f stunned. De Guiche starts back):
What's this?
(When he looks up, the branch has sprung back into its place. He sees only
the sky, and is lost in amazement):
Where fell that man from?

CYRANO (sitting up, and speaking with a Gascon accent):
From the moon!

DE GUICHE:
From?. . .

CYRANO (in a dreamy voice):
What's o'clock?

DE GUICHE:
He's lost his mind, for sure!

CYRANO:
What hour? What country this? What month? What day?

DE GUICHE:
But. . .

CYRANO:
I am stupefied!

DE GUICHE:
Sir!

CYRANO:
Like a bomb
I fell from the moon!

DE GUICHE (impatiently):
Come now!

CYRANO (rising, in a terrible voice):
I say,--the moon!

DE GUICHE (recoiling):
Good, good! let it be so!. . .He's raving mad!

CYRANO (walking up to him):
I say from the moon! I mean no metaphor!. . .

DE GUICHE:
But. . .

CYRANO:
Was't a hundred years--a minute, since?
--I cannot guess what time that fall embraced!--
That I was in that saffron-colored ball?

DE GUICHE (shrugging his shoulders):
Good! let me pass!

CYRANO (intercepting him):
Where am I? Tell the truth!
Fear not to tell! Oh, spare me not! Where? where?
Have I fallen like a shooting star?

DE GUICHE:
Morbleu!

CYRANO:
The fall was lightning-quick! no time to choose
Where I should fall--I know not where it be!
Oh, tell me! Is it on a moon or earth,
that my posterior weight has landed me?

DE GUICHE:
I tell you, Sir. . .

CYRANO (with a screech of terror, which makes De Guiche start back):
No? Can it be? I'm on
A planet where men have black faces?

DE GUICHE (putting a hand to his face):
What?

CYRANO (feigning great alarm):
Am I in Africa? A native you?

DE GUICHE (who has remembered his mask):
This mask of mine. . .

CYRANO (pretending to be reassured):
In Venice? ha!--or Rome?

DE GUICHE (trying to pass):
A lady waits. .

CYRANO (quite reassured):
Oh-ho! I am in Paris!

DE GUICHE (smiling in spite of himself):
The fool is comical!

CYRANO:
You laugh?

DE GUICHE:
I laugh,
But would get by!

CYRANO (beaming with joy):
I have shot back to Paris!
(Quite at ease, laughing, dusting himself, bowing):
Come--pardon me--by the last water-spout,
Covered with ether,--accident of travel!
My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs
Encumbered by the planets' filaments!
(Picking something off his sleeve):
Ha! on my doublet