Ah! Ah! Excuse me, Sir, Wouldn't you like to help us here
in an affair that is taking place.
DORANTE: Ah! Ah! Covielle, who would have recognized you? How you
are made up!
COVIELLE: You see, ha, ha!
DORANTE: What are you laughing at?
COVIELLE: At a thing, Sir, that well deserves it.
DORANTE: What?
COVIELLE: I'll give you many chances, Sir, to guess the stratagem
we are using on Monsieur Jourdain to get him to give his daughter
to my master.
DORANTE: I can't begin to guess the stratagem, but I guess it will
not fail in its effect, since you are undertaking it.
COVIELLE: I see, Sir, that you know me too well.
DORANTE: Tell me what it is.
COVIELLE: Come over here a little to make room for what I see
coming. You can see part of the story, while I tell you the rest.
(The Turkish ceremony for ennobling Monsieur Jourdain is performed
in dance and music, and comprises the Fourth Interlude.) [The
ceremony is a burlesque full of comic gibberish in pseudo-Turkish
and nonsensical French, in which Monsieur Jourdain is made to
appear ludicrous and during which he is outfitted with an
extravagant costume, turban, and sword.]
ACT FIVE
SCENE I (Madame Jourdaine, Monsieur Jourdain)
MADAME JOURDAIN: Ah, My God! Mercy! What is all of this? What a
spectacle! Are you dressed for a masquerade, and is this a time to
go masked? Speak then, what is this? Who has bundled you up like
that?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: See the impertinent woman, to speak in this way
to a Mamamouchi!
MADAME JOURDAIN: How's that?
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Yes, you must show me respect now, as I've just
been made a Mamamouchi.
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