The Jealousy of le Barbouillé

Ang. Only just look at him! he is drunk, and returns at this time of night to make a noise and threaten to kill me.

Gor. She is right: it is not at this hour of night you should come home. Why can you not, like a good father of a family, come home early and live at peace with your wife?

Bar. Deuce take me, if I left the house! Ask those gentlemen who are on the terrace there. It is she who has only just come home. Ah! how innocence is always oppressed!

Gor. Well! Come, come, try to agree together, and ask her to forgive you.

Bar. I ask her to forgive me! I had rather the devil flew off with her. I am in such a terrible rage, I hardly know what to do.

Gor. Come, daughter, kiss your husband, and be friends.

SCENE XIII. – THE DOCTOR (in night-gear at another window)

Doc. What! always noise, disorder, dissension, quarrels, strife, disputes, uproar, everlasting altercations? What is it? What can it be? One can have no rest.

Vill. It is nothing, Mr. Doctor, every one is agreed.

Doc. Ah! about being agreed, shall I read you a chapter of Aristotle, where he proves that all the different parts of the universe subsist only through the concord which exists between them?

Vill. Will it be long?

Doc. No, it's not a bit long, only about sixty or eighty pages.

Vill. Thanks, good night, good night!

Gor. It is not necessary.

Doc. Do you wish for it?

Gor. No.

Doc. Good night, then, since it is so —latine, bona nox.

Vill. Let us all go and have some supper together.

THE END

notes

1

An Italian game (Latin, micare digitis), in which one player suddenly raises the hand of which some fingers are shut, and some are open. The other players have to guess the number of fingers raised.

2

In most editions we find "et que tout le monde où serait cette monarchie florissante," which has no meaning. The correct reading is "et que tu me donnerais le monde où serait," &c.

3

See 'Impromptu de Versailles,' Sc. i.

4

Je suis bien tenté de te bâiller une quinte major. Quinte major is a term of piquet. It is here employed figuratively. Compare its use in 'Les Fâcheux,' Act ii. Sc. ii.

5

This seems to be the meaning of "Je dédonne au diable l'escarcelle, si vous l'aviez fait." Je dédonne au diable is apparently a euphemism for Je donne au diable. In French, compare parbleu, corbleu, &c., and deuce, zounds, egad, &c., in English. Dédonne is not given by Littré. It occurs again in 'Le Médecin Volant,' Sc. x., but does not seem to have been employed elsewhere by Molière.

6

Compare Sc. iv. 'Le Mariage Forcé.'

7

Doc. 'Audi, quæso,' aurait dit Cicéron.

Bar. Si ce rompt, si ce brise, &c.

It seems necessary to ascribe the saying to Cæsar, rather than to Cicero, in order to render to some extent this fearful pun.

8

An enchanted dwarf in the old romance of 'Valentine and Orson,' who manufactured a wooden horse, which could go very fast "Courir comme le cheval de Pacolet," remains as a proverb.