The Impostures of Scapin

SCA. How is that?

OCT. Don't you know anything of what has happened to me?

SCA. No.

OCT. My father is just returning with Mr. Géronte, and they want to marry me.

SCA. Well, what is there so dreadful about that?

OCT. Alas! you don't know what cause I have to be anxious.

SCA. No; but it only depends on you that I should soon know; and I am a man of consolation, a man who can interest himself in the troubles of young people.

OCT. Ah! Scapin, if you could find some scheme, invent some plot, to get me out of the trouble I am in, I should think myself indebted to you for more than life.

SCA. To tell you the truth, there are few things impossible to me when I once set about them. Heaven has bestowed on me a fair enough share of genius for the making up of all those neat strokes of mother wit, for all those ingenious gallantries to which the ignorant and vulgar give the name of impostures; and I can boast, without vanity, that there have been very few men more skilful than I in expedients and intrigues, and who have acquired a greater reputation in the noble profession. But, to tell the truth, merit is too ill rewarded nowadays, and I have given up everything of the kind since the trouble I had through a certain affair which happened to me.

OCT. How? What affair, Scapin?

SCA. An adventure in which justice and I fell out.

OCT. Justice and you?

SCA. Yes; we had a trifling quarrel.

SIL. You and justice?

SCA. Yes. She used me very badly; and I felt so enraged against the ingratitude of our age that I determined never to do anything for anybody. But never mind; tell me about yourself all the same.

OCT. You know, Scapin, that two months ago Mr. Géronte and my father set out together on a voyage, about a certain business in which they are both interested.

SCA. Yes, I know that.

OCT. And that both Léandre and I were left by our respective fathers, I under the management of Silvestre, and Léandre under your management.

SCA. Yes; I have acquitted myself very well of my charge.

OCT. Some time afterwards Léandre met with a young gipsy girl, with whom he fell in love.

SCA. I know that too.

OCT. As we are great friends, he told me at once of his love, and took me to see this young girl, whom I thought good-looking, it is true, but not so beautiful as he would have had me believe. He never spoke of anything but her; at every opportunity he exaggerated her grace and her beauty, extolled her intelligence, spoke to me with transport of the charms of her conversation, and related to me her most insignificant saying, which he always wanted me to think the cleverest thing in the world. He often found fault with me for not thinking as highly as he imagined I ought to do of the things he related to me, and blamed me again and again for being so insensible to the power of love.

SCA. I do not see what you are aiming at in all this.

OCT. One day, as I was going with him to the people who have charge of the girl with whom he is in love, we heard in a small house on a by-street, lamentations mixed with a good deal of sobbing. We inquired what it was, and were told by a woman that we might see there a most piteous sight, in the persons of two strangers, and that unless we were quite insensible to pity, we should be sure to be touched with it.

SCA. Where will this lead to?

OCT. Curiosity made me urge Léandre to come in with me. We went into a low room, where we saw an old woman dying, and with her a servant who was uttering lamentations, and a young girl dissolved in tears, the most beautiful, the most touching sight that you ever saw.

SCA. Oh! oh!

OCT. Any other person would have seemed frightful in the condition she was in, for all the dress she had on was a scanty old petticoat, with a night jacket of plain fustian, and turned back at the top of her head a yellow cap, which let her hair fall in disorder on her shoulders; and yet dressed even thus she shone with a thousand attractions, and all her person was most charming and pleasant.

SCA. I begin to understand.

OCT. Had you but seen her, Scapin, as I did, you would have thought her admirable.

SCA. Oh! I have no doubt about it; and without seeing her, I plainly perceive that she must have been altogether charming.

OCT. Her tears were none of those unpleasant tears which spoil the face; she had a most touching grace in weeping, and her sorrow was a most beautiful thing to witness.

SCA. I can see all that.

OCT. All who approached her burst into tears whilst she threw herself, in her loving way, on the body of the dying woman, whom she called her dear mother; and nobody could help being moved to the depths of the heart to see a girl with such a loving disposition.

SCA. Yes, all that is very touching; and I understand that this loving disposition made you love her.

OCT. Ah! Scapin, a savage would have loved her.

SCA. Certainly; how could anyone help doing so?

OCT. After a few words, with which I tried to soothe her grief, we left her; and when I asked Léandre what he thought of her, he answered coldly that she was rather pretty! I was wounded to find how unfeelingly he spoke to me of her, and I would not tell him the effect her beauty had had on my heart.

SIL. (to OCTAVE). If you do not abridge your story, we shall have to stop here till to-morrow. Leave it to me to finish it in a few words. (To SCAPIN) His heart takes fire from that moment. He cannot live without going to comfort the amiable and sorrowful girl. His frequent visits are forbidden by the servant, who has become her guardian by the death of the mother. Our young man is in despair; he presses, begs, beseeches – all in vain. He is told that the young girl, although without friends and without fortune, is of an honourable family, and that, unless he marries her, he must cease his visits. His love increases with the difficulties. He racks his brains; debates, reasons, ponders, and makes up his mind. And, to cut a long story short, he has been married these three days.

SCA. I see.

SIL. Now, add to this the unforeseen return of the father, who was not to be back before two whole months; the discovery which the uncle has made of the marriage; and that other marriage projected between him and a daughter which Mr. Géronte had by a second wife, whom, they say, he married at Tarentum.

OCT. And, above all, add also the poverty of my beloved, and the impossibility there is for me to do anything for her relief.

SCA. Is that all? You are both of you at a great loss about nothing. Is there any reason to be alarmed? Are you not ashamed, you, Silvestre, to fall short in such a small matter? Deuce take it all! You, big and stout as father and mother put together, you can't find any expedient in your noddle? you can't plan any stratagem, invent any gallant intrigue to put matters straight? Fie! Plague on the booby! I wish I had had the two old fellows to bamboozle in former times; I should not have thought much of it; and I was no bigger than that, when I had given a hundred delicate proofs of my skill.

SIL. I acknowledge that Heaven has not given me your talent, and that I have not the brains like you to embroil myself with justice.

OCT. Here is my lovely Hyacintha!

SCENE III. – HYACINTHA, OCTAVE, SCAPIN, SILVESTRE

HYA. Ah! Octave, is what Silvestre has just told Nérine really true? Is your father back, and is he bent upon marrying you?

OCT. Yes, it is so, dear Hyacintha; and these tidings have given me a cruel shock. But what do I see? You are weeping? Why those tears? Do you suspect me of unfaithfulness, and have you no assurance of the love I feel for you?

HYA. Yes, Octave, I am sure that you love me now; but can I be sure that you will love me always?

OCT. Ah! could anyone love you once without loving you for ever?