my mourning was now over, I could again go back into society and I returned to Paris, full of my grand design. I immediately struck an entirely unexpected obstacle.
My solitary existence and my long retreat had given me a gloss of prudery which scared off the smartest of the young men about town. They held off and left me at the mercy of a host of bores who all wanted to marry me. Turning them down was no trouble but some of the rejects were approved of by my family and in the course of these domestic squabbles I wasted a lot of time that I had been promising myself to spend so agreeably. So in order to attract the smart young men back and scare off the others, I was compelled to commit some public indiscretions and put as much effort into spoiling my reputation as I had hoped to put into keeping it. As you may imagine, I had no difficulty at all. But as I steered clear of passion, I did only as much as I felt necessary and dispensed my peccadilloes in discreet doses.
As soon as I’d achieved my objective, I did an about-turn, giving the credit for my conversion to a few of those women who, since they have no possible claim to being attractive, take refuge in integrity and high principles. It was a master-stroke which succeeded beyond all my expectations. In their gratitude these superannuated matrons became my staunchest supporters and their blind devotion to my cause—they described my reform as their work—reached such heights that at the slightest comment anyone dared to make, the whole tribe of puritans cried ‘shame!’ and ‘scandal!’ Similarly I also won the support of our aspiring sirens who, being convinced that I was giving up competing against them, insisted on covering me with praise every time they were anxious to demonstrate that they didn’t slander everybody all the time.
Meanwhile my earlier conduct had brought back the lovers and in order to propitiate them as well as my injudicious champions, I put myself forward as impressionable but difficult to please, a woman whose extreme fastidiousness made her proof against love.
I now started to deploy the skills I’d developed on the big stage. My first concern was to gain a reputation for being invincible. To acquire this, the only men whose attentions I seemed to be accepting were the ones I couldn’t in fact stand. I used these to establish myself as a woman who said no; meanwhile I could say yes to the man of my choice without risk. However, my pretence of demureness prevented him from ever being able to join me in society. In this way, the eyes of the company were always directed on the hapless lover.
You know how quickly I make up my mind. I do this because I’ve noticed that it’s almost always the preliminary manœuvres which give a woman away; however hard one tries, the tone before and after succeeding is never the same. This difference never escapes the eye of any close observer. So I’ve found making the wrong choice less dangerous than letting it be found out. My method has the added advantage of eliminating the presumptions which are all that people have to go on.
Such precautions and the care I take never to write, never to provide evidence of my surrender, may seem excessive; for me, they never seemed really adequate. By looking deep into my own heart, I have been able to explore other people’s and I’ve discovered that there is nobody who doesn’t conceal a secret which it is essential never to let anyone find out. This is a truth which was better understood in the olden days than now, a truth perhaps subtly symbolized by the story of Samson. I’m a modern Dalila and like her, I’ve always been able to worm out that important secret. Ah, the number of Samsons whose hair I’ve got between the blades of my scissors! And as I’m not afraid of those any more, they’re the only ones I’ve sometimes risked humiliating.* With the others, I’ve been more crafty. I’ve guaranteed their discretion by getting them to deceive me to avoid appearing fickle myself, pretending to be friendly, seeming to trust them, treating them generously, leaving each of them with the flattering thought of having been my only lover. And failing all that, I anticipate the end of the affair and make them look ridiculous or spread malicious gossip to destroy any credibility such dangerous men might have.
You have seen me using such tactics time and time again: how can you still have doubts as to my cautiousness? Just cast your mind back to the time when you first started paying me your attentions. I’d never felt more flattered; I wanted you even before I met you. I was fascinated by your prestige; I could see you as the finest feather in my cap and I couldn’t wait to come to grips with you. You are the only one of my flames that ever for a second made me lose my self-control. Yet if ever you had wanted to ruin me, how could you possibly have done so? Empty words that leave no echo, that your reputation itself would have rendered suspect, a series of implausible acts which in any honest account would have looked like a badly constructed novel. True, since that time I have revealed all my secrets to you but you know the concerns we have in common and who is the reckless one of us two.*
Since I’m in the process of explaining myself to you, I want to do so thoroughly and accurately. I can hear you saying that my maid has the whiphand over me; indeed, even though she doesn’t know my secret feelings, she does know my secret actions. When you raised this point earlier, I merely told you that I was sure of her and my reply obviously put your mind at rest because since then you have yourself confided quite risky secrets of your own to her. But now that Prévan seems to be getting under your skin and causing you some confusion, I suspect you’re no longer prepared to take my word for it. So let me enlighten you further.
In the first place, that woman is my foster-sister, a relationship which is hardly considered one by us but carries a good deal of weight with people of her class. Moreover, I know her secret and even more: she was once madly in love and paid the price; if I hadn’t come to her rescue, she’d have been ruined. Her parents, bristling with honour, wanted nothing less than to shut her away in a convent. They came to see me. I saw at a glance that their wrath might be useful to me. I endorsed their plan and applied for and obtained the necessary order. Then I suddenly switched to a more lenient view, persuaded her parents, pulled strings with the old Minister and got them all to agree to leave the authority in my hands, with the power either to suspend or execute its provisions as I think fit, in the light of the girl’s future behaviour. So she knows that her fate is in my hands and if, by some remote chance, these powerful inducements weren’t enough to keep her quiet, isn’t it quite obvious that revealing her past conduct and its legitimate punishment would quickly destroy her credibility?
These are what I describe as basic precautions but I use hundreds of others too, as the occasion or situation demands, relying on my brains and long experience, when the need arises. I won’t bore you with the minutiae but I adhere to them most scrupulously and if you want to understand them properly you must take the trouble to look at them in the context of my conduct as a whole.
But to imagine that I’ve taken such care only to fail to reap the fruits of my labours; that having raised myself with such arduous efforts above the ordinary run of women, I could ever consent to cringe like them, wavering between cowardice and recklessness, and above all that I could be so scared of any man as to flee for my life, no, Vicomte, never, never! I must conquer or die in the attempt.* As for Prévan, I want to have him and have him I shall; he wants to tell and he won’t: that’s our romance in a nutshell. Goodbye.*
82
Cécile Volanges to the Chevalier Danceny From the Château de ——, 2
1 September 17—
Oh, your letter’s made me so sad! And to think I was looking forward to it so much and hoping it would help console me and now I’m more miserable than ever! How I cried as I was reading it, though I’m not blaming you for that, I’ve cried such a lot because of you before without being so sad but this time it was different.
What do you mean when you say that your love is turning into agony? That you can’t go on living like this or put up with our situation any longer? Are you going to stop loving me just because it’s not so pleasant as it used to be? It seems to me that I’m just as badly off as you, in fact more so, yet I just love you more and more. It’s not my fault if Monsieur de Valmont hasn’t written to you. I haven’t been able to ask him to because I’ve not been alone with him and we’d agreed that we wouldn’t ever talk to each other in public; and that’s for your sake, too, so he can do what you want him to more quickly. I’m not saying that I don’t want it too, but what can I do about it? If you think it’s so simple, please let me know how, there’s nothing I’d like better.
Do you think it’s very pleasant to be told off all the time by Mama, who never even used to speak to me at all before? Well, I can tell you it’s not. It’s worse now than if I was in the convent. My only consolation was the thought that it was for your sake; there were even times when I thought I was quite happy; then when I think that you’re annoyed too and when it’s not my fault at all, I get even more depressed than by all the things that have happened to me up till now.
Just getting your letters is difficult and if Monsieur de Valmont wasn’t so obliging and so clever I don’t know how I’d manage; and writing to you is even harder. I don’t dare do it at all during the morning because Mama is never far away and keeps coming into my room all the time. Sometimes I can do it during the afternoon by saying I’m going to practise my harp or singing and even then I have to break off all the time so that I can be heard practising. Luckily my maid sometimes gets drowsy in the evening and I tell her I can easily put myself to bed so that she can go away and leave me with a light. And then I have to hide behind my bed-curtains so they can’t see the light and I have to keep an ear open for the slightest sound so as to hide everything under my bedclothes if anyone comes in. I’d like you to be here so that you could see! You’d certainly see how very much I must love you to do all that! Anyway it’s certainly true that I’m doing everything I can and I’d like to do still more.
Of course I’m not refusing to tell you I love you and I always shall. I’ve never meant it more than now and yet you’re annoyed! Yet you certainly told me before I said it to you that it was enough to make you happy. You can’t deny that, it’s in your letters. Although I haven’t got them now, I can remember them as well as when I used to read them every day. And because we’re separated, you no longer think the same way! But we’re not going to be separated for ever, I assume? O Heavens, how miserable I am! And it’s certainly you who’s making me like that!
Talking of your letters, I do hope you’ve kept the ones Mama took away from me and sent to you. The day will certainly come when I shan’t have all the problems I’ve got now and you’ll be able to let me have them all back. How happy I’ll be when I can keep them for ever without anybody having the right to interfere! For the present I’m sending them back to Monsieur de Valmont because otherwise it’d be too risky. All the same, I can never give any of them back without feeling a pang in my heart.
Goodbye, dear, dear friend. I love you with all my heart and I shall love you for ever. I do hope that now you’ve stopped feeling cross and if I was sure of that, I shouldn’t be either any more. Write to me as soon as you can, because I feel that until then I’ll always be miserable.
83
Vicomte de Valmont to Madame de Tourvel From the Château de——, 23 September 17—
For pity’s sake, Madame, can we not meet and talk together once more, since our last meeting was so unfortunately cut short? Let me finally prove to you how different I am from the man whom you depicted in such hateful colours. Above all, let me once again enjoy that friendly trust which you were beginning to show me. You make virtue seem so charming, just as you make every decent feeling lovelier, more precious! Ah, therein lies your charm, your irresistible charm, a unique combination of strength and respectability!
No doubt seeing you is enough to make anyone desire to please you and hearing you talk in company only adds to that desire. But anyone who has the good fortune to know you more closely, who can sometimes read into your soul, is soon swept away by a nobler emotion, in which devotion turns to veneration; he comes to worship you as the incarnation of all the virtues. And I, who perhaps was more ready than others to love and follow the paths of righteousness even though I had been led astray by certain youthful errors, have been brought back to them by you, for you have made me more susceptible to all their charms. Will you brand this new-found love of mine as a crime? Will you condemn your own handiwork? Would you even blame yourself for the interest you might feel for it? What danger can you fear from so pure a feeling? And what sweet pleasures might you not enjoy through it?
So you feel threatened by my love, you find it violent, frenzied? Then tame it by the greater gentleness of your love. Don’t reject the power I am begging you to wield over me, a power from which I swear never to escape and which, it seems to me, would not be utterly devoid of virtue. What sacrifice could I ever find too painful when I am certain that your heart would understand how much it cost me? What man could be such a wretch as to be unable to enjoy the deprivations which he is freely accepting, not to prefer a glance freely granted to any of the more material delights he might be able to snatch or take by surprise? And you took me for that sort of man! And you were afraid of me! Oh, why is your happiness not completely in my hands! How I would avenge myself—by making you happy! But such sweet power can never grow out of a barren friendship: it can come only from love …
That word intimidates you! Why? A fonder affection, a stronger union, two minds that think as one, happiness and sorrow equally shared, what is there in all this that your soul finds repugnant? We are talking of love! That at least is what you have inspired and what I feel! Above all, it is love which by its unselfishness can judge actions according to their real and not their superficial worth. It is an inexhaustible treasure-house for sensitive hearts, where everything done for it or by it becomes infinitely precious.
How can these truths, so self-evident, so pleasing to put into practice, possibly be frightening? And what can you have to fear from a man of feeling whose love forbids him to look for any happiness beyond your own? For this is now my sole desire: I shall sacrifice everything to fulfil it—except the feeling which inspires it; and if you agree to share that feeling, you will even be able to control it at will. But we must not allow it to come between us any longer, when it ought instead to be bringing us closer together… If the friendship you have offered me isn’t just an empty word, if, as you were telling me yesterday, it is the tenderest emotion known to your soul, let it be the arbiter between us, I shall not raise any objection; but since it will be passing judgement on love, it must agree to listen to what love has to say; any refusal to listen would be an injustice and friendship cannot countenance injustice.
Our second meeting will present no more drawbacks than our first; chance may again provide us with the occasion; you yourself could fix a time. I’m ready to believe that I’m mistaken; won’t you try to win me round to your view rather than fight me? Do you have any doubts as to my meekness? If that tiresome interruption hadn’t occurred, I might perhaps have been completely converted to your view. Who can estimate the full extent of your power?
May I make a confession? At times I even find myself scared by your absolute domination, which I submit to without daring to struggle against it, your irresistible charm which makes you able to dictate my thoughts as well as my actions. Alas, it may even be I who ought to be afraid of this interview for which I’m asking. Afterwar
ds, I shall perhaps find myself bound by my promises and reduced to suffering from a burning passion, knowing that I can do nothing to assuage it—and not even daring to plead for your help! Oh, for pity’s sake, Madame, I beg you again not to abuse your power. Yet so be it! If it will make you happier, if, as a result, I may appear worthier in your eyes, then indeed won’t that be a great comfort for my suffering? Yes, I feel that talking with you once again will be supplying you with even more ammunition against me; it will mean bowing even more completely to your will. It’s easier to defend yourself against letters; they may contain the same arguments but you are not there in person to add your charm to them. Nevertheless, the pleasure of hearing your voice makes me ready to face that danger; at least I shall be glad to have done everything for your sake, even if to my own disadvantage; my sacrifices will be my tribute to you. And I shall be only too happy to prove in a thousand and one ways something which in a thousand and one ways I also feel: that without the exception even of myself, you are the one dearest to my heart.
84
The Vicomte de Valmont to Cécile Volanges 24 September 17—
You saw all the difficulties we had yesterday. Not once during the whole day was it possible to deliver the letter I have for you; and I have no idea if it will be any easier today. If I’m over-eager, I can bungle it and you’re compromised, your happiness is destroyed for ever and your friend will be reduced to despair by a disaster brought about by my rashness. That’s what I’m afraid of and I should never forgive myself. But I know how impatient lovers are and I can feel how terrible your situation must be through these enforced delays in receiving the only comfort you can enjoy for the present. I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to possible ways of overcoming these obstacles and I’ve found one which will be easy, if I can rely on your co-operation.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses Page 24