Noi abbiamo sempre in tasca lettere pronte per la divinità... Frutto della nostra fantasia, visto che apparteniamo a quella razza d'uomini che per am… - Edmond Rostand

Do you remember that night Christian spoke / Under your window? It was always so! / While I stood in the darkness underneath, / Others climbed up to win the applause - the kiss!- / Well - that seems only justice.

Stale words, what are they worth?
A moment comes and God help those for whom it never comes.
When love of such nobility possesses this shaking frame
That even the sweetest word, the ultimate honey, stings like vinegar.

Cyrano’s attitude toward the sweetmeat vendor thus foreshadows his attitude toward the body in general (it is not a zone of pleasure) and the fair sex in particular. More comfortable with the gallant word (such as, “despite my Gascon pride”) or gesture (“He kisses her hand”) than with the idea of accepting her “dainties,” he settles for a mere “trifle,” for which silliness he is lambasted by his friend Le Bret. Under the guise of gallantry, Cyrano has found a way to formalize a circumspection with regard to women, a hesitancy and perhaps a fear that we see at work also in his relation to Roxane. His relation to sex is purely rhetorical. Cyrano himself attributes his unease with women to fear of being laughed at. By his own admission, the distance he imposes between himself and women is a form of self-defense: “My heart always cowers behind the defence of my wit. I