TARTUFFE

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,