Farewell, my charming love. I am off to try and bring about this great event with all speed.
Paris, 15 November 17**
LETTER 139
The Présidente de Tourvel to Madame de Rosemonde
How I blame myself, my friend, for writing at such length and in such haste about my ephemeral problems! I am the reason you are suffering at the moment. You are still thinking about my sorrows while I – I am happy. Yes, all is forgiven and forgotten. Let us rather say, all is mended. Calm and delight succeeded pain and anguish. Oh, the joy in my heart, how can I express it? Valmont is innocent. No one who has so much love can be worthy of blame. He was not guilty of those serious, insulting wrongs I so bitterly accused him of. And if on one single issue I needed to be understanding, did I not also have my injustices to make reparation for?
I shall not detail the facts and arguments that excuse him. Perhaps, even, they cannot be appreciated by the intellect. It is only the heart that can understand them. Yet if you were to suspect me of weakness, I should appeal to your judgement to support mine. For, as you say yourself, infidelity for men is not inconstancy.
Not that I do not feel that this distinction, vainly sanctioned by public opinion, causes any less harm to one’s finer feelings. But why should I complain when Valmont suffers even more because of it? This same wrong that I am willing to forget, do not imagine he forgives or can console himself for it. And yet, has he not mended this slight wrong many times over by his excess of love and my excess of happiness!
Either my happiness is greater than ever before or I value it more after fearing I had lost it. But what I will say to you is that if I felt the strength to bear again such cruel sorrows as I have just experienced, I should not believe I had paid too high a price for my excess of happiness since then. Oh my dear mother, scold your thoughtless daughter for hurting you by her impulsive letter. Scold her for her rash judgement, and for injuring the reputation of the man she should never have stopped loving. But while acknowledging her lack of prudence, see how happy she is, and increase her joy by sharing in it.
Paris, 16 November 17**, in the evening
LETTER 140
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil
How is it that I have not received any reply from you, my love? And yet my last letter seemed to me to deserve one. I have been expecting a reply, and should have received it three days ago! I am rather annoyed. So I shall say nothing at all about my important affairs.
As to whether the reconciliation achieved its full effect; whether in the place of blame and mistrust it produced only a new tenderness; whether it is I who am now receiving the excuses and reparations owing to me for suspicions about my honesty. No, I shall not tell you a word about this; and without the unforeseen events of last night, I should not have written at all. But as this concerns your pupil, and she probably will not be in any fit state to tell you about it herself, at least for some time to come, I shall undertake to do that.
For reasons that you may or may not guess, Madame de Tourvel has for some days been spared my attentions. And as those reasons do not apply to the little Volanges girl, I had become more assiduous in that direction.7 Thanks to the obliging porter I had no obstacle to overcome, and your pupil and I were leading a regular and comfortable life. But habit makes one careless. In the first days we could never take enough precautions. We were still trembling behind locked doors. Yesterday an unbelievable lack of vigilance caused the accident I have to tell you about. And if I for my part simply had a bit of a fright, the little girl has paid a higher price.
We were not asleep, but we were in the state of relaxation and abandon that follows pleasure when we heard the door of the room open suddenly. I immediately leaped to my sword, as much to defend myself as for the protection of our pupil. I advanced but saw nobody. But in fact the door had opened. As we had a light, I went in search of the person but found not a soul there. So I remembered we had forgotten our usual precautions. And no doubt the door had only been pushed to, or was not properly shut, and had reopened of its own accord.
As I went to calm my timid companion, I found her no longer in bed. She had fallen down, or had attempted to hide between the bed and the wall. Well, anyway, there she was stretched out unconscious and motionless apart from some rather violent convulsions. Imagine my predicament! However, I managed to get her back into her bed and even to bring her round. But she hurt herself when she fell, and the effect of this soon became obvious.
Pain in her back, violent sickness and more unequivocal symptoms soon enlightened me as to her condition. But in order to explain it to her, I had first to tell her what condition she had been in before. For she did not realize. Perhaps never before has anyone retained such innocence doing so expertly what was necessary to lose it! Oh, she is not one to waste time thinking about it!
But she was losing a lot of time grieving about it, and I sensed I must do something. I therefore agreed with her that I would go immediately to the family doctor and surgeon, and that when I warned them that they would be summoned, I would confide in them and bind them to secrecy. She for her part would call her chambermaid; she would let her into the secret or not, as she saw fit; but she would send for help, and above all give orders not to wake Madame de Volanges – the natural tact of a girl who is afraid of worrying her mother.
I did my two errands and made my two confessions as swiftly as I could, and then went back to my rooms where I have been ever since. But the surgeon, a previous acquaintance of mine, came at midday to report on the condition of the invalid. I was not mistaken, but he hopes that if all goes smoothly no one in the house will notice anything. The chambermaid is in the secret. The doctor has put a name to the malady, and this affair will sort itself out, just like a thousand others, unless we find it useful to have it talked about in future.
But tell me, do we still have any interests in common? Your silence makes me doubt it. I should not believe so at all if my desire to hear from you did not make me seek every means of retaining such a hope.
Farewell, my love. I send you my love, despite my resentment.
Paris, 21 November 17**
LETTER 141
The Marquise de Merteuil to the Vicomte de Valmont
Heavens, Vicomte, how your persistence annoys me! What does it matter to you if I write or no? Do you believe that if I am silent it is for lack of reasons to put forward in my defence? Would to God it were! But no, it is only that it would pain me to tell you of them.
Tell me truthfully, are you deluding yourself or are you trying to deceive me? The difference between what you say and what you do leaves me no choice but to believe either one or the other. Which is correct? What do you expect me to say when I myself do not know what to believe?
You seem to be congratulating yourself inordinately on your last encounter with the Présidente. But what does that prove in support of your views or against mine? I surely never told you that you loved this woman enough not to be unfaithful to her, that you would not seize every opportunity you could that seemed easy or agreeable. I did not even doubt that you would be quite happy to satisfy the desires she had aroused in you with someone else, the first one who came along. And I am not at all surprised that through mental licentiousness, which it would be wrong to deny you possess, you have done once quite deliberately what you have done a thousand times when the occasion presented itself. We all know that is the way of the world, and normal practice for all of you, from emperors to vagabonds. The man who abstains from such behaviour nowadays is taken for a romantic. And that is not, I may say, a fault I find in you.
But what I have said, thought and continue to think is that you are still in love with your Présidente. Not, indeed, that it is a very pure or tender love, but it is the kind that you are capable of. One, for example, that finds in a woman charms or qualities she does not have; one that puts her into a class of her own and ranks all others as second-rate. It keeps you hanging on to her even when you treat her
outrageously. It is how I imagine a sultan may feel for his favourite sultana; it does not prevent him from preferring a simple odalisque from time to time. My comparison seems to me all the more exact since, like him, you are never the lover or friend of a woman, but always her tyrant or slave. So I am positive you must have humiliated and debased yourself to a degree to have become reconciled with this beautiful creature! And only too happy to have achieved this, as soon as you believed the time was ripe to obtain your forgiveness you left me for this great challenge.
Even in your last letter if you did not speak exclusively about this woman it is because you wish to conceal your important affairs from me. They seem to you so important that you think this silence is a punishment for me. And it is after these thousand proofs of your decided preference for another woman that you have the nerve to ask me whether we still have any interests in common! Take care, Vicomte! If I give you an answer, it will be irrevocable. And I may say that I am rather inclined to do so at this very moment. Have I said too much already? I do not wish to hear any more about it.
All I can do is recount a story to you. Perhaps you will not have time to read it or give it enough of your attention to understand it aright? Up to you. It will only be, at worst, a good story gone to waste.
A man of my acquaintance had, like you, become embroiled with a woman who did not greatly add to his reputation. At intervals he had enough sense to realize that sooner or later this affair would do him no good. But although he was ashamed of it, he did not have the courage to break it off. He was all the more embarrassed for having boasted to his friends that he was completely at liberty. And he was well aware that the more he defended himself, the more ridiculous he appeared. He thus spent his time doing stupid things and always saying afterwards: ‘It is not my fault.’ This man had a woman friend who was briefly tempted to expose his infatuation to the public gaze and thus permanently make him an object of ridicule. But being more generous than malicious, or again perhaps for some other reason, she wanted to try one last stratagem, so that in any event she would be in a position to say, like him: ‘It is not my fault.’ So, without further comment, she sent him the following letter as a remedy he might find useful for his ills.
‘One tires of everything, my angel; it is a law of nature. It is not my fault.
‘So if today I am tired of an affair which has preoccupied me totally for the last four boring months, it is not my fault.
‘If, for example, my love was equal to your virtue,8 which is certainly saying a lot, it is not surprising that the one has ended at exactly the same time as the other. It is not my fault.
‘It follows that I have been unfaithful to you for a while now. But to some degree your relentless tenderness has forced me into it! It is not my fault!
‘Today a woman I am madly in love with demands that I give you up for her sake. It is not my fault.
‘I realize this is the perfect opportunity for you to accuse me of perjury. But if, where Nature has granted men only constancy she has granted women perseverance, it is not my fault.
‘Believe me, and take another lover as I have another mistress. This advice is sound, very sound. If you find it bad, that is not my fault.
‘Farewell, my angel. I took you with pleasure, I leave you without regrets. I shall perhaps come back to you. That is the way of the world. It is not my fault.’
It is not yet time, Vicomte, to tell you about the effect of this last attempt and what ensued. But I promise to tell you about it in my next letter. You will also find there my ultimatum on the renewal of the treaty you are proposing to me. Until then, farewell only…
By the way, thank you for your details about the little Volanges girl. It is an article we should reserve for the day after the wedding, for the Gossips’ Gazette. In the meantime I send you my condolences on the loss of your posterity. Good night, Vicomte.
From the Chateau de —, 24 November 17**
LETTER 142
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil
My dearest love,
I do not know whether I have read you aright or whether I have misunderstood either your letter and the story you relate or the model letter it contained. What I can tell you is that the latter seemed to me witty and likely to produce an effect. So I simply copied it out and just as simply sent it to the heavenly Présidente. I did not waste a moment, for the tender missive was already expedited last night. I preferred it this way because in the first place I had promised to write to her yesterday; and then too because I thought the whole night would not be long enough for her to gather her thoughts and ponder this great event, if you will forgive me using the expression a second time.
I was hoping to be in a position to send you my beloved’s reply this morning. But it is almost midday and I have received nothing yet. I will wait until five. And if I do not have any news by then, I shall go and find out myself. For especially when it comes to a challenge it is only the first step that is hard.
At present, as you can imagine, I am most anxious to learn the end of the story about this man of your acquaintance, so strongly suspected of not knowing how to give up a woman if necessary. Does he not mend his ways? And does his generous friend not forgive him?
I desire just as ardently to receive your ultimatum, as you so formally call it! I am especially curious to know if you will still attribute my recent action to love. Ah, no doubt there is love, a lot of love! But for whom? However, I am not making any claims, but expecting everything from your generosity.
Farewell, my charming friend. I shall only close this letter at two, in the hope of being able to include the desired reply.
At two o’clock in the afternoon
Still nothing. Time is running out and I can write no more. But will you still refuse me love’s most tender kisses?
Paris, 27 November 17**
LETTER 143
The Présidente de Tourvel to Madame de Rosemonde
The veil is torn, Madame, on which was painted the illusion of my happiness!9 The terrible truth has opened my eyes, and revealed only the path to a certain and early death, marked out by shame and remorse. I shall follow it…I shall cherish my torments if they cut short my life. I shall send you the letter I received yesterday. I shall not add any comment for it is clear enough on its own. This is no longer a time of complaint, but only of suffering. It is not pity I need, but strength.
Please receive my adieus, Madame, the last I shall make, and hear my last prayer; which is to leave me to my fate, forget me utterly and no longer count me among the living. There is a stage in misfortune when even friendship increases our suffering and cannot cure it. When the wound is mortal, all help becomes inhumane. All other feeling but despair is strange to me. All I wish for now is darkest night in which to bury my shame. There I shall weep for my errors – if I can still weep! For since yesterday I have not shed a tear. They no longer flow from my stricken heart.
Farewell, Madame. Do not send a reply. I have sworn upon this cruel letter never to receive another.
Paris, 27 November 17**
LETTER 144
The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil
Yesterday at three o’clock in the afternoon, my love, impatient with lack of news, I went to the house of the forsaken beauty. They told me she had gone out. I understood from this expression that she was refusing to see me, but this occasioned in me neither surprise nor annoyance. And I withdrew in the hope that this action would at least compel such a polite lady to honour me with a note in reply. My desire to receive such a reply made me go home on purpose towards nine o’clock, but there was nothing. Astonished by this unexpected silence, I ordered my valet to go and make enquiries as to whether the sensitive girl was dead or dying. Well, when I got back he told me that Madame de Tourvel had in fact gone out at eleven in the morning with her maid. She had driven to the convent of —, and at seven she had sent away her carriage and her servants with a message that she was not to be expected hom
e. That woman does everything according to the rules! The convent is the proper refuge for widows. And if she persists in such praiseworthy resolutions, I shall have to add, to all the obligations I already have towards her, the fame that this affair will attract.
As I told you some time ago, I shall reappear in society, despite your worries, shining with renewed brilliance. Let them show themselves, these severe critics who accused me of a romantic and unhappy love affair. Let them break off their own affairs in such a prompt and dazzling fashion. No, better than that, let them come and offer consolation; the way ahead is clear. Well then, let them just attempt the route that I have travelled entirely, and if one of them obtains the slightest success I shall yield pride of place to him. But they will all see that when I put myself to some trouble, the impression I leave is ineradicable. Ah, this time it certainly will be. And I shall count for nothing all my other triumphs if this woman were ever to prefer a rival to me.
This decision she has taken flatters my self-esteem, I must say. But I am angry that she has found the strength to disengage herself to this extent from me. So there will be obstacles other than the ones I have myself placed between us! So if I wished to return to her it is then possible she would no longer want me? What am I saying? Not to wish it, not to make that her supreme happiness! Is that how one loves? And do you believe, my love, that I should put up with that? Might I not be able, for example, and would it not be better, to try to bring this woman to the point where she can see the possibility of reconciliation, a thing one always desires as long as there is some hope left? I might try this course of action without attaching too much importance to it, and consequently without giving you any offence. On the contrary, it would be a simple experiment for us to make together; and were I to succeed, it would just be one more way of renewing, if you wished it, a sacrifice which has been, I think, agreeable to you. At present, my love, I am still waiting for my reward, and all I wish for is your return. So come with all speed and seek out your lover, your friends, your pleasures, back in the swing of things once more.
Dangerous Liaisons Page 38
