Scene 1.V.

Cyrano, Le Bret.

CYRANO (to Le Bret):
   Now talk - I listen.
(He stands at the buffet, and placing before him first the macaroon):
   Dinner! . . .
(then the grapes):
   Dessert! . . .
(then the glass of water):
   Wine! . . .
(he seats himself):
   So! And now to table!
   Ah! I was hungry, friend, nay, ravenous!
(eating):
   You said - ?

LE BRET:
   These fops, would-be belligerent,
   Will, if you heed them only, turn your head! . . .
   Ask people of good sense if you would know
   The effect of your fine insolence -

CYRANO (finishing his macaroon):
   Enormous!

LE BRET:
   The Cardinal . . .

CYRANO (radiant):
   The Cardinal - was there?

LE BRET:
   Must have thought it . . .

CYRANO:
   Original, i' faith!

LE BRET:
   But . . .

CYRANO:
   He's an author. 'Twill not fail to please him
   That I should mar a brother-author's play.

LE BRET:
   You make too many enemies by far!

CYRANO (eating his grapes):
   How many think you I have made to-night?

LE BRET:
   Forty, no less, not counting ladies.

CYRANO:
   Count!

LE BRET:
   Montfleury first, the bourgeois, then De Guiche,
   The Viscount, Baro, the Academy . . .

CYRANO:
   Enough! I am o'erjoyed!

LE BRET:
   But these strange ways,
   Where will they lead you, at the end? Explain
   Your system - come!

CYRANO:
   I in a labyrinth
   Was lost - too many different paths to choose;
   I took . . .

LE BRET:
   Which?

CYRANO:
   Oh! by far the simplest path . . .
   Decided to be admirable in all!

LE BRET (shrugging his shoulders):
   So be it! But the motive of your hate
   To Montfleury - come, tell me!

CYRANO (rising):
   This Silenus,
   Big-bellied, coarse, still deems himself a peril -
   A danger to the love of lovely ladies,
   And, while he sputters out his actor's part,
   Makes sheep's eyes at their boxes - goggling frog!
   I hate him since the evening he presumed
   To raise his eyes to hers . . .Meseemed I saw
   A slug crawl slavering o'er a flower's petals!

LE BRET (stupefied):
   How now? What? Can it be . . .?

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!
   I do not lull me with illusions - yet
   At times I'm weak: in evening hours dim
   I enter some fair pleasance, perfumed sweet;
   With my poor ugly devil of a nose
   I scent spring's essence - in the silver rays
   I see some knight - a lady on his arm,
   And think 'To saunter thus 'neath the moonshine,
   I were fain to have my lady, too, beside!'
   Thought soars to ecstasy . . .O sudden fall!
    - The shadow of my profile on the wall!

LE BRET (tenderly):
   My friend! . . .

CYRANO:
   My friend, at times 'tis hard, 'tis bitter,
   To feel my loneliness - my own ill-favor . . .

LE BRET (taking his hand):
   You weep?

CYRANO:
   No, never! Think, how vilely suited
   Adown this nose a tear its passage tracing!
   I never will, while of myself I'm master,
   let the divinity of tears - their beauty
   Be wedded to such common ugly grossness.
   Nothing more solemn than a tear - sublimer;
   And I would not by weeping turn to laughter
   The grave emotion that a tear engenders!

LE BRET:
   Never be sad! What's love? - a chance of Fortune!

CYRANO (shaking his head):
   Look I a Caesar to woo Cleopatra?
   A Tito to aspire to Berenice?

LE BRET:
   Your courage and your wit! - The little maid
   Who offered you refreshment even now,
   Her eyes did not abhor you - you saw well!

CYRANO (impressed):
   True!

LE BRET:
   Well, how then? . . .I saw Roxane herself
   Was death-pale as she watched the duel.

CYRANO:
   Pale?

LE BRET:
   Her heart, her fancy, are already caught!
   Put it to th' touch!

CYRANO:
   That she may mock my face?
   That is the one thing on this earth I fear!

THE PORTER (introducing some one to Cyrano):
   Sir, some one asks for you . . .

CYRANO (seeing the duenna):
   God! her duenna!





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