TOI. (_pretending to speak to somebody_). Come, come, I am your
servant; I’m in no joking humour.
ARG. What is the matter?
TOI. Your doctor, forsooth, who wanted to feel my pulse!
ARG. Just imagine; and that, too, at fourscore and ten years of age.
BER. Now, I say, brother, since you have quarrelled with Mr. Purgon,
won’t you give me leave to speak of the match which is proposed for my
niece?
ARG. No, brother; I will put her in a convent, since she has rebelled
against me. I see plainly that there is some love business at the
bottom of it all, and I have discovered a certain secret interview
which they don’t suspect me to know anything about.
BER. Well, brother, and suppose there were some little inclination,
where could the harm be? Would it be so criminal when it all tends to
what is honourable—marriage?
ARG. Be that as it may, she will be a nun. I have made up my mind.
BER. You intend to please somebody by so doing.
ARG. I understand what you mean. You always come back to that, and my
wife is very much in your way.
BER. Well, yes, brother; since I must speak out, it is your wife I
mean; for I can no more bear with your infatuation about doctors than
with your infatuation about your wife, and see you run headlong into
every snare she lays for you.
TOI. Ah! Sir, don’t talk so of mistress. She is a person against whom
there is nothing to be said; a woman without deceit, and who loves
master—ah! who loves him.... I can’t express how much.
ARG. (_to_ BÉRALDE). Just ask her all the caresses she lavishes
for me.
TOI. Yes, indeed!
ARG. And all the uneasiness my sickness causes her.
TOI. Certainly.
ARG. And the care and trouble she takes about me.
TOI. Quite right. (_To_ BÉRALDE) Will you let me convince you;
and to show you at once how my mistress loves my master. (_To_
ARGAN) Sir, allow me to undeceive him, and to show him his
mistake.
ARG. How?
TOI. My mistress will soon come back. Stretch yourself full-length in
this arm-chair, and pretend to be dead. You will see what grief she
will be in when I tell her the news.
ARG. Very well, I consent.
TOI. Yes; but don’t leave her too long in despair, for she might die
of it.
ARG. Trust me for that.
TOI. (_to_ BÉRALDE). Hide yourself in that corner.