aujourd'hui

aujourd'hui, the day of the daughter’s fête, is the play’s compressed present tense. It begins as a day of celebration, with Arlequin planning music, fireworks, illumination, a bouquet, and verses for Nisida, but it also becomes the deadline against which Cléante must decide whether to leave, confess his love, or risk losing his place beside her. By the end, the festive day has passed through secrecy, threatened separation, and a revelation of inheritance before arriving at a moral settlement.

A Festive Present Under Pressure

aujourd'hui is first identified by Nérine as the day of Nisida’s fête. Her practical advice to Cléante connects the immediate occasion with the larger crisis of his life: while he seeks a month’s delay from his colonel, he must also prepare the bouquet and compliment meant for Nisida. The celebration therefore does not suspend the plot’s anxieties; it intensifies them. Cléante has only the present day in which to remain outwardly cheerful while concealing that an official letter has destroyed his hope of continuing his disguised life in Arlequin’s household.

The day’s ceremonial character is made public by Arlequin’s preparations. He wishes to surprise Nisida with a bouquet that will not be delivered until the evening, and he has composed couplets for her. Music, fireworks, and illumination are also promised. These entertainments present the household as secure and affectionate, yet their brightness frames a concealed emotional conflict: Cléante loves Nisida, Nérine is arranging the conditions for disclosure, and Nisida’s own response remains uncertain.

Time for Decision and Disclosure

The fête gives Nérine a reason to insist on immediate action. She refuses Cléante’s hesitation, telling him to write to his colonel without delay and promising to manage the difficult explanations between him and Nisida. Her plan turns aujourd'hui into a short interval in which several futures remain possible: Cléante may return to his regiment, attempt to forget Nisida, or remain and tell her that he loves her. The day’s apparent leisure thus contains a strict emotional schedule, moving from concealment toward confession.

Nérine’s discovery at the door of Nisida’s cabinet changes the meaning of the celebration. Nisida is shut inside, quietly singing Cléante’s song on the guitar. Because she sings it privately and with evident tenderness, Nérine treats the performance as evidence that its author is not indifferent to her. A song prepared for a fête and associated with public pleasure becomes, in solitude, a sign of reciprocal feeling. The same day therefore shifts from Arlequin’s paternal spectacle to a more intimate recognition between the lovers.

Celebration and Paternal Authority

When Arlequin greets Nisida on aujourd'hui, his language joins affection to control. He wishes her a good fête, but he also decides when she will receive the bouquet and designs the entire evening’s surprise. His celebration expresses genuine paternal tenderness while placing Nisida at the center of an event organized by her father. The festive setting consequently sharpens the contrast between her inward life and the marriage decisions being made around her.

That conflict becomes explicit when Nisida asks Arlequin to delay the proposed marriage and send her to a convent. She presents these requests as necessary for the peace of her life and declares that she will obey him even while resisting the marriage he has chosen. Later, she offers to overcome her passion for Cléante, be separated from him, and marry the Marquis of Yrville if that will secure her father’s happiness. The day’s celebration is thus shadowed by a willingness to sacrifice love to filial duty.

Arlequin’s response remains unsettled. He refuses to let Nisida marry the Marquis of Yrville immediately and describes himself as her physician, prepared to stop the remedies if they cause too much harm. The fête day exposes the contradiction in his authority: he acts as a protective father, yet he also determines Nisida’s marriage, movements, and access to Cléante. His paternal care becomes morally persuasive only when it begins to recognize the cost of imposing happiness from above.

From Festivity to Rupture

The emotional movement of aujourd'hui reverses the promise of the fête. Instead of ending in uncomplicated amusement, it reaches the moment when Arlequin orders Cléante to leave his house immediately. Arlequin embraces him, swears eternal friendship, and at the same time forbids him to return. The gesture makes separation especially painful: affection survives in physical form even as the household’s rules expel the man who has lived there in disguise.

Nérine receives the consequences of this rupture as well. Arlequin, returning home in tears, sends her to console Cléante. Her role throughout the day has been to organize emotional movement, carry knowledge, test signs of love, and preserve communication; after the expulsion, she becomes the person charged with absorbing and repairing its damage. The festive occasion has therefore produced not only a romantic opening but also a crisis requiring active consolation.

The Day’s Final Reversal

The decisive revelation comes when Cléante admits that he is not the secretary Arlequin believes him to be. He explains that a violent and profound passion for Nisida has possessed him for more than a year, and that, unable to gain entry to Arlequin’s household, he presented himself as a secretary. He also explains that his hope was not merely to seduce Nisida: he intended to earn Arlequin’s esteem and kindness through respectful daily companionship, then reveal his feelings when he could trust that the older man might hear him as the friend of an unfortunate man.

The revelation transforms the meaning of the entire fête day. Cléante’s presence in the household, his work as secretary, the song, and the planned compliment all belong to a long effort to make love respectable before making it visible. Yet the final reversal is financial as well as romantic. Arlequin identifies Cléante as the son of the man who had left the household its fortune and declares that everything they possess belongs to him. Wealth, status, and the apparent social obstacle to the match suddenly change sides.

Arlequin accepts the consequence as a test of honesty. He tells Nisida that the family was rich that morning but will become poor, because retaining what belongs to Cléante would mean ceasing to be honest people. The temporal marker gives aujourd'hui an ethical force: the same day that began with expensive public amusements ends with the renunciation of wealth. Arlequin’s final settlement joins Nisida and Cléante, doubles the dowry originally intended for Nérine, and keeps Nérine within the family as its good friend.

Dramatic and Thematic Significance

aujourd'hui is more than a calendar reference. It is the play’s pressure chamber, compressing preparations for an evening fête, a request for military delay, the discovery of hidden affection, a proposed convent retreat, a threatened marriage, expulsion, confession, and restitution into one unfolding present. Its festive surface repeatedly gives way to private pain, while each apparent ending produces a deeper disclosure.

The day also contrasts ceremonial performance with moral action. Arlequin can stage music, fireworks, illumination, a bouquet, and couplets, but the decisive illumination is the truth about Cléante’s identity and the fortune. The public celebration prepares the language of surprise; the plot then redirects surprise toward love, legitimacy, and property. By the close, the value of the day has shifted from social display to ethical conduct, summarized by Arlequin’s insistence that no worldly pleasure equals the pleasure of doing one’s duty as an honest man and a good father.