The Learned Women

VAD. Yes; I heard it read yesterday.

TRI. Do you know the author of it?

VAD. No, I do not; but I know very well that, to tell him the truth, his sonnet is good for nothing.

TRI. Yet a great many people think it admirable.

VAD. It does not prevent it from being wretched; and if you had read it, you would think like me.

TRI. I know that I should differ from you altogether, and that few people are able to write such a sonnet.

VAD. Heaven forbid that I should ever write one so bad!

TRI. I maintain that a better one cannot be made, and my reason is that I am the author of it.

VAD. You?

TRI. Myself.

VAD. I cannot understand how the thing can have happened.

TRI. It is unfortunate that I had not the power of pleasing you.

VAD. My mind must have wandered during the reading, or else the reader spoilt the sonnet; but let us leave that subject, and come to my ballad.

TRI. The ballad is, to my mind, but an insipid thing; it is no longer the fashion, and savours of ancient times.

VAD. Yet a ballad has charms for many people.

TRI. It does not prevent me from thinking it unpleasant.

VAD. That does not make it worse.

TRI. It has wonderful attractions for pedants.

VAD. Yet we see that it does not please you.

TRI. You stupidly give your qualities to others.

(They all rise.)

VAD. You very impertinently cast yours upon me.

TRI. Go, you little dunce! you pitiful quill-driver!

VAD. Go, you penny-a-liner! you disgrace to the profession!

TRI. Go, you book-maker, you impudent plagiarist!

VAD. Go, you pedantic snob!

PHI. Ah! gentlemen, what are you about?

TRI. (to VADIUS). Go, go, and make restitution to the Greeks and Romans for all your shameful thefts.

VAD. Go and do penance on Parnassus for having murdered Horace in your verses.

TRI. Remember your book, and the little noise it made.

VAD. And you, remember your bookseller, reduced to the workhouse.

TRI. My glory is established; in vain would you endeavour to shake it.

VAD. Yes, yes; I send you to the author of the 'Satires.' [Footnote:

Boileau.]

TRI. I, too, send you to him.

VAD. I have the satisfaction of having been honourably treated by him; he gives me a passing thrust, and includes me among several authors well known at the Palais; but he never leaves you in peace, and in all his verses you are exposed to his attacks.

TRI: By that we see the honourable rank I hold. He leaves you in the crowd, and esteems one blow enough to crush you. He has never done you the honour of repeating his attacks, whereas he assails me separately, as a noble adversary against whom all his efforts are necessary; and his blows, repeated against me on all occasions, show that he never thinks himself victorious.

VAD. My pen will teach you what sort of man I am.

TRI. And mine will make you know your master.

VAD. I defy you in verse, prose, Greek and Latin.

TRI. Very well, we shall meet each other alone at Barbin's. [Footnote: Barbin, a famous bookseller. The arms chosen for the duel would no doubt be books. See "The Lutrin," by Boileau.]

SCENE VI. – TRISSOTIN, PHILAMINTE, ARMANDE, BÉLISE, HENRIETTE

TRI. Do not blame my anger. It is your judgment I defend, Madam, in the sonnet he dares to attack.

PHI. I will do all I can to reconcile you. But let us speak of something else. Come here, Henriette. I have for some time now been tormented at finding in you a want of intellectuality, but I have thought of a means of remedying this defect.

HEN. You take unnecessary trouble for my sake. I have no love for learned discourses. I like to take life easy, and it is too much trouble to be intellectual. Such ambition does not trouble my head, and I am perfectly satisfied, mother, with being stupid. I prefer to have only a common way of talking, and not to torment myself to produce fine words.

PHI. That may be; but this stupidity wounds me, and it is not my intention to suffer such a stain on my family. The beauty of the face is a fragile ornament, a passing flower, a moment's brightness which only belongs to the epidermis; whereas that of the mind is lasting and solid. I have therefore been feeling about for the means of giving you the beauty which time cannot remove – of creating in you the love of knowledge, of insinuating solid learning into you; and the way I have at last determined upon is to unite you to a man full of genius; (showing TRISSOTIN) to this gentleman, in fact. It is he whom I intend you to marry.

HEN. Me, mother!

PHI. Yes, you! just play the fool a little.

BEL. (to TRISSOTIN). I understand you; your eyes ask me for leave to engage elsewhere a heart I possess. Be at peace, I consent. I yield you up to this union; it is a marriage which will establish you in society.

TRI. (to HENRIETTE). In my delight, I hardly know what to tell you, Madam, and this marriage with which I am honoured puts me…