OCT. Ah! Scapin, a savage would have loved her.
SCA. Certainly; how could anyone help doing so?
OCT. After a few words, with which I tried to soothe her grief, we left her; and when I asked Léandre what he thought of her, he answered coldly that she was rather pretty! I was wounded to find how unfeelingly he spoke to me of her, and I would not tell him the effect her beauty had had on my heart.
SIL. (to OCTAVE). If you do not abridge your story, we shall have to stop here till to-morrow. Leave it to me to finish it in a few words. (To SCAPIN) His heart takes fire from that moment. He cannot live without going to comfort the amiable and sorrowful girl. His frequent visits are forbidden by the servant, who has become her guardian by the death of the mother. Our young man is in despair; he presses, begs, beseeches—all in vain. He is told that the young girl, although without friends and without fortune, is of an honourable family, and that, unless he marries her, he must cease his visits. His love increases with the difficulties. He racks his brains; debates, reasons, ponders, and makes up his mind. And, to cut a long story short, he has been married these three days.
SCA. I see.
SIL. Now, add to this the unforeseen return of the father, who was not to be back before two whole months; the discovery which the uncle has made of the marriage; and that other marriage projected between him and a daughter which Mr. Géronte had by a second wife, whom, they say, he married at Tarentum.
OCT. And, above all, add also the poverty of my beloved, and the impossibility there is for me to do anything for her relief.
SCA. Is that all? You are both of you at a great loss about nothing. Is there any reason to be alarmed? Are you not ashamed, you, Silvestre, to fall short in such a small matter? Deuce take it all! You, big and stout as father and mother put together, you can't find any expedient in your noddle? you can't plan any stratagem, invent any gallant intrigue to put matters straight? Fie! Plague on the booby! I wish I had had the two old fellows to bamboozle in former times; I should not have thought much of it; and I was no bigger than that, when I had given a hundred delicate proofs of my skill.
SIL. I acknowledge that Heaven has not given me your talent, and that I have not the brains like you to embroil myself with justice.
OCT. Here is my lovely Hyacintha!