Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (the reading list .TXT) 📕

My fault or misfortune is to have rejected this truth too long. You, my dear and worthy friend, will be my witness, I submitted to this sacrifice as soon as I discovered the necessity of it: but to render it complete, there wanted the circumstance of M. de Valmont not taking any share in it. Shall I confess to you, this is the idea that at present torments me most? Intolerable pride! which alleviates the evils we endure, by a consciousness of those woes we cause to others! But I will conquer this rebellious heart. I will accustom it to humiliation.

This, motive exclusive of all other considerations, made me at last consent to receive next Thursday, M. de Valmont’s painful visit;⁠—he will then tell me he no longer knows me; that the feeble, transitory impression I had made on him exists, no longer! He will look upon me without any emotion, whilst the dread of revealing mine will cast my eyes down. Even those very letters which he so long refused to my repeated solicitations, I shall receive from his indifference; he will return them as useless trifles he no longer cares for; and my trembling hand will receive this shameful trust from a tranquil steady one; last he will depart!⁠—Depart forever!⁠—My eyes which will follow him, will not see his return to me.

Am I then reserved for all this humiliation? Let me at least make it useful by being penetrated with a sense of my weakness.⁠—Those letters he will no longer keep, I will lay up with care:⁠—I will impose on myself the shame of daily reading them until my tears have defaced the last letter⁠—and his, I will destroy, as infected with the dangerous poison which has tainted my soul.⁠—What then is love, which makes us regret even the danger it exposes us to, and dread feeling it, even when we can no longer inspire it? Let me fly this destructive passion, which leaves no choice between shame and misery, and often reunites them:⁠—let prudence then replace virtue.

How distant is this Thursday still! Why can’t I instantly consummate this sorrowful sacrifice, and forget at once the cause and the object? This visit importunes me; I repent having promised it⁠—what occasion to see me again⁠—what are we now to each other? If he has offended me, I forgive him⁠—I even congratulate him on his reformation; I praise him for it; I do more, I will follow his example; and, seduced by the same errors, his example shall reform me. But why, when his resolution is to fly me, why begin by seeking me? The one that is in most danger, ought they not to forget the other? Doubtless they ought; and that shall hereafter be my sole care.

With your permission, my amiable friend, it shall be with you I will undertake this difficult task; if I should want assistance, or perhaps consolation, I will not receive it from any other⁠—you alone understand and can speak to my heart:⁠—Your endearing friendship will fill up my existence;⁠—nothing will be difficult to second your cares:⁠—I shall be indebted to you for my tranquillity, my happiness, my virtue; and the fruits of your goodness will be to have at length made made me deserving of it.

I believe I have gone very much astray in this letter, at least I think so, from the perturbed state I have been in during the whole time:⁠—If there is a sentiment which ought to make me blush, cover it with your indulgent friendship; I submit entirely to it; I have not a wish to hide from you any emotion of my heart.

Adieu, my most respectable friend! I hope to be able in a few days to announce that of my arrival.

Paris, Oct. 25, 17⁠—.

At last this haughty woman is conquered, who dared think she could resist me.⁠—She is mine⁠—totally mine.⁠—She has nothing left to grant since yesterday.

My happiness is so great I cannot appreciate it, but am astonished at the unknown charm I feel:⁠—Is it possible virtue can augment a woman’s value even at the time of her weakness?⁠—Avaunt such puerile ideas⁠—don’t we every day meet resistance more or less feigned at the first conquest? Yet I never experienced the charm I mean; it is not love⁠—for although I have had fits of weakness with this amazing woman, which very much resembled that pusillanimous passion, I ever subdued them and returned to my first rules⁠—if even the scene of yesterday should have led me farther than I intended; had I partook for a moment of the intoxication I raised, that transitory illusion would have been now evaporated, yet still the same charm remains⁠—I own I should be pleased to indulge it, if it did not give me some uneasiness:⁠—At my age must I then be mastered like a schoolboy by an unknown and involuntary sentiment?⁠—I must first oppose and then examine it.

Perhaps I already see into the cause⁠—the idea pleases me⁠—I wish it may be true.

Among the multitude of women with whom I have played the part of a lover, I never met any who were not as well inclined to surrender as I was to persuade them⁠—I used even to call those prudes who met me but halfway, in contrast to so many others, whose provoking defence is intended as a cloak to their first advances.

But here I found an unfavourable prepossession against me, afterwards confirmed on the report and advice of a penetrating woman who hated me; a natural, excessive timidity, fortified with genuine modesty; a strong attachment to virtue under the powerful direction of religion, and who had already been married two years⁠—an unsullied character⁠—the result of those causes, which all tended to screen her from my solicitations.

It is not any way similar to my former adventures:⁠—a mere capitulation more or less advantageous, which is easier to be acquired than to be vain of; but