Cyrano de Bergerac Read online

  ROXANE I believe that I should love him more ... if that were possible!

  CYRANO [losing his head, aside] My God, perhaps she means it ... perhaps it is true ... and that way is happiness! [To ROXANE.] I ... Roxane ... listen!

  LE BRET [comes in hurriedly; calls softly] Cyrano!

  CYRANO [turning] Hein?

  LE BRET Hush! [He whispers a few words to CYRANO.]

  CYRANO [letting ROXANE’s hand drop, with a cry] Ah! ... ROXANE What ails you?

  CYRANO [to himself, in consternation] It is finished! [Musket reports.]

  ROXANE What is it? What is happening? Who is firing? [She goes to the back to look off.]

  CYRANO It is finished.... My lips are sealed for evermore! [CADETS come in, attempting to conceal something they carry among them; they surround it, preventing ROXANE’S seeing it.]

  ROXANE What has happened?

  CYRANO [quickly stopping her as she starts toward them] Nothing!

  ROXANE These men? ...

  CYRANO [drawing her away] Pay no attention to them!

  ROXANE But what were you about to say to me before?

  CYRANO What was I about to say? ... Oh, nothing! ... Nothing whatever, I assure you. [Solemnly.] I swear that Christian’s spirit, that his soul, were ... [in terror, correcting himself] are the greatest that ...

  ROXANE Were? ... [With a great cry.] Ah! ... [Runs to the group of CADETS, and thrusts them aside.]

  CYRANO It is finished!

  ROXANE [seeing CHRISTIAN stretched out in his cloak] Christian!

  LE BRET [to CYRANO] At the enemy’s first shot! [ROXANE throws herself on CHRISTIAN’S body. Musket reports. Clashing of swords. Tramping. Drums.]

  CARBON [sword in hand] The attack! To your muskets! [Followed by the CADETS he goes to the further side of the earthworks.]

  ROXANE Christian!

  CARBON’S VOICE [beyond the earthworks] Make haste!

  ROXANE Christian!

  CARBON Fall into line!

  ROXANE Christian!

  CARBON Measure ... match! [RAGUENEAU has come running in with water in a steel cap.]

  CHRISTIAN [in a dying voice] Roxane!

  CYRANO [quick, low in CHRISTIAN’s ear, while ROXANE, distracted, dips into the water a fragment of linen torn from her breast to bind his wound] I have told her everything! ... You are still the one she loves! [CHRISTIAN closes his eyes.]

  ROXANE What, dear love?

  CARBON Muzzle ... high!

  ROXANE [to CYRANO] He is not dead? ...

  CARBON Open charge ... with teeth!

  ROXANE I feel his cheek grow cold against my own!

  CARBON Take aim!

  ROXANE A letter on his breast.... [She opens it. To me!

  CYRANO [aside] My letter!

  CARBON Fire! [Musket shots. Cries. Roar of battle.]

  CYRANO [trying to free his hand which ROXANE clasps kneeling] But, Roxane, they are fighting.

  ROXANE [clinging] No! ... Stay with me a little! ... He is dead. You are the only one that truly knew him.... [She cries subduedly.] Was he not an exquisite being, ... an exceptional, marvellous being? ...

  CYRANO [standing bareheaded] Yes. Roxane.

  ROXANE A poet without his peer, ... one verily to reverence?

  CYRANO Yes, Roxane.

  ROXANE A sublime spirit?

  CYRANO Yes, Roxane.

  ROXANE A profound heart, such as the profane could never have understood ... a soul as noble as it was charming? ...

  CYRANO [firmly] Yes, Roxane.

  ROXANE [throwing herself on CHRISTIAN’s body] And he is dead!

  CYRANO [aside, drawing his sword] And I have now only to die, since, without knowing it, she mourns my death in his! [Trumpets in the distance.]

  DE GUICHE [reappears on the top of the bank, bareheaded, his forehead bloody; in a thundering voice] The signal they promised! The flourish of trumpets! ... The French are entering the camp with supplies! ... Stand fast a little longer!

  ROXANE Upon his letter ... blood, ... tears!

  A VOICE [outside, shouting] Surrender!

  VOICES OF THE CADETS No!

  RAGUENEAU [who from the top of the coach is watching the battle beyond . the bank] The conflict rages hotter! ...

  . CYRANO [to DE GUICHE pointing at ROXANE] Take her away! ... I am going to charge.

  ROXANE [kissing the letter, in a dying voice] His blood! ... his tears!

  RAGUENEAU [leaping from the coach and running to ROXANE] She is fainting!

  DE GUICHE [at the top of the bank, to the CADETS, madly] Stand fast!

  VOICE [outside] Surrender!

  VOICES OF THE CADETS No!

  CYRANO [to DE GUICHE] Your courage none will question ... [Pointing at ROXANE. ] Fly for the sake of saving her!

  DE GUICHE [Runs to ROXANE and lifts her in his arms] So be it! But we shall win the day if you can hold out a little longer ...

  CYRANO We can. [To ROXANE, whom DE GUICHE, helped by RAGUENEAU, is carrying off insensible.] Good-bye, Roxane! [Tumult. Cries. CADETS reappear, wounded, and fall upon the stage. CYRANO dashing forward to join the combatants is stopped on the crest of the bank by CARBON covered with blood.]

  CARBON We are losing ground ... I have got two halberd wounds ...

  CYRANO [yelling to the GASCONS] Steadfast! ... Never give them an inch! ... Brave boys! [To CARBON.] Fear nothing! I have various deaths to avenge: Christian’s and all my hopes’! [They come down. CYRANO brandishes the spear at the head of which ROXANE’s handkerchief is fastened.] Float free, little cobweb flag, embroidered with her initials! [He drives the spear-staff into the earth; shouts to the CADETS.] Fall on them, boys! ... Crush them! [To the fifer.] Fifer, play! [The fifer plays. Some of the wounded get to their feet again. Some of the CADETS, coming down the bank, group themselves around CYRANO and the little flag. The coach, filled and covered with men, bristles with muskets and becomes a redoubt.]

  ONE OF THE CADETS [appears upon the top of the bank backing while he fights; he cries] They are coming up the slope! [Falls dead. ]

  CYRANO We will welcome them! [Above the bank suddenly rises a formidable array of enemies. The great banners of the Imperial Army appear.]

  CYRANO Fire! [General discharge.]

  CRY [among the hostile ranks.] Fire! [Shots returned. CADETS drop on every side]

  A SPANISH OFFICER [taking off his hat] What are these men, so determined all to be killed?

  CYRANO [declaiming, as he stands in the midst of flying bullets.] They are the Gascony Cadets Of Carbon de Castel-Jaloux; Famed fighters, liars, desperates ... [He leaps fOTward,followed by a handful of survivors.] They are the Gascony Cadets! ... [The rest is lost in the confusion of battle.]

  [Curtain.]

  ACT FIVE

  Cyrano’s Gazette

  Fifteen years later, 1655. The park belonging to the convent of the Sisters of the Cross, in Paris.

  Superb shade-trees. At the left, the house; several doors opening on to broad terrace with steps. In the centre of the stage, huge trees standing alone in a clear oval space. At the right, first wing, a semicircular stone seat, surrounded by large box-trees.

  All along the back of the stage, an avenue of chestnut-trees, which leads, at the right, fourth wing, to the door of a chapel seen through trees. Through the double row of trees overarching the avenue are seen lawns, other avenues, clumps of trees, the further recesses of the park, the sky.

  The chapel opens by a small side-door into a colonnade, overrun by a scarlet creeper; the colonnade comes forward and is lost to sight behind the box-trees at the right.

  It is Autumn. The leaves are turning, above the still fresh grass. Dark patches of evergreens, box and yew. Under each tree a mat of yellow leaves. Fallen leaves litter the whole stage, crackle underfoot, lie thick on the terrace and the seats.

  Between the seat at the right and the tree in the centre, a large embroidery frame, in front of which a small chair. Baskets full of wools, in skeins and balls. On the frame, a piece o
f tapestry, partly done.

  At the rise of the curtain, nuns come and go in the park; a few are seated on the stone seat around an older nun; leaves are falling.

  SCENE I

  Mother Margaret, Sister Martha, Sister Claire, other Nuns

  SISTER MARTHA [to MOTHER MARGARET] Sister Claire,, after putting on her cap went back to the mirror, to see herself again.

  MOTHER MARGARET [to SISTER CLAIRE] It was unbecoming, my child.

  SISTER CLAIRE But Sister Martha, to-day, after finishing her portion, went back to the tart for a plum. I saw her!

  MOTHER MARGARET [to SISTER MARTHA] My child, it was ill done.

  SISTER CLAIRE I merely glanced! ...

  SISTER MARTHA The plum was about so big! ...

  MOTHER MARGARET This evening, when Monsieur Cyrano comes, I will tell him.

  SISTER CLAIRE [alarmed] No! He will laugh at us!

  SISTER MARTHA He will say that nuns are very vain!

  SISTER CLAIRE And very greedy!

  MOTHER MARGARET And really very good.

  SISTER CLAIRE Mother Margaret, is it not true that he has come here every Saturday in the last ten years?

  MOTHER MARGARET Longer! Ever since his cousin brought among our linen coifs her coif of crape, the worldly symbol of her mourning, which settled like a sable bird amidst our flock of white some fourteen years ago.

  SISTER MARTHA He alone, since she took her abode in our cloister, has art to dispel her never-lessening sorrow.

  ALL THE NUNS He is so droll!—It is merry when he comes!—He teases us!—He is delightful!—We are greatly attached to him!—We are making Angelica paste66 to offer him!

  SISTER MARTHA He is not, however, a very good Catholic!

  SISTER CLAIRE We will convert him.

  THE NUNS We will! We will!

  MOTHER MARGARET I forbid your renewing that attempt, my children. Do not trouble him: he might not come so often!

  SISTER MARTHA But ... God!

  MOTHER MARGARET Set your hearts at rest: God must know him of old!

  SISTER MARTHA But every Saturday, when he comes, he says to me as soon as he sees me, “Sister, I ate meat, yesterday!”

  MOTHER MARGARET Ah, that is what he says? ... Well, when he last said it, he had eaten nothing for two days.

  SISTER MARTHA Mother!

  MOTHER MARGARET He is poor.

  SISTER MARTHA Who told you?

  MOTHER MARGARET Monsieur Le Bret.

  SISTER MARTHA Does no one offer him assistance?

  MOTHER MARGARET No, he would take offence. [In one of the avenues at the back, appears ROXANE, in black, wearing a widow’s coif and long mourning veil; DE GUICHE, markedly older, magnificently dressed, walks beside her. They go very slowly. MOTHER MARGARET gets up.]

  MOTHER MARGARET Come, we must go within. Madame Magdeleine is walking in the park with a visitor.

  SISTER MARTHA [low to SISTER CLAIRE.] Is not that the Marshal-duke de Grammont?

  SISTER CLAIRE [looking] I think it is!

  SISTER MARTHA He has not been to see her in many months!

  THE NUNS He is much engaged!—The Court!—The Camp!—

  SISTER CLAIRE Cares of this world! [Exeunt. DE GUICHE and ROXANE come forward silently, and stop near the embroidery frame. A pause.]

  SCENE II

  Roxane, De Guiche (now the Duke of Grammont), then Le Bret and Ragueneau

  DE GUICHE And so you live here, uselessly fair, always in mourning?

  ROXANE Always.

  DE GUICHE As faithful as of old?

  ROXANE As faithful.

  DE GUICHE [after a time] Have you forgiven me?

  ROXANE Since I am here. [Other silence.]

  DE GUICHE And he was really such a rare being?

  ROXANE To understand, one must have known him!

  DE GUICHE Ah, one must have known him! ... Perhaps I did not know him well enough. And his last letter, still and always, against your heart?

  ROXANE I wear it on this velvet, as a more holy scapular.67

  DE GUICHE Even dead, you love him?

  ROXANE It seems to me sometimes he is but half dead, that our hearts have not been severed, that his love still wraps me round, no less than ever living!

  DE GUICHE [after another silence] Does Cyrano come here to see you?

  ROXANE Yes, often. That faithful friend fulfils by me the office of gazette. His visits are regular. He comes: when the weather is fine, his armchair is brought out under the trees. I wait for him here with my work; the hour strikes; on the last stroke, I hear—I do not even turn to see who comes!—his cane upon the steps; he takes his seat; he rallies me upon my never-ending tapestry68; he tells off the events of the week, and ... [LE BRET appears on the steps] Ah, Le Bret! [LE BRET comes down the steps] How does your friend?

  LE BRET III.

  THE DUKE Oh!

  ROXANE He exaggerates! ...

  LE BRET All is come to pass as I foretold: neglect! poverty! his writings ever breeding him new enemies! Fraud he attacks in every embodiment: usurpers, pious pretenders, plagiarists, asses in lions’ skins ... all! He attacks all!

  ROXANE No one, however, but stands in profound respect of his sword. They will never succeed in silencing him.

  DE GUICHE [shaking his head] Who knows?

  LE BRET What I fear is not the aggression of man; what I fear is loneliness and want and winter creeping upon him like stealthy wolves in his miserable attic; they are the insidious foes that will have him by the throat at last! ... Every day he tightens his belt by an eyelet; his poor great nose is pinched, and turned the sallow of old ivory; the worn black serge you see him in is the only coat he has!

  DE GUICHE Ah, there is one who did not succeed! ... Nevertheless, do not pity him too much.

  LE BRET [with a bitter smile] Marshal! ...

  DE GUICHE Do not pity him too much: he signed no bonds with the world; he has lived free in his thought as in his actions.

  LE BRET [as above] Duke ...

  DE GUICHE [haughtily] I know, yes: I have everything, he has nothing.... But I should like to shake hands with him. [Bowing to ROXANE.] Good-bye.

  ROXANE I will go with you to the door. [DE GUICHE bows to LE BRET and goes with ROXANE toward the terrace steps.]

  DE GUICHE [stopping, while she goes up the steps] Yes, sometimes I envy him. You see, when a man has succeeded too well in life, he is not unlikely to feel—dear me! without having committed any very serious wrong!—a multitudinous disgust of himself, the sum of which does not constitute a real remorse, but an obscure uneasiness; and a ducal mantle, while it sweeps up the stairs of greatness, may trail in its furry lining a rustling of sere illusions and regrets, as, when you slowly climb toward those doors, your black gown trails the withered leaves.

  ROXANE [ironical] Are you not unusually pensive? ...

  DE GUICHE Ah, yes! [As he is about to leave, abruptly.] Monsieur Le Bret! [To ROXANE] Will you allow me? A word. [He goes to LE BRET, and lowering his voice.] It is true that no one will dare overtly to attack your friend, but many have him in particular disrelish; and some one was saying to me yesterday, at the Queen’s, “It seems not unlikely that this Cyrano will meet with an accident.”

  LE BRET Ah? ...

  DE GUICHE Yes. Let him keep indoors. Let him be cautious.

  LE BRET [lifting his arms toward Heaven] Cautious! ... He is coming here. I will warn him. Warn him! ... Yes, but ...

  ROXANE [who has been standing at the head of the steps, to a nun who comes toward her] What is it?

  THE NUN Ragueneau begs to see you, Madame.

  ROXANE Let him come in. [To DE GUICHE and LE BRET.] He comes to plead distress. Having determined one day to be an author, he became in turn precentor ... 69

  LE BRET Bath-house keeper ...

  ROXANE Actor ...

  LE BRET Beadle ...

  ROXANE Barber ...

  LE BRET Arch-lute teacher ...

  ROXANE I wonder what he is now!

  RAGUENEAU [enteri
ng precipitately] Ah, Madame! [He sees LE BRET.] Monsieur!

  ROXANE [smiling] Begin telling your misfortunes to Le Bret. I am coming back.

  RAGUENEAU But, Madame ... [ROXANE leaves without listening, with the DUKE. RAGUENEAU goes to LE BRET]

  SCENE III

  Le Bret, Ragueneau

  RAGUENEAU It is better so. Since you are here, I had liefer not tell her! Less than half an hour ago, I was going to see your friend. I was not thirty feet from his door, when I saw him come out. I hurried to catch up with him. He was about to turn the corner. I started to run, when from a window below which he was passing—was it pure mischance? It may have been!—a lackey drops a block of wood ...

  LE BRET Ah, the cowards! ... Cyrano!

  RAGUENEAU I reach the spot, and find him ...

  LE BRET Horrible!

  RAGUENEAU Our friend, Monsieur, our poet, stretched upon the ground, with a great hole in his head!

  LE BRET He is dead?

  RAGUENEAU No, but ... God have mercy! I carried him to his lodging ... Ah, his lodging! You should see that lodging of his! LE BRET Is he in pain?

  RAGUENEAU No, Monsieur, he is unconscious.

  LE BRET Has a doctor seen him?

  RAGUENEAU One came ... out of good nature.

  LE BRET My poor, poor Cyrano! ... We must not tell Roxane outright. And the doctor?

  RAGUENEAU He talked ... I hardly grasped ... of fever ... cerebral inflammation! Ah, if you should see him, with his head done up in cloths! ... Let us hurry ... No one is there to tend him ... And he might die if he attempted to get up!

  LE BRET [dragging RAGUENEAU off at the right] This way. Come, it is shorter through the chapel.

  ROXANE [appearing at the head of the steps, catching sight of LE BRET hurrying off through the colonnade which leads to the chapel side-door] Monsieur Le Bret! [LE BRET and RAGUENEAU make their escape without answering.] Le Bret not turning back when he is called? ... Poor Ragueneau must be in some new trouble! [She comes down the steps.]

  SCENE IV

  Roxane, alone, then briefly two Sisters

  ROXANE How beautiful ... how beautiful, this golden-hazy waning day of September at its wane! My sorrowful mood, which the exuberant gladness of April offends, Autumn, the dreamy and subdued, lures on to smile ... [She sits down at her embroidery frame. Two NUNS come from the house bringing a large armchair which they place under the tree.] Ah, here comes the classic armchair in which my old friend always sits!