Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck

three plays which Maeterlinck published together in 1894 are such attempts at reconstruction. Alladine and Palomides is a love story which has much in common with Pelleas and Melisanda: "both

gain, but more concentrated, the phy

unsuited for the garish light and the artificial voices of the present-day tragedy style on the stage. It is more probable, however, that he would not have dreamt of suggesting a slight on his actor friends. The characters are described as marionettes, it is likely, because the scene is spiritualised by distance. We look down on the movements of the puppets as from a higher world-we are richer by an idea than they are: we see what Player is pulli

l speaker; so, for instance, when Alladine and Palomides meet on the bridge over the cas

t has he done

ng in the middle of the whirlpool. Don't

u are going

he suck of the whirlpool. In another minute he will be un

Go away!

What is t

I don't want to s

seizes ALLADINE and drags her aw

audience has been proved by Max Reinhardt.) But to relate our story: Alladine's pet lamb, a symbol of her peace of mind or maiden apathy, had been frightened by Palomides' cha

Pg 71] he was wise because nothing had hap

of life u

Lethe floati

ysette in a later play; but her character is identical with Aglavaine's in that play: the r?les of the women in Aglavaine and Selysette are reversed. It is Aglavaine's beautiful soul for the sake of which Méléandre is untrue to Selysette. Palomides recognises, when his love turns from the woman to the child, "that there must be something more incomprehensible than the beauty of the most beautiful soul or the most beautiful face"; and something more powerful too, for he cannot help obeying it. Palomides is quite aware that Astolaine is a type superior to Alladine

u know well that I have not understood what you have just said, and that words have no meaning when souls are not within reach of each other. Come nearer, and speak no more. (ASTOLAINE comes slowly nearer.) There is a moment when souls touch and know everything without there being any need of moving the lips.

!... (She sobs and e

see that it

ss of boughs blackening the steep hill-sides like carrion ribs, but a wind-waved sea of rustling shade.... They are both poor little wandering souls aweary in exile. While they are prep

ong the mar

their soundle

entre of his

d: the thought that life is sublimated in moments of enchantment which pitiless light soon dispels. The prisoners break their bonds. When their eyes get used to the light, it seems to them that they are in a great blue hall, whose vault, drunken with jewels, is held aloft by pillars wreathed by innumerable roses. They see below them a lake so blue that the sky might have flowed thither.... It is full of strange and stirless flowers.... They think

rescue the forsaken lovers. She comes too late-they have been poisoned by the deadly reek of the unreal in the

CE: They were

And the flowers

by a magic light; but the awakening comes, and the poison works, and in the cold wretchedness

f old age). Here everything is taken absolutely from life. Interior, too, shows a great mastery of "active silence": some of the scenes in Alladine and Palomides approach pantomime; in Interior we have actual pantomime-the family whom the tragedy befalls are seen sitting in

ay the usual things; and nobody suspects anything.... They look like dolls that don't move, and such a lot of things are happening in their souls.... They don't know themselves what they are.... No doubt she lived as the o

in the lamplight-the mother with the baby sleeping on her left shoulder, not moving lest it should awake, the sisters embroidering, the father by the fire-his courage sinks, and it is only when the crowd with the body arrive that he enters the house. We see the father rising to greet the visitor,

it is one of the most terrible, masterpieces in all literature.

e with a great pitiless weight on our soul." "She is there on our soul like a tombstone, and none dares stretch out his arm." Ygraine explains this to her little brother Tintagiles, whom the Queen has sent for from over the sea. There is some talk of the boy's golden crown, as there was of Melisanda's; every soul is royal, and comes from far away, you remember. Bellangère, the boy's other sister, has heard the Queen's servants whispering. They know that the Queen has sent for the boy to kill him. The only friend the two sisters and the boy have is Aglovale, a greybeard, who, like Arkel, has long since renounced the vanity of resisting fate and having a will of his own. "All is useless," he says; but now he is willing to defend the boy, since they hope. He sits down on the threshold with his sword across his knees. The Queen's servants come with stealthy feet, and Aglovale's sword snaps when he tries to prevent them from opening the door. But this time the servants, meeting

he play is rather based, like The Sightless, on the sensations of fear we have when we awaken from the poisoned apathy, which is the safeguard of the peace of mind of most people, in the stifling air of th

t do you know,

d woman in this island; and everything seemed natural to me.... I saw no other events here except a bird that was flying, a leaf that was trembling, a rose that was opening.... Such a silence reigned here that a

we have got to live while we wait fo

e does not know himself in the future as well as in the present and in the past. He knows a part of his future because he is himself already a part of thi

t his soul ray out, and thereby enter into touch with his audience. In great moments there is actually a radiance round a speaker who is f

e Théatre, huitiè