The Miser | Page 8

Quite true, you must....
VAL. Do not be afraid; I believe I shall end by convincing her.
HAR. Do so, do so. I am going to take a short stroll in the town, and I will come back again presently.
VAL. (going towards the door through which éLISE _left, and speaking as if it were to her_). Yes, money is more precious than anything else in the world, and you should thank heaven that you have so worthy a man for a father. He knows what life is. When a man offers to marry a girl without a dowry, we ought to look no farther. Everything is comprised in that, and "without dowry" compensates for want of beauty, youth, birth, honour, wisdom, and probity.
HAR. Ah! the honest fellow! he speaks like an oracle. Happy is he who can secure such a servant!

ACT II.
SCENE I.--CLéANTE, LA FLèCHE.
CLE. How now, you rascal! where have you been hiding? Did I not give you orders to...?
LA FL. Yes, Sir, and I came here resolved to wait for you without stirring, but your father, that most ungracious of men, drove me into the street in spite of myself, and I well nigh got a good drubbing into the bargain.
CLE. How is our affair progressing? Things are worse than ever for us, and since I left you, I have discovered that my own father is my rival.
LA FL. Your father in love?
CLE. It seems so; and I found it very difficult to hide from him what I felt at such a discovery.
LA FL. He meddling with love! What the deuce is he thinking of? Does he mean to set everybody at defiance? And is love made for people of his build?
CLE. It is to punish me for my sins that this passion has entered his head.
LA FL. But why do you hide your love from him?
CLE. That he may not suspect anything, and to make it more easy for me to fall back, if need be, upon some device to prevent this marriage. What answer did you receive?
LA FL. Indeed, Sir, those who borrow are much to be pitied, and we must put up with strange things when, like you, we are forced to pass through the hands of the usurers.
CLE. Then the affair won't come off?
LA FL. Excuse me; Mr. Simon, the broker who was recommended to us, is a very active and zealous fellow, and says he has left no stone unturned to help you. He assures me that your looks alone have won his heart.
CLE. Shall I have the fifteen thousand francs which I want?
LA FL. Yes, but under certain trifling conditions, which you must accept if you wish the bargain to be concluded.
CLE. Did you speak to the man who is to lend the money?
LA FL Oh! dear no. Things are not done in that way. He is still more anxious than you to remain unknown. These things are greater mysteries than you think. His name is not by any means to be divulged, and he is to be introduced to you to-day at a house provided by him, so that he may hear from yourself all about your position and your family; and I have not the least doubt that the mere name of your father will be sufficient to accomplish what you wish.
CLE. Particularly as my mother is dead, and they cannot deprive me of what I inherit from her.
LA FL. Well, here are some of the conditions which he has himself dictated to our go-between for you to take cognisance of, before anything is begun.
"Supposing that the lender is satisfied with all his securities, and that the borrower is of age and of a family whose property is ample, solid, secure, and free from all incumbrances, there shall be drawn up a good and correct bond before as honest a notary as it is possible to find, and who for this purpose shall be chosen by the lender, because he is the more concerned of the two that the bond should be rightly executed."
CLE. There is nothing to say against that.
LA FA. "The lender, not to burden his conscience with the least scruple, does not wish to lend his money at more than five and a half per cent."
CLE. Five and a half per cent? By Jove, that's honest! We have nothing to complain of,
LA FL. That's true.
"But as the said lender has not in hand the sum required, and as, in order to oblige the borrower, he is himself obliged to borrow from another at the rate of twenty per cent., it is but right that the said first borrower shall pay this interest, without detriment to the rest; since it is only to oblige him that the said lender is himself forced to borrow."
CLE. The deuce! What a Jew! what