So it is only to persuade you to my way of thinking that I am going to answer the question you asked me about the sacrifices I should demand and that you would not be able to make. I use this word ‘demand’ deliberately because I am sure that in a moment you are going in fact to find that I am too demanding. But so much the better! Far from taking any offence at your refusal, I shall thank you for it. Listen, I do not want to pretend with you, though perhaps I need to.
I should demand, then – and here is the cruel part – that this rare and astonishing Madame de Tourvel should become for you nothing but the ordinary woman that she is. For we must not deceive ourselves. The charm that we believe we find in other people exists only within ourselves. And it is love alone that enhances the object of our affections. I know you would probably make an effort and promise, or swear to do even, what I am asking of you here, impossible though it may seem; but I have to say that I should not believe any empty words. I could only be persuaded by your conduct as a whole.
That is still not all, for I should be capricious. This sacrifice of little Cécile that you offer me so readily, I should not care about in the least. On the contrary, I should ask you to continue with this painful duty until further notice. Perhaps because I like to abuse my power in this way or perhaps out of indulgence or fairness towards you, I should be quite satisfied with dictating your feelings without wishing to spoil your pleasures. Whatever the case, I should wish to be obeyed. And my orders would be very strict!
It is true that then I should feel obliged to thank you. And who knows? Perhaps even to reward you. For example, I should certainly cut short an absence that I found intolerable. I should see you again at last, Vicomte, and I should see you…how?…But remember that this is only a conversation, a simple account of an impossible scheme, and I don’t wish to be the only one to forget about it.
Do you know I am a little anxious about my lawsuit? Well anyway, I finally tried to find out what my resources were. My lawyers, of course, cite different laws, and a great many authorities, as they call them. But I do not see much reason or justice in them. I am almost at the point of being sorry I refused the settlement out of court. However, I find it reassuring that the prosecutor is clever, the lawyer eloquent and the plaintiff pretty. If these three qualifications were no longer worth anything, the whole legal procedure would have to be changed, and then, what would become of respect for the old traditions?
This lawsuit is at the moment the only thing that keeps me here. The Belleroche business is over. Case dismissed, costs divided. At the moment he is regretting tonight’s ball, truly the regret of someone with time on his hands! I shall give him back his complete liberty when I get back to town. I shall make this painful sacrifice and take comfort in the knowledge that he will think it generous.
Farewell, Vicomte, write to me often. The detailing of your pleasures will make up, at least in part, for the boredom I have to suffer.
From the Chateau de —, 11 November 17**
LETTER 135
The Présidente de Tourvel to Madame de Rosemonde
I am trying to write to you, but do not yet know if I shall be able. Ah God, when I think that in my last letter it was my excess of happiness that prevented me from continuing! Now it is an excess of despair that is crushing me. It leaves me with enough strength to feel my sorrows, but takes away my power to express them.
Valmont…Valmont no longer loves me, he has never loved me. Love does not vanish just like that. He has deceived me, betrayed me, insulted me. I am suffering all the misfortunes and humiliations in the world, and he is the cause of them.
Do not suppose it is mere suspicion. I was so far from suspecting anything! I am not so fortunate as to be in any doubt about it. I saw him with my own eyes. What can he possibly say by way of excuse?…But he does not care! He will not even try…Ah, you unhappy creature! What difference will your reproaches and tears make? He does not care about you!…
So it is true that he has sacrificed me, delivered me up, even…And to whom?…A vile creature. But what am I saying? Oh, I have lost even the right to despise her. She has betrayed fewer duties, she is less to blame than I. Oh, how painful suffering is when it is caused by remorse! I feel my torments multiply. Farewell, my dear friend; however unworthy I have made myself of your compassion, you will still feel some for me if you can imagine what I am going through.
I have just reread my letter, and perceive I have told you nothing. So I shall try to find the courage to tell you this terrible story. It was yesterday. For the first time since my return I was to have gone out to supper. Valmont came to see me at five; never had he seemed so amorous. He gave me to understand that he would prefer me not to go out and, as you can guess, I quickly decided to stay at home instead. However, two hours later all of a sudden his attitude and voice changed noticeably. I don’t know if I let fall something that displeased him but, whatever the case, a short time later he pretended to remember some business which obliged him to leave me, and off he went. But not before expressing very strong regrets which seemed tender and that I believed at the time to be sincere.
Left to myself, I judged it more seemly not to neglect my previous engagement, since I was free to fulfil it. I finished my toilette and got into my carriage. Unfortunately my coachman took me by way of the Opera and I found I was caught up in the crowds at the exit. Four paces in front of me and in the queue next to mine I saw Valmont’s carriage. Immediately my heart started to beat fast, but not with fear; the only desire in my head was that my carriage should move forward. Instead of that it was his that was obliged to draw back next to mine. I immediately leaned forward. How astonished I was to find there was a girl at his side, and a notorious one at that! I withdrew, as you may imagine. This was quite enough to break my heart. But what you will scarcely believe is that this same girl, who had apparently an odious knowledge of who I am, did not leave the carriage window, nor stop staring at me, and was attracting everyone’s attention by laughing quite openly.
Though totally devastated by this, I none the less allowed myself to be driven to the house where I was to sup. But I found it impossible to stay. I was ready to swoon at any moment, and worst of all I could not prevent myself weeping.
When I got home I wrote to Monsieur de Valmont, and sent the letter without delay. He was not at home. Wishing at whatever price to escape from this living death, or have it confirmed once and for all, I sent the letter back with orders to await his return. But before midnight my servant returned telling me that the coachman had come back and said that his master was not coming home that night. I thought this morning the only thing to do was ask him for my letters back and beg him not to see me any more. In fact, I gave my orders accordingly, but no doubt they were futile. It is almost midday. He has not reappeared and I have not received one word from him.
Now, my dear friend, I have nothing more to add. You know everything and you know my heart. My only hope is that I shall not have to be a burden upon your kind friendship much longer.
Paris, 15 November 17**
LETTER 136
The Présidente de Tourvel to the Vicomte de Valmont
No doubt after what took place yesterday, Monsieur, you will no longer expect to be received in my house, and no doubt you do not at all desire it! The purpose of this note therefore is not so much to beg you not to come here any more as to ask you to return letters which should never have been written; letters which, though they may have been of interest to you for a short while as proof of the infatuation you occasioned, can only be a matter of indifference to you now that this has vanished, and express only feelings which you have destroyed.
I recognize and admit that I was wrong to place in you a trust of which so many others before me have been victims. I blame only myself. But I did not think, all the same, that I deserved to be delivered up by you to scorn and insult. I believed that in sacrificing everything to you, and giving up for your sake the right to others’ esteem as well as to my own, I need
not, however, expect to be judged by you more severely than by the public, in whose opinion there still exists a huge distinction between a weak woman and a depraved. These wrongs, which anyone would complain of, are the only ones I shall mention. I shall say nothing about the wrongs of love; you would not understand. Farewell, Monsieur.
Paris, 15 November 17**
LETTER 137
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Présidente de Tourvel
I have only just received your letter, Madame. I trembled when I read it and I scarcely have the strength to reply. What a dreadful opinion you must have of me! Ah! No doubt I have done wrong, and my wrongs are such that I shall never forgive myself even though you draw a veil over them with your kindness. But how far I am from committing those you blame me for! Who, me? Humiliate you! Debase you! When I respect you as much as I cherish you. When I have known no pride save what I felt from the moment when you judged me worthy of you. Appearances are deceptive, and I confess they must have been against me. But did you not then have the necessary strength in your heart to combat them? Did your heart not revolt at the very idea that you might have been treated badly by me? And yet you did think that! So not only did you think I was capable of this terrible folly, but you even feared you had exposed yourself to it through your kindness to me. Ah, if you feel yourself to be degraded to that extent by your love, what a base creature I must myself be in your eyes!
Oppressed by the painful feelings this thought is causing me, I am wasting time refuting it that I should spend destroying it. I shall confess everything. Another consideration still is holding me back. Must I then recall an incident I wish to erase from my memory, must I fix your attention and my own on a moment’s transgression which I wish to redeem with the rest of my life, of which I still have to ascertain the reason, and whose memory must bring about my everlasting humiliation and despair? Ah! If in blaming myself I am provoking your anger, you will not have to go very far in seeking your revenge. You have only to leave me to my remorse.
But who would believe it? This event has as its prime cause the all-powerful charm you exert over me. It was this that made me forget for so long the important business which could not be postponed. I left you too late and the person I was looking for was no longer there. I hoped to meet this person at the Opera, but that was an equally fruitless quest; and there I found Émilie, whom I had met at a time when I was very far from knowing you or your love. Émilie did not have her carriage and asked me to drop her at her house a short distance away. I saw no reason not to do so and consented. But it was then that I met you. And I realized straight away that you would be bound to believe I was guilty.
The fear of displeasing you or causing you pain is so strong in me that it had to be, and soon was, in fact, noticed. I even admit it made me try to make the girl promise not to show herself. This delicate precaution, however, worked to the disadvantage of my love. Accustomed, like all women of her class, to being uncertain about the power she has usurped unless she can somehow abuse it, Émilie was careful not to allow such a golden opportunity to pass her by. The more she saw my embarrassment grow, the more delight she took in flaunting herself; and her stupid laughter, which I blush to think you could have supposed was aimed at you, was only caused by my extreme discomfiture, itself the consequence of my respect and my love for you.
Until then, no doubt, I was more unfortunate than blameworthy. And these wrongdoings which anyone would complain of, the only ones you mention, since they do not exist, cannot be held against me. But it is useless for you to keep silent about injuries to your love for me. There I shall not keep the same silence, for too great an interest will oblige me to break it.
It is not that in the embarrassment I feel about this inconceivable aberration I can, without extreme pain, bring myself to recall what happened. Overwhelmed by my wrongdoing, I should be willing to bear the pain, or hope, with the passage of time, by my undying love and repentance, to bring about my forgiveness. But how can I be silent when what remains to be said is of so much concern to your delicacy?
Do not imagine I am searching for excuses or trying to extenuate my faults. I admit I am to blame. But I do not and never shall admit that this humiliating mistake could be regarded as a crime against love. What can there be in common between one moment of self-forgetfulness, followed by shame and regret, and a pure sentiment which can only take root in a delicate soul, which is nourished by respect and of which happiness is the ultimate reward? Ah, do not debase love in this way. And especially, beware of debasing yourself by speaking of what can never be compared in the same breath. Leave vile and degraded women to fear a rivalry they feel is becoming established in spite of what they may do, and let them experience the torments of a jealousy which is as cruel as it is humiliating. But you must turn away your eyes from these things which would offend your sight and, pure as the Virgin, punish the offence as She does, without resenting it.
But what punishment will you impose upon me that could be more painful than the one I already feel? What could compare with the sorrow of having displeased you, with the despair of having grieved you, or with the unbearable thought that I have made myself less worthy of you? You think of punishing me while I am asking for consolation! Not that I deserve it, but because it is necessary to me, and it can come from you alone.
If you suddenly, forgetting my love and yours, and no longer setting any value on my happiness, wish to deliver me up to eternal pain, you have every right. Strike that blow. But if, with more kindness or compassion, you still recall those loving feelings which made our hearts beat as one, this voluptuousness of the soul ever reborn and ever more deeply felt, those sweet and blessed days which each owed to the other; all those blessings that love and only love procures, perhaps you would exercise your power in reviving rather than destroying them. What else can I say? I have lost everything and it is all my fault; but I may recover everything through your goodness. It is for you to decide now. I shall add only one thing. Only yesterday you assured me that my happiness was safe as long as it depended on you! Ah, Madame, will you deliver me up today to eternal despair?
Paris, 15 November 17**
LETTER 138
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil
I insist, my love, I am not in love with her. And it is not my fault if circumstances force me to play the part. Only consent and come back. You will see yourself how sincere I am. I proved it yesterday and that cannot be disproved by what is happening today.
I was at the tender prude’s, for lack of anything else to do: for the little Volanges girl, in spite of her condition, had to spend the whole night at Madame V—’s, who was giving an early ball. At first I wanted to make the evening last longer, and I had even demanded a small sacrifice in this regard. But scarcely was it granted when the pleasure I was promising myself was troubled by the thought of this love that you insist on believing I have, or at least that you blame me for. My only wish was to be able to reassure myself and convince you that it was pure slander on your part.
So I took a swift decision. On a rather slight pretext I left my lady there, surprised and undoubtedly even more hurt, while I went calmly off to join Émilie at the Opera. And she could confirm that, until this morning when we separated, not the slightest regret came to spoil our pleasure.
I should have had rather a lot to worry about, except that I was saved by my total nonchalance. For I was scarcely four houses away from the Opera with Émilie in my carriage when the austere devotee’s carriage drew up right beside us, and because of a traffic obstruction we were right next to each other for between five and ten minutes. We could see each other as plainly as daylight, and there was no escape.
But that was not all. I took it into my head to confide to Émilie that it was the woman of the letter. (Perhaps you will remember that amusing little episode, and that Émilie was the desk!)* Émilie, who enjoys a laugh, had not forgotten, and was not satisfied until she had had a good look at Lady Virtue, as she called h
er, with scandalous peals of laughter which made the latter take great umbrage.
And that is not all. For did the jealous creature not send me word that very evening? I was not there, but she insisted upon sending again with orders to wait for an answer. As soon as I had decided to stay with Émilie, I sent my coach home, ordering the coachman only to return for me next morning. And when he arrived at my house and found Cupid waiting, he thought the simplest thing was to say that I was not coming back that night. You can well imagine the effect of this piece of news. When I got home I found I had been given my marching orders with all the dignity required in the circumstances!
So this affair, which you think so interminable, might have been over by this morning, as you can see. That it is not is not because, as you will suppose, I attach any importance to its continuing, but because, on the one hand, I do not find it seemly to allow myself to be dismissed in this fashion, and on the other, because I wished to reserve for you the honour of this sacrifice.
So I answered her severe note with a long and sentimental epistle about my feelings. I went into the reasons in great detail, emphasizing my love, careful to make them convincing. I have already succeeded. I have just received another note, still very severe and confirming the eternal rupture, as was inevitable. But the tone is not the same. She does not wish to see me again on any account. This decision is announced four times in the most irrevocable manner. So I have concluded that there is not a moment to lose before I go and see her. I have already sent my valet to contact the porter. And in a moment I shall go myself to have my pardon signed. For with sins of this sort there is only one formula that confers total absolution, and that can only take place when one is there in person.
Dangerous Liaisons Page 37
