You see, now, how little I need be affected by the fear you seem to have, lest one day M. de Valmont should ruin me: for, ere he can wish for that, he will have ceased to love me; and what will then be vain reproaches to me which I shall not hear? He alone shall be my judge. As I shall have lived but for him, it will be in him that my memory shall repose; and if he is forced to admit that I loved him, I shall be sufficiently justified.
You have now read, Madame, in my heart. I preferred the misfortune of losing your esteem by my frankness to that of rendering myself unworthy of it by the degradation of a lie. I thought I owed this complete confidence to the kindness you have shewn me. To add one word more would be to lead you to suspect that I have the vanity to count upon it still, when, on the contrary, I do myself justice in ceasing to pretend to it.
I am with respect, Madame, your most humble and obedient servant.
Paris, 1st November, 17**.
LETTER THE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINTH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL
Tell me then, my lovely friend, whence comes the tone of bitterness and banter which prevails in your last letter? Pray, what crime have I committed, apparently without suspecting it, which put you in such ill-humour? You reproach me with having the air of counting on your consent before I had obtained it: but I believed that what might seem presumption in the case of everybody could never be taken, between you and me, for ought save confidence: and since when has that sentiment done detriment to friendship or to love? In uniting hope to desire, I did but yield to the natural impulse which makes us ever place the happiness we seek as near to us as possible; and you took for the effect of pride what was no more than the result of my eagerness. I know mighty well that custom has introduced in such a case a respectful doubt: but you also know that it is but a form, a mere protocol; and I was authorized, it seems to me, to believe that these minute precautions were no longer necessary between us.
Methinks, even, that this free and frank method, when it is founded on an old liaison, is far preferable to the insipid flattery which so often takes the relish out of love. Perhaps, moreover, the value which I find in this manner does but come from that which I attach to the happiness which it recalls to me: but, for that very cause, it would be more painful still for me to see you judge of it otherwise.
That, however, is the only error which I am conscious of; for I do not imagine that you could have thought seriously that there existed any woman in the world whom I could prefer to you, and, even less, that I could appreciate you so ill as you feign to believe. You have looked at yourself, you tell me, in this connection, and you have not found yourself reduced to such a point. I well believe it, and it proves that you have a faithful mirror. But could you not have drawn the conclusion, with more ease and justice, that I was very certain not to have judged you so?
I seek in vain for a cause for this strange idea. It seems, however, that it is due, more or less, to the praises I have permitted myself to make of other women. At least I infer it, from your affectation of picking out the epithets adorable, celestial, seductive, which I made use of in speaking to you of Madame de Tourvel or of the little Volanges. But are you not aware that these words, more often used by chance than from reflexion, are less expressive of the account one takes of the person than of the situation in which one finds one’s self at the time of speaking? And if, at the very moment when I was keenly affected either by one or the other, I was none the less desirous of you; if I showed you a marked preference over both of them; since, in short, I could not renew our former liaison, except to the prejudice of the two others, I do not find in that so great a matter for reproach.
It will be no more difficult for me to justify myself as to the unknown charm with which you seem to be also somewhat shocked: for, to begin with, it does not result that it is stronger from the fact that it is unknown. Ah, who could give it the palm over the delicious pleasures which you alone know how to render always fresh, as they are always keen? I did but wish to tell you, therefore, that it was of a kind which I had not experienced before, but I did not pretend to assign a class to it; and I added what I repeat to-day, that, whatever it may be, I shall know how to combat and to conquer it. I shall bring even more zeal to this, if I can see in this trivial task a homage to be offered to you.