P.S. By the way, I was forgetting ... one word more. Look to it that you cultivate your style more. You write always like a child. I quite see whence it arises; it is because you say all that you think, and no whit of what you do not think. That may pass between you and me, who have nothing to hide from one another: but with everybody! With your lover above all! You would always have the air of a little fool. You must remember that, when you write to anyone, it is for him and not for yourself: you must, therefore, think less of telling him what you think than what will give him most pleasure.
Adieu, sweetheart: I kiss you instead of scolding you, in the hope that you will become more reasonable.
Paris, 4th October, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND SIXTH
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
Amazing, Vicomte, and this time I love you furiously! For the rest, after the first of your two letters, I could expect the second: thus it did not astonish me; and whilst, proud already of your success to come, you were soliciting its reward, and asking me if I were ready, I saw clearly that I had no such need for haste. Yes, upon my honour; reading the beautiful account of that tender scene, which had moved you so deeply, observing your restraint, worthy of the fairest days of our chivalry, I said to myself a score of times: The affair has failed!
But that is because it could not befall otherwise. What do you expect a poor woman to do who surrenders, and is not taken? My faith, in such a case one must at least save one’s honour; and that is what your Présidente does. I know well that, for myself, who can perceive that the step she has taken is really not without some effect, I propose to make use of it myself on the first rather serious occasion which presents itself: but I promise you that, if he for whom I go to that trouble profits no better than you from it, he may assuredly renounce me for ever.
Here you are then, reduced, brought to impotence! And that between two women, one of whom had already crossed the Rubicon, and the other was asking nothing better than to do so. Well, well, you will think that I am boasting, and say that it is easy to prophesy after the event; but I can swear to you that I expected as much. It is because you have not really the genius of your estate; you know nothing except what you have learned, and you invent nothing. Thus, as soon as circumstances no longer lend themselves to your accustomed formulas, and you are compelled to leave the beaten road, you pull up short like a school-boy. In short, a piece of childishness on the one side, a return of prudery on the other, are enough to disconcert you, because you do not meet with them every day; and you know not how either to prevent or remedy them. Ah, Vicomte, Vicomte, you teach me not to judge men by their successes; and soon we shall have to say of you: On such and such a day, he was brave! And when you have committed follies after follies, you come running to me! It seems that I have nothing else to do but to repair them. It is true, that there would be work enough there.
Whatever may be the state of these two adventures, one was undertaken against my will, and I will not meddle in it; for the other, as you have brought some complaisance for me to bear upon it, I make it my business. The letter which I enclose, which you will read first and then give to the little Volanges, is more than sufficient to bring her back to you: but, I beg you, give some attention to this child, and let us make her, in concert, the despair of her mother and of Gercourt. You need not fear to increase the doses. I see clearly that the little person will not take alarm; and, our views upon her once fulfilled, she may become what she will.
I am entirely without interest on her account. I had had some desire to make of her, at least, a subaltern in intrigue, and to take her to play understudies to me: but I see that she has not the stuff in her; she has a foolish ingenuousness, which has not even yielded to the specific you have employed, though it be one which rarely fails; and it is, according to me, the most dangerous disease a woman can have. It denotes, above all, a weakness of character almost always incurable, and opposed to everything; in such wise that, whilst we busied ourselves in forming this little girl for intrigue, we should have made nothing of her but a facile woman. Now I know nothing so insipid as that idiotic facility, which surrenders without knowing how or why, solely because it is attacked and knows not how to resist. This kind of woman is absolutely nothing than a pleasure machine.
You will tell me that this is all there is to do, and that it is enough for our plans. Well and good! But do not let us forget that, with that kind of machine, everybody soon attains to a knowledge of the springs and motors; in order therefore to employ this one without danger, one must hasten, stop at the right moment and break it afterwards. In truth, there will be no lack of means to disembarrass ourselves of it, and Gercourt, at any rate, will shut it up securely, when it is our pleasure. Indeed, when he can no longer doubt of his dishonour, when it is quite public and notorious, what will it matter to us if he avenges, provided that he do not console, himself? What I say of the husband, you doubtless think of the mother; thus the affair is settled.