The School for Husbands | Page 6

stockings for amusement; that she
shall close her ears to the talk of young sparks, and never go out
without some one to watch her. In short, flesh is weak; I know what
stories are going about. I have no mind to wear horns, if I can help it;
and as her lot requires her to marry me, I mean to be as certain of her as
I am of myself.
ISA. I believe you have no grounds for....
SGAN. Hold your tongue, I shall teach you to go out without us!
LEO. What, sir....
SGAN. Good Heavens, madam! without wasting any more words, I am
not speaking to you, for you are too clever.

LEO. Do you regret to see Isabella with us?
SGAN. Yes, since I must speak plainly; you spoil her for me. Your
visits here only displease me, and you will oblige me by honouring us
no more.
LEO. Do you wish that I shall likewise speak my thoughts plainly to
you? I know not how she regards all this; but I know what effect
mistrust would have on me. Though we are of the same father and
mother, she is not much of my sister if your daily conduct produces any
love in her.
LIS. Indeed, all these precautions are disgraceful. Are we in Turkey,
that women must be shut up? There, they say, they are kept like slaves;
this is why the Turks are accursed by God. Our honour, sir, is very
weak indeed, if it must be perpetually watched. Do you think, after all,
that these precautions are any bar to our designs? that when we take
anything into our heads, the cleverest man would not be but a donkey
to us? All that vigilance of yours is but a fool's notion; the best way of
all, I assure you, is to trust us. He who torments us puts himself in
extreme peril, for our honour must ever be its own protector. To take so
much trouble in preventing us is almost to give us a desire to sin. If I
were suspected by my husband, I should have a very good mind to
justify his fears.
SGAN. (_to Ariste_). This, my fine teacher, is your training. And you
endure it without being troubled?
AR. Brother, her words should only make you smile. There is some
reason in what she says. Their sex loves to enjoy a little freedom; they
are but ill-checked by so much austerity. Suspicious precautions, bolts
and bars, make neither wives nor maids virtuous. It is honour which
must hold them to their duty, not the severity which we display towards
them. To tell you candidly, a woman who is discreet by compulsion
only is not often to be met with. We pretend in vain to govern all her
actions; I find that it is the heart we must win. For my part, whatever
care might be taken, I would scarcely trust my honour in the hands of
one who, in the desires which might assail her, required nothing but an
opportunity of falling.
SGAN. That is all nonsense.
AR. Have it so; but still I maintain that we should instruct youth
pleasantly, chide their faults with great tenderness, and not make them

afraid of the name of virtue. Léonor's education has been based on
these maxims. I have not made crimes of the smallest acts of liberty, I
have always assented to her youthful wishes, and, thank Heaven, I
never repented of it. I have allowed her to see good company, to go to
amusements, balls, plays. These are things which, for my part I think
are calculated to form the minds of the young; the world is a school
which, in my opinion, teaches them better how to live than any book.
Does she like to spend money on clothes, linen, ribands--what then? I
endeavour to gratify her wishes; these are pleasures which, when we
are well-off, we may permit to the girls of our family. Her father's
command requires her to marry me; but it is not my intention to
tyrannize over her. I am quite aware that our years hardly suit, and I
leave her complete liberty of choice.
[Footnote: The School for Husbands was played for the first time, on
the 24th of June, 1661, and Molière married Armande Béjart (see
Prefatory Memoir), on the 20th of February, 1662, when he was forty,
and she about twenty years old. It is therefore not unreasonable to
suppose that the words he places in the mouth of Ariste are an
expression of his own feelings.]
If a safe income of four thousand crowns a-year, great affection and
consideration for her, may, in her opinion, counterbalance in marriage
the inequality of our age, she may take me for her