Fatherly love and father's self-sacrifice

Paternal love and a father’s self-sacrifice form the moral center of Arlequin’s conduct. His affection for Nisida is not merely sentimental: it governs his spending, his plans for her marriage, his fear of leaving her unprotected, and his final decision to surrender his wealth. The play measures the value of prosperity, law, and romantic happiness against the demanding obligations of a good father.

Love Expressed Through Care

Arlequin makes his daughter’s happiness a practical project. For her celebration, he arranges that the salon be filled with flowers and lights, that music be played, and that Nisida’s name appear everywhere in garlands. He orders merchants to bring her whatever seems likely to please her and insists that he will pay for everything because money spent on his daughter is, in his judgment, money well used. His paternal love therefore appears in material abundance, but the abundance is presented as an instrument of attention rather than as a display of status.

His devotion is also shaped by grief. Arlequin explains that Nisida resembles her mother, Argentine, whom he lost after twenty years of marriage, and he shows Nérine the portrait that is all he has left of her. He remembers as well the two young sons who died. The family had been poor, yet he recalls their former life as peaceful, joyful, and loving, declaring that they had lacked little while they possessed those things. Nisida consequently carries the emotional weight of the family that has disappeared: loving her is also Arlequin’s remaining connection to the happiness he once shared with Argentine and his sons.

Marriage, Protection, and Paternal Authority

Arlequin’s care becomes most anxious when he considers Nisida’s future. He believes that his wealth will allow her to choose a husband according to her heart, and he imagines a household in which a husband, daughter, and grandchildren will surround him with tenderness in old age. When he decides to arrange her marriage with the marquis d’Yrville, he does not present the decision as a simple command. He tells Nisida that he wishes to explain his reasons and that, if the match does not suit her, her reasons will be better than his.

The proposal nevertheless reveals the limits of his paternal ideal. Arlequin fears that after his death Nisida would be alone, foreign, without family or support, in Paris, where a small youthful imprudence could damage the rest of her life. His concern is protective, but it also places her life under his supervision. Nisida answers that she is already completely happy with him and would rather owe everything to her father than divide her heart with a husband. Her declaration turns filial love into a conflict: the very security Arlequin wants to provide has become so complete that marriage appears to her as a loss.

When Nisida asks to postpone the marriage and enter a convent, seeking solitude and reflection, Arlequin reacts as though the request were an assault on their bond. He argues that convent life suits daughters whose fathers have not had time to love them and asks whether her heart has been given to someone. When she admits that she loves a man, his distress exposes the emotional dependence beneath his protective authority. Yet he does not simply force the arranged marriage. He rejects the marquis as an immediate solution, calls himself her physician, and promises to stop the remedies if they hurt her too much. His fatherhood thus oscillates between control and a willingness to recognize that her inner life cannot be commanded.

Sacrifice and the Daughter’s Counter-Sacrifice

The central reversal comes when Nisida decides to suppress her love for Cléante for Arlequin’s sake. She tells her father that the more he does for her, the more she must do for him, and offers to overcome her passion, be separated from Cléante, and marry the marquis d’Yrville after being given time. Her proposed sacrifice mirrors the sacrifice Arlequin believes fatherhood requires: each is prepared to surrender personal happiness so that the other may be secure.

Arlequin cannot accept the bargain in its original form. His response is not to claim Nisida’s obedience as the final proof of filial love, but to refuse the marriage she has offered as a self-denial. The exchange makes paternal love ethically complex. His affection gives Nisida protection and freedom of choice, but it also generates a debt so powerful that she feels compelled to immolate her own desire. Arlequin’s better action is to recognize that her sacrifice would preserve his security at the cost of her life’s happiness.

Wealth, Gratitude, and Self-Dispossession

Arlequin’s account of his fortune clarifies why marriage seems necessary to him. Poverty had once coincided with happiness; after he became rich, he lost Argentine and his two sons. He left his country, settled in Paris with Nisida when she was no more than six years old, invested his money successfully, and saw his funds roughly double over ten years. He now possesses, or more precisely believes Nisida possesses, sixty thousand livres in annual income. The fortune has been accumulated for survival and inheritance, not merely personal luxury.

That inheritance is overturned when Cléante reveals that he is the son of the comte de Valcourt, the benefactor whose fortune had passed to Arlequin. Cléante has proofs of his identity, and he explains that his father died in Italie after leaving the estate to a stranger. Cléante also states that his parents’ marriage was never declared and that, under the law, he has no claim. Arlequin nevertheless substitutes moral responsibility for legal technicality. He presents Cléante as the son of his benefactor and tells Nisida that everything they possess belongs to the young man.

Arlequin therefore chooses poverty over what he regards as unjust possession. He says that they were rich that morning and will now be poor, but that surrender is necessary because otherwise they would no longer be honest people. His sacrifice is not abstract generosity: he is prepared to abandon the fortune that supports his old age and his daughter’s position. He asks only that Cléante provide Nisida with the means to live, because he would die of grief if he left her in indigence. The request joins self-denial to continuing paternal duty; Arlequin gives away the wealth but refuses to give away responsibility for his child.

Moral Resolution and Narrative Significance

Cléante answers the sacrifice by reclaiming his fortune for Nisida. He cannot accept being enriched while the father who protected him becomes poor, and he makes possession serve marriage rather than replace it. The resolution transforms Arlequin’s loss into the condition of the lovers’ union: paternal generosity does not disappear into renunciation but becomes reciprocated through gratitude and affection.

At the conclusion, Arlequin arranges that Nisida and Cléante will marry, while Nérine receives a doubled dowry and remains with the household as the family’s close friend. He then states the play’s explicit ethical measure: no pleasure in the world equals performing the duty of an honest man and a good father. Paternal love is consequently defined by more than tenderness, provision, or authority. It requires accepting grief, listening to the daughter’s wishes, protecting her future without treating her as property, and surrendering wealth when conscience demands it. Arlequin’s fatherhood becomes exemplary precisely because it is willing to lose everything material while preserving the dignity and happiness of the child he loves.