nce it comes.--Perhaps it comes from the bottom of the
earth....

MELISANDE.

If there were anything shining at the bottom, perhaps one could see
it....

PELLEAS.

Do not lean over so....

MELISANDE.

I would like to touch the water....

PELLEAS.

Have a care of slipping.... I will hold your hand....

MELISANDE.

No, no, I would plunge both hands in it.... You would say my hands
were sick to-day....

PELLEAS.

Oh! oh! take care! take care! Melisande!... Melisande!...--Oh! your
hair!...

MELISANDE _(starting upright)._ I cannot,... I cannot reach it....

PELLEAS.

Your hair dipped in the water....

MELISANDE.

Yes, it is longer than my arms.... It is longer than I.... [_A silence._

PELLEAS.

It was at the brink of a spring, too, that he found you?

MELISANDE.

Yes....

PELLEAS.

What did he say to you?

MELISANDE.

Nothing;--I no longer remember....

PELLEAS.

Was he quite near you?

MELISANDE.

Yes; he would have kissed me.

PELLEAS.

And you would not?

MELISANDE.

No.

PELLEAS.

Why would you not?

MELISANDE.

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

PELLEAS.

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

MELISANDE.

With the ring he gave me....

PELLEAS.

Take care; you will lose it....

MELISANDE.

No, no; I am sure of my hands....

PELLEAS.

Do not play so, over so deep a water....

MELISANDE.

My hands do not tremble.

PELLEAS.

How it shines in the sunlight I--Do not throw it so high in the
air....

MELISANDE.

Oh!...

PELLEAS.

It has fallen?

MELISANDE.

It has fallen into the water!...

PELLEAS.

Where is it? where is it?...

MELISANDE.

I do not see it sink?...

PELLEAS.

I think I see it shine....

MELISANDE.

My ring?

PELLEAS.

Yes, yes; down yonder....

MELISANDE.

Oh! oh! It is so far away from us!... no, no, that is not it ... that
is not it.... It is lost ... lost.... There is nothing any more but
a great circle on the water.... What shall we do? What shall we do
now?...

PELLEAS.

You need not be so troubled for a ring. It is nothing.... We shall
find it again, perhaps. Or else we will find another....

MELISANDE.

No, no; we shall never find it again; we shall never find any others
either.... And yet I thought I had it in my hands.... I had already
shut my hands, and it is fallen in spite of all.... I threw it too
high, toward the sun....