Now that Pélléas's father is saved, and sickness, the old handmaid of Death, has left the castle, a little joy and a little sunlight will at last come into the house again.... It was time!--For, since thy coming, we have only lived here whispering about a closed room.... And truly I have pitied thee, Mélisande.... Thou camest here all joyous, like a child seeking a gala-day, and at the moment thou enteredst in the vestibule I saw thy face change, and probably thy soul, as the face changes in spite of us when we enter at noon into a grotto too gloomy and too cold.... And since,--since, on account of all that, I have often no longer understood thee.... I observed thee, thou went there, listless perhaps, but with the strange, astray look of one awaiting ever a great trouble, in the sunlight, in a beautiful garden.... I cannot explain.... But I was sad to see thee so; for thou art too young and too beautiful to live already day and night under the breath of death.... But now all that will change. At my age,--and there perhaps is the surest fruit of my life,--at my age I have gained I know not what faith in the fidelity of events, and I have always seen that every young and beautiful being creates about itself young, beautiful, and happy events.... And it is thou who wilt now open the door for the new era I have glimpses of.... Come here; why dost thou stay there without answering and without lifting thine eyes?--I have kissed thee but once only hitherto,--the day of thy coming; and yet old men need sometimes to touch with their lips a woman's forehead or a child's cheek, to believe still in the freshness of life and avert awhile the menaces.... Art thou afraid of my old lips? How I have pitied thee these months!... MÉLISANDE. Grandfather, I have not been unhappy.... ARKËL. Perhaps you were of those who are unhappy without knowing it,... and they are the most unhappy.... Let me look at thee, so, quite near, a moment;... we have such need of beauty beside Death.... _Enter_ GOLAUD. GOLAUD. Pélléas leaves to-night. ARKËL. Thou hast blood on thy forehead.--What hast thou done? GOLAUD. Nothing, nothing.... I have passed through a hedge of thorns. MÉLISANDE. Bend down your head a little, my lord.... I will wipe your forehead.... GOLAUD (_repulsing her_). I will not that you touch me, do you understand? Go, go!--I am not speaking to you.--Where is my sword?--I came to seek my sword.... MÉLISANDE. Here; on the praying-stool. GOLAUD.