Читать книгу The Complete Works of Shakespeare онлайн

664 страница из 942

Ford. Ay, and as idle as she may hang together, for want of company. I think if your husbands were dead, you two would marry.

Mrs. Page. Be sure of that—two other husbands.

Ford. Where had you this pretty weathercock?

Mrs. Page. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of. What do you call your knight’s name, sirrah?

Rob. Sir John Falstaff.

Ford. Sir John Falstaff!

Mrs. Page. He, he—I can never hit on ’s name. There is such a league between my goodman and he! Is your wife at home indeed?

Ford. Indeed she is.

Mrs. Page. By your leave, sir. I am sick till I see her.

[Exeunt Mrs. Page and Robin.]

Ford. Has Page any brains? Hath he any eyes? Hath he any thinking? Sure they sleep, he hath no use of them. Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile, as easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve score. He pieces out his wive’s inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage; and now she’s going to my wife, and Falstaff’s boy with her. A man may hear this show’r sing in the wind. And Falstaff’s boy with her! Good plots, they are laid, and our revolted wives share damnation together. Well, I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck the borrow’d veil of modesty from the so-seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and willful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings all my neighbors shall cry aim. [Clock heard.] The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search—there I shall find Falstaff. I shall be rather prais’d for this than mock’d; for it is as positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is there. I will go.