Second Plays Part 64

(Anxiously) Was I--was I all right?

MELISANDE. Oh, yes!

GERVASE (pleased). Ah! (He spreads himself a little and removes a speck of dust from his sleeve)

MELISANDE (thinking of it still). You were so brave.

GERVASE. Yes, I expect I'm pretty brave in other people's dreams--I'm so cowardly in my own. Did I kill anybody?

MELISANDE. You were engaged in a terrible fight with a dragon when I woke up.

GERVASE. Leaving me and the dragon still asleep--I mean, still fighting? Oh, Melisande, how could you leave us until you knew who had won?

MELISANDE. I tried so hard to get back to you.

GERVASE. I expect I was winning, you know. I wish you could have got back for the finish. . . . Melisande, let me come into your dreams again to-night.

MELISANDE. You never asked me last night. You just came.

GERVASE. Thank you for letting me come.

MELISANDE. And then when I woke up early this morning, the world was so young, so beautiful, so fresh that I had to be with it. It called to me so clearly--to come out and find its secret. So I came up here, to this enchanted place, and all the way it whispered to me--wonderful things.

GERVASE. What did it whisper, Melisande?

MELISANDE. The secret of happiness.

GERVASE. Ah, what is it, Melisande? (She smiles and shakes her head). . . . I met a magician in the woods this morning.

MELISANDE. Did he speak to you?

GERVASE. _He_ told _me_ the secret of happiness.

MELISANDE. What did he tell you?

GERVASE. He said it was marriage.

MELISANDE. Ah, but he didn't mean by marriage what so many people mean.

GERVASE. He seemed a very potent magician.

MELISANDE. Marriage to many people means just food. Housekeeping. _He_ didn't mean that.

GERVASE. A very wise and reverend magician.

MELISANDE. Love is romance. Is there anything romantic in breakfast--or lunch?

GERVASE. Well, not so much in lunch, of course, but---

MELISANDE. How well you understand! Why do the others not understand?

GERVASE (smiling at her). Perhaps because they have not seen Melisande.

MELISANDE. Oh no, no, that isn't it. All the others---

GERVASE. Do you mean your suitors?

MELISANDE. Yes. They are so unromantic, so material. The clothes they wear; the things they talk about. But you are so different. Why is it?

GERVASE. I don't know. Perhaps because I am the third son of a woodcutter. Perhaps because they don't know that you are the Princess.

Perhaps because they have never been in the enchanted forest.

MELISANDE. What would the forest tell them?

GERVASE. All the birds in the forest are singing "Melisande"; the little brook runs through the forest murmuring "Melisande"; the tall trees bend their heads and whisper to each other "Melisande." All the flowers have put on their gay dresses for her. Oh, Melisande!

MELISANDE (awed). Is it true? (They are silent for a little, happy to be together. . . . He looks back at her and gives a sudden little laugh.) What is it?

GERVASE. Just you and I--together--on the top of the world like this.

MELISANDE. Yes, that's what I feel, too. (After a pause) Go on pretending.

GERVASE. Pretending?

MELISANDE. That the world is very young.

GERVASE. _We_ are very young, Melisande.

MELISANDE (timidly). It is only a dream, isn't it?

GERVASE. Who knows what a dream is? Perhaps we fell asleep in Fairyland a thousand years ago, and all that we thought real was a dream, until now at last we are awake again.

MELISANDE. How wonderful that would be.

GERVASE. Perhaps we are dreaming now. But is it your dream or my dream, Melisande?

MELISANDE (after thinking it out). I think I would rather it were your dream, Gervase. For then I should be in it, and that would mean that you had been thinking of me.

GERVASE. Then it shall be _my_ dream, Melisande.

MELISANDE. Let it be a long one, my dear.

GERVASE. For ever and for ever.

MELISANDE (dreamily). Oh, I know that it is only a dream, and that presently we shall wake up; or else that you will go away and I will go away, too, and we shall never meet again; for in the real world, what could I be to you, or you to me? So go on pretending.

(He stands up and faces her.)

GERVASE. Melisande, if this were Fairyland, or if we were knights and ladies in some old romance, would you trust yourself to me?