The Middle-Class Gentleman

LUCILLE: I'll do nothing of the sort.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Ah! What a nuisance! Come, I tell you. Give your hand.

LUCILE: No, my father, I told you, there is no power on earth that can make me take any husband other than Cléonte. And I will go to extreme measures rather than.. (Recognizes Cléonte) It is true that you are my father; I owe you complete obedience; and it is for you to dispose of me according to your wishes.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Ah! I am delighted to see you return so promptly to your duty, and it pleases me to have an obedient daughter.

SCENE VI (Madame Jourdain, Monsieur Jourdain, Cléonte, etc.)

MADAME JOURDAIN: What now? What's this? They say that you want to give your daughter in marriage to a someone in a Carnival costume?

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Will you be quiet, impertinent woman? You always throw your absurdities into everything, and there's no teaching you to be reasonable.

MADAME JOURDAIN: It's you that there is no way of making wise, and you go from folly to folly. What is your plan, and what do you want to do with this assemblage of people?

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: I want to marry our daughter to the son of the Grand Turk.

MADAME JOURDAIN: To the son of the Grand Turk?

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes. Greet him through the interpreter there.

MADAME JOURDAIN: I don't need an interpreter; and I'll tell him straight out myself, to his face, that there is no way he will have my daughter.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: I ask again, will you be quiet?

DORANTE: What! Madame Jourdain, do you oppose such good fortune as that? You refuse His Turkish Highness as your son-in-law?

MADAME JOURDAIN: My Goodness, Sir, mind your own business.

DORIMÈNE: It's a great glory, which is not to be rejected.

MADAME JOURDAIN: Madame, I beg you also not to concern yourself with what does not affect you.

DORANTE: It's the friendship we have for you that makes us involve ourselves in your interest.

MADAME JOURDAIN: I can get along quite well without your friendship.

DORANTE: Your daughter here agrees to the wishes of her father.

MADAME JOURDAIN: My daughter consents to marry a Turk?

DORANTE: Without doubt.

MADAME JOURDAIN: She can forget Cléonte?

DORANTE: What wouldn't one do to be a great lady?

MADAME JOURDAIN: I would strangle her with my own hands if she did something like that.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: That is just so much talk. I tell you, this marriage shall take place.

MADAME JOURDAIN: And I say there is no way that it will happen.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Oh, what a row!

LUCILE: Mother!

MADAME JOURDAIN: Go away, you are a hussy.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: What! You quarrel with her for obeying me?

MADAME JOURDAIN: Yes. She is mine as much as yours.

COVIELLE: Madame!

MADAME JOURDAIN: What do you want to tell me?

COVIELLE: A word.

MADAME JOURDAIN: I want nothing to do with your word.

COVIELLE: (To Monsieur Jourdain) Sir, if she will hear a word in private, I promise you to make her consent to what you want.

MADAME JOURDAIN: I will never consent to It.

COVIELLE: Only listen to me.

MADAME JOURDAIN: No.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Listen to him.

MADAME JOURDAIN: No, I don't want to listen to him.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: He is going tell you..

MADAME JOURDAIN: I don't want him to tell me anything whatsoever.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: There is the great stubbornness of a woman! How can it hurt you to listen to him?

COVIELLE: Just listen to me; after that you can do as you please.

MADAME JOURDAIN: Alright! What?

COVIELLE: (Aside to Madame Jourdain) For an hour, Madame, we've been signaling to you. Don't you see that all this is done only to accommodate ourselves to the fantasies of your husband, that we are fooling him under this disguise and that it is Cléonte himself who is the son of the Grand Turk?

MADAME JOURDAIN: Ah! Ah!

COVIELLE: And I, Covielle, am the interpreter?