INNOCENCE

I shall confide to you, keeper of all my heart’s secrets, the most ambitious plan I have ever conceived. What are you proposing? That I seduce a young girl who has seen nothing, knows nothing; who would be delivered up to me defenceless, so to speak; who would be certain to be bowled over at my first compliment and who would be swayed perhaps more rapidly by curiosity than by love. Twenty other men would have as much success as I. Not so with the business which occupies my thoughts. Its successful outcome assures me of glory as much as pleasure. The god of love himself, preparing my crown, cannot decide between the myrtle and the laurel, or rather he will weave them together to honour my triumph. You yourself, my love, will be struck with holy awe, and will say with enthusiasm: ‘There goes a man after my own heart.’

(Letter IV, The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil)