The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six ActsMaeterlinck, Maurice
General
The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts
Maeterlinck, Maurice
Fairy plays; French drama -- Translations into English
MYTYL (_clinging to_ TYLTYL'S _clothes_)
Tyltyl, I can't stay!... No, I can't possibly!... They are going to come
out of the ground!...
TYLTYL
Don't tremble like that.... They will only come out for a moment....
MYTYL
But you're trembling, too!... They will be awful!...
TYLTYL
It is time, the hour is passing....
(TYLTYL _turns the diamond. A terrifying minute of silence and
motionlessness elapses, after which, slowly, the crosses totter, the mounds
open, the slabs rise up...._)
MYTYL (_cowering against_ TYLTYL)
They are coming out!... They are there!...
(_Then, from all the gaping tombs, there rises gradually an efflorescence
at first frail and timid, like steam; then white and virginal and more and
more tufty, more and more tall and plentiful and marvellous. Little by
little, irresistibly, invading all things, it transforms the graveyard into
a sort of fairy-like and nuptial garden, over which rise the first rays of
the dawn. The dew glitters, the flowers open their blooms, the wind murmurs
in the leaves, the bees hum, the birds wake and flood the air with
the first raptures of their hymns to the sun and to life. Stunned and
dazzled,_ TYLTYL _and_ MYTYL, _holding each other by the hand,
take a few steps among the flowers while they seek for the trace of the
tombs_.)
MYTYL (_looking in the grass_)
Where are the dead?....
TYLTYL (_looking also_)
There are no dead....
CURTAIN
SCENE 3.--_The Kingdom of the Future_.
_The immense halls of the Azure Palace, where the children wait that
are yet to be born. Infinite perspectives of sapphire columns supporting
turquoise vaults. Everything, from the light and the lapis-lazuli
flagstones to the shimmering background into which the last arches run
and disappear, everything, down to the smallest objects, is of an unreal,
intense, fairy-like blue. Only the plinths and capitals of the columns,
the key-stones, a few seats and circular benches are of white marble or
alabaster. To the right, between the columns, are great opalescent doors.
These doors, which_ TIME _will throw back towards the end of the
scene, open upon actual life and the quays of the Dawn. Everywhere,
harmoniously peopling the hall, is a crowd of_ CHILDREN _robed in
long azure garments. Some are playing, others strolling to and fro, others
talking or dreaming; many are asleep, many also are working, between the
colonnades, at future inventions; and their tools, their instruments, the
apparatus which they are constructing, the plants, flowers and fruit which
they are cultivating or plucking are of the same supernatural and luminous
blue as the general atmosphere of the Palace. Figures of a taller stature,
clad in a paler and more diaphanous azure, figures of a sovereign and
silent beauty move among the_ CHILDREN _and would seem to be angels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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