ror.

ACT IV

Melisande and Pelleas meet in an apartment in the castle. Pelleas is
about to leave, to travel, he tells her, now that his father is
recovering; but before he goes he must see her alone--he must speak to
her that night. He asks that she meet him in the park, at the "Fountain
of the Blind." It will be the last night, he says, and she will see him
no more. Melisande consents to meet him, but she will not hear of his
going away. "I shall see you always; I shall look upon you always," she
tells him. "You will look in vain," says Pelleas; "I shall try to go
very far away." They separate. Arkel enters. He tells Melisande 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.--I cannot
explain.--But I was sad to see you thus. Come here; why do you stay
there mute and with downcast eyes?--I have kissed you but once hitherto,
the day of your coming; and yet the old need sometimes to touch with
their lips a woman's forehead or the cheek of a child, that they may
still keep their faith in the freshness of life and avert for a moment
the menaces of death. Are you afraid of my old lips? How I have pitied
you these months!" She tells him that she has not been unhappy. But
perhaps, he says, she is of those who are unhappy without knowing it.
Golaud enters, ferocious and distraught. He has blood on his forehead.
It is nothing, he says--he has passed through a thicket of thorns.
Melisande would wipe his brow. He repulses her fiercely. "I will not
have you touch me, do you understand?" he cries. "I came to get my
sword." "It is here, on the prie-Dieu," says Melisande, and she brings
it to him. "Why do you tremble so?" he says to her. "I am not going to
kill you.--You hope to see something in my eyes without my seeing
anything in yours? Do you suppose I may know something?" He turns to
Arkel. "Do you see those great eyes?--it is as if they gloried in their
power." "I see," responds Arkel, "only a great innocence." "A great
innocence!" cries Golaud wildly. "They are more than innocent!... They
are purer than the eyes of a lamb.--They might teach God lessons in
innocence! A great innocence! Listen! I am so near them that I can feel
the freshness of their lashes when they close--and yet I am less far
from the great secrets of the other world than from the smallest secret
of