On the final page of the manuscript, which accounts for the last nine bars of the composition, the viewer’s attention is drawn to an all-important identifying gesture on any autograph manuscript: the composer’s signature. In this instance, Debussy has appended his signature with a statement not only of the date, but moreover, of the time of day. Marie Rolf (1976) has pointed out that the fair copy manuscript held by the Bibliothèque Nationale bears the same date, but that the weight of evidence supports the assertion that the date of March 5^th, 1905, more likely pertains to the completion of the fair copy of the orchestral score, rather than this draft manuscript.

Immediately above the composer’s signature, an erasure invites curiosity. The wording that had previously been visible, and which had been erased at some unspecified point in yesteryear (presumably by Debussy himself), was discerned in 1972 by visiting conductor Pierre Boulez; subsequently it was (according to Rolf [1976]) corroborated by another native Frenchman who was on-site in Rochester. Inspection by means of microscope under infra-red light revealed the previously-appearing wording to have been the following:

pour la p.m. [petite mienne] / don’t les yeux rient dans l’ombre

(for my little one, whose eyes laugh in the background)

According to Rolf (1976), a case can be made for Emma Bardac’s having been the object of the inscription—in effect, the dedicatee of the manuscript. The composer often referred (e.g., in correspondence) to Emma as p.m. or petite mienne, and, as Rolf has suggested, the words “dans l’ombre” might have implied the secrecy of their liaison. Debussy’s relationship with Emma Bardac eventually caused a scandal in French society when his marriage to Rosalie Texier ended in divorce on August 2, 1905.