- Cléante and Dorine stay behind and discuss the situation.
- Cléante is amazed at how quickly Tartuffe has bamboozled Madame Pernelle.
- Dorine agrees, but she's even more afraid of the way he's tricking Orgon. Though he was once a wise and prudent advisor to the king, he seems to have gone a bit soft in the noggin. Now, she says, he's obsessed with Tartuffe and ignores everyone else. Dorine points out that Tartuffe has been growing rich and fat thanks to his ignorance – this is what we literary types call exposition.