ROXANE: For that Which they have all in turns loved in thee?-- Shame! Oh! be loved henceforth in a better way! CHRISTIAN: No! the first love was best! ROXANE: Ah! how you err! 'Tis now that I love best--love well! 'Tis that Which is thy true self, see!--that I adore! Were your brilliance dimmed. . . CHRISTIAN: Hush! ROXANE: I should love still! Ay, if your beauty should to-day depart. . . CHRISTIAN: Say not so! ROXANE: Ay, I say it! CHRISTIAN: Ugly? How? ROXANE: Ugly! I swear I'd love you still! CHRISTIAN: My God! ROXANE: Are you content at last? CHRISTIAN (in a choked voice): Ay!. . . ROXANE: What is wrong? CHRISTIAN (gently pushing her away): Nothing. . .I have two words to say:--one second. . . ROXANE: But?. . . CHRISTIAN (pointing to the cadets): Those poor fellows, shortly doomed to death,-- My love deprives them of the sight of you: Go,--speak to them--smile on them ere they die! ROXANE (deeply affected): Dear Christian!. . . (She goes up to the cadets, who respectfully crowd round her.) Scene 4.IX. Christian, Cyrano. At back Roxane talking to Carbon and some cadets. CHRISTIAN (calling toward Cyrano's tent): Cyrano! CYRANO (reappearing, fully armed): What? Why so pale? CHRISTIAN: She does not love me! CYRANO: What? CHRISTIAN: 'Tis you she loves! CYRANO: No! CHRISTIAN: --For she loves me only for my soul! CYRANO: Truly? CHRISTIAN: Yes! Thus--you see, that soul is you,. . . Therefore, 'tis you she loves!--And you--love her! CYRANO: I? CHRISTIAN: Oh, I know it! CYRANO: Ay, 'tis true! CHRISTIAN: You love To madness! CYRANO: Ay! and worse! CHRISTIAN: Then tell her so! CYRANO: No! CHRISTIAN: And why not? CYRANO: Look at my face!--be answered! CHRISTIAN: She'd love me--were I ugly. CYRANO: Said she so? CHRISTIAN: Ay! in those words! CYRANO: I'm glad she told you that! But pooh!--believe it not! I am well pleased She thought to tell you. Take it not for truth. Never grow ugly:--she'd reproach me then! CHRISTIAN: That I intend discovering! CYRANO: No! I beg! CHRISTIAN: Ay! she shall choose between us!--Tell her all! CYRANO: No! no! I will not have it! Spare me this! CHRISTIAN: Because my face is haply fair, shall I Destroy your happiness? 'Twere too unjust! CYRANO: And I,--because by Nature's freak I have The gift to say--all that perchance you feel. Shall I be fatal to your happiness? CHRISTIAN: Tell all! CYRANO: It is ill done to tempt me thus! CHRISTIAN: Too long I've borne about within myself A rival to myself--I'll make an end! CYRANO: Christian! CHRISTIAN: Our union, without witness--secret-- Clandestine--can be easily dissolved If we survive. CYRANO: My God!--he still persists!