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Library / Literature & Fiction

The Middle-Class Gentleman

by Molière

Pages
about 65
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
72 min at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 40 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

(The play opens with a great assembly of instruments, and in the middle of the stage is a pupil of the Music Master seated at a table composing a melody which Monsieur Jourdain has ordered for a serenade.)

MUSIC MASTER: (To Musicians) Come, come into this room, sit there and wait until he comes.

MUSIC MASTER: Yes, it's a melody for a serenade that I set him to composing here, while waiting for our man to awake.

MUSIC MASTER: You'll hear it, with the dialogue, when he comes. He won't be long.

DANCING MASTER: Our work, yours and mine, is not trivial at present.

MUSIC MASTER: This is true. We've found here such a man as we both need. This is a nice source of income for us--this Monsieur Jourdain, with the visions of nobility and gallantry that he has gotten into his head. You and I should hope that everyone resembled him.

DANCING MASTER: Not entirely; I could wish that he understood better the things that we give him.

MUSIC MASTER: It's true that he understands them poorly, but he pays well, and that's what our art needs now more than anything else.

DANCING MASTER: As for me, I admit, I feed a little on glory. Applause touches me; and I hold that, in all the fine arts, it is painful to produce for dolts, to endure the barbarous opinions of a fool about my choreography. It is a pleasure, don't tell me otherwise, to work for people who can appreciate the fine points of an art, who know how to give a sweet reception to the beauties of a work and, by pleasurable approbations, gratify us for our labor. Yes, the most agreeable recompense we can receive for the things we do is to see them recognized and flattered by an applause that honors us. There is nothing, in my opinion, that pays us better for all our fatigue; and it is an exquisite delight to receive the praises of the well-informed.

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