title: The Misanthrope and Other Plays: A New Selection (Penguin Classics)
author: Jean-Baptiste Moliere
description: Text: English (translation)<br /> Original Language: French
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  # Table of Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### 1
  
  
  Tell me your story from its very beginning, Des Grieux, said he, interrupting
  me; and how you got to be acquainted with him.
  
  —It was at a grand charity concert where he was playing; for though amateur
  performances are one of the many plagues of modern civilization, still, my
  mother being one of the lady patronesses, I felt it incumbent to be present.
  
  —But he was not an amateur, was he?
  
  —Oh, no! Still, at that time he was only just beginning to make a name.
  
  —Well, go on.
  
  —He had already seated himself at the piano when I got to my stalle
  d'orchestre. The first thing he played was a favorite gavotte of mine —one of
  those slight, graceful and easy melodies that seem to smell of lavande ambrie,
  and in some way or other put you in mind of Lulli and Watteau, of powdered
  ladies dressed in yellow satin gowns, flirting with their fans.
  
  —And then?
  
  —As he reached the end of the piece, he cast several sidelong glances
  towards—as I though