Cyrano de Bergerac

“Let’s call it my vice. It pleases me to displease. I love to be hated. If you only knew how stimulating it is to be under the murderous fire of hostile eyes, and how amusing it is to watch faces turn venomous with envy or sweaty with fear! The soft friendship that surrounds others is like one of those loose, floating Italian collars that leave your neck free to bend in all directions: you’re more comfortable, but your head is less erect. But the hatred that presses in upon me is like a starched Spanish ruff whose stiffness forces me to hold my head high.”
[Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act Two, Scene VIII]

“What’s that you say? It’s useless? Of course, but I’ve never needed hope of victory to make me fight! The noblest battles are always fought in vain!”
[Act Five, Scene VI]

I’m glad I made Syeed bring me back the book. Got my money’s worth and more. (That reminds me I still haven’t paid him back.) I am not in the habit of reading plays. I tried a paragraph from Shakespeare once and it felt as if all my teeth just fell off. Took me a lot of guts to try a play again. Good thing is, this one, probably because it’s a modern translation, was real easy. Of course there are words in it that I don’t know but it was crisp enough. I wonder what the original French version is like. Oh well…since I don’t know the language I might as well forget about it.