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As Golaud bends with Arkël over the unconscious figure of Mélisande where she lies stretched upon her bed, muted horns and 'cellos play a gentle variant of the Fate theme, followed by the Mélisande motive as Golaud exclaims that they had but "kissed like little children."
"Do not speak to her again. You know not what the soul is. We must speak in low tones now. She must no longer be disturbed. The human soul is very silent. The human soul likes to depart alone. It suffers so timidly! But the sadness, Golaud, the sadness of all we see!" At this moment the servants fall suddenly on their knees at the back of the room. Arkël turns suddenly: "What is the matter?"
"I shall see you always; I shall look upon you always," she tells him. "You will look in vain," says Pelléas; "I shall try to go very far away." They separate. Arkël enters. He tells Mélisande that he has pitied her since she came to the castle: "I observed you. You were listless but with the strange, astray look of one who, in the sunlight, in a beautiful garden, awaits ever a great misfortune.
He was born at Leerdam that is subject to the Count of Arkel, but when he heard of the fame of Master Gerard, he left his native land and became his devout follower and disciple, and in a short space he was a Father to many devout persons, and the first founder of the congregation of Clerks in Deventer.
The child is brought, and put into her arms. Mélisande can scarcely lift her arms to take her. "She does not laugh, she is little," says Mélisande; "she, too, will weep I pity her." Gradually the room has filled with the women-servants of the castle, who range themselves in silence along the walls and wait. "She is going to sleep," observes Arkël; "her eyes are full of tears.
Golaud rushes upon them with drawn sword and kills Pelléas, who falls beside the fountain. Mélisande flees in terror, crying out as she goes, "Oh! oh! I have no courage! I have no courage!" Golaud pursues her in silence through the forest. The last act opens in an apartment in the castle. Mélisande is stretched unconscious upon a bed. Golaud, Arkël, and the physician stand in a corner of the room.
Marie Aubry; Mélisande, Mlle. Meuris; Arkël, Émile Raymond; Golaud, Lugné-Poë; Geneviève, Mme. Camée; Le petit Yniold, Georgette Loyer. "Take care," warns The Old Man in that most simply touching of Maeterlinck's plays, Intérieur; "we do not know how far the soul extends about men."
The characters are these: ARKËL, King of Allemonde PELLÉAS & GOLAUD, half-brothers, grandsons of ARKËL MÉLISANDE, an unknown princess; later the bride of GOLAUD LITTLE YNIOLD, Son of GOLAUD by a former marriage GENEVIÈVE, Mother of PELLÉAS and GOLAUD A PHYSICIAN Servants, Beggars, etc. The opening scene is in a forest, in an unknown land. It is autumn.
"You are free to act as you please," he says. "It is of no consequence to me. I am too old to care; and, besides, I am not a spy. I shall await my chance; and then.... Oh! then!... I shall simply act as custom demands." "What is the matter? Is he drunk?" asks Arkël. "No, no!" cries Mélisande, weeping. "He hates me and I am so wretched! so wretched!"
An interlude of some fifty measures, in which the Forest, Fate, and Mélisande themes are exploited, introduces the second scene of the act. To an accompaniment of long-sustained chords varied by recurrences of the Mélisande theme, Geneviève reads to the venerable Arkël Golaud's letter to his brother.
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