Chapter: SCENE IV

  CLEANTE, DAMIS, DORINE

  DAMIS
  I wish you'd say a word to him about
  My sister's marriage; I suspect Tartuffe
  Opposes it, and puts my father up
  To all these wretched shifts. You know, besides,
  How nearly I'm concerned in it myself;
  If love unites my sister and Valere,
  I love his sister too; and if this marriage
  Were to ...

  DORINE
  He's coming.




SCENE V

  ORGON, CLEANTE, DORINE


  ORGON
  Ah! Good morning, brother.

  CLEANTE
  I was just going, but am glad to greet you.
  Things are not far advanced yet, in the country?

  ORGON
  Dorine ...

  (To Cleante)
  Just wait a bit, please, brother-in-law.
  Let me allay my first anxiety
  By asking news about the family.

  (To Dorine)
  Has everything gone well these last two days?
  What's happening? And how is everybody?

  DORINE
  Madam had fever, and a splitting headache
  Day before yesterday, all day and evening.

  ORGON
  And how about Tartuffe?

  DORINE
  Tartuffe? He's well;
  He's mighty well; stout, fat, fair, rosy-lipped.

  ORGON
  Poor man!

  DORINE
  At evening she had nausea
  And couldn't touch a single thing for supper,
  Her headache still was so severe.

  ORGON
  And how
  About Tartuffe?

  DORINE
  He supped alone, before her,
  And unctuously ate up two partridges,
  As well as half a leg o' mutton, deviled.

  ORGON
  Poor man!

  DORINE
  All night she couldn't get a wink
  Of sleep, the fever racked her so; and we
  Had to sit up with her till daylight.

  ORGON
  How
  About Tartuffe?

  DORINE
  Gently inclined to slumber,
  He left the table, went into his room,
  Got himself straight into a good warm bed,
  And slept quite undisturbed until next morning.

  ORGON
  Poor man!

  DORINE
  At last she let us all persuade her,
  And got up courage to be bled; and then
  She was relieved at once.

  ORGON
  And how about
  Tartuffe?

  DORINE
  He plucked up courage properly,
  Bravely entrenched his soul against all evils,
  And to replace the blood that she had lost,
  He drank at breakfast four huge draughts of wine.

  ORGON
  Poor man!

  DORINE
  So now they both are doing well;
  And I'll go straightway and inform my mistress
  How pleased you are at her recovery.




SCENE VI

  ORGON, CLEANTE


  CLEANTE
  Brother, she ridicules you to your face;
  And I, though I don't want to make you angry,
  Must tell you candidly that she's quite right.
  Was such infatuation ever heard of?
  And can a man to-day have charms to make you
  Forget all else, relieve his poverty,
  Give him a home, and then ... ?

  ORGON
  Stop there, good brother,
  You do not know the man you're speaking of.

  CLEANTE
  Since you will have it so, I do not know him;
  But after all, to tell what sort of man
  He is ...

  ORGON
  Dear brother, you'd be charmed to know him;
  Your raptures over him would have no end.
  He is a man ... who ... ah! ... in fact ...a man
  Whoever does his will, knows perfect peace,
  And counts the whole world else, as so much dung.
  His converse has transformed me quite; he weans
  My heart from every friendship, teaches me
  To have no love for anything on earth;
  And I could see my brother, children, mother,
  And wife, all die, and never care--a snap.

  CLEANTE
  Your feelings are humane, I must say, brother!

  ORGON
  Ah! If you'd seen him, as I saw him first,
  You would have loved him just as much as I.
  He came to church each day, with contrite mien,
  Kneeled, on both knees, right opposite my place,
  And drew the eyes of all the congregation,
  To watch the fervour of his prayers to heaven;
  With deep-drawn sighs and great ejaculations,
  He humbly kissed the earth at every moment;
  And when I left the church, he ran before me
  To give me holy water at the door.
  I learned his poverty, and who he was,
  By questioning his servant, who is like him,
  And gave him gifts; but in his modesty
  He always wanted to return a part.
  "It is too much," he'd say, "too much by half;
  I am not worthy of your pity." Then,
  When I refused to take it back, he'd go,
  Before my eyes, and give it to the poor.
  At length heaven bade me take him to my home,
  And since that day, all seems to prosper here.
  He censures everything, and for my sake
  He even takes great interest in my wife;
  He lets me know who ogles her, and seems
  Six times as jealous as I am myself.
  You'd not believe how far his zeal can go:
  He calls himself a sinner just for trifles;
  The merest nothing is enough to shock him;
  So much so, that the other day I heard him
  Accuse himself for having, while at prayer,
  In too much anger caught and killed a flea.

  CLEANTE
  Zounds, brother, you are mad, I think! Or else
  You're making sport of me, with such a speech.
  What are you driving at with all this nonsense ... ?

  ORGON
  Brother, your language smacks of atheism;
  And I suspect your soul's a little tainted
  Therewith. I've preached to you a score of times
  That you'll draw down some judgment on your head.

  CLEANTE
  That is the usual strain of all your kind;
  They must have every one as blind as they.
  They call you atheist if you have good eyes;
  And if you don't adore their vain grimaces,
  You've neither faith nor care for sacred things.
  No, no; such talk can't frighten me; I know
  What I am saying; heaven sees my heart.
  We're not the dupes of all your canting mummers;
  There are false heroes--and false devotees;
  And as true heroes never are the ones
  Who make much noise about their deeds of honour,
  Just so true devotees, whom we should follow,
  Are not the ones who make so much vain show.
  What! Will you find no difference between
  Hypocrisy and genuine devoutness?
  And will you treat them both alike, and pay
  The self-same honour both to masks and faces
  Set artifice beside sincerity,
  Confuse the semblance with reality,
  Esteem a phantom like a living person,
  And counterfeit as good as honest coin?
  Men, for the most part, are strange creatures, truly!
  You never find them keep the golden mean;
  The limits of good sense, too narrow for them,
  Must always be passed by, in each direction;
  They often spoil the noblest things, because
  They go too far, and push them to extremes.
  I merely say this by the way, good brother.

  ORGON
  You are the sole expounder of the doctrine;
  Wisdom shall die with you, no doubt, good brother,
  You are the only wise, the sole enlightened,
  The oracle, the Cato, of our age.
  All men, compared to you, are downright fools.

  CLEANTE
  I'm not the sole expounder of the doctrine,
  And wisdom shall not die with me, good brother.
  But this I know, though it be all my knowledge,
  That there's a difference 'twixt false and true.
  And as I find no kind of hero more
  To be admired than men of true religion,
  Nothing more noble or more beautiful
  Than is the holy zeal of true devoutness;
  Just so I think there's naught more odious
  Than whited sepulchres of outward unction,
  Those barefaced charlatans, those hireling zealots,
  Whose sacrilegious, treacherous pretence
  Deceives at will, and with impunity
  Makes mockery of all that men hold sacred;
  Men who, enslaved to selfish interests,
  Make trade and merchandise of godliness,
  And try to purchase influence and office
  With false eye-rollings and affected raptures;
  Those men, I say, who with uncommon zeal
  Seek their own fortunes on the road to heaven;
  Who, skilled in prayer, have always much to ask,
  And live at court to preach retirement;
  Who reconcile religion with their vices,
  Are quick to anger, vengeful, faithless, tricky,
  And, to destroy a man, will have the boldness
  To call their private grudge the cause of heaven;
  All the more dangerous, since in their anger
  They use against us weapons men revere,
  And since they make the world applaud their passion,
  And seek to stab us with a sacred sword.
  There are too many of this canting kind.
  Still, the sincere are easy to distinguish;
  And many splendid patterns may be found,
  In our own time, before our very eyes
  Look at Ariston, Periandre, Oronte,
  Alcidamas, Clitandre, and Polydore;
  No one denies their claim to true religion;
  Yet they're no braggadocios of virtue,
  They do not make insufferable display,
  And their religion's human, tractable;
  They are not always judging all our actions,
  They'd think such judgment savoured of presumption;
  And, leaving pride of words to other men,
  'Tis by their deeds alone they censure ours.
  Evil appearances find little credit
  With them; they even incline to think the best
  Of others. No caballers, no intriguers,
  They mind the business of their own right living.
  They don't attack a sinner tooth and nail,
  For sin's the only object of their hatred;
  Nor are they over-zealous to attempt
  Far more in heaven's behalf than heaven would have 'em.
  That is my kind of man, that is true living,
  That is the pattern we should set ourselves.
  Your fellow was not fashioned on this model;
  You're quite sincere in boasting of his zeal;
  But you're deceived, I think, by false pretences.

  ORGON
  My dear good brother-in-law, have you quite done?

  CLEANTE
  Yes.

  ORGON
  I'm your humble servant.

  (Starts to go.)

  CLEANTE
  Just a word.
  We'll drop that other subject. But you know
  Valere has had the promise of your daughter.

  ORGON
  Yes.

  CLEANTE
  You had named the happy day.

  ORGON
  'Tis true.

  CLEANTE
  Then why put off the celebration of it?

  ORGON
  I can't say.

  CLEANTE
  Can you have some other plan
  In mind?

  ORGON
  Perhaps.

  CLEANTE
  You mean to break your word?

  ORGON
  I don't say that.

  CLEANTE
  I hope no obstacle
  Can keep you from performing what you've promised.

  ORGON
  Well, that depends.

  CLEANTE
  Why must you beat about?
  Valere has sent me here to settle matters.

  ORGON
  Heaven be praised!

  CLEANTE
  What answer shall I take him?

  ORGON
  Why, anything you please.

  CLEANTE
  But we must know
  Your plans. What are they?

  ORGON
  I shall do the will
  Of Heaven.

  CLEANTE
  Come, be serious. You've given
  Your promise to Valere. Now will you keep it?

  ORGON
  Good-bye.

  CLEANTE (alone)
  His love, methinks, has much to fear;
  I must go let him know what's happening here.

 When Orgon arrives from the country, he immediately inquires about his household. But he ignores Dorine's report of his wife's indisposition and, instead, inquires about the health of Tartuffe. Each time he shows concern for Tartuffe, Dorine tells him more bad news about his wife. Totally unresponsive to his wife's problems, Orgon continually feels sorrow for Tartuffe, who has fared well in his host's absence. After Dorine leaves, Cleante tries to get Orgon to be more reasonable. Orgon, however, will hear no criticism against Tartuffe and characterizes him as an excellent man. Orgon describes some of the pious things which have endeared Tartuffe to him and, when Cleante tries to point out that some of these acts are obviously false piety, Orgon accuses Cleante of being too much a part of the current rage against true piety. Cleante points out that good deeds characterize a religious man, not loud protestations of devotion. Orgon listens to Cleante, but ignores every word and is about to leave when Cleante detains him to ask about the forthcoming wedding between Mariane and Valere. He points out that Orgon has already given his word of honor that the marriage will take place. Orgon, rather than answering Cleante directly, maintains that he will be guided by the will of heaven in this and all other undertakings. Cleante senses that something is going wrong and plans to warn Valere.

