Just when the day has been fixed for the marriage of Lucinde, daughter of M. Géronte, she suddenly becomes dumb, and no doctors are found skillful enough to cure her. One day Valère, M. Géronte's attendant, and Lucas, the nurse, are scouring the country in search of someone able to restore their young mistress's speech, when they fell in with Martine, the wife of Sganarelle, a bibulous faggot-binder. Sganarelle, who has served a famous doctor for ten years, has just been beating his wife, and she, in revenge, hearing the kind of person they are looking for, strongly recommends her husband to them as an eccentric doctor who has performed wonderful and almost incredible cures, but who always disclaims his profession, and will never practice it until he has been well cudgelled. Lucas and Valère accordingly go in quest of Sganarelle, and, having found him, express their desire of availing themselves of his services as doctor. At first the faggot-binder vehemently denies that he is a doctor, but at last--thanks to the use of the persuasion recommended by Martine--he confesses to a knowledge of the physician's art, is induced to undertake the cure of Mlle. Lucinde, and, on being introduced at M. Géronte's house, gives proof of his eccentricity as a doctor by cudgelling the master and embracing the nurse. [_Enter_ LUCINDE, VALÈRE, GÉRONTE, LUCAS, Sganarelle, _and_ JACQUELINE. SGANARELLE: Is this the patient? GÉRONTE: Yes. I have but one daughter; I should feel inexpressible grief were she to die. SGANARELLE: Don't let her do anything of the kind. She must not die without a doctor's prescription. GÉRONTE: You have made her laugh, monsieur. SGANARELLE: It is the best symptom in the world when the doctor makes his patient laugh. What sort of pain do you feel? LUCINDE (_replies by signs, putting her hand to her mouth, to her head, and under her chin_): Ha, hi, ho, ha! SGANARELLE (_imitating her_): Ha, hi, ho, ha! I don't understand you. GÉRONTE: That is what her complaint is, monsieur. She became dumb, without our being able to find out the cause. It is this accident which has made us put off the marriage. The man she is going to marry wishes to wait till she gets better. SGANARELLE: Who is the fool that does not want his wife to be dumb? Would to heaven that mine had that complaint! I would take good care she did not recover her speech. GÉRONTE: Well, monsieur, I beg of you to take all possible pains to cure her of this illness. SGANARELLE (_to the patient_): Let me feel your pulse. This tells me your daughter is dumb. GÉRONTE: Yes, monsieur, that is just what her illness is; you have found it out the very first time.