At last the maid and the child fall asleep. Not so with Butterfly; rigid and still she stands at the window, her eyes on the distant harbor-lights.
A sound of far-away voices softly humming a sad, weird refrain, fills the scene with mystery, suggesting the moan of guardian spirits. All this while the gentle staccato harmonies in the orchestra continue to flit back and forth, like the changing lights of swinging lanterns.
Butterfly does not move. The curtain slowly descends.
The prelude to the last act opens with a theme that crashes and tears its way into prominence: a pitiless, gruesome group of notes, that sounds vaguely familiar, tho it has never been emphasized like the tragic-theme and others gone before. In the first act this dire phrase was heard for a moment, buried softly among the harmonies that accompanied Butterfly's first entrance song. She was happy then, but, nevertheless, this germ of agony was lurking near, as tho to suggest that we, each one, carry within our own temperament the weakness or fault that will eventually lead us to grief.
The orchestra is kept very active during this prelude or intermission. The past is presented in flashes of old themes, and the coming day is presaged by new phrases of potent meaning. Sounds of the harbor life beginning to stir, distant voices of sailors chanting, are heard even before the curtain rises. When this is lifted, behold poor Butterfly still at her post! All night she has watched and waited, never moving, never doubting.
Now the dawn, cruel, cold-eyed and leering, begins to peer through the window. The pale, frail figure in her wedding gown still does not move; she still hopes on, counting the stars as they disappear; measuring each moment by her heart's wild beating.
The dawn grows rosy, the music in the orchestra tells of the world's awakening. The sun's glad welcome is proclaimed in a resounding pean of harmonies, pierced with sharp, bright strokes from the triangle.
But all this brilliant daybreak music fails to modify the tragedy of the dawn.
Susuki awakens to despair, but poor little Butterfly still asserts, "He'll come! he'll come!"
When urged by the maid to rest, she takes the little one up in her arms, soothing him gently with a quiet song as she mounts the stairs to her sleeping-room.