backward, reading a small book which he has taken from his pocket. Tableau. Enter DE GUICHE. Every one appears absorbed and satisfied. DE GUICHE is very pale. He goes toward CARBON.]
SCENE IV
The Same, De Guiche
DE GUICHE [to CARBON] Ah, good-morning. [They look at each other attentively. Aside, with satisfaction] He is pale as plaster.
CARBON [same business] His eyes are all that is left of him.
DE GUICHE [looking at the CADETS] So here are the wrong-headed rascals? ... Yes, gentlemen, it is reported to me on every side that I am your scoff and derision; that the cadets, highland nobility, Béarn clodhoppers, Perigord baronets, cannot express sufficient contempt for their colonel; call me intriguer, courtier, find it irksome to their taste that I should wear, with my cuirass, a collar of Genoese point, and never cease to air their wondering indignation that a man should be a Gascon without being a vagabond! [Silence. The CADETS continue smoking and playing] Shall I have you punished by your captain? ... I do not like to.
CARBON Did you otherwise, however, ... I am free, and punish only ...
DE GUICHE Ah? ...
CARBON My company is paid by myself, belongs to me. I obey no orders but such as relate to war.
DE GUICHE Ah, is it so? Enough, then. I will treat your taunts with simple scorn. My fashion of deporting myself under fire is well known. You are not unaware of the manner in which yesterday, at Bapaume, I forced back the columns of the Comte de Bucquoi; gathering my men together to plunge forward like an avalanche, three times I charged him....
CYRANO [without lifting his nose from his book] And your white scarf?
DE GLIICHE [surprised and self-satisfied) You heard of that circumstance ? ... In fact, it happened that as I was wheeling about to collect my men for the third charge, I was caught in a stream of fugitives which bore me onward to the edge of the enemy. I was in danger of being captured and cut off with an arquebuse, when I had the presence of mind to untie and let slip to the ground the white scarf which proclaimed my military grade. Thus was I enabled, undistinguished, to withdraw from among the Spaniards, and thereupon returning with my reinspirited men, to defeat them. Well? . . . What do you say to the incident? [The CADETS have appeared not to be listening; at this point, however, hands with cards and dice-boxes remain suspended in the air; no pipe-smoke is ejected; all expresses expectation.]
CYRANO That never would Henry the Fourth, however great the number of his opponents, have consented to diminish his presence by the size of his white plume.60 [Silent joy. Cards fall, dice rattle, smoke upwreathes.]
DE GUICHE The trick was successful, however! [As before, expectation suspends gambling and smoking.]
CYRANO Very likely. But one should not resign the honor of being a target. [Cards, dice, smoke, fall, rattle, and upwreathe, as before, in expression of increasing glee.] Had I been at hand when you allowed your scarf to drop—the quality of our courage, monsieur, shows different in this,-I would have picked it up and worn it....
DE GUICHE Ah, yes,-more of your Gascon bragging! ...
CYRANO Bragging? ... Lend me the scarf. I engage to mount, ahead of all, to the assault, wearing it crosswise upon my breast!
DE GUICHE A Gascon’s offer, that too! You know that the scarf was left in the enemy’s camp, by the banks of the Scarpe, where bullets since then have hailed... whence no one can bring it back!
CYRANO [taking a white scarf from his pocket and handing it to DE GUICHE] Here it is. [Silence. The CADETS smother their laughter behind cards and in dice-boxes. DE GUICHE turns around, looks at them; instantly they become grave; one of them, with an air if unconcern, whistles the tune played earlier by the fifer]
DE GUICHE [taking the scarf] I thank you. I shall be able with this shred of white to make a signal... which I was hesitating to make ... [He goes to the top of the bank and waves the scarf.]
ALL What now? ... What is this?
THE SENTINEL [at the top of the bank] A man ... over there ... running off ...
DE GUICHE [coming forward again] It is a supposed Spanish spy. He is very useful to us. The information he carries to the enemy is that which I give him,—so that their decisions are influenced by us.
CYRANO He is a scoundrel!
DE GUICHE [coolly tying