It is not so very long ago, alas, that I felt quite confident of never having to face such a struggle. I delighted in the thought and took great pride in it—excessive pride perhaps and for that, God has punished me, cruelly punished me. But in His infinite mercy, even while striking us down, He warns me before I fall, and I should be doubly guilty if I were to continue to act imprudently now that I have been given notice of my weakness.
You have told me time and again that you would never wish for a happiness that would cause me distress. Alas, it is too late now to talk of happiness! But at least give me back my peace of mind!
If you agree to my request, think of the fresh claims you will have upon my heart! And those claims will be grounded on virtue and I shall not have to defend myself against them. And in my gratitude, how happy I shall be! You will have given me the sweet pleasure of indulging in a delightful emotion without fear of remorse. Now, on the contrary, I am pursued by fear, fear of my feelings and my thoughts, as terrified of thinking about you as about myself. The very thought of you fills me with dread; when I can’t prevent myself, I struggle against it but I can never put it out of my mind, I merely push it to one side.
Isn’t it better for both of us to put an end to this agitation and anxiety? Oh, you still have a feeling heart which, even in the midst of its errors, has remained attached to virtue: you will not reject my plea! This wild turmoil will be replaced by a more gentle but no less affectionate interest; with your kind help my life will take on a new value and with joy in my heart I shall be able to declare: I owe this peace of mind to my friend.
By submitting to some slight hardship which I shall not impose on you but merely ask you to accept, do you feel that the price you will be paying to put an end to my torment is too high? Ah, if all that was needed to make you happy was to agree to be unhappy myself, you may believe me that I should not hesitate one second … But to become a guilty woman! … No, my dear Vicomte, I would sooner die a thousand times.
And even now I feel harassed by shame, dogged by remorse, when I’m in company I blush all the time and when I’m alone I start trembling. My life is one long calvary; unless you agree, I can never know any kind of peace. Even my good resolutions can’t ease my mind; I made up my mind to write this letter yesterday, and I spent the night in tears.
So now you see your friend, the friend whom you love, bewildered and appealing to you for help, begging you to give her back her peace and innocence. O Heavens, but for you would she ever have been reduced to making such a humiliating request? I am not blaming you, I can feel within myself all too well how hard it is to resist so tyrannical an emotion; a call for help is not a complaint. So if you can do out of the goodness of your heart what I am doing out of a sense of duty, then I shall be able to add, to all the other feelings you have aroused in me, a feeling of eternal gratitude.
Farewell, farewell, Monsieur de Valmont.
91
The Vicomte de Valmont to Madame de Tourvel 27 September 17—, in the evening
So taken aback was I by your letter that I still hardly know how to answer it. Certainly, if a choice has to be made between your happiness and mine, I must sacrifice myself and I shall do so without hesitation. But before taking any action, it seems to me that questions of such importance are surely worth being discussed and clarified; and how can that be done if we are not to see nor speak to each other any more?
So now that we are bound together by such deeply precious emotions, blind panic is enough to separate us, perhaps for ever! Devoted friendship and ardent devotion have lost their rights; their voice can no longer be heard! And why? What is this pressing danger which is threatening you? Ah, believe me, Madame, fears such as these, perhaps lacking any substance, seem to me very substantial proof that no danger exists.
You must not feel offended if I say that I can detect in your attitude traces of the unfavourable reports about me that you have been given. With a man of good reputation there are no such misgivings; above all, no one will banish a man who has been deemed worthy to be a friend: it is the dangerous man who is to be feared and shunned.
Yet was there ever anybody more respectful, more obedient than I? As you may observe, I’m already choosing my words carefully; I no longer feel free to use those names, so dear and pleasing to my heart and which my heart still continues to utter secretly. I’m no longer the faithful and hapless lover receiving advice from an affectionately devoted friend but the accused facing his judge, the slave facing his master. These new roles no doubt impose new rules: I undertake to observe them all. Listen to my plea and if you condemn me, I shall bow to your judgement and leave. I shall promise you even more; do you prefer to be this dictator who pronounces sentence without granting a hearing, do you have the heart to be unjust? Command and I shall still obey.
But I need to hear this sentence, this command, from your own lips. Why so, I hear you say. Ah, if you ask that question, how little you know of love and of my heart. Is seeing you just once more so trivial? And as you plunge my soul into the depths of despair, perhaps one last glance from you may comfort me and give me the strength to survive. If I am to give up my love and the friendship which alone makes my life worth living, at least you will see your handiwork and I shall be able to recall your pity. And even if I should not deserve that last small favour, it seems to me that by submitting to your will, the price I am paying is high enough to warrant it.
And so, Madame, you are going to send me away! You are ready for us to become strangers for each other. I say ‘ready’; you actively want it to be so! And all the time, while you keep assuring me that your feelings towards me will never change when I have gone, you are speeding my departure merely to ensure that those feelings may be the more easily destroyed!
You’re already talking of replacing them by gratitude … So what you’re offering me is the same sort of feeling which you would have for any stranger who has done you some trifling service or even for an enemy who has stopped attacking you! And you expect my heart to be content with that! But look into your own heart, Madame. If your friend, if your lover, came to you one day talking of their gratitude, wouldn’t you say to them indignantly: ‘Go away, you ungrateful creatures’?
I must stop and ask you to bear with me. Forgive me for dwelling on my distress, a distress which is of your making. What I have said will not in any way prevent my complete submission. But in my turn, I appeal to you, on behalf of those gentle emotions which you yourself claim to feel, not to refuse me a fair hearing and out of pity for the dreadful turmoil into which you have thrown me, at least not to keep me too long in suspense. Goodbye, Madame.
92
The Chevalier Danceny to the Vicomte de Valmont Paris, 27 September 17—
O dear friend, your letter has made my blood run cold! Cécile … O God, can it be possible? Cécile doesn’t love me any longer! Yes, through the kindly veil under which you hid the truth, I saw that you were trying to prepare me for the fatal blow. I am grateful to you for your tact; however, love is not so easily deceived. It can anticipate anything which affects it, it doesn’t need to be told its fate, it can predict it. I’m left in no doubt as to mine, so you can speak out plainly and I hope you will. You must tell me all; tell me what first aroused your suspicions and how they were confirmed. The smallest details are valuable. Try particularly to recall her words. One ill-chosen word can change the whole meaning of a sentence and the same word sometimes has more than one meaning.* You may have been mistaken … Poor me, I’m still trying to delude myself. What did she say? Did she blame me for something? Doesn’t she at least deny doing anything wrong? I ought to have been forewarned by the difficulty she’s been finding recently in doing anything at all. Love doesn’t recognize so many obstacles, it laughs at locksmiths.
What can I do? What’s your advice? Supposing I tried to see her? Is that really impossible? Absence is such a cruel thing; it can lead to disaster! And so she turned down a way of seeing me? You don’t say what it was and
if it actually was too dangerous, she knows I don’t want her to take too many risks. But I know how cautious you are and I can’t possibly not do what you advise, even if I would sometimes prefer not to.
What shall I do now? How can I write to her? If I let her know my suspicions, they may upset her and if they’re unjustified, would she forgive me for having upset her? If I conceal them, then I’m deceiving her and I’m incapable of hiding anything from her.
Ah, if she could only know how I’m suffering, her heart would be touched; I know how tender-hearted she is and I’ve had a thousand and one proofs of her love. Perhaps she was scared or embarrassed. She’s so young! And her mother’s so strict! I’ll write to her, I’ll be very discreet, I’ll merely ask her to place herself entirely in your hands. Even if she still won’t agree, she can’t possibly be offended by that request and perhaps she will agree after all.
Dear friend, I must apologize to you on her behalf and on mine as well. I promise you she does appreciate all your trouble and is grateful to you. It’s not distrust, it’s diffidence. You must be tolerant, it’s the most precious quality of a friend and your friendship is so precious, I can never thank you enough for all that you’re doing for us … Goodbye, I’ll write to her straight away.
I feel all my old misgivings creeping back … Who would ever have thought it would be so hard for me to write to her? And only yesterday, dear God, it was my only pleasure.
Farewell, dear friend. Please continue to help and feel pity for your, etc.
93
The Chevalier Danceny to Cécile Volanges (enclosed with letter 92) Paris, 27 September 17—
I can’t pretend that I wasn’t terribly upset to hear from Valmont that you still don’t trust him. You know very well that he’s my friend and the only person able to bring us together again. I thought that these two facts would have been enough and I’m sorry to see I was mistaken. I hope at least that you’ll let me know your reasons. Or will you find even more difficulties standing in your way? Yet otherwise there’s no way in which I can solve the mystery of your behaviour. I don’t dare to suspect your love, any more than you doubtless would never dare to betray mine. Ah, Cécile! …
Is it true then that you wouldn’t agree to use a method to enable us to meet that was safe, simple, and convenient?* And that’s the way you show your love! We’ve been separated for such a short time but your feelings have changed so much! But why won’t you tell me the truth? Why say you still love me, that you love me more than ever? Has your mother destroyed your honesty as well as your love? If she has at least left you with a certain compassion in your heart, you can’t fail to realize what a dreadful ordeal you’re subjecting me to! Ah, Cécile, it would be less painful for me to die!
So tell me, have you shut me out of your heart for ever? Have you completely forgotten me? Thanks to your rejection of my friend’s offer, I’ve no way of knowing if you will be able to read my appeals nor when you will be ready to respond to them. He had given us the possibility of corresponding but you didn’t want that, you raised difficulties, you preferred to make it harder for us. No, I shall stop believing in love or honesty. If Cécile has deceived me, who else can be trusted?
Oh, please, please, do answer me! Is it true that you’ve stopped loving me? No, it can’t be possible; you’re deceiving yourself, you’re belying your own feelings. You had a moment of fear, of discouragement, and now love has quickly made them disappear! That’s what happened, wasn’t it, Cécile? Oh, I’m surely wrong to accuse you. And how glad I’d be if I was! How I would love to offer you my tender apologies and make amends for my moment of unfairness by offering you my eternal devotion!
O Cécile, my Cécile, you must take pity on me! Agree to see me, no matter how! See what happens when we don’t meet—fear, suspicion, perhaps even indifference! Just one single word, a single glance, will make us happy. But can I really still use the word love? For me, perhaps, love is lost, it’s vanished for ever! I’m tortured by fear, cruelly torn between unfair suspicions and an even crueller truth, I can’t think where to turn! My whole life is being consumed by love and by suffering… Ah, Cécile, you have the power to give me back a desire to live and I’m waiting for you to utter a word to tell me straight away if I can ever be happy again or am finally doomed to despair for ever!
94
Cécile Volanges to the Chevalier Danceny From the Château de —–, 28 September 17—
I can’t make anything out of your letter except that it made me absolutely wretched. What did Monsieur de Valmont say to make you think that I don’t love you any more?—which might, incidentally, perhaps be a very good thing for me; because I’d certainly be much less tormented, and it’s very hard when I love you as much as I do to see that you always think I’m wrong and instead of trying to comfort me, all the nasty things that make me most miserable always seem to come from you. You think I’m deceiving you and saying things that aren’t true! That’s a nice idea to have of me! But what would be the point of not telling the truth like you accuse me of doing? If I didn’t love you any more, all I’d need do would be to tell you straight out and everybody would approve. Unfortunately, I can’t help myself… And I have to be in love with someone who gives me no credit for it whatsoever!
What can I have done to make you so angry? I didn’t dare take the key because I was frightened Mama would notice and that would have landed me in even bigger trouble, and you too, because of me; and also because it seems to me not the right thing to do. But it was only Monsieur de Valmont’s suggestion, so I couldn’t tell if you wanted it or not, because you didn’t know anything about it. Now I do know you want it, can you possibly think I’ll still refuse to take it? I’ll get the key tomorrow and we’ll see what you have to say then.
I know Monsieur de Valmont is your friend but I reckon I certainly love you at least as much as he possibly can, yet he’s always right and I’m always wrong. I can tell you, I feel really fed up… You don’t mind, of course, because you know I always calm down straight away and now I shall have the key, I’ll be able to see you whenever I want, but I can tell you that I certainly shan’t want to if you behave like that. If I’ve got to be unhappy, I’d still prefer it to come from me rather than you: think about what you want to do.
If you wished, we could love each other so much! And then at least all our troubles would come from outside! I can tell you that if I was in charge you’d certainly never have any reason to find fault with me! But if you don’t believe me, we shall always be wretched and it won’t be my fault. I hope we’ll soon be able to meet and then we’ll have no more chances of upsetting each other.
If I’d been able to foresee what would happen, I’d have taken the key straight away, but I really and truly thought I was doing the right thing. So please don’t be cross with me any more. And stop being sad and love me always as much as I love you, then I’ll be very, very happy. Goodbye, dear, dear friend.
95
Cécile Volanges to the Vicomte de Valmont 28 September 17—
May I ask you, Monsieur, to be kind enough to let me have back the key you gave me to put in place of the other one? Since that’s what everybody wants, I shall have to agree, too.
I’m afraid I can’t understand why you told Monsieur Danceny that I did not love him any more; I don’t think I ever gave you any cause to think that and it upset him very much, and me as well. Certainly, I know that you’re his friend but I don’t think that is any reason to make him worried nor me either. The next time you write to him, I should be very pleased if you could tell him the reverse and say you are quite certain of it, because it is you he trusts most and when I say something and people don’t believe it, I don’t quite know what to do.
As for the key, you can rest assured that I have remembered perfectly all you recommended me to do in your letter. However, if you still have it and would care to let me have it back at the same time, I promise you I shall pay great attention to it. If you could do it tomorrow as we go i
nto dinner, I can give you the other key next day at breakfast and you could give it back to me, like you did the first time. I would very much prefer it not to take any longer because there would be less time for Mama to have a chance of noticing it.
And once you’ve got the key, may I please ask you to use it for picking up my letters as well and in that way Monsieur Danceny will have news of me more often. It’s true that it will be much more convenient than it is now but the fact is that I was too scared. Please forgive me and I hope that this will not prevent you from still being as kind and helpful as you have been in the past. I shall always be very grateful to you as well.
Please believe me, Monsieur de Valmont, yours very truly and humbly, etc.
96
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil From the Château de —–, 1 October 17—
I bet that ever since your little escapade you’ve been living in daily expectation of receiving my congratulations and praise. And indeed I fancy that my long silence must have rather peeved you; but what can I say? I’ve always felt that when the only thing we have to offer a woman is praise, we could leave that to her and get on with something else. However, I must thank you on my own behalf and congratulate you on yours. And if it’s going to make you completely happy, I’m even prepared to agree that, on this occasion, you’ve actually exceeded my expectations. Having said which, let’s see if, in my poor way, I have, at least to some extent, come up to yours.
I don’t want to tell you about Madame de Tourvel; you dislike her slow progress. You’re only attracted by affairs that are sewn up. Long-drawn-out scenes bore you whereas for my part, I’d never enjoyed anything quite as much as these so-called longwinded passages.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses Page 27