CYRANO: He's an author. 'Twill not fail to please him That I should mar a brother-author's play. LE BRET: You make too many enemies by far! CYRANO (eating his grapes): How many think you I have made to-night? LE BRET: Forty, no less, not counting ladies. CYRANO: Count! LE BRET: Montfleury first, the bourgeois, then De Guiche, The Viscount, Baro, the Academy. . . CYRANO: Enough! I am o'erjoyed! LE BRET: But these strange ways, Where will they lead you, at the end? Explain Your system--come! CYRANO: I in a labyrinth Was lost--too many different paths to choose; I took. . . LE BRET: Which? CYRANO: Oh! by far the simplest path. . . Decided to be admirable in all! LE BRET (shrugging his shoulders): So be it! But the motive of your hate To Montfleury--come, tell me! CYRANO (rising): This Silenus, Big-bellied, coarse, still deems himself a peril-- A danger to the love of lovely ladies, And, while he sputters out his actor's part, Makes sheep's eyes at their boxes--goggling frog! I hate him since the evening he presumed To raise his eyes to hers. . .Meseemed I saw A slug crawl slavering o'er a flower's petals! LE BRET (stupefied): How now? What? Can it be. . .? CYRANO (laughing bitterly): That I should love?. . . (Changing his tone, gravely): I love. LE BRET: And may I know?. . .You never said. . . CYRANO: Come now, bethink you!. . .The fond hope to be Beloved, e'en by some poor graceless lady, Is, by this nose of mine for aye bereft me; --This lengthy nose which, go where'er I will, Pokes yet a quarter-mile ahead of me; But I may love--and who? 'Tis Fate's decree I love the fairest--how were't otherwise? LE BRET: The fairest?. . . CYRANO: Ay, the fairest of the world, Most brilliant--most refined--most golden-haired! LE BRET: Who is this lady? CYRANO: She's a danger mortal, All unsuspicious--full of charms unconscious, Like a sweet perfumed rose--a snare of nature, Within whose petals Cupid lurks in ambush! He who has seen her smile has known perfection, --Instilling into trifles grace's essence, Divinity in every careless gesture; Not Venus' self can mount her conch blown sea-ward, As she can step into her chaise a porteurs, Nor Dian fleet across the woods spring-flowered, Light as my Lady o'er the stones of Paris!. . . LE BRET: Sapristi! all is clear! CYRANO: As spiderwebs! LE BRET: Your cousin, Madeleine Robin? CYRANO: Roxane! LE BRET: Well, but so much the better! Tell her so! She saw your triumph here this very night!