Arg. Cut off my arm and pluck out my eye, so that the other may be better. I had rather that it were not better. A nice operation indeed, to make me at once one-eyed and one-armed.
SCENE XVI.—ARGAN, BÉRALDE, TOINETTE.
Toi. (pretending to speak to somebody). Come, come, I am your servant; I’m in no joking humour.
Arg. What is the matter?
Toi. Your doctor, forsooth, who wanted to feel my pulse!
Arg. Just imagine; and that, too, at fourscore and ten years of age.
Ber. Now, I say, brother, since you have quarrelled with Mr. Purgon, won’t you give me leave to speak of the match which is proposed for my niece?
Arg. No, brother; I will put her in a convent, since she has rebelled against me. I see plainly that there is some love business at the bottom of it all, and I have discovered a certain secret interview which they don’t suspect me to know anything about.
Ber. Well, brother, and suppose there were some little inclination, where could the harm be? Would it be so criminal when it all tends to what is honourable—marriage?
Arg. Be that as it may, she will be a nun. I have made up my mind.