CEL. Who far from... but it is too much; nor can this heart endure the thought of it without feeling on the rack. SGAN. My dear lady, do not distress yourself so much; it pierces my very soul to see you grieve so at my misfortune. CEL. But do not deceive yourself so far as to fancy that I shall sit down and do nothing but lament; no, my heart knows how to act in order to be avenged; nothing can divert me from it; I go to prepare everything. SCENE XVII.--SGANARELLE, _alone_. May Heaven keep her for ever out of harm's way! How kind of her to wish to avenge me! Her anger at my dishonour plainly teaches me how to act. Nobody should bear such affronts as these tamely, unless indeed he be a fool. Let us therefore hasten to hunt out this rascal who has insulted me, and let me prove my courage by avenging my dishonour. [Footnote: A similar adventure is told of the renowned fabulist La Fontaine. One day some one informed him that Poignan, a retired captain of dragoons and one of his friends, was by far too intimate with Madame La Fontaine, and that to avenge his dishonour he ought to fight a duel with him. La Fontaine calls upon Poignan at four o'clock in the morning, tells him to dress, takes him out of town, and then coolly says "that he has been advised to fight a duel with him in order to avenge his wounded honour." Soon La Fontaine's sword flies out of his hand, the friends go to breakfast, and the whole affair is at an end.] I will teach you, you rogue, to laugh at my expense, and to cuckold people without showing them any respect. (_After going three or four steps he comes back again_.) But gently, if you please, this man looks as if he were very hot-headed and passionate; he may, perhaps, heaping one insult upon another, ornament my back as well as he has done my brow. [Footnote: In the original there is a play on words which cannot be rendered in English. _Il pourrait bien ... charger de bois mon dos comme, il a fait mort front_. _Bois_ means "stick" and "stags' antlers."] I detest, from the bottom of my heart, these fiery tempers, and vastly prefer peaceable people. I do not care to beat for fear of being beaten; a gentle disposition was always my predominant virtue: But my honour tells me that it is absolutely necessary I should avenge such an outrage as this. Let honour say whatever it likes, the deuce take him who listens. Suppose now I should play the hero, and receive for my pains an ugly thrust with a piece of cold steel quite through my stomach; when the news of my death spreads through the whole town, tell me then, my honour, shall you be the better of it. [Footnote: Compare in Shakespeare's _Part First of King Henry IV_. v. I, Falstaff's speech about honour.]