Part 6
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 sprung Straight from my heart as now it springs.
ROXANE: Why not?
CYRANO: Till now I spoke haphazard. . .
ROXANE: What?
CYRANO: Your eyes Have beams that turn men dizzy!--But to-night Methinks 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 dusk I 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:--impelled At 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 glass Dull fashionable waters,--did we try How the soul slakes its thirst in fearless draught By drinking from the river's flooding brim!
ROXANE: But wit?. . .
CYRANO: If I have used it to arrest you At 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 Heaven Will ease our hearts of all things artificial; I fear lest, 'midst the alchemy we're skilled in The 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, whatever That came to me, e'en as they came, I'd fling them In 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 daylight That,--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 vision Sees upon all things a blonde stain imprinted.
ROXANE (agitated): Why, this is love indeed!. . .
CYRANO: Ay, true, the feeling Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly Love,--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 me But to die now! Have words of mine the power To 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 trembling Thrill 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 withdraw Without 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.)
## Scene 3.VII.
Cyrano, Christian, a capuchin friar.
CYRANO (to the friar): What do you, playing at Diogenes?
THE FRIAR: I seek the house of Madame. . .
CHRISTIAN: Oh! plague take him!
THE FRIAR: Madeleine Robin. . .
CHRISTIAN: What would he?. . .
CYRANO (pointing to a street at the back): This way! Straight on. . .
THE FRIAR I thank you, and, in your intention Will tell my rosary to its last bead.
(He goes out.)
CYRANO: Good luck! My blessings rest upon your cowl!
(He goes back to Christian.)
## Scene 3.VIII.
Cyrano, Christian.
CHRISTIAN: Oh! win for me that kiss. . .
CYRANO: No!
CHRISTIAN: Soon or late!. . .
CYRANO: 'Tis true! The moment of intoxication-- Of madness,--when your mouths are sure to meet Thanks to your fair mustache--and her rose lips! (To himself): I'd fainer it should come thanks to. . .
(A sound of shutters reopening. Christian goes in again under the balcony.)
## Scene 3.IX.
Cyrano, Christian, Roxane.
ROXANE (coming out on the balcony): Still there? We spoke of a. . .
CYRANO: A kiss! The word is sweet. I see not why your lip should shrink from it; If the word burns it,--what would the kiss do? Oh! let it not your bashfulness affright; Have you not, all this time, insensibly, Left badinage aside, and unalarmed Glided from smile to sigh,--from sigh to weeping? Glide gently, imperceptibly, still onward-- From tear to kiss,--a moment's thrill!--a heartbeat!
ROXANE: Hush! hush!
CYRANO: A kiss, when all is said,--what is it? An oath that's ratified,--a sealed promise, A heart's avowal claiming confirmation,-- A rose-dot on the 'i' of 'adoration,'-- A secret that to mouth, not ear, is whispered,-- Brush of a bee's wing, that makes time eternal,-- Communion perfumed like the spring's wild flowers,-- The heart's relieving in the heart's outbreathing, When to the lips the soul's flood rises, brimming!
ROXANE: Hush! hush!
CYRANO: A kiss, Madame, is honorable: The Queen of France, to a most favored lord Did grant a kiss--the Queen herself!
ROXANE: What then?
CYRANO (speaking more warmly): Buckingham suffered dumbly,--so have I,-- Adored his Queen, as loyally as I,-- Was sad, but faithful,--so am I. . .
ROXANE: And you Are fair as Buckingham!
CYRANO (aside--suddenly cooled): True,--I forgot!
ROXANE: Must I then bid thee mount to cull this flower?
CYRANO (pushing Christian toward the balcony): Mount!
ROXANE: This heart-breathing!. . .
CYRANO: Mount!
ROXANE: This brush of bee's wing!. . .
CYRANO: Mount!
CHRISTIAN (hesitating): But I feel now, as though 'twere ill done!
ROXANE: This moment infinite!. . .
CYRANO (still pushing him): Come, blockhead, mount!
(Christian springs forward, and by means of the bench, the branches, and the pillars, climbs to the balcony and strides over it.)
CHRISTIAN: Ah, Roxane!
(He takes her in his arms, and bends over her lips.)
CYRANO: Aie! Strange pain that wrings my heart! The kiss, love's feast, so near! I, Lazarus, Lie at the gate in darkness. Yet to me Falls still a crumb or two from the rich man's board-- Ay, 'tis my heart receives thee, Roxane--mine! For on the lips you press you kiss as well The words I spoke just now!--my words--my words! (The lutes play): A sad air,--a gay air: the monk! (He begins to run as if he came from a long way off, and cries out): Hola!
ROXANE: Who is it?
CYRANO: I--I was but passing by. . . Is Christian there?
CHRISTIAN (astonished): Cyrano!
ROXANE: Good-day, cousin!
CYRANO: Cousin, good-day!
ROXANE: I'm coming!
(She disappears into the house. At the back re-enter the friar.)
CHRISTIAN (seeing him): Back again!
(He follows Roxane.)
## Scene 3.X.
Cyrano, Christian, Roxane, the friar, Ragueneau.
THE FRIAR: 'Tis here,--I'm sure of it--Madame Madeleine Robin.
CYRANO: Why, you said Ro-LIN.
THE FRIAR: No, not I. B,I,N,BIN!
ROXANE (appearing on the threshold, followed by Ragueneau, who carries a lantern, and Christian): What is't?
THE FRIAR: A letter.
CHRISTIAN: What?
THE FRIAR (to Roxane): Oh, it can boot but a holy business! 'Tis from a worthy lord. . .
ROXANE (to Christian): De Guiche!
CHRISTIAN: He dares. . .
ROXANE: Oh, he will not importune me forever! (Unsealing the letter): I love you,--therefore-- (She reads in a low voice by the aid of Ragueneau's lantern): 'Lady, The drums beat; My regiment buckles its harness on And starts; but I,--they deem me gone before-- But I stay. I have dared to disobey Your mandate. I am here in convent walls. I come to you to-night. By this poor monk-- A simple fool who knows not what he bears-- I send this missive to apprise your ear. Your lips erewhile have smiled on me, too sweet: I go not ere I've seen them once again! I would be private; send each soul away, Receive alone him,--whose great boldness you Have deigned, I hope, to pardon, ere he asks,-- He who is ever your--et cetera.' (To the monk): Father, this is the matter of the letter:-- (All come near her, and she reads aloud): 'Lady, The Cardinal's wish is law; albeit It be to you unwelcome. For this cause I send these lines--to your fair ear addressed-- By a holy man, discreet, intelligent: It is our will that you receive from him, In your own house, the marriage (She turns the page): benediction Straightway, this night. Unknown to all the world Christian becomes your husband. Him we send. He is abhorrent to your choice. Let be. Resign yourself, and this obedience Will be by Heaven well recompensed. Receive, Fair lady, all assurance of respect, From him who ever was, and still remains, Your humble and obliged--et cetera.'
THE FRIAR (with great delight): O worthy lord! I knew naught was to fear; It could be but holy business!
ROXANE (to Christian, in a low voice): Am I not apt at reading letters?
CHRISTIAN: Hum!
ROXANE (aloud, with despair): But this is horrible!
THE FRIAR (who has turned his lantern on Cyrano): 'Tis you?
CHRISTIAN: 'Tis I!
THE FRIAR (turning the light on to him, and as if a doubt struck him on seeing his beauty): But. . .
ROXANE (quickly): I have overlooked the postscript--see:-- 'Give twenty pistoles for the Convent.'
THE FRIAR: . . .Oh! Most worthy lord! (To Roxane): Submit you?
ROXANE (with a martyr's look): I submit! (While Ragueneau opens the door, and Christian invites the friar to enter, she whispers to Cyrano): Oh, keep De Guiche at bay! He will be here! Let him not enter till. . .
CYRANO: I understand! (To the friar): What time need you to tie the marriage-knot?
THE FRIAR: A quarter of an hour.
CYRANO (pushing them all toward the house): Go! I stay.
ROXANE (to Christian): Come!. . .
(They enter.)
CYRANO: Now, how to detain De Guiche so long? (He jumps on the bench, climbs to the balcony by the wall): Come!. . .up I go!. . .I have my plan!. . . (The lutes begin to play a very sad air): What, ho! (The tremolo grows more and more weird): It is a man! ay! 'tis a man this time! (He is on the balcony, pulls his hat over his eyes, takes off his sword, wraps himself in his cloak, then leans over): 'Tis not too high! (He strides across the balcony, and drawing to him a long branch of one of the trees that are by the garden wall, he hangs on to it with both hands, ready to let himself fall): I'll shake this atmosphere!
## Scene 3.XI.
Cyrano, De Guiche.
DE GUICHE (who enters, masked, feeling his way in the dark): What can that cursed Friar be about?
CYRANO: The devil!. . .If he knows my voice! (Letting go with one hand, he pretends to turn an invisible key. Solemnly): Cric! Crac! Assume thou, Cyrano, to serve the turn, The accent of thy native Bergerac!. . .
DE GUICHE (looking at the house): 'Tis there. I see dim,--this mask hinders me! (He is about to enter, when Cyrano leaps from the balcony, holding on to the branch, which bends, dropping him between the door and De Guiche; he pretends to fall heavily, as from a great height, and lies flat on the ground, motionless, as if stunned. De Guiche starts back): What's this? (When he looks up, the branch has sprung back into its place. He sees only the sky, and is lost in amazement): Where fell that man from?
CYRANO (sitting up, and speaking with a Gascon accent): From the moon!
DE GUICHE: From?. . .
CYRANO (in a dreamy voice): What's o'clock?
DE GUICHE: He's lost his mind, for sure!
CYRANO: What hour? What country this? What month? What day?
DE GUICHE: But. . .
CYRANO: I am stupefied!
DE GUICHE: Sir!
CYRANO: Like a bomb I fell from the moon!
DE GUICHE (impatiently): Come now!
CYRANO (rising, in a terrible voice): I say,--the moon!
DE GUICHE (recoiling): Good, good! let it be so!. . .He's raving mad!
CYRANO (walking up to him): I say from the moon! I mean no metaphor!. . .
DE GUICHE: But. . .
CYRANO: Was't a hundred years--a minute, since? --I cannot guess what time that fall embraced!-- That I was in that saffron-colored ball?
DE GUICHE (shrugging his shoulders): Good! let me pass!
CYRANO (intercepting him): Where am I? Tell the truth! Fear not to tell! Oh, spare me not! Where? where? Have I fallen like a shooting star?
DE GUICHE: Morbleu!
CYRANO: The fall was lightning-quick! no time to choose Where I should fall--I know not where it be! Oh, tell me! Is it on a moon or earth, that my posterior weight has landed me?
DE GUICHE: I tell you, Sir. . .
CYRANO (with a screech of terror, which makes De Guiche start back): No? Can it be? I'm on A planet where men have black faces?
DE GUICHE (putting a hand to his face): What?
CYRANO (feigning great alarm): Am I in Africa? A native you?
DE GUICHE (who has remembered his mask): This mask of mine. . .
CYRANO (pretending to be reassured): In Venice? ha!--or Rome?
DE GUICHE (trying to pass): A lady waits. .
CYRANO (quite reassured): Oh-ho! I am in Paris!
DE GUICHE (smiling in spite of himself): The fool is comical!
CYRANO: You laugh?
DE GUICHE: I laugh, But would get by!
CYRANO (beaming with joy): I have shot back to Paris! (Quite at ease, laughing, dusting himself, bowing): Come--pardon me--by the last water-spout, Covered with ether,--accident of travel! My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs Encumbered by the planets' filaments! (Picking something off his sleeve): Ha! on my doublet?--ah, a comet's hair!. . .
(He puffs as if to blow it away.)
DE GUICHE (beside himself): Sir!. . .
CYRANO (just as he is about to pass, holds out his leg as if to show him something and stops him): In my leg--the calf--there is a tooth Of the Great Bear, and, passing Neptune close, I would avoid his trident's point, and fell, Thus sitting, plump, right in the Scales! My weight Is marked, still registered, up there in heaven! (Hurriedly preventing De Guiche from passing, and detaining him by the button of his doublet): I swear to you that if you squeezed my nose It would spout milk!
DE GUICHE: Milk?
CYRANO: From the Milky Way!
DE GUICHE: Oh, go to hell!
CYRANO (crossing his arms): I fall, Sir, out of heaven! Now, would you credit it, that as I fell I saw that Sirius wears a nightcap? True! (Confidentially): The other Bear is still too small to bite. (Laughing): I went through the Lyre, but I snapped a cord; (Grandiloquent): I mean to write the whole thing in a book; The small gold stars, that, wrapped up in my cloak, I carried safe away at no small risks, Will serve for asterisks i' the printed page!
DE GUICHE: Come, make an end! I want. . .
CYRANO: Oh-ho! You are sly!
DE GUICHE: Sir!
CYRANO: You would worm all out of me!--the way The moon is made, and if men breathe and live In its rotund cucurbita?
DE GUICHE (angrily): No, no! I want. . .
CYRANO: Ha, ha!--to know how I got up? Hark, it was by a method all my own.
DE GUICHE (wearied): He's mad!
CYRANO(contemptuously): No! not for me the stupid eagle Of Regiomontanus, nor the timid Pigeon of Archytas--neither of those!
DE GUICHE: Ay, 'tis a fool! But 'tis a learned fool!
CYRANO: No imitator I of other men! (De Guiche has succeeded in getting by, and goes toward Roxane's door. Cyrano follows him, ready to stop him by force): Six novel methods, all, this brain invented!
DE GUICHE (turning round): Six?
CYRANO (volubly): First, with body naked as your hand, Festooned about with crystal flacons, full O' th' tears the early morning dew distils; My body to the sun's fierce rays exposed To let it suck me up, as 't sucks the dew!
DE GUICHE (surprised, making one step toward Cyrano): Ah! that makes one!
CYRANO (stepping back, and enticing him further away): And then, the second way, To generate wind--for my impetus-- To rarefy air, in a cedar case, By mirrors placed icosahedron-wise.
DE GUICHE (making another step): Two!
CYRANO (still stepping backward): Or--for I have some mechanic skill-- To make a grasshopper, with springs of steel, And launch myself by quick succeeding fires Saltpeter-fed to the stars' pastures blue!
DE GUICHE (unconsciously following him and counting on his fingers): Three!
CYRANO: Or (since fumes have property to mount)-- To charge a globe with fumes, sufficiently To carry me aloft!
DE GUICHE (same play, more and more astonished): Well, that makes four!
CYRANO: Or smear myself with marrow from a bull, Since, at the lowest point of Zodiac, Phoebus well loves to suck that marrow up!
DE GUICHE (amazed): Five!
CYRANO (who, while speaking, had drawn him to the other side of the square near a bench): Sitting on an iron platform--thence To throw a magnet in the air. This is A method well conceived--the magnet flown, Infallibly the iron will pursue: Then quick! relaunch your magnet, and you thus Can mount and mount unmeasured distances!
DE GUICHE: Here are six excellent expedients! Which of the six chose you?
CYRANO: Why, none!--a seventh!
DE GUICHE: Astonishing! What was it?
CYRANO: I'll recount.
DE GUICHE: This wild eccentric becomes interesting!
CYRANO (making a noise like the waves, with weird gestures): Houuh! Houuh!
DE GUICHE: Well.
CYRANO: You have guessed?
DE GUICHE: Not I!
CYRANO: The tide! I' th' witching hour when the moon woos the wave, I laid me, fresh from a sea-bath, on the shore-- And, failing not to put head foremost--for The hair holds the sea-water in its mesh-- I rose in air, straight! straight! like angel's flight, And mounted, mounted, gently, effortless,. . . When lo! a sudden shock! Then. . .
DE GUICHE (overcome by curiosity, sitting down on the bench): Then?
CYRANO: Oh! then. . . (Suddenly returning to his natural voice): The quarter's gone--I'll hinder you no more: The marriage-vows are made.
DE GUICHE (springing up): What? Am I mad? That voice? (The house-door opens. Lackeys appear carrying lighted candelabra. Light. Cyrano gracefully uncovers): That nose--Cyrano?
CYRANO (bowing): Cyrano. While we were chatting, they have plighted troth.
DE GUICHE: Who? (He turns round. Tableau. Behind the lackeys appear Roxane and Christian, holding each other by the hand. The friar follows them, smiling. Ragueneau also holds a candlestick. The duenna closes the rear, bewildered, having made a hasty toilet): Heavens!
## Scene 3.XII.
The same. Roxane, Christian, the friar, Ragueneau, lackeys, the duenna.
DE GUICHE (to Roxane): You? (Recognizing Christian, in amazement): He? (Bowing, with admiration, to Roxane): Cunningly contrived! (To Cyrano): My compliments--Sir Apparatus-maker! Your story would arrest at Peter's gate Saints eager for their Paradise! Note well The details. 'Faith! They'd make a stirring book!
CYRANO (bowing): I shall not fail to follow your advice.
THE FRIAR (showing with satisfaction the two lovers to De Guiche): A handsome couple, son, made one by you!
DE GUICHE (with a freezing look): Ay! (To Roxane): Bid your bridegroom, Madame, fond farewell.
ROXANE: Why so?
DE GUICHE (to Christian): Even now the regiment departs. Join it!
ROXANE: It goes to battle?
DE GUICHE: Without doubt.
ROXANE: But the Cadets go not?
DE GUICHE: Oh ay! they go. (Drawing out the paper he had put in his pocket): Here is the order. (To Christian): Baron, bear it, quick!
ROXANE (throwing herself in Christian's arms): Christian!
DE GUICHE (sneeringly to Cyrano): The wedding-night is far, methinks!
CYRANO (aside): He thinks to give me pain of death by this!
CHRISTIAN (to Roxane): Oh! once again! Your lips!
CYRANO: Come, come, enough!
CHRISTIAN (still kissing Roxane): --'Tis hard to leave her, you know not. . .
CYRANO (trying to draw him away): I know.
(Sound of drums beating a march in the distance.)
DE GUICHE: The regiment starts!
ROXANE (To Cyrano, holding back Christian, whom Cyrano is drawing away): Oh!--I trust him you! Promise me that no risks shall put his life In danger!
CYRANO: I will try my best, but promise. . . That I cannot!
ROXANE: But swear he shall be prudent?
CYRANO: Again, I'll do my best, but. . .
ROXANE: In the siege Let him not suffer!
CYRANO: All that man can do, I. . .
ROXANE: That he shall be faithful!
CYRANO: Doubtless, but. . .
ROXANE: That he will write oft?
CYRANO (pausing): That, I promise you!
Curtain.
## ACT IV.
The Cadets of Gascony.
Post occupied by company of Carbon de Castel-Jaloux at the siege of Arras.