To my mind, when someone else’s fate is at stake, the cautious path is the better one to take, above all when the decision involves the indissoluble union of holy wedlock. It is in such cases that a mother as loving as she is wise must, as you so aptly say, give her daughter the benefit of her own experience. Now I must ask you: what is she to do in order to achieve this? Surely it is merely to make the distinction, on her behalf, between what is agreeable and what is right and proper to do.
Would it not be debasing maternal authority, indeed utterly destroying it, to make it bow to a frivolous fancy, to a whim, which can however grow into a frenzy, with a power of illusion which threatens only those who fear to face up to it and must vanish as soon as they have learned to despise it? For my part I confess I have never believed in those heart-stirring, irresistible passions which we seem generally agreed to offer as an excuse for our profligate behaviour. I cannot conceive how a fancy, here today and gone tomorrow, can outweigh the rock-solid principles of decency, honesty, and modesty nor can I understand why a woman who offends against them should find justification in her alleged passion, any more than a murderer should in a desire for vengeance.
And who has never had to struggle? But I have always tried to convince myself that in order to resist, you need only have the will-power and, till now at least, my experience has confirmed that view. What would be the value of virtue if it did not involve duties? We worship it by sacrificing to it and its rewards are in our hearts. These truths can be denied only by those who have an interest in repudiating them and who, being already depraved, hope to hoodwink others, if only momentarily, by using bad reasons to try and justify their bad conduct.
But how could a shy, simple girl, your own flesh and blood, ever give cause for such fears when her modest, chaste upbringing can only have reinforced her natural advantages? Yet you wish to sacrifice the favourable match which you, in your wisdom, had arranged for her, to just such fears, which I venture to describe as humiliating for your daughter! I am very fond of Danceny and as you know, for some time now have seen little of Monsieur de Gercourt; but my liking for the former and my indifference towards the latter in no way blind me to the enormous difference between the two suitors.
I agree that they are equally well-born; but one of them is penniless and the other one is so wealthy that he could have risen to any position even without his birth. Of course, money doesn’t equal happiness but it must be admitted that it does facilitate it. As you say, Mademoiselle Volanges is rich enough for two; nevertheless, an income of sixty thousand francs a year is not over-much when your name is Danceny and you have to set up and maintain a style of living to match that name. We’re no longer living in the days of Madame de Sévigné.* Luxury is all-consuming: we deprecate it but we have to adopt it and inessentials end by depriving us of essentials.
As for the personal qualities to which you most rightly attach such great importance, in this respect Monsieur de Gercourt is certainly beyond reproach; he has been tried and not found wanting.* I like to believe, indeed I do believe, that Danceny is in no way inferior on this point; but can we be quite so sure? It’s true that till now he has seemed free from the faults of his age and, in contrast to the contemporary trend, he shows a liking for decent society which bodes well for his future conduct; but who can say whether this apparently seemly behaviour is a result of his limited means? However unaverse you might be to lead a drunken or disorderly life, in order to be a gambler or a rake you do need money and you can still have a hankering for a sinful life while being afraid of its excesses. After all, he wouldn’t be the first or the last person to frequent good society purely because he couldn’t do any better.
I am not saying, Heaven forbid, that I do think he is at all like that: but you would always run that risk and how bitterly you would blame yourself if the marriage were to turn out unhappily! What reply would you give your daughter were she to say: ‘Mother, I was young and had no experience of life; I had even been misled by an error excusable at my age; but Heaven had anticipated my weakness and provided me with a wise mother to correct and defend me from it. Then why did you throw away your caution and allow such a misfortune to occur? Was it for me to choose a husband when I knew nothing about marriage? Even if I wanted to, shouldn’t you have opposed it? But in fact I was never so mad as to want to, I had made up my mind to respect your choice, to obey and resign myself; I have always been a dutiful daughter and bowed to your decisions yet now I’m being punished as if I’d been rebellious. Ah, Mama, your weakness has led to my ruin!’ Her respect for you might cause her to stifle her protests but a mother’s love would recognize them and even if your daughter’s tears were shed secretly, they would still flow into your heart and conscience. What consolation will you have then? Will you find any comfort in this mad love that you should have warned her against and which on the contrary you allowed to lead you astray?
I don’t know, dear lady, if I have too strong a prejudice against passion but I think that it is something to be feared even in marriage. Not that I think it wrong for warm, decent feelings to exist between married couples; such feelings enhance the bond and, as it were, alleviate the duties it demands, but they can have no part to play in the tying of this bond. A passing infatuation is no basis for a choice affecting the whole of our life. To choose you have to compare and how can you do that when you have eyes for one person only; and when even that person is impossible to know since you are blinded and drunk with passion?
As you may believe, I have met a number of women afflicted by this dangerous disorder; some of them have confided in me. To listen to them there’s not one who isn’t loved by the Perfect Man; but these extravagant perfections exist only in their imagination. In their wild dreams they see nothing but charms and virtues and gleefully deck out the men of their choice in all these qualities; but these glittering robes fit for a God often drape an abject model; but whatever he is, no sooner have they dressed him up than, dazzled by their own handiwork, they prostrate themselves to adore him.
Either your daughter doesn’t love Danceny or else she is suffering from a similar delusion; and if their love is shared, so too is their delusion. So your reason for joining them in marriage for ever comes down to the certainty that they don’t know each other and indeed cannot possibly know each other. But you will say to me: do Gercourt and my daughter know one another any better? No, indeed they do not but at least they are not suffering from any delusions about themselves, they merely don’t know each other. What happens in such cases between a couple, assuming they are both decent, honourable people? They study each other, they inwardly examine themselves and their relationship to the other, try to discover and soon realize which of their likes and wishes they have to give up for the sake of domestic harmony. Such slight sacrifices offer no difficulty because they are mutual and they have been anticipated; soon they create a mood of mutual goodwill; and habit, which strengthens all our natural inclinations that it doesn’t destroy, gradually creates this gentle atmosphere of friendship, trust, and affection which, together with respect, combines to form what seems to me a true and lasting happiness.
Love’s illusions may be sweeter but who doesn’t also know that they are less durable? And what dangers there are lurking when they are demolished! The smallest shortcomings seem unbearably shocking in contrast to the ideal which had misled us. However, each of the couple thinks that it is only the other who has changed and that they still have all the splendid qualities with which they were mistakenly and fleetingly invested. They are surprised to find they no longer exert the charm which they no longer feel themselves. They feel humiliated; wounded vanity embitters their minds and increases their sense of wrong, producing resentment and creating hatred; frivolous pleasures have to be paid for by endless misfortune.
So there, dear, dear friend, are my thoughts on the matter we are considering; I am not necessarily defending them, I’m merely putting them forward: it is for you to make your decision. But if you p
ersist in your own view, I merely ask you to let me know the reasons which you consider outweigh mine: I shall be only too glad to be enlightened by you and particularly to be reassured as to the fate of your dear daughter whom I am so passionately anxious to see happy, both because of the very deep friendship I feel for her and my undying friendship for you.*
105
The Marquise de Merteuil to Cécile Volanges Paris, 4 October 17—
Well, what a cross little girl we are, aren’t we? And feeling so ashamed, too! And what a naughty man Monsieur de Valmont is, isn’t he? Goodness me! He’s had the audacity to treat you like the woman he’s most fond of! He’s been teaching you something that you were dying to learn! What unforgiveable behaviour, indeed … And as for you, you want to remain chaste for your sweetheart, who’s making no great demands on you; so what you really want are love’s sorrows and none of its pleasures!* Splendid! Keep following that line and you’ll end up as a perfect heroine for a novel. Passion, adversity and, above all, virtue: how superb it all sounds! And in the course of this magnificent parade, you’ll certainly be bored at times but you’ll surely be giving as good as you get!
Yes, we really have to feel sorry for the poor little girl! The morning after, she had dark rings round her eyes! And what will you have to say when it’s your lover’s eyes with dark rings? Never mind, you dear angel, they’ll not always be like that: not all men are Valmonts. And not daring to raise those eyes, either! Now that was really bright of you, wasn’t it? So everybody would have been able to read the story of your little adventure in them, would they? But if that were the case, believe me there would be many more downcast eyes amongst married women and even amongst young ladies …
Despite all the praise which, as you see, I feel impelled to give you, it must none the less be admitted that you failed to pull off your master-stroke: telling your Mama everything. Yet you’d already made such a good start, flinging yourself into her arms … sobbing … and she was shedding a tear, too … What a scene! Real pathos! What a pity you didn’t play it through to the end. In an ecstasy of delight and to add weight to your virtue, she would have packed you off to spend the rest of your life in a convent where you’d have been able to love your Danceny to your heart’s content, with no rivals—and in absolute chastity. You would have eaten your heart out as much as you wanted and Valmont would certainly not have come between you and your woes with any tiresome offers of pleasure.
But seriously, how can a girl who’s past her fifteenth birthday be so positively childish? You’re absolutely right: you don’t deserve my kindness. Yet I did want to be your friend and with the mother you’ve got and the husband she wants you to have, you certainly may need one! But if you can’t pull yourself together, what on earth can you expect other people to do for you? What hope is there if something which opens other girls’ eyes merely blinds yours?
If you could make the effort to think for a moment you’d soon realize that instead of moaning you ought to be celebrating. But you’re feeling ashamed and thus embarrassed. Well, stop worrying: the shame produced by love is like the pain: you only feel it the first time. You may pretend to have it on later occasions; you don’t really feel it. But pleasure doesn’t go away and that’s surely something. I even seemed to gain the impression, in your muddled little rigmarole, that you might be quite attracted by it. So, how about being honest? That confusion which prevented you from doing quite the same thing as you were saying, which made you feel almost sorry when Valmont left, was that caused just by shame or was it pleasure? And the way he talked so that you didn’t know how to answer, didn’t that come from the way he acted? Now now, little girl, you’re fibbing and you’re fibbing to your good friend. That’s naughty. But let’s leave it there.
Something that everybody would consider a pleasure, and perhaps nothing more, for someone in your position is a real godsend. Don’t you realize in fact that situated between a mother whose love you value and a lover whose love you want to keep for ever, the only way to combine these conflicting interests successfully is to turn your attention to a third party? In the diversion offered by this new affair you’ll be seen to be deferring to your mother, sacrificing a lover she disapproves of and at the same time gaining a reputation by your strong resistance in your lover’s eyes. You can continue to reassure him of your love while never going all the way to prove it. This steadfast refusal, completely painless in the situation in which you’ll be, won’t fail to be attributed to your high moral principles; he may grumble but he’ll love you all the more. For your mother, you’ll be seen to be sacrificing your love; for your lover, resisting it: and the cost of this double bonus will be… to enjoy its pleasures. Oh, how many women who’ve lost their reputations would have discreetly kept them if they had been able to rely on that kind of support…
Doesn’t the course I’m suggesting seem the most sensible and the pleasantest? Do you know what you’ve achieved by behaving as you did? Your mother has got it into her head that you’ve been sadder recently because you’re more in love than ever; she’s outraged and she’s waiting to confirm her belief in order to punish you for it. She’s just written to me to that effect; she’ll do everything possible to extract a confession from you. She is even thinking, she told me, of suggesting that you marry Danceny, so as to get you to betray yourself. And if you let yourself be taken in by her pretended affection and speak from the heart, you’ll quickly find yourself shut away for many years, perhaps for ever, with ample time to mourn your blindness and gullibility.
You must counter this trick which she’s intending to play on you with one of your own. So start by not looking so sad and make her believe that you’re thinking less about Danceny. She’ll allow herself to be persuaded all the more easily as this is the normal effect of absence and she’ll be extra grateful to you because it’ll give her the chance of thinking how clever she is in listening to the voice of caution. But if she still harbours certain doubts and were to go so far as to talk of marriage, behave like a well brought up little girl and retreat into a completely submissive attitude. And when it comes to the point, what are you risking? For what wives do to their husbands, any husband’s as good as any other and even the most tiresome is less troublesome than a mother.
Once she’s more satisfied with your conduct, your mother will finally marry you off and then, with your greater freedom, you’ll have your choice, to leave Valmont, to take Danceny, or even to keep both of them. Because, make no mistake about it, Danceny’s a nice boy; but he’s one of those men you can get whenever you like and as often as you like, so there’s no need to bother about him. It’s not the same with Valmont: he’s hard to keep and dangerous to drop. To handle him you need to be very cunning or, failing that, very amenable. But supposing you succeeded in winning his friendship? What a prize that would be! He’d immediately set you up amongst the smartest of smart women. That’s the way to achieve a solid reputation in society and not by blushing and snivelling, as when your nuns used to make you go down on your knees to eat.
So if you’re wise, you’ll try and make it up with Valmont, who must be very cross with you, and as it’s necessary to know how to make amends for silly conduct, don’t be afraid to make advances to him, for you’ll soon learn that if the first approaches are made by men, the second almost always have to come from us. You’ve got a pretext, because you mustn’t keep this letter; I ask you, in fact demand you, to hand it back to Valmont as soon as you have read it. And don’t forget to seal it up again first. For one thing, your conduct towards him must appear to be spontaneous and you mustn’t seem to be following anyone else’s advice: and for another, you’re the only person in the world who is a close enough friend for me to talk to as I have been talking to you.
Goodbye, you angel. Follow my advice and you’ll let me know if you feel better for having done so …*
By the way, I was forgetting … One last word: do try and do something about the style of your letters. You’re still writing like
a child. That’s all right between you and me, we aren’t supposed to have any secrets from each other: but doing it with everybody! And particularly your lover! You’d always look like a silly little girl. You can surely see that when you’re writing to someone, it’s meant for him and not for you. So you must try to say not what you really think but what you think he’ll most enjoy hearing.
Goodbye, my pet. I’m not going to tell you off, I’m going to give you a kiss and hope you’ll be a sensible girl.
106
The Marquise de Merteuil to the Vicomte de Valmont Paris, 4 October 17—
Well done, Vicomte! And this time my love for you knows no bounds! In any case, after the first of your two letters, the second one was only to be expected, so I wasn’t in the least surprised and while you were boasting of your imminent success and already applying for your reward by asking if I was ready, I could see quite plainly that there was no need for me to be in any hurry. Yes, honour bright! Reading your enthralling account of that tender little scene which had moved you so violently and noting your masterly restraint, reminiscent of the finest traditions of French chivalry, I kept saying to myself: ‘I scent disaster!’
But there could really have been no other outcome possible. Here’s a poor woman who’s surrendered and not been taken: what else can you expect her to do? Yes indeed, in such cases honour must at least be saved and that’s what your judge’s wife has done. I certainly know that for my own part, having gained the impression that the course she’s been following has worked quite well, I’m proposing to do the same thing myself at the first decent opportunity but I can promise you that if the man for whom I’ve been taking so much trouble doesn’t take better advantage of it than you have, he can say goodbye for ever to any hope of having me …
Les Liaisons Dangereuses Page 31