SCENE III
MARIANE, DORINE
DORINE
Say, have you lost the tongue from out your head?
And must I speak your role from A to Zed?
You let them broach a project that's absurd,
And don't oppose it with a single word!
MARIANE
What can I do? My father is the master.
DORINE
Do? Everything, to ward off such disaster.
MARIANE
But what?
DORINE
Tell him one doesn't love by proxy;
Tell him you'll marry for yourself, not him;
Since you're the one for whom the thing is done,
You are the one, not he, the man must please;
If his Tartuffe has charmed him so, why let him
Just marry him himself — no one will hinder.
MARIANE
A father's rights are such, it seems to me,
That I could never dare to say a word.
DORINE
Came, talk it out. Valere has asked your hand:
Now do you love him, pray, or do you not?
MARIANE
Dorine! How can you wrong my love so much,
And ask me such a question? Have I not
A hundred times laid bare my heart to you?
Do you know how ardently I love him?
DORINE
How do I know if heart and words agree,
And if in honest truth you really love him?
MARIANE
Dorine, you wrong me greatly if you doubt it;
I've shown my inmost feelings, all too plainly.
DORINE
So then, you love him?
MARIANE
Yes, devotedly.
