Part 4 (1/2)
JODELET [nimbly picking up the bag, weighing it with his hand] [nimbly picking up the bag, weighing it with his hand] For such a price, you are authorized, monsieur, to come and stop the performance every day! For such a price, you are authorized, monsieur, to come and stop the performance every day!
THE HOUSE Hoo! ... Hoo! ...
JODELET Should we be hooted in a body! ...
BELLEROSE The house must be evacuated!
JODELET Evacuate it!
[The audience begins to leave; CYRANO looking on with a satisfied air. The crowd, however, becoming interested in the following scene, the exodus is suspended. The women in the boxes who were already standing and had put on their wraps, stop to listen and end by resuming their seats.]
LE BRET [to CYRANO] What you have done ... is mad! CYRANO] What you have done ... is mad!
A BORE Montfleury! ... the eminent actor! ... What a scandal ! ... But the Duc de Candale is his patron! ... Have you a patron, you?
CYRANO No!
THE BORE You have not.
CYRANO No!
THE BORE What?You are not protected by some great n.o.bleman under the cover of whose name....
CYRANO [exasperated] [exasperated] No, I have told you twice. Must I say the same thing thrice? No, I have no protector ... No, I have told you twice. Must I say the same thing thrice? No, I have no protector ... [hand on sword] [hand on sword] but this will do. but this will do.
THE BORE Then, of course, you will leave town.
CYRANO That will depend.
THE BORE But the Duc de Candale has a long arm ...
CYRANO Not so long as mine ... [pointing to his sword] pieced out with this!
THE BORE But you cannot have the presumption ...
CYRANO I can, yes.
THE BORE But ...
CYRANO And now ... face about!
THE BORE But ...
CYRANO Face about, I say ... or else, tell me why you are looking at my nose.
THE BORE [bewildered] [bewildered] I ... I ...
CYRANO [advancing [advancing upon upon him] him] In what is it unusual? In what is it unusual?
THE BORE [backing] [backing] Your wors.h.i.+p is mistaken. Your wors.h.i.+p is mistaken.
CYRANO [same business as above] [same business as above] Is it flabby and pendulous, like a proboscis? Is it flabby and pendulous, like a proboscis?
THE BORE I never said ...
CYRANO Or hooked like a hawk's beak?
THE BORE I...
CYRANO Do you discern a mole upon the tip?
THE BORE But ...
CYRANO Or is a fly disporting himself thereon? What is there wonderful about it?
THE BORE Oh ...
CYRANO Is it a freak of nature?
THE BORE But I had refrained from casting so much as a glance at it!
CYRANO And why, I pray, should you not look at it?
THE BORE I had ...
CYRANO So it disgusts you?
THE BORE Sir ...
CYRANO Its color strikes you as unwholesome?
THE BORE Sir ...
CYRANO Its shape, unfortunate?
THE BORE But far from it!
CYRANO Then wherefore that depreciating air? ... Perhaps monsieur thinks it a shade too large?
THE BORE Indeed not. No, indeed. I think it small ... small,-I should have said, minute!
CYRANO What? How? Charge me with such a ridiculous defect? Small, my nose? Ho! ...
THE BORE Heavens!
CYRANO Enormous, my nose! ... Contemptible stutterer, snub-nosed and flat-headed, be it known to you that I am proud, proud of such an appendage! inasmuch as a great nose is properly the index of an affable, kindly, courteous man, witty, liberal, brave, such as I am! and such as you are for evermore precluded from supposing yourself, deplorable rogue! For the inglorious surface my hand encounters above your ruff, is no less devoid-[Strikes him]