ande_ theme, in a new form, opens
the moving scene between Melisande and Arkel in which he tells her of
his compassionate observation of her since first she came to the castle.
During his speech and her replies we hear her motive and that of _Fate_
(page 205), the latter theme announcing the entrance of Golaud,
distraught, blood-bespattered, seeking, he says, his sword. The music of
the ensuing scene does not call for extended description--rather for the
single comment that in it Debussy has proved once for all his power of
forceful, direct, and tangible dramatic utterance: the music here, to
apply to it Golaud's phrase in the play, is compact of "blood and
iron"--as well it needed to be for the accentuation of this perturbing
and violent episode. The _Fate_ motive courses ominously through its
earlier portions. We hear, too, what I have called the "second"
_Melisande_ theme--that which seems to denote her naivete (see Ex. IV),
and a strange variant of the first _Melisande_ theme (page 212, measure
4). At the climax of the scene, when Golaud seizes his wife by her long
hair and flings her from side to side, the music is as brutal, as
"virile," as the most exigent could reasonably demand. Later, as he
hints at his purpose,--"I shall await my chance,"--the trombones, tubas,
and double-basses _pizzicato_ mutter, _pp_, the motive of _Vengeance_.
The orchestral interlude is long and elaborate. We hear a variant of the
_Fate_ theme, which reaches a climax in a _fortissimo_ outburst of the
full orchestra. The theme in this form is developed at length; there is
a reminiscence of the _Melisande_ theme, and the music, by a gradual
_diminuendo_, passes into the third scene of the act--in the park,
before the Fountain of the Blind. At the beginning occurs the incident
of the passing flock of sheep observed by Yniold. This scene need not
detain us long, since it is musically as well as dramatically episodic.
There are no new themes, and no significant recurrences of familiar
ones, though the music is rich in suggestive and imaginative details; as
I have previously noted, it is omitted in the performances at the
Opera-Comique.

Pelleas enters, and there is an impassioned declaration of his theme,
scored, _f_, for wood-wind, horns, and strings, as he observes that he
is about to depart, "crying out for joy and woe like a blind man fleeing
from his burning house." There is a return of the _Melisande_ theme; and
then, as she herself ent