Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck

when death allays the excitement aroused in us by the action,

guides our life," says Maeterlinck, "and life has no other aim than our death."[1] Not only the careers, crowded with events, of the great, but also the simple, quiet lives of lowly people ar

r. To these two cosmic forces are devoted a series of dramas which were in 1901-2 collected by Maeterlinck in three volumes under the title of Théatre. In th

, to happiness. Destinies which are innocent but involuntarily hostile are here joined, and parted to the ruin of all, under the saddened eyes of the wisest, who foresee the future but can change nothing in the cruel and inflexible games

f death, gloomy, hypocritically active, fills all the interstices of the poem. To t

hind the scene which he chooses with varying degrees of clearness, lies Plato's famous image-the image of a cavern on whose

ays in a volume called Les Aveugles (The Sightless). This is the name of the second play in the book; but the grandfather in The Intruder too is b

e sees no one, but somebody must be passing near the pond, for the swans are afraid, and all the fish dive suddenly. The dogs do not bark; she can see the house-dog crouching at the back of his kennel. The nightingales continue silent-there is a silence of death-it must be a stranger frightening them, says the grandfather. The roses shed their leaves. The grandfather feels cold; but the glass door on to the terrace will not shut-the joiner is to come to-morrow, he will put it right. Suddenly the sharpening of a scythe is heard outside-it must be the gardener preparing to mow the grass. The lamp does not burn well. A noise is heard as of someone entering the house, but no one comes up the stairs. They ring for the servant. They hear her steps, and the grandfather thinks she is not alone. The father opens the door; she remains on the landing. She is alone. She says no one has entered the house, but she has closed the door below, which she had found open. The father tells

ener. If the lamp goes out, it is because there is no oil in it. Accompanying the naturalness of the atmosphere (the atmosphere that is natural when a patient is in danger of dying), there is the natura

: He is ne

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They thin

've too much tim

hey've nothi

their only way of

It must b

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LE: I d

ey are certain

in The Life of the Bees, Maeterlinck shows himself a

owers of Evil: "You have created a new shudder." Certainly, the new frisson is there; but was it Maeterlinck who created it?

to have first used the word "marionette" in connection with his plays when undergoing cross-examination by Jules Huret, whose Enquête was published in 1891: when writing Princess Maleine, he said, he had wanted to write "a play in Shakespeare's manner for marionettes." Maeterlinck and van Lerberghe were seeing each other nearly every day at the time Les Flaireurs was being written; and there is nothing to show that they did not discuss their theori

e is impossible, because death is invisible. The first play is full of brawling noise, and peasant slang, and the action is violent: the second is only a succession of whispers tearing the web of silence;[5] nothing visible happens, there is only expectancy. In short, one play is for the senses; the other is f

nd the daughter puts the two candles out. ACT II. Knocking at the door again. The two candles are relit, and the daughter is seen standing against the bed, at watch, with her face turned towards the door. A voice is heard demanding admittance. "You said you would wait," says the girl. "Why, I've only just come!" answers the voice. She asks who he is, and he replies, "The man with the linen." The mother again urges her to open the door-she thinks it is the Virgin Mary. The daughter is obstinate, and the voice cries, "All right, I'll wait." ACT III. Louder knocks, and a voice again. This time it is "The man with the ... thing

coffin. Death does not break the door in. This only amounts to saying that Maeterlinck's method is less romantic than that of his friend. Maeterlinck's close realism, however, does give him ce

aris, on the 20th May, 1891, at a historic performance of this and other

tre d'Art, we have again the mystery of death; but the main theme would seem to be the mystery of human life-"this

t surrounds him in the attentive silence of the desolate forest. His emaciated hands are rigidly joined on his thighs. To the right of him six blind old men are sitting on stones, stumps of trees, and dead leaves. To the left, separated from them by an unrooted tree and split boulders, six women who are likewise blind sit facing the old men. Three of these women are praying and moaning uninterruptedly. A fourth is extremely old; the fifth, in an attitude of speechless madness, hold

ready to burst. He has gone in the direction of the sea, which is so near that when they are silent they can hear it thudding on the rocks. Where are they? None of them know. When did they come to the island? They do not know, they were all blind when they came. They were not born here, they came from beyond the sea. They hear the asylum clock strike twelve; they do not know whether it is noon or midnight. They are frightened at noises which they cannot understand. Suddenly the wind rises in the forest, and the sea is heard bellowing against the cliffs. The sea

es above our heads, but we cannot reach it." We are prisoners in a little finite space washed round by the Ocean of Infinity, whose mighty waters we can hear in our calm seasons. Above the dense forest some

ldest blind woman dreams sometimes that she sees; the oldest blind man only sees when he dreams.... The young beauty smells the scent of flowers around them (the promptings of sense guide us; and the beautiful are the sensu

ood tragedy till he was thirty. Here a

(in Le Trésor de

ystère" (in Le Temple Enseveli

XVIII. of L'Intel

at the Théatre d'Art (after The Intruder had gone over the same boards). This stateme

, is understood to have made s

, Maurice Maeter