minutes past six.
CYRANO [seating himself nervously at RAGUENEAU’s table and helping himself to paper] A pen?
RAGUENEAU [taking one from behind his ear, and offering it] A swan’s quill.
A MOUSQUETAIRE [with enormous moustachios, enters; in a stentorian voice] Good-morning! [LISE goes hurriedly to him, toward the back.]
CYRANO [turning] What is it?
RAGUENEAU A friend of my wife’s,—a warrior,—terrible, from his own report.
CYRANO [taking up the pen again, and waving RAGUENEAU away] Hush! ... [To himself.] Write to her, ... fold the letter, ... hand it to her, ... and make my escape.... [Throwing, down the pen.] Coward! ... But may I perish if I have the courage to speak to her, ... to say a single word.... [To RAGUENEAU.] What time is it?
RAGUENEAU A quarter past six. CYRANO [beating his breast] A single word of all I carry here! ... Whereas in writing ... [He takes up the pen again.] Come, let us write it then, in very deed, the love-letter I have written in thought so many times, I have but to lay my soul beside my paper, and copy! [He writes.]
SCENE IV
Ragueneau, Lise, the Mousquetaire, Cyrano, writing at the little table; the Poets, dressed in black, their stocking sagging and covered in mud
[Beyond the glass-door, shadowy lank hesitating shabby forms are seen moving. Enter the poets, clad in black, with hanging hose, sadly mud-splashed.]
LISE [coming forward, to RAGUENEAU] Here they come, your scare-crows !
FIRST POET [entering, to RAGUENEAU] Brother in art! ...
SECOND POET [shaking both RAGUENEAU’s hands] Dear fellow-bard....
THIRD POET Eagle of pastrycooks, [sniffs the air], your eyrie smells divine!
FOURTH POET Phœbus34 turned baker!
FIFTH POET Apollo35 master-cook!
RAGUENEAU [surrounded, embraced, shaken by the hand] How at his ease a man feels at once with them!
FIRST POET The reason we are late, is the crowd at the Porte de Nesle!
SECOND POET Eight ugly ruffians, ripped open with the sword, lie weltering on the pavement.
CYRANO [raising his head a second] Eight? I thought there were only seven. [Goes on with his letter.]
RAGUENEAU [to CYRANO] Do you happen to know who is the hero of this event?
CYRANO [negligently] I? ... No.
LISE [to the MOUSQUETAIRE] Do you?
THE MOUSQUETAIRE [turning up the ends of his moustache] Possibly!
CYRANO writing; from time to time he is heard murmuring a word or two,] ... “I love you...”
FIRST POET A single man, we were told, put a whole gang to flight!
SECOND POET Oh, it was a rare sight! The ground was littered with pikes, and cudgels ...
CYRANO [writing] “Your eyes ...”
THIRD POET Hats were strewn as far as the Goldsmiths’ square!
FIRST POET Sapristi! He must have been a madman of mettle....
CYRANO [as above] “... your lips ...”
FIRST POET An infuriate giant, the doer of that deed!
CYRANO [same business] “... but when I see you, I come near to swooning with a tender dread ...”
SECOND POET [snapping up a tart] What have you lately written, Ragueneau?
CYRANO [same business] “... who loves you devotedly...” [In the act of signing the letter, he stops, rises, and tucks it inside his doublet.] No need to sign it, I deliver it myself.
RAGUENEAU [to SECOND POET] I have rhymed a recipe.
THIRD POET [establishing himself beside a tray of cream puffs] Let us hear this recipe!
FOURTH POET [examining a brioche of which he has possessed himself] It should not wear its cap so saucily on one side ... it scarcely looks well! ... [Bites off the top.]
FIRST POET See, the spice-cake there, ogling a susceptible poet with eyes of almond under citron brows! ... [He takes the spice-cake. ]
SECOND POET We are listening!
THIRD POET [slightly squeezing a cream puff between his fingers] This puff creams at the mouth.... I water!
SECOND POET [taking a bite out of the large pastry lyre] For once the Lyre will have filled my stomach!
RAGUENEAU [who has made ready to recite, has coughed, adjusted his cap, struck an attitude] A recipe in rhyme!
SECOND POET [to FIRST POET, nudging him] Is it breakfast, with you?
FIRST POET [to SECOND POET] And with you, is it dinner?
RAGUENEAU How Almond Cheese-Cakes should be made.
Briskly beat to lightness due,
Eggs, a few;
With the eggs so beaten, beat—
Nicely strained for this same use,—
Lemon-juice,
Adding milk of almonds, sweet.
With fine pastry dough, rolled flat,
After that,
Line each little scallopped mold;
Round the sides, light-fingered, spread
Marmalade;
Pour the liquid eggy gold,
Into each delicious pit;
Prison it
In the oven,—and, bye and bye,
Almond cheesecakes will in gay
Blond array
Bless your nostril and your eye!
THE POETS [their mouths full] Exquisite! ... Delicious!
ONE OF THE POETS [choking] Humph! [They go toward the back, eating. CYRANO, who has been watching them, approaches RAGUENEAU.]
CYRANO