Let us rather improve.... this opportunity of.... speaking softly together.... without seeing each other. ROXANE. What! To each other almost invisible? CYRANO. As now.--Let us enjoy the bliss there is In seeking to distinguish one the other. For you, I'm but the darkness of a cloak; For me, you are the whiteness of a robe. I'm shadow only, you are blessèd light! If ever you have thought me eloquent.... ROXANE. I have. CYRANO. Remember now that my words never yet came from my true heart. ROXANE. Why not? CYRANO. Because.... until now.... I have spoken to you through.... ROXANE. Through what? CYRANO. The spell that you cast upon those who bask in the light of your eyes!.... And so, this night, to me it seems as if I were about to speak to you for the first time! ROXANE. Ah! that is why your voice seems different. CYRANO (_feverish, and coming up closer to the balcony_). Yes, different; for, now that darkness shields me, I dare to be myself at last, I dare.... (_He stops, bewildered._) Where was I?.... I forget.... Pardon my confusion.... All this is so exquisite.... so new to me!.... ROXANE. So new! CYRANO (_quite bewildered, and trying to explain_). So new!.... Why! yes.... It's new to be sincere. And then.... a fear of ridicule.... ROXANE. Ridicule? For what? CYRANO. My emotional flights! My heart, through diffidence, forever calls Upon my mind to shield it from disdain: I start to cull a star, and then I halt, For fear of ridicule, to pick a floret. ROXANE. A floret has its charms. CYRANO. Disdain them now! ROXANE. You never spoke to me as now you speak! CYRANO. Oh! let us set aside the pygmy things, The superannuated niceties Of love as it is understood to-day! Why sip by drops the waters of a spring, When from a river we can freely quaff? ROXANE. But mind and wit? CYRANO. They serve to make you stay. But now 'twould be an insult to the night, To fragrance, and to fate, and nature too, If we should hold unto affected style. One look above, and artifice disarms! I fear that, with this subtle alchemy, The truth of sentiment might vapourise, The soul exhaust itself in futile play, And niceties be carried to a point So pointed that it end in nothingness! ROXANE.