Tartuffe or The Hypocrite Read online

We had to sacrifice our friends. No, no;

  Even if we could bring ourselves to do it,

  Think you that everyone would then be silenced?

  Against backbiting there is no defence.

  So let us try to live in innocence,

  To silly tattle pay no heed at all,

  And leave the gossips free to vent their gall.

  DORINE

  Our neighbour Daphne, and her little husband,

  Must be the ones who slander us, I'm thinking.

  Those whose own conduct's most ridiculous,

  Are always quickest to speak ill of others;

  They never fail to seize at once upon

  The slightest hint of any love affair,

  And spread the news of it with glee, and give it

  The character they'd have the world believe in.

  By others' actions, painted in their colours,

  They hope to justify their own; they think,

  In the false hope of some resemblance, either

  To make their own intrigues seem innocent,

  Or else to make their neighbours share the blame

  Which they are loaded with by everybody.

  MADAME PERNELLE

  These arguments are nothing to the purpose.

  Orante, we all know, lives a perfect life;

  Her thoughts are all of heaven; and I have heard

  That she condemns the company you keep.

  DORINE

  O admirable pattern! Virtuous dame!

  She lives the model of austerity;

  But age has brought this piety upon her,

  And she's a prude, now she can't help herself.

  As long as she could capture men's attentions

  She made the most of her advantages;

  But, now she sees her beauty vanishing,

  She wants to leave the world, that's leaving her,

  And in the specious veil of haughty virtue

  She'd hide the weakness of her worn-out charms.

  That is the way with all your old coquettes;

  They find it hard to see their lovers leave 'em;

  And thus abandoned, their forlorn estate

  Can find no occupation but a prude's.

  These pious dames, in their austerity,

  Must carp at everything, and pardon nothing.

  They loudly blame their neighbours' way of living,

  Not for religion's sake, but out of envy,

  Because they can't endure to see another

  Enjoy the pleasures age has weaned them from.

  MADAME PERNELLE, to Elmire

  There! That's the kind of rigmarole to please you,

  Daughter-in-law. One never has a chance

  To get a word in edgewise, at your house,

  Because this lady holds the floor all day;

  But none the less, I mean to have my say, too.

  I tell you that my son did nothing wiser

  In all his life, than take this godly man

  Into his household; heaven sent him here,

  In your great need, to make you all repent;

  For your salvation, you must hearken to him;

  He censures nothing but deserves his censure.

  These visits, these assemblies, and these balls,

  Are all inventions of the evil spirit.

  You never hear a word of godliness

  At them—but idle cackle, nonsense, flimflam.

  Our neighbour often comes in for a share,

  The talk flies fast, and scandal fills the air;

  It makes a sober person's head go round,

  At these assemblies, just to hear the sound

  Of so much gab, with not a word to say;

  And as a learned man remarked one day

  Most aptly, 'T is the Tower of Babylon,

  Where all, beyond all limit, babble on.

  And just to tell you how this point came in…

  (To Cléante)

  So! Now the gentleman must snicker, must he?

  Go find fools like yourself to make you laugh

  And don't…

  (To Elmire)

  Daughter, good-bye; not one word more.

  As for this house, I leave the half unsaid;

  But I shan't soon set foot in it again.

  (Cuffing Flipotte)

  Come, you! What makes you dream and stand agape,

  Hussy! I'll warm your ears in proper shape!

  March, trollop, march!

  Scene II

  CLEANTE, DORINE

  CLEANTE

  I won't escort her down,

  For fear she might fall foul of me again;

  The good old lady…

  DORINE

  Bless us! What a pity

  She shouldn't hear the way you speak of her!

  She'd surely tell you you're too "good" by half,

  And that she's not so "old" as all that, neither!

  CLEANTE

  How she got angry with us, all for nothing!

  And how she seems possessed with her Tartuffe!

  DORINE

  Her case is nothing, though, beside her son's!

  To see him, you would say he's ten times worse!

  His conduct in our late unpleasantness1

  Had won him much esteem, and proved his courage

  In service of his king; but now he's like

  A man besotted, since he's been so taken

  With this Tartuffe. He calls him brother, loves him

  A hundred times as much as mother, son,

  Daughter, and wife. He tells him all his secrets

  And lets him guide his acts, and rule his conscience.

  He fondles and embraces him; a sweetheart

  Could not, I think, be loved more tenderly;

  At table he must have the seat of honour,

  While with delight our master sees him eat

  As much as six men could; we must give up

  The choicest tidbits to him; if he belches,

  ('T is a servant speaking)2'

  Master exclaims: "God bless you!"—Oh, he dotes

  Upon him; he's his universe, his hero;

  He's lost in constant admiration, quotes him

  On all occasions, takes his trifling acts

  For wonders, and his words for oracles.

  The fellow knows his dupe, and makes the most on 't,

  He fools him with a hundred masks of virtue,

  Gets money from him all the time by canting,

  And takes upon himself to carp at us.

  Even his silly coxcomb of a lackey

  Makes it his business to instruct us too;

  He comes with rolling eyes to preach at us,

  And throws away our ribbons, rouge, and patches.

  The wretch, the other day, tore up a kerchief

  That he had found, pressed in the Golden Legend,

  Calling it horrid crime for us to mingle

  The devil's finery with holy things.

  Scene III

  ELMIRE, MARIANE, DAMIS, CLEANTE, DORINE

  ELMIRE, to Cléante

  You're very lucky to have missed the speech

  She gave us at the door. I see my husband

  Is home again. He hasn't seen me yet,

  So I'll go up and wait till he comes in.

  CLEANTE

  And I, to save time, will await him here;

  I'll merely say good-morning, and be gone.

  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 Valère,

  I love his sister too; and if this marriage

  Were to…

  DORINE

  He's coming.

  Scene V

&nbs
p; 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 Cléante)

  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.

&
nbsp; 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 bare-faced 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, Périandre, 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,

  'T is 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,