Scene 1. HARPAGON, the OFFICER, his CLERK
OFFICER. Leave it to me: I know my job, thank God. Today’s not the first time I’ve been involved in solving a theft; and I wish I had as many thousand-franc bags as I’ve had people hanged.
HARPAGON. It’s in the interest of every magistrate to take this affair in hand; and if they don’t get me my money back, I’ll demand justice of justice itself.
OFFICER. We must take all the necessary steps. You say there was in this money-box . . . ?
HARPAGON. Ten thousand crowns in cash.
OFFICER. Ten thousand crowns!
HARPAGON. Ten thousand crowns.
OFFICER. That’s a considerable theft.
HARPAGON. There is no punishment great enough for the enormity of this crime; and if it remains unpunished, the most sacred things are no longer safe.
OFFICER. In what denominations was this sum?
HARPAGON. In good louis d’or and pistoles of full weight.
OFFICER. Whom do you suspect of this theft?
HARPAGON. Everyone; and I want you to arrest the whole town and the suburbs.
OFFICER. If you’ll take my advice, we must try not to frighten anyone, and seek quietly to collect some evidence, so as then to proceed with full rigor to recover the money that has been taken from you.
Scene 2. MAÎTRE JACQUES, HARPAGON, OFFICER, CLERK
MAÎTRE JACQUES (speaking to someone offstage as he enters). I’ll be back. I want his throat cut right away; I want his feet grilled, I want him put in boiling water, and then hung from the rafters.
HARPAGON. Who? The man who robbed me?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. I’m talking about a sucking pig that your steward has just sent me, and I want to fix him for you according to my fancy.
HARPAGON. We’re not talking about that; and here is this gentleman, to whom there are other things to talk about.
OFFICER. Don’t be frightened. I’m not the man to cause a scandal, and things will be done quietly.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Is the gentleman one of your supper party?
OFFICER. In this matter, my good friend, you must hide nothing from your master.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. My word, sir! I’ll show you all I know how to do, and I’ll treat you as best I can.
HARPAGON. That’s not the point.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. If I don’t give you as good a meal as I’d like, that’s the fault of that Mr. Steward of ours, who has clipped my wings with the scissors of his economy.
HARPAGON. Traitor, we’re talking about something besides supper; and I want you to tell me some news about the money that was stolen from me.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Somebody stole some money from you?
HARPAGON. Yes, you scoundrel; and I’m going to hang you if you don’t give it back to me.
OFFICER. (To HARPAGON) Good Lord! Don’t mistreat him. I can see from his face that he’s an honest man, and that without having to be thrown into prison, he’ll tell you what you want to know. (To MAÎTRE JACQUES) Yes, my friend, if you confess it all to us, you won’t come to any harm, and you’ll be suitably rewarded by your master. Somebody took his money today, and you can’t help knowing something about this business.
MAÎTRE JACQUES (aside). Here is just what I need to get revenge on our steward. Ever since he came here, he’s been the favorite; they listen only to his advice; and I also have that beating of a while ago on my mind.
HARPAGON. What are you ruminating about?
OFFICER. Let him be. He’s preparing to give you satisfaction; and I told you he was an honest man.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Sir, if you want me to tell you how things are, I think it was your dear Mr. Steward who did the job.
HARPAGON. Valère?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Yes.
HARPAGON. He, who seems so faithful to me?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Himself. I think he’s the one who robbed you.
HARPAGON. And on what grounds do you think so?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. On what grounds?
HARPAGON. Yes.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. I think so . . . on the grounds that I think so.
OFFICER. But you have to say what evidence you have.
HARPAGON. Did you see him hanging around the place where I’d put my money?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Yes indeed. Where was your money?
HARPAGON. In the garden.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Exactly! I saw him hanging around the garden. And what was the money in?
HARPAGON. In a money-box.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. The very thing. I saw him with a money-box.
HARPAGON. And that money-box, what is it like? I can easily tell if it’s mine.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. What is it like?
HARPAGON. Yes.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. It’s like . . . it’s like a money-box.
OFFICER. That’s understood. But describe it a bit so we can tell.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. It’s a big money-box.
HARPAGON. The one stolen from me is small.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Oh, yes, it’s small, if you look at it that way; but I call it big for what it contains.
OFFICER. And what color is it?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. What color?
OFFICER. Yes.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Its color is . . . well, a certain color . . . Can’t you help me find the word?
HARPAGON. Huh?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Isn’t it red?
HARPAGON. No, gray.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Why, yes, grayish red: that’s what I meant.
HARPAGON. There’s no doubt whatever: that’s certainly the one. Write it down, sir, write down his deposition. Heavens! Whom can I trust from now on? I mustn’t swear to anything anymore; and I think after this I’d be capable of robbing myself.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Sir, here he comes back. For goodness’ sake, don’t go and tell him that I’m the one who told you this.
Scene 3. VALÈRE, HARPAGON, OFFICER, CLERK, MAÎTRE JACQUES
HARPAGON. Come here! Come and confess the foulest action, the most horrible crime ever committed.
VALÈRE. What do you want, sir?
HARPAGON. What, traitor, don’t you blush for your crime?
VALÈRE. Why, what crime are you talking about?
HARPAGON. What crime am I talking about, you wretch? As if you didn’t know what I mean! There’s no use your trying to disguise it; the business is uncovered, and I’ve just learned everything. How could you take advantage of my kindness so, and make your way into my house on purpose to betray me and play a trick like this on me?
VALÈRE. Sir, since the whole thing is revealed to you, I won’t attempt to get around it and deny it.
MAÎTRE JACQUES (aside). Oho! Could I have guessed right without realizing it?
VALÈRE. It was my intention to speak to you about it, and for that I wanted to wait for a favorable occasion; but since things are as they are, I conjure you not to be angry, and to be willing to hear my reasons.
HARPAGON. And what fine reasons can you give me, you infamous robber?
VALÈRE. Ah, sir! I have not deserved those names. It is true that I have committed an offense against you; but after all, my fault is pardonable.
HARPAGON. What, pardonable? An ambush, a murder like that one?
VALÈRE. Please don’t get angry. When you’ve heard me, you’ll see that the harm is not as great as you make it out.
HARPAGON. The harm is not as great as I make it out! What, you gallowsbird? My blood, my entrails?
VALÈRE. Your blood, sir, hasn’t fallen into bad hands. I am of a rank that will do it no harm, and there is nothing in all this that I cannot well repair.
HARPAGON. That’s my intention all right, and to have you restore what you’ve stolen from me.
VALÈRE. Your honor, sir, shall be fully satisfied.
HARPAGON. There’s no question of honor in this. But tell me, what led you to this act?
VALÈRE. Alas! Can you ask?
HARPAGON. Yes indeed, I do ask.
VALÈRE. A god who bears his own excuses for everything he makes people do: the god of Love.
HARPAGON. Love?
VALÈRE. Yes.
HARPAGON. A fine kind of love, a fine kind of love! My word! Love for my louis d’or!
VALÈRE. No, sir, it was not your riches that tempted me; that’s not what dazzled me; and I protest that I have no aspirations to all your wealth, provided you leave me the one treasure I have.
HARPAGON. That I won’t, by all the devils in hell! I won’t leave it to you. Will you look at that insolence, to want to keep what he’s stolen from me!
VALÈRE. Do you call that stealing?
HARPAGON. Do I call it stealing? A treasure like that?
VALÈRE. It’s a treasure, that’s true, and beyond a doubt the most precious that you have; but you won’t be losing it by leaving it to me. On my knees I ask you for it, this most charming treasure; and to do right, you must grant it to me.
HARPAGON. I’ll do nothing of the sort. What is all this?
VALÈRE. We have promised a mutual faith to each other, and have taken a vow never to abandon one another.
HARPAGON. That’s a wonderful vow and a delightful promise!
VALÈRE. Yes, we’ve pledged ourselves to belong to one another forever.
HARPAGON. I’ll put a stop to that, I assure you.
VALÈRE. Nothing but death can separate us.
HARPAGON. That’s being devilishly enamored of my money.
VALÈRE. I’ve already told you, sir, that it was not self-interest that drove me to do what I did. My heart did not act for the reasons you think, and a nobler motive inspired that resolution in me.
HARPAGON. Next we’ll find that it’s out of Christian charity that he wants my money. But I’ll take care of that; and the law, you barefaced rogue, will give me satisfaction for all this.
VALÈRE. You will do as you wish about that, and here I am ready to suffer all the violence you please; but I beg you to believe at least that if wrong has been done, I am the only one to accuse, and in all this your daughter is not at all to blame.
HARPAGON. Indeed, I can believe that; it would be mighty strange if my daughter had had a hand in this crime. But I want to have my own back, and for you to confess what spot you’ve used for a hiding-place.
VALÈRE. I? There is no hiding-place, and your treasure is still in your house.
HARPAGON (aside). O my dear money-box! (To VALÈRE) Hasn’t left my house?
VALÈRE. No, sir.
HARPAGON. Now, just tell me: you haven’t touched . . . ?
VALÈRE. I, touched? Oh! You wrong us both; and the ardor with which I burn is wholly pure and respectful.
HARPAGON (aside). Burn for my money-box!
VALÈRE. I’d rather die than show any offensive notion to one who is too decent and honorable for that!
HARPAGON (aside). My money-box too honorable!
VALÈRE. I have limited my desires to feasting my eyes; and nothing criminal has profaned the passion that her lovely eyes have inspired in me.
HARPAGON (aside). The lovely eyes of my money-box! He talks about it like a lover about a mistress!
VALÈRE. Dame Claude, sir, knows the truth of the matter, and she can testify to you that . . .
HARPAGON. What? My serving-woman is an accomplice in the affair?
VALÈRE. Yes, sir, she was a witness to our engagement; and it was after recognizing that my love was honorable that she helped me persuade your daughter to plight me her troth and receive mine.
HARPAGON (aside). Eh? Is fear of the law making his mind wander? (To VALÈRE) What’s all this gibberish about my daughter?
VALÈRE. I say, sir, that I had all the difficulty in the world in prevailing on her modesty to consent to what my love desired.
HARPAGON. Whose modesty?
VALÈRE. Your daughter’s; and it was not until yesterday that she could make up her mind that we should sign a mutual promise of marriage.
HARPAGON. My daughter has signed you a promise of marriage?
VALÈRE. Yes, sir, even as I too have signed one for her.
HARPAGON. O Heavens! Another disgrace!
MAÎTRE JACQUES (to the OFFICER). Write it down, sir, write it down.
HARPAGON. Trouble piled on trouble! Despair on despair! Come, sir, do the duty of your office, and draw me up the indictment against him as a thief and a suborner.
VALÈRE. Those names are not due me; and when it is known who I am . . .
Scene 4. ÉLISE, MARIANE, FROSINE, HARPAGON, VALÈRE, MAÎTRE JACQUES, OFFICER, CLERK
HARPAGON. Ah, you wicked daughter! daughter unworthy of a father like me! So this is how you practice the lessons I’ve given you? You let yourself fall in love with an infamous thief, and you pledge him your troth without my consent? But you’ll be surprised, both of you. (To ÉLISE) Four solid walls shall answer for your conduct; (to VALÈRE) and a good gallows will give me satisfaction for your audacity.
VALÈRE. It will not be your passion that will judge the affair; and I shall at least be heard before being condemned.
HARPAGON. I was wrong to say the gallows, and you shall be broken alive on the wheel.
ÉLISE (on her knees before her father). Ah! father, be a little more humane in your feelings, I implore you, and don’t push matters to the utmost violence of paternal power. Don’t surrender to the first impulses of your passion; give yourself time to consider what you mean to do. Take the trouble to have a better look at the man you are offended with: he is very different than he appears to your eyes; and you will find it less strange that I have given myself to him when you know that but for him you would long since have had me no longer. Yes, father, he’s the one who saved me from that great peril I was in in the water, and to whom you owe the life of that very daughter whom . . .
HARPAGON. All that is nothing; and it would have been much better for me if he had let you drown than do what he’s done.
ÉLISE. Father, I conjure you, by your paternal love, to . . .
HARPAGON. No, no, I won’t hear a thing, and justice must take its course.
MAÎTRE JACQUES (aside). You’ll pay me for my beating.
FROSINE (aside). Here’s a fine kettle of fish.
Scene 5. ANSELME, HARPAGON, ÉLISE, MARIANE, FROSINE, VALÈRE, MAÎTRE JACQUES, OFFICER, CLERK
ANSELME. What is it, Seigneur Harpagon? I find you all upset.
HARPAGON. Ah! Seigneur Anselme, you see in me the most unfortunate of men; and here’s a lot of confusion and disorder over the contract that you have come to sign. I’m being assassinated in my property. I’m being assassinated in my honor; and here is a traitor, a scoundrel, who has violated all the most sacred rights, who has wormed his way into my house under the title of a domestic to steal my money and suborn my daughter.
VALÈRE. Who’s thinking of your money, that you’re making such a strange fuss about?
HARPAGON. Yes, they’ve given each other a promise of marriage. This affront concerns you, Seigneur Anselme, and it is you who should become his prosecutor and bring a lawsuit against him to take revenge on his insolence.
ANSELME. It’s not my plan to get myself married by force, and to lay any claim to a heart that has already given itself; but as regards your interests, I am ready to espouse them just like my own.
HARPAGON. This gentleman here is an honest officer who, from what he has told me, won’t forget any part of the duty of his office. (To the OFFICER) Charge him properly, sir, and make things good and criminal.
VALÈRE. I don’t see what crime they can make of my passion for your daughter; and as for the punishment you think I may be condemned to for our engagement, when they know who I am . . .
HARPAGON. I don’t care a rap for all these stories; and today the world is full of these people who steal their nobility, these impostors who take advantage of their obscurity to dress themselves insolently in the first illustrious name that comes into their head.
VALÈRE. Then know that I have too sound a heart to adorn myself with anything that isn’t mine, and that all Naples can bear witness to my birth.
ANSELME. Easy now! Be careful of what you’re going to say. You’re taking a bigger risk than you think; and you’re speaking in the presence of a man to whom all Naples is known, and who can easily see through any story you tell.
VALÈRE (proudly putting on his hat). I am not the man to fear anything, and if Naples is known to you, you know who was Don Thomas d’Alburcy.
ANSELME. Indeed I do know; and few men have known him better than I.
HARPAGON. I don’t care a rap about Don Thomas or Don Martin. (He sees two candles burning, and blows one out.)
ANSELME. Pray let him speak; we’ll see what he wants to say about him.
VALÈRE. I want to say that he is the man who gave me life.
ANSELME. He?
VALÈRE. Yes.
ANSELME. Come, you’re jesting. Try some other story that may succeed better, and don’t hope to save yourself with this imposture.
VALÈRE. Be careful what you say. This is no imposture, and I’m asserting nothing that is not easy for me to justify.
ANSELME. What? You dare to call yourself the son of Don Thomas d’Alburcy?
VALÈRE. Yes, I dare; and I’m ready to maintain this truth against anyone at all.
ANSELME. This is amazing audacity. Then learn, to your confusion, that at least sixteen years ago the man you’re telling us about perished at sea with his wife and children while trying to save their lives from the cruel persecutions that accompanied the disorders in Naples,* and that caused many noble families to be exiled.
VALÈRE. Yes; but learn, to your confusion, that his son, seven years old, was saved from that shipwreck with one servant by a Spanish vessel, and that this son who was saved is the man speaking to you now; learn that the captain of that vessel, touched by my lot, took me into his friendship. He had me brought up as his own son, and arms were my profession as soon as I was old enough; I learned not long ago that my father was not dead, as I had always thought; passing through this town on my way to look for him, an accident arranged by Heaven made me see the charming Élise; the sight of her made me a slave to her beauty; and the violence of my love and the severities of her father made me resolve to enter his household and send someone else in quest of my parents.
ANSELME. But what other proofs, besides your words, can assure us that this is not some fable that you’ve built upon a truth?
VALÈRE. The Spanish captain; a ruby signet-ring that belonged to my father; an agate bracelet that my mother had put on my arm; old Pedro, the servant who escaped from the shipwreck with me.
MARIANE. Alas! from your words I myself can attest here and now that this is no imposition; and everything you say makes me know clearly that you are my brother.
VALÈRE. You, my sister?
MARIANE. Yes. My heart was stirred from the moment you opened your mouth; and our mother, who will be delighted to see you, has told me a thousand times about our family’s misfortunes. Heaven did not make us perish either in that sad shipwreck; but it saved our lives only at the cost of our freedom; and it was pirates who picked us up, my mother and me, from a bit of the wreckage of our ship. After ten years of slavery, a happy chance restored our liberty to us, and we returned to Naples, where we found all our property sold, without being able to find any news of my father. We took passage to Genoa, where my mother went to collect some wretched remains of an inheritance that had been torn to bits; and from there, fleeing the barbaric injustice of her relatives, she came to these parts, where she has lived little better than a languishing life.
ANSELME. O Heaven! How great are the works of your power! And how well you show that it is for you alone to work miracles! Embrace me, my children, and both mingle your transports with those of your father.
VALÈRE. You are our father?
MARIANE. It’s you my mother mourned so?
ANSELME. Yes, my daughter, yes, my son, I am Don Thomas d’Alburcy, whom Heaven saved from the waves with all the money he had on him, and who, having thought you all dead for more than sixteen years, was preparing, after much voyaging, to seek, in marriage with a sweet and decent woman, the consolation of a new family. The little safety I could see for my life if I returned to Naples made me renounce that place forever; and having managed to sell what I owned, I have settled down here, where, under the name of Anselme, I have tried to put aside the sorrows of that other name that has caused me so many misfortunes.
HARPAGON. That’s your son?
ANSELME. Yes.
HARPAGON. I hold you responsible for paying me ten thousand crowns that he stole from me.
ANSELME. He stole from you?
HARPAGON. Himself.
VALÈRE. Who told you that?
HARPAGON. Maître Jacques.
VALÈRE (to MAÎTRE JACQUES). You’re the one who says that?
MAÎTRE JACQUES. You see I’m not saying a thing.
HARPAGON. Oh, yes, you did; here’s the officer who took the deposition.
VALÈRE. Can you think me capable of such a cowardly act?
HARPAGON. Capable or not capable, I want my money back.
Scene 6. CLÉANTE, VALÈRE, MARIANE, ÉLISE, FROSINE, HARPAGON, ANSELME, MAÎTRE JACQUES, LA FLÈCHE, OFFICER, CLERK
CLÉANTE. Don’t worry, father, and don’t accuse anyone. I have learned news of your affair, and I come here to tell you that if you will make up your mind to let me marry Mariane, your money will be returned to you.
HARPAGON. Where is it?
CLÉANTE. Don’t be concerned about it; it’s in a place where I can answer for it, and everything depends on me alone. It’s up to you to tell me what you decide; and you can choose either to give me Mariane or to lose your money-box.
HARPAGON. Hasn’t anything been taken out of it?
CLÉANTE. Nothing at all. See whether it’s your intention to agree to this marriage and join your consent to that of her mother, who gives her her freedom to make a choice between the two of us.
MARIANE. But you don’t know that that consent is not enough, and that Heaven has just restored to me, together with a brother, whom you see, a father, from whom you must obtain me.
ANSELME. Heaven does not give me back to you, my children, to oppose your wishes. Seigneur Harpagon, you know very well that a young person’s choice will fall on the son rather than on the father. Come, don’t make anyone tell you what it is not necessary to hear, and consent, as I do, to this double marriage.
HARPAGON. To take counsel, I must see my money-box.
CLÉANTE. You shall see it safe and sound.
HARPAGON. I have no money to give my children in marriage.
ANSELME. Well, I have enough for them; don’t let that worry you.
HARPAGON. Will you undertake to meet all the expenses of these two marriages?
ANSELME. Yes, I undertake that. Are you satisfied?
HARPAGON. Yes, provided you have a suit made for me for the weddings.
ANSELME. Agreed. Come, let’s enjoy the bliss that this happy day offers us.
OFFICER. Hold on, gentlemen! Hold on! Easy, if you please. Who is going to pay me for my depositions?
HARPAGON. We want no part of your depositions.
OFFICER. Yes, but I don’t intend to have taken them for nothing.
HARPAGON (pointing to MAÎTRE JACQUES). For your payment, here is a man I give you to hang.
MAÎTRE JACQUES. Alas! What is a man to do? They give me a beating for telling the truth, and they want to hang me for lying.
ANSELME. Seigneur Harpagon, you must forgive him for this imposture.
HARPAGON. Then you’ll pay the officer?
ANSELME. So be it. Let’s go quickly and share our joy with your mother.
HARPAGON. And I, to see my dear money-box.