Dangerous Liaisons

by Choderlos De Laclos

  What ought I to do? What do you advise? Supposing I tried to see her? Is that impossible? Absence is so cruel, so distressing…and she refused a means of seeing me! You do not say what that was. If there was indeed too much danger, she knows very well that I would not want her to take too many risks. But I know how cautious you are as well, and I, unfortunately, cannot doubt it for a minute.

  What am I going to do now? What shall I say to her in my letter? If I let her see my suspicions, she will perhaps be distressed. And if they are unjust, how could I forgive myself for hurting her? If I hide them from her, it would be deceiving her, and I cannot dissemble with her.

  Oh, if she knew what I am going through, she would be touched by my sufferings. I know how sensitive she is. She has a heart of gold and I have a thousand proofs of her love. She is so timid, so inexperienced, so young! And her mother treats her with such severity! I shall write to her. I shall be restrained. I shall ask her only to put herself entirely in your hands. Even if she refuses, still she will not be able to be angry with me for asking; and she may perhaps consent.

  My friend, I offer you a thousand apologies, both on my behalf and on hers. I do assure you that she appreciates your kindness and is grateful. It is not mistrust, but fearfulness. Be indulgent. That is the best part of friendship. Yours is very precious to me, and I do not know how to repay you for all you are doing for me. Adieu, I shall write to her without delay.

  I feel all my fears returning. Who would have thought how much it would cost me to write to her! Alas, only yesterday it was my sweetest pleasure.

  Goodbye, my friend. I ask you to continue in all you are doing for me and to pity my plight.

  Paris, 27 September 17**

  LETTER 93

  The Chevalier Danceny to Cécile Volanges

  (Included in the preceding letter)

  I cannot pretend I am not extremely pained to learn from Valmont how little trust you still place in him. You are aware that he is my friend, and that he is the only person who can bring us together. I had thought these considerations would be enough for you, but I now see to my distress that I am wrong. May I hope that at least you will explain your reasons? Or will you still find some obstacle that will prevent you doing so? Whatever the case, without you I cannot solve the mystery of this conduct. I do not dare to doubt your love, and I am sure you would not betray mine. Oh Cécile!

  So is it really true that you refused a way of seeing me? A way that was simple, convenient and safe?* So that is how you love me! Such a short absence has certainly changed your feelings. But why deceive me? Why tell me you still love me, that you love me more than ever? Has your mother, in destroying your love, also destroyed your frankness? If, at least, she has left you with some mercy, you will not hear without sorrow of the terrible torments you are causing me! Oh, if I were dying, I should suffer less.

  So tell me, is your heart closed to me for ever? Have you forgotten me utterly? Your refusal means I know neither when you will hear my appeals nor when you will answer them. Valmont’s friendship made our correspondence safe. But you did not want this. You found it painful; you preferred our correspondence to be only occasional. No, I can no longer believe in love, in honesty. Alas, whom can I trust if my Cécile has deceived me?

  So answer me. Is it true you no longer love me? No, it is not possible. You are deceiving yourself. You are insulting your feelings. A passing fear, a moment of discouragement, that will soon be banished by love. Is that what it is, my darling? Oh yes, it must be that, and I am wrong to accuse you. How happy I should be if I were wrong! How I should like to make my loving apologies to you, to atone for this moment of injustice with an eternity of love!

  Cécile, Cécile, have pity on me! Consent to see me. Take every opportunity you can! See what absence does! Fears, suspicions, perhaps even indifference! One single look, one single word, and we shall be happy. But how can I still speak of happiness? Perhaps it is gone from me, gone for ever. Tormented by my fears, and cruelly oppressed by unjust suspicions and a truth more cruel still, I can no longer take comfort in any thought. I continue my existence only to suffer, and to love you. Ah Cécile! You alone have the power to make my life dear to me. And the first word you utter will signal the return of happiness or the certainty of eternal despair.

  Paris, 27 September 17**

  LETTER 94

  Cécile Volanges to the Chevalier Danceny

  I do not understand any of your letter apart from the fact that it hurts me. What was it, then, that Monsieur de Valmont told you, and what makes you think I no longer love you? If that were the case, it would be a good thing for me, for I should surely be less tormented. But, loving you as I do, it is very hard for me to see you still think I am in the wrong, and that, instead of consoling me, you are yourself the cause of all the things which distress me most. You think I am deceiving you and telling you untruths. You must have a strange idea of what I am really like! But if I were telling lies, as you say, what would be my motive? For surely, if I did not love you any more, all I should have to do is say so, and everyone would approve. But unfortunately it is stronger than me. To think it has to be for someone who is not in the least grateful for it!

  So what have I done to make you so angry? I did not dare take a key because I was afraid Mamma would notice, and that would make me even more unhappy, and you too because of me. But it was also because I think it is wrong. And it was only Monsieur de Valmont who talked of it, and I could not know whether you wanted that or not, because you did not know anything about it. But now I know you wish it, how could I refuse? I shall take it tomorrow. And then we shall see what you have to say.

  Monsieur de Valmont may well be your friend, but I believe I love you at the very least as much as he does. And yet it is always he who is in the right, and I in the wrong. I am very angry, I can tell you. That does not make any difference to you because you know I get over it immediately. And if I have the key now I shall be able to see you whenever I want to. But I can assure you that I shall not want to if you behave like this. I prefer the distress I feel to be caused by me rather than you. Consider what you will do.

  Oh, if you wished, we would love each other so much! And at least we should only have to put up with the troubles inflicted upon us by other people! I assure you that if it were in my control you would never have cause for complaint. But if you do not believe me, we shall always be really unhappy, through no fault of mine. I hope we shall soon be able to meet and no longer have occasion to upset each other as we do at present.

  If I had been able to foresee this, I should have taken the key straight away. But I truly believed I was doing the right thing. So do not hold it against me, I beg you. Do not be sad any more, love me still as much as I do you. Then I shall be perfectly happy. Adieu, my dear friend.

  From the Chateau de —, 28 September 17**

  LETTER 95

  Cécile Volanges to the Vicomte de Valmont

  I beg you, Monsieur, to be so kind as to give me back the key that you gave me to put in place of the other. Because everyone wishes it, I must consent to it as well.

  I do not know why you told Monsieur Danceny I did not love him any more. I do not think I ever gave you cause to think so. And it made him very unhappy, as it did me. I know you are his friend. But that is no reason to distress him, or me. You would do me a great service if you told him the opposite the very next time you write to him, and say that you are certain of it. For it is you he trusts most implicitly. And when I have said something and people do not believe me, I do not know what else to do.

  As to the key, you can rest assured. I have remembered everything you told me in your letter. However, if you still have the letter and wish to give it back to me with the key, I promise you I shall give it my utmost attention. If it could be tomorrow when we go in to dinner, I would give you the other key the day after tomorrow at luncheon, and you could give it back in the same way as the first. I should prefer not to leave it any later because there wo
uld be more danger of Mamma noticing then.

  And once you have that key would you still also be kind enough to make use of it to take my letters? In that way Monsieur Danceny will be able to have news of me more often. It is true that it will be much more convenient than at present. But at first I was too scared. I beg you to forgive me, and hope you will still continue to be as helpful as you have been up until now. I shall always be very grateful.

  I have the honour, Monsieur, to be your humble and most obedient servant.

  From —, 28 September 17**

  LETTER 96

  The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil

  I shall wager you have been waiting every day since your affair for compliments and praise from me. I am even certain you have become a little piqued by my long silence. But what do you expect? I have always thought that when all there was left to offer a woman was praise one might as well leave it to her and attend to other matters. However, I thank you on my own account and congratulate you on yours. I even concede, to make you totally happy, that for once you have surpassed my expectations. After that you will see whether I have fulfilled yours, at least in part.

  It is not about Madame de Tourvel that I wish to speak. That affair displeases you because it is proceeding at such a slow pace. You only like things that are over and done with. Long-drawn-out scenes annoy you. But I have never tasted pleasure such as I am experiencing at present in these so-called lenteurs.1

  Yes, I love to watch and contemplate this cautious woman engaged without realizing it along a path from which there is no return, which, in spite of herself, drags her rapidly and perilously down after me. Terrified of the danger she is in, she wants to stop, but cannot hold herself back. Her caution and adroitness do of course mean that she may take smaller steps; but taken they must be, one after the other. Sometimes, not daring to face the danger, she shuts her eyes and lets herself go, abandoning herself to my tender care. More often a fresh fear revives her efforts. In mortal terror she tries once more to take a step back. She expends her strength on climbing up again briefly, with great difficulty; but soon a magic power draws her down closer to the danger which she has been vainly attempting to flee. So, having no one but me as her guide and support, without blaming me further for her inevitable downfall she implores me to delay it. The fervent prayers and humble supplications all God-fearing mortals offer up to the divinity, she offers them to me. And you wish me to be deaf to her wishes and destroy the cult she is devoting to me; and the power she invokes to sustain her, you want me to make use of only in order to hurry the affair along! Oh, let me at least have time to observe these touching struggles between love and virtue.

  Can you suppose that the same spectacle which makes you rush to the theatre and applaud with such enthusiasm is less spell-binding in real life? These feelings of a pure and loving soul who dreads the happiness she desires and never stops defending herself, even when she ceases to resist, you listen to them enthusiastically; are they not then priceless for the man who has brought them into being? And yet these are the treasures that this heavenly woman offers me every day; and you blame me for tasting their delights! Ah, the time will come only too soon when, degraded by her fall, she will be for me nothing but an ordinary woman.

  But while I speak of her I am forgetting that I did not mean to speak of her. I do not know what spell binds me to her, continually taking me back to her, even if it is only to insult her. Let us put this dangerous topic to one side. Let me become myself once more, and reflect upon a lighter matter. I mean your pupil, who has now become mine, and I hope when I tell you this you will recognize me for the man you know.

  For some days I have been treated in a more loving fashion by my dear devotee, and consequently have been less obsessed by her. I noticed that the little Volanges girl is in fact very pretty. And that even if it were foolish to be in love with her, as Danceny is, perhaps it would be no less foolish on my part not to be seeking some distraction with her, rendered necessary by my solitude. It also seemed fair that I should be recompensed for my efforts on her behalf. I remembered, quite apart from that, that you had offered her to me before Danceny had any rights over her. And I felt I was justified in claiming a few of those rights over a property that he only possessed because of my refusal and neglect. The girl’s pretty little face, the freshness of her lips, her childlike air, even her gaucheness reinforced these sensible ideas of mine. So I resolved to act upon them, and success crowned my enterprise.

  Already you are wondering what method I used to supplant the beloved lover so speedily; what kind of seduction technique is appropriate for this age and inexperience. Spare yourself the trouble; I employed none. While you, handling the weapons of your sex so adeptly, were victorious by your subtlety, I restored to man his inalienable rights and subjugated her with my authority. Sure of seizing my prey if I were able to reach her, I only needed a stratagem in order to approach her, and even the one I used was scarcely worthy of the name.

  I took advantage of the next letter I received from Danceny for his mistress and, after warning her by using the agreed signal, I exercised my ingenuity, not in giving it to her, but in finding a way of not giving it to her. I pretended to share her impatience at this, and after causing the harm I pointed out the remedy.

  The girl occupies a bedroom, one of whose doors gives on to the corridor. But, as you might expect, the mother has taken the key. All I needed to do was to get hold of it. Nothing easier than to achieve this. I asked only to have it at my disposal for two hours, after which I could guarantee I would be in possession of a similar one. So then correspondence, conversation, nocturnal rendez-vous, everything would have become convenient and safe. However, would you believe it, the timid child took fright and refused. Anyone else would have been crushed by this, but I saw only the opportunity for a more piquant pleasure. I wrote to Danceny to complain of this refusal, and succeeded so well that our stupid fellow did not stop until he had obtained, demanded even from his fearful mistress that she should grant what I asked, and deliver herself up totally to my discretion.

  I was very relieved, I admit, to have exchanged roles in this way, and that the young man should be doing for me what he thought I would be doing for him. This idea doubled the value of the adventure in my eyes. So, as soon as I had the precious key, I hastened to make use of it. That was last night.

  Having made sure everything in the chateau was quiet, I armed myself with my shaded lantern and, in the state of undress normal for that hour and demanded by the circumstances, I paid my first visit to your pupil. I had everything arranged – by her, in fact – for me to enter without any noise. She was in that first deep sleep, so characteristic of the young, and I arrived at her bedside without waking her. At first I thought I would venture further and pretend to be a dream,2 but, fearing the effect of surprise and the accompanying noise, I decided instead to wake my sleeping beauty carefully, and actually managed to prevent the cry I was dreading.

  As I had not come there for a chat, after calming her initial fears, I took a few liberties. Probably they did not teach her in the convent what different dangers timid innocence may be exposed to, or all she must protect so as not to be taken by surprise. For, bringing all her attention and strength to bear upon defending herself from my kiss, which was just a false attack, everything else was left undefended. How could I not take advantage! So I changed tactics, and immediately took up my position. At that point I thought we were both lost. The girl, terrified, tried to cry out, but luckily her voice was stifled by tears. She had also thrown herself upon her bell-pull, but I had the presence of mind to grab her by the arm in the nick of time.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ I said then. ‘Ruin yourself for good? If someone comes, what difference would it make to me? Who would you be able to persuade that I am not here with your permission? Who else could have provided me with the means to get in? And this key I have from you, that I have only been able to obtain through you, will you take respons
ibility for explaining what it was for?’ This short harangue did nothing to calm her pain or her anger. But she submitted. I don’t know whether it was my eloquent tone of voice or what; it certainly could not have been my gestures. One hand busy restraining, the other caressing, what orator could aspire to be graceful in such a situation? If you can imagine what she looked like, you will agree at least that she laid herself open to attack. But there, I don’t understand a thing about it, and, as you say, the simplest woman, a little schoolgirl, can lead me like a child.

  Although in despair, she realized she had to decide one way or another and come to terms with the situation. Finding me adamant to all entreaties, she was reduced to saying what she would and would not allow. You may be thinking I sold my important position for a high price; but I promised everything for a kiss. It is true that, once the kiss was over, I did not keep my promise, but I had good reason. Had we agreed it should be taken or given? Through bargaining, we agreed upon a second. And that one, it was promised, would be received. So, guiding her timid arms around my body, I clasped her more amorously with the one that was free, and that sweet kiss was indeed received. But well and truly received. So well, in fact, that love itself could not have done better.