《危險關係》

（原發表於 2014 年 7 月 14 日，本人 facebook）

臭名遠播（褒義）的十八世紀小說 Les Liaisons dangereuses 中有很多精彩的人性分析，以下我摘取一些段落分享。

論愛情︰

... let us not deceive ourselves, the charm we think we find in others exists only in ourselves, and it is love alone that confers beauty on the beloved.

論專一︰

Do not imagine, my child, that [men's] love is like ours [i.e. women's]. They feel, of course, the same delight; often they are more carried away by it; but they are ignorant of that anxious eagerness, that careful solicitude, which provokes us to the constant and tender attentions whose sole object is always the man we love. A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness she gives. This difference, so essential and so little noticed, yet influences the whole of their respective conduct in the most remarkable way. [...] that exclusive attachment to one person, which is the peculiar characteristic of love, is in a man only a preference, which seems at the most to increase a pleasure that with some other woman might be diminished, but not destroyed; whereas in women, it is a profound feeling, which not only annihilates all other desires, but stronger than nature and disobedient to her commands, may cause them to derive only repugnance and disgust from the very source of pleasure itself.

論女人︰

... pleasure, for many women, is simply pleasure and never anything else. For them, whatever the title they bestow upon us, we are never more than servants, mere functionaries whose only merit is industry: the one who does most, does best.
Another class of women, perhaps the most numerous today, are almost exclusively concerned with a lover's prestige, with the pleasure of having snatched him from a rival and the fear of having him snatched in turn from them. We do, it is true, play some part, more or less, in the sort of happiness they enjoy; but it depends more on our circumstances than on our persons. We are its means, but not its instrument.

論老婦︰

It is not true that 'the older women grow, the harsher and stricter they become'. It is between the ages of forty and fifty that, desperate at finding their complexions wither and furious at being obliged to give up pretensions and pleasures to which they are still inclined, nearly all women turn into prudes and shrews. This long interval is necessary before their sacrifice is complete: but as soon as it has been consummated, they divide themselves into two classes.
The more numerous one, which comprises those women who have had nothing but youth and beauty to recommend them, falls into a feeble-minded apathy, from which it never emerges except to play cards or practise a few devotions. These women are always boring, often querulous, sometimes a little meddlesome, but they are rarely malicious. One cannot say of them either that they are or that they are not severe. They have neither thought nor being, and merely repeat indifferently and uncomprehendingly everything they hear, retaining within themselves an absolute void.
The other much rare class, and the really valuable one, contains those women who, having been possessed of a character and having taken care to cultivate their minds, are able to create an identity for themselves when the one provided by nature has failed them. They are able to polish their wits where before they had decked out their figures. Their judgement is generally sane, their intelligence at once solid, gay, and graceful. They replace their more seductive attractions with a more appealing kindness, and moreover with that joie de vivre, the charm of which only increase with age. Thus, making themsevles loved by the young, they succeed in some sort in recapturing their youth.