Scene 2 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 been
One 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 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...
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 well
To change some words? Written haphazard-wise,
Will it fit Roxane?
CYRANO:
’Twill fit like a glove!
CHRISTIAN:
But...
CYRANO:
Ah, credulity of love! Roxane
Will think each word inspired by herself!
CHRISTIAN:
My friend!
(He throws himself into Cyrano’s arms. They remain thus.)