PROMISES

Do you know, you have made me jealous of him? And what do you mean by our eternal rupture? I renounce those vows, uttered in a moment of madness. If they were intended to be kept, we cannot have been worthy of making them. Oh, that I might one day take my revenge in your arms on the unintentional offence to me occasioned by the Chevalier’s good fortune! I am indignant, I admit, when I think that this man, without thinking it through or putting himself out in the slightest, but simply obeying his instincts, should achieve a felicity which I cannot possibly attain. Oh, I shall blight his happiness… Promise me I shall! Are you not yourself humiliated by it? You put yourself to the trouble of deceiving him and yet he is happier than you are. You think you have him in thrall! But you are in thrall to him. He sleeps soundly whilst you stay awake for his pleasure. Would his slave do more?

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