ITS ACTION
Maeterlinck's play, as adapted by Debussy for musical setting, becomes a "lyric drama in five acts and twelve tableaux." Certain portions have been left out—as the scenes, at the beginning of Act I and Act V, in which the servingwomen of the castle appear; the fourth scene of Act II, in which Pelléas is persuaded by Arkël to postpone his journey to the bedside of his dying friend Marcellus; the opening scene of Act III, between Pelléas, Mélisande, and Yniold. Numerous passages that are either not essential to the development of the action, or that do not invite musical transmutation, have been curtailed or omitted, with the result that the movement of the drama has been compressed and accelerated throughout. In outlining very briefly the action of the play (which should be read in the original by all who would know Debussy's setting of it) I shall adhere to the slightly altered version which forms the actual text of the opera.
The characters are these:
ARKËL, King of Allemonde
PELLÉAS & GOLAUD, half-brothers, grandsons of ARKËL
MÉLISANDE, an unknown princess; later the bride of GOLAUD
LITTLE YNIOLD, Son of GOLAUD by a former marriage
GENEVIÈVE, Mother of PELLÉAS and GOLAUD
A PHYSICIAN
Servants, Beggars, etc.
ACT I
The opening scene is in a forest, in an unknown land. It is autumn. Golaud, gray-bearded, stern, a giant in stature ("I am made of iron and blood," he says of himself), has been hunting a wild boar, and has been led astray. His dogs have left him to follow a false scent. He is about to retrace his steps, when he comes upon a young girl weeping by a spring. She is very beautiful, and very timid. She would flee, but Golaud reassures her. Her dress is that of a princess, though her garments have been torn by the briars. Golaud questions her. Her name, she says, is Mélisande; she was born "far away;" she has fled, and is lost; but she will not tell her age, or whence she came, or what injury has been done her, or who it is that has harmed or threatened her—"Every one! every one!" she says. Her golden crown has fallen into the water—"It is the crown he gave me," she cries; "it fell as I was weeping." Golaud would recover it for her, but she will have no more of it.... "I had rather die at once!" she protests. Golaud prevails upon her to go with him—the night is coming on, and she cannot remain alone in the forest. She refuses, at first, in terror, then reluctantly consents. "Where are you going?" she asks. "I do not know.... I, too, am lost," replies Golaud. They leave together.
The scene changes to a hall in the castle—the silent and forbidding castle near the sea, surrounded by deep forests, where Golaud, with his mother Geneviève and his little son Yniold (the child of his first wife, now dead), lives with his aged father, Arkël, king of Allemonde. Here, too, lives Golaud's young half-brother, Pelléas—for they are not sons of the same father. Half a year has passed, and it is spring. Geneviève reads to her father, the ancient Arkël, a letter sent by Golaud to Pelléas. After recounting the circumstances of his meeting with Mélisande, Golaud continues: "It is now six months since I married her, and I know as little of her past as on the day we met. Meanwhile, dear Pelléas, you whom I love more than a brother, ... make ready for our return. I know that my mother will gladly pardon me; but I dread the King, in spite of all his kindness. If, however, he will consent to receive her as if she were his own daughter, light a lamp at the summit of the tower overlooking the sea, upon the third night after you receive this letter. I shall be able to see it from our vessel. If I see no light, I shall pass on and shall return no more." They decide to receive Golaud and his child-bride, although the marriage has prevented a union which, for political reasons, Arkël had arranged for his grandson.
Again the scene changes. Mélisande and Geneviève are walking together in the gardens, and they are joined by Pelléas. "We shall have a storm to-night," he says, "yet it is so calm now.... One might embark unwittingly and come back no more." They watch the departure of a great ship that is leaving the port, the ship that brought Golaud and his young wife. "Why does she sail to-night?... She may be wrecked," says Mélisande.... "The night comes quickly," observes Pelléas. A silence falls between them. "It is time to go in," says Geneviève. "Pelléas, show the way to Mélisande. I must go 'tend to little Yniold," and she leaves them alone. "Will you let me take your hand?" says Pelléas to Mélisande. Her hands are full of flowers, she responds. He will hold her arm, he says, for the road is steep. He tells her that he has had a letter from his dying friend Marcellus, summoning him to his bedside, and that he may perhaps go away on the morrow. "Oh! why do you go away?" says Mélisande.
ACT II
The second act begins at an old and abandoned fountain in the park—the "Fountain of the Blind," so called because it once possessed miraculous healing powers. Pelléas and Mélisande enter together. It is a stifling day, and they seek the cool tranquillity of the fountain and the shadow of the overarching trees—"One can hear the water sleep," says Pelléas. Their talk is dangerously intimate. Mélisande dips her hand in the cool water, and plays with her wedding-ring as she lies stretched along the edge of the marble basin. She throws the ring in the air and it falls into the deep water. Mélisande displays agitation: "What shall we say if Golaud asks where it is?" "The truth, the truth," replies Pelléas.
The scene changes to an apartment in the castle. Golaud lies upon a bed, with Mélisande bending over him. He has been wounded while hunting. Mélisande is compassionate, perhaps remorseful. She too, she confesses, is ill, unhappy, though she will not tell Golaud what it is that ails her. Her husband discovers the absence of her wedding-ring, and harshly, suspiciously, asks where it is. Mélisande, confused and terrified, dissembles, and answers that she must have lost it in a grotto by the seashore, when she went there in the morning to pick shells for little Yniold. She is sure it is there. Golaud bids her go at once and search for it. She fears to go alone, and he suggests that she ask Pelléas to accompany her.
The next scene discovers Mélisande with Pelléas in the grotto. They are deeply agitated. It is very dark, but Pelléas describes to her the look of the place, for, he tells her, she must be able to answer Golaud if he should question her. The moon breaks through the clouds and illumines brightly the interior, revealing three old and white-haired beggars asleep against a ledge of rock. Mélisande is uneasy, and would go. They depart in silence.
ACT III
The opening scene of the third act shows the exterior of one of the towers of the castle, with a winding staircase passing beneath a window at which sits Mélisande, combing her unbound hair, and singing in the starlit darkness—"like a beautiful strange bird," says Pelléas, who enters by the winding stair. He entreats her to lean further forward out of the window, that he may come closer, that he may touch her hand; for, he says, he is leaving on the morrow. She leans further out, telling him that he may take her hand if he will promise not to leave on the next day. Suddenly her long tresses fall over her head and stream about Pelléas. He is enraptured. "I have never seen such hair as yours, Mélisande! See! see! Though it comes from so high, it floods me to the heart!... And it is sweet, sweet as though it fell from heaven!... I can no longer see the sky through your locks.... My two hands can no longer hold them.... They are alive like birds in my hands. And they love me, they love me more than you do!" Mélisande begs to be released, Pelléas kisses the enveloping tresses.... "Do you hear my kisses?—They mount along your hair." Doves come from the tower—Mélisande's doves—and fly about them. They are frightened, and are flying away. "They will be lost in the dark!" laments Mélisande. Golaud enters by the winding stair, and surprises them. Mélisande is entrapped by her hair, which is caught in the branches of a tree. "What are you doing here?" asks Golaud. They are confused, and stammer inarticulately. "Mélisande, do not lean so far out of the window," cautions her husband. "Do you not know how late it is? It is almost midnight. Do not play so in the darkness. You are a pair of children!" He laughs nervously. "What children!"
He and Pelléas go out, and the scene shifts to the vaults in the depths under the castle,—dank, unwholesome depths, that exhale an odor of death, where the darkness is "like poisoned slime." Golaud leads his brother through the vaults, which Pelléas had seen only once, long ago. "Here is the stagnant water of which I spoke; do you smell the death-odor?—That is what I wanted you to perceive," insinuates Golaud. "Let us go to the edge of this overhanging rock, and do you lean over a little. You will feel it in your face.... Lean over; have no fear; ... I will hold you ... give me ... no, no, not your hand, it might slip.... Your arm, your arm! Do you see down into the abyss, Pelléas?" "Yes, I think I can see to the bottom of the abyss," rejoins Pelléas. "Is it the light that trembles so?" He straightens up, turns, and looks at Golaud. "Yes, it is the lantern," answers Mélisande's husband, his voice shaking. "See—I moved it to throw light on the walls." "I stifle here.... Let us go!" exclaims Pelléas. They leave in silence.
The succeeding scene shows them on a terrace at the exit of the vaults. Golaud warns Pelléas. "About Mélisande: I overheard what passed and what was said last night. I realize that it was but child's play; but it must not be repeated.... She is very delicate, and it is necessary to be more than usually careful, as she is perhaps with child, and the least emotion might cause serious results. It is not the first time I have noticed that there might be something between you.... You are older than she; it will suffice to have said this to you. Avoid her as much as possible, though not too pointedly."
The next scene passes before the castle. Golaud and his little son Yniold, the innocent playfellow of Mélisande and Pelléas, are together. Golaud questions him. "You are always with mama.... See, we are just under mama's window now. She may be saying her prayers at this moment.... Tell me, Yniold, she is often with your uncle Pelléas, is she not?" The child's naïve answers inflame his jealousy, confirm his suspicions, though they baffle him. "Do they never tell you to go and play somewhere else?" he asks. "No, papa, they are afraid when I am not with them.... They always weep in the dark.... That makes one weep, too.... She is pale, papa." "Ah! ah!... patience, my God, patience!" cries the anguished Golaud.... "They kiss each other sometimes?" he queries. "Yes ... yes; ... once ... when it rained." "They kissed each other?—But how, how did they kiss?" "So, papa, so!" laughs the boy, and then cries out as he is pricked by his father's beard. "Oh, your beard!... It pricks! It is getting all gray, papa; and your hair, too—all gray, all gray!" Suddenly the window under which they are sitting is illuminated, and the light falls upon them. "Oh, mama has lit her lamp!" exclaims Yniold. "Yes," observes Golaud; "it begins to grow light." Yniold wishes to go, but Golaud restrains him. "Let us stay here in the shadow a little longer.... One cannot tell, yet.... I think Pelléas is mad!" he exclaims violently. He lifts Yniold up to the window, cautioning him to make no noise, and asks him what he sees. The child reports that Mélisande is there, and that his uncle Pelléas is there, too. "What are they doing? Are they near each other?" "They are looking at the light." "They do not say anything?" "No, papa, they do not close their eyes.... Oh! oh!... I am terribly afraid!" "Why, what are you afraid of?—look! look!" demands Golaud. "Oh, oh! I am going to cry, papa!—let me down! let me down!" insists Yniold, in nameless terror.
ACT IV
Mélisande and Pelléas meet in an apartment in the castle. Pelléas is about to leave, to travel, he tells her, now that his father is recovering; but before he goes he must see her alone—he must speak to her that night. He asks that she meet him in the park, at the "Fountain of the Blind." It will be the last night, he says, and she will see him no more. Mélisande consents to meet him, but she will not hear of his going away. "I shall see you always; I shall look upon you always," she tells him. "You will look in vain," says Pelléas; "I shall try to go very far away." They separate. Arkël enters. He tells Mélisande that he has pitied her since she came to the castle: "I observed you. You were listless—but with the strange, astray look of one who, in the sunlight, in a beautiful garden, awaits ever a great misfortune.—I cannot explain.—But I was sad to see you thus. Come here; why do you stay there mute and with downcast eyes?—I have kissed you but once hitherto, the day of your coming; and yet the old need sometimes to touch with their lips a woman's forehead or the cheek of a child, that they may still keep their faith in the freshness of life and avert for a moment the menaces of death. Are you afraid of my old lips? How I have pitied you these months!" She tells him that she has not been unhappy. But perhaps, he says, she is of those who are unhappy without knowing it. Golaud enters, ferocious and distraught. He has blood on his forehead. It is nothing, he says—he has passed through a thicket of thorns. Mélisande would wipe his brow. He repulses her fiercely. "I will not have you touch me, do you understand?" he cries. "I came to get my sword." "It is here, on the prie-Dieu," says Mélisande, and she brings it to him. "Why do you tremble so?" he says to her. "I am not going to kill you.—You hope to see something in my eyes without my seeing anything in yours? Do you suppose I may know something?" He turns to Arkël. "Do you see those great eyes?—it is as if they gloried in their power." "I see," responds Arkël, "only a great innocence." "A great innocence!" cries Golaud wildly. "They are more than innocent!... They are purer than the eyes of a lamb.—They might teach God lessons in innocence! A great innocence! Listen! I am so near them that I can feel the freshness of their lashes when they close—and yet I am less far from the great secrets of the other world than from the smallest secret of those eyes!—A great innocence?—More than innocence! One would say that the angels of heaven celebrated there an unceasing baptism. I know those eyes! I have seen them at their work! Close them! close them! or I shall close them forever!—You need not put your right hand to your throat so; I am saying a very simple thing—I have no concealed meaning. If I had, why should I not speak it? Ah!—do not attempt to flee!—Here!—Give me that hand!—Ah! your hands are too hot!—Away! the touch of your flesh disgusts me!—Here!—You shall not escape me now!" He seizes her by the hair. "Down on your knees! On your knees before me!—Ah! your long hair is of some use at last!" He throws her from side to side, holding her by her hair. "Right, left!—Left, right!—Absalom! Absalom!—Forward! now back! To the ground! to the ground! Ha! ha! you see, I laugh already like an imbecile!" Arkël, running up, seeks to restrain him. Golaud affects a sudden and disdainful calmness. "You are free to act as you please," he says.—"It is of no consequence to me.—I am too old to care; and, besides, I am not a spy. I shall await my chance; and then.... Oh! then!... I shall simply act as custom demands." "What is the matter?—Is he drunk?" asks Arkël. "No, no!" cries Mélisande, weeping. "He hates me—and I am so wretched! so wretched!"
"If I were God," ruminates the aged king, "how infinitely I should pity the hearts of men!"
The scene changes once more to the fountain in the park. Yniold is discovered seeking to move a great rock behind which his golden ball has rolled. Night is coming on. The distant bleating of sheep is heard. Yniold looks over the edge of the terrace and sees the flock crowding along the road. Suddenly they cease their crying. Yniold calls to the shepherd. "Why do they not speak any more?" "Because," answers the shepherd, who is concealed from sight, "it is no longer the road to the fold." "Where are they going to sleep to-night?" cries the child. There is no answer, and he departs, exclaiming that he must find somebody to speak to.[5] Pelléas enters, to keep his tryst with Mélisande. "It is the last time," he meditates. "It must all be ended. I have been playing like a child with what I did not understand. I have played, dreaming about the snares of fate. By what have I been suddenly awakened? Who has aroused me all at once? I shall depart, crying out for joy and woe like a blind man fleeing from his burning house. I shall tell her I am going. My father is out of danger; and I can no longer lie to myself.—It is late; she is not coming.
—It would be better to go away without seeing her again.—But I must look well at her this time.—There are some things that I no longer recall.—It seems at times as though I had not seen her for a hundred years.—And I have not yet looked deep into her gaze. There remains nothing to me if I go away thus. And all those memories!—it is as if I were to carry away a little water in a muslin bag.—I must see her one last time, see to the bottom of her heart.—I must tell her all that I have never told her." Mélisande enters. Their greeting is simple. Pelléas bids her come under the shade of the linden. She wishes to remain where it is lighter; she wishes to stay where she may be seen. Golaud, she says, is sleeping. It is late. In an hour the great gates of the castle will be closed. Pelléas tells her that it is perhaps the last time he shall see her, that he must go away forever. She asks him why it is that he is always saying that. "Must I tell you what you know already?" rejoins Pelléas. "You know not what I am going to tell you?" "Why, no; I know nothing," says Mélisande. "You know not why I must go? You know not that it is because [he kisses her abruptly] I love you?" "I love you too," says Mélisande simply, in a low voice. "You love me? you love me too?" cries Pelléas. "Since when have you loved me?" "Since I saw you first," she answers. "Oh, how you say that!" cries Pelléas. "Your voice seems to have blown across the sea in spring!... You say it so frankly—like an angel questioned.—Your voice! your voice! It is cooler and more frank than the water is!—It is like pure water on my lips!—Give me, give me your hands!—Oh, how small your hands are!—I did not know you were so beautiful! I have never before seen anything so beautiful!—I was filled with unrest; I sought everywhere; yet I found not beauty.—And now I have found you!—I do not believe there can be upon the earth a woman more beautiful!" Their love-scene is harshly interrupted. "What is that noise?" asks Pelléas. "They are closing the gates!—We cannot return now. Do you hear the bolts?—Listen!—the great chains!—It is too late!" "So much the better!" cries Mélisande, in passionate abandonment. "Do you say that?" exclaims her lover. "See, it is no longer we who will it so! Come, come!" They embrace. "Listen! my heart is almost strangling me! Ah! how beautiful it is in the shadows!" "There is some one behind us!" whispers Mélisande. Pelléas has heard nothing. "I hear only your heart in the darkness." "I heard the crackling of dead leaves," insists Mélisande. "A-a-h! he is behind a tree!" she whispers. "Who?" "Golaud!—he has his sword!" "And I have none!" cries Pelléas. "He does not know we have seen him," he cautions. "Do not stir; do not turn your head.—He will remain there so long as he thinks we do not know he is watching us.—He is still motionless.—Go, go at once this way. I will wait for him—I will hold him back." "No, no, no!" cries Mélisande.
"Go! go! he has seen everything!—He will kill us!"
"All the better! all the better!"
"He is coming!—Your mouth! your mouth!"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
They kiss desperately.
"Oh, oh! All the stars are falling!" cries Pelléas.
"Upon me also!"
"Again! Again!—Give! give!"
"All! all! all!"
Golaud rushes upon them with drawn sword and kills Pelléas, who falls beside the fountain. Mélisande flees in terror, crying out as she goes, "Oh! oh! I have no courage! I have no courage!"
Golaud pursues her in silence through the forest.
ACT V
The last act opens in an apartment in the castle. Mélisande is stretched unconscious upon a bed. Golaud, Arkël, and the physician stand in a corner of the room. Some days earlier Mélisande and her husband had been found stretched out senseless before the castle gate, Golaud having still in his side the sword with which he had sought to kill himself. Mélisande had been wounded,—"a tiny little wound that would not kill a pigeon;" yet her life is despaired of; and on her death-bed she has been delivered of a child—"a puny little girl such as a beggar might be ashamed to own—a little waxen thing that came before its time, that can be kept alive only by being wrapped in wool." The room is very silent. "It seems to me that we keep too still in her room," says Arkël; "it is not a good sign; look how she sleeps—how slowly.—It is as if her soul were forever chilled." Golaud laments that he has killed her without cause. "They had kissed like little children—and I—I did it in spite of myself!" Mélisande wakes. She wishes to have the window open, that she may see the sunset. She has never felt better, she says, in answer to Arkël's questioning. She asks if she is alone in the room. Her husband is present, answers Arkël. "If you are afraid, he will go away. He is very unhappy." "Golaud is here?" she says; "why does he not come to me?" Golaud staggers to the bed. He begs the others to withdraw for a moment, as he must speak with her alone. When they have left him, his torturing suspicions, suspicions that will not down, find voice. He entreats her to tell him the truth. "The truth must be spoken to one about to die." Did she love Pelléas? he asks in agony. "Why, yes, I loved him—where is he?" The answer maddens him. "Do you not understand? Will you not understand? It seems to me—it seems to me—well, then, it is this: I ask you if you loved him with a guilty love? Were you—were you both guilty?" "No, no; we were not guilty," she replies; "why do you ask me that?" Arkël and the physician appear at the door. "You may come in," says Golaud despairingly; "it is useless, I shall never know! I shall die here like a blind man!" "You will kill her," warns Arkël. "Is it you, grandfather?" questions Mélisande; "is it true that winter is already coming?—it is cold, and there are no more leaves." "Are you cold? Shall I close the windows?" asks Golaud. "No, no, not till the sun has sunk into the sea—it sets slowly." Arkël asks her if she wishes to see her child. "What child?" she inquires. Arkël tells her that she is a mother. The child is brought, and put into her arms. Mélisande can scarcely lift her arms to take her. "She does not laugh, she is little," says Mélisande; "she, too, will weep—I pity her." Gradually the room has filled with the women-servants of the castle, who range themselves in silence along the walls and wait. "She is going to sleep," observes Arkël; "her eyes are full of tears. It is her soul, now, that weeps. Why does she stretch her arms out so?—what does she wish?" "Toward her child, without doubt," answers the physician. "It is the struggle of motherhood against...." "At this moment?—At once?" cries Golaud, in a renewed outburst of anguish.... "Oh, oh! I must speak to her! Mélisande! Mélisande!—leave me alone with her!" "Trouble her not," gravely interposes Arkël. "Do not speak to her again.—You know not what the soul is.—We must speak in low tones now. She must no longer be disturbed. The human soul is very silent. The human soul likes to depart alone. It suffers so timidly! But the sadness, Golaud, the sadness of all we see!" At this moment the servants fall suddenly on their knees at the back of the room. Arkël turns suddenly: "What is the matter?" The physician approaches the bed and examines the body of Mélisande. "They are right," he says. There is a silence.
"I saw nothing. Are you sure?" questions Arkël.
"Yes, yes."
"I heard nothing. So quickly! so quickly! She goes without a word!"
Golaud sobs aloud.
"Do not remain here," says Arkël. "She must have silence now. Come; come. It is terrible, but it is not your fault. It was a little being, so quiet, so timid, and so silent. It was a poor little mysterious being like everyone. She lies there as though she were the elder sister of her baby. Come; the child should not stay here in this room. She must live, now, in her place. It is the poor little one's turn."