was forever fatiguing people and scolding night and day at his maids and servants. Toi. An excellent funeral oration! Bél. Toinette, you must help me to carry out my design; and you may depend upon it that I will make it worth your while if you serve me. Since, by good luck, nobody is aware of his death, let us put him into his bed, and keep the secret until I have done what I want. There are some papers and some money I must possess myself of. It is not right that I should have passed the best years of my life with him without any kind of advantage. Come along, Toinette, first of all, let us take all the keys. Arg. (getting up hastily). Softly. Bél. Ah! Arg. So, my wife, it is thus you love me? Arg. (to BÉLINE, who goes away). I am very glad to see how you love me, and to have heard the noble panegyric you made upon me. This is a good warning, which will make me wise for the future, and prevent me from doing many things. SCENE XIX. BÉRALDE (coming out of the place where he was hiding), ARGAN, TOINETTE Bér. Well, brother, you see . Toi. Now, really, I could never have believed such a thing. But I hear your daughter coming; place yourself as you were just now, and let us see how she will receive the news. It is not a bad thing to try; and since you have begun, you will be able by this means to know the sentiments of your family towards you. SCENE XX. ARgan, Angélique, TOINETTE Toi. (pretending not to see ANGÉLIQUE). O heavens! what a sad accident! What an unhappy day! Ang. What ails you, Toinette, and why do you cry? Ang. What is it? Toi. Your father is dead. Ang. My father is dead, Toinette? Toi. Yes, just look at him there; he died only a moment ago of a fainting fit that came over him. Ang. O heavens! what a misfortune! What a cruel grief! Alas! why must I lose my father, the only being left me in the world? and why should I lose him, too, at a time when he was angry with me? What will become of me, unhappy girl that I am? What consolation can I find after so great a loss? SCENE XXI. Argan, Angélique, CLÉANTE, TOINETTE Clé. What is the matter with you, dear Angélique, and what misfortune makes you weep? Ang. Alas! I weep for what was most dear and most precious to me. I weep for the death of my father. Clé. O heaven! what a misfortune! What an unforeseen stroke of fortune! Alas! after I had asked your uncle to ask you in marriage, I was coming to see him, in order to try by my respect and entreaties to incline his heart to grant you to my wishes. Ang. Ah! Cléante, let us talk no more of this. Let us give up all hopes of marriage. Now my father is dead, I will have nothing to do with the world, and will renounce it forever. Yes, my dear father, if I resisted your will, I will at least follow out one of your intentions, and will by that make amends for the sorrow I have caused you. (Kneeling.) Let me, father, make you this promise here, and kiss you as a proof of my repentance. Arg. (kissing ANGÉLIQUE). Ah! my daughter! Ang. Ah! Arg. Come; do not be afraid. I am not dead. Ah! you are my true flesh and blood and my real daughter; I am delighted to have discovered your good heart. SCENE XXII. ARGAN, BÉRALDE, ANGÉLIQUE, CLÉANTE, TOINETTE Ang. Ah! what a delightful surprise! Father, since heaven has given you back to our love, let me here throw myself at your feet to implore one favor of you. If you do not approve of what my heart feels, if you refuse to give me Cléante for a husband, I conjure you, at least, not to force me to marry another. It is all I have to ask of you. Clé. (throwing himself at ARGAN's feet). Ah! sir, allow your heart to be touched by her entreaties and by mine, and do not oppose our mutual love. Bér. Brother, how can you resist all this? Toi. Will you remain insensible before such affection? Arg. Well, let him become a doctor, and I will consent to the marriage. (To CLÉANTE.) Yes, turn doctor, sir, and I will give you my daughter. Clé. Very willingly, sir, if it is all that is required to become your son-in-law. I will turn doctor; apothecary also, if you like. It is not such a difficult thing after all, and I would do much more to obtain from you the fair Angélique. Bér. But, brother, it just strikes me; why don't you turn doctor yourself? It would be much more convenient to have all you want within yourself. Toi. Quite true. That is the very way to cure yourself. There is no disease bold enough to dare to attack the person of a doctor. Arg. I imagine, brother, that you are laughing at me. Can I study at my age? Bér. Study! What need is there? You are clever enough for that; there are a great many who are not a bit more clever than you are. Arg. But one must be able to speak Latin well, and know the different diseases and the remedies they require. Bér. When you put on the cap and gown of a doctor, all that will come of itself, and you will afterwards be much more clever than you care to be. Arg. What! We understand how to discourse upon diseases when we have that dress? Bér. Yes; you have only to hold forth; when you have a cap and gown, any stuff becomes learned, and all rubbish good sense. Toi. Look you, sir; a beard is something in itself; a beard is half the doctor. Clé. Anyhow I am ready for everything. Bér. (to ARGAN). Shall we have the thing done immediately? Arg. How, immediately? Bér. Yes, in your house. Arg. In my house? Bér. Yes, I know a body of physicians, friends of mine, who will come presently, and will perform the ceremony in your hall. It will cost you nothing. Arg. But what can I say, what can I answer? Bér. You will be instructed in a few words, and they will give you in writing all you have to say. Go and dress yourself directly, and I will send for them. Arg. Very well; let it be done. SCENE XXIII. BÉRALDE, ANGÉLIQUE, CLEANTE Clé. What is it you intend to do, and what do you mean by this body of physicians? Toi. What is it you are going to do? Bér. To amuse ourselves a little to-night. The players have made a doctor's admission the subject of an interlude, with dances and music. I want every one to enjoy it, and my brother to act the principal part in it. Ang. But, uncle, it seems to me that you are making fun of my father. Bér. But, niece, it is not making too much fun of him to fall in with his fancies. We may each of us take part in it ourselves, and thus perform the comedy for each other's amusement. Carnival time authorizes it. Let us go quickly and get everything ready. Clé. (to ANGÉLIQUE). Do you consent to it? THEODOR MOMMSEN THEODOR MOMMSEN. Born at Garding, Schleswig, Germany, November 30, 1817; died November, 1903. Author of "Roman History," "Roman Chronology down to Cæsar," "History of Roman Coinage," "Roman Investigations," "History of Roman Political Law." During more than forty years Mommsen was Professor of Ancient History at Berlin. He gave more than ten thousand lectures to the students. His monographic studies are intensely interesting; his style is clear cut and compact. Of minute details in far-away ages he was a patient investigator. The range and variety of his knowledge astonished the world. He was distinguished not only as a historian of the first rank, but also as a jurist, numismatist, and philologist. (From "THE HISTORY OF ROME"; published by Charles Scribner's Sons.) JULIUS CAESAR THE new monarch of Rome, the first ruler over the whole domain of Romano-Hellenic civilization, Gaius Julius Caesar, was in his fifty-sixth year (born 12 July 652 ?) when the battle at Thapsus, the last link in a long chain of momentous victories, placed the decision as to the future of the world in his hands. Few men have had their elasticity so thoroughly put to the proof as Caesar the sole creative genius produced by Rome, and the last produced by the ancient world, which accordingly moved on in the path that he marked out for it until its sun went down. Sprung from one of the oldest noble families of Latium which traced back its lineage to the heroes of the Iliad and the kings of Rome, and in fact to the Venus-Aphrodite common to both nations he spent the years of his boyhood and early manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, had practised literature and made verses in his idle hours, had prosecuted love intrigues of every sort and got himself initiated into all the mysteries of shaving, curls, and ruffles pertaining to the toilette wisdom of the day, as well as into the still more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. But the flexible steel of that nature was proof against even these dissi |