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Act I, Scene v | CYRANO (to Le Bret): |  Now talk—I listen. | | (He stands at the buffet, and placing before him first the macaroon): | | Dinner!. . . | | (then the grapes): | | Dessert!. . . | | (then the glass of water): | | Wine!. . . | | (he seats himself): | | So! And now to table! | | Ah! I was hungry, friend, nay, ravenous! | | (eating): | | You said—? |
| LE BRET: | | These fops, would-be belligerent, | | Will, if you heed them only, turn your head!. . . | | Ask people of good sense if you would know | | The effect of your fine insolence— |
| CYRANO (finishing his macaroon): | | Enormous! |
| CYRANO (radiant): | | The Cardinal—was there? |
| LE BRET: | | Must have thought it. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Original, i' faith! |
| LE BRET: | | But. . . |
| CYRANO: | | He's an author. 'Twill not fail to please him | | That I should mar a brother-author's play. |
| LE BRET: | | You make too many enemies by far! |
| CYRANO (eating his grapes): | | How many think you I have made to-night? |
| LE BRET: | | Forty, no less, not counting ladies. |
| CYRANO: | | Count! |
| LE BRET: | | Montfleury first, the bourgeois, then De Guiche, | | The Viscount, Baro, the Academy. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Enough! I am o'erjoyed! |
| LE BRET: | | But these strange ways, | | Where will they lead you, at the end? Explain | | Your system—come! |
| CYRANO: | | I in a labyrinth | | Was lost—too many different paths to choose; | | I took. . . |
| LE BRET: | | Which? |
| CYRANO: | | Oh! by far the simplest path. . . | | Decided to be admirable in all! |
| LE BRET (shrugging his shoulders): | | So be it! But the motive of your hate | | To Montfleury—come, tell me! |
| CYRANO (rising): | | This Silenus, | | Big-bellied, coarse, still deems himself a peril— | | A danger to the love of lovely ladies, | | And, while he sputters out his actor's part, | | Makes sheep's eyes at their boxes—goggling frog! | | I hate him since the evening he presumed | | To raise his eyes to hers. . .Meseemed I saw | | A slug crawl slavering o'er a flower's petals! |
| LE BRET (stupefied): | | How now? What? Can it be. . .? |
| CYRANO (laughing bitterly): | | That I should love?. . . | | (Changing his tone, gravely): | | I love. |
| LE BRET: | | And may I know?. . .You never said. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Come now, bethink you!. . .The fond hope to be | | Beloved, e'en by some poor graceless lady, | | Is, by this nose of mine for aye bereft me; | | —This lengthy nose which, go where'er I will, | | Pokes yet a quarter-mile ahead of me; | | But I may love—and who? 'Tis Fate's decree | | I love the fairest—how were't otherwise? |
| LE BRET: | | The fairest?. . . |
| CYRANO: | | Ay, the fairest of the world, | | Most brilliant—most refined—most golden-haired! |
| LE BRET: | | Who is this lady? |
| CYRANO: | | She's a danger mortal, | | All unsuspicious—full of charms unconscious, | | Like a sweet perfumed rose—a snare of nature, | | Within whose petals Cupid lurks in ambush! | | He who has seen her smile has known perfection, | | —Instilling into trifles grace's essence, | | Divinity in every careless gesture; | | Not Venus' self can mount her conch blown sea-ward, | | As she can step into her chaise a porteurs, | | Nor Dian fleet across the woods spring-flowered, | | Light as my Lady o'er the stones of Paris!. . . |
| LE BRET: | | Sapristi! all is clear! |
| CYRANO: | | As spiderwebs! |
| LE BRET: | | Your cousin, Madeleine Robin? |
| LE BRET: | | Well, but so much the better! Tell her so! | | She saw your triumph here this very night! |
| CYRANO: | | Look well at me—then tell me, with what hope | | This vile protuberance can inspire my heart! | | I do not lull me with illusions—yet | | At times I'm weak: in evening hours dim | | I enter some fair pleasance, perfumed sweet; | | With my poor ugly devil of a nose | | I scent spring's essence—in the silver rays | | I see some knight—a lady on his arm, | | And think 'To saunter thus 'neath the moonshine, | | I were fain to have my lady, too, beside!' | | Thought soars to ecstasy. . .O sudden fall! | | —The shadow of my profile on the wall! |
| LE BRET (tenderly): | | My friend!. . . |
| CYRANO: | | My friend, at times 'tis hard, 'tis bitter, | | To feel my loneliness—my own ill-favor. . . |
| LE BRET (taking his hand): | | You weep? |
| CYRANO: | | No, never! Think, how vilely suited | | Adown this nose a tear its passage tracing! | | I never will, while of myself I'm master, | | let the divinity of tears—their beauty | | Be wedded to such common ugly grossness. | | Nothing more solemn than a tear—sublimer; | | And I would not by weeping turn to laughter | | The grave emotion that a tear engenders! |
| LE BRET: | | Never be sad! What's love?—a chance of Fortune! |
| CYRANO (shaking his head): | | Look I a Caesar to woo Cleopatra? | | A Tito to aspire to Berenice? |
| LE BRET: | | Your courage and your wit!—The little maid | | Who offered you refreshment even now, | | Her eyes did not abhor you—you saw well! |
| CYRANO (impressed): | | True! |
| LE BRET: | | Well, how then?. . .I saw Roxane herself | | Was death-pale as she watched the duel. |
| CYRANO: | | Pale? |
| LE BRET: | | Her heart, her fancy, are already caught! | | Put it to th' touch! |
| CYRANO: | | That she may mock my face? | | That is the one thing on this earth I fear! |
| THE PORTER (introducing some one to Cyrano): | | Sir, some one asks for you. . . |
| CYRANO (seeing the duenna): | | God! her duenna! |
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