From the Pages of

CYRANO DE BERGERAC

Hat with triple feather, doublet with twice-triple skirt, cloak which his interminable rapier lifts up behind, with pomp, like the insolent tail of a cock; prouder than all the Artabans that Gascony ever bred, he goes about in his stiff Punchinello ruff, airing a nose.... Ah, gentlemen, what a nose is that! (page 16)

His blade is half the shears of Fate! (page 16)

Face about, I say ... or else, tell me why you are looking at my nose.(page 27)

Be it known to you that I am proud, proud of such an appendage! inasmuch as a great nose is properly the index of an affable, kindly, courteous man, witty, liberal, brave, such as I am! (page 28)

“It is a crag!... a peak! ... a promontory! ... A promontory, did I say? ... It is a peninsula!” (page 29)

Of wit, O most pitiable of objects made by God, you never had a rudiment, and of letters, you have just those that are needed to spell “fool!” (page 30)

My foppery is of the inner man. (page 30)

I am without gloves? ... a mighty matter! I only had one left, of a very ancient pair, and even that became a burden to me ... I left it in somebody’s face. (page 31)

My rapier prickles like a foot asleep! (page 31)

As I follow with my eyes some woman passing with some cavalier, I think how dear would I hold having to walk beside me, linked like that, slowly, in the soft moonlight, such a one! I kindle—I forget—and then... then suddenly I see the shadow of my profile upon the garden-wall! (page 38)

To displease is my pleasure. I love that one should hate me. Dear friend, if you but knew how much better a man walks under the exciting fire of hostile eyes, and how amused he may become over the spots on his doublet, spattered by Envy and Cowardice! (page 70)

 

Eloquence I will lend you! ... And you, to me, shall lend all-conquering physical charm... and between us we will compose a hero of romance! (page 75)

 

Roxane shall not have disillusions! Tell me, shall we win her heart, we two as one? will you submit to feel, transmitted from my leather doublet into your doublet stitched with silk, the soul I wish to share?

(page 76)

 

You shall never find us—poets!—without epistles in our pockets to the Chlorises ... of our imagining! (page 76)

 

My heart always cowers behind the defence of my wit. (page 93)

 

Your name is in my heart the golden clapper in a bell; and as I know no rest, Roxane, always the heart is shaken, and ever rings your name!

(page 94)

 

Terrible and jealous, is love ... with all its mournful frenzy!

(page 94)

 

The madman is erudite. (page 104)

 

I came to implore your pardon—as it is fitting, for we are both perhaps about to die!—your pardon for having done you the wrong, at first, in my shallowness, of loving you... for mere looking!

(page 132)

 

While I have stood below in darkness, others have climbed to gather the kiss and glory! (page 158)

Thanks to you there has passed across my life the rustle of a woman’s gown. (page 158)