Chapter 16

SGAN. (_Alone_). This confession is pretty plain. His extraordinary speech surprises me as much as if horns had grown upon my head. (_Looking at the side where Lelio went off_). Go your way, you have not acted at all like an honourable man.

CEL. (_Aside, entering_). Who can that be? Just now I saw Lelio. Why does he conceal his return from me?

SGAN. (_Without seeing Celia_). "O too happy mortal in having so beautiful a wife!" Say rather, unhappy mortal in having such a disgraceful spouse through whose guilty passion, it is now but too clear, I have been cuckolded without any feeling of compassion. Yet I allow him to go away after such a discovery, and stand with my arms folded like a regular silly-billy! I ought at least to have knocked his hat off, thrown stones at him, or mud on his cloak; to satisfy my wrath I should rouse the whole neighbourhood, and cry, "Stop, thief of my honour!"

CEL. (_To Sganarelle_). Pray, sir, how came you to know this gentleman who went away just now and spoke to you?

SGAN. Alas! madam, it is not I who am acquainted with him; it is my wife.

CEL. What emotion thus disturbs your mind?

SGAN. Do not blame me; I have sufficient cause for my sorrow; permit me to breathe plenty of sighs.

CEL. What can be the reason of this uncommon grief?

SGAN. If I am sad it is not for a trifle: I challenge other people not to grieve, if they found themselves in my condition. You see in me the model of unhappy husbands. Poor Sganarelle's honour is taken from him; but the loss of my honour would be small--they deprive me of my reputation also.

CEL. How do they do that?

SGAN. That fop has taken the liberty to cuckold me--saving your presence, madam--and this very day my own eyes have been witness to a private interview between him and my wife.

CEL. What? He who just now...

SGAN. Ay, ay, it is he who brings disgrace upon me; he is in love with my wife, and my wife is in love with him.

CEL. Ah! I find I was right when I thought his returning secretly only concealed some base design; I trembled the minute I saw him, from a sad foreboding of what would happen.

SGAN. You espouse my cause with too much kindness, but everybody is not so charitably disposed; for many, who have already heard of my sufferings, so far from taking my part, only laugh at me.

CEL. Can anything be more base than this vile deed? or can a punishment be discovered such as he deserves? Does he think he is worthy to live, after polluting himself with such treachery? O Heaven! is it possible?

SGAN. It is but too true.

CEL. O traitor, villain, deceitful, faithless wretch!

SGAN. What a kind-hearted creature!

CEL. No, no, hell has not tortures enough to punish you sufficiently for your guilt!

SGAN. How well she talks!

CEL. Thus to abuse both innocence and goodness!

SGAN. (_Sighing aloud_). Ah!

CEL. A heart which never did the slightest action deserving of being treated with such insult and contempt.

SGAN. That's true.

CEL. Who far from... but it is too much; nor can this heart endure the thought of it without feeling on the rack.

SGAN. My dear lady, do not distress yourself so much; it pierces my very soul to see you grieve so at my misfortune.

CEL. But do not deceive yourself so far as to fancy that I shall sit down and do nothing but lament; no, my heart knows how to act in order to be avenged; nothing can divert me from it; I go to prepare everything.