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Scoffing wits recalled the famous scene from Molière, in which the infatuated Orgon displays indifference to his faithful wife and shows interest only in Tartufe.
"Now that I have Madame la Duchesse, your sister, for an ally, I fear no enemies." "Not even if I should call for aid upon the camp of Desvanneaux?" "Alceste leagued with Tartufe? That idea never occurred to Moliere," said Zibeline, mischievously. "Take care!" said the Duchess, interrupting this skirmishing, "you will fall over into the orchestra!
Tartufe incarnates him once for all. Tartufe is by conviction an atheist and a sensualist; he despises all who regard life from the contrasted point of view. But among Englishmen such an attitude of mind has always been extremely rare; to presume it in our typical money-maker who has edifying sentiments on his lips is to fall into a grotesque error of judgment.
What comedian but Moliere has combined with such depths with the indignation of Alceste, the self-deception of Tartufe, the blasphemy of Don Juan such wildness of irresponsible mirth, such humour, such wit!
Whatever may be said about the disadvantages of the so-called "star system" in the theatre, the fact remains that the greatest plays of the world Oedipus King, Hamlet, As You Like It, Tartufe, Cyrano de Bergerac have almost always been what are called "star plays." The "star system" has an obvious advantage from the point of view of the dramatist.
Le Tartufe, in spite of its patched-up happy ending, leaves an impression of horror upon the mind. Don Juan seems to inculcate a lesson of fatalistic scepticism.
At the Theatre-Francais, the line of Tartufe "Nous vivons sous un prince ennemi de la fraude" was greeted with a salvo of applause. The former adversaries of the King reproached themselves with having misunderstood him. They sincerely reproached themselves for their past criticisms, and adored that which they had burned. M. de Vaulabelle himself wrote:
The two actresses hastened away, escorted by Andre Desvanneaux, a modern Tartufe, who, though married, was seen everywhere, as much at home behind the scenes as in church. Coffee and liqueurs were then served in a salon adjoining the large dining-room, which gave the effect of a private club-room to this part of the restaurant.
Beside the vast elaboration of a Falstaff he seems, at first sight, hardly more solid than some astounding silhouette; yet such was the power and intensity of Molière's art the more we look, the more difficult we shall find it to be certain that Tartufe is a less tremendous creation even than Falstaff himself. For, indeed, it is in his characters that Molière's genius triumphs most.
Every character in the piece was invented to embody some phase of this central proposition, and every incident was devised to represent this abstract truth concretely. Similarly, it would be easy to state in a single sentence the theme of Le Tartufe, or of Othello, or of Ghosts.
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