Scene 1. ZERBINETTE, HYACINTE, SCAPIN, SILVESTRE
SILVESTRE. Yes, your suitors have decided between them that you should be together, and we are carrying out the orders they gave us.
HYACINTE (to ZERBINETTE). There’s nothing about such an order but that is very agreeable to me. I accept such a companion with joy; and it won’t be my fault if the friendship that exists between the persons we love does not spread out between the two of us.
ZERBINETTE. I accept the proposition, and I’m not a person to draw back when I’m approached with true friendship.
SCAPIN. And when it’s with love that you’re approached?
ZERBINETTE. As for love, that’s another matter; in that you run a little more risk, and I’m not so bold.
SCAPIN. I think you are now, against my master; and what he’s just done for you should give you heart to respond to his passion as you should.
ZERBINETTE. Thus far I trust in that only in a proper way; and what he’s just done is not enough to give me complete assurance. I’m naturally gay, and I’m always laughing; but for all I may laugh, I’m serious about certain matters; and your master will be mistaken if he thinks it’s enough for him to have purchased me in order to have me entirely his own. That must cost him something more than money; and to respond to his love in the way he wishes, I need to have him plight me his troth and season it with certain ceremonies that are considered necessary.
SCAPIN. That’s how he looks at it too. His intentions toward you are strictly fair and honorable; and I wouldn’t have been the man to be involved in this affair if he’d had any other ideas.
ZERBINETTE. That’s what I want to believe, since you tell me so; but on the father’s side I foresee some obstacles.
SCAPIN. We’ll find ways to arrange things.
HYACINTE (to ZERBINETTE). The resemblance between our destinies should also contribute to bring about our friendship; and we both find ourselves exposed to the same alarms and the same misfortune.
ZERBINETTE. At least you have this advantage, that you know of whom you were born, and that the support of your parents, whom you can make known, can arrange everything, assure your happiness, and provide consent for a marriage already held. But as for me, I find no help in what I may be, and I’m in a state that won’t soften the will of a father who considers only money.
HYACINTE. But also you have this advantage, that the man you love is not being tempted by another match.
ZERBINETTE. The change in a lover’s heart is not the thing most to be feared. One may naturally think one has enough merit to keep one’s conquest; and what I find most fearful in this sort of affair is the power of the father, to whom no merit is of any value.
HYACINTE. Alas! Why must just inclinations be crossed? What a sweet thing it is to love when you find no obstacle to those lovely chains with which two hearts bind themselves together!
SCAPIN. You’re joking. Tranquillity in love is a disagreeable calm; a uniform happiness becomes boring to us; we need ups and downs in life; and the difficulties that intermingle in our affairs awaken ardors and augment pleasures.
ZERBINETTE. My goodness, Scapin, tell us this story which I’ve been told is so amusing, of the stratagem you thought of to extract money from your miserly old man. You know no one wastes his time telling me a story, and that I pay pretty well for it by the joy I take in it.
SCAPIN. Here’s Silvestre, who will handle it as well as I would. I have a certain little revenge in mind, and I’m going to taste the pleasure of it.
SILVESTRE. Why do you go out of your way to try to bring troubles on your head?
SCAPIN. I like to attempt hazardous undertakings.
SILVESTRE. I’ve already told you, you’d give up your present plan if you’d take my word for it.
SCAPIN. Yes, but it’s my word I’ll take.
SILVESTRE. What the devil are you going to play around at?
SCAPIN. What the devil are you worrying about?
SILVESTRE. About seeing that, without any need, you’re going to run the risk of bringing a shower of blows upon yourself.
SCAPIN. Well, it’s at the expense of my back, not of yours.
SILVESTRE. It’s true that you’re master of your own shoulders, and you’ll dispose of them as you please.
SCAPIN. This sort of risk has never stopped me, and I hate these pusillanimous hearts that see the consequences of things so well that they don’t dare undertake anything.
ZERBINETTE (to SCAPIN). We’ll need your help.
SCAPIN. Go along. I’ll come and join you soon. It shall not be said that with impunity I was placed in a position to betray myself and to reveal secrets that were better not known.
Scene 2. GÉRONTE, SCAPIN
GÉRONTE. Well, Scapin, how goes my son’s affair?
SCAPIN. Your son, sir, is in a safe place; but now you yourself are running the greatest risk in the world, and I’d give a good deal for you to be at home.
GÉRONTE. Why, how’s that?
SCAPIN. At the very moment I’m speaking, they’re looking for you all over to kill you.
GÉRONTE. Me?
SCAPIN. Yes.
GÉRONTE. And who is it?
SCAPIN. The brother of this person that Octave has married. He thinks your plan to put your daughter in his sister’s place is what is doing the most to break up their marriage; and with that notion in mind he has openly resolved to take out his despair on you and take away your life to avenge his honor. All his friends, swordsmen like himself, are looking all over for you and asking for news of you. I even saw here and there some soldiers of his company questioning the people they meet, and occupying in squads all the approaches to your house. So you can’t go home, you can’t take a step right or left, without falling into their hands.
GÉRONTE. What shall I do, my dear Scapin?
SCAPIN. I don’t know, sir, and this is a bad business. I tremble for you from head to foot, and . . . Wait. (He turns around and pretends to go and look offstage to see if there is anyone there.)
GÉRONTE (trembling). Eh?
SCAPIN (coming back). No, no, no, it’s nothing.
GÉRONTE. Couldn’t you find some way to get me out of trouble?
SCAPIN. I can imagine one all right; but I’d run the risk of getting myself well beaten.
GÉRONTE. Oh, Scapin! Show yourself to be a zealous servant: don’t desert me, I beg you!
SCAPIN. I’m willing to help. I’m too fond of you to leave you without help.
GÉRONTE. You’ll have your reward for it, I assure you; and I promise you this suit, when I’ve gotten it a bit worn out.
SCAPIN. Wait. Here’s something I’ve thought of that’s just right to save you. You must get into this sack and . . .
GÉRONTE (thinking he sees someone). Oh!
SCAPIN. No, no, no, no, it’s no one. You must get into it, I say, and keep from moving in any way. I’ll load you on my back like a bundle of something or other, and that way I’ll carry you through your enemies right into your house; and when we’re once there, we can barricade ourselves and send for assistance against violence.
GÉRONTE. That’s real ingenuity.
SCAPIN. The best in the world. You’ll see. (Aside) You’ll pay me for the trick.
GÉRONTE. Eh?
SCAPIN. I say that your enemies will be properly caught. Get right down to the bottom, and above all take care not to show yourself and not to move, whatever may happen.
GÉRONTE. Leave it to me. I’ll manage to keep still.
SCAPIN. Hide. Here’s a cutthroat looking for you. (Disguising his voice as a Gascon) “What? I won’t have the advantage of to kill this Géronte, and someone out of charity won’t tell me where he is?” (To GÉRONTE, in his ordinary voice) Don’t budge. (Resuming his disguised voice) “’Sdeath, I’ll vind him, if he hid himself in the center of the earth.” (To GÉRONTE, in his natural voice) Don’t show yourself. (From now on the Gascon talk, in quotation marks, is disguised; the rest is his own.) “Oh, the man with the sack!” — Sir. — “I gib you one louis, and teach me where could be Géronte.” — You’re looking for Seigneur Géronte? — “Yes, ’sdeath, I be looking for him.” — And on what business, sir? — “On vat business?” — Yes.— “I vant, zounds, to make him die of blows with a stick.” — Oh, sir, blows with a stick are not given to people like him, and he’s not a man to be treated in that way. — “Who, that fool Géronte, that rascal, that vum?” — Seigneur Géronte is neither a fool, nor a rascal, nor a bum, and, if you please, you should change your language. — “What, you treat me with that lovtiness?” — I’m defending, as I must, a man of honor who is being insulted. — “Are you a vriend of this Géronte?” — Yes, sir, I am. — “Ah, zounds, you’re a vriend of his, vell and good.” (He beats the sack with a stick repeatedly.) “Here, this is what I gib you vor him.” — Oh, oh, oh, oh! Sir! Oh, oh, sir! Gently! Oh, gently, oh, oh, oh! —“Go. Take him this vrom me. Varewell to you!” — Ah! The devil take that Gascon! Oh! (He complains and wriggles his back as if he had received the beating.)
GÉRONTE (putting his head out of the sack). Ah! Scapin! I can’t go on.
SCAPIN. Ah! Sir! I’m beaten black and blue, and my shoulders hurt frightfully.
GÉRONTE. How so? It was mine he beat.
SCAPIN. No, sir, it was my back he was beating.
GÉRONTE. What do you mean? I certainly felt the blows, and I certainly feel them still.
SCAPIN. No, I tell you, it was only the end of the stick that reached your shoulders.
GÉRONTE. Then you ought to have moved away a bit to spare me.
SCAPIN (putting GÉRONTE’s head back in the sack). Watch out! Here’s another one that looks like a foreigner. (Disguising his voice as a Swiss) “By Gar! Me run around like a Basque, ant me no be able to fint all tay dat tefil Gironte.” — Keep well hidden. — “Tell me a bit, you, mister man, if you please, you not know where is this Gironte that me looking for?” — No, sir, I don’t know where Géronte is. — “You tell it to me frankily, me haf not much business with him. Just only to gif him a little treat of a dozen blows on the back mit der stick, and tree or four little swort trusts true his chest.” — I assure you, sir, I don’t know where he is. — “It seems to me I see something mofe in dis sack.” — Pardon me, sir. — “Dere is assuretly some funny business in dere.” — Not at all, sir. — “Me feel like giffing one swort trust in dat sack.” — Ah, sir! Don’t do anything of the sort. — “You just show me a bit what dat be dere.” — Easy, sir! — “How’s dat? Easy?” — You have no business wanting to see what I’m carrying. — “But me, I to want to see.” — You shan’t see. — “Aha! What a lot of trifling!” — These are old clothes that belong to me. — “You show me, I tell you.” — I’ll do nothing of the sort. — “You to nothing?” — No. — “Me gif this stick on the shoulders of you.” — I don’t care a rap. — “Ah! You be joker.” — Ouch, ouch, ouch! Oh, sir, oh, oh, oh, oh! — “Goot-by; that be one little lesson to teach to you to speak insolentily!” — Oh! Plague take the jabbering fool! Oh!
GÉRONTE (putting his head out of the sack). Ah! I’m beaten to death!
SCAPIN. Ah! I’m dead!
GÉRONTE. Why the deuce must they strike on my back?
SCAPIN (putting GÉRONTE’s head back in the sack). Watch out, here are half a dozen soldiers all together. (He imitates several people together.) “Come on, let’s try to find that Géronte, let’s look everywhere. Let’s not spare our steps. Let’s run through the whole town. Let’s not forget any place. Let’s search everything. Let’s ferret all over. Where shall we go? Let’s turn that way. No, this way. To the left. To the right. No. Yes.” — Keep well hidden. — “Ah, comrades, here’s his valet. Come on, you rogue, you’ve got to tell us where your master is.” — Oh, gentlemen! Don’t maltreat me. — “Come on, tell us where he is. Speak. Hurry up. Let’s get a move on. Make haste quick. Promptly.” — Oh, gentlemen! Gently. (GÉRONTE puts his head gently out of the sack and perceives SCAPIN’s trick.) — “If you don’t help us find your master right away, we’ll rain a wave of cudgel-blows upon you.” — I’d rather endure anything than reveal my master to you. — “We’ll beat your brains out.” — Do whatever you please. — “You really want to be beaten.” — I won’t betray my master. —“Oh! You want a taste. There . . . !” — Oh! (As he is ready to strike, GÉRONTE gets out of the sack, and SCAPIN runs away.)
GÉRONTE. Ah, you wretch! Ah, you traitor! Ah, you villain! That’s how you assassinate me!
Scene 3. ZERBINETTE, GÉRONTE
ZERBINETTE (laughing, not seeing GÉRONTE). Ha, ha! I guess I’ll get a breath of air.
GÉRONTE (aside, not seeing ZERBINETTE). You’ll pay for this, I swear.
ZERBINETTE (not seeing GÉRONTE). Ha, ha, ha, ha! What a funny story! And what a fine dupe of an old man!
GÉRONTE. There’s nothing funny about this, and you have no business laughing about it.
ZERBINETTE. What? What do you mean, sir?
GÉRONTE. I mean that you mustn’t make fun of me.
ZERBINETTE. Of you?
GÉRONTE. Yes.
ZERBINETTE. What? Who’s thinking of making fun of you?
GÉRONTE. Why do you come here and laugh in my face?
ZERBINETTE. This has nothing to do with you, and I’m laughing to myself at a story I’ve just been told, the funniest you ever heard. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m involved in the thing; but I’ve never come across anything as funny as a trick that has just been played by a son on his father to get some money out of him.
GÉRONTE. By a son on his father, to get some money out of him?
ZERBINETTE. Yes. With the least bit of urging, you’ll find me willing enough to tell you all about it, and I’ve a natural itch to communicate the stories I know.
GÉRONTE. Pray tell me this story.
ZERBINETTE. I’m willing. I won’t risk very much by telling it to you, and it’s an adventure that’s not likely to be secret long. Destiny willed that I find myself among a band of these people who are called Gypsies and who, roaming from province to province, involve themselves in telling fortunes, and sometimes in many other things. When we arrived in this town, a young man saw me and fell in love with me. From that moment on he has followed me around, and at first he was like all these young fellows, who think all they have to do is to speak and that at the slightest word they say to us their business is done; but he found a pride that made him correct his original ideas a little. He made his passion known to the people whose hands I was in, and he found them disposed to give me up to him in consideration for a certain sum. But the trouble with the business was that my suitor found himself in the state in which we very often see most young men of good condition, that is to say that he was a bit bare of money; and he has a father who, though rich, is an arrant skinflint, the meanest man in the world. Wait! Can’t I even remember his name? Hey! Help me a little. Can’t you tell me the name of someone in this town who is known for being a miser to the highest degree?
GÉRONTE. No.
ZERBINETTE. There’s a ron in his name, ronte. Or . . . Oronte. No. Gé . . . Géronte; yes, Géronte, that’s just it; that’s my miser, I’ve got it, that’s the skinflint I’m talking about. To come to our story, today our people wanted to leave this town; and my sweetheart was going to lose me for want of money, if, in order to get some out of his father, he hadn’t found help in the ingenuity of a servant he has. As for the servant’s name, I know it perfectly; his name is Scapin; he’s an incomparable man, and he deserves all the praise that can be given.
GÉRONTE (aside). Ah! You scoundrel!
ZERBINETTE. Here’s the stratagem he used to catch his dupe. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I can’t think back on it without laughing with all my heart. Ha, ha, ha! He went and found this dog of a miser, ha, ha, ha! and told him that as he was walking in the port with his son, hee, hee! they had seen a Turkish galley, and been invited to go aboard; that a young Turk had given them a collation, ha! that while they were eating, the galley had put out to sea; and that the Turk had sent him back to land, alone, in a skiff, with orders to tell his master’s father that he was taking his son to Algiers unless he sent him five hundred crowns right away. Ha, ha, ha! There is my skinflint, my miser in frenzied anguish; and the tenderness he has for his son puts on a weird combat with his avarice. Five hundred crowns that they demand of him are precisely five hundred dagger thrusts. Ha, ha, ha! He can’t bring himself to tear this sum from his entrails; and the pain he suffers makes him find a hundred ridiculous ways of getting his son back. Ha, ha, ha! He wants to send the police to sea after the Turk’s galley. Ha, ha, ha! He solicits his valet to go and offer himself in his son’s place until he has raised the money that he doesn’t want to give. Ha, ha, ha! To make up the five hundred crowns, he gives up four or five old suits that aren’t worth thirty. Ha, ha, ha! The valet makes him understand, at every turn, the pointlessness of his propositions, and each reflection is lugubriously accompanied by a “But what the devil did he go into that galley for? Ah! Cursed galley! Traitor of a Turk!” Finally, after many evasions, after long having groaned and sighed . . . But it seems to me that you’re not laughing at my story. What do you think of it?
GÉRONTE. I say that the young man is an insolent gallowsbird who shall be punished by his father for the trick he played on him; that the Gypsy girl is an impertinent scatterbrain to insult a man of honor who will teach her to come here and debauch sons of good families; and that the valet is a villain, who will be sent to the gallows by Géronte before tomorrow morning.
Scene 4. SILVESTRE, ZERBINETTE
SILVESTRE. What are you up to? Do you realize that you’ve just been talking to your sweetheart’s father?
ZERBINETTE. I’ve just suspected so; and I spoke to him without thinking of that, and told him his own story.
SILVESTRE. How’s that, his own story?
ZERBINETTE. Yes, I was full of the story and burning to repeat it. But what does it matter? So much the worse for him. I don’t see how things can be either worse or better thereby for us.
SILVESTRE. You had a great itch to babble; and a person has a loose tongue who can’t keep quiet about his own affairs.
ZERBINETTE. Wouldn’t he have learned it from someone else?
Scene 5. ARGANTE, SILVESTRE
ARGANTE. Hold on, Silvestre!
SILVESTRE (to ZERBINETTE). Go back in the house. There’s my master calling me.
ARGANTE. So you were in it together, you scoundrel? You were in it together, Scapin, you, and my son, to cheat me; and you think I’ll put up with it?
SILVESTRE. Faith, sir! If Scapin is cheating you, I wash my hands of it, and I assure you that I’m not involved in it in any way.
ARGANTE. We’ll see about this business, you gallowsbird, we’ll see about this business, and I don’t intend to be hoodwinked.
Scene 6. GÉRONTE, ARGANTE, SILVESTRE
GÉRONTE. Ah, Seigneur Argante! You find me overwhelmed by misfortune.
ARGANTE. You find me too in frightful despondency.
GÉRONTE. That blackguard Scapin, by one of his machinations, has gotten five hundred crowns out of me.
ARGANTE. That same blackguard Scapin, also by one of his machinations, has gotten two hundred pistoles out of me.
GÉRONTE. He didn’t content himself with getting five hundred crowns out of me; he treated me in a way I’m ashamed to tell. But he’ll pay for it.
ARGANTE. I want him to give me satisfaction for the trick he played on me.
GÉRONTE. And I mean to take exemplary vengeance on him.
SILVESTRE (aside). Please Heaven that I don’t have my part in all this!
GÉRONTE. But that’s not yet all, Seigneur Argante; and one misfortune always leads to another. I was rejoicing today in the hope of having my daughter back, in whom I placed all my consolation; and I’ve just learned from my man that she left Taranto a long time ago, and that they think she has perished in the ship she embarked in.
ARGANTE. But why, pray, did you keep her at Taranto, and not give yourself the joy of having her with you?
GÉRONTE. I had my reasons for that; and family interests obliged me up to now to keep this second marriage very secret. But what’s this I see?
Scene 7. NÉRINE, ARGANTE, GÉRONTE, SILVESTRE
GÉRONTE. Ah! It’s you, nurse.
NÉRINE (casting herself at his knees). Ah! Seigneur Pandolphe, let me . . .
GÉRONTE. Call me Géronte, and don’t use that name anymore. The reasons have ceased which obliged me to assume it among you at Taranto.
NÉRINE. Alas! How many troubles and worries that change of name has caused us in our efforts to come and look for you here!
GÉRONTE. Where’s my daughter, and her mother?
NÉRINE. Your daughter, sir, is not far from here. But before I let you see her, I must ask your pardon for having gotten her married, in the abandonment I found myself in with her for want of meeting with you.
GÉRONTE. My daughter married?
NÉRINE. Yes, sir.
GÉRONTE. And to whom?
NÉRINE. To a young man named Octave, son of a certain Seigneur Argante.
GÉRONTE. Heavens!
ARGANTE. What a coincidence!
GÉRONTE. Take us to where she is, take us promptly.
NÉRINE. You have only to enter this house.
GÉRONTE. Go ahead. Follow me, follow me, Seigneur Argante.
SILVESTRE (alone). That’s a really amazing adventure.
Scene 8. SCAPIN, SILVESTRE
SCAPIN. Well, Silvestre! What are our people doing?
SILVESTRE. I have two pieces of information to give you. First, that Octave’s affair is settled. Our Hyacinte has turned out to be Seigneur Géronte’s daughter; and chance accomplished what the prudence of the two fathers had planned. The other thing is that the two old men are making frightful threats against you, and especially Seigneur Géronte.
SCAPIN. That’s nothing. Threats have never done me any harm; they are clouds that pass far above our heads.
SILVESTRE. Watch out for yourself. The sons might very well make it up with the fathers, and you’d be left in the trap.
SCAPIN. Leave it to me; I’ll find a way to appease their wrath, and . . .
SILVESTRE. Get out of here; they’re coming out now.
Scene 9. GÉRONTE, ARGANTE, SILVESTRE, NÉRINE, HYACINTE
GÉRONTE. Come on, my daughter, come to my house. My joy would have been perfect if I could have seen your mother there with you.
ARGANTE. Here’s Octave, just at the right moment.
Scene 10. OCTAVE, ARGANTE, GÉRONTE, HYACINTE, NÉRINE, ZERBINETTE, SILVESTRE
ARGANTE. Come, my son, come and rejoice with us at the happy adventure of your marriage. Heaven . . .
OCTAVE (not seeing HYACINTE). No, father, all your plans for marriage will be in vain. I must take off the mask with you, and you’ve been told of my commitment.
ARGANTE. Yes; but you don’t know . . .
OCTAVE. I know all I have to know.
ARGANTE. I want to tell you that Seigneur Géronte’s daughter . . .
OCTAVE. Seigneur Géronte’s daughter will never be anything to me.
GÉRONTE. She’s the one . . .
OCTAVE. No, sir! I ask your pardon; my resolution is fixed.
SILVESTRE. Listen . . .
OCTAVE. No, be quiet; I won’t listen to a thing.
ARGANTE. Your wife . . .
OCTAVE. No, I tell you, father, I’ll die rather than leave my lovely Hyacinte. (Crosses stage and stands beside her.) Yes, no matter what you do, here is the one to whom my faith is plighted; I’ll love her all my life and I won’t have any other wife.
ARGANTE. Well! She’s the one I’m giving you. What a darned scatterbrain, always sticking to your point!
HYACINTE. Yes, Octave, this is my father that I’ve found, and our troubles are over.
GÉRONTE. Let’s go to my house; we’ll have a better place to talk than here.
HYACINTE. Ah, father! I beg you as a favor not to have me separated from the charming person whom you see; she has a merit that, when you know it, will give you esteem for her.
GÉRONTE. You want me to keep in my house a person whom your brother is in love with, and who just now told me, to my face, a thousand stupid things about me?
ZERBINETTE. Sir, I beg you to excuse me. I wouldn’t have spoken in that way if I’d known it was you; I knew you only by reputation.
GÉRONTE. How’s that, only by reputation?
HYACINTE. Father, my brother’s passion for her has nothing criminal about it, and I’ll answer for her virtue.
GÉRONTE. That’s certainly very fine. Wouldn’t they have me get my son married to her? An unknown girl who’s a street-walker by profession!
Scene 11. LÉANDRE, OCTAVE, HYACINTE, ZERBINETTE, ARGANTE, GÉRONTE, SILVESTRE, NÉRINE
LÉANDRE. Father, don’t complain that I love an unknown girl without birth or property. The people from whom I purchased her have just revealed to me that she is from this city, and of an honorable family; that it was they who stole her at the age of four; and here is a bracelet they gave me, which may help us find her parents.
ARGANTE. Alas! To see this bracelet, she’s my daughter, whom I lost at the age you say.
GÉRONTE. Your daughter?
ARGANTE. Yes, she is, and I see all the features that can make me assured of it.
HYACINTE. O Heavens! What a lot of extraordinary coincidences!
Scene 12. CARLE, LÉANDRE, OCTAVE, GÉRONTE, ARGANTE, HYACINTE, ZERBINETTE, SILVESTRE, NÉRINE
CARLE. Ah! Gentlemen, a strange accident has just happened.
GÉRONTE. What?
CARLE. Poor Scapin . . .
GÉRONTE. He’s a scoundrel whom I want to have hanged.
CARLE. Alas, sir! You won’t need to take the trouble for that. As he passed next to a building, a stonecutter’s hammer fell on his head, broke the bone, and laid his whole brains open. He’s dying; and he asked to be brought here to be able to talk to you before he died.
ARGANTE. Where is he?
CARLE. Here he is.
Scene 13. SCAPIN, CARLE, GÉRONTE, ARGANTE, LÉANDRE, OCTAVE, HYACINTE, ZERBINETTE, SILVESTRE, NÉRINE, PORTERS
SCAPIN (carried on by two men, his head swathed in bandages, as if he had been seriously wounded). Oh, oh! Gentlemen, you see me . . . Oh! You see me in a sad state. I didn’t want to die without coming to ask for pardon from all the persons I may have offended. Oh! Yes, gentlemen, before I utter my last sigh, I conjure you all, with all my heart, to be willing to forgive me for what I may have done to you, especially Seigneur Argante and Seigneur Géronte. Oh!
ARGANTE. As for me, I forgive you; go, die in peace.
SCAPIN (to GÉRONTE). It’s you, sir, whom I offended most, by the beating that . . .
GÉRONTE. Say no more. I forgive you too.
SCAPIN. It was a very great temerity on my part, the cudgel-blows that I . . .
GÉRONTE. Let’s let it go.
SCAPIN. I have inconceivable sorrow, in dying, for the cudgel-blows that . . .
GÉRONTE. Good Lord! Be quiet.
SCAPIN. The unfortunate cudgel-blows that I . . .
GÉRONTE. Be quiet, I tell you. I’m forgetting everything.
SCAPIN. Alas! What goodness! But is it wholeheartedly, sir, that you pardon me the cudgel-blows that . . . ?
GÉRONTE. Oh, yes! Let’s say no more about anything; I forgive you for everything, and that’s that.
SCAPIN. Ah! Sir, I feel all relieved since those words.
GÉRONTE. Yes; but I forgive you on condition that you die.
SCAPIN. How’s that, sir?
GÉRONTE. I take back my word if you get well.
SCAPIN. Oh, oh! There goes my faintness seizing me again.
ARGANTE. Seigneur Géronte, for the sake of our joy, you must forgive him unconditionally.
GÉRONTE. So be it.
ARGANTE. Let’s go and have supper together, the better to relish our pleasure.
SCAPIN (jumping to his feet, taking off his bandages, and being carried off by the PORTERS). And as for me, have them carry me to the end of the table, while they wait for me to die.