Valère. Depend upon me.

Harpagon. And now, Master Jacques, you must clean my coach.

Jacques. Wait; that is a matter for the coachman. (Puts his livery coat on.) You were saying …

Harpagon. That you must clean my coach, and hold the horses in readiness to drive to the fair …

Jacques. Your horses, Sir? Upon my word, they are not at all in a fit state to go. I will not tell you that they are on the straw; the poor beasts have not got even that much, and it would not be telling the truth; but you make them keep such austere fasts that they are no longer anything but ghosts or shadows, with horses’ shapes.

Harpagon. They are very ill, and yet they are doing nothing!

Jacques. And because they do nothing, Sir, must they not eat? It would be far better to work the poor brutes much, and to feed them the same. It breaks my heart to see them in such a wretched condition; for, after all, I have got tender feeling for my horses; it seems to me it is myself, when I see them suffer. Not a day passes but I take the meat out of my own mouth to feed them; and, Sir, it is being too cruel to have no pity for one’s neighbour.

Harpagon. The work will not be very hard to go as far as the fair.

Jacques. No, Sir, I have not the heart to drive them, and I would not have it on my conscience to give them the whip in the state they are in. How can you wish them to draw a coach when they can hardly drag themselves along?

Valère. Sir, I will make our neighbour, Picard, take charge of them and drive them; he will be at the same time needed to get the supper ready.

Jacques. Be it so; I prefer their dying under other people’s hands than under mine.

Valère. Master Jacques is getting considerate!

Jacques. Sir Steward is getting indispensable!

Harpagon. Peace.

Jacques. I cannot bear flatterers, Sir; and I see what he makes of it; that his perpetual looking after the bread, the wine, the wood, the salt, the candles, is done only with the view of currying favour with you, and getting into your good books. This drives me mad, and I am sorry to hear every day what the world says of you; for, after all, I have some feeling for you; and, after my horses, you are the person whom I love most.

Harpagon. Might I know, Master Jacques, what people say of me.

Jacques. Yes, Sir, if I could be sure that it would not make you angry.

Harpagon. No, not in the least.

Jacques. I beg your pardon; I know full well that I shall put you in a rage.

Harpagon. Not at all. On the contrary, it will be obliging me, and I shall be glad to learn how people speak of me.

Jacques. Since you will have it, Sir, I shall tell you frankly that people everywhere make a jest of you, that they pelt us with a thousand jokes from every quarter on your account, and that they are never