Pélléas and Mélisande; Alladine and Palomides; Home — John Shaqi
Pélléas and Mélisande; Alladine and Palomides; HomeMaeterlinck, Maurice
General
Pélléas and Mélisande; Alladine and Palomides; Home
Maeterlinck, Maurice
French drama
It was at the brink of a spring, too, that he found you?
MÉLISANDE.
Yes....
PÉLLÉAS.
What did he say to you?
MÉLISANDE.
Nothing;--I no longer remember....
PÉLLÉAS.
Was he quite near you?
MÉLISANDE.
Yes; he would have kissed me.
PÉLLÉAS.
And you would not?
MÉLISANDE.
No.
PÉLLÉAS.
Why would you not?
MÉLISANDE.
Oh! oh! I saw something pass at the bottom of the water....
PÉLLÉAS.
Take care! take care!--You will fall! What are you playing with?
MÉLISANDE.
With the ring he gave me....
PÉLLÉAS.
Take care; you will lose it....
MÉLISANDE.
No, no; I am sure of my hands....
PÉLLÉAS.
Do not play so, over so deep a water....
MÉLISANDE.
My hands do not tremble.
PÉLLÉAS.
How it shines in the sunlight I--Do not throw it so high in the
air....
MÉLISANDE.
Oh!...
PÉLLÉAS.
It has fallen?
MÉLISANDE.
It has fallen into the water!...
PÉLLÉAS.
Where is it? where is it?...
MÉLISANDE.
I do not see it sink?...
PÉLLÉAS.
I think I see it shine....
MÉLISANDE.
My ring?
PÉLLÉAS.
Yes, yes; down yonder....
MÉLISANDE.
Oh! oh! It is so far away from us!... no, no, that is not it ... that
is not it.... It is lost ... lost.... There is nothing any more but
a great circle on the water.... What shall we do? What shall we do
now?...
PÉLLÉAS.
You need not be so troubled for a ring. It is nothing.... We shall
find it again, perhaps. Or else we will find another....
MÉLISANDE.
No, no; we shall never find it again; we shall never find any others
either.... And yet I thought I had it in my hands.... I had already
shut my hands, and it is fallen in spite of all.... I threw it too
high, toward the sun....
PÉLLÉAS.
Come, come, we will come back another day;... come, it is time. They
will come to meet us. It was striking noon at the moment the ring
fell.
MÉLISANDE.
What shall we say to Golaud if he ask where it is?
PÉLLÉAS.
The truth, the truth, the truth.... [_Exeunt._
SCENE II.--_An apartment in the castle._ GOLAUD _discovered, stretched
upon his bed;_ MÉLISANDE, _by his bedside_.
GOLAUD.
Ah! ah! all goes well; it will amount to nothing. But I cannot
understand how it came to pass. I was hunting quietly in the forest.
All at once my horse ran away, without cause. Did he see anything
unusual?... I had just heard the twelve strokes of noon. At the
twelfth stroke he suddenly took fright and ran like a blind madman
against a tree. I heard no more. I do not yet know what happened. I
fell, and he must have fallen on me. I thought I had the whole forest
on my breast; I thought my heart was crushed. But my heart is sound.
It is nothing, apparently....
MÉLISANDE.
Would you like a little water?
GOLAUD.
Thanks, thanks; I am not thirsty.
MÉLISANDE.
Would you like another pillow?... There is a little spot of blood on
this.
GOLAUD.
No, no; it is not worth while. I bled at the mouth just now. I shall
bleed again perhaps....
MÉLISANDE.
Are you quite sure?... You are not suffering too much?
GOLAUD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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