Maurice Maeterlinck

“ MÉLISANDE. I saw thee elsewhere....
PÉLLÉAS. Thy soul is far away.... What ails thee, then?—Meseems thou art not happy....
MÉLISANDE. Yes, yes; I am happy, but I am sad....
PÉLLÉAS. One is sad often when one loves....
MÉLISANDE. I weep always when I think of thee....
PÉLLÉAS. I too.... I too, Mélisande.... I am quite near thee; I weep for joy, and yet ... [He kisses her again.] —Thou art strange when I kiss thee so.... Thou art so beautiful that one would think thou wert about to die....
MÉLISANDE. Thou too....
PÉLLÉAS. There, there.... We do not what we will.... ”

“ Alladine!
ALLADINE. How gravely thou dost kiss me!...
PALOMIDES. Close not thine eyes when I do kiss thee so.... I would see the kisses trembling in thy heart, and all the dew that rises in thy soul.... We shall not find such kisses any more....
ALLADINE. Always, always!
PALOMIDES. No, no; there is no kissing twice upon the heart of death.... How fair thou art so!... It is the first time I have seen thee near.... It is strange, we think that we have seen each other because we have gone by two steps apart; but everything changes the moment the lips touch.... ”

“ GOLAUD. At once?... Oh! oh! I must tell her....—Mélisande! Mélisande!...
Leave me alone! leave me alone with her!...
ARKËL. No, no; do not come near.... Trouble her not.... Speak no more to her.... You know not what the soul is....
GOLAUD. It is not my fault!... It is not my fault!
ARKËL. Hush!... Hush!... We must speak softly now.—She must not be disturbed.... The human soul is very silent.... The human soul likes to depart alone.... It suffers so timorously.... But the sadness, Golaud ... the sadness of all we see!... Oh! oh! ”

“ GOLAUD. I am Prince Golaud,—grandson of Arkël, the old King of Allemonde....
MÉLISANDE. Oh, you have gray hairs already....
GOLAUD. Yes; some, here, by the temples....
MÉLISANDE And in your beard, too.... Why do you look at me so?
GOLAUD. I am looking at your eyes.—Do you never shut your eyes?
MÉLISANDE. Oh, yes; I shut them at night....
GOLAUD. Why do you look so astonished?
MÉLISANDE. You are a giant?
GOLAUD. I am a man like the rest....
MÉLISANDE. Why have you come here?
GOLAUD. I do not know, myself. I was hunting in the forest, I was chasing a wild boar. ”

“ ALLADINE. Oh!... I heard!...
PALOMIDES. What?
ALLADINE. Some one striking the rocks....
PALOMIDES. No, no; it is the golden gates of a new Paradise, that open in our souls and sing upon their hinges!...
ALLADINE. Listen.... again, again!...
PALOMIDES (with voice suddenly changed) .
Yes; it is there.... It is at the bottom of the bluest vaults....
ALLADINE. They are coming to....
PALOMIDES. I hear the sound of iron on the rock.... They have walled up the door or cannot open it.... It is the picks grating against the stone.... His soul has told him we were happy.... ”

“ PÉLLÉAS. It is as cool as winter. It is an old abandoned spring. It seems to have been a miraculous spring,—it opened the eyes of the blind,—they still call it "Blind Man's Spring."
MÉLISANDE. It no longer opens the eyes of the blind?
PÉLLÉAS. Since the King has been nearly blind himself, no one comes any more....
MÉLISANDE. How alone one is here!... There is no sound.
PÉLLÉAS. There is always a wonderful silence here.... One could hear the water sleep.... Will you sit down on the edge of the marble basin? There is one linden where the sun never comes.... ”

“ ABLAMORE discovered leaning over ALLADINE, who is asleep.
ABLAMORE. Methinks sleep reigns day and night beneath these trees. Each time she comes here with me toward nightfall, she is hardly seated when she falls asleep. Alas! I must be glad even of that.... During the day, whene'er I speak to her and her look happens to encounter mine, it is hard as a slave's to whom a thing impossible has just been bidden.... Yet that is not her customary look.... I have seen her many times resting her beautiful eyes on children, on the forest, the sea, or her surroundings. ”

“ SCENE IV.—Before the castle. Enter GENEVIÈVE and MÉLISANDE. MÉLISANDE. It is gloomy in the gardens. And what forests, what forests all about the palaces!...
GENEVIÈVE. Yes; that astonished me too when I came hither; it astonishes everybody. There are places where you never see the sun. But one gets used to it so quickly.... It is long ago, it is long ago.... It is nearly forty years that I have lived here.... Look toward the other side, you will have the light of the sea....
MÉLISANDE. I hear a noise below us....
GENEVIÈVE. Yes; it is some one coming up toward us.... Ah! it is Pélléas.... ”

“ ALLADINE. I know.
ABLAMORE. You must pardon me; I sometimes repeat the same things and my memory is less trust-worthy.... It is not age; I am not an old man yet, thank God! but kings have a thousand cares. Palomides has been telling me his adventures....
ALLADINE. Ah!
ABLAMORE. He has not done what he would; young people have no will any more.—He astonishes me. I had chosen him among a thousand for my daughter. He should have had a soul as deep as hers.—He has done nothing which may not be excusable, but I had hoped more.... What do you say of him?
ALLADINE. Who?
ABLAMORE. Palomides? ”

“ GOLAUD. Where do you want to go?
YNIOLD. Where it is light, little father.
GOLAUD. No, no, my child; let us stay in the dark a little longer.... One cannot tell, one cannot tell yet.... Do you see those poor people down there trying to kindle a little fire in the forest?—It has rained. And over there, do you see the old gardener trying to lift that tree the wind has blown down across the road?—He cannot; the tree is too big; the tree is too heavy, and it will lie where it fell. All that cannot be helped.... I think Pélléas is mad....
YNIOLD. No, little father, he is not mad; he is very good. ”

“ Do you not see?—One step more, and you had been in the gulf!...
PÉLLÉAS But I did not see it!... The lantern no longer lighted me....
GOLAUD. I made a misstep.... but if I had not held you by the arm.... Well, this is the stagnant water that I spoke of to you.... Do you perceive the smell of death that rises?—Let us go to the end of this overhanging rock, and do you lean over a little. It will strike you in the face.
PÉLLÉAS. I smell it already;... you would say a smell of the tomb.
GOLAUD. Further, further.... It is this that on certain days has poisoned the castle. ”

“ There have been evenings when I quitted you without a word, and went to weep for wonder in a corner of the palace, because you had simply raised your eyes, made a little unconscious gesture, or smiled for no apparent cause, yet at the moment when all the souls about you asked it and would be satisfied. There is but you who know these moments, because you are, it seems, the soul of all, and I do not believe those who have not drawn near you can know what true life is. ”

“ MÉLISANDE. But it is not that ... it is not that....
GOLAUD. What is it, then?—Can you not get used to the life one leads here? Is it too gloomy here?—It is true the castle is very old and very sombre.... It is very cold, and very deep. And all those who dwell in it, are already old. And the country may seem gloomy too, with all its forests, all its old forests without light. But that may all be enlivened if we will. And then, joy, joy, one does not have it every day; we must take things as they come. ”

“ I have found thee!.,. I do not think there could be on the earth a fairer woman!... Where art thou?—I no longer hear thee breathe....
MÉLISANDE. Because I look on thee....
PÉLLÉAS. Why dost thou look so gravely on me?—We are already in the shadow.—It is too dark under this tree. Come into the light. We cannot see how happy we are. Come, come; so little time remains to us....
MÉLISANDE. No, no; let us stay here.... I am nearer thee in the dark....
PÉLLÉAS. Where are thine eyes?—Thou art not going to fly me?—Thou dost not think of me just now.
MÉLISANDE. Oh, yes; oh, yes ”

“ ABLAMORE. It is time to go find your sisters, Palomides.... They will be astonished to see you....
ALLADINE. They have gone every day to the turning of the road.... I have gone with them; but they did not hope yet....
ABLAMORE. Come; Palomides is covered with dust, and he must be weary.... We have too many things to say to each other to talk here.... We will say them to-morrow.... They claim the morn is wiser than the evening.... I see the palace gates are open and seem to wait for us....
ALLADINE. I cannot help being uneasy when I go back into the palace.... ”

“ ALLADINE. You would think I was not made to dwell there,—that it was not built for me.... Once I lost my way there.... I pushed open thirty doors, before I found the light of day again.... And I could not go out; the last door opened on a pool.... And the vaults that are cold all summer; and the galleries that bend back on themselves endlessly.... There are stairways that lead nowhere and terraces from which nothing can be seen....
ABLAMORE. You who were not wont to talk, how you talk to-night!... ”

“ SCENE IV.—An apartment in the castle, ARKËL and PÉLLÉAS discovered. ARKËL. You see that everything retains you here just now and forbids you this useless journey. We have concealed your father's condition from you until now; but it is perhaps hopeless; and that alone should suffice to stop you on the threshold. But there are so many other reasons.... And it is not in the day when our enemies awake, and when the people are dying of hunger and murmur about us, that you have the right to desert us. And why this journey? Marcellus is dead; and life has graver duties than the visit to a tomb. ”

“ Mais montrer au doigt à l'enfant qui nous accompagne, les étoiles d'une unit de Juillet, ce n'est pas faire une oeuvre d'art. Il faut que l'art agisse comme les abeilles. Elles n'apportent pas aux larves de la ruche les fleurs des champs qui renferment leur avenir et leur vie. Les larves mourraient sous ces fleurs sans se douter de rien. Il faut que les abeilles nourricières apportent à ces nymphes aveugles l'âme même de ces fleurs, et c'est alors seulement qu'elles trouveront sans le savoir en ce miel mystérieux la substance des ailes qui un jour les emporteront à leur tour dans l'espace. ”

“ ARKËL. What ails him?—He is drunk?
MÉLISANDE (in tears) .
No, no; he does not love me any more.... I am not happy!... I am not happy!...
ARKËL. If I were God, I would have pity on men's hearts....
SCENE III.—A terrace of the castle. Little YNIOLD discovered, trying to lift a bowlder. LITTLE YNIOLD. Oh, this stone is heavy!... It is heavier than I am.... It is heavier than everybody.... It is heavier than everything that ever happened.... I can see my golden ball between the rock and this naughty stone, and I cannot reach it.... My little arm is not long enough,... ”

“ And if old moments come again by chance, I draw near Astolaine, and you would think I threw a window open on the dawn.... She has a soul that can be seen around her,—that takes you in its arms like an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you for everything.... I shall never understand it at all.—I do not know how it can all be; but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak of it....
ALLADINE. I want to go in again.
ABLAMORE. [Seeing that ALLADINE and PALOMIDES look at each other stealthily.] This is little Alladine who has come hither from the heart of Arcady.... ”

“ A chance has come—or haply I myself have come; for you can never tell if you have made a movement of yourself, or if it be chance that has met with you—a chance has come, which has opened my eyes, just as we were about to make each other unhappy; and I have recognized there must be something more incomprehensible than the beauty of the most beautiful soul or the most beautiful face ”

“ ALLADINE. I dare not look upon it longer....
PALOMIDES. See how about us all is luminous.... The light dares hesitate no longer, and we kiss each other in the vestibules of heaven.... Seest thou the precious stones that gem the vaults, drunken with life, that seem to smile on us ”

“ I know what I shall lose, for I know her soul is a child's soul, a poor strengthless child's, beside yours, and yet I cannot resist it....
ASTOLAINE. Do not weep.... I know too that one does not do what one would do ... nor was I ignorant that you would come.... There must indeed be laws mightier than those of our souls, of which we always speak.... ”