Page:Pelléas and Melisande.djvu/17

Rh

There is always an extraordinary silence. One might hear the water sleep. Will you sit on the edge of the marble basin? There is an elm which the sun never penetrates…

I will lie on the marble.—I should like to see the depth of the water…

No one has ever seen it—It is, perhaps, as deep as the sea.

If something sparkled at the bottom, perhaps one could see it.

Do not lean over so…

I would like to touch the water…

Take care of slipping. I will hold your hand…

No. no, I should like to plunge in my two hands…it seems as if my hands were sickly to-day…

Oh, oh, take care, take care. Melisande! Melisande?—Oh, your hair…

I cannot, I cannot reach it.

Your hair is soaked with water.

Yes, it is longer than my arms… It is longer than myself.

(A silence.)

It is on the brink of a fountain, also, that he found you.

Yes…

What did he say to you?

Nothing;—I no longer remember…

Was he quite close to you?

Yes; he wanted to embrace me…

And you did not wish to?

No.

Why did you not wish to?

Oh, oh! I saw something pass at the bottom of the water…

Take care, take care!—You will fall! What are you playing with?

With the ring he gave me…

Do not play thus, above water so deep.

My hands do not tremble.