Act IV, Scene iii | CYRANO (appearing from the tent, very calm, with a pen stuck behind his ear | | and a book in his hand): |  What is wrong? | | (Silence. To the first cadet): | | Why drag you your legs so sorrowfully? |
| THE CADET: | | I have something in my heels which weighs them down. |
| CYRANO: | | And what may that be? |
| THE CADET: | | My stomach! |
| CYRANO: | | So have I, 'faith! |
| THE CADET: | | It must be in your way? |
| CYRANO: | | Nay, I am all the taller. |
| A THIRD: | | My stomach's hollow. |
| CYRANO: | | 'Faith, 'twill make a fine drum to sound the assault. |
| ANOTHER: | | I have a ringing in my ears. |
| CYRANO: | | No, no, 'tis false; a hungry stomach has no ears. |
| ANOTHER: | | Oh, to eat something—something oily! |
| CYRANO (pulling off the cadet's helmet and holding it out to him): | | Behold your salad! |
| ANOTHER: | | What, in God's name, can we devour? |
| CYRANO (throwing him the book which he is carrying): | | The 'Iliad'. |
| ANOTHER: | | The first minister in Paris has his four meals a day! |
| CYRANO: | | 'Twere courteous an he sent you a few partridges! |
| THE SAME: | | And why not? with wine, too! |
| CYRANO: | | A little Burgundy. Richelieu, s'il vous plait! |
| THE SAME: | | He could send it by one of his friars. |
| CYRANO: | | Ay! by His Eminence Joseph himself. |
| ANOTHER: | | I am as ravenous as an ogre! |
| CYRANO: | | Eat your patience, then. |
| THE FIRST CADET (shrugging his shoulders): | | Always your pointed word! |
| CYRANO: | | Ay, pointed words! | | I would fain die thus, some soft summer eve, | | Making a pointed word for a good cause. | | —To make a soldier's end by soldier's sword, | | Wielded by some brave adversary—die | | On blood-stained turf, not on a fever-bed, | | A point upon my lips, a point within my heart. |
| CRIES FROM ALL: | | I'm hungry! |
| CYRANO (crossing his arms): | | All your thoughts of meat and drink! | | Bertrand the fifer!—you were shepherd once,— | | Draw from its double leathern case your fife, | | Play to these greedy, guzzling soldiers. Play | | Old country airs with plaintive rhythm recurring, | | Where lurk sweet echoes of the dear home-voices, | | Each note of which calls like a little sister, | | Those airs slow, slow ascending, as the smoke-wreaths | | Rise from the hearthstones of our native hamlets, | | Their music strikes the ear like Gascon patois!. . . | | (The old man seats himself, and gets his flute ready): | | Your flute was now a warrior in durance; | | But on its stem your fingers are a-dancing | | A bird-like minuet! O flute! Remember | | That flutes were made of reeds first, not laburnum; | | Make us a music pastoral days recalling— | | The soul-time of your youth, in country pastures!. . . | | (The old man begins to play the airs of Languedoc): | | Hark to the music, Gascons!. . .'Tis no longer | | The piercing fife of camp—but 'neath his fingers | | The flute of the woods! No more the call to combat, | | 'Tis now the love-song of the wandering goat-herds!. . . | | Hark!. . .'tis the valley, the wet landes, the forest, | | The sunburnt shepherd-boy with scarlet beret, | | The dusk of evening on the Dordogne river,— | | 'Tis Gascony! Hark, Gascons, to the music! |
| (The cadets sit with bowed heads; their eyes have a far-off look as if | | dreaming, and they surreptitiously wipe away their tears with their cuffs and | | the corner of their cloaks.) |
| CARBON (to Cyrano in a whisper): | | But you make them weep! |
| CYRANO: | | Ay, for homesickness. A nobler pain than hunger,—'tis of the soul, not of | | the body! I am well pleased to see their pain change its viscera. Heart-ache | | is better than stomach-ache. |
| CARBON: | | But you weaken their courage by playing thus on their heart-strings! |
| CYRANO (making a sign to a drummer to approach): | | Not I. The hero that sleeps in Gascon blood is ever ready to awake in them. | | 'Twould suffice. . . |
| (He makes a signal; the drum beats.) |
| ALL THE CADETS (stand up and rush to take arms): | | What? What is it? |
| CYRANO (smiling): | | You see! One roll of the drum is enough! Good-by dreams, regrets, native | | land, love. . .All that the pipe called forth the drum has chased away! |
| A CADET (looking toward the back of the stage): | | Ho! here comes Monsieur de Guiche. |
| ALL THE CADETS (muttering): | | Ugh!. . .Ugh!. . . |
| CYRANO (smiling): | | A flattering welcome! |
| A CADET: | | We are sick to death of him! |
| ANOTHER CADET: | | —With his lace collar over his armor, playing the fine gentleman! |
| ANOTHER: | | As if one wore linen over steel! |
| THE FIRST: | | It were good for a bandage had he boils on his neck. |
| THE SECOND: | | Another plotting courtier! |
| ANOTHER CADET: | | His uncle's own nephew! |
| CARBON: | | For all that—a Gascon. |
| THE FIRST: | | Ay, false Gascon!. . .trust him not. . . | | Gascons should ever be crack-brained. . . | | Naught more dangerous than a rational Gascon. |
| ANOTHER: | | Oh! he is hungry, just like us poor devils; but under his cuirass, with its | | fine gilt nails, his stomach-ache glitters brave in the sun. |
| CYRANO (hurriedly): | | Let us not seem to suffer either! Out with your cards, pipes, and dice. . . | | (All begin spreading out the games on the drums, the stools, the ground, and | | on their cloaks, and light long pipes): | | And I shall read Descartes. |
| (He walks up and down, reading a little book which he has drawn from his | | pocket. Tableau. Enter De Guiche. All appear absorbed and happy. He is | | very pale. He goes up to Carbon.) |
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