Hush!
(To himself):
I will write, fold it, give it her, and fly!
(Throws down the pen):
Coward!. . .But strike me dead if I dare to speak to her,. . .ay, even one
single word!
(To Ragueneau):
What time is it?

RAGUENEAU:
A quarter after six!. . .

CYRANO (striking his breast):
Ay--a single word of all those here! here! But writing, 'tis easier done. .
.
(He takes up the pen):
Go to, I will write it, that love-letter! Oh! I have writ it and rewrit it
in my own mind so oft that it lies there ready for pen and ink; and if I lay
but my soul by my letter-sheet, 'tis naught to do but to copy from it.

(He writes. Through the glass of the door the silhouettes of their figures
move uncertainly and hesitatingly.)

Scene 2.IV.

Ragueneau, Lise, the musketeer. Cyrano at the little table writing. The
poets, dressed in black, their stockings ungartered, and covered with mud.

LISE (entering, to Ragueneau):
Here they come, your mud-bespattered friends!

FIRST POET (entering, to Ragueneau):
Brother in art!. . .

SECOND POET (to Ragueneau, shaking his hands):
Dear brother!

THIRD POET:
High soaring eagle among pastry-cooks!
(He sniffs):
Marry! it smells good here in your eyrie!

FOURTH POET:
'Tis at Phoebus' own rays that thy roasts turn!

FIFTH POET:
Apollo among master-cooks--

RAGUENEAU (whom they surround and embrace):
Ah! how quick a man feels at his ease with them!. . .

FIRST POET:
We were stayed by the mob; they are crowded all round the Porte de Nesle!. .
.

SECOND POET:
Eight bleeding brigand carcasses strew the pavements there--all slit open
with sword-gashes!

CYRANO (raising his head a minute):
Eight?. . .hold, methought seven.

(He goes on writing.)

RAGUENEAU (to Cyrano):
Know you who might be the hero of the fray?

CYRANO (carelessly):
Not I.

LISE (to the musketeer):
And you? Know you?

THE MUSKETEER (twirling his mustache):
Maybe!

CYRANO (writing a little way off:--he is heard murmuring a word from time to
time):
'I love thee!'

FIRST POET:
'Twas one man, say they all, ay, swear to it, one man who, single-handed,
put the whole band to the rout!

SECOND POET:
'Twas a strange sight!--pikes and cudgels strewed thick upon the ground.

CYRANO (writing):
. . .'Thine eyes'. . .

THIRD POET:
And they were picking up hats all the way to the Quai d'Orfevres!

FIRST POET:
Sapristi! but he must have been a