Adieu, my dearest fair; I am always your very good friend, your mamma, your sister even, did my great age permit that title. In short, I am attached to you by all the most affectionate sentiments.
Signed: Adelaide, for Madame de Rosemonde.
At the Château de ..., 14th October, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH
THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL TO THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT
I think I ought to warn you, Vicomte, that they are beginning to busy themselves with you in Paris; your absence is remarked there, and they are already divining the cause. I was yesterday at a very numerous supper; it was said positively that you were retained in the country by an unhappy and romantic love: joy was immediately depicted on the faces of all those envious of your success, and of all the women whom you have neglected. If you are advised by me, you will not let these dangerous rumours acquire credit, but will come at once to destroy them by your presence.
Remember that, if you once allow the idea that you are irresistible to be lost, you will soon find that it will, as a matter of fact, become easier to resist you; that your rivals, too, will lose their respect for you, and dare to combat you: for which of them does not believe himself stronger than virtue? Reflect above all that, in the multitude of women whom you have advertised, all those whom you have not had will endeavour to undeceive the public, whilst the others will exert themselves to hoodwink it. In short, you must expect to be appreciated, perhaps, as much below your value, as you have been, hitherto, beyond it.
Come back, then, Vicomte, and do not sacrifice your reputation to a puerile caprice. You have done all we wished with the little Volanges; and as for your Présidente, it is not, apparently, by remaining ten leagues away from her, that you will get over your fantasy. Do you think she will come to fetch you? Perhaps she has already ceased to dream of you, or is only so far occupied with you as to congratulate herself on having humiliated you. At any rate, here you will be able to find some opportunity of a brilliant reappearance: and you have need of one; and even if you insist on your ridiculous adventure, I do not see how your return can hurt it ... on the contrary.
In effect, if your Présidente adores you, as you have so often told me and said so little to prove, her sole consolation, her sole pleasure now, must be to talk of you, and to know what you are doing, what you are saying, what you are thinking, even the slightest detail which concerns you. These trifles increase in value according to the extent of the privations one endures. They are the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table: he disdains them; but the poor man collects them greedily. Now the poor Présidente gathers up all these crumbs at present; and the more she has, the less will be her haste to abandon herself to her appetite for the rest.
Moreover, since you know her confidant, you cannot doubt but that each of her letters contains at least one little sermon, and all that she thinks befitting “to corroborate her prudence and fortify her virtue.”[9] Why, then, leave to the one resources to defend herself, to the other the means of injuring you?
It is not that I am at all of your opinion as to the loss you believe you have sustained by the change of confidant. In the first place, Madame de Volanges hates you, and hatred is always clearer-sighted and more ingenious than friendship. All the virtue of your old aunt will not persuade her to speak ill of her dear nephew, for virtue also has its weaknesses. Next, your fears depend upon a consideration which is absolutely false.