The Blunderer

MASC. Oh! oh!

ANS. Get him to sign me the receipt I require.

MASC. Alas! How can he comply with your desire in the condition he now is? Give him but time to get rid of his sorrow; and, when his troubles abate a little, I shall take care immediately to get you your security. Your servant, sir, my heart is over full of grief, and I shall go to take my fill of weeping with him. Hi! Hi!

ANS. (Alone). This world is full of crosses; we meet with them every day in different shapes, and never here below…

SCENE V. – PANDOLPHUS, ANSELMO

ANS. Oh Heavens! how I tremble! It is Pandolphus who has returned to the earth! God grant nothing disturbed his repose! How wan his face is grown since his death! Do not come any nearer. I beseech you; I very much detest to jostle a ghost.

PAND. What can be the reason of this whimsical terror?

ANS. Keep your distance, and tell me what business brings you here. If you have taken all this trouble to bid me farewell, you do me too much honour; I could really have done very well without your compliment. If your soul is restless, and stands in need of prayers. I promise you you shall have them, but do not frighten me. Upon the word of a terrified man, I will immediately set prayers agoing for you, to your very heart's content.

"Oh, dead worship, please to go!
Heaven, if now you disappear,
Will grant you joy down there below,
And health as well, for many a year."

[Footnote: This seems to be an imitation of a spell, charm, or incantation to lay the supposed ghost, which Anselmo says kneeling and hardly able to speak for terror.]

PAND. (Laughing). In spite of my indignation, I cannot help laughing.

ANS. It is strange, but you are very merry for a dead man.

PAND. Is this a joke, pray tell me, or is it downright madness to treat a living man as if he were dead?

ANS. Alas! you must be dead; I myself just now saw you.

PAND. What? Could I die without knowing it?

ANS. As soon as Mascarille told me the news, I was ready to die of grief.

PAND. But, really, are you asleep or awake? Don't you know me?

ANS. You are clothed in an aerial body which imitates your own, but which may take another shape at any moment. I am mightily afraid to see you swell up to the size of a giant, and your countenance become frightfully distorted. For the love of God, do not assume any hideous form; you have scared me sufficiently for the nonce.

PAND. At any other time, Anselmo, I should have considered the simplicity which accompanies your credulity an excellent joke, and I should have carried on the pleasant conceit a little longer; but this story of my death, and the news of the supposed treasure, which I was told upon the road had not been found at all, raises in my mind a strong suspicion that Mascarille is a rogue, and an arrant rogue, who is proof against fear or remorse, and who invents extraordinary stratagems to compass his ends.

ANS. What! Am I tricked and made a fool of? Really, this would be a compliment to my good sense! Let me touch him and be satisfied. This is, indeed, the very man. What an ass I am! Pray, do not spread this story about, for they will write a farce about it, and shame me for ever. But, Pandolphus, help me to get the money back which I lent them to bury you.

PAND. Money, do you say? Oh! that is where the shoe pinches; that is the secret of the whole affair! So much the worse for you. For my part, I shall not trouble myself about it, but will go and lay an information against this Mascarille, and if he can be caught he shall be hanged, whatever the cost may be.

ANS. (Alone). And I, like a ninny, believe a scoundrel, and must in one day lose both my senses and my money. Upon my word, it well becomes me to have these gray hairs and to commit an act of folly so readily, without examining into the truth of the first story I hear…! But I see…

SCENE VI. – LELIO, ANSELMO

LEL. Now, with this master-key, I can easily pay Trufaldin a visit.

ANS. As far as I can see, your grief has subsided.

LEL. What do you say? No; it can never leave a heart which shall ever cherish it dearly.

ANS. I came back to tell you frankly of a mistake I made in the money I gave you just now; amongst these louis-d'or, though they look very good, I carelessly put some which I think are bad. I have brought some money with me to change them. The intolerable audacity of our coiners is grown to such a height in this state, that no one can receive any money now without danger of his being imposed upon. It would be doing good service to hang them all!

LEL. I am very much obliged to you for being willing to take them back, but I saw none among them that were bad, as I thought.

ANS. Let me see the money; let me see it; I shall know them again. Is this all?

LEL. Yes.

ANS. So much the better. Are you back again? my dear money! get into my pocket. As for you, my gallant sharper, you have no longer got a penny of it. You kill people who are in good health, do ye? And what would you have done, then, with me, a poor infirm father-in-law? Upon my word, I was going to get a nice addition to my family, a most discreet son-in-law. Go, go, and hang yourself for shame and vexation.

LEL. (Alone). I really must admit I have been bit this time. What a surprise this is! How can he have discovered our stratagem so soon?

SCENE VII. – LELIO, MASCARILLE

MASC. What, you were out? I have been hunting for you everywhere. Well, have we succeeded at last? I will give the greatest rogue six trials to do the like. Come, give me the money that I may go and buy the slave; your rival will be very much astonished at this.

LEL. Ah! my dear boy, our luck has changed. Can you imagine how ill fortune has served me?

MASC. What? What can it be?

LEL. Anselmo having found out the trick, just now got back every sou he lent us, pretending some of the gold-pieces were bad, and that he was going to change them.

MASC. You do but joke, I suppose?

LEL. It is but too true.

MASC. In good earnest?

LEL. In good earnest; I am very much grieved about it. It will put you into a furious passion.

MASC. Me, sir! A fool might, but not I! Anger hurts, and I am going to take care of myself, come what will. After all, whether Celia be captive or free, whether Leander purchases her or whether she remains where she is, I do not care one stiver about it.

LEL. Ah! do not show such indifference, but be a little more indulgent to my slight imprudence. Had this last misfortune not happened, you would have confessed that I did wonders, and that in this pretended decease I deceived everybody, and counterfeited grief so admirably that the most sharp-sighted would have been taken in.

MASC. Truly you have great reason to boast.

LEL. Oh! I am to blame, and I am willing to acknowledge it; but if ever you cared for my happiness, repair this mishap, and help me.

MASC. I kiss your hands, I cannot spare the time.

LEL. Mascarille, my dear boy!

MASC. No.