Moliere's Plays: The Miser: In Contemporary American English by Jean-Baptiste Moliere

Author:Jean-Baptiste Moliere [Moliere, Jean-Baptiste]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Scene V.—Harpagon, Valere, Master Jacques.

Harpagon. You will have to help me in this, Valere. Now, Master Jacques, come near, I have left you for the last.

Jacques. Is it to your coachman, Sir, or to your cook, that you wish to speak? For I am both the one and the other.

Harpagon. It is to both.

Jacques. But to which of the two first?

Harpagon. To the cook.

Jacques. Then wait a minute, if you please.

(Master Jacques takes off his livery coat, and appears in a cook’s dress).

Harpagon. What the hell does that ceremony mean?

Master Jacques. You have but to speak now.

Harpagon. I have promised, Master Jacques, to give a supper to-night.

Jacques (aside). Most miraculous!

Harpagon. Just tell me: will you dish us up something good?

Jacques. Yes, if you give me plenty of money.

Harpagon. Damn—always money! It seems to me as if they could speak of nothing else; money, money, money! It is the only word they have got on their lips; money! They always speak of money. That is their only argument, money.

Valere. I have never heard a more impertinent answer than that. A great wonder to dish up something good with plenty of money! It is the easiest thing in the world; any fool can do as much; but a clever man should speak of dishing up something good with little money.

Jacques. Something good with little money!

Valere. Yes.

Jacques (to Valere). On my word, Master Steward, you would oblige us by showing us that secret, and by taking my place as cook; you that are meddling with everything in this house, and playing the factotum.

Harpagon. Watch your mouth. What shall we want?

Jacques. Apply to your steward here, who will dish you up something good for little money.

Harpagon. Enough! I wish you to answer me.

Jacques. How many people are to sit down?

Harpagon. We shall be eight or ten; but you must not count upon more than eight. If there is enough for eight, there is enough for ten.

Valere. That’s reasonable.

Jacques. Very well! We must have four first-rate soups and five small dishes. Soups . . . Entrees . . .

Harpagon. What the devil! There is enough to feed a whole town.

Jacques. Roast . . .

Harpagon (putting his hand over Jacques' mouth) Hold it—you fool, you will eat up all my substance.

Jacques. Side-dishes.

Harpagon (putting his hand over Jacques’ mouth again). What! More still?

Valere (to Jacques). Do you intend to make every one burst? And think you that master has invited people with the intention of killing them with food? Go and read a little the precepts of health, and ask the doctors whether there is anything more prejudicial to man than eating to excess.

Harpagon. He is right.

Valere. Learn, Master Jacques, you and the like of you, that a table overloaded with viands is a cut-throat business; that, to show one’s self the friend of those whom one invites, frugality should reign in the meals which one offers; and that according to the saying of an ancient, we must eat to live, and not live to eat.

Harpagon. Ah! How well that is said! Come here, that I may embrace you for that saying.

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