TAR. (_stopping_ ORGON). Gently, sir, gently; not so fast, I beg. You have not far to go to find a lodging, and you are a prisoner in the king's name. ORG. Wretch! you had reserved this shaft for the last; by it you finish me, and crown all your perfidies. TAR. Your abuse has no power to disturb me, and I know how to suffer every thing for the sake of Heaven. CLÉ. Your moderation is really great, we must acknowledge. DA. How impudently the infamous wretch sports with Heaven! TAR. Your anger cannot move me. I have no other wish but to fulfil my duty. MARIANNE. You may claim great glory from the performance of this duty: it is a very honorable employment for you. TAR. The employment cannot be otherwise than glorious, when it comes from the power that sends me here. ORG. But do you remember that my charitable hand, ungrateful scoundrel, raised you from a state of misery? TAR. Yes, I know what help I have received from you; but the interest of my king is my first duty. The just obligation of this sacred duty stifles in my heart all other claims; and I would sacrifice to it friend, wife, relations, and myself with them. ELMIRE. The impostor! DOR. With what treacherous cunning he makes a cloak of all that men revere!... TAR. (_to the_ OFFICER). I beg of you, sir, to deliver me from all this noise, and to act according to the orders you have received. OFFICER. I have certainly put off too long the discharge of my duty, and you very rightly remind me of it. To execute my order, follow me immediately to the prison in which a place is assigned to you. TAR. Who? I, sir? OFFICER. Yes, you. TAR. Why to prison? OFFICER. To you I have no account to render. (_To_ ORGON.) Pray, sir, recover from your great alarm. We live under a king [Louis XIV.] who is an enemy to fraud,--a king who can read the heart, and whom all the arts of impostors cannot deceive. His great mind, endowed with delicate discernment, at all times sees things in their true, light.... He annuls, by his sovereign will, the terms of the contract by which you gave him [Tartuffe] your property. He moreover forgives you this secret offence in which you were involved by the flight of your friend. This to reward the zeal which you once showed for him in maintaining his rights, and to prove that his heart, when it is least expected, knows how to recompense a good action. Merit with him is never lost, and he remembers good better than evil. DOR. Heaven be thanked! PER. Ah! I breathe again. EL. What a favorable end to our troubles! MAR. Who would have foretold it? ORG. (to TARTUFFE, _as the_ OFFICER _leads him off_). Ah, wretch! now you are--