The only thing which remains for me to do before my departure is to find out who are the people who busy themselves with damaging me in her eyes. I presume it is her pedant of a husband; I would fain have it so: apart from the fact that a conjugal prohibition is a spur to desire, I should feel sure that, from the moment my beauty has consented to write to me, I should have nothing to fear from her husband, since she would already be under the necessity of deceiving him.
But if she has a friend intimate enough to possess her confidence, and this friend be against me, it seems to me necessary to embroil them, and I count on succeeding in that: but before all I must be rightly informed.
I quite thought that I was going to be yesterday; but this woman does nothing like another. We were visiting her at the moment when it was announced that dinner was ready. Her toilette was only just completed; and while I bestirred myself and made my apologies, I perceived that she had left the key in her writing-desk; and I knew her custom was not to remove that of her apartment. I was thinking of this during dinner, when I heard her waiting-maid come down: I seized my chance at once; I pretended that my nose was bleeding, and left the room. I flew to the desk; but I found all the drawers open and not a sheet of writing. Yet one has no opportunity of burning papers at this season. What does she do with the letters she receives? And she receives them often. I neglected nothing; everything was open, and I sought everywhere; but I gained nothing except a conviction that this precious store-house must be her pocket.
How to obtain them? Ever since yesterday I have been busying myself vainly in seeking for a means: yet I cannot overcome the desire. I regret that I have not the talents of a thief. Should these not, in fact, enter into the education of a man who is mixed up in intrigues? Would it not be agreeable to filch the letter or the portrait of a rival, or to pick from the pockets of a prude the wherewithal to unmask her? But our parents have no thought for anything; and for me, ’tis all very well to think of everything, I do but perceive that I am clumsy, without being able to remedy it.
However that may be, I returned to table much dissatisfied. My beauty, however, soothed my ill-humour somewhat, with the air of interest which my pretended indisposition gave her; and I did not fail to assure her that for some time past I had had violent agitations which had disturbed my health. Convinced as she is that it is she who causes them, ought she not, in all conscience, to endeavour to assuage them? But dévote though she be, she has small stock of charity; she refuses all amorous alms, and such a refusal, to my view, justifies a theft. But adieu; for all the time I talk to you, I am thinking of those cursed letters.
At the Château de ..., 27th August, 17**.
LETTER THE FORTY-THIRD
THE PRÉSIDENTE DE TOURVEL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
Why seek, Monsieur, to diminish my gratitude? Why be willing to give me but a half-obedience, and make, as it were, a bargain of an honourable action? Is it not sufficient for you then that I feel the cost of it? You not only ask much, but you ask things which are impossible. If, in truth, my friends have spoken to me of you, they have only done it in my interest: even if they have been deceived, their intention was none the less good; and you propose to me to reward this mark of attachment on their part by delivering you their secret! I have already done wrong in speaking to you of it, and you make me very conscious of that at this moment. What would have been no more than candour with another becomes a blunder with you, and would lead me to an ignominy did I yield to you. I appeal to yourself, to your honour; did you think me capable of such a proceeding? Ought you to have suggested it to me? No, without a doubt; and I am sure that, on further reflexion, you will not repeat this request.
That which you make as to writing to me is scarcely easier to grant; and, if you care to be just, it is not me whom you will blame. I do not wish to offend you; but, with the reputation which you have acquired, and which, by your own confession, is at least in part deserved, what woman could own to be in correspondence with you? and what virtuous woman may determine to do something which she feels she will be obliged to conceal?
Again, if I were assured that your letters would be of a kind of which I need never have to complain, so that I could always justify myself in my own eyes for having received them! Perhaps then the desire of proving to you that it is reason and not hate which sways me would induce me to waive those powerful considerations, and to do much more than I ought, in allowing you sometimes to write to me. If indeed you desire to do so as much as you say, you will voluntarily submit to the one condition which could make me consent; and if you have any gratitude for what I am now doing for you, you will not defer your departure.