The Middle Class Gentleman | Page 9

R, by carrying the tip of the tongue to the top of the palate, so that being grazed by the air that comes out with force, it yields to it and comes back always to the same place, making a kind of trill: R. AR.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: R, R, AR. R, R, R, R, R, RA. That's true. Ah! What a clever man you are! And how I have lost time! R, R, R, AR.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: I'll explain to you all these strange things to their very depths.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Please do. But now, I must confide in you. I'm in love with a lady of great quality, and I wish that you would help me write something to her in a little note that I will let fall at her feet.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Very well.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: That will be gallant, yes?
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Without doubt. Is it verse that you wish to write her?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: No, no. No verse.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Do you want only prose?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: No, I don't want either prose or verse.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: It must be one or the other.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Why?
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Because, sir, there is no other way to express oneself than with prose or verse.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: There is nothing but prose or verse?
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: No, sir, everything that is not prose is verse, and everything that is not verse is prose.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: And when one speaks, what is that then?
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Prose.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: What! When I say, "Nicole, bring me my slippers, and give me my nightcap," that's prose?
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Yes, Sir.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: By my faith! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing anything about it, and I am much obliged to you for having taught me that. I would like then to put into a note to her: "Beautiful marchioness, your lovely eyes make me die of love," but I want that put in a gallant manner and be nicely turned.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Put it that the fires of her eyes reduce your heart to cinders; that you suffer night and day for her the torments of a . . .
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: No, no, no. I want none of that; I only want you to say "Beautiful marchioness, your lovely eyes make me die of love."
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: The thing requires a little lengthening.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: No, I tell you, I want only those words in the note, but turned stylishly, well arranged, as is necessary. Please tell me, just to see, the diverse ways they could be put.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: One could put them first of all as you said them: "Beautiful marchioness, your lovely eyes make me die of love." Or else: "Of love to die make me, beautiful marchioness, your beautiful eyes." Or else: "Your lovely eyes, of love make me, beautiful marchioness, die." Or else: "Die, your lovely eyes, beautiful marchioness, of love make me." Or else: "Me make your lovely eyes die, beautiful marchioness, of love."
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: But, of all those ways, which is the best?
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: The way you said it: "Beautiful marchioness, your lovely eyes make me die of love."
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: I never studied, and yet I made the whole thing up at the first try. I thank you with all my heart, and I ask you to come tomorrow early.
PHILOSOPHY MASTER: I shall not fail to do so. (He leaves).
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: What? Hasn't my suit come yet?
THE LACKEY: No, Sir.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: That cursed tailor makes me wait all day when I have so much to do! I'm enraged. May the quartan fever shake that tormentor of a tailor! To the devil with the tailor! May the plague choke the tailor! If I had him here now, that detestable tailor, that dog of a tailor, that traitor of a tailor, I . . .
ACT TWO
SCENE V (Master Tailor, Apprentice Tailor carrying suit, Monsieur Jourdain, Lackeys)
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Ah! You're here! I was getting into a rage against you.
MASTER TAILOR: I could not come sooner, and I put twenty men to work on your suit.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: You sent me some silk hose so small that I had all the difficulty in the world putting them on, and already there are two broken stitches.
MASTER TAILOR: They get bigger, too much so.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes, if I always break the stitches. You also had made for me a pair of shoes that pinch furiously.
MASTER TAILOR: Not at all, sir.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: How, not at all!
MASTER TAILOR: No, they don't pinch you at all.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: I tell you, they pinch me.
MASTER TAILOR: You imagine that.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: I imagine it because I feel it. That's a good reason for you!
MASTER TAILOR: Wait, here is the finest court-suit, and the best matched. It's a masterpiece to have invented a serious suit that is not black. And I give six attempts to the best tailors to equal it.
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: