The Imaginary Invalid

BER. To amuse ourselves a little to-night. The players have made a doctor’s admission the subject of an interlude, with dances and music. I want everyone to enjoy it, and my bro...

ARG. (_putting up his hand to his night-cap without taking it off_). Mr. Purgon has forbidden me to uncover my head. You belong to the profession, and know what would be the con...

BER. How is it, brother, that, with all the wealth you possess, and with only one daughter—for I do not count the little one—you speak of sending her to a convent?

ARG. I say, Angélique, I have a piece of news for yon which, perhaps, you did not expect. You have been asked of me in marriage. Halloa! how is that? You are smiling. It is plea...

ANG. I beseech you not to be in such a hurry; give us time to become acquainted with each other, and to see grow in us that sympathy so necessary to a perfect union.

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 excu...

ARG. Come here, Mr. de Bonnefoi, come here. Take a seat, if you please. My wife tells me, Sir, that you are a very honest man, and altogether one of her friends; I have therefor...

LOU. Yes. I will, to amuse you, tell you, if you like, the story of the Ass’s Skin or the fable of the Fox and the Crow, which I have learnt lately.

ARG. Three and two make five, and five make ten, and ten make twenty. “Item, on the 24th, a small, insinuative clyster, preparative and gentle, to soften, moisten, and refresh t...

TOI. Oh! yes, I have some slight idea that you want to speak of our young lover, for it is of him we have been speaking for the last six days, and you are not well unless you me...

ARG. (_in a rage, speaking with great fury, and starting up from his chair_). Brother, don’t speak to me of that wicked, good-for-nothing, insolent, brazen-faced girl. I will pu...

MR. PUR. And to end all association with you, here is the deed of gift which I made to my nephew in favour of the marriage. (_He tears the document, and throws the pieces about...

ANG. Ah! what a delightful surprise! Father, since heaven has given you back to our love, let me here throw myself at your feet to implore one favour of you. If you do not appro...

ARG. No, brother; I will put her in a convent, since she has rebelled against me. I see plainly that there is some love business at the bottom of it all, and I have discovered a...

TOI. Quite certain. Nobody knows of it yet. I was all alone here when it happened. He has just breathed his last in my arms. Here, just look at him, full-length in his chair.

ARG. I must give it up, I suppose. Take this away, take this away, you jade. Be careful to have some broth ready, for the other that I am to take soon.

TOI. He said to us that he wished to marry his daughter to the son of Mr. Diafoirus. I told him that I thought the match very advantageous for her, but that I believed he would...

TOI. What do you mean by his looking well in the face? He looks very bad, and it is only impertinent folks who say that he is better; he never was so ill in his life.

MR. DIA. Certainly; he who says _parenchyma_ says both one and the other, because of the great sympathy which exists between them through the means of the _vas breve_, of the _p...

BER. Really, brother, you are crazy, and I would not for a great deal that you should be seen acting as you are doing. Shake yourself a little, I beg, recover yourself, and do n...

BEL. Alas! my child, there is no servant without defects. We are obliged to put up at times with their bad qualities on account of their good ones. The girl is skilful, careful,...

TOI. They are shut up with the notary, and I heard something about a will; your mother-in-law doesn’t go to sleep; it is, no doubt, some conspiracy of hers against your interest...

CLE. O heaven! what a misfortune! What an unforeseen stroke of fortune! Alas! after I had asked your uncle to ask you in marriage, I was coming to see him, in order to try by my...

TOI. (_to_ ARGAN). Indeed, Sir, I am of your opinion now, and I unsay all that I said yesterday. Here are Mr. Diafoirus the father, and Mr. Diafoirus the son, who are coming to...

ARG. You don’t know, darling, the wickedness of that villainous baggage. She has altogether upset me, and I shall want more than eight different mixtures and twelve injections t...

CLE. To learn my destiny, to speak to the lovely Angélique, to consult the feelings of her heart, and to ask her what she means to do about this fatal marriage of which I have b...

MR. FLEU. (_to_ BÉRALDE). What right have you to interfere? How dare you oppose yourself to the prescription of the doctors, and prevent the gentleman from taking my clyster? Yo...

ANG. I dreamt last night that I was in the greatest trouble imaginable, and that some one exactly like this gentleman came to me. I asked him to help me, and presently he saved...

BER. What a misfortune not to take a clyster prescribed by Mr. Purgon! Once more, brother, is it possible that you can’t be cured of this doctor disease, and that you will thus...

ANG. O heavens! what a misfortune! What a cruel grief! Alas! why must I lose my father, the only being left me in the world? and why should I lose him, too, at a time when he wa...

TOI. We must prevent this foolish marriage which he has got into his head, from taking place. And I thought to myself that it would be a good thing to introduce a doctor here, h...

ARG. (_thinking himself alone_). Mr. Purgon told me that I was to walk twelve times to and fro in my room every morning, but I forgot to ask him whether it should be lengthways...

ARG. (_to_ ANGÉLIQUE, _as she goes away_). Listen to me! Of two things, one. Either you will marry this gentleman or you will go into a convent. I give you four days to consider...

BEL. Before I go out, I must inform you of one thing you must be careful about. While passing before Angélique’s door, I saw with her a young man, who ran away as soon as he not...

TOI. I don’t know who he is, but he is as much like me as two peas, and if I was not sure that my mother was an honest woman, I should say that this is a little brother she has...

TOI. Now, really, I could never have believed such a thing. But I hear your daughter coming, place yourself as you were just now, and let us see how she will receive the news. I...

ARG. Cut off my arm and pluck out my eye, so that the other may be better. I had rather that it were not better. A nice operation indeed, to make me at once one-eyed and one-armed.

BER. It is true that the resemblance is very striking. But it is not the first time that we have seen this kind of thing, and history is full of those freaks of nature.

TOI. No, no. What danger can there be? Only stretch yourself there. It will be so pleasant to put your brother to confusion. Here is my mistress. Mind you keep still.