There is an old abandoned lighthouse tower that the seagulls scream round. It is crumbling away at the top. Méléandre had only climbed it once, and then he was dizzy.... Here comes Selysette with her little sister, Yssaline, for whom she has promised to catch a strange bird with green wings that has been seen flying round the tower.... She thinks it has built its nest in a hole in the wall just where she can lean over.... She leans over to seize it, and the top of the wall gives way. She is precipitated on to the sands below. She would be killed if it were not for the fifth act; but she lives long enough to make out that it was a pure accident, so that the two surviving lovers may be happy ever after with a clear conscience.
In spite of great beauties, the play as a whole is disappointing. The fourth act, indeed, is perfect. In the first four acts we have the doctrine of silence, as well as various other doctrines, dinned into our ears. Méléandre is a milksop; Aglavaine is a bore; but Selysette is a beautiful creation--the only one of Maeterlinck's women, perhaps, who is absolutely natural. She is "unconscious goodness," says a critic, whereas Aglavaine is "conscious goodness"; and no doubt she does represent an idea;[5] but she is nevertheless a real, created woman. Méligrane, the spiteful old grandmother, is in the main the same idea (wisdom is in babes and the very old) as the greybeards of other plays; but there is not very much of her, and she must be remembered for saying this (to her granddaughter, Selysette):
"And so it is thanks to you that I was a mother for the second time, when I had ceased to be beautiful; and you will know some day that women are never tired of being mothers, and that they would rock death itself, if death came to sleep on their knees."
_Aglavaine and Selysette_ is at all events important as being a turning-point in Maeterlinck's development. We have seen that he had applauded Emerson's sturdy individualism. There is as much individualism as fatalism in this play. It is true that love is fatal to Selysette, but that is because Aglavaine is a monstrosity, not because love is a _dark_ power--in this play it is distinctly painted as a _bright_ power. Death is only called in as a saviour from an intolerable situation: Selysette dies, but she dies with a clear mind, and with a smile.