The friend who serves you knows that you have no writing materials, and he has already provided for this want. You will find in the ante-room of the apartment you occupy, beneath the great press, on the left-hand side, a supply of pens, ink, and paper, which he will renew when you require it, and which, so it seems to him, you can leave in the same place, if you do not find a surer one.
He asks you not to be offended with him, if he seems to pay no attention to you in public, and only to regard you as a child. This behaviour seems to him necessary, in order to inspire the sense of security of which he has need, and to enable him to work more effectively for his friend’s happiness and your own. He will try to find occasions for speaking with you, when he has anything to tell you or give to you; and he hopes to succeed, if you show any zeal to second him.
He also advises you to return to him, successively, the letters which you may have received, in order that there may be less risk of your compromising yourself.
He concludes by assuring you that, if you will give him your confidence, he will take every care to alleviate the persecution that a too harsh mother is using against two persons of whom one is already his best friend, whilst the other seems to him worthy of the most tender interest.
At the Château de ..., 14th September, 17**.
LETTER THE SEVENTY-FOURTH
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
Ah, since when, my friend, do you take alarm so easily? Is this Prévan so very formidable then? But see how simple and modest am I! I have often met him, this haughty conqueror; I hardly looked at him! It required nothing less than your letter to excite that amount of attention from me. I repaired my injustice yesterday. He was at the Opera, almost exactly opposite me, and I took stock of him. He is handsome at any rate, yes, very handsome: fine and delicate features! He must gain by being seen close at hand. And you tell me he wants to have me! Assuredly it will be my honour and pleasure. Seriously, I have a fancy for it, and I now confide to you that I have taken the first steps. I do not know if they will succeed. Thus the matter stands.
He was not two paces off from me, as we came out from the Opera, and I, very loudly, made an appointment with the Marquise de *** to sup on Friday with the Maréchale. It is, I think, the only house where I can meet him. I have no doubt that he heard me.... If the ungrateful fellow were not to come! But tell me, do you think he will come? Do you know that, if he were not to come, I should be in a bad humour all the evening? You see that he will not find so much difficulty in following me; what will more astonish you is that he will have still less in pleasing me. He would, he said, kill six horses in paying his court to me! Oh, I will save those horses’ lives! I shall never have the patience to wait so long a time. You know it is not one of my principles to leave people languishing, when once I am decided; and I am for him.
Please now confess that there is some pleasure in talking reason to me! Has not your important warning been a great success? But what would you have? I have been vegetating for so long! It is more than six weeks since I permitted myself a diversion. This one presents itself; can I refuse myself it? Is not the object worth the trouble? Is there any more agreeable, in whatever sense you take the word?
You yourself are forced to do him justice; you do more than praise him, you are jealous of him. Ah, well! I will not set up as judge between the two of you; but, to begin with, one should investigate, and that is what I want to do. I shall be an impartial judge, and you shall both be weighed in the same balance. As for you, I already have your papers, and your affair is thoroughly enquired into. Is it not only just that I should now occupy myself with your adversary? Come now, yield with a good grace; and as a commencement, let me hear, I beg you, what is this triple adventure of which he is the hero. You speak of it to me as though I knew of nothing else, and I do not know the first word of it. Apparently, it must have occurred during my expedition to Geneva, and your jealousy prevented you from writing to me about it. Repair this fault at the earliest possible; remember that nothing which interests him is alien to me. I certainly think that they were still talking of it when I returned; but I was otherwise occupied, and I rarely listen to anything of that sort which is not the affair of to-day or of yesterday.