Don't you know? Monsieur de Cyrano has taken an aversion for him, and, gentlemen, has forbidden him to appear on the stage for a whole month. LIGNIÈRE (_emptying his fourth glass_). Well, then? RAGUENEAU. Oh! I only came to see what is going to happen. FIRST MARQUIS (_who has come up meanwhile with Cuigy_). Who is this Cyrano? CUIGY. A capital swordsman. SECOND MARQUIS. Of noble birth? CUIGY. Sufficiently so. He is a cadet in the guards. (_Indicating a gentleman who appears to be seeking somebody._) But here's his friend Le Bret.... (_Calling_) Le Bret! (_Le Bret comes down._) You are looking for Bergerac? LE BRET. Yes, and with some anxiety.... CUIGY. Am I not right in stating that he is no ordinary man? LE BRET (_moved_). He is the most exquisite of creatures sublunary. RAGUENEAU. A rimester! CUIGY. A swordsman! BRISSAILLE. A scientist! LE BRET. A musician! LIGNIÈRE. But how strange is his appearance! RAGUENEAU. No solemn painter, like Philip de Champaigne, probably, will ever give us a portrait of him. But he is so odd, extravagant, wild and strange, that he could well have served Jacques Callot as a model for the most erratic of his fighting heroes. Three-plumed hat, astounding doublet, cloak whose folds a sword draws up behind, in stateliness, like the saucy tail of a cock.[4] Prouder than the proudest of Gascony's numberless haughty sons, he wears, above his Pulcinella ruff, a nose!.... Ah! mylords, what a nose is that nose! It is impossible, in presence of such a nose-bearer[5] not to think: "This, really, is exaggeration!" Then you will smile, and think: "Of course, he'll take it off." But Monsieur de Bergerac never takes it off. LE BRET. Never--but whoever notices that nose he wears is sure to get a swordthrust for the attention. RAGUENEAU. His sword is one of the two blades of the fatal sisters' scissors! FIRST MARQUIS (_shrugging his shoulders_). He will not come. RAGUENEAU. Oh! yes, he will. I'll bet.... a chicken....à la Ragueneau. (_Murmurs of admiration as Roxane appears in her box, where she takes a seat in front, while her duenna sits behind her. Christian, busy paying the waiter-girl, does not notice her entrance._) SECOND MARQUIS (_affectedly_). Oh! gentlemen, she is frightfully lovely! FIRST MARQUIS. A peach divine, smiling in a nest of strawberries.[6]