La Fille de Mélisande
The ideal would be two associated dreams.
No time, no place.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY,
writing about Pelléas et Mélisande in 1890
White is the colour of remembrance. The hoar frost on the blades of grass that cling to the castle walls, the hollow between the ribs and the heart. A shroud, a winding sheet, a ghost.
Absence.
The trees are silhouettes, mute sentinels, slipping from green to grey to black in the twilight. The forest holds its secrets.
Mélisande’s daughter, Miette, presses herself deeper into the green shadows of the wood. She can see glimpses of La Fontaine des Aveugles through the twisted undergrowth and juniper bushes. It is late in the day and already the light has fled the sombre alleyways of the park and the gloomy tracks that cross the forest like veins on an old man’s hands.
White is the colour of grief.
This is the anniversary of her mother’s death when, according to the mythology of the land, the paths between one world and the next are said to be open. It is not a night to be abroad. It is also Miette’s birthday, although this has passed without celebration or comment these past eighteen years. The date has never been marked by feasts or fanfares or ribbons.
The story of Mélisande – forbidden love, tragic beauty, a heroine dead before her time – this is the architecture of legend, of fairytale, of poetry and ballad. How could the existence of an unwanted, though resilient, daughter possibly compare? A watchful daughter biding her time.
Miette presses her hand against the silk of her robe, feeling the reassuring crackle of the paper. It is her testament, her confession, an explanation of the act she intends to carry out today. She knows her father, Golaud, has murdered once, if not twice – and holds him responsible for her mother’s death – but yet he has kept his liberty. He has never been called to account. This is not how it will be for her. Although she is the great-grand-daughter of old King Arkel, she is a girl not a boy. She is considered of no account. Besides, Miette wants to explain her deeds, make herself understood. In this, as in so many other ways, she is not her mother’s daughter. Everything about Mélisande’s life – her delicate spirit, her fragile history – remains as indistinct as a reflection moving upon the surface of the water. Where had she come from before Golaud found her and brought her to Allemonde? What early grief had cracked her spirit? What were her thoughts as her wedding ring fell, twisting, down into the well, knowing the loss of it would matter so much? How tripped her heart when she looked at Pelléas and saw her love reflected in his eyes? Did she catch her breath? Did he?
Did she know, even then, that her story would be denied a happy ending?
Miette grew up in the shadow of these stories, now grown stale and battered around the edges. Whisperings about her father, Golaud, and his violent jealousy. Of her mother, Mélisande, and her gentleness. Of how her long hair tumbled down from the window like a skein of silk. Of her uncle, Pelléas, and his folly. Of the others who stood by and did nothing.
Green is the colour of history.
Not the white and black of words on a page or notes on a stave. Not the frozen grey of tombstones and chapels. It is green that is the colour of time passing. Olive moss, sable in places, covering the crow’s feet cracks in the wall. Emerald weeds that spring up on a path long unused. The lichen covering, year by timeless year, the inscription on the headstone, the letters, the remembered name.
At her nurse’s knee, Miette learned the history of Pelléas and Mélisande. A history, a tale, is no substitute for a mother, but it gives a purpose to the suffering. Their story is the legend of Allemonde, a tale perfect in its construction – un amour défendu, a sword raised in anger. Always the balance of the light with the dark, the ocean with the confines of the forest, the castle and the tower. The colours, the texture of the story, Miette pieced together from what was left unsaid between her half-brother, Yniold, and her father.
The truth she learned from her grandmother, Geneviève. Of how men use women ill. How money buys safety, if not peace. Of how the faults of one generation are passed down, silent and sly, to the next. Of how the truth is always shabby, always mundane when set next to the stuff of legend.
In her green hiding place in the forest, Miette sighs, caught between boredom and terror. Her confession and weapon lie concealed beneath her cloak. She is eighteen today. She will act, today.
Il est presque l’heure.
Her father’s custom on this day are well known. From the white-haired beggars at the gate to the servants that walk the sombre corridors of the castle, all of Allemonde knows how Golaud, the widower – some say, the murderer of wives – makes his annual pilgrimage to La Fontaine des Aveugles on the anniversary of Mélisande’s death, though Miette’s birthday is not remembered. Golaud comes to mourn, some say, or to pray. To weep, to pick over the bones of his life. No one knows if it is remorse or grief that guides his steps. He has never shared that chapter of his story and Miette never asked for fear it would strip her purpose from her.