from Les Liaisons Dangereuses, on momentarily having second thoughts about death after being mortally wounded in a duel.
Perhaps it's worse to go on living
with conscience stabbing at your heart
with knives long, sharp and unforgiving
than with a single blow depart.
But since your death is now so near
– and one which you procured so keenly –
it's not, sir, in good taste to fear
an end that meets your type routinely.
A further evil stains your case:
you were a more adroit seducer
than most of us men on the chase.
So cheers to him who finished you, sir.
