ollowed them. I withstood all that, but you don't
give up at all and step by step you are overcoming my resolve. As
for me, I can no longer answer for anything, and I believe that in
the end you will bring me to marriage, which I have so far
avoided.

DORANTE: My faith! Madame, you should already have come to it. You
are a widow, and you answer only to yourself. I am my own master
and I love you more than my life. Why shouldn't you be all my
happiness from today onward?

DORIMENE: Goodness! Dorante, for two people to live happily
together both of them need particular qualities; and two of the
most reasonable persons in the world often have trouble making a
union satisfactory to them both.

DORANTE: You're fooling yourself, Madame, to imagine so many
difficulties, and the experience you had with one marriage doesn't
determine anything for others.

DORIMENE: Finally I always come back to this. The expenses that I
see you go to for me disturb me for two reasons: one is that they
get me more involved than I would like; and the other is that I am
sure--meaning no offense--that you cannot do this without
financially inconveniencing yourself, and I certainly don't want
that.

DORANTE: Ah! Madame, they are trifles, and it isn't by that...

DORIMENE: I know what I'm talking about; and among other gifts, the
diamond you forced me to take is worth...

DORANTE: Oh! Madame, mercy, don't put any value on a thing that my
love finds unworthy of you, and allow... Here's the master of the
house.

ACT THREE

SCENE XVI (Monsieur Jourdain, Dorimene, Dorante, Lackey)

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: (After having made two bows, finding himself too
near Dorimene) A little farther, Madame.

DORIMENE: What?

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: One step, if you please.

DORIMENE: What is it?

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Step back a little for the third.

DORANTE: Madame, Monsieur Jourdain is very knowledgeable.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Madame, it is a very great honor to me to be
fortunate enough to be so happy as to have the joy that you should
have had the goodness to accord me the graciousness of doing me the
honor of honoring me with the favor of your presence; and, if I
also had the merit to merit a merit such as yours, and if
Heaven... envious of my luck... should have accorded me... the
advantage of seeing me worthy... of the...

DORANTE: Monsieur Jourdain, that is enough. Madame doesn't like
grand compliments, and she knows that you are a man of wit. (As