Act II: The Poet’s Eating-HouseScene X
Cyrano, Christian.
Cyrano
Embrace me now!
Christian
Sir…
Cyrano
You are brave.
Christian
Oh! but…
Cyrano
Nay, I insist.
Christian
Pray tell me…
Cyrano
Come, embrace! I am her brother.
Christian
Whose brother?
Cyrano
Hers i’ faith! Roxane’s!
Christian
Rushing up to him
O heavens!Her brother…?
Cyrano
Cousin—brother!…the same thing!
Christian
And she has told you…?
Cyrano
All!
Christian
She loves me? say!
Cyrano
Maybe!
Christian
Taking his hands
How glad I am to meet you, Sir!
Cyrano
That may be called a sudden sentiment!
Christian
I ask your pardon…
Cyrano
Looking at him, with his hand on his shoulder
True, he’s fair, the villain!
Christian
Ah, Sir! If you but knew my admiration!…
Cyrano
But all those noses?…
Christian
Oh! I take them back!
Cyrano
Roxane expects a letter.
Christian
Woe the day!
Cyrano
How?
Christian
I am lost if I but ope my lips!
Cyrano
Why so?
Christian
I am a fool—could die for shame!
Cyrano
None is a fool who knows himself a fool.And you did not attack me like a fool.
Christian
Bah! One finds battle-cry to lead th’ assault!I have a certain military wit,But, before women, can but hold my tongue.Their eyes! True, when I pass, their eyes are kind…
Cyrano
And, when you stay, their hearts, methinks, are kinder?
Christian
No! for I am one of those men—tongue-tied,I know it—who can never tell their love.
Cyrano
And I, meseems, had Nature been more kind,More careful, when she fashioned me,—had beenOne of those men who well could speak their love!
Christian
Oh, to express one’s thoughts with facile grace!…
Cyrano
…To be a musketeer, with handsome face!
Christian
Roxane is precieuse. I’m sure to proveA disappointment to her!
Cyrano
Looking at him
Had I butSuch 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 thingsI 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…
Cyrano
Taking out the letter he had written
See! Here it is—your letter!
Christian
What?
Cyrano
Take it! Look, it wants but the address.
Christian
But I…
Cyrano
Fear nothing. Send it. It will suit.
Christian
But have you…?
Cyrano
Oh! We have our pockets full,We poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes,Daphnes—creations of our noddle-heads.Our lady-loves,—phantasms of our brains,—Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles! Come!Take it, and change feigned love-words into true;I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise;Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest.You’ll see that I was in these lettered lines,—Eloquent all the more, the less sincere!—Take it, and make an end!
Christian
Were it not wellTo change some words? Written haphazard-wise,Will it fit Roxane?
Cyrano
’Twill fit like a glove!
Christian
But…
Cyrano
Ah, credulity of love! RoxaneWill think each word inspired by herself!
Christian
My friend!
He throws himself into Cyrano’s arms. They remain thus.