Les Liaisons Dangereuses

by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos

  And now, my dear, let’s analyse the situation. You will feel, with me, that our scrupulous and respectable Madame de Tourvel can’t possibly grant the first of my requests and betray her friends’ trust by letting me know the names of my accusers; ergo, by making all my promises dependent on that one condition, I’m committing myself to absolutely nothing, but you will also feel that this inescapable refusal will entitle me to get everything else and that by going away I earn the right to enter, with her consent, into a regular correspondence with her. I don’t attach a great deal of importance to the interview I’m asking her for, which is really nothing but a preliminary softening-up process so that she’ll not be able to deny me others later on, when they become really necessary.

  The only thing left for me to do before leaving is to discover who are these people who are so busy damaging my reputation. I presume it’s her pettifogging husband; I hope it is: apart from the fact that a husband’s veto adds spice to one’s appetite, once my beauty agrees to write to me, I’ll be sure of having nothing further to fear from her husband as she’ll already have been obliged to deceive him. But if there happens to be a close woman friend who is in her confidence and has her knife in me, it’ll be necessary to break up their friendship. I’m pretty sure I can manage that but I do need the information.

  Yesterday I thought I was actually going to get it but that woman never behaves like other women. We were in her room when we were told that dinner was served. As she had only just finished dressing, while she was hurrying to get ready and apologizing, I noticed that she’d left her key in her secretaire and I knew she habitually left her room unlocked. This kept running through my mind over dinner and when I heard her maid come downstairs, I took a quick decision, pretended I’d got a sudden nose-bleed, left the table, and quickly made for the secretaire only to find all the drawers had been left open and there was not a document in sight. Yet at this time of year there’s no possibility of burning them. What’s she doing with the letters she receives? And what a lot she’s getting! I checked everything; nothing was locked up and I looked every where, but all I succeeded in doing was to convince myself that she must be hoarding those precious letters in the pockets of her clothes.

  How can I get at them there? Ever since yesterday I’ve been vainly trying to find a way but I’m still hoping to find some solution or other. What a pity I’m not a pickpocket! Training in that valuable art should surely form part of the education of any man keen on the fair sex. What fun it’d be to steal a rival’s letter or portrait or to abstract from a prudish woman’s pocket something that’d show her up in her true colours! But our parents have just no idea and though I myself am brimful of them, I can only recognize how clumsy I am—and with no hope of improving …

  Be that as it may, I went back to table extremely put out. However, the lovely lady mollified me somewhat by showing interest in my pretended indisposition and I availed myself of the opportunity to inform her that recently I’d been in a terribly agitated state of mind which had been seriously affecting my health. Since she’s convinced that she’s the cause of this, shouldn’t she in all conscience do something to relieve it? But though she’s very godly, she’s not very charitable; she’s unwilling to include love in her donations and that to my mind justifies me in obtaining it by stealth. But now I must go; all the while I’m chatting with you, I keep fretting over those damned letters.

  41

  Madame de Tourvel to the Vicomte de Valmont 25 August 17—

  It would seem, Monsieur de Valmont, that your conduct towards me has the sole aim of adding daily to my grievances against you. Your persistent harping on a feeling which I neither ought nor wish to hear mentioned; your ruthlessness in exploiting my good faith or my confusion in order to pass me your letters; above all, the device, which I venture to suggest was dishonest, that you employed to send me your last one, quite regardless of the possibility that my surprise could have compromised me—such behaviour clearly deserves my strong condemnation. However, rather than going over past grievances, I shall merely make one simple and fair request and if you agree to it, I am willing to let bygones be bygones.

  You yourself said that I need have no fear of being refused and though, by the odd sort of logic which seems to be one of your peculiarities, that statement was followed by the only refusal which you could make,* I’m prepared to believe that you will nevertheless stick to your word, as you formally agreed only a few days ago.

  I want you to have the kindness to go away, to leave this house where, if you stay any longer, you will be increasingly exposing me to the disapproval of a society always ready to think ill of people and which has all too often been prompted by your conduct to keep a sharp eye on any women who admit you into their company.

  I had already been warned long ago of this danger by my friends but had disregarded and even defied their views as long as your conduct towards me could persuade me that you were kind enough not to mistake me for one of that host of women, all of whom had cause for complaint against you. Now that you are treating me like them and that I can no longer close my eyes to the fact, I owe it to society, to my friends, and to myself to take the necessary action. I may add that you will gain nothing from refusing to agree to my request since, should you persist in staying on, I am determined to leave myself; however, as I have no desire to underrate my obligation to you if you do me this favour, I should like you to know that by forcing me to leave, you would be seriously disrupting my plans. So prove to me, Monsieur de Valmont, that, as you have so often asserted, decent women will never have reason to complain of your treatment of them; at least prove to me that when you have behaved badly towards them, you are prepared to make amends.

  If I thought my request required any justification, I would need only to point out that, though you have spent your life proving it necessary, had it depended on me, it would never have been made. But let us not go back over events which I prefer to forget and which would lead me to judge you harshly at a time when I am offering you the chance to earn my sincere gratitude.

  Goodbye, Monsieur; it is now your conduct which will tell me in what sense I may consider myself your very humble, etc.

  42

  The Vicomte de Valmont to Madame de Tourvel 26 August 17—

  Harsh though your conditions may be, Madame, I cannot refuse to accept them. I feel it impossible to oppose any wish of yours. Having agreed to that, I venture to hope that you will allow me, in return, to make a few requests, much easier to meet than yours, but which I want you to grant only because I am submitting to your wishes unconditionally.

  The first of these, which I hope will appeal to your sense of justice, is that you will be good enough finally to tell me the names of those who have accused me; it seems to me that the harm they are doing me is sufficient to entitle me to know who they are. The second, which I hope to receive as proof of your forgiveness, is that you be willing to allow me from time to time to express to you my love which now more than ever will deserve your pity.

  I ask you not to forget, Madame, that my eagerness to obey you comes at the cost of my happiness and even in spite of my strong belief that you want me to leave because you find the sight of the victim of your injustice too painful to bear. For you must agree, Madame, that you are not so much afraid of the opinion of society, far too accustomed to show you respect to venture to criticize you, as you are embarrassed by the presence of a man whom it is easier to punish than to condemn. You are banishing me from your sight in the same way as people turn their eyes away from any unfortunate wretch whom they do not wish to help.

  But while absence is going to add immeasurably to my misery, where else can I turn to express it but to you? From whom else but you can I hope to receive the solace I shall so desperately need? Can you refuse me this when it is you who are the sole source of my suffering?

  You will surely not be surprised, either, to know that before leaving I am anxious to justify to you in person the feelings you have ins
pired in me and that I can find the courage to leave only if I hear the order from your own lips.

  These reasons encourage me to ask you to grant me a short interview. It would be useless to hope to replace this by letters: one can write whole screeds and still not properly express what could be covered in a mere quarter of an hour’s conversation. It should not be difficult for you to find the time for our meeting since, however eager I may be to obey you, Madame de Rosemonde, as you are aware, knows that I was planning to spend part of the autumn here and I shall have to wait at least to receive a letter before being able to plead urgent business requiring me to leave.

  Farewell, Madame de Tourvel: never have I found that word so painful to write as I do at this moment: it reminds me that we must part. If you could imagine the immense grief which that causes me, I venture to think that you would feel some gratitude towards me for obeying you. May I at least hope that you will show greater understanding for my most tender and respectful love?

  I am, Madame, yours, etc.

  43

  Madame de Tourvel to the Vicomte de Valmont 27 August 17—

  Why are you doing your best to make me feel less grateful? Why are you prepared only to half-obey me and trying somehow to bargain over what is the honourable thing to do? Aren’t you satisfied merely to know how much I appreciate your action? You’re not just asking a great deal, you’re demanding something impossible. If my friends did in fact tell me about you, their only motive could have been their concern for my welfare; even if they were mistaken, their intentions were still good. And you are suggesting that I should reward them for that proof of their affection by betraying their secret! It was wrong of me to mention the matter to you in the first place and you have brought this home to me very plainly. With anyone else, it would have been seen as frankness, with you it was clearly a miscalculation. Granting your request would be grossly improper on my part. I appeal to your own sense of decency: did you imagine that I was capable of such an action? Ought you indeed ever to have suggested it to me? Certainly not, and I am sure that on reflection you will never put forward such a request again.

  Your other request, to write to me, is not much easier to agree to and in all fairness you can scarcely blame me for that. With the greatest respect, in view of your past reputation which, on your own admission, you have at least in part deserved, what woman could admit to being in correspondence with you? And what decent woman can agree to do something she would feel obliged to hide?

  And then again, if only I was able to be sure that your letters would never give cause for complaint, if only I could always feel justified, in my own eyes, in receiving them! If that were the case, perhaps my wish to prove to you that I was acting fairly and not out of hatred would allow me to disregard these powerful considerations and go far beyond what I ought to do by letting you write to me occasionally. If you in fact want this as much as you claim, you will be willing to submit to the only condition which will permit me to agree to it; so if you feel some gratitude for what I am doing for you at the moment, do not delay your departure any longer.

  And may I point out that you received a letter this morning but failed to seize that opportunity of informing Madame de Rosemonde that you were leaving, as you had promised. I hope that nothing will now stand in the way of your keeping your word. In particular, I am relying on you first of all not to delay your departure until you have had the interview with me for which you ask, since I am firmly determined not to grant it; and secondly instead of waiting for the order which you seem to feel is required, to be satisfied if I merely repeat the earnest request which I have already made.

  Goodbye, Monsieur de Valmont.

  44

  The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil 28 August 17—

  Let us rejoice together, fair lady: she loves me; I have conquered that defiant heart. Try as she may, she cannot hide the fact any longer: my brilliant skill and persistent energy have uncovered her secret and told me all I need to know. Since last night—ah, happy night!—I’ve found myself once again in my element, I’ve started living! I have unveiled a dual mystery of love and villainy: the first, I shall enjoy; the second, I shall exact retribution for; I shall flit from pleasure to pleasure! The very thought is throwing me into a rapture of delight which is making it rather hard for me to restrain myself and perhaps even to give a coherent account of all the events. Let me try nevertheless.

  Only yesterday, after writing to you, I got a letter from my pious angel which I enclose. You can see that she gives me, with the minimum embarrassment possible, permission to write to her but as she keeps urging me to leave, I felt that I couldn’t delay much longer without harming my cause.

  But I was still fretting about not knowing who could have written attacking me and wasn’t quite ready to take a final decision. I tried to persuade the maid to let me have the contents of her mistress’s pockets, which she could easily have laid hands on overnight and replaced next morning without arousing the slightest suspicion. For this piddling service I offered two hundred francs but she proved to be a prim girl, either too scrupulous or else too scared, who couldn’t be persuaded or bribed. My eloquent exhortations were cut short by the supper bell. I had to leave her, only too glad that she agreed to stay mum, which, you may imagine, I hardly dared expect. I’ve never been more annoyed in my life. I felt compromised and spent the whole evening cursing myself for my foolhardiness.

  When I went back to my room, still not easy in my mind, I had a word with my valet who, as the lucky lover, is bound to have a certain influence with the girl. I wanted him either to get her to do what I’d asked or else to make quite sure she’d keep her mouth shut. He, however, normally so self-confident, seemed doubtful of succeeding in this negotiation and made a comment which struck me as very profound.

  ‘I’m sure your lordship knows better than me,’ he said, ‘that going to bed with a girl only means getting her to do something she wants to do, but from that to getting her to do what me want is often quite another story.’

  Le bon sens du Maraud quelquefois m’épouvante.*

  ‘I’m all the more doubtful about her,’ he went on, ‘because I’ve a strong suspicion she’s got a boyfriend and that I only made her because there’s not much else to do in the country. If I hadn’t wanted to oblige your lordship, I’d’ve only had her once’ (what a gem this young fellow is!). ‘As for keeping her mouth shut,’ he added, ‘what’s the point of getting her to promise when she’s nothing to lose even if she did let us down? Mentioning it again would only make her realize its importance and make her want to suck up to her mistress even more.’

  His remarks made good sense and that increased my embarrassment. Luckily the rogue was in a chatty mood and as I needed his help, I let him go on. In the course of telling me all about his doings with the maid, he informed me that as the girl’s bedroom was separated from her mistress’s only by a thin partition and any suspicious sound could be heard next door, she spent every night in his room. I had a sudden inspiration, explained my plan to him and we’ve succeeded in carrying it out.

  I waited until two o’clock in the morning and then, as arranged, made my way, carrying a candle, to the said room, pretending that I’d rung for him several times without result. My accomplice, who acts his parts superbly, put on a little scene of surprise, dismay, and penitence which I cut short by pretending to need some hot water and sent him off to heat it up. Meanwhile, the scrupulous maid was all the more embarrassed because the rogue had improved on my scenario by getting her to strip off to a state of undress perfectly appropriate to the season but hardly justified by the weather alone.

  Feeling that the more I could humiliate her, the greater my chances of getting her to do what I wanted, I refused to let her move or cover her charms and having instructed my man to wait in my room, I sat down beside her on the bed, which was in a state of great disarray, and started my little homily while maintaining perfect control over my feelings that wouldn’t have
disgraced Scipio* himself; I needed to retain the hold over her so providentially provided by her predicament. So without taking the slightest liberty with her (something which, incidentally, her situation and youthful beauty might have led her to hope for), I got down to business with her as calmly as if I’d been talking to my attorney.

  My conditions were that I would observe complete discretion so long as she, at roughly the same time on the following day, would let me have the papers in her mistress’s pockets. ‘Moreover,’ I added, ‘yesterday I promised you ten louis and that offer still stands. I don’t want to take unfair advantage of your situation.’ As you may imagine, she agreed to everything* and I withdrew, leaving the happy couple to make up for lost time.

  I spent my time sleeping and when I woke up, as I needed some excuse for not answering my lovely lady’s letter until I’d gone through her correspondence, which I couldn’t do until the coming night, I decided to spend the whole day shooting.

  I returned to a cool reception. I get the impression that feelings had been hurt by my qualified rapture in failing to take full advantage of the short time left to me, particularly in view of the rather friendlier letter which I’d received. This impression stems from the fact that when Madame de Rosemonde gently rebuked me for staying out all day, my beauty said rather acidly: ‘Oh, we mustn’t blame Monsieur de Valmont for indulging in the only sport available to him here.’ I protested against such an unfair comment and took the opportunity of assuring the ladies that I enjoyed their company so much that I was forgoing the chance of writing a most interesting letter for their sakes. I added that having been unable to sleep for the last few nights, I wanted to see if thoroughly tiring myself out might do the trick; and my eyes explained pretty clearly both the subject of the letter and the cause of my insomnia. Throughout the evening I took care to maintain a gently melancholic mood which seemed to go down rather well and enabled me to conceal how impatiently I was waiting for the key which would at last unlock the mystery which was being so stubbornly kept from me. We broke up at last and a few moments later, true to her word, the maid brought me the price agreed to ensure my discretion.