You ask me what I am doing; I love you and I weep. My mother no longer speaks to me; she has taken pens, ink, and paper away from me; I am making use of a pencil which has happily been left to me, and I am writing on a fragment of your letter. I needs must approve all you have done; I love you too well not to take every means of having news of you and of giving you my own. I did not like M. de Valmont, and I did not know he was so great a friend of yours; I will try to get used to him, and I will love him for your sake. I do not know who it is that has betrayed us; it can only be my waiting-maid or my confessor. I am very miserable: we are going to the country to-morrow; I do not know for how long. My God! to see you no more! I have no more room: adieu, try to read me. These words traced in pencil will perhaps be effaced, but never the sentiments engraved on my heart.
Paris, 10th September, 17**.
LETTER THE SEVENTIETH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL
I have an important warning to give you, my dear friend. As you know, I supped yesterday with the Maréchale de ***: you were spoken of, and I said, not all the good which I think, but all that which I do not think. Everyone appeared to be of my opinion, and the conversation languished, as ever happens when one says only good of one’s neighbour, when a voice was raised in contradiction: it was Prévan’s.
“Heaven forbid,” he said, rising, “that I should doubt the virtue of Madame de Merteuil! But I would dare believe that she owes it more to her lightness of character than to her principles. It is perhaps more difficult to follow her than to please her; and, as one rarely fails, when one runs after a woman, to meet others on the way; as, after all, these others may be as good as she is, or better; some are distracted by a fresh fancy, others stop short from lassitude; and she is, perhaps, the woman in all Paris who has had least cause to defend herself. As for me,” he added, encouraged by the smile of some of the women, “I shall not believe in Madame de Merteuil’s virtue, until I have killed six horses in paying my court to her.”
This ill-natured joke succeeded, as do all those which savour of scandal; and, during the laugh which it excited, Prévan resumed his place, and the general conversation changed. But the two Comtesses de B***, by the side of whom our sceptic sat, had a private conversation with him, which luckily I was in a position to overhear.
The challenge to render you susceptible was accepted; word was pledged that everything was to be told: and of all the pledges that might be given in this adventure, this one should assuredly be the most religiously kept. But there you are, forewarned, and you know the proverb.
It remains for me to tell you that this Prévan, whom you do not know, is infinitely amiable, and even more adroit. If you have sometimes heard me declare the contrary, it is only that I do not like him, that it is my pleasure to thwart his success, and that I am not ignorant of the weight of my suffrage with thirty or so of our most fashionable women. In fact, I prevented him for long, by this means, from appearing on what we call the great scene; and he did prodigies, without for that winning any more reputation. But the fame of his triple adventure, by turning people’s eyes on him, gave him that confidence which hitherto he had lacked, and which has rendered him really formidable. He is, in short, to-day perhaps the only man whom I should fear to meet in my path; and, apart from your own interest, you will be rendering me a real service by making him appear ridiculous by the way. I leave him in good hands, and I cherish the hope that, on my return, he will be a ruined man.
I promise, in revenge, to carry through the adventure of your pupil, and to concern myself as much with her as with my fair prude.
The latter has just sent me a letter of capitulation. The whole letter announces her desire to be deceived. It is impossible to suggest a method more time-worn or more easy. She wishes me to become her friend. But I, who love new and difficult methods, do not mean to cry quits with her so cheaply; and I most certainly should not have been at such pains with her, to conclude with an ordinary seduction.