SCENE I.——CLÉANTE, MARIANNE, ÉLISE, FROSINE.

CLE.
Let us come in here; we shall be much better. There is no one about us that we need be afraid of, and we can speak openly.

ELI.
Yes, Madam, my brother has told me of the love he has for you. I know what sorrow and anxiety such trials as these may cause, and I assure you that I have the greatest sympathy for you.

MAR.
I feel it a great comfort in my trouble to have the sympathy of a person like you, and I entreat you, Madam, ever to retain for me a friendship so capable of softening the cruelty of my fate.

FRO.
You really are both very unfortunate not to have told me of all this before. I might certainly have warded off the blow, and not have carried things so far.

CLE.
What could I do? It is my evil destiny which has willed it so. But you, fair Marianne, what have you resolved to do? What resolution have you taken?

MAR.
Alas! Is it in my power to take any resolution? And, dependent as I am, can I do anything else except form wishes?


CLE.
No other support for me in your heart? Nothing but mere wishes? No pitying energy? No kindly relief? No active affection?

MAR.
What am I to say to you? Put yourself in my place, and judge what I can possibly do. Advise me, dispose of me, I trust myself entirely to you, for I am sure that you will never ask of me anything but what is modest and seemly.
CLE.
Alas! to what do you reduce me when you wish me to be guided entirely by feelings of strict duty and of scrupulous propriety.

MAR.
But what would you have me do? Even if I were, for you, to divest myself of the many scruples which our sex imposes on us, I have too much regard for my mother, who has brought me up with great tenderness, for me to give her any cause of sorrow. Do all you can with her. Strive to win her. I give you leave to say and do all you wish; and if anything depends upon her knowing the true state of my feelings, by all means tell her what they are; indeed I will do it myself if necessary.

CLE.
Frosine, dear Frosine, will you not help us?

FRO.
Indeed, I should like to do so, as you know. I am not naturally unkind. Heaven has not given me a heart of flint, and I feel but too ready to help when I see young people loving each other in all earnestness and honesty. What can we do in this case?

CLE.
Try and think a little.

MAR.
Advise us.

ELI.
Invent something to undo what you have done.

FRO.
Rather a difficult piece of business. (To Marianne) As far as your mother is concerned, she is not altogether unreasonable and we might succeed in making her give to the son the gift she reserved for the father. (To Cléante) But the most disheartening part of it all is that your father is your father.

CLE.
Yes, so it is.
FRO.
I mean that he will bear malice if he sees that he is refused, and he will be in no way disposed afterwards to give his consent to your marriage. It would be well if the refusal could be made to come from him, and you ought to try by some means or other to make him dislike you, Marianne.

CLE.
You are quite right.

FRO.
Yes, right enough, no doubt. That is what ought to be done; but how in the world are we to set about it? Wait a moment. Suppose we had a somewhat elderly woman with a little of the ability which I possess, and able sufficiently well to represent a lady of rank, by means of a retinue made up in haste, and of some whimsical title of a marchioness or viscountess, whom we would suppose to come from Lower Brittany. I should have enough power over your father to persuade him that she is a rich woman, in possession, besides her houses, of a hundred thousand crowns in ready money; that she is deeply in love with him, and that she would marry him at any cost, were she even to give him all her money by the marriage contract. I have no doubt he would listen to the proposal. For certainly he loves you very much, my dear, but he loves money still better. When once he has consented to your marriage, it does not signify much how he finds out the true state of affairs about our marchioness.

CLE.
All that is very well made up.

FRO.
Leave it to me; I just remember one of my friends who will do beautifully.

CLE.
Depend on my gratitude, Frosine, if you succeed. But, dear Marianne, let us begin, I beg of you, by gaining over your mother; it would be a great deal accomplished if this marriage were once broken off. Make use, I beseech you, of all the power that her tenderness for you gives you over her. Display without hesitation those eloquent graces, those all-powerful charms, with which Heaven has endowed your eyes and lips; forget not, I beseech you, those sweet persuasions, those tender entreaties, those loving caresses to which, I feel, nothing could be refused.

MAR.
I will do all I can, and will forget nothing.