by Ranjit Bolt
ORGON: (Aside, to CLEANTE.) As I said,
It is some sort of compromise!
Or why so friendly, otherwise?
MONSIEUR LOYAL: This house is dear to me, because
I served your father, when time was.
ORGON: Indeed? Monsieur, I must admit,
I really don’t remember it,
Or even know your name.
MONSIEUR LOYAL: Quite right.
Loyal. I first beheld God’s light
In Normandy. I humbly ply
The trade of bailiff, thus have I,
These thrice ten, long years, won my bread,
And honoured been, and prosperèd.
But now, if you will bear with me,
I have a writ to serve on thee.
ORGON: A writ? What writ? You mean to say...?
MONSIEUR LOYAL: Peace! Calm yourself, Monsieur, I pray.
’Tis but an order that you quit
Your house, that thou surrender it
To its new owner, presently –
Such chattels as pertain to thee
You keep, your house is forfeit, though.
You’ve no recourse, you needs must go...
ORGON: Hell’s teeth!
MONSIEUR LOYAL: And in the following wise:
’Tis with Tartuffe the judgement lies,
This is his property, not thine,
In his hands, as this writ in mine,
It must be placed, by process due,
There’s nothing you can say or do.
’Tis meet and fit.
DAMIS: Well, I must say!
(Instantly apopleptic.) We’ve seen some impudence today,
But this – !
MONSIEUR LOYAL: I have no truck with thee,
Why do you rant and rave at me?
This man is sweet and kind, and knows
That no good person must oppose
The course of justice. ’Twere not meet.
ORGON: But...
MONSIEUR LOYAL:
(To ORGON.) You’ll not bluster, Sir, or bleat,
But, as an honest man and true,
You’ll let me serve this writ on you.
DAMIS: (To MONSIEUR LOYAL.)
I’ll tan your blasted bailiff hide,
You stupid, fat, self-satisfied – !
MONSIEUR LOYAL: (To ORGON.)
Sir, pray, command him to a peace
Or else your woes will soon increase,
For I myself shall summons thee
In my own right.
OTHERS: Shut up, Damis!
MONSIEUR LOYAL: (To ORGON.)
You’re a good man. I knew you were.
I undertook this charge, Monsieur,
Out of pure love, to do thee ease
And lighten thy calamities –
Better a man that means no ill
Than somebody who would, or will,
Be much less courteous with thee.
ORGON: Courteous! You’re evicting me
From my own house!
MONSIEUR LOYAL: A brief delay
Is granted thee. Tonight thoul’t stay
Beneath this roof, and I with thee,
And ten strong men to succour me.
Thou must, before thou go’st to sleep
Surrender me thy keys to keep,
I’ll see that none disturbs thy rest
And order all things for the best.
Upon the morrow, at first light,
Thy leaving thou must expedite
And void this house of its contents,
My men will help thee bear them hence.
I’ve kindly dealt with thee I trust
As any man half human must
And I conjure thee, use me well,
Bear with me for a little spell,
And let me do my job aright,
For, if thou puttest up a fight,
And try’st in ought to hinder me,
Be warned, it shall go hard with thee.
ORGON: I’d sell off all my property
And raise my very final sou
To buy the right to cudgel you!
CLEANTE: Leave him. It’s useless to resist.
DAMIS: It’s time this fellow felt my fist!
DORINE: This bailiff’s got a nice broad back,
It’s simply asking for a thwack,
Now, where’s a stick?
MONSIEUR LOYAL: (To DORINE.) Thou art a maid
Right worthy to be stripped and flayed.
CLEANTE: Monsieur, there’s nothing more to say.
Give us the writ, and go away.
MONSIEUR LOYAL: (Giving it to ORGON.)
May Heav’n defend, and keep thee well
Till next we meet.
ORGON: Oh, go to Hell!
Exit MONSIEUR LOYAL.
(To his mother.) Erm, were you saying someone lied?
MME PERNELLE: I’m stunned, distraught and stupefied!
DORINE: Perhaps, since wealth corrupts the soul,
Tartuffe is taking on the role
Of wealthy man, which leaves you free
To find God’s grace: it’s charity
Is this!
ORGON: For the last time: be quiet!
Silence is golden, you should try it!
CLEANTE: How are we to escape this hell?
ELMIRE: I still say things will turn out well –
Once his ingratitude is known,
Once the authorities are shown
How he has cheated, tricked and lied,
His claim will be disqualified –
It isn’t over till it ends.
Enter VALERE.
VALERE: Monsieur, one of my closest friends,
Who has a place at Court, and knew
The ties connecting me to you,
Despite his duty to the State,
Has let the due procedures wait,
Broken his vow of secrecy,
And revealed certain facts to me:
Facts that amount to one thing: flight –
You must be out of France tonight.
The scoundrel you’ve been harbouring
Has just denounced you to the King;
You’re guilty of a grave offence,
He’s handed over documents
That prove your guilt – that much is clear,
What your crime is, I’ve no idea,
But something to the vague effect
That you’ve attempted to protect
One of the State’s worst enemies,
And now it’s you they mean to seize.
My friend revealed to me, when pressed,
That he’s been charged with your arrest,
He and his men are on their way.
CLEANTE: This was the ace he had to play.
ORGON: A fiend, a monster, and a swine!
VALERE: You mustn’t talk, there isn’t time.
My coach is waiting at the door.
Here is a purse of louis d’or
For your immediate needs. Let’s go.
This is the sort of sudden blow
That desperate steps are suited to –
If you agree, I’ll come with you
And see you safely stowed away.
ORGON: Such kindness! Well, I shall repay
This debt to you, before I’m done.
Now, listen to me, everyone...
CLEANTE: Sorry to stop you in full flow,
But don’t you think you’d better go?
We’ll work out later what to do.
Enter TARTUFFE, with the OFFICER.
TARTUFFE: Monsieur, where are you rushing to?
Your carriage, and new home, await,
You are a guest now – of the State.
ORGON: So, have you left the best till now?
Is this the final, fatal blow?
You...!
TARTUFFE: Please – insult me, curse and swear,
Heaven will give me strength to bear
Your insolence.
CL
EANTE: A saint indeed.
DAMIS: He mocks religion – that’s his creed.
TARTUFFE: Not so. I’m giving Heaven its due.
By all means, hate me, all of you.
MARIANE: A truly pious enterprise.
TARTUFFE: My strength, my vindication lies
In the great power that sent me here.
ORGON: How can your conscience be so clear?
I rescued you from dire distress.
TARTUFFE: You were extremely helpful, yes,
But duty before everything
And mine must be: to serve my King;
All other obligations pale
Beside it; him I must not fail.
ELMIRE: You fraud!
DORINE: He wears his holiness
As you or I might do a dress.
CLEANTE: (To TARTUFFE.) This duty, that you hold so dear –
It’s taken some time to appear –
Why did it wait, till you’d been caught
Chasing his wife? I should have thought,
If his black crimes disgust you so,
You’d have denounced him long ago.
He also made you his sole heir,
How could you feel no scruples there
But just accept his kindnesses
If he is what you say he is –
A traitor?
TARTUFFE: Have you said your piece?
Then let this contumely cease.
(To the OFFICER.) Monsieur, if you would condescend –
OFFICER: Indeed, it’s time to make an end,
Let’s do so, without more ado:
(To TARTUFFE.) Monsieur, I am arresting you,
Your cell and manacles await –
You are a guest, now, of the State.
TARTUFFE: Who? Me?
OFFICER: Yes, you.
TARTUFFE: But on what ground?
OFFICER: That’s not for your ears. It’s been found.
(To ORGON.) Monsieur, you’re naturally dismayed,
Perhaps it’s time that I allayed
Your fears: the King, our sovereign lord,
Is the archenemy of fraud:
He sees, with his all-piercing eye,
Into a scoundrel’s heart, thereby
Foiling his guile and treachery.
His is an all-perceiving soul,
That views life steadily, and whole,
Calm, never running to excess.
He bestows honour and largesse
On the sincerely pious man,
But he discerns the charlatan,
Of every artful ruse aware,
Deftly avoiding every snare,
Love for the best among mankind
Has not, and will not, make him blind
To the deceptions of the worst:
Small wonder, then, that from the first,
When faced with this vile hypocrite,
His keen intelligence had hit
Upon the truth. No subtle art
Could hide the blackness of that heart:
Tartuffe denounced you, and he thought
He’d scuppered you, but he was caught
In his own trap. The King could sense,
With his sublime intelligence,
That here was an impostor, one,
Moreover, who, it seems, has done
Similar, wicked deeds elsewhere,
Under another name. A rare
Trickster, whose life of crime and fraud
Would take whole volumes to record.
Well, in a word, the King could see,
And he deplored, this perfidy,
Last in a roll of infamies.
Tartuffe requested that he seize
And dispossess you, he agreed,
Dispatched me to you, with all speed,
But just to trap him, and to show
How far his wickedness could go.
Your property is yours again,
All deeds that bear this traitor’s name
Are now annulled, by royal decree,
And he is to resign to me
Your private papers –
(He takes the papers from TARTUFFE and hands them to ORGON as he continues.)
Here, they’re yours,
Though kept in a seditious cause –
That crime is pardoned. This you owe
To your own loyalty, years ago:
During a time of civil war,
It was the King you opted for,
You stood by him, through thick and thin –
This is the way he’s always been:
When there’s a debt he feels he owes
When least we look for it, he shows
His gratitude, for, while no wrong
Preys on his generous mind for long,
Good offices he does recall
And, in the end, requites them all.
DORINE: Thank Heaven.
MME PERNELLE: I can breathe again.
ELMIRE: I wasn’t talking nonsense then –
I told you things would turn out well.
MARIANE: They stopped the axe before it fell!
ORGON: (About to lunge at TARTUFFE.)
Yooouuu – devious, treacherous...
CLEANTE: Brother, wait!
Let’s leave him to his wretched fate,
And hope that he’ll return one day...
DAMIS: Don’t tell me: to the ‘middle way’.
CLEANTE: ...while giving thanks to this great prince,
The best, most merciful of kings.
ORGON: We’ll lay our thanks, then, at his feet,
And, when that business is complete,
Turn to another, for tonight
Valère must have what’s his by right,
My daughter, since his love’s remained
So generous, and so...unfeigned.
The End.
Appendix
Cléante’s speeches in full
In the National Theatre’s production of this text (Spring 2002) significant cuts were made to two of Cléante’s speeches in Act One. The unabridged versions of these speeches are reproduced below.
CLEANTE: Your kind
All talk like that – because you’re blind
You’d rather others didn’t see.
You deem perceptiveness to be
A kind of sin! Let us adore
The idols that you kneel before
Or else be damned. Well, listen here:
Your sermons don’t fill me with fear,
I know my subject, for a start
And Heaven sees into my heart.
I don’t believe your pious pose.
If there’s false courage, then, God knows,
There is false piety as well:
The brave man you can always tell
By how he doesn’t rant and roar
And bluster in the heat of war;
And how may pious men be known?
They don’t pull faces, sigh and groan.
D’you really have so dull a wit
That you can’t tell a hypocrite
From an unfeigned, religious man?
It doesn’t look as though you can –
You treat them as a single case,
Confound the visor with the face.
Sincerity you either miss
Or else confuse with artifice,
Substance and air, false coin and true
Will merge, in your distorted view.
We humans are a curious lot –
The fact is, few of us have got
A sense of Nature’s golden mean,
We can’t keep straight, we have to lean
To one, extreme and dangerous side;
The bounds of reason aren’t that wide,
Staying within them is a feat
Beyond our scope – you seldom meet
A man who’ll tread its narrow way
If there’s a chance for him to stray.
Many a noble cause is wrecked
By charging boldly on, unchecke
d,
To dizzy uplands of excess,
Where more invariably means less.
(Those last remarks weren’t à propos –
I felt I had to make them, though.)
ORGON: Oh you’re infallible, you are!
Nobody sees so deep or far –
You are a Cato for our age,
An oracle, a mighty sage.
Anyone else is just a prat
Compared to you.
CLEANTE: I don’t think that,
But I know one thing more than you:
I can distinguish false from true.
Like the next man, I recognise
Religion as a thing to prize.
What jewel more precious can there be
Than perfect, unfeigned piety,
A fervour that is felt, and real?
But this, this squashed flea kind of zeal,
Worn as a lady wears her paint,
The posturing of the plaster saint,
This, above all things, I deplore –
Nothing on earth disgusts me more
Than the religious charlatan,
The ladder-climbing holy man
Whose sanctimonious grimace
Is donned, to get some post or place –
I mean the kind of man who’s made
Of sacred things a stock in trade.
Religion is his merchandise,
For him, the way to Fortune lies
Through Heaven: are his eyes kept low?
Does he cry out to let you know
How full he is of the Lord’s praise?
That’s the false coin in which he pays
For influence, or some post he seeks,
He’s always praying, when he speaks
Of God, his ardour sounds so pure,
And why? He wants a sinecure!
This is the type of man you’ll meet
Preaching seclusion and retreat
While comfortably ensconced at Court,
A hybrid of the vilest sort,
Quick, devious, treacherous, he’ll conceal
His viciousness with studied zeal,
He will destroy a man, and claim
That it was done in Heaven’s name –
What better way is there to hide
His bitter and resentful pride?
He is more greatly to be feared
Because his weapons are revered,
His fervour’s popular, and so
You will hear people cry, ‘Bravo!’
As victims perish in the fire
Of his ‘just’ wrath, his ‘righteous’ ire.
But if you seek the other kind,
The truly saintly, you will find
They, too, are easy to discern:
They do not seethe, and boil, and burn
With faith that’s too good to be true,
