CYRANO: . . .To be a musketeer, with handsome face! CHRISTIAN: Roxane is precieuse. I'm sure to prove A disappointment to her! CYRANO (looking at him): Had I but Such an interpreter to speak my soul! CHRISTIAN (with despair): Eloquence! Where to find it? CYRANO (abruptly): That I lend, If you lend me your handsome victor-charms; Blended, we make a hero of romance! CHRISTIAN: How so? CYRANO: Think you you can repeat what things I daily teach your tongue? CHRISTIAN: What do you mean? CYRANO: Roxane shall never have a disillusion! Say, wilt thou that we woo her, double-handed? Wilt thou that we two woo her, both together? Feel'st thou, passing from my leather doublet, Through thy laced doublet, all my soul inspiring? CHRISTIAN: But, Cyrano!. . . CYRANO: Will you, I say? CHRISTIAN: I fear! CYRANO: Since, by yourself, you fear to chill her heart, Will you--to kindle all her heart to flame-- Wed into one my phrases and your lips? CHRISTIAN: Your eyes flash! CYRANO: Will you? CHRISTIAN: Will it please you so? --Give you such pleasure? CYRANO (madly): It!. . . (Then calmly, business-like): It would amuse me! It is an enterprise to tempt a poet. Will you complete me, and let me complete you? You march victorious,--I go in your shadow; Let me be wit for you, be you my beauty! CHRISTIAN: The letter, that she waits for even now! I never can. . . CYRANO (taking out the letter he had written): See! Here it is--your letter! CHRISTIAN: What? CYRANO: Take it! Look, it wants but the address. CHRISTIAN: But I. . . CYRANO: Fear nothing. Send it. It will suit. CHRISTIAN: But have you. . .? CYRANO: Oh! We have our pockets full, We poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes, Daphnes--creations of our noddle-heads. Our lady-loves,--phantasms of our brains, --Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles! Come! Take it, and change feigned love-words into true; I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise; Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest. You'll see that I was in these lettered lines, --Eloquent all the more, the less sincere! --Take it, and make an end! CHRISTIAN: Were it not well To change some words? Written haphazard-wise, Will it fit Roxane? CYRANO: 'Twill fit like a glove! CHRISTIAN: But. . . CYRANO: Ah, credulity of love! Roxane Will think each word inspired by herself! CHRISTIAN: My friend! (He throws himself into Cyrano's arms. They remain thus.) Scene 2.XI. Cyrano, Christian, the Gascons, the musketeer, Lise. A CADET (half opening the door): Naught here!. . .The silence of the grave! I dare not look. . . (He puts his head in): Why?. . . ALL THE CADETS (entering, and seeing Cyrano and Christian embracing): Oh!. . . A CADET: This passes all! (Consternation.) THE MUSKETEER (mockingly): Ho, ho!. . .