The _Pelléas_ theme, sung by two flutes, opens the brief introduction to
the second act. It is repeated, interwoven with harp arpeggios.
Immediately preceding the entrance of Pelléas and Mélisande a muted
horn, two flutes, two oboes, and harp sound a chord of singularly liquid
quality--one of those fragmentary effects in the invention of which
Debussy is so curiously happy. It is the motive of _The Fountain_.[8]
[8] I quote it in the completer and more beautiful form in which it
appears on page 57, measures 1-3.
IX. THE FOUNTAIN
[Illustration: Modéré]
It is repeated, with still more magical effect (scored for divided
violins and violas, two muted horns, and harp), as Mélisande remarks
upon the clearness of the water, while the violins and violas weave
about it a shimmering figure in sixteenth-notes with which its
appearances are usually associated. As Pelléas warns Mélisande to take
care, while she leans above the water along the marble edge of the
basin, the clarinet, over a string accompaniment, announces an
impassioned phrase (page 62, measure 3)--the theme of _Awakening
Desire_:
X. AWAKENING DESIRE
[Illustration: En animant]
As Pelléas questions Mélisande about the ring with which she is
playing,--her wedding-ring,--and when it falls into the water while she
is tossing it in the air, we hear persistently the theme of _Fate_,
which, with the _Golaud_ theme (portentously sounded, _pp_, by horns and
bassoons), closes the scene. There is an interlude in which the
_Golaud_, _Mélisande_, and _Fate_ themes are heard.
The rhythm of the latter theme mutters ominously in the bass as the
second scene is disclosed. When _Golaud_, lying wounded on his bed,
describes to Mélisande how, "at the stroke of noon," his horse "swerved
suddenly, with no apparent cause," and threw him, as he was hunting in
the forest ("could he have seen something extraordinary?"), the oboe
recalls the theme of _Awakening Desire_, which was first heard as
Mélisande and Pelléas sat together by the fountain in the forest during
the heat of midday. The rhythm of the _Fate_ motive is hinted by
violas, 'cellos, and horns as Golaud, in answer to Mélisande's
compassionate questioning, observes that he is "made of iron and blood."
Mélisande weeps, and the oboe sounds a plaintive variant of her motive
(page 82, measure 2); the strings repeat it as she complains that she is
ill. Nothing has happened, no one has harmed her, she answers, in
response to Golaud's questionings: "It is no one. You do not understand
me. It is something stronger than I," she says; and we hear the
_Pelléas_ theme, dulcetly harmonized, in the strings. When, later,
Golaud mentions his brother's name inquiringly, and she replies that she
thinks he dislikes her, although he speaks to her sometimes, we hear,
very softly, the theme of _Awakening Desire_. As their talk progresses
to its climax, there is a recurrence of the _Fate_ theme; then, as
Golaud, upon discovering the loss of her wedding-ring, harshly tells her
that he "would rather have lost everything than that," the trombones and
tuba declaim (page 99, measure 5) a threatening and sinister phrase
which will later be more definitely associated with the thought of
Golaud's vengeful purpose:
XI. VENGEANCE
[Illustration: Anime, un peu retenu]
This is repeated still more vehemently three measures further on, and
there is a return of the _Fate_ motive as Mélisande, at the bidding of
Golaud, goes forth to seek the missing ring. An interlude, in which are
blended the variant of the _Mélisande_ theme, which denotes her
grieving, and the shimmering figure in sixteenth-notes heard during the
dialogue at the fountain, leads into the scene before the grotto.
As Pelléas and Mélisande stand in the darkness of the cavern we hear
again (page 110, measure 2) the variant of the _Fate_ motive which
marked the close of the preceding scene; then, as a sudden shaft of
moonlight illuminates the grotto, it is expanded and transmuted into a
gleaming flood of orchestral and harmonic color (two flutes, oboe, two
harps _glissando_, string tremolos, cymbals _pp_). While they talk of
the beggars sleeping in a corner of the cave, an oboe and flute trace a
tenuous and melancholy phrase (_doux et triste_) which continues almost
to the end of the scene; it leads into a quiet coda formed out of the
theme of _Fate_.