of that divine madman, I uncover ...

DE GUICHE My advice to you is to ponder....

A CHAIRMAN [appearing at the back] The chair is at the door!

DE GUICHE The chapter of the windmills.

CYRANO [bowing] Chapter thirteen.

DE GUICHE For when a man attacks them, it often happens....

CYRANO I have attacked, am I to infer, a thing that veers with every wind?

DE GUICHE That one of their far-reaching canvas arms pitches him down into the mud!

CYRANO Or up among the stars! [Exit DE GUICHE. He is seen getting into his chair. The gentlemen withdraw whispering. LE BRET goes to the door with them. The crowd leaves.]

SCENE VIII

Cyrano, Le Bret, the Cadets

[The CADETS remain seated at the right and left at tables where food and drink is brought to them].

CYRANO [bowing with a derisive air to those who leave without daring to take leave of him] Gentlemen ... gentlemen ... gentlemen....

LE BRET [coming forward, greatly distressed, lifting his hands to Heaven] Oh, in what a pretty pair of shoes....

CYRANO Oh, you! ... I expect you to grumble!

LE BRET But yourself, you will agree with me that invariably to cut the throat of opportunity becomes an exaggeration! ...

CYRANO Yes. I agree. I do exaggerate.

LE BRET [triumphant] You see, you admit it! ...

CYRANO But for the sake of principle, and of example, as well, I think it a good thing to exaggerate as I do!

LE BRET Could you but leave apart, once in a while, your mousquetaire of a soul, fortune, undoubtedly, fame....

CYRANO And what should a man do? Seek some grandee, take him for patron, and like the obscure creeper clasping a tree-trunk, and licking the bark of that which props it up, attain to height by craft instead of strength? No, I thank you. Dedicate, as they all do, poems to financiers? Wear motley in the humble hope of seeing the lips of a minister distend for once in a smile not ominous of ill? No, I thank you. Eat every day a toad? Be threadbare at the belly with groveling? Have his skin dirty soonest at the knees? Practice feats of dorsal elasticity? No, I thank you. With one hand stroke the goat while with the other he waters the cabbage? Make gifts of senna46 that counter-gifts of rhubarb may accrue, and indefatigably swing his censer in some beard? No, I thank you. Push himself from lap to lap, become a little great man in a great little circle, propel his ship with madrigals for oars and in his sails the sighs of the elderly ladies? No, I thank you. Get the good editor Sercy to print his verses at proper expense?47 No, I thank you. Contrive to be nominated Pope in conclaves held by imbeciles in wineshops? No, I thank you. Work to construct a name upon the basis of a sonnet, instead of constructing other sonnets? No, I thank you. Discover talent in tyros, and in them alone? Stand in terror of what gazettes may please to say, and say to himself “At whatever cost, may I figure in the Paris Mercury!”48 No, I thank you. Calculate, cringe, peak, prefer making a call to a poem,—petition, solicit, apply? No, I thank you! No, I thank you! No, I thank you! But ... sing, dream, laugh, loaf, be single, be free, have eyes that look squarely, a voice with a ring; wear, if he chooses, his hat hindside afore; for a yes, for a no, fight a duel or turn a ditty! ... Work, without concern of fortune or of glory, to accomplish the heart‘s-desired journey to the moon! Put forth nothing that has not its spring in the very heart, yet, modest, say to himself, “Old man, be satisfied with blossoms, fruits, yea, leaves alone, so they be gathered in your garden and not another man’s!” Then, if it happens that to some small extent he triumph, be obliged to render of the glory, to Cæsar, not one jot, but honestly appropriate it all. In short, scorning to be the parasite, the creeper, if even failing to be the oak, rise, not perchance to a great height, ... but rise alone!

LE BRET Alone? Good! but not one against all! How the devil did you contract the mania that possesses you for making enemies, always, everywhere?

CYRANO By seeing you make friends, and smile to those same flocks of friends with a mouth that takes for model an old purse! I wish not to be troubled to return bows in the street, and