Cyrano de Bergerac

(They fence with the foils they have brought.)

A LACKEY (entering): Pst. . .Flanquin. . .!

ANOTHER (already there): Champagne?. . .

THE FIRST (showing him cards and dice which he takes from his doublet): See, here be cards and dice. (He seats himself on the floor): Let’s play.

THE SECOND (doing the same): Good; I am with you, villain!

FIRST LACKEY (taking from his pocket a candle-end, which he lights, and sticks on the floor): I made free to provide myself with light at my master’s expense!

A GUARDSMAN (to a shop-girl who advances): ’Twas prettily done to come before the lights were lit!

(He takes her round the waist.)

ONE OF THE FENCERS (receiving a thrust): A hit!

ONE OF THE CARD-PLAYERS: Clubs!

THE GUARDSMAN (following the girl): A kiss!

THE SHOP-GIRL (struggling to free herself): They’re looking!

THE GUARDSMAN (drawing her to a dark corner): No fear! No one can see!

A MAN (sitting on the ground with others, who have brought their provisions): By coming early, one can eat in comfort.

A BURGHER (conducting his son): Let us sit here, son.

A CARD-PLAYER: Triple ace!

A MAN (taking a bottle from under his cloak, and also seating himself on the floor): A tippler may well quaff his Burgundy (he drinks): in the Burgundy Hotel!

THE BURGHER (to his son): ’Faith! A man might think he had fallen in a bad house here! (He points with his cane to the drunkard): What with topers! (One of the fencers in breaking off, jostles him): brawlers! (He stumbles into the midst of the card-players): gamblers!

THE GUARDSMAN (behind him, still teasing the shop-girl): Come, one kiss!

A VOICE (from the middle of the pit): Villain! Did I not forbid you to show your face here for month?

(General stupor. Every one turns round. Murmurs.)

DIFFERENT VOICES: Hey?—What?—What is’t?. . .

(The people stand up in the boxes to look.)

CUIGY: ’Tis he!

LE BRET (terrified): Cyrano!

THE VOICE: King of clowns! Leave the stage this instant!

ALL THE AUDIENCE (indignantly): Oh!

MONTFLEURY: But. . .

THE VOICE: Do you dare defy me?

DIFFERENT VOICES (from the pit and the boxes): Peace! Enough!—Play on, Montfleury—fear nothing!

MONTFLEURY (in a trembling voice): ‘Heureux qui loin des cours, dans un lieu sol—’

THE VOICE (more fiercely): Well! Chief of all the blackguards, must I come and give you a taste of my cane?

(A hand holding a cane starts up over the heads of the spectators.)

MONTFLEURY (in a voice that trembles more and more): ‘Heureux qui. . .’

(The cane is shaken.)

THE VOICE: Off the stage!

THE PIT: Oh!

MONTFLEURY (choking): ‘Heureux qui loin des cours. . .’

CYRANO (appearing suddenly in the pit, standing on a chair, his arms crossed, his beaver cocked fiercely, his mustache bristling, his nose terrible to see): Ah! I shall be angry in a minute!. . .

(Sensation.)

CYRANO (laughing bitterly): That I should love?. . . (Changing his tone, gravely): I love.

LE BRET: And may I know?. . .You never said. . .

CYRANO: Come now, bethink you!. . .The fond hope to be Beloved, e’en by some poor graceless lady, Is, by this nose of mine for aye bereft me; —This lengthy nose which, go where’er I will, Pokes yet a quarter-mile ahead of me; But I may love—and who? ’Tis Fate’s decree I love the fairest—how were’t otherwise?

LE BRET: The fairest?. . .

CYRANO: Ay, the fairest of the world, Most brilliant—most refined—most golden-haired!

LE BRET: Who is this lady?

CYRANO: She’s a danger mortal, All unsuspicious—full of charms unconscious, Like a sweet perfumed rose—a snare of nature, Within whose petals Cupid lurks in ambush! He who has seen her smile has known perfection, —Instilling into trifles grace’s essence, Divinity in every careless gesture; Not Venus’ self can mount her conch blown sea-ward, As she can step into her chaise a porteurs, Nor Dian fleet across the woods spring-flowered, Light as my Lady o’er the stones of Paris!. . .

LE BRET: Sapristi! all is clear!

CYRANO: As spiderwebs!

LE BRET: Your cousin, Madeleine Robin?

CYRANO: Roxane!

LE BRET: Well, but so much the better! Tell her so! She saw your triumph here this very night!

CYRANO: Look well at me—then tell me, with what hope This vile protuberance can inspire my heart!

CYRANO: . . .To be a musketeer, with handsome face!

CHRISTIAN: Roxane is precieuse. I’m sure to prove A disappointment to her!

CYRANO (looking at him): Had I but Such an interpreter to speak my soul!

CHRISTIAN (with despair): Eloquence! Where to find it?

CYRANO (abruptly): That I lend, If you lend me your handsome victor-charms; Blended, we make a hero of romance!

CHRISTIAN: How so?

CYRANO: Think you you can repeat what things I daily teach your tongue?

CHRISTIAN: What do you mean?

CYRANO: Roxane shall never have a disillusion! Say, wilt thou that we woo her, double-handed? Wilt thou that we two woo her, both together? Feel’st thou, passing from my leather doublet, Through thy laced doublet, all my soul inspiring?

CHRISTIAN: But, Cyrano!. . .

CYRANO: Will you, I say?

CHRISTIAN: I fear!

CYRANO: Since, by yourself, you fear to chill her heart, Will you—to kindle all her heart to flame— Wed into one my phrases and your lips?

CHRISTIAN: Your eyes flash!

CYRANO: Will you?

CHRISTIAN: Will it please you so? —Give you such pleasure?

CYRANO (madly): It!. . . (Then calmly, business-like): It would amuse me! It is an enterprise to tempt a poet. Will you complete me, and let me complete you? You march victorious,—I go in your shadow; Let me be wit for you, be you my beauty!

CHRISTIAN: The letter, that she waits for even now! I never can. . .

the rage With which I beat back the Count of Bucquoi; Assembling my own men, I fell on his, And charged three separate times!

CYRANO (without lifting his eyes from his book): And your white scarf?

DE GUICHE (surprised and gratified): You know that detail?. . .Troth! It happened thus: While caracoling to recall the troops For the third charge, a band of fugitives Bore me with them, close by the hostile ranks: I was in peril—capture, sudden death!— When I thought of the good expedient To loosen and let fall the scarf which told My military rank; thus I contrived —Without attention waked—to leave the foes, And suddenly returning, reinforced With my own men, to scatter them! And now, —What say you, Sir?

(The cadets pretend not to be listening, but the cards and the dice-boxes remain suspended in their hands, the smoke of their pipes in their cheeks. They wait.)

CYRANO: I say, that Henri Quatre Had not, by any dangerous odds, been forced To strip himself of his white helmet plume.

(Silent delight. The cards fall, the dice rattle. The smoke is puffed.)

DE GUICHE: The ruse succeeded, though!

(Same suspension of play, etc.)

CYRANO: Oh, may be! But One does not lightly abdicate the honor To serve as target to the enemy (Cards, dice, fall again, and the cadets smoke with evident delight): Had I been present when your scarf fell low, —Our courage, Sir, is of a different sort— I would have picked it up and put it on.

DE GUICHE: Oh, ay! Another Gascon boast!