Act I, Scene ii | CUIGY: |  Ligniere! |
| BRISSAILLE (laughing): | | Not drunk as yet? |
| LIGNIERE (aside to Christian): | | I may introduce you? | | (Christian nods in assent): | | Baron de Neuvillette. |
| THE AUDIENCE (applauding as the first luster is lighted and drawn up): | | Ah! |
| CUIGY (to Brissaille, looking at Christian): | | 'Tis a pretty fellow! |
| FIRST MARQUIS (who has overheard): | | Pooh! |
| LIGNIERE (introducing them to Christian): | | My lords De Cuigy. De Brissaille. . . |
| CHRISTIAN (bowing): | | Delighted!. . . |
| FIRST MARQUIS (to second): | | He is not ill to look at, but certes, he is not costumed in the latest mode. |
| LIGNIERE (to Cuigy): | | This gentleman comes from Touraine. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Yes, I have scarce been twenty days in Paris; tomorrow I join the Guards, in | | the Cadets. |
| FIRST MARQUIS (watching the people who are coming into the boxes): | | There is the wife of the Chief-Justice. |
| THE BUFFET-GIRL: | | Oranges, milk. . . |
| THE VIOLINISTS (tuning up): | | La—la— |
| CUIGY (to Christian, pointing to the hall, which is filling fast): | | 'Tis crowded. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Yes, indeed. |
| FIRST MARQUIS: | | All the great world! |
| (They recognize and name the different elegantly dressed ladies who enter the | | boxes, bowing low to them. The ladies send smiles in answer.) |
| SECOND MARQUIS: | | Madame de Guemenee. |
| CUIGY: | | Madame de Bois-Dauphin. |
| FIRST MARQUIS: | | Adored by us all! |
| BRISSAILLE: | | Madame de Chavigny. . . |
| SECOND MARQUIS: | | Who sports with our poor hearts!. . . |
| LIGNIERE: | | Ha! so Monsieur de Corneille has come back from Rouen! |
| THE YOUNG MAN (to his father): | | Is the Academy here? |
| THE BURGHER: | | Oh, ay, I see several of them. There is Boudu, Boissat, | | and Cureau de la Chambre, Porcheres, Colomby, Bourzeys, | | Bourdon, Arbaud. . .all names that will live! 'Tis fine! |
| FIRST MARQUIS: | | Attention! Here come our precieuses; Barthenoide, Urimedonte, Cassandace, | | Felixerie. . . |
| SECOND MARQUIS: | | Ah! How exquisite their fancy names are! Do you know them all, Marquis? |
| FIRST MARQUIS: | | Ay, Marquis, I do, every one! |
| LIGNIERE (drawing Christian aside): | | Friend, I but came here to give you pleasure. The lady comes not. I will | | betake me again to my pet vice. |
| CHRISTIAN (persuasively): | | No, no! You, who are ballad-maker to Court and City alike, can tell me | | better than any who the lady is for whom I die of love. Stay yet awhile. |
| THE FIRST VIOLIN (striking his bow on the desk): | | Gentlemen violinists! |
| THE BUFFET-GIRL: | | Macaroons, lemon-drink. . . |
| (The violins begin to play.) |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Ah! I fear me she is coquettish, and over nice and fastidious! | | I, who am so poor of wit, how dare I speak to her—how address her? | | This language that they speak to-day—ay, and write—confounds me; | | I am but an honest soldier, and timid withal. She has ever her place, | | there, on the right—the empty box, see you! |
| LIGNIERE (making as if to go): | | I must go. |
| CHRISTIAN (detaining him): | | Nay, stay. |
| LIGNIERE: | | I cannot. D'Assoucy waits me at the tavern, and here one dies of thirst. |
| THE BUFFET-GIRL (passing before him with a tray): | | Orange drink? |
| LIGNIERE: | | Ugh! |
| THE BUFFET-GIRL: | | Milk? |
| LIGNIERE: | | Pah! |
| THE BUFFET-GIRL: | | Rivesalte? |
| LIGNIERE: | | Stay. | | (To Christian): | | I will remain awhile.—Let me taste this rivesalte. |
| (He sits by the buffet; the girl pours some out for him.) |
| CRIES (from all the audience, at the entrance of a plump little man, joyously | | excited): | | Ah! Ragueneau! |
| LIGNIERE (to Christian): | | 'Tis the famous tavern-keeper Ragueneau. |
| RAGUENEAU (dressed in the Sunday clothes of a pastry-cook, going up quickly to | | Ligniere): | | Sir, have you seen Monsieur de Cyrano? |
| LIGNIERE (introducing him to Christian): | | The pastry-cook of the actors and the poets! |
| RAGUENEAU (overcome): | | You do me too great honor. . . |
| LIGNIERE: | | Nay, hold your peace, Maecenas that you are! |
| RAGUENEAU: | | True, these gentlemen employ me. . . |
| LIGNIERE: | | On credit! | | He is himself a poet of a pretty talent. . . |
| RAGUENEAU: | | So they tell me. |
| LIGNIERE: | | —Mad after poetry! |
| RAGUENEAU: | | 'Tis true that, for a little ode. . . |
| LIGNIERE: | | You give a tart. . . |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Oh!—a tartlet! |
| LIGNIERE: | | Brave fellow! He would fain fain excuse himself! | | —And for a triolet, now, did you not give in exchange. . . |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Some little rolls! |
| LIGNIERE (severely): | | They were milk-rolls! And as for the theater, which you love? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Oh! to distraction! |
| LIGNIERE: | | How pay you your tickets, ha?—with cakes. | | Your place, to-night, come tell me in my ear, what did it cost you? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Four custards, and fifteen cream-puffs. | | (He looks around on all sides): | | Monsieur de Cyrano is not here? 'Tis strange. |
| LIGNIERE: | | Why so? |
| LIGNIERE: | | Ay, 'tis true that that old wine-barrel is to take Phedon's part to-night; | | but what matter is that to Cyrano? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | How? Know you not? He has got a hot hate for Montfleury, and so!—has | | forbid him strictly to show his face on the stage for one whole month. |
| LIGNIERE (drinking his fourth glass): | | Well? |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Montfleury will play! |
| CUIGY: | | He can not hinder that. |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Oh! oh! that I have come to see! |
| FIRST MARQUIS: | | Who is this Cyrano? |
| CUIGY: | | A fellow well skilled in all tricks of fence. |
| SECOND MARQUIS: | | Is he of noble birth? |
| CUIGY: | | Ay, noble enough. He is a cadet in the Guards. | | (Pointing to a gentleman who is going up and down the hall as if searching for | | some one): | | But 'tis his friend Le Bret, yonder, who can best tell you. | | (He calls him): | | Le Bret! | | (Le Bret comes towards them): | | Seek you for De Bergerac? |
| LE BRET: | | Ay, I am uneasy. . . |
| CUIGY: | | Is it not true that he is the strangest of men? |
| LE BRET (tenderly): | | True, that he is the choicest of earthly beings! |
| RAGUENEAU: | | Poet! |
| CUIGY: | | Soldier! |
| BRISSAILLE: | | Philosopher! |
| LE BRET: | | Musician! |
| LIGNIERE: | | And of how fantastic a presence! |
| RAGENEAU: | | Marry, 'twould puzzle even our grim painter Philippe de Champaigne to | | portray him! Methinks, whimsical, wild, comical as he is, only Jacques | | Callot, now dead and gone, had succeeded better, and had made of him the | | maddest fighter of all his visored crew—with his triple-plumed beaver and | | six-pointed doublet—the sword-point sticking up 'neath his mantle like an | | insolent cocktail! He's prouder than all the fierce Artabans of whom Gascony | | has ever been and will ever be the prolific Alma Mater! Above his Toby ruff | | he carries a nose!—ah, good my lords, what a nose is his! When one sees it | | one is fain to cry aloud, 'Nay! 'tis too much! He plays a joke on us!' Then | | one laughs, says 'He will anon take it off.' But no!—Monsieur de Bergerac | | always keeps it on. |
| LE BRET (throwing back his head): | | He keeps it on—and cleaves in two any man who dares remark on it! |
| RAGUENEAU (proudly): | | His sword—'tis one half of the Fates' shears! |
| FIRST MARQUIS (shrugging his shoulders): | | He will not come! |
| RAGUENEAU: | | I say he will! and I wager a fowl—a la Ragueneau. |
| THE MARQUIS (laughing): | | Good! |
| (Murmurs of admiration in hall. Roxane has just appeared in her box. She | | seats herself in front, the duenna at the back. Christian, who is paying the | | buffet-girl, does not see her entrance.) |
| SECOND MARQUIS (with little cries of joy): | | Ah, gentlemen! she is fearfully—terribly—ravishing! |
| FIRST MARQUIS: | | When one looks at her one thinks of a peach smiling at a strawberry! |
| SECOND MARQUIS: | | And what freshness! A man approaching her too near might chance to get a | | bad chill at the heart! |
| CHRISTIAN (raising his head, sees Roxane, and catches Ligniere by the arm): | | 'Tis she! |
| LIGNIERE: | | Ah! is it she? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Ay, tell me quick—I am afraid. |
| LIGNIERE (tasting his rivesalte in sips): | | Magdaleine Robin—Roxane, so called! A subtle wit—a precieuse. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | Woe is me! |
| LIGNIERE: | | Free. An orphan. The cousin of Cyrano, of whom we were now speaking. |
| (At this moment an elegant nobleman, with blue ribbon across his breast, | | enters the box, and talks with Roxane, standing.) |
| CHRISTIAN (starting): | | Who is yonder man? |
| LIGNIERE (who is becoming tipsy, winking at him): | | Ha! ha! Count de Guiche. Enamored of her. But wedded to the niece of | | Armand de Richelieu. Would fain marry Roxane to a certain sorry fellow, one | | Monsieur de Valvert, a viscount—and—accommodating! She will none of that | | bargain; but De Guiche is powerful, and can persecute the daughter of a plain | | untitled gentleman. More by token, I myself have exposed this cunning plan of | | his to the world, in a song which. . .Ho! he must rage at me! The end hit | | home. . .Listen! |
| (He gets up staggering, and raises his glass, ready to sing.) |
| CHRISTIAN: | | No. Good-night. |
| LIGNIERE: | | Where go you? |
| CHRISTIAN: | | To Monsieur de Valvert! |
| LIGNIERE: | | Have a care! It is he who will kill you | | (showing him Roxane by a look): | | Stay where you are—she is looking at you. |
| CHRISTIAN: | | It is true! |
| (He stands looking at her. The group of pickpockets seeing him thus, head in | | air and open-mouthed, draw near to him.) |
| LIGNIERE: | | 'Tis I who am going. I am athirst! And they expect me—in the taverns! |
| LE BRET (who has been all round the hall, coming back to Ragueneau reassured): | | No sign of Cyrano. |
| RAGUENEAU (incredulously): | | All the same. . . |
| LE BRET: | | A hope is left to me—that he has not seen the playbill! |
| THE AUDIENCE: | | Begin, begin! |
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
Read the complete texts of Shakespeare's plays along with an easy to understand translation.
More...
|
|
|
 |
No Fear English Grammar is a step-by-step guide to English grammar presented in a fresh, lively tutorial.
More...
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
