When I entered, he came up to me, and congratulated me most affectionately on the improved state of my health. As mass was beginning, I cut short the conversation, which I expected to resume afterwards; but he had disappeared before I could rejoin him. I will not hide from you that I found him somewhat changed. But, my dearest fair, do not make me repent of my confidence in your reason, by a too lively anxiety; and, above all, rest assured that I would rather choose to pain than deceive you.
If my nephew continues to keep aloof from me, I will adopt the course, as soon as I am better, of visiting him in his chamber; and I will try to penetrate the cause of this singular mania, which, I can well believe, has something to do with you. I will write and tell you anything I may find out. Now I take leave of you, as I can no more move my fingers: besides, if Adelaide knew that I had written, she would scold me all the evening. Adieu, my dearest fair.
At the Château de ..., 20th October, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE PÈRE ANSELME
(a Bernardine of the monastery of the Rue Saint-Honoré)
I have not the honour of being known to you, Monsieur: but I know of the entire confidence which Madame la Présidente de Tourvel reposes in you, and I know, moreover, how much this confidence is deserved. I believe, then, that I may address myself to you without indiscretion, in order to obtain a very essential service, truly worthy of your holy office, and one in which the interests of Madame de Tourvel and myself are one.
I have in my hands important papers which concern her, which cannot be entrusted to anybody, and which I would not, and must not, give up except into her hands. I have no means of informing her of this, because reasons which, perhaps, you will have heard from her, but which I do not consider myself authorized to state, have led her to take the course of refusing all correspondence with me: a course that, to-day, I confess willingly, I cannot blame, since she could not foresee events which I myself was very far from expecting, and which were only rendered possible by that superhuman force which we are forced to recognize. I beg you, therefore, Monsieur, to be so good as to inform her of my new resolutions, and to ask her to grant me a private interview, in which I can, at least in part, repair my errors and, as a last sacrifice, destroy in her presence the sole existing traces of an error or fault which has rendered me guilty in her eyes.
It will not be until after this preliminary expiation that I shall dare to lay at your feet the humiliating confession of my long disorders, and to entreat your mediation for an even more important and, unhappily, more difficult reconciliation. May I hope, Monsieur, that you will not refuse me this precious and necessary aid, and that you will deign to sustain my weakness and guide my feet into the new way which I desire most ardently to follow, but which, I blush to confess, I do not yet know?
I await your reply with the impatience of the repentance which desires to make reparation, and I beg you to believe me, with equal gratitude and veneration,
Your most humble, etc.