No More Learning

Quick, bring plenty of bread and wine.

SGANARELLE: I shall come back at night to see how
she is getting on.

GERONTE: Just wait a moment, please.

SGANARELLE: What do you want?

GERONTE: To give you your fee, monsieur.

SGANARELLE (_holding out his hand from under his
gown, while Geronte opens his purse_): I shall not take it,
monsieur.

GERONTE: I beseech you.

SGANARELLE: You are jesting.

GERONTE: That is settled.

SGANARELLE: I will not.

GERONTE: What!

SGANARELLE: I don't practise for money.

GERONTE: I am sure you don't.

SGANARELLE (_after having taken the money_): Is it
good weight?

GERONTE: Yes, monsieur.
SGANARELLE: I am not a mercenary doctor.

GERONTE: I know that.

SGANARELLE: Self-interest is not my motive.

GERONTE: I never for a moment thought it was.

[_Exit_.


ACT II

Leandre, between whom and Lucinde a mutual attachment subsists, has
an interview with Sganarelle, at which he implores the latter's
assistance to obtain a meeting with his mistress, and tells him that
her dumbness is a mere trick--a sham illness which she has feigned
to free herself from a distasteful marriage into which her father
wants to hurry her. In consideration of a purse of gold which Leandre
gives him, Sganarelle introduces the young lover into M. Geronte's
house as his apothecary, and when Leandre asks whether it is not
necessary to know five or six long medical words with which to lard
his conversation, ridicules the notion, and says that a medical dress
is quite sufficient disguise. "I am resolved to stick to physic all my
life," says Sganarelle. "I find that it is the best line of all; for
whatever we do, right or wrong, we are paid, all the same. Blunders
make no odds to us; we cut away the material we have to work with as
we choose. A shoemaker, in making a pair of shoes, cannot spoil a
scrap of leather without having to pay for it; but in this business we
can spoil a man without its costing us a cent. The mistakes are never
put down to our account; it is always the fault of the fellow who
dies. "

[_Enter_ JACQUELINE, LUCINDE, GERONTE, LEANDRE _and_ SGANARELLE.

JACQUELINE: Here's your daughter, monsieur. She
wishes to walk a bit.