Covielle, Nicole)
CLEONTE: Sir, I did not want to use anyone to make a request of you
that I have long considered. It affects me enough for me to take
charge of it myself; and, without further ado, I will say to you
that the honor of being your son-in-law is a glorious favor that I
beg you to grant me.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Before giving you a reply, sir, I beg to ask if
you are a gentleman.
CLEONTE: Sir, most people don't hesitate much over this question.
They use the word carelessly. They take the name without scruple,
and the usage of today seems to validate the theft. As for me, I
confess to you, I have a little more delicate feelings on this
matter. I find all imposture undignified for an honest man, and
that there is cowardice in disguising what Heaven made us at birth;
to present ourselves to the eyes of the world with a stolen title;
to wish to give a false impression. I was born of parents who,
without doubt, held honorable positions. I have six years of
service in the army, and I find myself established well enough to
maintain a tolerable rank in the world; but despite all that I
certainly have no wish to give myself a name to which others in my
place might believe they could pretend, and I will tell you frankly
that I am not a gentleman.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Shake hands, Sir! My daughter is not for you.
CLEONTE: What?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: You are not a gentleman. You will not have my
daughter.
MADAME JOURDAIN: What are you trying to say with your talk of
gentleman? Are we ourselves of the line of St. Louis?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Quiet, wife, I see what you are up to.
MADAME JOURDAIN: Aren't we both descended from good bourgeois
families?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: There's that hateful word!
MADAME JOURDAIN: And wasn't your father a merchant just like mine?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Plague take the woman! She never fails to do
this! If your father was a merchant, so much the worse for him!
But, as for mine, those who say that are misinformed. All that I
have to say to you is, that I want a gentleman for a son-in-law.
MADAME JOURDAIN: It's necessary for your daughter to have a husband
who is worthy of her, and it's better for her to have an honest
rich man who is well made than an impoverished gentleman who is
badly built.
NICOLE: That's true. We have the son of a gentleman in our village
who is the most ill formed and the greatest fool I have ever seen.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Hold your impertinent tongue! You always butt
into the conversation. I have enough money for my daughter, I need
only honor, and I want to make her a marchioness.
MADAME JOURDAIN: A marchioness?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes, marchioness.
MADAME JOURDAIN: Alas! God save me from it!
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: It's a thing I have resolved.
MADAME JOURDAIN: As for me, it's a thing I'll never consent to.
Marriages above one's station are always subject to great
inconveniences. I have absolutely no wish for a son-in-law who can
reproach her parents to my daughter, and I don't want her to have
children who will be ashamed to call me their grandmother. If she
arrives to visit me in the equipage of a great lady and if she
fails, by mischance, to greet someone of the neighborhood, they
wouldn't fail immediately to say a hundred stupidities. "Do you
see," they would say, "this madam marchioness who gives herself
such glorious airs? It's the daughter of Monsieur Jourdain, who was
all too glad, when she was little, to play house with us; she's not
always been so haughty as she now is; and her two grandfathers sold
cloth near St. Innocent's Gate. They amassed wealth for their
children, they're paying dearly perhaps for it now in the other
world, and one can scarcely get that rich by being honest." I
certainly don't want all that gossip, and I want, in a word, a man
who will be obliged to me for my daughter and to whom I can say,
"Sit down there, my son-in-law, and have dinner with me."
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Surely those are the sentiments of a little
spirit, to want to remain always in a base condition. Don't talk
back to me: my daughter will be a marchioness in spite of
everyone. And, if you make me angrier, I'll make a duchess of
her.
MADAME JOURDAIN: Cleonte, don't lose courage yet. Follow me, my
daughter, and tell your father resolutely that, if you can't have
him, you don't want to marry anyone.
ACT THREE