SCENE XIV.——ARGAN, BÉRALDE, TOINETTE (as a doctor).

TOI.
Sir, I beg your pardon with all my heart.

ARG.
(to Béralde). It is wonderful.

TOI.
You will not take amiss, I hope, the curiosity I feel to see such an illustrious patient; and your reputation, which reaches the farthest ends of the world, must be my excuse for the liberty I am taking.

ARG.
Sir, I am your servant.

TOI.
I see, Sir, that you are looking earnestly at me. What age do you think I am?

ARG.
I should think twenty-six or twenty-seven at the utmost.

TOI.
Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! I am ninety years old.

ARG.
Ninety years old!
TOI.
Yes; this is what the secrets of my art have done for me to preserve me fresh and vigorous as you see.

ARG.
Upon my word, a fine youthful old fellow of ninety!

TOI.
I am an itinerant doctor, and go from town to town, from province to province, from kingdom to kingdom, to seek out illustrious material for my abilities; to find patients worthy of my attention, capable of exercising the great and noble secrets which I have discovered in medicine. I disdain to amuse myself with the small rubbish of common diseases, with the trifles of rheumatism, coughs, fevers, vapours, and headaches. I require diseases of importance, such as good non-intermittent fevers with delirium, good scarlet-fevers, good plagues, good confirmed dropsies, good pleurisies with inflammations of the lungs. These are what I like, what I triumph in, and I wish, Sir, that you had all those diseases combined, that you had been given up, despaired of by all the doctors, and at the point of death, so that I might have the pleasure of showing you the excellency of my remedies, and the desire I have of doing you service!

ARG.
I am greatly obliged to you, Sir, for the kind intentions you have towards me.

TOI.
Let me feel your pulse. Come, come, beat properly, please. Ah! I will soon make you beat as you should. This pulse is trifling with me; I see that it does not know me yet. Who is your doctor?

ARG.
Mr. Purgon.

TOI.
That man is not noted in my books among the great doctors. What does he say you are ill of?

ARG.
He says it is the liver, and others say it is the spleen.

TOI.
They are a pack of ignorant blockheads; you are suffering from the lungs.
ARG.
The lungs?

TOI.
Yes; what do you feel?

ARG.
From time to time great pains in my head.

TOI.
Just so; the lungs.

ARG.
At times it seems as if I had a mist before my eyes.

TOI.
The lungs.

ARG.
I feel sick now and then.

TOI.
The lungs.

ARG.
And I feel sometimes a weariness in all my limbs.
TOI.
The lungs.

ARG.
And sometimes I have sharp pains in the stomach, as if I had the colic.

TOI.
The lungs. Do you eat your food with appetite?

ARG.
Yes, Sir.

TOI.
The lungs. Do you like to drink a little wine?

ARG.
Yes, Sir.

TOI.
The lungs. You feel sleepy after your meals, and willingly enjoy a nap?

ARG.
Yes, Sir.

TOI.
The lungs, the lungs, I tell you. What does your doctor order you for food?

ARG.
He orders me soup.

TOI.
Ignoramus!

ARG.
Fowl.

TOI.
Ignoramus!

ARG.
Veal.

TOI.
Ignoramus!

ARG.
Broth.

TOI.
Ignoramus!

ARG.
New-laid eggs.

TOI.
Ignoramus!

ARG.
And at night a few prunes to relax the bowels.

TOI.
Ignoramus!

ARG.
And, above all, to drink my wine well diluted with water.

TOI.
Ignorantus, ignoranta, ignorantum. You must drink your wine pure; and to thicken your blood, which is too thin, you must eat good fat beef, good fat pork, good Dutch cheese, some gruel, rice puddings, chestnuts, and thin cakes,5 to make all adhere and conglutinate. Your doctor is an ass. I will send you one of my own school, and will come and examine you from time to time during my stay in this town.

ARG.
You will oblige me greatly.

TOI.
What the deuce do you want with this arm?

ARG.
What?

TOI.
If I were you, I should have it cut off on the spot.

ARG.
Why?

TOI.
Don't you see that it attracts all the nourishment to itself, and hinders this side from growing?

ARG.
May be; but I have need of my arm.

TOI.
You have also a right eye that I would have plucked out if I were in your place.

ARG.
My right eye plucked out?

TOI.
Don't you see that it interferes with the other, and robs it of its nourishment? Believe me; have it plucked out as soon as possible; you will see all the clearer with the left eye.

ARG.
There is no need to hurry.

TOI.
Good-bye. I am sorry to leave you so soon, but I must assist at a grand consultation which is to take place about a man who died yesterday.

ARG.
About a man who died yesterday?

TOI.
Yes, that we may consider and see what ought to have been done to cure him. Good-bye.

ARG.
You know that patients do not use ceremony.

Footnotes:


[5] Oubliés; now called plaisirs. "Wafers" would perhaps have been the right rendering in Molière's time.