A room in Géronte’s house
Scene 1. GÉRONTE, VALÈRE, LUCAS, JACQUELINE
VALÈRE. Yes, sir, I think you’ll be satisfied; and we’ve brought you the greatest doctor in the world.
LUCAS. Oh, gee whillikins! You gotta pull up the ladder after that one, and all the rest ain’t good enough to take off his shoon.
VALÈRE. He’s a man who has performed wonderful cures.
LUCAS. As has cureded some folk as were dead.
VALÈRE. He’s a bit capricious, as I’ve told you; and sometimes he has moments when his mind wanders and he doesn’t seem what he really is.
LUCAS. Yup, he likes to clown; and sometimes you’d say, with no offense, that he’d been hit on the head with an axe.
VALÈRE. But underneath it, he’s all learning, and very often he says quite lofty things.
LUCAS. When he gets to it, he talks right straight out just like he was reading out of a book.
VALÈRE. His reputation has already spread hereabouts, and everybody is coming to see him.
GÉRONTE. I’m dying to meet him. Bring him to me quick.
VALÈRE. I’ll go and get him.
JACQUELINE. Land’s sakes, sir, this’un’ll do just what the others done. I reckon it’ll be just the same old stuff; and the bestest med’cine anyone could slip your daughter, if you’re asking me, would be a good handsome husband she had a hankering for.
GÉRONTE. Well now! My good wet-nurse, you certainly meddle in lots of things.
LUCAS. Be quiet, Jacqueline, keep to your housework: you ain’t the one to stick your nose in there.
JACQUELINE. I told you before and I’ll tell you some more that all these here doctors won’t do nothing more for her than plain branch water, that your daughter needs something mighty different from rhubarb and senna, and that a husband is the kind of poultice that’ll cure all a girl’s troubles.
GÉRONTE. Is she in condition now for anyone to want to take her on, with the infirmity she has? And when I was minded to have her married, didn’t she oppose my will?
JACQUELINE. I should think she did: you was wanting to pass her a man she don’t love. Why didn’t you take that Monsieur Léandre that she had a soft spot for? She would’ve been real obedient; and I’m gonna bet you he’d take her just like she is, if you’d give her to him.
GÉRONTE. That Léandre is not what she needs; he’s not well off like the other.
JACQUELINE. He’s got such a rich uncle, and he’s his hair.
GÉRONTE. All this property to come is just so much nonsense to me. There’s nothing like what you’ve got; and you run a big risk of fooling yourself when you count on what someone else is keeping for you. Death doesn’t always keep her ears open to the wishes and prayers of their honors the heirs; and you can grow a long set of teeth when you’re waiting for someone’s death so as to have a livelihood.
JACQUELINE. Anyway, I’ve always heard that in marriage, as elsewhere, happiness counts more than riches. The pas and mas, they have that goldarned custom of always asking, “How much has he got?” and “How much has she got?” and neighbor Peter married off his daughter Simonette to fat Thomas ’cause he had a quarter vineyard more than young Robin, which she’d set her heart on; and now, poor critter, it’s turned her yellow as a quince, and she hasn’t got her property in all the time since. That’s a fine example for you, sir. All we got in this world is our pleasure; and I’d rather give my daughter a good husband which she liked than all the revenues in Beauce.
GÉRONTE. Plague take it, Madame Nurse, how you do spit it out! Be quiet, please; you’re getting too involved and you’re beating up your milk.
LUCAS (by mistake, tapping GÉRONTE on the chest instead of JACQUELINE). Gosh darn it! Shut up, you’re just a meddler. The master don’t have no use for your speeches, and he knows what he’s got to do. You see to nursing the child you’re nurse to, and don’t give us none of your big ideas. The master is his daughter’s father, and he’s good enough and wise enough to see what she needs.
GÉRONTE. Easy! Oh! Easy!
LUCAS. Sir, I want to mortify her a bit, and teach her the respect she owes you.
GÉRONTE. Yes, but those gestures aren’t necessary.
Scene 2. VALÈRE, SGANARELLE, GÉRONTE, LUCAS, JACQUELINE
VALÈRE. Sir, prepare yourself. Here comes our doctor.
GÉRONTE. Sir, I’m delighted to have you in my house, and we need you badly.
SGANARELLE (in a doctor’s gown, with a sharply pointed hat). Hippocrates says . . . that we should both put our hats on.
GÉRONTE. Hippocrates says that?
SGANARELLE. Yes.
GÉRONTE. In what chapter, if you please?
SGANARELLE. In his chapter on hats.
GÉRONTE. Since Hippocrates says it, we must do it.
SGANARELLE. Sir Doctor, since I have heard the wonderful things . . .
GÉRONTE. Whom are you speaking to, pray?
SGANARELLE. You.
GÉRONTE. I’m not a doctor.
SGANARELLE. You’re not a doctor?
GÉRONTE. No, really.
SGANARELLE (takes a stick and beats him just as he himself was beaten). You really mean it?
GÉRONTE. I really mean it. Oh, oh, oh!
SGANARELLE. You’re a doctor now. I never got any other license.
GÉRONTE. What the devil kind of a man have you brought me?
VALÈRE. I told you he was a joker of a doctor.
GÉRONTE. Yes, but I’d send him packing with his jokes.
LUCAS. Don’t pay no attention to that, sir: that’s just for a laugh.
GÉRONTE. I don’t like that kind of a laugh.
SGANARELLE. Sir, I ask your pardon for the liberty I took.
GÉRONTE. Your servant, sir.
SGANARELLE. I’m sorry . . .
GÉRONTE. That’s nothing.
SGANARELLE. For the cudgeling . . .
GÉRONTE. No harm done.
SGANARELLE. That I had the honor of giving you.
GÉRONTE. Let’s say no more about it. Sir, I have a daughter who has caught a strange disease.
SGANARELLE. Sir, I’m delighted that your daughter needs me; and I wish with all my heart that you and your whole family needed me too, just to show you how much I want to serve you.
GÉRONTE. I am obliged to you for those sentiments.
SGANARELLE. I assure you that I’m speaking straight from the heart.
GÉRONTE. You do me too much honor.
SGANARELLE. What’s your daughter’s name?
GÉRONTE. Lucinde.
SGANARELLE. Lucinde! Oh, what a fine name to prescribe for! Lucinde!*
GÉRONTE. I’ll just go and have a look to see what she’s doing.
SGANARELLE. Who’s that big buxom woman?
GÉRONTE. She’s the wet-nurse of a little baby of mine.
SGANARELLE. Plague take it! That’s a pretty piece of goods! Ah, nurse, charming nurse, my medicine is the very humble slave of your nurseship, and I’d certainly like to be the lucky little doll who sucked the milk (puts his hand on her breast) of your good graces. All my remedies, all my learning, all my capacity is at your service, and . . .
LUCAS. With your pummission, Mister Doctor, leave my wife be, I beg you.
SGANARELLE. What? Is she your wife?
LUCAS. Yes.
SGANARELLE (makes as if to embrace LUCAS, then, turning toward the nurse, embraces her). Oh! really! I didn’t know that, and I’m delighted for the sake of you both.
LUCAS (pulling him away). Easy now, please.
SGANARELLE. I assure you I’m delighted that you’re united. I congratulate her (he again makes as if to embrace LUCAS, and, passing under his arms, throws himself on JACQUELINE’S neck) on having a husband like you; and you, I congratulate you on having a wife as beautiful, modest, and well-built as she is.
LUCAS (pulling him away again). Hey! Goldarn it! Not so much compliment, I ask you now.
SGANARELLE. Don’t you want me to rejoice with you at such a fine assembly?
LUCAS. With me, all you like; but with my wife, let’s skip these kind of formalities.
SGANARELLE. I take part in the happiness of you both alike; and (same business as before) if I embrace you to attest my joy to you, I embrace her as well to attest my joy to her too.
LUCAS (pulling him away once more). Oh! Dad blast it, Mister Doctor, what a lot of fiddle-faddle!
Scene 3. SGANARELLE, GÉRONTE, LUCAS, JACQUELINE
GÉRONTE. Sir, they’re going to bring my daughter to you. She’ll be here right away.
SGANARELLE. I await her, sir, and all medicine with me.
GÉRONTE. Where is it?
SGANARELLE (tapping his forehead). In there.
GÉRONTE. Very good.
SGANARELLE (trying to touch the nurse’s breasts). But since I am interested in your whole family, I must take a small sample of your nurse’s milk, and inspect her bosom.
LUCAS (pulling him away and spinning him around). Nah, nah, I don’t want no truck with that.
SGANARELLE. It’s the doctor’s job to examine nurses’ breasts.
LUCAS. Job nor no job, I’m your servant.
SGANARELLE. Do you really have the audacity to set yourself up against the doctor? Begone!
LUCAS. The heck with that!
SGANARELLE (looking at him askance). I’ll give you the fever.
JACQUELINE (taking LUCAS by the arm and spinning him around). That’s right, get out of there. Ain’t I big enough to defend myself if he does something to me as a person hadn’t ought?
LUCAS. Well, me, I don’t want him a-feeling you.
SGANARELLE. Fie! The peasant! He’s jealous of his wife!
GÉRONTE. Here is my daughter.
Scene 4. LUCINDE, VALÈRE, GÉRONTE, LUCAS, SGANARELLE, JACQUELINE
SGANARELLE. Is this the patient?
GÉRONTE. Yes, she’s the only daughter I have, and I’d be heartbroken if she were to die.
SGANARELLE. She’d better not! She mustn’t die except on doctor’s orders.
GÉRONTE. Come, come, a chair!*
SGANARELLE. That’s not such a bad-looking patient, and I maintain that a really healthy man would make out all right with her.
GÉRONTE. You’ve made her laugh, sir.
SGANARELLE. That’s fine. When the doctor makes the patient laugh, that’s the best possible sign. Well! What’s the problem? What’s wrong with you? Where does it hurt?
LUCINDE (answers in sign language, putting her hand to her mouth, her head, and under her chin). Hah, heeh, hoh, hah.
SGANARELLE. Eh? What’s that you say?
LUCINDE (same gestures as before). Hah, heeh, hoh, hah, hah, heeh, hoh.
SGANARELLE. What?
LUCINDE. Hah, heeh, hoh.
SGANARELLE (imitating her). Hah, heeh, hoh, hah, hah: I don’t understand you. What the devil kind of language is that?
GÉRONTE. Sir, that’s her illness. She’s been struck dumb, and up to now no one has been able to learn the reason why; and it’s an accident that has put off her marriage.
SGANARELLE. And why so?
GÉRONTE. The man she is to marry wants to wait until she’s cured to make things final.
SGANARELLE. And who is the fool that doesn’t want his wife to be dumb? Would God mine had that disease! I’d be the last one to want to cure her.
GÉRONTE. Anyway, sir, we beg you to make every effort to relieve her of her trouble.
SGANARELLE. Oh! Don’t worry. Tell me now, does this trouble bother her a lot?
GÉRONTE. Yes, sir.
SGANARELLE. Very good. Does she feel great pains?
GÉRONTE. Very great
SGANARELLE. That’s just fine. Does she go—you know where?
GÉRONTE. Yes.
SGANARELLE. Copiously?
GÉRONTE. I don’t know anything about that.
SGANARELLE. Does she achieve laudable results?
GÉRONTE. I’m no expert in those matters.
SGANARELLE (turning to the patient). Give me your arm. That pulse shows your daughter is dumb.
GÉRONTE. Why, yes, sir, that’s her trouble! You found it the very first thing.
SGANARELLE. Aha!
JACQUELINE. Just lookit how he guessed her illness!
SGANARELLE. We great doctors, we know things right away. An ignorant one would have been embarrassed and would have gone and told you “It’s this” or “It’s that”; but I hit the mark on the first shot, and I inform you that your daughter is dumb.
GÉRONTE. Yes; but I wish you could tell me what it comes from.
SGANARELLE. Nothing easier: it comes from the fact that she has lost her speech.
GÉRONTE. Very good; but the reason, please, why she has lost her speech?
SGANARELLE. All our best authors will tell you that it’s the stoppage of the action of her tongue.
GÉRONTE. But still, what are your views about this stoppage of the action of her tongue?
SGANARELLE. Aristotle, on that subject, says . . . some very fine things.
GÉRONTE. I believe it.
SGANARELLE. Oh! He was a great man!
GÉRONTE. No doubt.
SGANARELLE (raising his forearm). An utterly great man: a man who was greater than I by all of that! So, to get back to our reasoning, I hold that this stoppage of the action of her tongue is caused by certain humors, which among us scholars we call peccant humors: peccant, that is to say . . . peccant humors; because the vapors formed by the exhalations of the influences arising in the region where the maladies lie, when they come . . . so to speak . . . to . . . Do you understand Latin?
GÉRONTE. Not in the least.
SGANARELLE (getting up in astonishment). You don’t understand Latin?
GÉRONTE. No.
SGANARELLE (assuming various comical poses). Cabricias arci thuram, catalamus, singulariter, nominativo haec Musa, “the Muse,” bonus, bona, bonum, Deus sanctus, estne oratio latinas? Etiam, “yes.” Quare, “why?” Quia substantivo et adjectivum concordat in generi, numerum, et casus.*
GÉRONTE. Oh! Why did I never study?
JACQUELINE. Land! That’s an able man!
LUCAS. Yup, that’s so purty I can’t make out a word of it.
SGANARELLE. Now when these vapors I’m speaking of come to pass from the left side, where the liver is, to the right side, where the heart is, it happens that the lungs, which in Latin we call armyan, having communication with the brain, which in Greek we call nasmus, by means of the vena cava, which in Hebrew we call cubile,* on its way encounters the said vapors, which fill the ventricles of the omoplate; and because the said vapors—follow this reasoning closely, I beg you—and because the said vapors have a certain malignity . . . Listen to this carefully, I conjure you.
GÉRONTE. Yes.
SGANARELLE. Have a certain malignity, which is caused . . . Be attentive, please.
GÉRONTE. I am.
SGANARELLE. Which is caused by the acridity of the humors engendered in the concavity of the diaphragm, it happens that these vapors . . . Ossabandus, nequeys, nequer, potarinum, quipsa milus. That’s exactly what is making your daughter dumb.
JACQUELINE. Oh! That man of ourn! Ain’t that well said?
LUCAS. Why ain’t my tongue that slick?
GÉRONTE. No one could reason any better, no doubt about it. There’s just one thing that surprised me: the location of the liver and the heart. It seems to me that you place them otherwise than they are; that the heart is on the left side and the liver on the right side.
SGANARELLE. Yes, it used to be that way; but we have changed all that, and now we practice medicine in a completely new way.
GÉRONTE. That’s something I didn’t know, and I beg your pardon for my ignorance.
SGANARELLE. No harm done, and you’re not obliged to be as able as we are.
GÉRONTE. To be sure. But, sir, what do you think needs to be done for this illness?
SGANARELLE. What I think needs to be done?
GÉRONTE. Yes.
SGANARELLE. My advice is to put her back in bed and have her take, as a remedy, a lot of bread steeped in wine.
GÉRONTE. And why that, sir?
SGANARELLE. Because in bread and wine mixed together there is a sympathetic virtue that makes people speak. Haven’t you noticed that they don’t give anything else to parrots, and that they learn to speak by eating that?
GÉRONTE. That’s true. Oh, what a great man! Quick, lots of bread and wine!
SGANARELLE. I’ll come back toward evening and see how she is. (To the nurse) Hold on, you. Sir, here is a nurse to whom I must administer a few little remedies.
JACQUELINE. Who? Me? I couldn’t be in better health.
SGANARELLE. Too bad, nurse, too bad. Such good health is alarming, and it won’t be a bad thing to give you a friendly little bloodletting, a little dulcifying enema.
GÉRONTE. But, sir, that’s a fashion I don’t understand. Why should we go and be bled when we haven’t any illness?
SGANARELLE. No matter, it’s a salutary fashion; and just as we drink on account of the thirst to come, so we must have ourselves bled on account of the illness to come.
JACQUELINE (starting to go off). My Lord! The heck with that, and I don’t want to make my body into a drugstore.
SGANARELLE. You are resistant to remedies, but we’ll manage to bring you to reason.
(Exit JACQUELINE.)
(To GÉRONTE) I bid you good day.
GÉRONTE. Wait a bit, please.
SGANARELLE. What do you want to do?
GÉRONTE. Give you some money, sir.
SGANARELLE (holding out his hand behind, beneath his gown, while GÉRONTE opens his purse). I won’t take any, sir.
GÉRONTE. Sir . . .
SGANARELLE. Not at all.
GÉRONTE. Just a moment.
SGANARELLE. By no means.
GÉRONTE. Please!
SGANARELLE. You’re joking.
GÉRONTE. That’s that.
SGANARELLE. I’ll do nothing of the sort.
GÉRONTE. Eh?
SGANARELLE. Money is no motive to me.
GÉRONTE. I believe it.
SGANARELLE (after taking the money). Is this good weight?
GÉRONTE. Yes, sir.
SGANARELLE. I’m not a mercenary doctor.
GÉRONTE. I’m well aware of it.
SGANARELLE. I’m not ruled by self-interest.
GÉRONTE. I have no such idea.
Scene 5. SGANARELLE, LÉANDRE
SGANARELLE (looking at his money). My word! That’s not too bad; and if only . . .
LÉANDRE. Sir, I’ve been waiting for you a long time, and I come to implore your assistance.
SGANARELLE (taking his wrist). That’s a very bad pulse.
LÉANDRE. I’m not sick, sir, and that’s not why I’ve come to see you.
SGANARELLE. If you’re not sick, why the devil don’t you say so?
LÉANDRE. No. To put the whole thing in a word, my name is Léandre, and I’m in love with Lucinde, whom you’ve just examined; and since, because of her father’s bad disposition, I’m denied all access to her, I’m venturing to beg you to serve my love, and give me a chance to carry out a scheme I’ve thought up to say a word or two to her on which my happiness and my life depend absolutely.
SGANARELLE (feigning anger). Whom do you take me for? How can you dare come up and ask me to serve you in your love, and try to degrade the dignity of a doctor to this type of employment?
LÉANDRE. Sir, don’t make so much noise.
SGANARELLE. I want to make noise. You’re an impertinent young man.
LÉANDRE. Ah! Gently, sir.
SGANARELLE. A dunderhead.
LÉANDRE. Please!
SGANARELLE. I’ll teach you that I’m not the kind of man for that, and that it’s the height of insolence . . .
LÉANDRE (pulling out a purse and giving it to him). Sir . . .
SGANARELLE. To want to use me . . . I’m not speaking about you, for you’re a gentleman, and I would be delighted to do you a service; but there are some impertinent people in the world who come and take people for what they’re not; and I admit that makes me angry.
LÉANDRE. I ask your pardon, sir, for the liberty that . . .
SGANARELLE. Don’t be silly. What’s the problem?
LÉANDRE. You shall know, then, sir, that this illness that you want to cure is make-believe. The doctors have reasoned in due form about it, and have not failed to say that it came, some say from the brain, some from the intestines, some from the spleen, some from the liver; but it is certain that love is the real cause of it, and that Lucinde hit upon this illness only to deliver herself from a threatened marriage. But, for fear we may be seen together, let’s get out of here, and as we walk, I’ll tell you what I would like from you.
SGANARELLE. Let’s go, sir: you’ve given me an inconceivable fondness for your love; and unless I’m no doctor, either the patient will die or else she’ll be yours.