Cyrano de Bergerac

by Edmond Rostand

  SISTER MARTHA The best in the convent parlor!

  ROXANE I thank you, sister. [The nuns withdraw.] He will be here in a moment. [She adjusts the embroidery frame before her.] There! The clock is striking ... My wools! ... The clock has struck? ... I wonder at this! ... Is it possible that for the first time he is late? ... It must be that the sister who keeps the door ... my thimble? ah, here it is! ... is detaining him to exhort him to repentance ... [A pause.] She exhorts him at some length! ... He cannot be much longer ... A withered leaf! [She brushes away the dead leaf which has dropped on the embroidery.] Surely nothing could keep ... My scissors? ... in my workbag! ... could keep him from coming!

  A NUN [appearing at the head of the steps] Monsieur de Bergerac!

  SCENE V

  Roxane, Cyrano, briefly Sister Martha

  ROXANE [without turning round] What was I saying? ... [She begins to embroider. CYRANO appears, exceedingly pale, his hat drawn down over his eyes. The NUN who has shown him into the garden, withdraws. He comes down the steps very slowly, with evident difficulty to keep on his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. ROXANE proceeds with her sewing.] Ah, these dull soft shades! ... How shall I match them? [To CYRANO, in a tone of friendly chiding.] After fourteen years, for the first time you are late!

  CYRANO [who has reached the armchair and seated himself, in a jolly voice which contrasts with his face.] Yes, it seems incredible! I am savage at it. I was detained, spite of all I could do! ...

  ROXANE By? ...

  CYRANO A somewhat inopportune call.

  ROXANE [absent-minded, sewing] Ah, yes ... some troublesome fellow!

  CYRANO Cousin, it was a troublesome Madam.

  ROXANE You excused yourself?

  CYRANO Yes. I said, “Your pardon, but this is Saturday, on which day I am due in certain dwelling. On no account do I ever fail. Come back in an hour!”

  ROXANE [lightly] Well, she will have to wait some time to see you. I shall not let you go before evening.

  CYRANO Perhaps ... I shall have to go a little earlier. [He closes his eyes and is silent a moment.] [SISTER MARTHA is seen crossing the park from the chapel to the terrace. ROXANE sees her and beckons to her by a slight motion of her head.]

  ROXANE [to CYRANO] Are you not going to tease Sister Martha to-day?

  CYRANO [quickly, opening his eyes] I am indeed! [In a comically gruff voice.] Sister Martha, come nearer! [The NUN demurely comes toward him.] Ha! ha! ha! Beautiful eyes, ever studying the ground!

  SISTER MARTHA [lifting her eyes and smiling] But ... [She sees his face and makes a gesture of surprise] Oh!

  CYRANO [low, pointing at ROXANE] Hush! ... It is nothing! [In a swaggering voice, aloud.] Yesterday, I ate meat!

  SISTER MARTHA I am sure you did! [Aside.] That is why he is so pale! [Quickly, low.] Come to the refectory presently. I shall have ready for you there a good bowl of broth ... You will come!

  CYRANO Yes, yes, yes.

  SISTER MARTHA Ah, you are more reasonable tò-day!

  ROXANE [hearing them whisper] She is trying to convert you?

  SISTER MARTHA Indeed I am not!

  CYRANO It is true, you, usually almost discursive in the holy cause, are reading me no sermon! You amaze me! [With comical fury.] I will amaze you, too! Listen, you are authorized ... [With the air of casting about in his mind, and finding the jest he wants.] Ah, now I shall amaze you! to ... pray for me, this evening ... in the chapel.

  ROXANE Oh! oh!

  CYRANO [laughing] Sister Martha ... lost in amazement!

  SISTER MARTHA [gently] I did not wait for your authorization. [She goes in.]

  CYRANO [turning to ROXANE, who is bending over her embroidery] The devil, tapestry ... the devil, if I hope to live to see the end of you!

  ROXANE I was waiting for that jest. [A slight gust of wind makes the leaves fall.]

  CYRANO The leaves!

  ROXANE [looking up from her work and gazing off toward the avenues] They are the russet gold of a Venetian beauty’s hair ... Watch them fall!

  CYRANO How consummately they do it! In that brief fluttering from bough to ground, how they contrive still to put beauty! And though foredoomed to moulder upon the earth that draws them, they wish their fall invested with the grace of a free bird’s flight!

  ROXANE Serious, you?

  CYRANO [remembering himself] Not at all, Roxane!

  ROXANE Come, never mind the falling leaves! Tell me the news, instead ... Where is my budget?70

  CYRANO Here it is!

  ROXANE Ah!

  CYRANO [growing paler and paler, and struggling with pain] Saturday, the nineteenth: The king having filled his dish eight times with Cette71 preserves, and emptied it, was taken with a fever; his distemper, for high treason, was condemned to be let blood, and now the royal pulse is rid of febriculosity! On Sunday: at the Queen’s great ball, were burned seven hundred and sixty-three wax candles; our troops, it is said, defeated Austrian John;‡ four sorcerers were hanged; Madame Athis’s little dog had a distressing turn, the case called for a ...

  ROXANE Monsieur de Bergerac, leave out the little dog!

  CYRANO Monday, ... nothing, or next to it: Lygdamire took a fresh lover.

  ROXANE Oh!

  CYRANO [over whose face is coming a change more and more marked] Tuesday: the whole Court assembled at Fontainebleau. Wednesday, the fair Monglat said to Count Fiesco “No!” Thursday, Mancini, Queen of France, ... or little less. Twenty-fifth, the fair Monglat said to Count Fiesco “Yes!” And Saturday, the twenty-sixth ... [He closes his eyes. His head drops on his breast. Silence. ]

  ROXANE [surprised at hearing nothing further, turns, looks at him and starts to her feet in alarm] Has he fainted? [She runs to him, calling.] Cyrano!

  CYRANO [opening his eyes, in a faint voice] What is it? ... What is the matter! [He sees ROXANE bending over him, hurriedly readjusts his hat, pulling it more closely over his head, and shrinks back in his armchairr in terror] No! no! I assure you, it is nothing! ... Do not mind me!

  ROXANE But surely ...

  CYRANO It is merely the wound I received at Arras ... Sometimes ... you know ... even now ...

  ROXANE Poor friend!

  CYRANO But it is nothing ... It will pass ... [He smiles with effort] It has passed.

  ROXANE Each one of us has his wound: I too have mine. It is here, never to heal, that ancient wound ... [She places her hand on her breast.] It is here, beneath the yellowing letter on which are still faintly visible tear-drops and drops of blood! [The light is beginning to grow less]

  CYRANO His letter? ... Did you not once say that some day ... you might show it to me?

  ROXANE Ah! ... Do you wish? ... His letter?

  CYRANO Yes ... to-day ... I wish to ...

  ROXANE [handing him the little bag from her neck] Here! CYRANO I may open it?

  ROXANE Open it ... read! [She goes back to her embroidery frame, folds it up, orders her wools.]

  CYRANO “Good-bye, Roxane! I am going to die!”

  ROXANE [stopping in astonishment] You are reading it aloud?

  CYRANO [reading] “It is fated to come this evening, beloved, I believe! My soul is heavy, oppressed with love it had not time to utter ... and now Time is at end! Never again, never again shall my worshipping eyes ...”

  ROXANE How strangely you read his letter!

  CYRANO [continuing] “... whose passionate revel it was, kiss in its fleeting grace your every gesture. One, usual to you, of tucking back a little curl, comes to my mind ... and I cannot refrain from crying out ...

  ROXANE How strangely you read his letter! ... [The darkness gradually increases]

  CYRANO “and I cry out: Good-bye!”

  ROXANE You read it ...

  CYRANO “my dearest, my darling, ... my treasure ...”

  ROXANE ... in a voice ...

  CYRANO “... my love! ...”

  ROXANE ... in a voice ... a voice which I am not hearing for the first time! [ROXANE comes quietly nearer to him, withou
t his seeing it; she steps behind his armchair, bends noiselessly over his shoulder, looks at the letter. The darkness deepens.]

  CYRANO “... My heart never desisted for a second from your side ... and I am and shall be in the world that has no end, the one who loved you without measure, the one ...”

  ROXANE [laying her hand on his shoulder] How can you go on reading? It is dark. [CYRANO starts, and turns round; sees her close to him, makes a gesture of dismay and hangs his head. Then, in the darkness which has completely closed round them, she says slowly, clasping her hands.] And he, for fourteen years, has played the part of the comical old friend who came to cheer me!

  CYRANO Roxane!

  ROXANE So it was you.

  CYRANO No, no, Roxane!

  ROXANE I ought to have divined it, if only by the way in which he speaks my name!

  CYRANO No, it was not I!

  ROXANE So it was you!

  CYRANO I swear to you ...

  ROXANE Ah, I detect at last the whole generous imposture: The letters ... were yours!

  CYRANO No!

  OXANE The tender fancy, the dear folly.... yours!

  CYRANO No!

  ROXANE The voice in the night, was yours!

  CYRANO I swear to you that it was not!

  ROXANE The soul ... was yours!

  CYRANO I did not love you, no!

  ROXANE And you loved me!

  CYRANO Not I ... it was the other!

  ROXANE You loved me!

  CYRANO No!

  ROXANE Already your denial comes more faintly!

  CYRANO No, no, my darling love, I did not love you!

  ROXANE Ah, how many things within the hour have died ... how many have been born! Why, why have you been silent these long years, when on this letter, in which he had no part, the tears were yours?

  CYRANO [handing her the letter] Because ... the blood was his. ROXANE Then why let the sublime bond of this silence be loosed to-day?

  CYRANO Why? [LE BRET and RAGUENEAU enter running.]

  SCENE VI

  The Same, Le Bret and Ragueneau

  LE BRET Madness! Monstrous madness! ... Ah, I was sure of it! There he is!

  CYRANO [smiling and straightening himself] Tiens! Where else?

  LE BRET Madame, he is likely to have got his death by getting out of bed!

  ROXANE Merciful God! A moment ago, then ... that faintness ... that ... ?

  CYRANO It is true. I had not finished telling you the news. And on Saturday, the twenty-sixth, an hour after sundown, Monsieur de Bergerac died of murder done upon him. [He takes off his hat; his head is seen wrapped in bandages.]

  ROXANE What is he saying? ... Cyrano? ... Those bandages about his head? ... Ah, what have they done to you? ... Why? ...

  CYRANO “Happy who falls, cut off by a hero, with an honest sword through his heart!” I am quoting from myself! ... Fate will have his laugh at us! ... Here am I killed, in a trap, from behind, by a lackey, with a log! Nothing could be completer! In my whole life I shall have not had anything I wanted ... not even a decent death!

  RAGUENEAU Ah, monsieur! ...

  CYRANO Ragueneau, do not sob like that! [Holding out his hand to him.] And what is the news with you, these latter days, fellow-poet?

  RAGUENEAU [through his tears] I am candle-snuffer at Molière’s theatre.

  CYRANO Molière!

  RAGUENEAU But I intend to leave no later than to-morrow. Yes, I am indignant! Yesterday, they were giving Scapin, and I saw that he has appropriated a scene of yours.72

  LE BRET A whole scene?

  RAGUENEAU Yes, monsieur. The one in which occurs the famous “What the devil was he doing in ...”

  LE BRET Molière has taken that from you!

  CYRANO Hush! hush! He did well to take it! [To RAGUENEAU.] The scene was very effective, was it not?

  RAGUENEAU Ah, monsieur, the public laughed ... laughed!

  CYRANO Yes, to the end, I shall have been the one who prompted ... and was forgotten! [To ROXANE.] Do you remember that evening on which Christian spoke to you from below the balcony? There was the epitome of my life: while I have stood below in darkness, others have climbed to gather the kiss and glory! It is well done, and on the brink of my grave I approve it: Molière has genius ... Christian was a fine fellow! [At this moment, the chapel bell having rung, the NUNS are seen passing at the back, along the avenue, on their way to service.] Let them hasten to their prayers ... the bell is summoning them ...

  ROXANE [rising and calling] Sister! Sister!

  CYRANO [holding her back] No! No! do not leave me to fetch anybody! When you come back I might not be here to rejoice ... [The NUNS have gone into the chapel; the organ is heard.] I longed for a little music ... it comes in time!

  ROXANE I love you ... you shall live!

  CYRANO No! for it is only in the fairy-tale that the shy and awkward prince when he hears the beloved say “I love you!” feels his ungainliness melt and drop from him in the sunshine of those words! ... But you would always know full well, dear Heart, that there had taken place in your poor slave no beautifying change!

  ROXANE I have hurt you ... I have wrecked your life, I! ... I!

  CYRANO You? ... The reverse! Woman’s sweetness I had never known. My mother ... thought me unflattering. I had no sister. Later, I shunned Love’s cross-road in fear of mocking eyes. To you I owe having had, at least, among the gentle and fair, a friend. Thanks to you there has passed across my life the rustle of a woman’s gown.

  LE BRET [calling his attention to the moonlight peering through the branches] Your other friend, among the gentle and fair, is there ... she comes to see you!

  CYRANO [smiling to the moon] I see her!

  ROXANE I never loved but one ... and twice I lose him!

  CYRANO Le Bret, I shall ascend into the opalescent moon, without need this time of a flying-machine!

  ROXANE What are you saying?

  CYRANO Yes, it is there, you may be sure, I shall be sent for my Paradise. More than one soul of those I have loved must be apportioned there ... There I shall find Socrates and Galileo!

  LE BRET [in revolt] No! No! It is too senseless, too cruel, too unfair! So true a poet! So great a heart! To die ... like this! To die! ...

  CYRANO As ever ... Le Bret is grumbling!

  LE BRET [bursting into tears] My friend! My friend!

  CYRANO [lifting himself, his eyes wild] They are the Gascony Cadets! ... Man in the gross ... Eh, yes! ... the weakness of the weakest point ...

  LE BRET Learned ... even in his delirium!...

  CYRANO Copernicus said ...

  ROXANE Oh!

  CYRANO But what the devil was he doing ... and what the devil was he doing in that galley?

  Philosopher and physicist,

  Musician, rhymester, duellist,

  Explorer of the upper blue,

  Retorter apt with point and point,

  Lover as well,—not for his peace!

  Here lies Hercule Savinien

  De Cyrano de Bergerac,

  Who was everything ... but of account!73

  But, your pardons, I must go ... I wish to keep no one waiting ... See, a moon-beam, come to take me home! [He has dropped in his chair; ROXANE’s weeping calls him back to reality; he looks at her and gently stroking her mourning veil.] I do not wish ... indeed, I do not wish ... that you should sorrow less for Christian, the comely and the kind! Only I wish that when the everlasting cold shall have seized upon my fibres, this funereal veil should have a twofold meaning, and the mourning you wear for him be worn for me too ... a little!

  ROXANE I promise ...

  CYRANO [seized with a great shivering, starts to his feet] Not there! No! Not in an elbow-chair! [All draw nearer to help him.] Let no one stay me! No one! [He goes and stands against the tree.] Nothing but this tree! [Silence.] She comes, Mors, the indiscriminate Madam! ... Already I am booted with marble ... gauntleted with lead! [He stiffens himself.] Ah, since she is on her way, I will await her standing ... [
He draws his sword.] Sword in hand!

  LE BRET Cyrano!

  ROXANE [swooning] Cyrano! [All start back, terrified.]

  CYRANO I believe she is looking at me ... that she dares to look at my nose, the bony baggage who has none! [He raises his sword.] What are you saying? That it is no use? ... I know it! But one does not fight because there is hope of winning! No! ... no! ... it is much finer to fight when it is no use! ... What are all those? You are a thousand strong? ... Ah, I know you now ... all my ancient enemies! ... Hypocrisy? ... [He beats with his sword, in the vacancy.] Take this! And this! Ha! Ha! Compromises? ... and Prejudices? and dastardly Expedients? [He strikes.] That I should come to terms, I? ... Never! Never! ... Ah, you are there too, you, bloated and pompous Silliness! I know full well that you will lay me low at last ... No matter: whilst I have breath, I will fight you, I will fight you, I will fight you! [He waves his sword in great sweeping circles, and stops, panting.] Yes, you have wrested from me everything, laurel as well as rose ... Work your wills! ... Spite of your worst, something will still be left me to take whither I go ... and to-night when I enter God’s house, in saluting, broadly will I sweep the azure threshold with what despite of all I carry forth unblemished and unbent ... [He starts forward, with lifted sword.] ... and that is ... [The sword falls from his hands, he staggers, drops in the arms of LE BRET and RAGUENEAU.]

  ROXANE [bending over him and kissing his forehead] That is? ...

  CYRANO [opens his eyes again, recognizes her and says with a smile] ... My plume! [Curtain.]

  Inspired by

  CYRANO DE BERGERAC

  Edmond Rostand’s beloved tragicomic character has inspired other works almost from the moment he appeared on the Paris stage for the first time in 1897.