Act II, Scene iii | CYRANO: |  What's o'clock? |
| RAGUENEAU (bowing low): | | Six o'clock. |
| CYRANO (with emotion): | | In one hour's time! |
| (He paces up and down the shop.) |
| RAGUENEAU (following him): | | Bravo! I saw. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Well, what saw you, then? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Your combat!. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Which? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | That in the Burgundy Hotel, 'faith! |
| CYRANO (contemptuously): | | Ah!. . .the duel! |
| RAGUENEAU (admiringly): | | Ay! the duel in verse!. . . |
| LISE: | | He can talk of naught else! |
| CYRANO: | | Well! Good! let be! |
| RAGUENEAU (making passes with a spit that he catches up): | | 'At the envoi's end, I touch!. . .At the envoi's end, I touch!'. . .'Tis | | fine, fine! | | (With increasing enthusiasm): | | 'At the envoi's end—' |
| CYRANO: | | What hour is it now, Ragueneau? |
| RAGUENEAU (stopping short in the act of thrusting to look at the clock): | | Five minutes after six!. . .'I touch!' | | (He straightens himself): | | . . .Oh! to write a ballade! |
| LISE (to Cyrano, who, as he passes by the counter, has absently shaken hands | | with her): | | What's wrong with your hand? |
| CYRANO: | | Naught; a slight cut. |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Have you been in some danger? |
| CYRANO: | | None in the world. |
| LISE (shaking her finger at him): | | Methinks you speak not the truth in saying that! |
| CYRANO: | | Did you see my nose quiver when I spoke? 'Faith, it must have been a | | monstrous lie that should move it! | | (Changing his tone): | | I wait some one here. Leave us alone, and disturb us for naught an it were | | not for crack of doom! |
| RAGUENEAU: | | But 'tis impossible; my poets are coming. . . |
| LISE (ironically): | | Oh, ay, for their first meal o' the day! |
| CYRANO: | | Prythee, take them aside when I shall make you sign to do so. . .What's | | o'clock? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Ten minutes after six. |
| CYRANO (nervously seating himself at Ragueneau's table, and drawing some paper | | toward him): | | A pen!. . . |
| RAGUENEAU (giving him the one from behind his ear): | | Here—a swan's quill. |
| A MUSKETEER (with fierce mustache, enters, and in a stentorian voice): | | Good-day! |
| (Lise goes up to him quickly.) |
| CYRANO (turning round): | | Who's that? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | 'Tis a friend of my wife—a terrible warrior—at least so says he himself. |
| CYRANO (taking up the pen, and motioning Ragueneau away): | | Hush! | | (To himself): | | I will write, fold it, give it her, and fly! | | (Throws down the pen): | | Coward!. . .But strike me dead if I dare to speak to her,. . .ay, even one | | single word! | | (To Ragueneau): | | What time is it? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | A quarter after six!. . . |
| CYRANO (striking his breast): | | Ay—a single word of all those here! here! But writing, 'tis easier done. . | | . | | (He takes up the pen): | | Go to, I will write it, that love-letter! Oh! I have writ it and rewrit it | | in my own mind so oft that it lies there ready for pen and ink; and if I lay | | but my soul by my letter-sheet, 'tis naught to do but to copy from it. |
| (He writes. Through the glass of the door the silhouettes of their figures | | move uncertainly and hesitatingly.) |
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