CYRANO: Now, how to detain De Guiche so long? (He jumps on the bench, climbs to the balcony by the wall): Come!. . .up I go!. . .I have my plan!. . . (The lutes begin to play a very sad air): What, ho! (The tremolo grows more and more weird): It is a man! ay! 'tis a man this time! (He is on the balcony, pulls his hat over his eyes, takes off his sword, wraps himself in his cloak, then leans over): 'Tis not too high! (He strides across the balcony, and drawing to him a long branch of one of the trees that are by the garden wall, he hangs on to it with both hands, ready to let himself fall): I'll shake this atmosphere! Scene 3.XI. Cyrano, De Guiche. DE GUICHE (who enters, masked, feeling his way in the dark): What can that cursed Friar be about? CYRANO: The devil!. . .If he knows my voice! (Letting go with one hand, he pretends to turn an invisible key. Solemnly): Cric! Crac! Assume thou, Cyrano, to serve the turn, The accent of thy native Bergerac!. . . DE GUICHE (looking at the house): 'Tis there. I see dim,--this mask hinders me! (He is about to enter, when Cyrano leaps from the balcony, holding on to the branch, which bends, dropping him between the door and De Guiche; he pretends to fall heavily, as from a great height, and lies flat on the ground, motionless, as if stunned. De Guiche starts back): What's this? (When he looks up, the branch has sprung back into its place. He sees only the sky, and is lost in amazement): Where fell that man from? CYRANO (sitting up, and speaking with a Gascon accent): From the moon! DE GUICHE: From?. . . CYRANO (in a dreamy voice): What's o'clock? DE GUICHE: He's lost his mind, for sure! CYRANO: What hour? What country this? What month? What day? DE GUICHE: But. . . CYRANO: I am stupefied! DE GUICHE: Sir! CYRANO: Like a bomb I fell from the moon! DE GUICHE (impatiently): Come now! CYRANO (rising, in a terrible voice): I say,--the moon! DE GUICHE (recoiling): Good, good! let it be so!. . .He's raving mad! CYRANO (walking up to him): I say from the moon! I mean no metaphor!. . . DE GUICHE: But. . . CYRANO: Was't a hundred years--a minute, since? --I cannot guess what time that fall embraced!-- That I was in that saffron-colored ball? DE GUICHE (shrugging his shoulders): Good! let me pass! CYRANO (intercepting him): Where am I? Tell the truth! Fear not to tell! Oh, spare me not! Where? where? Have I fallen like a shooting star? DE GUICHE: Morbleu! CYRANO: The fall was lightning-quick! no time to choose Where I should fall--I know not where it be! Oh, tell me! Is it on a moon or earth, that my posterior weight has landed me? DE GUICHE: I tell you, Sir. . . CYRANO (with a screech of terror, which makes De Guiche start back): No? Can it be? I'm on A planet where men have black faces? DE GUICHE (putting a hand to his face): What?