106. “Pelleas and Melisande”

Drama by Maurice Maeterlinck
Performance of the "Akademisch-literarischen Verein" at the Neues Theater, Berlin

It is Maeterlinck's belief that we know the least conceivable thing about a person if we only have ears for what he says and eyes for what he does, and not also the living sense of what is going on at the bottom of his soul and which can never find expression in words or deeds. In the soul of the beggar to whom I give alms in the street there may rest a wisdom greater than that which Plato or Fichte have expressed in eloquent words; and in the most commonplace action that takes place between two people, the great gigantic fate may conceal from the outward sense a tragedy more tremendous than that which takes place in Shakespeare's "Othello". To see a great, perhaps world-shattering event in the smallest, seemingly insignificant thing is a prominent characteristic of Maeterlinck's intellectual disposition. He is not a lover of clarity in words and deeds. Everything that is painted in strong colors is repugnant to him. For him, the indistinct, every faint allusion, every sound of everyday life already speaks a clear language. And because he hears a worldly wisdom in the sounds of a babbling child, he shies away from the clear speeches of philosophers. There is no need to touch with the whole hand when a gentle touch with the fingertips is enough. Maeterlinck, the playwright, touches things with his fingertips, just as Maeterlinck, the observer of the world, touches them. He gives us a few glimpses of people's lives that other playwrights would tell us about in the slightest detail.

In the drama "Pelleas and Melisande", events flit past us whose historical context remains completely obscure. We would ask in vain about the time and place of these events. Melisande is found by Golaud in a lonely place and brought to the castle of his grandfather, King Arkel, as his wife. Who is Melisande? Where does she come from? Where is the castle where Arkel rules? These are the questions that those for whom it seems important to satisfy the external senses might ask. For Maeterlinck, this does not seem important. It is enough for him to single out a few events from the otherwise indifferent mass of external events that reveal to us the relationships between the souls of the people we are dealing with. The entire court of King Arkel of Allemonde, with everything that belongs to a king and a court, is indifferent to what fate has in store for a few human souls. And fate walks quietly, very quietly, but all the more meaningfully through the halls of the lonely castle and through the mystically magical landscape in which this castle lies.

Fate walks through these rooms as a burden of misfortune. And in resignation, the people accept what it gives them. They do not act; they let the unknown forces rule. King Arkel is old. He has become a renunciate through life. He does not know happiness. The years are the only thing that has matured for him. We hear of a sick man, the father of Golaud and his brother Pelleas; we feel nothing more than the spiritual sick-room air that weighs on their souls. The sick man remains in the background. Golaud was married once before. There is a child from this marriage. We also hear nothing about Golaud's first marriage. Was it happy, was it unhappy? What effect did it have on Golaud's disposition? We only recognize that in the dullness of this castle alone a winter mood of the soul can flourish. And Golaud's soul is also filled with this mood. At his side, Melisande's soul must wither like a flower that needs the sun and is placed in a damp cellar. Golaud's brother Pelleas has all the more to say to this child of the sun. There is a deep communion of souls between them that does not express itself in ordinary words of love, and even less in the everyday actions of loving people. Anyone who only pays attention to the rough events of love can see nothing but childish play in Pelleas' and Melisande's love. But it is precisely a child, Golaud's son, who sees the mysterious seriousness behind the play and who becomes a traitor to Golaud. Golaud kills Pelleas and wounds Melisande because it is "customary" to kill out of jealousy. And Melisande withers and dies, the summer flower in the winter landscape. Maeterlinck is far removed from crude psychology, which is only concerned with processes of the soul with powerful external effects. What the inner sense feels is infinitely more valuable to him than the perceptions of the outer senses. And because, as a dramatist, he can only speak to the outer senses, he gives them as little as possible to perceive. Events of the greatest simplicity and indeterminacy should offer the inner sense the opportunity to see through them to the invisible, but therefore no less perceptible, tragedies of the soul. Our acting is not particularly suited to bringing Maeterlinck's spirit to the stage. Our artists translate the inner passion into an outer one. And today's performance has achieved something incomparable in the art of this translation. Vilma von Mayburg as Melisande and Adalbert Matkowsky as Golaud have characteristically portrayed everything that is external to Maeterlinck; they have been less successful in unlocking the inner meaning. But the character of the poetry is too sharply defined to be completely destroyed in the form of the acting.

Maximilian Harden wanted to introduce the performance with a conference. External circumstances made it necessary that he could only say what he had to say after the performance. He spoke many a good word. At many moments today he reminded me of the time when I expected the very best from his great abilities for his future as a writer. His talents seemed to make him an author who, out of a strong temperament, could hold up a mirror to contemporary phenomena and exert the magic of personal greatness. He was brought down by journalism, which for him was associated with a cult of Bismarck that disturbed his individual sensibilities and the strange cult of mass instincts that followed from it. Today, under these influences, his forms of judgment have become too coarse to characterize such fine spirits as Maeterlinck. But one still notices something of his better dispositions in him. Basically, he has no inner relationship to the coarse web of concepts that his journalistic activity has imposed on him. And in order to assert himself within it, he has to resort to posturing. He would not need it. He is strong enough to give himself away. A university professor accuses Harden of infamy, and the latter dismisses the attacker - at least to any unbiased person - in such a way that the youthful figure, who at first appeared so brave, appears in a comical and even different light. Many a publicist, who has succeeded better in hiding somewhat bitter things behind the scenes, has today been able to convince himself from the upright man that intellectual abilities are not a worthless commodity after all.