La Flèche. From him? Ah! you will have to be wide-awake enough if you get anything out of him; and I warn you that money is very scarce in this house.

Frosine. There are certain services that touch to the quick marvellously.

La Flèche. I am your humble servant. You do not know M. Harpagon yet. M. Harpagon is of all human beings the least human, of all mortals the hardest and most close-fisted. There is no service that touches his gratitude deeply enough to make him unloose his purse-strings. Praise, esteem, kindness in words, and friendship, as much as you like; but money, nothing of the kind. There is nothing drier and more arid than his good graces and his caresses; and to give is a word for which he has such an aversion, that he never says: I give you, but I lend you good day.

Frosine. Gad! I have the art of drawing something out of people; I have the secret of entering into their affections, of tickling their hearts, and of finding out their most sensitive spots.

La Flèche. Of no avail here. I defy you to soften the man we are speaking of, so that he will give money. Upon this subject he is a Turk, but of a turkishness to cause the despair of everyone; and one might starve, and he would not budge. In one word, he loves money better than reputation, than honour, and than virtue; and the very sight of one who asks for it sends him into fits; it is touching him in his mortal part, it is piercing his heart, it is tearing out his very entrails; and if … But he is coming back; I am going.

Scene VI.—Harpagon, Frosine.

Harpagon (aside). Everything is going on right. (Aloud). Well! what is it, Frosine?

Frosine. Gad, how well you are looking; you are the very picture of health!

Harpagon. Who? I!

Frosine. I never saw you with such a fresh and jolly complexion.

Harpagon. Really?

Frosine. How? You never in your life looked so young as you do now; I see people of five-and-twenty who look older than you.

Harpagon. I am over sixty, nevertheless, Frosine.

Frosine. Well! what does that signify, sixty years? that is nothing to speak of! It is the very flower of one’s age, that is; and you are just entering the prime of manhood.

Harpagon. That is true; but twenty years less would do me no harm, I think.

Frosine. Are you jesting? You have no need of that, and you are made of the stuff to live a hundred.

Harpagon. Do you think so?

Frosine. Indeed I do. You show all the signs of it. Hold up your head a moment. Yes, it is there, well enough between your eyes, a sign of long life!

Harpagon. You are a judge of that sort of thing?

Frosine. Undoubtedly I am. Show me your hand. Good heavens, what a line of life!

Harpagon. How?

Frosine. Do you not see how far this line goes?