Scene 1. BÉRALDE, ARGAN, TOINETTE
BÉRALDE. Well, brother, what do you say to that? Isn’t that as good as a dose of senna?
TOINETTE. Hm! Good senna is good.
BÉRALDE. Well, now! Would you like to have a little talk together?
ARGAN. Be patient a bit, brother. I’ll be back.
TOINETTE. Wait, sir. You’re forgetting that you can’t walk without a stick.
ARGAN. You’re right.
Scene 2. BÉRALDE, TOINETTE
TOINETTE. Please don’t abandon your niece’s interests.
BÉRALDE. I’ll do everything I can to get her what she wants.
TOINETTE. It’s absolutely necessary to prevent this crazy marriage that he’s taken into his head, and I had thought to myself that it would have been a good idea to be able to bring in here a doctor of our own choosing, to give him a distaste for his Monsieur Purgon and disparage his methods. But since we have no one in hand for that, I’ve resolved to play a trick out of my head.
BÉRALDE. How’s that?
TOINETTE. It’s a wild idea. Maybe it will be more lucky than it is sensible. Leave it to me; for your part, do what you can. Here’s our man.
Scene 3. ARGAN, BÉRALDE
BÉRALDE. Allow me, brother, to ask you above all not to get excited during our conversation.
ARGAN. That’s settled.
BÉRALDE. To answer any things I may say to you without bitterness.
ARGAN. Yes.
BÉRALDE. And to reason together on the things we have to talk about with a mind detached from any passion.
ARGAN. Good Lord, yes! That’s a lot of preamble.
BÉRALDE. How does it happen, brother, that with the money you have, and no children but one daughter, for I’m not counting the little one, how does it happen, I say, that you’re talking about putting her into a convent?
ARGAN. How does it happen, brother, that I am master in my family to do what seems good to me?
BÉRALDE. Your wife doesn’t fail to advise you to get rid of both your daughters thus, and I have no doubt that, out of a spirit of charity, she would be delighted to see both of them be good nuns.
ARGAN. Aha! Here we go. You’ve got my poor wife into it right away: she’s the one who does all the harm, and everyone has it in for her.
BÉRALDE. No, brother; let’s let her be; she’s a woman who has the best intentions in the world for your family, free of any sort of self-interest, who has a marvelous tenderness for you, and displays for your children an affection and a kindness which are inconceivable; that’s certain. Let’s not talk about her, and let’s come back to your daughter. What’s your idea, brother, in wanting to give her in marriage to a doctor’s son?
ARGAN. My idea, brother, is to give myself the kind of son-in-law I need.
BÉRALDE. That, brother, isn’t the thing for your daughter, and there’s a match available that’s more suitable for her.
ARGAN. Yes, brother, but this one is more suitable for me.
BÉRALDE. But, brother, should the husband she is to take be for her or for you?
ARGAN. He should be, brother, both for her and for me, and I want to bring into my family the people I need.
BÉRALDE. On that reasoning, if your little one was grown up, you’d give her in marriage to an apothecary?
ARGAN. Why not?
BÉRALDE. Is it possible that you will always be infatuated with your apothecaries and your doctors, and that you intend to be sick in spite of everyone and of nature herself?
ARGAN. How do you mean that, brother?
BÉRALDE. I mean, brother, that I don’t see one single man who is less sick than you, and that I wouldn’t ask for a better constitution than yours. One great sign that you are healthy and that you have a perfectly well set-up body is that with all the cares you have taken you haven’t yet succeeded in ruining the soundness of your system, and that you haven’t burst with all the medicines they’ve had you take.
ARGAN. But do you realize, brother, that that’s what’s keeping me alive, and that Monsieur Purgon says I would succumb if he went even three days without taking care of me?
BÉRALDE. If you’re not careful, he’ll take such care of you that he’ll send you into the other world.
ARGAN. But let’s discuss this a little, brother. So you don’t believe in medicine?
BÉRALDE. No, brother, and I don’t believe it’s necessary, for our salvation, to believe in it.
ARGAN. What? You don’t believe in the truth of a thing established by everyone, and which every age has revered?
BÉRALDE. Very far from believing in its truth, I consider it, between us, one of the greatest follies there is among men; and looking at things as a philosopher, I can see no more comical piece of mummery, I can see nothing more ridiculous, than one man wanting to undertake to cure another.
ARGAN. Brother, why won’t you allow that one man can cure another?
BÉRALDE. For this reason, brother: that the functioning of our machine is a mystery in which up to now men can’t see a thing, and nature has put before our eyes veils too thick to allow us to know anything about it.
ARGAN. So the doctors don’t know anything, by your account?
BÉRALDE. Oh yes, they do, brother. Most of them know a lot in the humanities, know how to talk in fine Latin, know how to name all the diseases in Greek, define them, and classify them; but as for curing them, that’s what they don’t know how to do at all.
ARGAN. But still you must agree that on this matter the doctors know more than others.
BÉRALDE. Brother, they know what I’ve told you, which doesn’t cure anyone of very much; and the whole excellence of their art consists of a pompous mumbo-jumbo, a specious chatter, which gives you words for reasons, and promises for results.
ARGAN. But after all, brother, there are people as wise and as clever as you; and we see that in time of sickness, everyone has recourse to the doctors.
BÉRALDE. That’s a sign of human weakness, and not of the truth of their art.
ARGAN. But the doctors must certainly believe their art is true, since they use it for themselves.
BÉRALDE. That’s because there are some among them who themselves share the popular delusion, by which they profit, and others who profit by it without sharing it. Your Monsieur Purgon, for example, doesn’t try to fool anybody: he’s a man who’s all doctor, from head to foot, a man who believes in his rules more than in all the demonstrations of mathematics, and who would think it a crime to want to examine them; who sees in medicine nothing obscure, nothing doubtful, nothing difficult, and who, with impetuous prejudice, rigid self-confidence, brutish common sense and reason, gives purgations and bleedings right and left and never ponders a thing. You mustn’t bear him ill will for anything he may do to you; it’s in the best faith in the world that he’ll expedite you; and in killing you he will do only what he’s done to his wife and children, and what, if the need arose, he would do to himself.
ARGAN. The fact is, brother, you’ve always had it in for him. But anyway, let’s come to the point. Then what should you do when you’re sick?
BÉRALDE. Nothing, brother.
ARGAN. Nothing?
BÉRALDE. Nothing. All you have to do is rest. Nature, by herself, when we let her be, gently makes her way out of the disorder into which she has fallen. It’s our anxiety, our impatience that spoils everything, and almost all men die of their remedies, and not of their diseases.
ARGAN. But you must agree, brother, that we can assist nature in certain ways.
BÉRALDE. Good Lord, brother, those are pure notions that we like to feed on; and in every age there have been pretty fancies that have insinuated themselves among men, which we come to believe because they flatter us and because it would be most desirable that they should be true. When a doctor talks to you about aiding, helping, relieving nature, taking away from it what harms it and giving it what it lacks, setting it right again and restoring it to a full state of ease in its functions; when he talks to you about rectifying the blood, tempering the bowels and the brain, deflating the spleen, redressing the lungs, repairing the liver, fortifying the heart, re-establishing and conserving the natural heat, and having secrets to extend your life for many long years, he is telling you precisely the fairy tale of medicine. But when you come down to truth and experience, you find nothing of all that, and it’s like those beautiful dreams that leave you, when you wake, nothing but chagrin at having believed them.
ARGAN. That is to say that all the knowledge in the world is enclosed in your head, and you claim to know more about it than all the great doctors of our time.
BÉRALDE. Your great doctors are two different kinds of people in words and in deeds. Hear them talk: the ablest men in the world. See them at work: the most ignorant of all men.
ARGAN. Well! You’re a great doctor, I can see that; and I wish there was one of those gentlemen here to refute your arguments and humble your chatter.
BÉRALDE. Brother, I don’t take it upon myself to combat medicine; and everyone, at his own risk and peril, may believe all he likes. What I’m saying about it is just between us, and I would have liked to be able to bring you a little way out of the error you’re in, and, to amuse you, take you to see one of Molière’s comedies on the subject.
ARGAN. He’s a really impertinent fellow, your Molière, with his comedies, and it’s very amusing of him to go and make fun of worthy men like the doctors.
BÉRALDE. It’s not the doctors he makes fun of, but the absurdities of medicine.
ARGAN. I suppose it’s his business to undertake to criticize medicine. He’s a fine kind of impertinent fool to ridicule consultations and prescriptions, to attack the medical profession, and to put on his stage venerable people like those gentlemen!
BÉRALDE. What would you have him put on his stage but the various professions of men? Every day they put on princes and kings, who are of just as good birth as the doctors.
ARGAN. By all that’s holy—or unholy! If I were a doctor, I’d take revenge on his impertinence; and when he’s sick, I’d let him die without any help. He could say or do what he likes, I wouldn’t prescribe the slightest little bleeding, the least little enema; and I’d say to him: “Croak! Croak! That’ll teach you another time to make fun of the Faculty of Medicine!”
BÉRALDE. You really are angry at him!
ARGAN. Yes, he’s a stupid joker, and if the doctors are smart, they’ll do what I’m saying.
BÉRALDE. He’ll be even smarter than your doctors, for he won’t ask them for any help.
ARGAN. So much the worse for him, if he doesn’t have recourse to any remedies.
BÉRALDE. He has his reasons for not wanting any, and he maintains that they are permissible only for vigorous, robust people who have strength to spare to bear the remedies as well as the disease; but that for his part he has only just strength enough to bear his illness.
ARGAN. What stupid arguments those are! Look, brother, let’s not talk about that man anymore, for it rouses my bile, and it would bring on my illness.
BÉRALDE. I’m perfectly willing, brother; and to change the subject, I will tell you that just because your daughter shows some slight opposition, you shouldn’t make the violent resolve to put her into a convent; that in choosing a son-in-law, you shouldn’t blindly follow the passion that carries you away; and that in this matter one should make some accommodation to a daughter’s inclinations, since it’s for her whole life, and since on that depends the whole happiness of a marriage.
Scene 4. MONSIEUR FLEURANT (syringe in hand), ARGAN, BÉRALDE
ARGAN. Ah, brother, with your permission . . .
BÉRALDE. How’s that? What do you want to do?
ARGAN. Take this little enema; I’ll be done soon.
BÉRALDE. You must be joking. Can’t you go one moment without an enema or a dose of medicine? Put it off for another time, and take a little rest.
ARGAN. Monsieur Fleurant, I’ll see you this evening, or tomorrow morning.
MONSIEUR FLEURANT (to BÉRALDE). What business is it of yours to oppose the prescriptions of medicine, and to keep the gentleman from taking my enema? Your audacity is mighty comical!
BÉRALDE. Come, sir, it’s easy to see that you’re not accustomed to talking to people’s faces.
MONSIEUR FLEURANT. A person has no business making fun of remedies and making me waste my time. I came here only on a proper prescription, and I’m going to tell Monsieur Purgon how I’ve been kept from executing his orders and performing my function. You’ll see, you’ll see . . .
(Exit)
ARGAN. Brother, you’re going to be the cause of some misfortune here.
BÉRALDE. A great misfortune, not to take an enema that Monsieur Purgon prescribed! Once again, brother, is it possible that there’s no way to cure you of the malady of doctors, and that you want to be buried in their remedies all your life?
ARGAN. Good Lord, brother! You’re talking about this as a well man; but if you were in my place, you’d really change your tune. It’s easy to talk against medicine when you’re in perfect health.
BÉRALDE. But what illness do you have?
ARGAN. You’re enough to drive me crazy. I wish you had my illness, to see if you’d prattle so much. Oh! Here’s Monsieur Purgon.
Scene 5. MONSIEUR PURGON, ARGAN, BÉRALDE, TOINETTE
MONSIEUR PURGON. I’ve just learned, here at the door, a pretty piece of news: that people have made light of my prescriptions, and have refused to take the remedy I had prescribed.
ARGAN. Sir, it wasn’t . . .
MONSIEUR PURGON. That’s a great piece of audacity, an extraordinary rebellion by a patient against his doctor!
TOINETTE. That is frightful.
MONSIEUR PURGON. An enema that I had taken pleasure in concocting myself!
ARGAN. It wasn’t I . . .
MONSIEUR PURGON. Invented and fashioned according to all the rules of the art!
TOINETTE. He was wrong.
MONSIEUR PURGON. And that was destined to have a marvelous effect on the bowels.
ARGAN. Brother?
MONSIEUR PURGON. To send it away with disdain!
ARGAN. He’s the one . . .
MONSIEUR PURGON. It’s an unconscionable act.
TOINETTE. That’s true.
MONSIEUR PURGON. A shocking attack on medicine.
ARGAN. He’s the cause . . .
MONSIEUR PURGON. A crime of lèse-faculté, which cannot be punished severely enough.
TOINETTE. You’re right.
MONSIEUR PURGON. I declare to you that I am breaking off relations with you.
ARGAN. It was my brother . . .
MONSIEUR PURGON. That I want no more family alliance with you.
TOINETTE. You’ll be doing the right thing.
MONSIEUR PURGON. And that to end all dealings with you, here is the donation I was making to my nephew in favor of the marriage. (Tears it up.)
ARGAN. It was my brother that did all the harm.
MONSIEUR PURGON. To disdain my enema!
ARGAN. Bring it here. I’ll take it right away.
MONSIEUR PURGON. I would have got you out of this in next to no time.
TOINETTE. He doesn’t deserve it.
MONSIEUR PURGON. I was going to clean out your body and completely evacuate the evil humors.
ARGAN. Ah, brother!
MONSIEUR PURGON. And all I wanted was another dozen doses of medicine to empty the bottom of the sack.
TOINETTE. He is unworthy of your care.
MONSIEUR PURGON. But since you wouldn’t be cured at my hands . . .
ARGAN. It wasn’t my fault.
MONSIEUR PURGON. Since you absconded from the obedience that a man owes to his doctor . . .
TOINETTE. That cries for vengeance.
MONSIEUR PURGON. Since you have declared yourself a rebel against the remedies I was prescribing for you . . .
ARGAN. Oh! Not at all!
MONSIEUR PURGON. I have this to tell you: that I abandon you to your bad constitution, to the intemperance of your bowels, to the corruption of your blood, to the bitterness of your bile, and to the turbidity of your humors.
TOINETTE. Well done!
ARGAN. Good Lord!
MONSIEUR PURGON. And I will that before four days are up you get into an incurable state.
ARGAN. Ah! Mercy!
MONSIEUR PURGON. That you fall into bradypepsia . . .*
ARGAN. Monsieur Purgon!
MONSIEUR PURGON. From bradypepsia into dyspepsia . . .
ARGAN. Monsieur Purgon!
MONSIEUR PURGON. From dyspepsia into apepsia . . .
ARGAN. Monsieur Purgon!
MONSIEUR PURGON. From apepsia into lientery . . .
ARGAN. Monsieur Purgon!
MONSIEUR PURGON. From lientery into dysentery . . .
ARGAN. Monsieur Purgon!
MONSIEUR PURGON. From dysentery into dropsy . . .
ARGAN. Monsieur Purgon!
MONSIEUR PURGON. And from dropsy into loss of life, to which your folly will have led you.
Scene 6. ARGAN, BÉRALDE
ARGAN. Oh, good Lord! I’m a dead man. Brother, you’ve ruined me.
BÉRALDE. What? What’s the matter?
ARGAN. I’m done for. Already I feel medicine taking its revenge,
BÉRALDE. Faith, brother! You’re crazy, and I wouldn’t for anything want to have you be seen doing what you’re doing. Examine yourself a bit, please, come back to yourself, and don’t give so much play to your imagination.
ARGAN. Brother, you heard the awful diseases he threatened me with.
BÉRALDE. What a simpleton you are!
ARGAN. He says I’ll become incurable in less than four days.
BÉRALDE. And what he says, what has that to do with the case? Was it an oracle that spoke? It seems, to hear you, that Monsieur Purgon holds the thread of your days in his hands, and that by supreme authority he lengthens it and shortens it for you as he pleases. Remember that the principles of your life are in yourself, and that the wrath of Monsieur Purgon is as little capable of making you die as are his remedies of making you live. Here is an adventure, if you will, to rid you of doctors; or, if you are born to be unable to do without them, it is easy to get another, with whom, brother, you might run a little less risk.
ARGAN. Ah, brother! He knows my whole constitution and the way I have to be treated.
BÉRALDE. I must confess to you that you’re a man of great obstinacy, and that you see things through a strange pair of eyes.
Scene 7. TOINETTE, ARGAN, BÉRALDE
TOINETTE. Sir, there’s a doctor here asking to see you.
ARGAN. And what doctor?
TOINETTE. A doctor of doctoring.
ARGAN. I ask you who he is?
TOINETTE. I don’t know him, but he and I look as much alike as two peas in a pod; and if I wasn’t sure that my mother was an honest woman, I’d say that he’s probably some little brother she’d given me since my father’s death.
ARGAN. Show him in.
(Exit TOINETTE.)
BÉRALDE. You’re served to your heart’s content: one doctor leaves you, another presents himself.
ARGAN. I’m very much afraid that you’ll be the cause of some misfortune.
BÉRALDE. Again? You’re still coming back to that?
ARGAN. You see, I have all these illnesses I don’t know anything about on my mind, these . . .
Scene 8. TOINETTE (disguised as a doctor), ARGAN, BÉRALDE
TOINETTE. Sir, allow me to come and pay you a visit and offer you my modest services for any bleedings and purges you may need.
ARGAN. Sir, I am much obliged to you. (To BÉRALDE) My word, he looks just like Toinette herself!
TOINETTE. Sir, I beg you to excuse me; I forgot to give an order to my valet; I’ll be right back.
ARGAN. Eh! Wouldn’t you say it really is Toinette?
BÉRALDE. It’s true that the resemblance is extremely great. But this is not the first time that this sort of thing has been observed, and the histories are only too full of these freaks of nature.
ARGAN. For my part, I’m surprised, and . . .
Scene 9. TOINETTE, ARGAN, BÉRALDE
TOINETTE (having shed her doctor’s gown so fast that it’s hard to believe that it was she who appeared as a doctor). What do you want, sir?
ARGAN. What?
TOINETTE. Didn’t you call me?
ARGAN. I? No.
TOINETTE. My ears must have been burning.
ARGAN. Stay here a bit to see how much this doctor looks like you.
TOINETTE. Yes indeed! I’ve plenty to do downstairs, and I’ve seen him enough.
(Exit)
ARGAN. If I didn’t see them both, I’d think there was only one of them.
BÉRALDE. I’ve read some surprising things about this kind of resemblance, and we’ve seen some in our time that fooled everybody.
ARGAN. As for me, I would have been fooled by this one, and I would have sworn it was the same person.
Scene 10. TOINETTE (as a doctor), ARGAN, BÉRALDE
TOINETTE. Sir, with all my heart I ask your pardon.
ARGAN. That’s amazing!
TOINETTE. If you please, you won’t take amiss the curiosity I’ve had to see an illustrious invalid like yourself; and your reputation, which has spread everywhere, may excuse the liberty I have taken.
ARGAN. Sir, I am your servant.
TOINETTE. I see, sir, that you’re looking at me fixedly. How old do you really think I am?
ARGAN. I think you may be twenty-six or twenty-seven at the very most.
TOINETTE. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I’m ninety.
ARGAN. Ninety?
TOINETTE. Yes. You see one effect of the secrets of my art, to keep myself fresh and vigorous in this way.
ARGAN. Faith! Here’s a handsome young old man for ninety!
TOINETTE. I’m a traveling doctor, who goes from town to town, from province to province, from kingdom to kingdom, seeking illustrious subjects for my capacity, trying to find patients worthy of my attention, capable of exercising the fine great secrets I have discovered in medicine. I disdain to waste my time on that petty jumble of ordinary illnesses, on those trifles rheumatism and catarrhs, on those pathetic little fevers, those vapors, and those migraines. I want important illnesses; good continuous fevers with spells of delirium, good scarlet fevers, good plagues, good well-formed dropsies, good pleurisies with inflammation of the lungs: that’s what I enjoy, that’s where I triumph. And I wish, sir, that you had all the illnesses I’ve just mentioned, that you were abandoned by all the doctors, desperate, in agony, to show you the excellence of my remedies and my keen desire to do you service.
ARGAN. I am obliged to you, sir, for all your kindness to me.
TOINETTE. Give me your pulse. Come on now, beat properly. Aha! I’ll make you work as you should all right. Hey, this pulse is trying to be impertinent: I see very well that you don’t know me yet. Who is your doctor?
ARGAN. Monsieur Purgon.
TOINETTE. That man is not inscribed on my list among the great doctors. What does he say you’re sick with?
ARGAN. He says it’s the liver, and others say it’s the spleen.
TOINETTE. They’re all ignoramuses: it’s in the lungs that you’re sick.
ARGAN. The lungs?
TOINETTE. Yes. What do you feel?
ARGAN. From time to time I have headaches.
TOINETTE. Precisely, the lungs.
ARGAN. It seems to me sometimes that I have a veil before my eyes.
TOINETTE. The lungs.
ARGAN. I sometimes have pains in my heart.
TOINETTE. The lungs.
ARGAN. Now and then I feel a weariness in every limb.
TOINETTE. The lungs.
ARGAN. And sometimes I have pains in my stomach, as if it were colic.
TOINETTE. The lungs. You have an appetite for what you eat?
ARGAN. Yes, sir.
TOINETTE. The lungs. You like to drink a little wine?
ARGAN. Yes, sir.
TOINETTE. The lungs. You get a little sleepy after a meal, and feel glad of a nap?
ARGAN. Yes, sir.
TOINETTE. The lungs, the lungs, I tell you. What does your doctor prescribe for your diet?
ARGAN. He prescribes soup.
TOINETTE. Ignoramus.
ARGAN. Poultry.
TOINETTE. Ignoramus.
ARGAN. Veal.
TOINETTE. Ignoramus.
ARGAN. Broths.
TOINETTE. Ignoramus.
ARGAN. Fresh eggs.
TOINETTE. Ignoramus.
ARGAN. And some little prunes in the evening as a laxative.
TOINETTE. Ignoramus.
ARGAN. And above all to drink my wine mixed with a lot of water.
TOINETTE. Ignorantus, ignoranta, ignorantum. You must drink your wine straight; and to thicken your blood, which is too thin, you must eat good fat beef, good fat pork, good Holland cheese, gruel and rice, and chestnuts and wafers, to bind and conglutinate. Your doctor is an ass. I mean to send you one of my own choosing, and I’ll come and see you from time to time while I’m in town.
ARGAN. I’m much obliged to you.
TOINETTE. What the devil do you do with that arm?
ARGAN. How’s that?
TOINETTE. That’s an arm I’d have cut off right away, if I were you.
ARGAN. And why?
TOINETTE. Don’t you see that it’s drawing all the nourishment to itself, and keeping that whole side from profiting?
ARGAN. Yes, but I need my arm.
TOINETTE. You also have a right eye there that I’d have put out, if I were in your place.
ARGAN. Put out an eye?
TOINETTE. Don’t you see that it’s disadvantaging the other one and stealing its nourishment? Believe me, have it put out as soon as possible; you’ll see better out of the left eye.
ARGAN. There’s no hurry.
TOINETTE. Good-by. I’m sorry to leave you so soon, but I’ve got to be at a big consultation to be held for a man who died yesterday.
ARGAN. For a man who died yesterday?
TOINETTE. Yes, to deliberate and see what should have been done to cure him. Good-by.
ARGAN. You know that patients don’t show you out.
(Exit TOINETTE.)
BÉRALDE. There’s a doctor who really seems very able.
ARGAN. Yes, but he goes about things pretty fast.
BÉRALDE. All great doctors are like that.
ARGAN. Cut off one of my arms, and put out one of my eyes, so that the other one will be healthier? I’d much rather it wasn’t so healthy. A fine operation, to make me one-eyed and one-armed!
Scene 11. TOINETTE, ARGAN, BÉRALDE
TOINETTE (calling offstage). Come, come, I’m your servant. I’m not in the mood for fun.
ARGAN. What is it?
TOINETTE. Faith, your doctor! He wanted to feel my pulse.
ARGAN. What do you know! At ninety!
BÉRALDE. Now then, brother, since your Monsieur Purgon is on bad terms with you, won’t you let me talk to you about the suitor who’s seeking my niece’s hand?
ARGAN. No, brother; I want to put her in a convent, since she has opposed my wishes. I see very well that there’s some little love affair at the bottom of this, and I’ve found out about a certain secret interview that they don’t know I’ve found out about.
BÉRALDE. Well, brother, even if there were some slight inclination, would that be so criminal, and can anything offend you when it all leads only to honorable things like marriage?
ARGAN. Be that as it may, brother, she shall be a nun; that’s settled.
BÉRALDE. You’re trying to please someone.
ARGAN. I understand you: you always come back to that, and you have my wife on the brain.
BÉRALDE. Well, yes, brother, since I must speak open-heartedly, it is your wife that I mean; and no more than your infatuation with medicine can I bear the infatuation you have for her, or see you fall head down into all the traps she lays for you.
TOINETTE. Ah, sir, don’t speak of Madame! She’s a woman against whom there’s nothing to be said, a woman without artifice, and who loves Monsieur, who loves him . . . you can’t put it into words.
ARGAN (to BÉRALDE). Just ask her how she caresses me.
TOINETTE. That’s true.
ARGAN. How worried she is about my illness.
TOINETTE. Unquestionably.
ARGAN. And the care and trouble she takes for me.
TOINETTE. That’s certain. (To BÉRALDE) Do you want me to convince you, and show you right now how Madame loves Monsieur? (To ARGAN) Sir, allow me to show him how childish he is, and undeceive him.
ARGAN. How?
TOINETTE. Madame is just coming back. Stretch out full length in this chair and pretend to be dead. You’ll see what her grief is like when I tell her the news.
ARGAN. I’m willing.
TOINETTE. Yes, but don’t leave her long in despair, for she might well die of it.
ARGAN. Leave it to me.
TOINETTE (to BÉRALDE). You, hide yourself in that corner.
ARGAN. Isn’t there some danger in pretending to be dead?
TOINETTE. No, no. What danger could there be? Just stretch out there. (Whispering, to ARGAN) It’ll be a pleasure to confound your brother. Here’s Madame. Keep good and still.
Scene 12. BÉLINE, TOINETTE, ARGAN, BÉRALDE
TOINETTE (wailing loudly). Oh, good Lord! Oh, what a shame! What a terrible accident!
BÉLINE. What is it, Toinette?
TOINETTE. Oh, Madame!
BÉLINE. What’s the matter?
TOINETTE. Your husband is dead.
BÉLINE. My husband is dead?
TOINETTE. Alas! Yes. The poor deceased has passed on.
BÉLINE. Are you quite sure?
TOINETTE. Quite sure. No one knows it’s happened yet, and I was here all alone. He’s just passed away in my arms. Look, there he is stretched out full length in this chair.
BÉLINE. Heaven be praised! I’m delivered from a heavy burden. How stupid you are, Toinette, to take on over his death.
TOINETTE. Madame, I thought I ought to cry.
BÉLINE. Come, come, it’s not worth it. What are we losing in him? And what good on earth was he? A man who was a nuisance to everyone, dirty, disgusting, always with an enema or a dose of medicine in his stomach; always blowing his nose, coughing, and spitting; devoid of wit, boring, bad-humored, constantly wearying people, and scolding all the servants day and night.
TOINETTE. That’s a nice funeral oration.
BÉLINE. Toinette, you must help me carry out my plan, and believe me, in serving me, your reward is sure. Since by a stroke of good fortune no one is yet informed of the matter, let’s carry him to his bed and keep this death quiet until I’ve done some business of mine. There are some papers, there’s some money I want to get hold of, and it isn’t fair that I should have spent the best years of my life with him without some reward. Come on, Toinette, first let’s take all his keys.
ARGAN (rising suddenly). Gently.
BÉLINE (surprised and terrified). Oh!
ARGAN. Yes, my lady and wife, so that’s how you love me?
TOINETTE. Ha, ha! The deceased isn’t dead.
ARGAN (to BÉLINE). I’m very glad to see how you love me and to have heard the fine panegyric you gave about me.
(Exit BÉLINE.)
There’s a warning to the reader that will make me wiser in the future and keep me from doing a lot of things.
BÉRALDE (coming out of his hiding-place). Well, brother, you see the way it is.
TOINETTE. Upon my word, I never would have believed it. But I hear your daughter; get back the way you were, and let’s see how she receives your death. That’s a thing that it’s not bad to test out; and while you’re at it, that way you’ll learn the feelings your whole family has for you.
Scene 13. ANGÉLIQUE, ARGAN, TOINETTE, BÉRALDE
TOINETTE (wailing). O Heavens! Ah, what a sad thing! Unhappy day!
ANGÉLIQUE. What’s the matter, Toinette, and what are you crying about?
TOINETTE. Alas! I have sad news to give you.
ANGÉLIQUE. Why, what?
TOINETTE. Your father is dead.
ANGÉLIQUE. My father is dead, Toinette?
TOINETTE. Yes. There you see him. He’s just died, just now, of a spell of weakness that seized him.
ANGÉLIQUE. O Heaven! What a misfortune! What a cruel blow! Alas! Must I lose my father, the only thing left to me in the world? And moreover, to add to my despair, lose him at a time when he was irritated with me? What is to become of me, wretched girl that I am, and what consolation can I find after so great a loss?
Scene 14. CLÉANTE, ANGÉLIQUE, ARGAN, TOINETTE, BÉRALDE
CLÉANTE. Why, what’s wrong, lovely Angélique? And what misfortune is making you weep?
ANGÉLIQUE. Alas! I’m weeping for the dearest and most precious thing I could lose in life: I’m weeping for the death of my father.
CLÉANTE. O Heavens! What a calamity! What an unexpected blow! Alas! After I’d implored your uncle to ask your hand of him on my behalf, I was coming to present myself to him and try, by my respects and my prayers, to make his heart disposed to grant you to my wishes.
ANGÉLIQUE. Ah, Cléante, let’s not talk anymore about any of that. Let’s leave behind all thoughts of marriage. After the loss of my father, I want no part of the world anymore, and I give it up forever. Yes, father, if I resisted your wishes just now, I want to follow at least one of your intentions, and thereby make amends for the unhappiness I blame myself for having given you. Allow me, father, to give you my word for this here and now, and to kiss you to testify my feeling to you.
ARGAN (rising). Ah, my daughter!
ANGÉLIQUE (frightened). Oh!
ARGAN. Come. Don’t be afraid. I’m not dead. Come, come, you are my own flesh and blood, my true daughter; and I’m delighted to have seen how good your nature really is.
ANGÉLIQUE. Oh, what a delightful surprise, father! Since, by extreme good fortune, Heaven restores you to my love, allow me here and now to throw myself at your feet to beseech you for one thing. If you are not favorable to the inclination of my heart, if you refuse me Cléante for a husband, I conjure you at least not to force me to marry another. That’s all the boon I ask of you.
CLÉANTE (throwing himself on his knees). Ah, sir, let yourself be touched by her prayers and mine, and don’t take a stand against the mutual ardor of such a fair inclination.
BÉRALDE. Brother, can you hold out against that?
TOINETTE. Sir, will you be insensible to so much love?
ARGAN. Let him become a doctor, and I’ll consent to the marriage. Yes, become a doctor, and I’ll give you my daughter.
CLÉANTE. Very gladly, sir; if that’s all that’s needed to be your son-in-law, I’ll become a doctor, even an apothecary, if you want. That’s no great matter, and I’d do far more than that to win the lovely Angélique.
BÉRALDE. But, brother, a thought occurs to me: become a doctor yourself. The convenience would be even greater, to have everything you need in yourself.
TOINETTE. That’s true. That’s the real way to get well soon; and there is no illness so daring as to trifle with the person of a doctor.
ARGAN. Brother, I think you’re making fun of me. Am I of an age to be a student?
BÉRALDE. Be a student? That’s a good one! You’re learned enough; and there are many of them who are no smarter than you.
ARGAN. But you have to know how to speak Latin well, and know the illnesses and the remedies you need to use for them.
BÉRALDE. As you receive the doctor’s cap and gown, you’ll learn all that, and afterward you’ll be even smarter than you want.
ARGAN. What? A man knows how to discourse upon illnesses when he has that costume?
BÉRALDE. Yes. One has only to talk with a cap and gown on. Any gibberish becomes learned, and any nonsense becomes reason.
TOINETTE. Look here, sir, if all you had was your beard, that’s already a lot, and a beard makes more than half a doctor.
CLÉANTE. In any case, I’m ready for anything.
BÉRALDE. Do you want to have the thing done right away?
ARGAN. What do you mean, right away?
BÉRALDE. Yes, and in your own house.
ARGAN. In my own house?
BÉRALDE. Yes. I have friends on the Faculty who will come right away and perform the ceremony here in your room. It won’t cost you a thing.
ARGAN. But for my part, what I am to say, what am I to answer?
BÉRALDE. They’ll give you instructions in a few words, and give you in writing what you have to say. Go along and put on proper clothes; I’m going to send for them.
ARGAN. All right, let’s see about it.
(Exit)
CLÉANTE. What do you mean, and what do you have in mind with these friends on the Faculty . . . ?
TOINETTE. What’s your plan, anyway?
BÉRALDE. To have a little fun this evening. I have some actors who have composed a little act about accepting a man as a doctor, with music and dances. I want us to enjoy the entertainment together, and I want my brother to play the leading part.
ANGÉLIQUE. But, uncle, it seems to me that you’re making a bit too much fun of my father.
BÉRALDE. But, niece, it’s not so much making fun of him as accommodating ourselves to his fancies. All this is just between us. We can also each of us take a part, and thus put on a comedy for one another. Carnival time authorizes that. Let’s go quickly and get everything prepared.
CLÉANTE (to ANGÉLIQUE). Do you consent?
ANGÉLIQUE. Yes, since my uncle is leading the way.