Sganarelle, or The Imaginary Cuckold

Scene Twenty One

CELIE, LELIE, SGANARELLE (heavily armed), CELIE’S MAID

 

SGANARELLE (Aside.)

I’m fully roused; I’m spoiling for the fight.

My anger gives my courage heads of steam

Which overflows and bristles so extreme,

That I will kill that dog before my thought

Might interrupt. I’ll slay him on the spot!

(Approaching Lelie.)

I’ll leave behind a carnage dark and bloody.

 

LELIE

Who is your adversary, sir?

 

SGANARELLE

                                            Nobody.

 

LELIE

Then why this armor?

 

SGANARELLE

                                   What? Oh, you mean this?

It’s going to rain. I think I felt a mist.

(Aside, as LELIE turns his back.) Oh do it now! Lay on! Do not demur!

 

LELIE

How’s that?

 

SGANARELLE

                    Oh, nothing! (Punching and slapping himself.) Weasel! Stupid cur!

 

CELIE

His presence here now most acutely stresses

The guilty feelings someone here possesses.

 

LELIE

Indeed it does. It makes me want to know,

Just how a woman might quite stoop so low,

To leave the love who worshiped her and yearned --

 

SGANARELLE

Oh, courage, man!

 

CELIE

                               Enough! You’ve fully burned

Your bridges here. You’re insolent and addled.

 

SGANARELLE (Aside.)

Just hear how she supports you in this battle!

It’s time to screw your courage til it’s stuck

And let the first and final blow be struck

By stabbing him most bravely from behind!

 

LELIE (Turning back to CELIE, which interrupts SGANARELLE’s attack.)

Since nothing that I say can change your mind,

There’s naught to do but to embrace my fate,

And compliment your brilliant choice of mate.

 

CELIE

Oh, yes, my choice is backed by everyone.

 

LELIE

Of course they’d back a deed already done!

 

SGANARELLE

She’s right to back me here in this affair.

The laws, Sir, clamor at such things you dare;

You wrong me with the wily way you got her,

Almost inspiring me to acts of slaughter.

 

LELIE

I wrong you? I’m afraid that I don’t get it.

 

SGANARELLE

You can’t deny it. You already said it.

Are you so taken with your fond obsession,

That you don’t see my wife as my possession?

Fair Heaven frowns on such appropriation …

It’s not a Christian form of recreation!

 

LELIE

What you suggest, Monsieur, is quite absurd.

Your wife is yours; of that I’m well assured,

And I’ll not vy to take the woman off.

 

CELIE

You traitor! Liar! How you laugh and scoff!

 

LELIE

What? Do you think I have some sort of plan,

To steal the wife of this pathetic man?

Can you imagine I’d be such a traitor?

 

CELIE

Ask him! He’ll tell of what you’ve done, you satyr!

 

SGANARELLE (To CELIE.)

Oh Madam, you must tell it in your fashion;

I couldn’t match your ardor and your passion.

 

Scene Twenty Two

CELIE, LELIE, SGANARELLE, SCANARELLE’S WIFE, CELIE’S MAID

 

SGANARELLE’S WIFE

Madame, I don’t believe in making scenes,

In jealous rages or in venting spleens

But I will not pretend that I don’t know;

Your actions make for quite a sordid show.

And this is too, too much, you must agree,

To take a man whom Heaven gave to me.

 

CELIE

Well that assertion leaves no room for doubt.

 

SGANARELLE (To his WIFE.)

You slut! What are you going on about?

She comes to my defense and you berate her

Are you afraid she’ll take your lover later?

 

CELIE (To SGANARELLE’S WIFE.)

I don’t find him attractive; Ma’am, in truth.

(To LELIE.) You must confess now, after all this proof.

 

LELIE

Confess to what? What’s this?

 

MAID

                                                 How can you four

Have managed to confuse this even more?

I’ve stood by and attended to your show,

But find the more I hear, the less I know.

Perhaps you need a little intervention.

(Standing between LELIE and CELIE.)

I’ll ask some simple questions. Your attention.

(To LELIE.) What’s your complaint against this woman now?

 

LELIE

That she has gone against her sacred vow.

I hastened home when word reached me that said

There was another man she was to wed.

I rode like wind; I never stopped or tarried,

And yet, arriving, found that she was married.

 

MAID

Married? To whom?

 

LELIE

                                To him.

 

MAID

                                            To him?

 

LELIE

                                                          Oh, yes!

 

MAID

Who told you so?

 

LELIE

                             Why he did.

 

MAID (To SGANARELLE.)

                                                 And I guess

You can affirm this statement?

 

SGANARELLE

                                                  All I said

Was to say that my wife and I were wed.