Act III: Roxane’s KissScene VI
Christian, Cyrano, two pages.
Christian
Come to my aid!
Cyrano
Not I!
Christian
But I shall die,Unless at once I win back her fair favor.
Cyrano
And how can I, at once, i’ th’ devil’s name,Lesson you in…
Christian
Seizing his arm
Oh, she is there!
The window of the balcony is now lighted up.
Cyrano
Moved
Her window!
Christian
Oh! I shall die!
Cyrano
Speak lower!
Christian
In a whisper
I shall die!
Cyrano
The night is dark…
Christian
Well!
Cyrano
All can be repaired.Although you merit not. Stand there, poor wretch!Fronting the balcony! I’ll go beneathAnd prompt your words to you…
Christian
But…
Cyrano
Hold your tongue!
The Pages
Reappearing at back—to Cyrano
Ho!
Cyrano
Hush!
He signs to them to speak softly.
First Page
In a low voice
We’ve played the serenade you badeTo Montfleury!
Cyrano
Quickly, in a low voice
Go! lurk in ambush there,One at this street corner, and one at that;And if a passer-by should here intrude,Play you a tune!
Second Page
What tune, Sir Gassendist?
Cyrano
Gay, if a woman comes,—for a man, sad!
The pages disappear, one at each street corner. To Christian
Call her!
Christian
Roxane!
Cyrano
Picking up stones and throwing them at the window
Some pebbles! wait awhile!
Roxane
Half-opening the casement
Who calls me?
Christian
I!
Roxane
Who’s that?
Christian
Christian!
Roxane
Disdainfully
Oh! you?
Christian
I would speak with you.
Cyrano
Under the balcony—to Christian
Good. Speak soft and low.
Roxane
No, you speak stupidly!
Christian
Oh, pity me!
Roxane
No! you love me no more!
Christian
Prompted by Cyrano
You say—Great Heaven!I love no more?—when—I—love more and more!
Roxane
Who was about to shut the casement, pausing
Hold! ’tis a trifle better! ay, a trifle!
Christian
Same play
Love grew apace, rocked by the anxious beating…Of this poor heart, which the cruel wanton boy…Took for a cradle!
Roxane
Coming out on to the balcony
That is better! ButAn if you deem that Cupid be so cruelYou should have stifled baby-love in’s cradle!
Christian
Same play
Ah, Madame, I assayed, but all in vainThis…new-born babe is a young…Hercules!
Roxane
Still better!
Christian
Same play
Thus he strangled in my heartThe…serpents twain, of…Pride…and Doubt!
Roxane
Leaning over the balcony
Well said!—But why so faltering? Has mental palsySeized on your faculty imaginative?
Cyrano
Drawing Christian under the balcony, and slipping into his place
Give place! This waxes critical!…
Roxane
To-day…Your words are hesitating.
Cyrano
Imitating Christian—in a whisper
Night has come…In the dusk they grope their way to find your ear.
Roxane
But my words find no such impediment.
Cyrano
They find their way at once? Small wonder that!For ’tis within my heart they find their home;Bethink how large my heart, how small your ear!And,—from fair heights descending, words fall fast,But mine must mount, Madame, and that takes time!
Roxane
Meseems that your last words have learned to climb.
Cyrano
With practice such gymnastic grows less hard!
Roxane
In truth, I seem to speak from distant heights!
Cyrano
True, far above; at such a height ’twere deathIf a hard word from you fell on my heart.
Roxane
Moving
I will come down…
Cyrano
Hastily
No!
Roxane
Showing him the bench under the balcony
Mount then on the bench!
Cyrano
Starting back alarmed
No!
Roxane
How, you will not?
Cyrano
More and more moved
Stay awhile! ’Tis sweet,…The rare occasion, when our hearts can speakOur selves unseen, unseeing!
Roxane
Why—unseen?
Cyrano
Ay, it is sweet! Half hidden,—half revealed—You see the dark folds of my shrouding cloak,And I, the glimmering whiteness of your dress:I but a shadow—you a radiance fair!Know you what such a moment holds for me?If ever I were eloquent…
Roxane
You were!
Cyrano
Yet never till to-night my speech has sprungStraight from my heart as now it springs.
Roxane
Why not?
Cyrano
Till now I spoke haphazard…
Roxane
What?
Cyrano
Your eyesHave beams that turn men dizzy!—But to-nightMethinks I shall find speech for the first time!
Roxane
’Tis true, your voice rings with a tone that’s new.
Cyrano
Coming nearer, passionately
Ay, a new tone! In the tender, sheltering duskI dare to be myself for once,—at last!
He stops, falters
What say I? I know not!—Oh, pardon me—It thrills me,—’tis so sweet, so novel…
Roxane
How?So novel?
Cyrano
Off his balance, trying to find the thread of his sentence
Ay,—to be at last sincere;Till now, my chilled heart, fearing to be mocked…
Roxane
Mocked, and for what?
Cyrano
For its mad beating!—Ay,My heart has clothed itself with witty words,To shroud itself from curious eyes:—impelledAt times to aim at a star, I stay my hand,And, fearing ridicule,—cull a wild flower!
Roxane
A wild flower’s sweet.
Cyrano
Ay, but to-night—the star!
Roxane
Oh! never have you spoken thus before!
Cyrano
If, leaving Cupid’s arrows, quivers, torches,We turned to seek for sweeter—fresher things!Instead of sipping in a pygmy glassDull fashionable waters,—did we tryHow the soul slakes its thirst in fearless draughtBy drinking from the river’s flooding brim!
Roxane
But wit?…
Cyrano
If I have used it to arrest youAt the first starting,—now, ‘twould be an outrage,An insult—to the perfumed Night—to Nature—To speak fine words that garnish vain love-letters!Look up but at her stars! The quiet HeavenWill ease our hearts of all things artificial;I fear lest, ’midst the alchemy we’re skilled inThe truth of sentiment dissolve and vanish,—The soul exhausted by these empty pastimes,The gain of fine things be the loss of all things!
Roxane
But wit? I say…
Cyrano
In love ’tis crime,—’tis hateful!Turning frank loving into subtle fencing!At last the moment comes, inevitable,——Oh, woe for those who never know that moment!When feeling love exists in us, ennobling,Each well-weighed word is futile and soul-saddening!
Roxane
Well, if that moment’s come for us—suppose it!What words would serve you?
Cyrano
All, all, all, whateverThat came to me, e’en as they came, I’d fling themIn a wild cluster, not a careful bouquet.I love thee! I am mad! I love, I stifle!Thy name is in my heart as in a sheep-bell,And as I ever tremble, thinking of thee,Ever the bell shakes, ever thy name ringeth!All things of thine I mind, for I love all things;I know that last year on the twelfth of May-month,To walk abroad, one day you changed your hair-plaits!I am so used to take your hair for daylightThat,—like as when the eye stares on the sun’s disk,One sees long after a red blot on all things—So, when I quit thy beams, my dazzled visionSees upon all things a blonde stain imprinted.
Roxane
Agitated
Why, this is love indeed!…
Cyrano
Ay, true, the feelingWhich fills me, terrible and jealous, trulyLove,—which is ever sad amid its transports!Love,—and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down,—E’en though you never were to know it,—never!—If but at times I might—far off and lonely,—Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue,—A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,To understand? So late, dost understand me?Feel’st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left meBut to die now! Have words of mine the powerTo make you tremble,—throned there in the branches?Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!You tremble! For I feel,—an if you will it,Or will it not,—your hand’s beloved tremblingThrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!
He kisses passionately one of the hanging tendrils.
Roxane
Ay! I am trembling, weeping!—I am thine!Thou hast conquered all of me!
Cyrano
Then let death come!’Tis I, ’tis I myself, who conquered thee!One thing, but one, I dare to ask—
Christian
Under the balcony
A kiss!
Roxane
Drawing back
What?
Cyrano
Oh!
Roxane
You ask…?
Cyrano
I…
To Christian, whispering
Fool! you go too quick!
Christian
Since she is moved thus—I will profit by it!
Cyrano
To Roxane
My words sprang thoughtlessly, but now I see—Shame on me!—I was too presumptuous.
Roxane
A little chilled
How quickly you withdraw.
Cyrano
Yes, I withdrawWithout withdrawing! Hurt I modesty?If so—the kiss I asked—oh, grant it not.
Christian
To Cyrano, pulling him by his cloak
Why?
Cyrano
Silence, Christian! Hush!
Roxane
Leaning over
What whisper you?
Cyrano
I chid myself for my too bold advances;Said, ‘Silence, Christian!’
The lutes begin to play
Hark! Wait awhile,…Steps come!
Roxane shuts the window. Cyrano listens to the lutes, one of which plays a merry, the other a melancholy, tune
Why, they play sad—then gay—then sad! What? Neither man nor woman?—oh! a monk!
Enter a capuchin friar, with a lantern. He goes from house to house, looking at every door.