This is éasetMérepeated still more vehemently three measures further on, and there is a return of the _Fate_ motive as Mélisande, at the bidding of Golaud, goes forth to seek the missing ring. An interlude, in which are blended the variant of the _Mélisande_ theme, which denotes her grieving, and the shimmering figure in sixteenth-notes heard during the dialogue at the fountain, leads into the scene before the grotto.
As Pelléas and Mélisande stand in the darkness of the cavern we hear again (page 110, measure 2) the variant of the _Fate_ motive which marked the close of the preceding scene; then, as a sudden shaft of moonlight illuminates the grotto, it is expanded and transmuted into a gleaming flood of orchestral and harmonic color (two flutes, oboe, two harps _glissando_, string tremolos, cymbals _pp_). While they talk of the beggars sleeping in a corner of the cave, an oboe and flute trace a tenuous and melancholy phrase (_doux et triste_) which continues almost to the end of the scene; it leads into a quiet coda formed out of the theme of _Fate_.
After several bars of preluding by flute, harp, violas, and 'cellos (harmonics), on an arpeggio figure, _ppp_, flutes and oboe present (page 115, measure 6) a theme which, in an ampler version, dominates the entire scene. Its complete form, in which I conceive it to be suggestive of the magic of night, is as follows (page 118, measure 2):
It continues in the orchestra until, as Pelléas urges Mélisande to lean further out of the window that he may see her hair unbound, a new theme enters, seeming to characterize the ardor of Pelléas' mood (page 120, measure 3[9]):
[9] I quote it as it appears in its maturer form on page 125 (measure 3).
As Mélisande leans further and further out of her window, these two themes (_Night_ and _Ardor_) grow increasingly insistent. They are interrupted at Pelléas' words, "I see only the branches of the willow drooping over the wall," by a rich passage for divided violins, violas, and 'cellos (page 124, measure 3), and by a brief phrase to which attention should be drawn because of its essentially Debussy-like quality--the progression in the first measure of page 125 (scored for violins and violas). Then suddenly Mélisande's unloosed hair streams down from the open window and envelops Pelléas, and we hear (a famous passage) in the strings alone, _ff_, a precipitate descending series of seventh-chords built on the familiar whole-tone scale which Debussy finds so impelling (page 127, measure 1).