Chapter LVIII: Act I

Just when the day has been fixed for the marriage of Lucinde, daughter of M. Géronte, she suddenly becomes dumb, and no doctors are found skillful enough to cure her. One day Valère, M. Géronte's attendant, and Lucas, the nurse, are scouring the country in search of someone able to restore their young mistress's speech, when they fell in with Martine, the wife of Sganarelle, a bibulous faggot-binder. Sganarelle, who has served a famous doctor for ten years, has just been beating his wife, and she, in revenge, hearing the kind of person they are looking for, strongly recommends her husband to them as an eccentric doctor who has performed wonderful and almost incredible cures, but who always disclaims his profession, and will never practice it until he has been well cudgelled. Lucas and Valère accordingly go in quest of Sganarelle, and, having found him, express their desire of availing themselves of his services as doctor. At first the faggot-binder vehemently denies that he is a doctor, but at last--thanks to the use of the persuasion recommended by Martine--he confesses to a knowledge of the physician's art, is induced to undertake the cure of Mlle. Lucinde, and, on being introduced at M. Géronte's house, gives proof of his eccentricity as a doctor by cudgelling the master and embracing the nurse.

[_Enter_ LUCINDE, VALÈRE, GÉRONTE, LUCAS, Sganarelle,
_and_ JACQUELINE.

SGANARELLE: Is this the patient?

GÉRONTE: Yes. I have but one daughter; I should
feel inexpressible grief were she to die.

SGANARELLE: Don't let her do anything of the kind.
She must not die without a doctor's prescription.

GÉRONTE: You have made her laugh, monsieur.

SGANARELLE: It is the best symptom in the world
when the doctor makes his patient laugh. What sort
of pain do you feel?

LUCINDE (_replies by signs, putting her hand to her
mouth, to her head, and under her chin_): Ha, hi, ho, ha!

SGANARELLE (_imitating her_): Ha, hi, ho, ha! I don't
understand you.

GÉRONTE: That is what her complaint is, monsieur.
She became dumb, without our being able to find out the
cause. It is this accident which has made us put off the
marriage. The man she is going to marry wishes to wait
till she gets better.

SGANARELLE: Who is the fool that does not want his
wife to be dumb? Would to heaven that mine had that
complaint! I would take good care she did not recover
her speech.

GÉRONTE: Well, monsieur, I beg of you to take all
possible pains to cure her of this illness.

SGANARELLE (_to the patient_): Let me feel your pulse.
This tells me your daughter is dumb.

GÉRONTE: Yes, monsieur, that is just what her illness
is; you have found it out the very first time.

SGANARELLE: We great doctors, we know things at once.
An ignorant person would have been puzzled, and would
have said to you: "It is this, it is that." But I
was right the very first time. I tell you your daughter
is dumb.

GÉRONTE: But I should be very pleased if you could
tell me how this
happened.

SGANARELLE: It is because she has lost her speech.

GÉRONTE: But, please, what was the cause of the loss
of speech?

SGANARELLE: All our best authorities will tell you that
it is an impediment in the action of her tongue.

GÉRONTE: But, nevertheless, let us have your opinion on
this impediment in the action of her tongue.

SGANARELLE: I hold that this impediment in the
action of her tongue is caused by certain humours,
which among us learned men are called peccant humours.
For as the vapours formed by the exhalations of the
influences which arise in the region of complaints,
coming--so to speak--to--Do you know Latin?

GÉRONTE: In no sort of way.

SGANARELLE (_rising in astonishment_): You don't know Latin?

GÉRONTE: No.

SGANARELLE (_assuming various amusing attitudes_):
_Singulariter, nominativo hæc musa_, "the muse," _bonus_,
_bona, bonum, Deus sanctus, estne oratio latenas?
Quare_? "Why?" _Luia substantivo et adjectivum
concordat in generi, numerum, et casus_.

GÉRONTE: Oh! Why did I not study?

JACQUELINE: What a clever man he is!

SGANARELLE: Thus these vapours of which I speak
passing from the left side, where the liver is, to the right
side where the heart is, it happens that the lungs, which
we call in Latin _armyan_, having communication with the
brain, which in Greek we name _nasmus_, by means of the
_vena cava_, which we call in Hebrew _cubile_, in their way
meet the said vapours, which fill the ventricles of the
omoplata; and as the said vapours--be sure you understand
this argument, I beg you--and as these said vapours have
a certain malignancy--listen carefully to this, I pray you.

GÉRONTE: Yes.

SGANARELLE: Are gifted with a certain malignancy
which is caused--please pay attention----

GÉRONTE: I am doing so.

SGANARELLE: Which is caused by the acridity of the
humour engendered in the concavity of the diaphragm, it
happens that these vapours--_Ossabundus, nequezs, nequer,
potarinum, quipsa milus_. That is just what makes your
daughter dumb.

GÉRONTE: No one, doubtless, could argue better.
There is but one thing that puzzles me. It seems to me
that you place the heart and liver differently from where
they are; the heart is on the left side, and the liver on
the right.

SGANARELLE: Yes, that was so formerly; but we have
changed all that, and nowadays we practise medicine by
an entirely new method.

GÉRONTE: I did not know that. I must ask you to
pardon my ignorance.

SGANARELLE: There is no harm done. You are not
obliged to be as clever as we are.

GÉRONTE: Certainly not. But what do you think,
monsieur, ought to be done for this complaint?

SGANARELLE: My advice is that she should be put to
bed, and, for a remedy, you must see that she takes plenty
of bread soaked in wine.

GÉRONTE: Why so, monsieur?

SGANARELLE: Because in bread and wine mixed together
there is a sympathetic virtue which causes speech.
Don't you know that they give nothing else to parrots,
and that they learn to speak by being fed on this diet?

GÉRONTE: That is true. What a great man you are!
Quick, bring plenty of bread and wine.

SGANARELLE: I shall come back at night to see how
she is getting on.

GÉRONTE: Just wait a moment, please.

SGANARELLE: What do you want?

GÉRONTE: To give you your fee, monsieur.

SGANARELLE (_holding out his hand from under his
gown, while Géronte opens his purse_): I shall not take it,
monsieur.

GÉRONTE: I beseech you.

SGANARELLE: You are jesting.

GÉRONTE: That is settled.

SGANARELLE: I will not.

GÉRONTE: What!

SGANARELLE: I don't practise for money.

GÉRONTE: I am sure you don't.

SGANARELLE (_after having taken the money_): Is it
good weight?

GÉRONTE: Yes, monsieur.

SGANARELLE: I am not a mercenary doctor.

GÉRONTE: I know that.

SGANARELLE: Self-interest is not my motive.

GÉRONTE: I never for a moment thought it was.

[_Exit_.