(_To Sganarelle_). Pray, sir, how came you to know this
gentleman who went away just now and spoke to you?
SGAN. Alas! madam, it is not I who am acquainted with him; it is my wife.
CEL. What emotion thus disturbs your mind?
SGAN. Do not blame me; I have sufficient cause for my sorrow; permit me
to breathe plenty of sighs.
CEL. What can be the reason of this uncommon grief?
SGAN. If I am sad it is not for a trifle: I challenge other people not
to grieve, if they found themselves in my condition. You see in me the
model of unhappy husbands. Poor Sganarelle's honour is taken from him;
but the loss of my honour would be small--they deprive me of my
reputation also.
CEL. How do they do that?
SGAN. That fop has taken the liberty to cuckold me--saving your
presence, madam--and this very day my own eyes have been witness to a
private interview between him and my wife.
CEL. What? He who just now...
SGAN. Ay, ay, it is he who brings disgrace upon me; he is in love with
my wife, and my wife is in love with him.
CEL. Ah! I find I was right when I thought his returning secretly only
concealed some base design; I trembled the minute I saw him, from a sad
foreboding of what would happen.
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