📖🎭 Le Fantôme de l’Opéra – Gaston Leroux | Livre Audio Complet

🎭 Plongez dans l’univers envoûtant et mystérieux de *Le Fantôme de l’Opéra* de Gaston Leroux, un classique intemporel qui a marqué la littérature française et l’imaginaire collectif à travers le monde. Entre amour tragique, suspense, drame et surnaturel, cette œuvre explore les coulisses de l’Opéra Garnier où se cache une ombre redoutée : le Fantôme. 👻

✨ Dans ce récit, nous suivons l’histoire de Christine Daaé, jeune cantatrice à la voix enchanteresse, manipulée et hantée par Erik, l’énigmatique Fantôme de l’Opéra. Entre passion destructrice, intrigues sombres et dilemmes moraux, l’intrigue nous entraîne dans un tourbillon d’émotions intenses.

🔑 Ce que vous découvrirez dans ce livre audio :
– 🎶 Une immersion unique dans les coulisses de l’Opéra Garnier
– 👻 La légende du Fantôme, figure à la fois terrifiante et tragique
– 💔 Un triangle amoureux bouleversant entre Christine, Raoul et Erik
– 📜 Une œuvre littéraire incontournable alliant mystère, romance et drame

👉 Si vous aimez les histoires pleines de suspense et de passion, ce chef-d’œuvre est pour vous !

🔔 Abonnez-vous pour plus de classiques littéraires : https://bit.ly/LivresAudioLaMagieDesMots

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#LeFantômeDeLOpéra #LivreAudio #RomanClassique #Mystère #Suspense #Drame #Romance #ChristineDaaé #Erik #OpéraGarnier #Fantôme #ChefDoeuvre #LitteratureFrançaise #AudiobookFrançais #LectureAudio #RomansIncontournables #LivreComplet #GastonLeroux #AmourTragique #ClassiqueLitteraire

**Navigate by Chapters or Titles:**
00:00:33 Chapter 1.
00:19:45 Chapter 2.
00:41:41 Chapter 3.
00:56:27 Chapter 4.
01:11:37 Chapter 5.
01:24:27 Chapter 6.
02:03:06 Chapter 7.
02:08:10 Chapter 8.
02:37:57 Chapter 9.
02:54:18 Chapter 10.
03:16:57 Chapter 11.
03:26:19 Chapter 12.
03:43:34 Chapter 13.
04:35:10 Chapter 14.
04:56:35 Chapter 15.
05:06:42 Chapter 16.
05:14:13 Chapter 17.
05:34:55 Chapter 18.
05:46:27 Chapter 19.
05:56:28 Chapter 20.
06:08:53 Chapter 21.
06:43:41 Chapter 22.
07:14:26 Chapter 23.
07:27:40 Chapter 24.
07:39:33 Chapter 25.
08:01:27 Chapter 26.
08:18:50 Chapter 27.

Welcome to the captivating world of Gaston Leroux’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” a fascinating work that blends mystery, romance, and thrills. Behind the scenes of Paris’s majestic Opéra Garnier, an enigmatic presence lurks, a being both brilliant and terrifying, whose shadow hovers over the destinies of artists and spectators. This story draws you into a labyrinth of intense passions, intrigues, and buried secrets, where love collides with drama and fear. Prepare to dive into a unique atmosphere where every musical note can become a scream of terror. Chapter 1. Is This The Phantom? That evening, who was the one when Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, the resigning directors of the Opera, were giving their last gala evening. On the occasion of their departure, the dressing room of Sorelli, one of the first subjects of the dance, was suddenly invaded by half a dozen of these young ladies of the corps de ballet who were coming back from the stage after dancing Polyeucte. They rushed there in great confusion, some making excessive and unnatural laughter, and others screams of terror. Sorelli, who wanted to be alone for a moment to review the compliment she was to pronounce later in the foyer in front of Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, had seen with spite all this giddy crowd rushing after her. She turned towards her comrades and was worried by such a tumultuous commotion. It was little Jammes—with a nose so dear to Grévin, eyes like forget-me-nots, cheeks like roses, a throat like a lily—who gave the reason in three words, in a trembling voice stifled by anguish: “It’s the ghost!” And she locked the door. Sorelli’s dressing room was of an official and banal elegance. A cheval-glass, a divan, a dressing-room, and wardrobes formed the necessary furniture. A few engravings on the walls, souvenirs of her mother, who had known the heyday of the old Opera on the Rue Le Peletier. Portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini. This dressing room seemed like a palace to the girls of the corps de ballet, who were housed in common rooms , where they spent their time singing, arguing, beating up the hairdressers and dressers, and buying each other small glasses of blackcurrant or beer or even rum until the bell rang . Sorelli was very superstitious. When she heard little Jammes talk about the ghost, she shuddered and said: “Little beast!” And as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general and in the one at the Opera in particular, she immediately wanted to know more. “Have you seen him?” she asked. “How I can see you!” replied little Jammes, groaning, and, no longer able to stand on her legs, she dropped onto a chair. And immediately little Giry,–plum-colored hands, inky hair, a dark complexion, her poor little skin on her poor little bones,–added: –If it’s him, he’s very ugly! –Oh! yes, said the chorus of dancers. And they all spoke together. The ghost had appeared to them in the form of a gentleman in a black coat who had suddenly stood up before them, in the corridor, without anyone being able to tell where he came from. His appearance had been so sudden that one might have thought he had come out of the wall.– Bah! said one of them who had more or less kept her composure, you see the ghost everywhere. And it is true that for some months now, the talk at the Opera had been of nothing but this ghost in a black coat who walked like a shadow, from top to bottom of the building, who spoke to no one, to whom no one dared speak and who vanished, moreover , as soon as he was seen, without anyone being able to know where or how. He made no noise as he walked, as befits a real ghost. People had begun by laughing at him and making fun of this ghost dressed like a man of the world or an undertaker, but The legend of the phantom had soon taken on colossal proportions in the corps de ballet. Everyone claimed to have encountered this extra-natural being more or less and to have been victims of his evil spells. And those who laughed the loudest were not the most reassured. When he was not seen, he signaled his presence or his passing by comical or fatal events for which the almost general superstition held him responsible. Had there been an accident to deplore, had a friend played a trick on one of these young ladies of the corps de ballet, had a rice powder puff been lost? It was all the fault of the phantom, the Phantom of the Opera! In the end, who had seen him? You can meet so many black suits at the Opera that are not ghosts. But this one had a specialty that not all black suits have. He dressed a skeleton. At least, these young ladies said so. And he had, naturally, a death’s head. Was all this serious? The truth is that the imagination of the skeleton was born from the description of the ghost by Joseph Buquet, chief machinist, who had actually seen him. He had come face to face—one could not say nose to nose, for the ghost had none—with the mysterious figure on the small staircase which, near the banister, descends directly below. He had had time to catch a glimpse of him for a second—for the ghost had fled—and had retained an indelible memory of this vision. And here is what Joseph Buquet said of the ghost to anyone who would listen: He is prodigiously thin and his black coat floats over a skeletal frame. His eyes are so deep that one cannot clearly distinguish the motionless pupils. One sees, in short, only two large black holes like the skulls of the dead. His skin, which is stretched over his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but ugly yellow; his nose is so small that it is invisible in profile, and the absence of this nose is a horrible sight. Three or four long brown locks on his forehead and behind his ears serve as hair. Joseph Buquet had pursued this strange apparition in vain. It had disappeared as if by magic and he had been unable to find its trace. This chief machinist was a serious, orderly man, with a slow imagination, and he was sober. His words were listened to with stupor and interest, and immediately people began to say that they too had encountered a black coat with a skull. The sensible people who heard this story at first claimed that Joseph Buquet had been the victim of a joke by one of his subordinates. And then, incidents occurred one after the other so curious and inexplicable that the most cunning began to worry themselves. A fire lieutenant is brave! He fears nothing, especially not fire! Well! The fire lieutenant in question, who had gone to do a surveillance tour of the basement and who had ventured, it seems, a little further than usual, had suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale, frightened, trembling, his eyes bulging , and had almost fainted in the arms of little Jammes’s noble mother . And why? Because he had seen advancing towards him, at head height, but without a body, a head of fire! And I repeat, a fire lieutenant does not fear fire. This fire lieutenant was called Papin. The corps de ballet was dismayed. At first, this head of fire did not correspond at all to the description given by Joseph Buquet of the ghost. The fireman was questioned, and the chief engineer was questioned again , after which these young ladies were convinced that the ghost had several heads which he could change as he wished. Naturally, they immediately imagined that they were in great danger. From the moment that a lieutenant of firemen did not hesitate to faint, coryphaeus and rats could invoke many excuses for the terror that made them run away with all their little paws when they passed in front of some dark hole in a poorly lit corridor. So much so that, to protect as much as possible the monument doomed to such horrible curses, Sorelli herself, surrounded by all the dancers and even followed by all the children from the lower classes in swimsuits, had, – the day after the story of the lieutenant of firemen, – on the table in the concierge’s vestibule, on the side of the administration courtyard, placed a horseshoe that anyone entering the Opera, in any capacity other than that of spectator, had to touch before setting foot on the first step of the staircase. And this under penalty of falling prey to the occult power that had taken possession of the building, from the cellars to the attic!
This horseshoe, like the whole story, moreover—alas!—I did not invent it, and one can still see it today on the table in the vestibule, in front of the concierge’s box, when one enters the Opera by the administration courtyard. This gives a fairly rapid glimpse of the state of mind of these young ladies, the evening when we entered Sorelli’s box with them . “It’s the ghost!” cried little Jammes. And the dancers’ anxiety only increased. Now, an agonizing silence reigned in the box. Only the sound of panting could be heard. Finally, Jammes, having thrown herself with signs of sincere terror into the most remote corner of the wall, murmured these single words: “Listen!” It seemed, in fact, to everyone that a rustling was being heard behind the door. No sound of footsteps. It was as if light silk were sliding over the panel. Then, nothing. Sorelli tried to appear less pusillanimous than her companions. She advanced towards the door and asked in a toneless voice: “Who is there?” But no one answered her. Then, feeling all the eyes upon her, watching her every move, she forced herself to be brave and said very loudly: “Is there someone behind the door?” “Oh! Yes! Yes! Certainly, there is someone behind the door!” repeated that little dried prune Meg Giry, who heroically held Sorelli back by her gauze skirt… Above all, don’t open! My God, don’t open ! But Sorelli, armed with a stiletto that never left her, dared to turn the key in the lock and open the door, while the dancers retreated into the dressing room and Meg Giry sighed: “Mother! Mother!” Sorelli looked courageously into the corridor. It was deserted; a fire butterfly, in its glass prison, cast a red, shifty glow into the surrounding darkness, without managing to dispel it. And the dancer quickly closed the door with a heavy sigh. “No,” she said, “there’s no one there! ” “And yet, we saw him!” Jammes affirmed again, taking his place beside Sorelli with small, fearful steps. “He must be somewhere, around there, prowling. I’m not going back to dress. We should all go down to the foyer together, right away, for the compliment, and we would go back up together.” Thereupon, the child piously touched the little coral finger that was intended to ward off bad luck. And Sorelli surreptitiously drew, with the tip of the pink nail of her right thumb, a St. Andrew’s cross on the wooden ring that encircled the ring finger of her left hand. La Sorelli, wrote a famous chronicler, is a tall, beautiful dancer, with a grave and voluptuous face, and a waist as supple as a willow branch; it is commonly said of her that she is a beautiful creature. Her blond hair, pure as gold, crowns a matte forehead beneath which are set two emerald eyes. Her Her head swings gently like an egret on a long, elegant , and proud neck. When she dances, she has a certain indescribable movement of her hips, which gives her whole body a shiver of ineffable languor. When she raises her arms and bends to begin a pirouette, thus emphasizing the whole design of the bodice, and the inclination of the body makes the hip of this delicious woman stand out , it seems that it is a picture to burn one’s brain. As for brains, it seems certain that she had hardly any. No one reproached her for it. She said again to the little dancers: “My children, you must pull yourself together!… The ghost? Perhaps no one has ever seen him!… ” “Yes! Yes! We saw him!… we saw him just now!” the little ones continued. “He had the death’s head and his coat, like the evening he appeared to Joseph Buquet! ” “And Gabriel saw him too!” said Jammes… no later than yesterday! Yesterday in the afternoon… in broad daylight… “Gabriel, the singing master? ” “Why, yes… What! You don’t know that? ” “And he had his coat on, in broad daylight? ” “Who? Gabriel? ” “But no! The ghost? ” “Of course he had his coat on!” affirmed Jammes. “Gabriel himself told me… That’s even how he recognized him. And this is how it happened. Gabriel was in the stage manager’s office. Suddenly, the door opened. It was the Persian coming in. You know if the Persian has the evil eye. ” “Oh! yes!” replied the little dancers in chorus, who, as soon as they had evoked the image of the Persian, made horns for Destiny with their index and little fingers extended, while the middle and ring fingers were folded over the palm and held by the thumb. –…And if Gabriel is superstitious! continued Jammes, nevertheless he is always polite and when he sees the Persian, he is content to calmly put his hand in his pocket and touch his keys… Well! as soon as the door opened in front of the Persian, Gabriel made only one leap from the armchair where he was sitting to the lock of the wardrobe, to touch some iron! In this movement, he tore a whole section of his overcoat with a nail. In hurrying to leave, he went and hit a coat hook with his forehead and gave himself a huge bump; then, in stepping back suddenly, he grazed his arm on the screen, near the piano. He wanted to lean against the piano, but so unfortunately that the lid fell back on his hands and crushed his fingers; he leaped like a madman out of the study and finally took his time going down the stairs so badly that he tumbled down all the steps to the first floor on his back. I was just passing by with Mama. We rushed to help him up. He was all bruised and had blood all over his face, so frightened we were. But immediately he began to smile at us and cry out: Thank God! To get off with so little! So we questioned him and he told us all about his fear. It had come from seeing, behind the Persian, the ghost! The ghost with the death’s head, as Joseph Buquet described it. A terrified murmur greeted the end of this story, at the end of which Jammes arrived all out of breath, she had told it so quickly, so quickly, as if she were being pursued by the ghost. And then there was another silence, interrupted in a low voice by little Giry, while the Sorelli, very moved, polished her nails. “Joseph Buquet would do better to be quiet,” said the prune. “Why would he be silent?” they asked her. “That’s what Mamma thinks…” replied Meg, quite quietly this time, and looking around as if she were afraid of being heard by ears other than those who were there. “And why is that what your mother thinks? ” “Shh! Mamma says the ghost doesn’t like to be bothered!” “And why does your mother say that? ” “Because… Because… nothing…” This learned reticence had the gift of exasperating the curiosity of these young ladies, who crowded around little Giry and begged her to explain. They stood there, elbow to elbow, leaning in a single movement of prayer and terror. They communicated their fear to each other, taking in it a keen pleasure that froze them. “I swore not to say anything!” Meg said again, in a whisper. But they gave her no rest and promised secrecy so firmly that Meg, who was burning with the desire to tell what she knew, began, her eyes fixed on the door: “There… it’s because of the dressing room… ” “What dressing room? ” “The ghost’s dressing room! ” “The ghost has a dressing room?” At the idea that the ghost had his dressing room, the dancers could not contain the fatal joy of their stupefaction. They gave little sighs. They said: “Oh! My God! Tell me… tell me…” “Quieter!” commanded Meg. “It’s the first box, number 5, you know , the first box next to the left-hand proscenium. ” “Not possible! ” “It’s just as I told you… Mama’s the usher… But you swear you won’t tell anyone? ” “Yes, indeed! ” “Well! It’s the ghost’s box… No one’s been there for over a month, except the ghost, of course, and the management has been ordered never to rent it out again… ” “And is it true that the ghost comes there? ” “Yes, indeed… ” “So someone does? ” “No! The ghost comes there, and there’s no one there.” The little dancers looked at each other. If the ghost came into the box, they must have seen him, since he had a black suit and a skull and crossbones . That’s what they made Meg understand, but she replied: “Exactly! You can’t see the ghost! And he has neither clothes nor a head!… All that has been said about his death’s head and his fiery head are jokes! He has nothing at all… You only hear him when he ‘s in the dressing room. Mama has never seen him, but she has heard him. Mama knows that well, since she’s the one who gives him the program! ” Sorelli thought she should intervene: “Little Giry, you’re making fun of us.” Then, little Giry began to cry. “I would have done better to keep quiet… if Mama ever knew that!… but Joseph Buquet is certainly wrong to concern himself with things that don’t concern him… it will bring him bad luck… Mama was saying it again last night… ” At that moment, powerful, hurried footsteps were heard in the corridor and a breathless voice shouting: “Cécile! Cécile! Are you there? ” “It’s Mama’s voice!” Jammes said. “What’s the matter? ” And she opened the door. An honorable lady, built like a Pomeranian grenadier, rushed into the dressing room and fell groaning into an armchair. Her eyes rolled wildly, lighting up her baked-brick face gloomily. “What a misfortune!” she said! “What a misfortune! What? What? Joseph Buquet… ” “Well! Joseph Buquet… ” “Joseph Buquet is dead!” The dressing room filled with exclamations, astonished protests, terrified demands for explanations… “Yes… he has just been found hanging in the third basement!… But the most terrible thing,” the poor honorable lady continued panting, “the most terrible thing is that the stagehands who found his body claim that a noise like the singing of the dead was heard around the corpse! “It’s the ghost!” little Giry blurted out, as if in spite of herself, but she immediately recovered, her fists to her mouth: “No!… No!… I didn’t say anything!… I didn’t say anything!… ” Around her, all her companions, terrified, repeated in low voices: “For sure! It’s the ghost!” Sorelli was pale… “I’ll never be able to say my compliment,” she said. Jammes’s mother gave her opinion while emptying a small glass of liqueur that was lying on a table: there must have been a ghost down there… The truth is that we never really knew how Joseph Buquet died. The investigation, cursory, yielded no results, apart from natural self-harm. In the Memoirs of a Director, Mr. Moncharmin, who was one of the two directors, succeeding Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, reports the incident of the hanged man thus: An unfortunate accident came to disturb the little party that Messrs. Debienne and Poligny were giving to celebrate their departure. I was in the director’s office when I suddenly saw Mercier—the administrator—enter. “He was frantic when he told me that the body of a stagehand had just been discovered, hanged in the third tier below the stage, between a farm and a set from The King of Lahore . I cried out: Let’s go unhook him! By the time it took me to rush down the stairs and down the ladder, the hanged man was already missing his rope! So this is an event that Mr. Moncharmin finds natural. A man is hanging at the end of a rope, they go to unhook him, the rope has disappeared. Oh! Mr. Moncharmin has found a very simple explanation. Listen to him: It was time for the dance, and the coryphaeus and the rats had quickly taken their precautions against the evil eye. Period. You can see from here the corps de ballet descending the ladder and sharing the hangman’s rope in less time than it takes to write it. This is not serious. When I think, on the contrary, of the exact spot where the body was found—in the third aisle below the stage—I imagine that there could have been some interest in this rope disappearing after it had done its work, and we will see later if I am wrong to have such an imagination. The sinister news spread quickly from top to bottom of the Opera, where Joseph Buquet was much loved. The boxes emptied, and the little dancers, grouped around Sorelli like timid sheep around the shepherd, took the path to the foyer, through the dimly lit corridors and stairways, trotting with all the haste of their little pink legs. Note 2: I also have the very authentic anecdote from M. Pedro Gailliard himself, former director of the Opera. Chapter 2. The New Marguerite. On the first landing, Sorelli bumped into the Count de Chagny who was coming up. The Count, usually so calm, showed great excitement. “I was going to your house,” said the Count, greeting the young woman in a very gallant manner. “Ah! Sorelli, what a lovely evening! And Christine Daaé: what a triumph! ” “Not possible!” protested Meg Giry. “Six months ago, she sang like a clock! But let us pass, my dear Count,” said the girl with a mischievous bow, “we are going to find news of a poor man who was found hanged.” At that moment, the administrator was busily passing by, stopping abruptly on hearing the remark. “What! You already know that, young ladies?” he said in a rather harsh tone . “Well! Don’t mention it… and especially don’t let Messrs. Debienne and Poligny know about it! It would be too much of a pain for them on their last day. ” Everyone went to the dance hall, which was already crowded. The Count de Chagny was right; no gala could ever compare to this one; The privileged few who attended still speak of it to their children and grandchildren with fond memories. Just think that Gounod, Reyer, Saint Saëns, Massenet, Guiraud, Delibes, took turns at the conductor’s desk and conducted the performance of their works themselves. They had, among other performers, Faure and Krauss, and it was that evening that Christine Daaé, whose mysterious destiny I want to reveal in this work, was revealed to the astonished and intoxicated whole of Paris . Gounod had performed The Funeral March of a Marionette; Reyer, his beautiful overture from Sigurd; Saint Saëns, The Dance of Death and an Oriental Reverie; Massenet, an unpublished Hungarian March; Guiraud, his Carnival; Delibes, The Slow Waltz from Sylvia and some pyzzicati from Coppélia. Mlles Krauss and Denise Bloch had sung: the former, the bolero from The Sicilian Vespers; the latter, the brindisi from Lucrezia Borgia. But the whole triumph had been for Christine Daaé, who had first made herself heard in some passages from Romeo and Juliet. It was the first time that the young artist had sung this work by Gounod, which, moreover, had not yet been brought to the Opera and which the Opéra Comique had just revived long after it had been created at the old Théâtre Lyrique by Mine Carvalho. Ah! We must pity those who have not heard Christine Daaé in this role of Juliette, who have not known her naive grace, who have not trembled at the accents of her seraphic voice, who have not felt their souls soar with her soul above the tombs of the lovers of Verona: Lord! Lord! Lord! Forgive us! Well, all that was still nothing compared to the superhuman accents that she made heard in the prison act and the final trio of Faust, which she sang in place of the indisposed Carlotta. We had never heard, never seen that! That was the new Marguerite that Daaé revealed, a Marguerite of a splendor, of a radiance still unsuspected. The entire hall had greeted with a thousand clamors its ineffable emotion, Christine who was sobbing and fainting in the arms of her comrades. She had to be carried to her dressing room. She seemed to have passed away. The great critic P. de St V. recorded the unforgettable memory of this marvelous moment in a column he aptly titled The New Marguerite. Like the great artist he was, he simply discovered that this beautiful and sweet child had brought to the stage of the Opera that evening a little more than her art, that is to say, her heart. None of the friends of the Opera were unaware that Christine’s heart had remained as pure as it had been at fifteen , and P. de St V. declared that to understand what had just happened to Daaé, he was obliged to imagine that she had just loved for the first time! I may be indiscreet, he added, but love alone is capable of accomplishing such a miracle, such a dazzling transformation. Two years ago, we heard Christine Daaé in her Conservatoire competition, and she gave us charming hope. Where does today’s sublime come from ? If it does not descend from heaven on the wings of love, I must think that it rises from hell and that Christine, like the master singer Ofterdingen, has made a pact with the Devil! Anyone who has not heard Christine sing the final trio of Faust does not know Faust: the exaltation of the voice and the sacred intoxication of a pure soul cannot go beyond that! However, some subscribers protested. How could such a treasure have been hidden from them for so long? Christine Daaé had until then been a suitable Siebel next to this Marguerite, a little too splendidly material, that was Carlotta. And it had taken the incomprehensible and inexcusable absence of Carlotta, at this gala evening, for little Daaé to be able to give her full measure at the last minute in a part of the program reserved for the Spanish diva! Finally, how, deprived of Carlotta, MM. Had Debienne and Poligny addressed themselves to the Daaé? So they knew of her hidden genius? And if they knew, why did they hide it? And she, why did she hide it? Strangely enough, she had no current professor known to her. She had declared several times that, from now on, she would work alone. All this was quite inexplicable. The Count of Chagny had witnessed this delirium, standing in his dressing room, and had joined in with his resounding bravos. The Count of Chagny Philippe Georges Marie was then exactly forty-one years old. He was a great lord and a handsome man. Above average height, with a pleasant face, despite his hard forehead and somewhat cold eyes, he was refinedly polite with women and a little haughty with men, who did not always forgive him his successes in the world. He had an excellent heart and an honest conscience. By the death of the old Count Philibert, he had become the head of one of the most illustrious and oldest families in France, whose noble ancestry dated back to Louis le Qutin. The Chagny fortune was considerable, and when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no small task for Philippe to accept the task of managing such a heavy patrimony. His two sisters and his brother Raoul would not hear of sharing, and they remained in joint ownership, entrusting everything to Philippe, as if the right of primogeniture had not ceased to exist. When the two sisters married, on the same day, they took back their shares from their brother, not as something belonging to them, but as a dowry for which they expressed their gratitude. The Countess of Chagny, born Moerogis de la Martynière, had died giving birth to Raoul, born twenty years after his elder brother. When the old count died, Raoul was twelve years old. Philippe actively took care of the child’s education. He was admirably assisted in this task by his sisters first and then by an old aunt, the sailor’s widow, who lived in Brest, and who gave young Raoul a taste for things of the sea. The young man joined the Borda, left in the first issues and quietly completed his world tour. Thanks to powerful support, he had just been designated to be part of the official expedition of the Requin, whose mission was to search in the polar ice for the survivors of the d’Artois expedition, of whom there had been no news for three years. In the meantime, he was enjoying a long leave which was not to end for six months, and the dowagers of the noble suburb, seeing this pretty child, who seemed so fragile, already pitied him for the hard work that awaited him. The timidity of this sailor, I would almost be tempted to say, his innocence, was remarkable. He seemed to have come out the day before from the hands of women. In fact, pampered by his two sisters and his old aunt, he had retained from this purely feminine education almost candid manners, marked by a charm that nothing, until then, had been able to tarnish. At that time, he was a little over twenty-one years old and looked eighteen. He had a small blond mustache, beautiful blue eyes and a girlish complexion. Philippe spoiled Raoul very much. First of all, he was very proud of him and happily foresaw a glorious career for his younger brother in this navy where one of their ancestors, the famous Chagny de La Roche, had held the rank of admiral. He took advantage of the young man’s leave to show him Paris, which he was almost ignorant of in what it could offer in terms of luxurious joy and artistic pleasure. The count felt that at Raoul’s age, too much wisdom was no longer entirely wise. Philip had a very well-balanced character, measured in his work as in his pleasures, always perfectly behaved, incapable of showing his brother a bad example. He took him everywhere with him. He even introduced him to the dance hall. I know well that it was said that the Count was on the best of terms with Sorelli. But what! Could it be said that this gentleman, who had remained a bachelor, and who, consequently, had plenty of leisure time before him, especially since his sisters had settled down, could be made a crime of coming to spend an hour or two, after his dinner, in the company of a dancer who, evidently, was not not very, very witty, but who had the prettiest eyes in the world? And then, there are places where a true Parisian, when he holds the rank of the Count of Chagny, must show himself, and, at that time, the foyer of the dance of the Opera was one of those places. Finally, perhaps Philippe would not have led his brother backstage at the National Academy of Music, if the latter had not been the first, on several occasions, to ask him with a gentle obstinacy which the Count was to support later. Philippe, after having applauded Daaé that evening, had turned towards Raoul, and had seen him so pale that he had been frightened. “Don’t you see,” Raoul had said, “that this woman is feeling ill? Indeed, on stage, they were supposed to support Christine Daaé. ” “You’re the one who’s going to faint…” said the Count, leaning towards Raoul. “What’s wrong with you?” But Raoul was already on his feet. “Come on,” he said, his voice quivering. “Where do you want to go, Raoul?” asked the Count, astonished at the emotion in which he found his younger brother. “But let’s go and see! It’s the first time she’s sung like that!” The Count looked curiously at his brother, and a slight smile appeared at the corner of his amused lip. “Bah!…” And he added at once: “Come on! Come on!” He seemed delighted. They were soon at the entrance for the abandoned, which was very crowded. While waiting for him to enter the stage, Raoul tore his gloves with an unconscious gesture. Philippe, who was kind, did not mock his impatience. But he was well informed. He knew now why Raoul was distracted when he spoke to him and also why he seemed to take such keen pleasure in bringing all the topics of conversation back to the Opera. They entered the stage. A crowd of black-clad people pressed toward the dance foyer or headed toward the artists’ dressing rooms. The shouts of the stagehands were mingled with the vehement speeches of the department heads. The extras from the last scene leaving, the marchers jostling you, a clothes rack passing, a backdrop coming down from the fly, a platform being secured with heavy hammer blows, the eternal place in the theater that resounds in your ears like the threat of some new catastrophe for your eight reflections or a solid indentation for your back, such is the usual event of the intermissions that never fails to disturb a novice like the young man with the small blond mustache, blue eyes, and girlish complexion who was crossing, as quickly as the crowd would allow, this stage on which Christine Daaé had just triumphed and under which Joseph Buquet had just died. That evening, the confusion had never been more complete, but Raoul had never been less timid. He pushed aside with a solid shoulder everything that stood in his way, paying no attention to what was being said around him, not trying to understand the terrified remarks of the stagehands. He was solely preoccupied with the desire to see the woman whose magical voice had torn his heart out. Yes, he felt that his poor, brand-new heart no longer belonged to him. He had tried to defend it since the day Christine, whom he had known as a child, had reappeared. He had felt a very sweet emotion in front of her that he had wanted to chase away, on reflection, for he had sworn to himself, so much did he respect himself and his faith, to love only the woman who would be his wife, and he could not, for a second, naturally, think of marrying a singer; but now the very sweet emotion had been succeeded by an atrocious sensation. Sensation? Feeling? There was something physical and something moral in it. His chest ached, as if someone had cut it open to take out his heart. He felt a terrible hollow there, a real emptiness that could never again be filled except by the heart of the other! These are events of a particular psychology which, it seems, can only be understood by those who have been struck by love, by that strange blow called, in common parlance, love at first sight. Count Philippe had difficulty following him. He continued to smile. At the back of the stage, past the double doors which open onto the steps leading to the foyer and those leading to the left-hand boxes on the ground floor, Raoul had to stop before the small troop of rats who, having just come down from their attic, were blocking the passage he was about to enter. More than one pleasant word was fired at him by small, painted lips to which he made no reply ; finally, he was able to pass and plunged into the shadow of a corridor all noisy with the exclamations of enthusiastic admirers. One name drowned out all the rumors: Daaé! Daaé! The Count, behind Raoul, was saying to himself: The rascal knows the way, and he wondered how he had learned it. He had never himself taken Raoul to Christine’s. It must be believed that the latter had gone there alone while the Count usually stayed in the foyer chatting with Sorelli, who often begged him to stay near her until the moment she entered the stage, and who sometimes had this tyrannical habit of making him keep the little gaiters in which she came down from her dressing room and which guaranteed the shine of her satin shoes and the cleanliness of her flesh-colored swimsuit. Sorelli had an excuse: she had lost her mother. The Count, putting off for a few minutes the visit he owed to Sorelli, followed the gallery which led to Daaé’s, and noted that this corridor had never been so crowded as this evening, when the whole theater seemed overwhelmed by the success of the artist and also by his fainting. For the beautiful child had not yet regained consciousness, and they had gone to fetch the doctor from the theater, who arrived at that moment, pushing past the groups and followed closely by Raoul, who was walking at his heels. Thus, the doctor and the lover found themselves at the same moment at Christine’s side, who received first aid from the one and opened her eyes in the arms of the other. The Count had remained, with many others, on the threshold of the door, where people were suffocating. “Don’t you think, doctor, that these gentlemen should clear the dressing room a little?” asked Raoul with incredible audacity. ” One can’t breathe in here. ” “But you are perfectly right,” agreed the doctor, and he showed everyone out, with the exception of Raoul and the chambermaid . The latter looked at Raoul with eyes wide with the most sincere bewilderment. She had never seen him. However, she did not dare to question him. And the doctor imagined that if the young man acted thus, it was obviously because he had the right to do so. So much so that the Viscount remained in this box to contemplate the Daaé reborn to life, while the two directors, Messrs. Debienne and Poligny themselves, who had come to express their admiration for their boarder, were driven back into the corridor, wearing black clothes. The Count of Chagny, thrown back like the others into the corridor, laughed aloud. “Ah! the rascal! Ah! the rascal!” And he added, in petto: “Trust these young men who take on the airs of little girls!” He was radiant. He concluded: “It’s a Chagny!” and he went towards Sorelli’s box; but she was going down to the foyer with her little flock trembling with fear, and the Count met her on the way, as has been said. In the dressing room, Christine Daaé had heaved a deep sigh, which was answered by a moan. She turned her head and saw Raoul and shuddered. She looked at the doctor, at whom she smiled, then at her maid , then at Raoul again. “Sir!” she asked him, in a voice that was still just a breath… who are you? “Miss,” replied the young man, who went down on one knee and placed an ardent kiss on the diva’s hand, “miss, I am the little child who went to pick up your scarf from the sea.” Christine looked again at the doctor and the maid, and all three began to laugh. Raoul got up, very red. “Miss, since you are pleased not to recognize me, I would like to tell you something in private, something very important. ” “When I am better, sir, will you?” and his voice trembled. “You are very kind… ” “But you must go…” added the doctor with his most amiable smile. “Let me take care of miss. ” “I am not ill,” Christine said suddenly with an energy as strange as it was unexpected. And she stood up, quickly passing a hand over her eyelids. “Thank you, doctor!… I need to be alone… Go away, all of you!” I beg you… leave me… I’m very nervous this evening… The doctor wanted to make some protests, but in view of the young woman’s agitation, he considered that the best remedy for such a state was not to upset her. And he left with Raoul, who found himself in the corridor, very distraught. The doctor said to him: “I don’t recognize her this evening… she, usually so gentle…” And he left him. Raoul remained alone. This whole part of the theater was deserted now. The farewell ceremony was to take place in the dance foyer. Raoul thought that Daaé might go there and he waited in solitude and silence. He even hid himself in the propitious shadow of a doorway. He still had this terrible pain where his heart should be. And that was what he wanted to talk to Daaé about, without delay. Suddenly the dressing room opened and he saw the maid leaving alone, carrying some packages. He stopped her as she passed and asked her for news of his mistress. She replied laughingly that she was perfectly well, but that she should not be disturbed because she wanted to be alone. And she ran off. An idea crossed Raoul’s burning brain: Obviously Daaé wanted to be left alone for him!… Hadn’t he told her that he wanted to talk to her particularly and wasn’t that the reason why she had created a vacuum around her? Barely breathing, he approached her dressing room and, with his ear bent to the door to hear what would be said to him, he prepared to knock. But his hand fell back. He had just heard, in the dressing room, a man’s voice, which said in a singularly authoritarian tone: “Christine, you must love me!” And Christine’s voice, painful, which one could guess was accompanied by tears, a trembling voice, replied: “How can you tell me that? I, who sing only for you!” Raoul leaned against the panel, he was suffering so much. His heart, which he thought had gone forever, had returned to his chest and was beating resoundingly. The whole corridor echoed with it and Raoul’s ears were as if deafened. Surely, if his heart continued to make such a racket, they would hear it, they would open the door and the young man would be shamefully chased away. What a position for a Chagny! Listening behind a door! He took his heart in both hands to silence it. But a heart is not a dog’s mouth, and even when you hold a dog’s mouth with both hands—a dog that barks unbearably—you still hear it growling. The man’s voice continued: “You must be very tired? ” “Oh! Tonight, I gave you my soul and I died. ” “Your soul is very beautiful, my child,” the deep man’s voice continued, “and I thank you. No emperor has ever received such a gift! The angels wept tonight.” After these words: the angels wept this evening, the Viscount heard nothing more. However, he did not go away, but, as he feared being surprised, he retreated into his dark corner, determined to wait there for the man to leave the box. At that same hour he had just learned about love and hate. He knew that he loved. He wanted to know who he hated. To his great astonishment the door opened, and Christine Daaé, wrapped in furs and her face hidden under lace, came out alone. She closed the door, but Raoul observed that she did not lock it. She passed. He did not even follow her with his eyes, for his eyes were on the door which did not reopen. Then, the corridor being deserted again, he crossed it. He opened the door of the box and immediately closed it behind him. He found himself in the most opaque darkness. The gas had been turned off. “There’s someone here!” Raoul said in a vibrant voice. “Why is he hiding?” And so he said, his back still leaning against the closed door. Night and silence. Raoul heard only the sound of his own breathing. He certainly did not realize that the indiscretion of his conduct exceeded anything imaginable . “You will not leave here until I allow it!” cried the young man. “If you do not answer me, you are a coward! But I will know how to unmask you!” And he struck his match. The flame lit the dressing room. There was no one in the dressing room! Raoul, after taking care to lock the door, lit the globes, the lamps. He entered the dressing room, opened the cupboards, searched, felt the walls with his sweaty hands. Nothing! “Ah!” “Oh,” he said aloud, “am I going mad?” He remained like that for ten minutes, listening to the hissing of the gas in the peace of this abandoned lodge; in love, he did not even think of stealing a ribbon, which would have brought him the perfume of the one he loved. He went out, no longer knowing what he was doing or where he was going. At a moment in his incoherent wanderings, an icy breeze hit him in the face. He found himself at the bottom of a narrow staircase , which was descended behind him by a procession of workmen leaning over a kind of stretcher covered with a white cloth. “The exit, please?” he said to one of these men. “You see! In front of you,” he was told. “The door is open. But let us pass.” He asked mechanically, pointing to the stretcher: “What is that?” The worker replied: “That’s Joseph Buquet, who was found hanging in the third basement, between a rack and a set from The King of Lahore.” He stepped aside before the procession, bowed, and left. Chapter 3. IN WHICH, FOR THE FIRST TIME, MM. DEBIENNE AND POLIGNY SECRETLY GIVE THE NEW DIRECTORS OF THE OPERA, MM. ARMAND MONCHARMIN AND FIRMIN RICHARD, THE TRUE AND MYSTERIOUS REASON FOR THEIR DEPARTURE FROM THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC. Meanwhile, the farewell ceremony was taking place. I said that this magnificent celebration had been given, on the occasion of their departure from the Opera, by MM. Debienne and Poligny, who had wanted to die, as we say today: in style. They had been assisted in the realization of this ideal and funereal program by all that mattered in Paris at the time in society and in the arts. All these people had gathered at the foyer of the dance, where Sorelli was waiting, a glass of champagne in hand and a little speech prepared at the tip of her tongue, for the resigning directors. Behind her, her young and old comrades from the corps de ballet crowded, some talking in low voices about the events of the day, others discreetly making signs of intelligence to their friends, whose chattering crowd was already surrounding the buffet, which had been set up on the sloping floor, between the war dance and the country dance of M. Boulenger. Some dancers had already donned their city dresses; most still had their light gauze skirts; but all had thought it necessary to adopt figures appropriate to the occasion. Only little Jammes, whose fifteen years seemed already to have forgotten in their carefree—happy age—the ghost and death of Joseph Buquet, did not stop cackling, babbling, skipping, and playing tricks, so much so that, when Messrs. Debienne and Poligny appeared on the steps of the dance hall, she was sternly called to order by the impatient Sorelli. Everyone noticed that the resigning directors had a cheerful air, which, in the provinces, would not have seemed natural to anyone, but which , in Paris, was considered in very good taste. He will never be a Parisian who has not learned to put a mask of joy over his sorrows and the wolf of sadness, boredom, or indifference over his intimate joy. You know that one of your friends is in pain, do not try to console him; he will tell you that he is already in pain; but if some happy event has happened to him, beware of congratulating him on it; he finds his good fortune so natural that he will be surprised that anyone speaks of it to him. In Paris, people are always at the masked ball, and it is not at the foyer of the dance that such knowledgeable people as Messrs. Debienne and Poligny would have made the mistake of showing their sorrow, which was real. And they were already smiling too much at Sorelli, who was beginning to deliver her compliment when a complaint from that little madwoman Jammes came to break the smile of the directors in such a brutal way that the face of desolation and terror which was beneath appeared before everyone’s eyes: “The Phantom of the Opera!” Jammes had uttered this sentence in a tone of unspeakable terror, and his finger pointed out in the crowd of black-clad men a face so pale, so lugubrious, and so ugly, with the black holes in the brows so deep, that this death’s head thus designated immediately met with wild success. “The Phantom of the Opera! The Phantom of the Opera!” And people laughed, and jostled, and wanted to offer the Phantom of the Opera a drink; but he had disappeared! He had slipped into the crowd, and they searched for him in vain, while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes, and little Giry uttered cries like a peacock. Sorelli was furious; she had not been able to finish her speech; Messrs. Debienne and Poligny had embraced her, thanked her, and fled as quickly as the Phantom himself. No one was surprised, because it was known that they were to undergo the same ceremony on the upper floor, in the foyer of the choir, and that finally their close friends would be received one last time by them in the large vestibule of the director’s office, where a real supper awaited them. And it was there that we would find them with the new directors, Messrs. Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard. The former barely knew the latter, but they poured out great protestations of friendship and the latter responded with a thousand compliments; so much so that those guests who had feared a somewhat gloomy evening immediately showed joyful expressions. The supper was almost cheerful and the opportunity having presented itself for several toasts, the government commissioner was so particularly skillful, mixing the glory of the past with the successes of the future, that the greatest cordiality soon reigned among the guests. The transfer of managerial powers had taken place the day before, as simply as possible, and the questions that remained to be settled between the old and the new management had been resolved there under the chairmanship of the government commissioner in such a great desire for understanding on both sides , that in truth one could not be surprised, on this memorable evening, to find four directors’ faces so smiling. Messrs. Debienne and Poligny had already handed over to Messrs. Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard the two tiny keys, the master keys that opened all the doors of the National Academy of Music,–several thousand of them.–And nimbly these little keys, the object of general curiosity, were passing from hand to hand when the attention of some was diverted by the discovery they had just made, at the end of the table, of this strange, pale, fantastic figure with hollow eyes who had already appeared at the foyer of the dance and who had been greeted by little Jammes with this apostrophe: The Phantom of the Opera! He was there, like the most natural of guests, except that he neither ate nor drank. Those who had begun to look at him with a smile, had ended up turning away their heads, so much did this vision immediately carry their minds to the most funereal thinkers. No one recommenced the joke of the foyer, no one cried out: There is the Phantom of the Opera! He hadn’t said a word, and even his neighbors couldn’t have said at what precise moment he had come to sit there, but everyone thought that if the dead sometimes returned to sit at the table of the living, they couldn’t show a more macabre face. The friends of Messrs. Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin believed that this emaciated guest was a close friend of Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, while the friends of Messrs. Debienne and Poligny thought that this corpse belonged to Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin’s clientele. So that no request for an explanation, no unpleasant remark, no tasteless joke risked offending this guest from beyond the grave. Some guests who were aware of the legend of the ghost and who knew the description given by the head stagehand—they were unaware of the death of Joseph Buquet—found in petto that the man at the end of the table could very well have passed for the living embodiment of the character created, according to them, by the incorrigible superstition of the Opera staff; and yet, according to the legend, the ghost had no nose and this character had one, but M. Moncharmin states in his memoirs that the guest’s nose was transparent.—His nose, he said, was long, thin, and transparent—and I will add that it could have been a false nose. M. Moncharmin could have taken for transparency what was only shiny. Everyone knows that science makes admirable false noses for those who have been deprived of them by nature or by some operation. In reality, did the ghost come and sit down that night at the directors’ banquet without having been invited? And can we be sure that this figure was that of the Phantom of the Opera himself? Who would dare say? If I speak of this incident here, it is not because I want for a second to make the reader believe or attempt to make the reader believe that the ghost was capable of such superb audacity, but because, in short, the thing is very possible. And here, it seems, is a sufficient reason. M. Armand Moncharmin, still in his memoirs, says verbatim:–Chapter XI.–When I think of that first evening, I cannot separate the confidence that was confided to us, in their office, by Messrs. Debienne and Poligny from the presence at our supper of this ghostly personage that none of us knew. Here is exactly what happened: Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, seated in the middle of the table, had not yet noticed the man with the death’s head when he suddenly began to speak. “The rats are right,” he said. “Perhaps the death of poor Buquet is not as natural as people think.” Debienne and Poligny jumped. “Is Buquet dead?” they cried. “Yes,” the man, or shadow of a man, replied calmly. “He was found hanged this evening in the third basement, between a farm and a set from The King of Lahore.” The two directors, or rather former directors, stood up immediately, staring strangely at their interlocutor. They were more agitated than of reason, that is to say, more than one has reason to be by the announcement of the hanging of a chief machinist. They both looked at each other. They had become paler than the tablecloth. Finally, Debienne signaled to Messrs.
Richard and Moncharmin: Poligny said a few words of apology to the guests, and all four went into the director’s office. I will let Mr. Moncharmin speak. Messrs. Debienne and Poligny seemed more and more agitated, he recounts in his memoirs, and it seemed to us that they had something to tell us that greatly embarrassed them. First, they asked us if we knew the individual, seated at the end of the table, who had informed them of the death of Joseph Buquet, and, upon our negative response, they appeared even more troubled. They took the master keys from our hands, considered them for a moment, nodded , and then advised us to have new locks made, in the greatest secrecy, for the apartments, cabinets, and objects whose hermetic closure we might desire. They were so funny in saying this that we began to laugh as we asked them if there were thieves at the Opera. They replied that there was something worse, which was the Phantom. We began to laugh again, convinced that they were indulging in some joke that was to be like the crowning glory of this little intimate celebration. And then, at their request, we became serious again, determined to enter into this sort of game to please them . They told us that they would never have spoken to us about the Phantom if they had not received a formal order from the Phantom himself to urge us to be kind to him and to grant him everything he asked of us. However, only too happy to leave a domain where this tyrannical shadow reigned supreme and to be rid of it at once, they had hesitated until the last moment to share with us such a curious adventure for which our skeptical minds were certainly not prepared, when the announcement of the death of Joseph Buquet had brutally reminded them that, each time they had not obeyed the wishes of the ghost, some fantastic or fatal event had quickly brought them back to the feeling of their dependence. During these unexpected speeches delivered in the tone of the most secret and important confidence, I looked at Richard. Richard, when he was a student, had had a reputation as a joker, that is to say, he was not ignorant of any of the thousand and one ways in which people make fun of one another, and the concierges of the Boulevard Saint Michel knew something about it. Also, he seemed to be enjoying the dish that was served to him in turn. He didn’t waste a mouthful, although the condiment was a little macabre because of Buquet’s death. He nodded sadly, and his expression, as the others spoke, became pitiful, like that of a man who bitterly regretted the whole Opera affair now that he learned there was a ghost in it. I could do no better than slavishly copy this desperate attitude. However, despite all our efforts, we could not, in the end, stop ourselves from giggling under the beards of Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, who, seeing us pass without transition from the most sombre state of mind to the most insolent gaiety, acted as if they thought we had gone mad.
The farce going on a little too long, Richard asked half-heartedly : But what does this ghost want? M. Poligny went to his office and returned with a copy of the specifications. The specifications begin with these words: The management of the Opera will be required to give the performances of the National Academy of Music the splendor appropriate to the first French lyric scene, and ends with Article 98 worded as follows: This privilege may be withdrawn: 1° If the director contravenes the provisions stipulated in the specifications. These provisions follow. This copy, said Mr. Moncharmin, was in black ink and entirely in accordance with the one we had. However, we saw that the specifications submitted to us by Mr. Poligny included at the end a paragraph, written in red ink , – strange and tormented handwriting, as if it had been traced with matchstick ends, the handwriting of a child who had not stopped making sticks and who did not yet know how to connect his letters. And this paragraph, which so strangely lengthened Article 98, – said verbatim: 5° If the director delays by more than fifteen days the monthly payment he owes to the Phantom of the Opera, a monthly payment fixed until further notice at 20,000 francs – 240,000 francs per year. M. de Poligny, with a hesitant finger, showed us this supreme clause, which we certainly did not expect. “Is that all? Doesn’t he want anything else?” asked Richard with the utmost composure. “Yes,” replied Poligny. And he leafed through the specifications again and read: Art. 63.–The large proscenium on the right of the first No. 1s will be reserved for all performances for the Head of State. Bathtub No. 20, on Mondays, and the first box No. 30, on Wednesdays and Fridays, will be made available to the Minister. The second box No. 27 will be reserved every day for the use of the Prefects of the Seine and the Police. And again, at the end of this article, M. Poligny showed us a line in red ink that had been added. The first box No. 5 will be made available to the Phantom of the Opera at all performances . At this last blow, we could only rise and warmly shake the hands of our two predecessors, congratulating them for having conceived this charming joke, which proved that the old French gaiety never lost its rights. Richard even felt it necessary to add that he now understood why Messrs. Debienne and Poligny were leaving the management of the National Academy of Music. Business was no longer possible with such a demanding ghost. “Obviously,” replied Mr. Poligny without batting an eyelid, “240,000 francs are not found under a horse’s shoe. And have you counted what it might cost us not to rent the first box No. 5 reserved for the ghost at all performances? Not to mention that we were obliged to reimburse the subscription, it’s frightening! Really, we don’t work to maintain ghosts!… We prefer to leave! ” “Yes,” repeated Mr. Debienne, “we prefer to leave! Let’s go!” And he stood up. Richard said: “But still, it seems to me that you are being very kind to this ghost. If I had a ghost as troublesome as that, I would not hesitate to have him arrested. ” “But where? But how?” they cried in chorus; “we have never seen him! ” “But when he comes to his dressing room? ” “We have never seen him in his dressing room. ” “Then rent it out. ” “Rent the dressing room of the Phantom of the Opera! Well then! Gentlemen, try it!” With that, all four of us left the director’s office. Richard and I had never laughed so much. Chapter 4. Dressing Room No. 5. Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous memoirs that, particularly with regard to the rather long period of his co-direction, one is entitled to wonder if he ever found the time to deal with the Opera other than by recounting what happened there. Mr. Moncharmin didn’t know a note of music, but he was on first-name terms with the Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, had done a bit of journalism on the boulevard, and enjoyed a fairly large fortune. In short, he was a charming fellow who didn’t lack of intelligence since, having decided to sponsor the Opera, he had known how to choose the one who would be its useful director and had gone straight to Firmin Richard. Firmin Richard was a distinguished musician and a gallant man. Here is the portrait that the Revue des théâtres painted of him at the time of his taking possession : Mr. Firmin Richard is about fifty years old, tall, with a robust neck, without stoutness. He has presence and distinction, high in color, his hair planted thickly, a little low and cut in a crew cut, his beard in harmony with his hair, the appearance of his physiognomy has something a little sad which is immediately tempered by a frank and straight look combined with a charming smile. Mr. Firmin Richard is a very distinguished musician. A skilled harmonist, a learned counterpoint player, grandeur is the principal characteristic of his composition. He has published chamber music much appreciated by amateurs, music for piano, sonatas or fugitive pieces full of originality, a collection of melodies. Finally, La Mort d’Hercule, performed at the Conservatoire concerts, breathes an epic breath that brings to mind Gluck, one of Mr. Firmin Richard’s revered masters. However, if he adores Gluck, he loves Piccini no less ; Mr. Richard takes his pleasure where he finds it. Full of admiration for Piccini, he bows before Meyerbeer, he delights in Cimarosa and no one appreciates better than he the inimitable genius of Weber. Finally, as for Wagner. Mr. Richard is not far from claiming that he, Richard, is the first in France and perhaps the only one to have understood him. I will stop my quotation here, from which it seems to me to result quite clearly that if Mr. Firmin Richard loved almost all music and all musicians, it was the duty of all musicians to love Mr. Firmin Richard. Let us say in closing this brief portrait that M. Richard was what is commonly called an authoritarian, that is to say, he had a very bad temper. The first days that the two partners spent at the Opera were spent entirely in the joy of feeling themselves masters of such a vast and beautiful enterprise, and they had certainly forgotten this curious and bizarre story of the ghost, when an incident occurred which proved to them that—if there was a farce—the farce was not over. M. Firmin Richard arrived at his office that morning at eleven o’clock. His secretary, M. Rémy, showed him half a dozen letters that he had not opened because they bore the personal address. One of these letters immediately attracted Richard’s attention, not only because the address on the envelope was in red ink, but also because it seemed to him that he had already seen this writing somewhere. He didn’t have to look long: it was the red writing with which the specifications had been so strangely completed . He recognized its jaunty, childish appearance. He unsealed it and read: My dear director, I beg your pardon for coming to disturb you at these precious moments when you are deciding the fate of the Opera’s finest artists, when you are renewing important engagements and concluding new ones; and all this with a sureness of vision, an understanding of the theater, a knowledge of the public and its tastes, an authority that has come close to astounding my old experience. I am aware of what you have just done for Carlotta, Sorelli, and little Jammes, and for a few others whose admirable qualities, talent, or genius you have divined. You know very well of whom I am speaking when I write these words; it is evidently not for Carlotta, who sings like a syringe and who should never have left the Ambassadeurs or the Café Jacquin; nor for Sorelli, who is especially successful in bodywork; nor for little Jammes, who dances like a calf in the meadow. It is not either for Christine Daaé, whose genius is certain, but whom you jealously keep away from any important creation.–Finally, you are free to administer your little business as you see fit, aren’t you? All the same, I would like to take advantage of the fact that you have not yet thrown Christine Daaé out to hear her this evening in the role of Siebel, since that of Marguerite, since her triumph the other day, is forbidden to her, and I would ask you not to use my box today or the following days; for I will not end this letter without confessing to you how disagreeably surprised I was, recently, on arriving at the Opera, to learn that my box had been rented,–at the rental office,–on your orders. I did not protest, firstly because I am the enemy of scandal, secondly because I imagined that your predecessors, MM. Debienne and Poligny, who have always been charming to me, had neglected to tell you about my little quirks before their departure. Now, I have just received the response from Messrs. Debienne and Poligny to my request for an explanation, a response which proves to me that you are aware of my specifications and consequently that you are making fun of me outrageously. If you want us to live in peace, you must not start by taking away my dressing room! With the benefit of these little observations, please consider me, my dear director, as your very humble and very obedient servant. Signed: F. de l’Opéra. This letter was accompanied by an extract from the short correspondence of the Revue théâtrale, which read: F. de l’O: R and M are inexcusable. We have warned them and left your specifications in their hands. Greetings! M. Firmin Richard had barely finished reading when the door to his office opened and M. Armand Moncharmin came to meet him, a letter in his hand, exactly like the one his colleague had received. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. “The joke continues,” said M. Richard; “but it’s not funny! ” “What does it mean?” asked M. Moncharmin. “Do they think that because they were directors of the Opera we’re going to grant them a box in perpetuity? For, for the first as for the second, there was no doubt that the double missive was the fruit of the facetious collaboration of their predecessors. ” “I’m not in the mood to be fooled for long!” declared Firmin Richard. “It’s harmless!” observed Armand Moncharmin. ” In fact, what do they want? A box for this evening?” Mr. Firmin Richard ordered his secretary to send the first box, No. 5, to Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, if it was not rented. It was not. It was sent to them immediately. Messrs. Debienne and Poligny lived: the former at the corner of Rue Scribe and Boulevard des Capucines; the latter on Rue Auber. The two letters from the Phantom F. of the Opera had been put in the post office on Boulevard des Capucines. It was Moncharmin who noticed this when he examined the envelopes. “You see!” said Richard. They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that people of that age were still amusing themselves with such innocent games. “All the same, they could have been polite!” observed Moncharmin. ” Have you seen how they treat us about Carlotta, Sorelli , and little Jammes? ” “Well!” My dear, these people are sick with jealousy!… When I think that they went so far as to pay for a little correspondence to the Revue théâtrale!… So they have nothing left to do? “By the way!” said Moncharmin again, “they seem to be very interested in little Christine Daaé… ” “You know as well as I do that she has a reputation for being good!” replied Richard. “One’s reputation is so often stolen,” replied Moncharmin. “Do I I don’t have the reputation of knowing music, and I don’t know the difference between the treble clef and the bass clef. “You’ve never had that reputation,” Richard declared, ” don’t worry.” With that, Firmin Richard ordered the usher to bring in the artists who, for two hours, had been walking in the main corridor of the administration, waiting for the director’s door to open, the door behind which fame and money… or leave awaited them. The whole day was spent in discussions, negotiations, signing or breaking contracts; So I beg you to believe that that evening—the evening of January 25—our two directors, tired by a bitter day of anger, intrigues, recommendations, threats, protestations of love or hate, went to bed early, without even having the curiosity to go and take a look in box number 5, to see if Messrs. Debienne and Poligny found the show to their liking. The Opera had not been idle since the departure of the former management, and Mr. Richard had carried out the few necessary works, without interrupting the course of the performances. The next morning, Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin found in their mail, on the one hand, a thank-you card from the ghost, worded as follows: My dear Director. Thank you. Charming evening. Exquisite Daaé. Take care of the chorus. The Carlotta, magnificent and banal instrument. Will write to you soon for the 240,000 francs,–exactly 233,424. fr. 70; Messrs. Debienne and Poligny having sent me the 6,575 fr. 30, representing the first ten days of my pension for this year,–their privileges ending on the evening of the 10th. Servant. F. of the O. On the other hand, a letter from Messrs. Debienne and Poligny: Gentlemen, We thank you for your kind attention, but you will easily understand that the prospect of hearing Faust again, however sweet it may be to former directors of the Opera, cannot make us forget that we have no right to occupy the first box number 5, which belongs exclusively to the one we had the opportunity to speak to you about, when rereading with you, one last time, the specifications ,–last paragraph of article 63. Please accept, gentlemen, etc. “Ah! But they’re starting to annoy me, these people!” Firmin Richard declared violently, snatching the letter from Messrs. Debienne and Poligny. That evening, the first lodge No. 5 was rented. The next day, upon arriving at their office, Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin found an inspector’s report relating to the events that had taken place the previous evening in the first lodge No. 5. Here is the essential passage of the report, which is brief: “I was obliged,” wrote the inspector, “to request, this evening—the inspector had written his report the previous evening—a municipal guard to evacuate the first lodge No. 5 twice, at the beginning and in the middle of the second act. The occupants—they had arrived at the beginning of the second act—were causing a real scandal with their laughter and absurd remarks. From all around them, shushes! were being heard and the room was beginning to protest when the usherette came to find me; I entered the box and made the necessary observations. These people did not seem to be in full possession of their common sense and made stupid remarks to me. I warned them that if such a scandal were to occur again I would be forced to evacuate the box. I had no sooner left than I heard their laughter and the protests from the room again . I returned with a municipal guard who made them leave. They demanded, still laughing, declaring that they would not leave if they were not given their money back. Finally, they calmed down, and I let them return to the box; immediately the laughter started again, and this time I had them expelled for good. “Bring in the inspector,” Richard shouted to his secretary, who had been the first to read this report and had already annotated it in blue pencil.
The secretary, Mr. Rémy—twenty-four years old, fine mustache, elegant, distinguished, grand attire—at that time, a frock coat was obligatory during the day, intelligent and shy in front of the director, 2,400 a year in salary, paid by the director, he crunches through the newspapers, answers letters, distributes boxes and free tickets, arranges appointments, chats with those who are waiting in the waiting room, runs to the homes of sick artists, looks for understudies, corresponds with the heads of department, but above all he is the bolt of the director’s office, perhaps thrown out without any compensation from one day to the next, because he is not recognized by the administration—the secretary, who had already sent for the inspector, gave the order to bring him in. The inspector entered, a little worried. “Tell us what happened,” Richard said abruptly. The inspector immediately stammered and referred to the report. “Well! Why were those people laughing?” asked Moncharmin. “Mr. Director, they must have had a good dinner and seemed more prepared to play jokes than to listen to good music. Already, upon arriving, they had no sooner entered the box than they left and called the usherette, who asked them what was the matter. They said to the usherette: Look in the box, there’s no one there, is there?…” “No,” replied the usherette. “Well,” they affirmed, “when we entered we heard a voice saying that there was someone there. ” Mr. Moncharmin could not look at Mr. Richard without smiling, but Mr. Richard himself was not smiling. He had once worked too hard in the genre not to recognize in the story that the inspector was telling him, most naively in the world, all the marks of one of those nasty jokes that at first amuse those who are the victims and then end up enraging them. The inspector, in order to pay his respects to Mr. Moncharmin, who was smiling, had thought it his duty to smile too. Unfortunate smile! Mr. Richard’s look struck the employee with lightning, who immediately took care to show a face of terribly dismay. “Well, when those people arrived,” the terrible Richard demanded, growling, “was there no one in the box? ” “No one, Mr. Director! No one! Neither in the box on the right nor in the box on the left, no one, I swear! I’ll bet my life on it! And that proves that it’s all just a joke.” “And the usherette, what did she say? ” “Oh! As for the usherette, it’s quite simple, she says it’s the Phantom of the Opera. So! ” And the inspector sneered. But he understood that he had been wrong to sneer, for he had no sooner uttered these words: “She says it’s the Phantom of the Opera!” than M. Richard’s expression, from gloomy as it was, became fierce. “Get the usherette!” he commanded. “At once! And bring her back! And show me all these people ! ” The inspector wanted to protest, but Richard shut his mouth with a formidable: “Be quiet!” Then, when the lips of the unfortunate subordinate seemed to be closed forever, the director ordered them to be reopened again. “What is the Phantom of the Opera?” he decided to ask with a grunt. But the inspector was now unable to say a word. He made it clear with a desperate expression that he didn’t know anything about it, or rather that he didn’t want to know. “Have you seen the Phantom of the Opera?” With a vigorous shake of his head, the inspector denied ever having seen him. “Too bad!” declared Mr. Richard coldly. The inspector opened his enormous eyes, eyes that were bulging out of their sockets, to ask why the director had pronounced this sinister: “Too bad! ” “Because I’m going to make all those who haven’t seen him settle their accounts!” explained the director. “Since he’s everywhere, it’s unacceptable that he shouldn’t be seen anywhere. I like people to do his duty, me!” Chapter 5. Continued From Lodge No. 5. Having said this, Mr. Richard no longer concerned himself with the inspector and discussed various matters with his administrator who had just entered. The inspector had thought he could leave and very quietly, very quietly, oh! my God! so quietly!… backwards, he had approached the door, when M. Richard, noticing the maneuver, nailed the man to the spot with a thunderous: “Don’t move! ” Through M. Rémy’s care, they had gone to fetch the usherette, who was a concierge on Rue de Provence, a stone’s throw from the Opera. She soon made her entrance. “What’s your name? ” “Mame Giry. You know me well, Mr. Director; I’m the mother of little Giry, little Meg, you know! ” This was said in a harsh and solemn tone that impressed M. Richard for a moment. He looked at Mame Giry, her faded shawl, her worn shoes, her old taffeta dress, her soot-colored hat. It was quite evident, from the Director’s attitude , that he did not know or did not remember having known Mame Giry, nor even little Giry, nor even little Meg! But Mame Giry’s pride was such that this famous usherette, I believe it was from her name that the well-known word in backstage slang was made: giries. Example: an artist reproaches a comrade for her gossip, her chatter; she will say to her: All that is giries, that this usherette, let’s say, imagined herself to be known to everyone. –Don’t know! Mr. Director finally proclaimed… But, Mame Giry, the fact remains that I would like to know what happened to you last night, that you and Mr. Inspector were forced to resort to a municipal guard… –I wanted to see you to talk to you about it, Mr. Director, so that the same unpleasantness wouldn’t happen to you as happened to Messrs. Debienne and Poligny… They, too, at the beginning, didn’t want to listen to me… –I’m not asking you all that. I ask you what happened to you last night! Mame Giry turned red with indignation. No one had ever spoken to her in such a tone. She stood up as if to leave, already gathering the folds of her skirt and waving with dignity the feathers of her soot-colored hat ; but, changing her mind, she sat down again and said in a snarling voice: “It just so happens that the ghost has been bothered again!” At this, as Monsieur Richard was about to burst out, Monsieur Moncharmin intervened and directed the interrogation, from which it resulted that Mame Giry found it perfectly natural that a voice should be heard proclaiming that there were people in a box where there was no one. She could only explain this phenomenon, which was nothing new to her, by the intervention of the ghost. This ghost, no one saw him in the box, but everyone could hear him. She had heard it often, and one could believe her, for she never lied. One could ask Messrs. Debienne and Poligny and all those who knew her, and also Mr. Isidore Saack, whose leg the ghost had broken! “Yes?” interrupted Moncharmin. “The ghost broke the leg of poor Isidore Saack?” Mame Giry opened her eyes wide, revealing the astonishment she felt at such ignorance. Finally, she agreed to instruct these two unfortunate innocents. The thing had happened in the time of Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, still in box No. 5 and also during a performance of Faust. Mame Giry coughs, steadying her voice… she begins… it’s as if she ‘s preparing to sing the entire score of Gounod. –There, sir. That evening, in the front row, there was Mr. Maniera and his lady, the stone cutters from Rue Mogador, and, behind Mrs. Maniera, their close friend, Mr. Isidore Saack. Méphistophélès was singing Mame Giry sings: Vous qui faire l’endormie, and then Mr. Maniera hears in his right ear his wife was to his left a voice saying to him: Ah! ah! it’s not Julie who’s pretending to be asleep! His lady’s name is precisely Julie. Mr. Maniera turns to his right to see who was speaking to him like that. No one! He rubs his ear and says to himself: Am I dreaming? At that, Méphistophélès continued his song… But am I perhaps boring the gentlemen directors? –No! No! Go on… –Gentlemen directors are too kind! A grimace from Mame Giry. So, Méphistophélès continued his song Mame Giry sings: Catherine whom I adore–why refuse–to the lover who implores you–such a sweet kiss? and immediately Mr.
Maniera hears, still in his right ear, the voice saying to him: Ah! ah! Isn’t Julie the one who would refuse Isidore a kiss? At that, he turns around, but this time, towards his lady and Isidore, and what does he see? Isidore who had taken his lady’s hand from behind and who was covering it with kisses in the small hollow of the glove… like that, my good gentlemen. Mame Giry covers with kisses the corner of flesh left bare by her filoselle glove. So, you can imagine that it didn’t go smoothly! Click! Clack! Mr. Maniera, who was tall and strong like you, Mr. Richard; slapped Mr. Isidore Saack, who was thin and weak like Mr. Moncharmin, with all due respect. It was a scandal. In the room, people shouted: Enough! Enough! He’s going to kill him!… Finally, Mr. Isidore Saack was able to escape… “The ghost hadn’t broken his leg then?” asks Mr. Moncharmin, a little annoyed that his appearance had made such a small impression on Mame Giry. “He broke it, sir,” replies Mame Giry haughtily, for she understood the hurtful intention. “He broke it right there on the main staircase, which he was going down too quickly, sir! And so well, by Jove, that the poor fellow won’t be coming back up it any time soon!… ” “Was it the ghost who told you the words he had whispered into Mr. Maniera’s right ear?” always questions with a seriousness that he believes to be of the highest comical, the examining magistrate Moncharmin. –No! sir, it’s Mr. Maniera himself. So… –But you, you’ve already spoken to the ghost, my good lady? –As I speak to you, my good sir… –And when he speaks to you, the ghost, what does he say to you? –Well! He tells me to bring him a little bench! At these words spoken solemnly, Mame Giry’s face became marble, yellow marble, veined with red stripes, like that of the columns which support the grand staircase and which is called Sarrancolin marble. This time, Richard had gone back to laughing in company with Moncharmin and the secretary Rémy; but instructed by experience, the inspector was no longer laughing. Leaning against the wall, he wondered, feverishly turning his keys in his pocket, how this story was going to end. And the more Mame Giry took him in a snarling tone, the more he feared the return of the director’s anger! And now, faced with the director’s hilarity, Mame Giry dared to become threatening! Menacing indeed! “Instead of laughing at the ghost,” she cried indignantly, “you would do better to do as M. Poligny, who, for his part, realized for himself… ” “Realized what?” asks Moncharmin, who has never been so amused. “The ghost!… Since I tell you… Here!” She calms down. suddenly, because she judges that the situation is serious. Look!… I remember it as if it were yesterday. This time, they were performing La Juive. M. Poligny had wanted to attend the performance, all alone, in the ghost’s dressing room . Mme Krauss had been a huge success. She had just sung, you know, the machine of the second act. Mame Giry sings in a low voice: Near the one I love I want to live and die, And death, itself, Cannot separate us. –Good! Good! I’m there… observes M. Moncharmin with a discouraging smile. But Mame Giry continues in a low voice, swinging the feather of her soot-colored hat: Let’s go! Let’s go! Down here, in the heavens, The same fate now awaits us both. –Yes! Yes! We’re there? repeats Richard, impatient again… and so? and so? –And then, it is at this moment that Leopold cries: Let’s flee! isn’t it? and Eleazar stops them, asking them: Where are you running to? Well, just at that moment, M. Poligny, whom I was watching from the back of a nearby box, which had remained empty, M. Poligny stood up straight, and left stiff as a statue, and I only had time to ask him, like Eleazar: Where are you going? But he didn’t answer me and he was paler than a dead man! I watched him go down the stairs, but he didn’t break his leg… Yet, he walked as if in a dream, as if in a bad dream, and he just couldn’t find his way… he who was paid to know the Opera well! Thus spoke Mame Giry, and she fell silent to judge the effect she had produced. Poligny’s story had made Moncharmin nod his head. “All this doesn’t tell me under what circumstances, or how the Phantom of the Opera asked you for a little bench?” he insisted, looking fixedly at Mother Giry, as they say, between four eyes. “Well, but, it’s since that evening… because, from that evening on, they left our Phantom alone… they no longer tried to dispute his box. Messrs. Debienne and Poligny gave orders that it be left to him at all performances. So, when he came, he asked me for his little bench… ” “Uh! uh! A Phantom asking for a little bench? So your Phantom is a woman?” asked Moncharmin. “No, the Phantom is a man.” “How do you know that? He has a man’s voice, oh! a sweet man’s voice!” This is how it goes: When he comes to the Opera, he usually arrives around the middle of the first act, he knocks three sharp little knocks on the door of box number 5. The first time I heard those three knocks, when I knew very well that there was no one in the box yet, you can imagine how intrigued I was! I open the door, I listen, I look: no one! And then, lo and behold, I hear a voice saying to me: Mame Jules is the name of my late husband, a little bench, please? With all due respect, Mr. Director, I was like a tomato… But the voice continued: Don’t be scared, Mame Jules, I’m the Phantom of the Opera!!! I looked towards where the voice was coming from, which was, moreover, so kind and welcoming, that it almost didn’t scare me anymore. The voice, Mr. Director, was sitting in the first seat in the first row, on the right. Except that I couldn’t see anyone in the seat, you ‘d have sworn there was someone on it, talking, and someone very polite, by Jove. “Was the box to the right of box No. 5,” asked Moncharmin, ” occupied? ” “No; box No. 7, like box No. 3 on the left, were not yet occupied. It was only the beginning of the show. ” “And what did you do? ” “Well, I brought the little bench. Obviously, it wasn’t for him that he asked for a little bench, it was for his lady! But I’ve never heard or seen her… Huh? What? The ghost had a wife now! From Mame Giry, the double gaze of Messrs. Moncharmin and Richard rose to the inspector, who, behind the usherette, was waving his arms with the intention of attracting the attention of his superiors. He was striking his forehead with a forefinger in a sorry way to make the directors understand that Mother Jules was certainly mad, a pantomime which definitely persuaded M. Richard to part with an inspector who kept a hallucinating woman in his department. The good woman continued, all about her ghost, now boasting of his generosity. “At the end of the show, he always gives me a forty- sou piece, sometimes a hundred sous, sometimes even ten francs, when he has been several days without coming.” Only, since we started bothering him again, he doesn’t give me anything at all… “Pardon, my good woman… A new revolt from the soot-colored hat feather, in the face of such persistent familiarity, pardon!… But how does the ghost manage to give you your forty sous?” asks Moncharmin, born curious. “Bah! He leaves them on the tablet in the dressing room. I find them there with the program that I always bring him; some evenings I even find flowers in my dressing room, a rose that will have fallen from his lady’s bodice… because, surely, he must come sometimes with a lady, for one day, they forgot a fan. ” “Ah! ah! The ghost forgot a fan? And what did you do with it? ” “Well! I brought it back to him the next time. ” Here, the inspector’s voice was heard: “You didn’t observe the rules, Mame Giry, I’ll fine you . ” “Shut up, you idiot!” Bass voice of Mr. Firmin Richard. –You brought back the fan! And so? –And so, they took it away, Mr. Director; I couldn’t find it again at the end of the show, as proof they left in its place a box of English sweets that I love so much, Mr. Director. It’s one of the ghost’s kindnesses… –Very well, Mame Giry… You may withdraw. When Mame Giry had respectfully greeted her two directors, not without a certain dignity that never abandoned her, they declared to Mr. Inspector that they had decided to deprive themselves of the services of this crazy old woman. And they dismissed Mr. Inspector. When Mr. Inspector had withdrawn in turn, after protesting his devotion to the house, the directors informed Mr. Administrator that he would have to settle Mr. Inspector’s account . When they were alone, Mr. The directors communicated to each other the same thought, which had come to them both at the same time, that of going for a little walk to box number 5. We will follow them there soon. Chapter 6. The Magic Violin. Christine Daaé, victim of intrigues to which we will return later, did not immediately find at the Opera the triumph of the famous gala evening. Since then, however, she had had the opportunity to be heard in town, at the home of the Duchess of Zurich, where she sang the most beautiful pieces of her repertoire; and here is how the great critic XYZ, who was among the distinguished guests, expressed himself about her: When one hears her in Hamlet, one wonders if Shakespeare came from the Champs Élysées to have her rehearse Ophelia… It is true that, when she wears the star-studded diadem of the queen of the night, Mozart, for his part, must leave the eternal mansions to come and hear her. But no, he need not bother, for the high, vibrant voice of the magical performer of his Magic Flute comes to find him in Heaven, which she climbs with ease, exactly as she knew how, effortlessly, to pass from her cottage in the village of Skotelof to the palace of gold and marble built by Mr. Garnier. But after the Duchess of Zurich’s evening, Christine no longer sang in society. The fact is that at that time, she refused all invitations, all fees. Without giving a plausible pretext, she renounced appearing at a charity event, for which she had previously promised her support. She acted as if she were no longer the mistress of her destiny, as if she were afraid of a new triumph. She learned that the Count of Chagny, to please his brother, had made very active approaches on her behalf to M. Richard; she wrote to him to thank him and also to ask him not to speak of her again to his directors. What could possibly be the reasons for such a strange attitude? Some claimed that it was an immeasurable pride, others cried out for divine modesty. One is not so modest when one is at the theater; in truth, I do not know if I should not simply write this word: fright. Yes, I do believe that Christine Daaé was then afraid of what had just happened to her and that she was as stunned as everyone around her. Stunned? Come on! I have here a letter from Christine from the Persian collection which relates to the events of that time. Well, after rereading it, I will not write that Christine was stunned or even frightened by her triumph, but rather terrified. Yes, yes… terrified! I no longer recognize myself when I sing! she said. The poor, pure, sweet child! She was nowhere to be seen, and the Viscount de Chagny tried in vain to find himself in her path. He wrote to her, asking her permission to come to her house, and he despaired of having a reply, when one morning, she sent him the following note: Sir, I have not forgotten the little child who went to get my scarf from the sea. I cannot help writing this to you, today when I am leaving for Perros, driven by a sacred duty. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of my poor papa, whom you knew, and who loved you very much. He is buried there, with his violin, in the cemetery which surrounds the little church, at the foot of the hill where, when we were little, we played so much; at the edge of this road where, when we were a little older, we said goodbye for the last time. When he received this note from Christine Daaé, the Viscount of Chagny rushed to a railway indicator, dressed hastily, wrote a few lines for his valet to give to his brother, and threw himself into a carriage, which, moreover, dropped him off too late on the platform of the Montparnasse station to allow him to catch the morning train he had been counting on. Raoul spent a gloomy day and only regained his taste for life towards evening when he was settled in his carriage. All along the journey, he reread Christine’s note, he breathed in its scent; he resurrected the sweet image of his youth. He spent the whole of that abominable night on the railway in a feverish dream that had Christine Daaé as its beginning and end. Day was beginning to break when he disembarked at Lannion. He ran to Perros Guirec’s stagecoach. He was the only passenger. He questioned the coachman. He knew that the previous evening a young woman who looked like a Parisian had been driven to Perros and had stayed at the Auberge du Soleil Couchant. It could only be Christine. She had come alone. Raoul let out a deep sigh. He would be able to talk to Christine in complete peace , in this solitude. He loved her to the point of suffocation. This tall boy, who had traveled the world, was as pure as a virgin who had never left her mother’s house. As he drew closer to her, he devoutly recalled the story of the little Swedish singer. Many details are still unknown to the crowd. Once upon a time, in a small town near Uppsala, a peasant who lived there with his family, cultivating the land during the week and singing at the lectern on Sundays. This peasant had a little girl to whom, long before she could read, he taught the musical alphabet. Daae’s father was, perhaps without realizing it, a great musician. He played the violin and was considered the best fiddler in all of Scandinavia. His reputation spread far and wide, and he was always called upon to make couples dance at weddings and feasts. Daae’s mother, impotent, died when Christine was entering her sixth year. Immediately, the father, who loved only his daughter and her music, sold his plot of land and went to seek glory in Uppsala. He found only poverty there. So he returned to the countryside, going from fair to fair, scraping out his Scandinavian melodies, while his child, who never left his side, listened to him in ecstasy or accompanied him by singing. One day, at the Limby fair, Professor Valérius heard them both and took them to Gothenburg. He claimed that the father was the world’s greatest fiddler and that his daughter had the makings of a great artist. The child’s education and training were provided for. Everywhere she amazed everyone with her beauty, her grace, and her thirst for good speech and good deeds. Her progress was rapid. Professor Valérius and his wife had to come and settle in France. They took Daaé and Christine with them. Mother Valérius treated Christine like her daughter. As for the man, he was beginning to waste away, overcome by homesickness. In Paris, he never went out. He lived in a kind of dream that he entertained with his violin. For hours on end, he would shut himself in his room with his daughter, and they would hear him playing the violin and singing very softly, very softly. Sometimes, Mama Valérius would come and listen to them behind the door, heave a deep sigh, wipe away a tear, and tiptoe back. She too was nostalgic for her Scandinavian sky. Father Daaé only seemed to regain his strength in the summer, when the whole family would go on holiday to Perros Guirec, in a corner of Brittany that was then almost unknown to Parisians. He loved the sea there very much, finding it the same color as there, he said, and often, on the beach, he would play his most mournful songs for her, and he would pretend that the sea would fall silent to listen to them. And then, he had begged Valerius’s mother so well that she had consented to a new whim of the old fiddler. At the time of pardons, village festivals, dances and stealth, he set off as before, with his violin, and he had the right to take his daughter with him for eight days. No one tired of listening to them. They poured out harmony for the whole year in the smallest hamlets, and slept at night in barns, refusing the inn’s bed, huddled together on the straw, as in the days when they were so poor in Sweden. Now, they were dressed very suitably, refused the pennies that were offered them, did not take up collections, and the people around them understood nothing of the conduct of this fiddler who ran the roads with this beautiful child who sang so well that one thought one heard an angel from paradise. They were followed from village to village. One day, a young boy from the town, who was with his governess, made her walk a long way, because he could not bring himself to leave the little girl whose voice, so sweet and so pure, seemed to have chained him. They arrived at the edge of a cove that is still called Trestraou. At that time, there was nothing in that place but the sky and the sea and the golden shore. And, above all, there was a strong wind that carried Christine’s scarf into the sea. Christine cried out and stretched out her arms, but the veil was already far away on the waves. Christine heard a voice saying to her: “Don’t bother, miss, I’ll pick up your scarf from the sea.” And she saw a little boy running, running, despite the cries and indignant protests of a good lady, all in black. The little boy went into the sea fully dressed and brought her his scarf. The little boy and the scarf were in fine condition! The lady in black couldn’t calm down, but Christine laughed with all her heart, and she kissed the little boy. It was Viscount Raoul de Chagny. He was living, at the moment, with his aunt, in Lannion. During the season they saw each other almost every day and played together. At the request of the aunt and through Professor Valérius, the good man Daaé agreed to give violin lessons to the young viscount. Thus, Raoul learned to love the same tunes that had enchanted Christine’s childhood. They had more or less the same dreamy and calm little soul. They only enjoyed stories, old Breton tales, and their main sport was to go and fetch them from doorsteps, like beggars. Madam or my good sir, do you have a little story to tell us, please? It was rare that someone didn’t give them one. What old Breton grandmother has not seen, at least once in her life, the korrigans dancing on the heather, in the moonlight? But their great celebration was when at dusk, in the great peace of evening, after the sun had set into the sea, Father Daaé came and sat beside them on the roadside, and told them in a low voice, as if he were afraid of frightening the ghosts he evoked, the beautiful, sweet, or terrible legends of the North Country. Sometimes they were beautiful like the tales of Andersen, sometimes they were sad, like the songs of the great poet Runeberg. When he was silent, the two children said: More! There was a story that began like this: A king sat in a little boat, on one of those deep, tranquil waters that open like a shining eye in the middle of the mountains of Norway… And another: Little Lotte thought of everything and thought of nothing. A summer bird, she hovered in the golden rays of the sun, wearing her spring crown on her blond curls. Her soul was as clear, as blue as her eyes. She cuddled her mother, she was faithful to her doll, took great care of her dress, her red shoes, and her violin, but she loved, above all things, to hear the Angel of Music as she fell asleep. While the old man said these things, Raoul looked at Christine’s blue eyes and golden hair. And Christine thought that little Lotte was blessed to hear the Angel of Music as she fell asleep. There was hardly a story about Father Daaé in which the Angel of Music did not intervene, and the children asked him for explanations about this Angel, endlessly. Father Daaé claimed that all great musicians, all great artists receive at least once in their lives a visit from the Angel of Music. This Angel has sometimes leaned over their cradle, as happened to little Lotte, and that is how there are little prodigies who play the violin at six years old better than men of fifty, which, you will admit, is quite extraordinary. Sometimes the Angel comes much later , because the children are not wise and do not want to learn their method and neglect their scales. Sometimes the Angel never comes, because one does not have a pure heart or a clear conscience. One never sees the Angel, but he makes himself heard by predestined souls . It is often at the moments when they least expect it , when they are sad and discouraged. Then, the ear suddenly perceives celestial harmonies, a divine voice, and remembers them for the rest of their lives. The people who are visited by the Angel remain as if inflamed. They vibrate with a thrill that the rest of mortals do not know. And they have the privilege of no longer being able to touch an instrument or open their mouths to sing, without making sounds that put all other human sounds to shame by their beauty. People who do not know that the Angel has visited these people say that they have genius. Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel. But Father Daaé shook his head sadly, then his eyes shone as he looked at his child and said to him: You, my child, you will hear him one day! When I am in Heaven, I will send him to you, I promise you! Father Daaé began to cough at this time. Autumn came which separated Raoul and Christine. They saw each other again three years later; They were young people. This happened in Perros again and Raoul retained such an impression of it that it followed him all his life. Professor Valérius was dead, but Mama Valérius had remained in France, where her interests kept her with the good man Daaé and his daughter, the latter always singing and playing the violin, carrying away in their harmonious dream their dear protector, who seemed to live only for music. The young man had come to Perros by chance and, likewise, he entered the house formerly inhabited by his little friend. He saw first the old man Daaé, who rose from his seat with tears in his eyes and embraced him, telling him that they had preserved a faithful memory of him. In fact, hardly a day had passed without Christine speaking of Raoul. The old man was still speaking when the door opened and, charming and eager, the young girl entered, carrying steaming tea on a tray. She recognized Raoul and laid down her burden. A light flame spread over her charming face. She remained hesitant, silent. Papa looked at them both. Raoul approached the young girl and embraced her with a kiss that she did not avoid. She asked him a few questions, acquitted herself nicely as hostess, took back the tray, and left the room. Then she went to take refuge on a bench in the solitude of the garden. She was experiencing feelings that were stirring in her adolescent heart for the first time. Raoul came to join her, and they chatted until evening, in great embarrassment. They were completely changed, did not recognize their characters, who seemed to have acquired considerable importance. They were cautious like diplomats, and they told each other things that had nothing to do with their nascent feelings. When they parted at the side of the road, Raoul said to Christine, placing a proper kiss on her trembling hand: Mademoiselle, I will never forget you! And he left regretting this bold word, for he knew well that Christine Daaé could not be the wife of the Viscount of Chagny. As for Christine, she went to find her father and said to him: Don’t you think that Raoul is not as kind as he used to be? I don’t love him anymore! And she tried to stop thinking about him. She managed it with some difficulty and threw herself back on her art, which took up all her time. Her progress was becoming marvelous. Those who listened to her predicted that she would be the first artist in the world. But her father, in the meantime, died, and, suddenly, she seemed to have lost with him her voice, her soul, and her genius. She had enough of all that left to enter the Conservatoire, but only just. She did not distinguish herself in any way, attended classes without enthusiasm and won a prize to please old mother Valérius, with whom she continued to live. The first time Raoul saw Christine again at the Opera, he was charmed by the beauty of the young girl and by revocation of the sweet images of the past, but he had been rather astonished by the negative side of her art. She seemed detached from everything. He came back to listen to her. He followed her backstage. He waited for her behind a rack. He tried to attract her attention. More than once, he accompanied her to the threshold of her dressing room, but she did not see him. She seemed, moreover, to see no one. It was indifference that was passing. Raoul suffered from it, because she was beautiful; he was shy and did not dare admit to himself that he loved her. And then, there had been the thunderclap of the gala evening: the heavens torn apart, an angel’s voice making itself heard on earth for the rapture of men and the consummation of his heart… And then, and then, there had been this man’s voice behind the door: You must love me! and no one in the lodge… Why had she laughed when he had said to her, the moment she opened her eyes: I am the little child who picked up your scarf in the sea? Why hadn’t she recognized him? And why had she written to him? Oh! This hill is long… long… Here is the crucifix of the three roads… Here is the deserted moor, the icy heather, the motionless landscape under the white sky. The windows clink, their panes break in his ears… What a noise this stagecoach makes, moving so slowly! He recognizes the cottages… the enclosures, the embankments, the trees along the path… Here is the last bend in the road, and then we will descend and it will be the sea… the great bay of Perros… So, she stayed at the Inn of the Sunset. Lady! There is no other. And besides, it is very comfortable there. He remembers that in the old days, they used to tell beautiful stories there! How his heart beats! What will she say when she sees him? The first person he sees upon entering the old, smoky room of the inn is Mother Tricard. She recognizes him. She compliments him. She asks him what brings him here. He blushes. He says that, having come on business to Lannion, he insisted on stopping by to say hello. She wants to serve him lunch, but he says, ” In a little while.” He seems to be waiting for something or someone. The door opens. He is standing. He has not been mistaken: it is her! He wants to speak, but he falls back. She remains before him, smiling, not at all surprised. Her face is fresh and rosy like a strawberry grown in the shade. No doubt the young girl is moved by a brisk walk. Her breast, which contains a sincere heart, gently rises. Her eyes, clear mirrors of pale azure, the color of dreaming lakes, motionless, high up in the north of the world, her eyes quietly bring him the reflection of her candid soul. The fur garment is half-open over a supple waist, over the harmonious line of her young body full of grace. Raoul and Christine look at each other for a long time. Mother Tricard smiles and, discreetly, slips away. Finally Christine speaks: “You came and it doesn’t surprise me. I had a presentiment that I would find you here, in this inn, on my way back from mass. Someone told me, down there. Yes, I was told of your arrival.
” “Who?” asks Raoul, taking Christine’s little hand in his hands, which she does not take away. “But, my poor papa who is dead.” There is a silence between the two young people. Then, Raoul continues: “Did your papa tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I cannot live without you?” Christine blushes to the hair and turns her head away. She says, her voice trembling: “Me? You’re crazy, my friend.” And she bursts out laughing to give herself, as they say, a countenance. “Don’t laugh, Christine, this is very serious.” And she replies gravely: “I didn’t call you here so that you could tell me things.” similar. –You made Christine come to me; you guessed that your letter would not leave me indifferent and that I would rush to Perros. How could you have thought that, if you did not think that I loved you? –I thought that you would remember the games of our childhood in which my father so often took part. Deep down, I do not know very well what I thought… Perhaps I was wrong to write to you… Your sudden appearance the other evening in my dressing room had taken me far, far back in the past, and I wrote to you like a little girl that I was then, who would be happy to see again, in a moment of sadness and solitude, her little friend beside her… For a moment, they remain silent. There is something in Christine’s attitude that Raoul does not find natural without it being possible for him to clarify his thoughts. However, he does not feel her hostile; Far from it… the desolate tenderness of her eyes tells him enough. But why is this tenderness desolate?… Perhaps this is what needs to be known and what already irritates the young man… “When you saw me in your dressing room, was it the first time you had seen me, Christine? ” Christine doesn’t know how to lie. She says: “No! I had already seen you several times in your brother’s dressing room. And then also on the stage. ” “I suspected as much!” says Raoul, pursing his lips. “But why then, when you saw me in your dressing room, at your knees, and remembering that I had picked up your scarf in the sea, why did you answer as if you didn’t know me and also why did you laugh?” The tone of these questions is so harsh that Christine looks at Raoul, astonished, and does not answer him. The young man himself is astonished by this sudden quarrel, which he dares at the very moment when he had promised himself to make Christine hear words of gentleness, love, and submission. A husband, a lover who has all the rights, would not speak otherwise to his wife or his mistress who had offended him. But he himself is irritated by his wrongs, and judging himself stupid, he finds no other way out of this ridiculous situation than in the fierce decision he takes to show himself odious. “You don’t answer me!” he says, furious and unhappy. “Well, I ‘ll answer for you! It’s because there was someone in this box who was bothering you, Christine! Someone to whom you didn’t want to show that you could be interested in anyone other than him!… ” “If someone were bothering me, my friend!” Christine interrupted in an icy tone… if anyone bothered me that evening, it must have been you, since it was you I threw out!… “Yes!… to stay with the other one!… ” “What are you saying, sir?” the young woman gasped… “and which other one are we talking about here? The one to whom you said: I sing only for you! I gave you my soul tonight, and I died!” Christine seized Raoul’s arm: she squeezed it with a strength one would not suspect in such a fragile being. “So you were listening behind the door? ” “Yes! Because I love you… And I heard everything… ” “You heard what?” And the young girl, strangely calm again, released Raoul’s arm. “He said to you: You must love me!” At these words, a cadaverous pallor spread over Christine’s face, her eyes became dark… She staggered, she was about to fall. Raoul rushes forward, stretches out his arms, but Christine has already overcome this temporary weakness, and, in a low, almost dying voice: “Tell me! Tell me again! Tell me everything you heard!” Raoul looks at her, hesitates, understands nothing of what is happening. “But, tell me! You see that you are killing me!… ” “I heard him answer you when you told him, that you had given him your soul: Your soul is very beautiful, my child, and I thank you. There is no emperor who has received such a gift! The angels wept this evening! Christine put her hand on her heart. She stared at Raoul with indescribable emotion. Her gaze was so sharp, so fixed, that it seemed that of a madwoman. Raoul was terrified. But then Christine’s eyes became moist and two pearls, two heavy tears, slipped down her ivory cheeks… –Christine!… –Raoul!… The young man wanted to seize her, but she slipped from his hands and she ran away in great confusion. While Christine remained locked in her room, Raoul reproached himself a thousand times for his brutality; but, on the other hand, jealousy resumed its gallop in his burning veins. For the young girl to have shown such emotion upon learning that her secret had been discovered, it must have been important! Certainly, Raoul, despite what he had heard, did not doubt Christine’s purity. He knew that she had a great reputation for wisdom and he was not such a novice that he did not understand the necessity to which an artist sometimes finds herself forced to listen to talk of love. She had responded by affirming that she had given her soul, but obviously, all this was only about song and music. Obviously? Then, why this commotion just now? My God, how unhappy Raoul was! And, if he had had the man, the man’s voice, he would have asked him for precise explanations . Why did Christine run away? Why didn’t she come downstairs? He refused to have lunch. He was completely sorry and his pain was great to see those hours he had hoped would be so sweet slip away from the young Swedish girl? Why didn’t she come with him to travel the country where so many memories were common to them? And why, since she seemed to have nothing more to do in Perros and, in fact, she was doing nothing there, didn’t she immediately take the road to Paris? He had learned that in the morning she had had a mass said for the repose of Father Daaé’s soul and that she had spent long hours in prayer in the little church and at the minstrel’s tomb. Sad and discouraged, Raoul went to the cemetery surrounding the church. He pushed open the door. He wandered alone among the tombs, deciphering the inscriptions, but as he arrived behind the apse, he was immediately informed by the brilliant note of the flowers that sighed on the granite tombstone and spilled over onto the white earth. They perfumed this entire frozen corner of the Breton winter. They were miraculous red roses that seemed to have bloomed in the morning, in the snow. It was a little life among the dead, for death, there, was everywhere. It too overflowed from the earth that had rejected its overflow of corpses. Skeletons and skulls by the hundreds were piled against the wall of the church, held simply by a light network of iron wires that left the entire macabre edifice exposed. The death’s heads, piled up, aligned like bricks, reinforced in the spaces between them by very neatly bleached bones, seemed to form the first course on which the walls of the sacristy had been built. The door of this sacristy opened in the middle of this ossuary, such as one sees many of along the old Breton churches. Raoul prayed for Daaé, then, pitifully impressed by those eternal smiles on the mouths of the death’s heads, he left the cemetery, climbed the hillside and sat down on the edge of the moor overlooking the sea. The wind ran wickedly over the beaches, barking at the poor and timid light of day. It gave way, fled and was nothing more than a livid streak on the horizon. Then the wind fell silent. It was the Evening. Raoul was enveloped in icy shadows, but he didn’t feel the cold. All his thoughts wandered over the deserted and desolate moor, all his memories. It was there, to this spot, that he had often come, at nightfall, with little Christine, to see the korrigans dance, just as the moon rises. For his part, he had never seen one, and yet he had good eyes. Christine, on the contrary, who was a little nearsighted, claimed to have seen many. He smiled at this idea, and then, suddenly, he shuddered. A shape, a precise shape, but one that had come there without his knowing how, without the slightest noise having warned him, a shape standing at his side, was saying: “Do you think the korrigans will come this evening?” It was Christine. He wanted to speak. She closed his mouth with her gloved hand. “Listen to me, Raoul, I’ve decided to tell you something serious, very serious!” Her voice trembled. He waited. She continued, oppressed. “Do you remember, Raoul, the legend of the Angel of Music? ” “Yes, I remember!” he said, “I believe it was here that your father told it to us for the first time. ” “It was also here that he told me: When I get to heaven, my child, I will send him to you. Well! Raoul, my father is in heaven, and I have received a visit from the Angel of Music. ” “I have no doubt,” replied the young man gravely, for he believed he understood that in a pious thought, his friend was mingling the memory of her father with the brilliance of his latest triumph. Christine seemed slightly astonished at the composure with which the Viscount de Chagny learned that she had received a visit from the Angel of Music. “How do you hear it, Raoul?” she asked, leaning her pale face so close to the young man’s that he thought Christine was going to give him a kiss, but she only wanted to read, despite the darkness, in his eyes. “I understand,” he replied, “that a human creature does not sing, as you sang the other evening, without some miracle intervening, without heaven having something to do with it. There is no teacher on earth who can teach you such accents. You have heard the Angel of Music, Christine. ” “Yes,” she said solemnly, “in my dressing room. It is there that he comes to give me his daily lessons. ” The tone in which she said this was so penetrating and so singular that Raoul looked at her anxiously, as one looks at a person who says something enormous or affirms some mad vision in which she believes with all the strength of her poor, sick brain. But she had stepped back and was no longer motionless, but a shadow in the night. “In your dressing room?” he repeated like a stupid echo. “Yes, that’s where I heard it, and I wasn’t the only one to hear it… ” “Who heard it again, Christine? ” “You, my friend. ” “Me? I heard the Angel of Music? ” “Yes, the other evening, it was he who spoke when you were listening behind the door of my dressing room. It was he who said to me: ‘You must love me.’ But I thought I was the only one who could hear his voice. So imagine my astonishment when I learned this morning that you could hear it too… ” Raoul burst out laughing. And immediately, night dissipated over the deserted moor and the first rays of the moon came to envelop the young people. Christine had turned hostilely towards Raoul. Her eyes, usually so gentle, flashed. “Why are you laughing? Do you think you heard a man’s voice? ” “Lady!” replied the young man, whose ideas were beginning to become confused by Christine’s combative attitude. “It’s you, Raoul! You who tell me this! An old little companion of mine! A friend of my father’s! I don’t recognize you anymore! But what Do you believe it? I am an honest girl, I, Viscount de Chagny, and I do not lock myself in my box with men’s voices. If you had opened the door, you would have seen that there was no one there! “That’s true! When you left, I opened this door and I found no one in the box… ” “You see… then?” The count summoned all his courage. ” Then, Christine, I think they are making fun of you!” She gave a cry and fled. He ran after her, but she threw at him, in fierce irritation: “Leave me! Leave me!” And she disappeared. Raoul returned to the inn very tired, very discouraged and very sad. He learned that Christine had just gone up to her room and that she had announced that she would not come down for dinner. The young man asked if she was not ill. The good innkeeper replied ambiguously that if she was ill, it must be from some illness that was not very serious, and, as she believed in the quarrel between two lovers, she went away, shrugging her shoulders and slyly expressing the pity she had for young people, who wasted in vain quarrels the hours that the good Lord had allowed them to spend on earth. Raoul dined alone, by the hearth and, as you can imagine, in a very gloomy manner. Then, in his room, he tried to read, then, in his bed, he tried to sleep. Not a sound could be heard in the apartment next door. What was Christine doing? Was she asleep? And if she wasn’t asleep, what was she thinking? And he, what was he thinking? Would he even have been capable of saying it? The strange conversation he had had with Christine had completely disturbed him!… He thought less of Christine than of Christine, and this surrounding was so diffuse, so nebulous, so elusive, that he felt a very curious and very distressing unease. Thus the hours passed very slowly; it might have been eleven thirty at night when he distinctly heard walking in the room next to his. It was a light, furtive step. Christine had not gone to bed then? Without reasoning his actions, the young man dressed hastily, taking care not to make the slightest noise. And, ready for anything, he waited. Ready for what? Did he know? His heart leaped when he heard Christine’s door turn slowly on its hinges. Where was she going at this hour when everything was at rest in Perros? He gently opened his door and could see, in a ray of moonlight, the white form of Christine sliding cautiously down the corridor. She reached the stairs; she went downstairs and he, above her, leaned over the banister. Suddenly, he heard two voices conversing rapidly. A sentence reached him: Don’t lose the key. It was the hostess’s voice. Downstairs , the door leading to the harbor was opened. It was closed. And all returned to calm. Raoul immediately returned to his room and ran to his window, which he opened. Christine’s white form stood on the deserted quay. This first floor of the Auberge du Soleil Couchant was not very high, and an espalier tree that stretched its branches out to Raoul’s impatient arms allowed him to be outside without the hostess suspecting his absence. So, what was the good lady’s astonishment the next morning when the young man was brought to her, almost frozen, more dead than alive, and she learned that he had been found stretched out on the steps of the high altar of the little church of Perros. She quickly ran to tell Christine the news, who went downstairs in haste and, helped by the innkeeper, lavished her anxious care on the young man who soon opened his eyes and came back to life when he saw the charming face of his friend above him. What had happened? Commissioner Mifroid had the opportunity, A few weeks later, when the drama at the Opera led to the action of the public prosecutor to question the Viscount de Chagny about the events of the night at Perros, and this is how they were transcribed on the sheets of the investigation file. Reference 150. Request.–Did Miss Daaé not see you come down from your room by the strange path you had chosen? Answer.–No, sir, no, no. However, I arrived behind her, neglecting to stifle the sound of my footsteps. I only asked one thing then, that she turn around, that she see me and recognize me. I had just said to myself, in fact, that my pursuit was completely incorrect and that the manner of espionage in which I was engaged was beneath me. But she did not seem to hear me and, in fact, she acted as if I had not been there. She quietly left the platform and then, suddenly, quickly went back up the path. The church clock had just struck a quarter to midnight, and it seemed to me that the sound of the hour had determined the haste of her run, for she almost began to run. Thus she arrived at the cemetery gate. Q. Was the cemetery gate open? A. Yes, sir, and that surprised me, but it didn’t seem to surprise Miss Daaé at all. Q. Was there no one in the cemetery? A. I didn’t see anyone. If there had been someone, I would have seen them. The moonlight was dazzling, and the snow covering the ground, reflecting its rays back at us, made the night even brighter. Q. Couldn’t one hide behind the graves? A. No, sir. They are poor tombstones that disappeared under the layer of snow and lined up their crosses at ground level. The only shadows were those of these crosses and our two . The church was dazzling with brightness. I have never seen such a night light. It was very beautiful, very transparent, and very cold. I had never been to cemeteries at night, and I didn’t know that one could find such a light there, a light that weighs nothing. Q. Are you superstitious? A. No, sir, I am a believer. Q. What state of mind were you in? A. Very healthy and very calm, indeed. Certainly, Miss Daaé’s unusual exit had at first deeply troubled me; but as soon as I saw the young girl enter the cemetery, I said to myself that she had come to fulfill some vow on her father’s tomb, and I found it so natural that I regained all my calm. I was simply astonished that she had not yet heard me walking behind her, for the snow crunched under my feet. But no doubt she was completely absorbed in her pious thoughts. I resolved not to disturb her, and when she reached her father’s tomb, I remained a few steps behind her. She knelt in the snow, made the sign of the cross, and began to pray. At that moment, midnight struck. The twelfth stroke was still ringing in my ear when, suddenly, I saw the young girl raise her head; her gaze fixed on the celestial vault, her arms stretched out toward the night star; she seemed to me in ecstasy, and I was still wondering what had been the sudden and determining reason for this ecstasy when I myself raised my head, cast a bewildered look around me, and my whole being stretched out toward the Invisible, the Invisible who was playing music for us. And what music! We already knew it! Christine and I had already heard it in our youth. But never on Father Daaé’s violin had it expressed itself with such divine art. I could do no better, at that moment, than to recall everything Christine had just told me about the range of music, and I didn’t know what to think of those unforgettable sounds which, if they did not come down from the sky, left us ignorant of their origin on earth. There was no no instrument nor hand to guide the bow. Oh! I remembered the admirable melody. It was the Resurrection of Lazarus, which Father Daaé played for us in his hours of sadness and faith. Christine’s angel , had he existed, could not have played better that night with the late minstrel’s violin. The invocation of Jesus brought us back to earth, and, by Jove, I almost expected to see the stone of Christine’s father’s tomb rise. The idea also came to me that Daaé had been buried with his violin and, in truth, I do not know how far, in that funereal and radiant moment, at the bottom of that little hidden provincial cemetery, beside those death’s heads that laughed at us with all their motionless jaws, no I do not know how far my imagination went, nor where it stopped. But the music was silent and I recovered my senses. I thought I heard a noise from the side of the skulls of the ossuary. D.–Ah! ah! You heard a noise from the side of the ossuary? A. Yes, it seemed to me that the skulls were sneering now and I couldn’t help but shudder. D. You didn’t immediately think that behind the ossuary could be hiding the very celestial musician who had just charmed you so much? A. I thought that so well that I thought of nothing else, Mr. Commissioner, and I forgot to follow Miss Daaé who had just gotten up and was calmly making her way to the cemetery gate. As for her, she was so absorbed that it is not surprising that she did not notice me. I did not move, my eyes fixed on the ossuary, determined to see this incredible adventure through to the end and to know the end of it. D. And then, what happened that caused you to be found in the morning, lying half-dead on the steps of the high altar? A. Oh! It was quick… A skull rolled at my feet… then another … then another… It was as if I were the target of that funereal game of bowls. And I had this imagination that a false move must have destroyed the harmony of the scaffolding behind which our musician was hiding. This hypothesis seemed all the more reasonable to me when a shadow suddenly glided across the dazzling wall of the sacristy. I rushed forward. The shadow had already pushed open the door and entered the church. I had wings, the shadow had a cloak. I was quick enough to grab a corner of the shadow’s cloak. At that moment, the shadow and I were standing right in front of the high altar, and the moonbeams, through the great stained-glass window of the apse, fell straight ahead of us. As I did not let go of the cloak, the shadow turned around and, the cloak in which it was wrapped having opened, I saw, Your Honor, as I see you, a frightful death’s head which darted at me a look in which burned the fires of hell. I thought I was dealing with Satan himself and, before this apparition from beyond the grave, my heart, despite all its courage, failed, and I no longer remember anything until the moment when I awoke in my little room at the Auberge du Soleil Couchant. Chapter 7. A Visit to Lodge No. 5. We left Messrs. Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin at the moment when they decided to go and pay a little visit to the first lodge No. 5. They left behind them the wide staircase which leads from the vestibule of the administration to the stage and its outbuildings; They crossed the stage, entered the theater through the subscribers’ entrance, then into the auditorium, through the first corridor on the left. They then slipped between the first rows of orchestra seats and looked at the first box No. 5. They saw it badly because it was plunged into semi-darkness and huge covers were thrown over the red velvet of the hand supports. At that moment, they were almost alone in the immense dark vessel and a great silence surrounded them. It was the quiet hour when the stagehands go to drink. The crew had momentarily emptied the stage, leaving a half-planted set; a few rays of light, a pale, sinister light, which seemed stolen from a dying star, had crept in through some unknown opening, to an old tower which raised its cardboard battlements on the stage; things, in this artificial night, or rather in this lying day, took on strange shapes. On the orchestra seats, the canvas which covered them had the appearance of a raging sea, whose murky waves had been instantly immobilized on the secret order of the storm giant, who, as everyone knows, is called Adamastor. MM. Moncharmin and Richard were the castaways of this motionless upheaval of a sea of ​​painted canvas. They advanced toward the left-hand boxes, in great strides, like sailors who have abandoned their boat and are trying to reach the shore. The eight great polished stile columns rose up in the shadows like so many prodigious piles intended to support the threatening , crumbling, and bulging cliff, whose foundations were represented by the circular, parallel , and bending lines of the balconies of the first, second, and third boxes. From the top, at the very top of the cliff, lost in M. Lenepveu’s copper sky, figures grimaced, sneered, mocked, and jeered at the anxiety of Messrs. Moncharmin and Richard. Yet they were usually very serious figures. They were called: Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Flora, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphne, Clythia, Galathea, Arethusa. Yes, Arethusa herself and Pandora, whom everyone knows because of her box, were looking at the two new directors of the Opera who had ended up clinging to some wreckage, and who, from there, were silently contemplating the first box No. 5. I said that they were worried. At least, I presume so. M. Moncharmin, in any case, admits that he was impressed. He says verbatim: What style is this swing ! from the Phantom of the Opera, on which we had been so kindly made to climb, since we had taken over from MM. Poligny and Debienne, had undoubtedly ended up disturbing the balance of my imaginative faculties, and, all things considered, visual ones, because was it the exceptional setting in which we were moving, in the center of an incredible silence that impressed us to this point? … were we the plaything of a sort of hallucination made possible by the near darkness of the room and the half-light that bathed box No. 5? because I saw and Richard also saw, at the same moment, a shape in box No. 5. Richard said nothing; neither did I, for that matter. But we took each other’s hands with the same gesture. Then, we waited a few minutes like that, without moving, our eyes still fixed on the same point: but the shape had disappeared. Then, we went out and, in the corridor, we shared our impressions and we talked about the shape. The misfortune is that my shape, mine, was not at all Richard’s shape. I had seen something like a death’s head resting on the edge of the box, while Richard had seen the shape of an old woman who resembled Mother Giry. So much so that we saw that we had really been the playthings of an illusion and we ran without further delay, laughing like madmen, to the first box No. 5, which we entered and in which we no longer found any shape. And now we are in box No. 5. It is a box like all the other first boxes. In truth, nothing distinguishes this box from its neighbors. Messrs. Moncharmin and Richard, ostentatiously amusing themselves and laughing at each other , moved the furniture in the box, lifted the covers and the armchairs and examined in particular the one on which the voice was accustomed to sitting. But they found that it was an honest armchair, which had nothing magical about it. In short, the box was the most ordinary of boxes, with its red tapestry, its armchairs, its rug and its red velvet handrest. After feeling the rug very seriously and having, on this side as on the others, discovered nothing special, they went down to the bathtub below, which corresponded to box No. 5. In bathtub No. 5, which is just at the corner of the first exit on the left of the orchestra seats, they found nothing worth noting either . “All these people are making fun of us,” Firmin Richard finally exclaimed . “On Saturday, Faust is being played, we will both attend the performance in the first box No. 5! Chapter 8. WHERE MM. FIRMIN RICHARD, AND ARMAND MONCHARMIN HAVE THE AUDACITY TO HAVE FAUST PERFORMED IN A CURSED ROOM AND THE FRIGHTFUL EVENT THAT RESULTED But on Saturday morning, upon arriving in their office, the directors found a double letter from F. de l’O. worded as follows: My dear directors, So it’s war? If you still want peace, here is my ultimatum. It is on the following four conditions: 1° Give me back my dressing room–and I want it to be at my free disposal from now on; 2° The role of Marguerite will be sung this evening by Christine Daaé. Do not worry about Carlotta who will be ill; 3° I absolutely insist on the good and loyal services of Mme Giry, my usherette, whom you will immediately reinstate in her duties; 4° Let me know by a letter delivered to Madame Giry, who will forward it to me, that you accept, like your predecessors, the conditions of my specifications relating to my monthly allowance. I will let you know later in what form you will have to pay it to me. Otherwise, you will be giving Faust this evening, in a cursed room. A word to the wise, goodbye! F. DE L’O. –Well! He’s bothering me!… He’s bothering me! shouted Richard, raising his avenging fists and letting them fall with a crash on the table of his office. At this moment, Mercier, the administrator, entered. –Lachenal would like to see one of these gentlemen, he said. It seems that the matter is urgent, and the man seems quite upset to me. –Who is this Lachenal? asked Richard. –He’s your chief equerry. –What! My chief equerry? “Yes, sir,” Mercier explained. “There are several equerries at the Opera, and M. Lachenal is their leader. ” “And what does this equerry do? ” “He has senior management of the stables. ” “Which stable? ” “But yours, sir, the stables at the Opera. ” “There is a stable at the Opera? Well, I didn’t know anything about it! And where is it? ” “Underground, near the Rotunda. It’s a very important department; we have twelve horses. ” “Twelve horses! And why, for goodness’ sake? ” “But for the parades of La Juive, Le Prophète, etc., you need horses that are trained and know the boards. The equerries are responsible for teaching them. M. Lachenal is very skilled at that. He’s the former director of Franconi’s stables. ” “Very well… but what does he want from me?” “I don’t know… I’ve never seen him in such a state. ” “Bring him in!” M. Lachenal enters. He has a riding crop in his hand and nervously lashes one of his boots with it. “Good morning, M. Lachenal,” said Richard, impressed. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit? ” “Mr. Director, I have come to ask you to throw out the entire stable. ” “What! You want to throw out our horses? ” “It’s not about the horses, but about the grooms!” “How many grooms do you have, Monsieur Lachenal? ” “Six! ” “Six grooms! That’s at least two too many! ” “These are positions,” interrupted Mercier, “that were created and imposed on us by the Undersecretary of Fine Arts. They are occupied by government protégés, and if I may say so… ” “I don’t care about the government!” affirmed Richard energetically. ” We don’t need more than four grooms for twelve horses. ” “Eleven!” corrected the equerry. “Twelve!” repeated Richard. “Eleven!” repeated Lachenal. “Ah! It was the administrator who told me you had twelve horses! ” “I had twelve, but I’ve only had eleven since Caesar was stolen from us!” And Monsieur Lachenal gave himself a hard blow on the boot with his riding crop. “Caesar has been stolen from us,” cried the administrator; “Caesar, the Prophet’s white horse. ” “There aren’t two Caesars!” declared the head equerry sharply. ” I was with Franconi for ten years and I’ve seen some horses! Well! There aren’t two Caesars! And he’s been stolen from us. ” “How so? ” “Well! I don’t know! Nobody knows! That’s why I ‘ve come to ask you to throw the whole stable out. ” “What are your grooms saying?” “Nonsense… some accuse extras… others claim it’s the administration’s concierge. ” “The administration’s concierge? I’ll answer for him as if for myself! ” protested Mercier. “But still, Mr. First Equerry,” cried Richard, “you must have some idea!… ” “Well! Yes, I have one!” I have one! declared Mr. Lachenal suddenly , and I’m going to tell it to you. For me, there is no doubt. The first equerry approached the directors and whispered in their ear: It was the ghost who did it! Richard jumped. Ah! You too! You too! How? Me too? It’s the most natural thing… But how! Mr. Lachenal! But how, Mr. first equerry… Let me tell you what I think, after what I saw… And what did you see, Mr. Lachenal? I saw, as I see you, a black shadow riding a white horse that looked exactly like Caesar! And you didn’t run after this white horse and this black shadow? “I ran and called out, Mr. Director, but they fled with disconcerting speed and disappeared into the night of the gallery… ” M. Richard stood up: “Very well, Mr. Lachenal. You can leave… we’re going to file a complaint against the ghost… ” “And you’re going to throw my stable out! ” “That’s understood! Goodbye, sir!” M. Lachenal bowed and left. Richard was foaming at the mouth. “You’re going to settle the score with that imbecile! ” “He’s a friend of the Government Commissioner!” Mercier ventured… “And he’s having his aperitif at Tortoni with Lagréné, Scholl, and Pertuiset, the lion killer,” added Moncharmin. “We’re going to get the whole press against us! He’ll tell the story of the ghost, and everyone will have fun at our expense! If we’re ridiculous, we’re dead!” “Very well, let’s not talk about it anymore…” conceded Richard, who was already thinking of something else. At that moment the door opened, and no doubt this door was not then defended by its usual watchdog, for Mame Giry was seen to enter straight away, a letter in her hand, and say hurriedly: “Pardon, excuse me, gentlemen, but I received a letter this morning from the Phantom of the Opera. He told me to come to your house, that you supposedly have something to tell me…” She didn’t finish her sentence. She saw Firmin Richard’s face, and it was terrible. The honorable director of the Opera was ready to burst out. The fury that agitated him was still only expressed externally by the scarlet color of his furious face and by the flash of his dazzling eyes. He said nothing. He could not speak. But, suddenly, his gesture was gone. It was first the left arm that took hold of the pallid person of Mame Giry and made her describe a half turn so unexpected, a pirouette so rapid that she let out a desperate cry, and then, it was the right foot, the right foot of the same honorable director that went to print its sole on the black taffeta of a skirt which, certainly, had not yet, in such a place, suffered such an outrage. The event had been so sudden that Mame Giry, when she found herself in the gallery, was still as if dizzy and seemed not to understand. But suddenly she understood, and the Opera resounded with her indignant cries, her fierce protests, her death threats. It took three boys to take her down to the administration courtyard and two officers to carry her out into the street. At about the same time, Carlotta, who lived in a small hotel on the Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, rang for her chambermaid and had her mail brought to her bed. In this mail, she found an anonymous letter telling her: If you sing tonight, be afraid that a great misfortune may befall you at the very moment you sing… a misfortune worse than death . This threat was written in red ink, in a hesitant , slurred hand. Having read this letter, Carlotta no longer had any appetite for lunch. She pushed away the tray on which the chambermaid was offering her the steaming chocolate. She sat down on her bed and thought deeply. It was not the first letter of this kind that she had received, but she had never before read one so threatening. She believed herself to be the target, at that moment, of a thousand schemes of jealousy and commonly said that she had a secret enemy who had sworn her downfall. She claimed that some wicked plot was being hatched against her , some cabal that would break out one of these days; but she was not a woman to be intimidated, she added. The truth was that, if there was a cabal, it was led by Carlotta herself against poor Christine, who hardly suspected it . Carlotta had not forgiven Christine for the triumph that the latter had won by replacing her at the last minute. When she learned of the extraordinary welcome given to her replacement, Carlotta felt instantly cured of the beginnings of bronchitis and a bout of sulking against the administration, and she no longer showed the slightest inclination to leave her job. Since then, she had worked with all her might to stifle her rival, getting powerful friends to act with the directors so that they would not give Christine the opportunity for another triumph. Some newspapers that had begun to sing the praises of Christine now only concerned themselves with Carlotta’s glory. Finally, at the theater itself, the famous diva made the most outrageous remarks about Christine and tried to cause her a thousand little annoyances. Carlotta had neither heart nor soul. She was only an instrument! Certainly, a marvelous instrument. Her repertoire included everything that could tempt the ambition of a great artist, as much among the German masters as among the Italians or the French. Never before had Carlotta been heard singing out of tune, nor lacking the volume of voice necessary to translate any passage from her immense repertoire. In short, the instrument was wide-ranging, powerful , and admirably accurate. But no one could have told Carlotta what Rossini said to Krauss after she had sung Dark Forests for him in German? : You sing with your soul, my daughter, and your soul is beautiful! Where was your soul, O Carlotta, when you danced in the dives of Barcelona? Where was it, when later, in Paris, you sang on sad trestles your cynical couplets of music hall bacchante? Where was your soul, when, before the masters assembled at the home of one of your lovers, you made resonate that docile instrument, whose marvel was that it sang with the same indifferent perfection the sublime love and the lowest orgy? O Carlotta, if ever you had had a soul and had lost it then, you would have found it again when you became Juliet, when you were Elvira, and Ophelia, and Marguerite! For others have risen from lower than you and whom art, aided by love, has purified! In truth, when I think of all the pettiness, the vileness that Christine Daaé had to suffer, at that time, from this Carlotta, I cannot restrain my anger, and it does not surprise me that my indignation is expressed in somewhat broad views on art in general, and that of singing in particular, in which Carlotta’s admirers will certainly not find their account. When Carlotta had finished reflecting on the threat of the strange letter she had just received, she stood up. “We shall see,” she said… And she pronounced, in Spanish, a few oaths, with a very resolute air. The first thing she saw when she put her nose to the window was a hearse. The hearse and the letter convinced her that she was running, that evening, the most serious dangers. She gathered all her friends at her house , informed them that she was threatened, at the evening performance, by a cabal organized by Christine Daaé, and declared that they had to counter this little girl by filling the room with her own admirers, Carlotta. She didn’t lack them, did she? She counted on them to be ready for any eventuality and to silence the troublemakers, if, as she feared, they unleashed a scandal. Mr. Richard’s private secretary having come to inquire about the diva’s health, returned with the assurance that she was in perfect health and that, even if she were dying, she would sing the role of Marguerite that very evening. As the secretary had, on behalf of his boss, strongly advised the diva not to commit any imprudence, not to leave her house, and to keep away from drafts, Carlotta could not help, after her departure, comparing these exceptional and unexpected recommendations with the threats written in the letter. It was five o’clock when she received by mail another anonymous letter in the same handwriting as the first. It was brief. It simply said: You have a cold; if you were reasonable, you would understand that it is madness to want to sing this evening. Carlotta sneered, shrugged her shoulders, which were magnificent, and struck up two or three notes that reassured her. Her friends were faithful to their promise. They were all at the Opera that evening, but it was in vain that they looked around them for these ferocious conspirators whom they had been sent to combat. Except for a few laymen, a few honest bourgeois whose placid faces reflected no other intention than to hear again a music which had long since won their support, there were only regulars there whose elegant, peaceful and correct manners ruled out any idea of ​​a demonstration. The only thing that seemed abnormal was the presence of Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin in box No. 5. Carlotta’s friends thought that perhaps the directors had, for their part, heard of the planned scandal and had insisted on going into the hall to stop it as soon as it broke out, but that was a unjustified hypothesis, as you know; Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin thought only of their ghost. Nothing?… In vain I question in ardent vigil Nature and the Creator. Not a voice whispers in my ear A consoling word!… The famous baritone Carolus Fonta had barely launched the first appeal of Doctor Faust to the powers of hell, when Mr. Firmin Richard, who had sat down on the very chair of the ghost—the chair on the right, in the first row—leaned, in the best humor in the world, towards his associate, and said to him: “And you, has a voice already whispered a word in your ear? ” “Let’s wait! Let’s not be in too much of a hurry,” replied Mr. Armand Moncharmin in the same pleasant tone. The performance has only just begun and you know very well that the ghost usually only arrives towards the middle of the first act. The first act passed without incident, which did not surprise Carlotta’s friends, since Marguerite, in this act, does not sing. As for the two directors, as the curtain fell, they looked at each other and smiled: “And one!” said Montcharmin. “Yes, the ghost is late,” declared Firmin Richard. Moncharmin, still joking, continued: “All in all, the audience is not too badly composed this evening for a cursed audience. ” M. Richard deigned to smile. He pointed out to his colleague a rather vulgar, fat lady dressed in black who was sitting in an armchair in the middle of the room and who was flanked by two men, of rough appearance in their cloth frock coats. “What kind of people are these?” asked Montcharmin. “These people, my dear, are my concierge, her brother and her husband. ” “Did you give them tickets?” “Well, yes… My concierge had never been to the Opera… this is the first time… and since she has to come every night now, I wanted her to be well placed before spending my time placing others. ” Moncharmin asked for an explanation, and Richard told him that he had decided, for a while, for his concierge, in whom he had the greatest confidence, to come and take Mamma Giry’s place. “Speaking of Mamma Giry,” said Moncharmin, “you know she’s going to file a complaint against you. ” “To whom? To the ghost? The ghost!” Moncharmin had almost forgotten him. Besides, the mysterious character did nothing to remind the directors. Suddenly, the door of their dressing room opened abruptly in front of the terrified manager . “What’s the matter?” they both asked, astonished to see him in such a place at this moment. “There is,” said the manager, “that a plot has been mounted by Christine Daaé’s friends against Carlotta. She is furious. ” “What’s this all about?” asked Richard, frowning. But the curtain was rising on the Kermesse, and the director signaled to the manager to leave. When the manager had cleared the place, Moncharmin leaned into Richard’s ear: “So Daaé has friends?” he asked. “Yes,” said Richard, “she does. ” “Who?” Richard pointed to a front box in which there were only two men. “The Count de Chagny? ” “Yes, he recommended her to me… so warmly, that if I didn’t know, Sorelli’s friend…” “Well! Well!” murmured Moncharmin. ” And who is that young man, so pale, sitting next to him? ” “It’s his brother, the Viscount. ” “He’d better go to bed.” He looks sick. The scene resounded with joyful songs. Drunkenness in music. Triumph of the goblet.
Wine or beer, Beer or wine, May my glass be full! Students, bourgeois, soldiers, young girls and matrons, with joyful hearts , swirled in front of the cabaret under the sign of the god Bacchus. Siebel made her entrance. Christine Daaé was charming in drag. Her fresh youth, her melancholic grace seduced at first sight. Immediately, Carlotta’s supporters imagined that she would be greeted with an ovation that would inform them of the intentions of her friends. This indiscreet ovation would have been, moreover, of remarkable clumsiness. It did not happen. On the contrary, when Marguerite crossed the stage and had sung the only two lines of her role in this second act: No gentlemen, I am neither a young lady nor a beauty, And I do not need to be given a hand! resounding bravos greeted Carlotta. It was so unexpected and so useless that those who were unaware of anything looked at each other wondering what was going on, and the act ended without any incident. Everyone then said to themselves: It will be for the next act, obviously. Some of them, who were apparently better informed than the others, claimed that the racket was to begin at the King of Thule Cup, and they rushed to the subscribers’ entrance to warn Carlotta. The directors left the box during this intermission to inquire about this cabal story the stage manager had told them about, but they soon returned to their seats, shrugging their shoulders and treating the whole affair as nonsense. The first thing they saw upon entering was, on the shelf by the handrail, a box of English sweets. Who had brought it there? They questioned the usherettes. But no one could give them any information. Having then turned again towards the handrail, they saw, this time, next to the box of English sweets, a spyglass. They looked at each other. They didn’t feel like laughing. Everything Madame Giry had told them came back to them… and then… it seemed to them that there was a strange current of air around them… They sat in silence, truly impressed. The scene represented Marguerite’s garden… Make my confessions to her, Bring my vows… As she sang these first two verses, her bouquet of roses and lilacs in her hand, Christine, raising her head, saw the Viscount de Chagny in her dressing room and from then on, it seemed to everyone that her voice was less assured, less pure, less crystalline than usual. Something that no one knew was deafening, weighing down her singing… There was, underneath, trembling and fear. “Funny girl,” remarked almost aloud a friend of Carlotta’s in the orchestra… The other evening, she was divine and today, here she is, quavering. No experience, no method! It is in you that I have faith, Speak for me. The Viscount put his head in his hands. He was crying. The Count, behind him, bit the tip of his mustache violently, shrugged his shoulders and frowned. For him to express his innermost feelings with so many outward signs, the Count, usually so correct and so cold, must have been furious. He was. He had seen his brother return from a quick and mysterious journey in an alarming state of health. The explanations that followed had undoubtedly not had the virtue of reassuring the Count who, eager to know what to expect, had asked for an appointment with Christine Daaé. She had the audacity to reply that she could not receive him, nor his brother. He believed it was an abominable calculation. He did not forgive Christine for making Raoul suffer, but above all he did not forgive Raoul for suffering for Christine. Ah! He had been very wrong to take an instant interest in this little girl, whose one-night triumph remained incomprehensible to all. May the flower on her mouth at least know how to place a sweet kiss. “Little sly one, go on,” the Count growled. And he wondered what she wanted… what she could possibly hope for… She was pure, oh, she said, without a friend, without a protector of any kind… this angel of the North must be cunning! Raoul, behind his hands, a curtain that hid his childhood tears, thought only of the letter he had received, upon his return to Paris where Christine had arrived before him, having fled from Perros like a thief: My dear old boyfriend, you must have the courage not to see me again, not to speak to me again… if you love me a little, do this for me, for me who will never forget you… my dear Raoul. Above all, never enter my dressing room again. My life is at stake. Yours is at stake. Your little Christine. A thunder of applause… It is Carlotta who makes her entrance. The act in the garden unfolded with its usual twists and turns. When Marguerite had finished singing the air of the King of Thule, she was acclaimed; she was acclaimed again when she had finished the air of the jewels: Ah! I laughed to see myself so beautiful in this mirror… Now, sure of herself, sure of her friends in the room, sure of her voice and her success, fearing nothing more, Carlotta gave herself entirely , with ardor, with enthusiasm, with intoxication. Her performance no longer had any restraint or modesty… It was no longer Marguerite, it was Carmen. She was applauded even more, and her duet with Faust seemed to be preparing a new success for her, when suddenly… something terrible happened. Faust had knelt down: Let me, let me contemplate your face Under the pale light With which the night star, as in a cloud, Caresses your beauty. And Marguerite replied: O silence! O happiness! ineffable mystery! Intoxicating languor! I listen!… And I understand this solitary voice Which sings in my heart! At that moment then… at that very moment… something happened… I said something dreadful… … The audience, with a single movement, rose… In their dressing room, the two directors could not suppress an exclamation of horror… Spectators looked at each other as if to ask each other for the explanation of such an unexpected phenomenon… Carlotta’s face expressed the most atrocious pain, her eyes seemed haunted by madness. The poor woman straightened up, her mouth still half-open, having finished letting through that solitary voice that sang in her heart… But that mouth sang no more… it no longer dared a word, not a sound… For that mouth created for harmony, that agile instrument that had never failed, a magnificent organ, generator of the most beautiful sonorities, of the most difficult chords, of the softest modulations, of the most ardent rhythms, a sublime human mechanism that lacked, to be divine, only the fire of heaven that alone gives true emotion and lifts souls… that mouth had let through… From that mouth had escaped… … A toad! Ah! the dreadful, the hideous, the scaly, venomous, foaming, foaming, screeching toad!… Where had it entered? How had it crouched on the tongue? With its hind legs folded, to leap higher and further, it had surreptitiously emerged from the larynx, and… quack! Quack! Quack!… Ah! the terrible quack! For you must understand that one must only speak of the toad figuratively. It could not be seen, but, by hell! it could be heard. Quack! The room was as if splashed with it. Never had a batrachian, at the edge of the resounding pools, torn the night with a more dreadful quack. And certainly, it was quite unexpected by everyone. Carlotta still could not believe either her throat or her ears. Lightning, falling at her feet, would have surprised her less than this quacking toad that had just come out of her mouth… And it would not have dishonored her. While it is well understood that a toad nestled on the tongue always dishonors a singer. Some have died from it. My God! Who would have believed it?… She sang so calmly: And I understand this solitary voice that sings in my heart! She sang effortlessly, as always, with the same ease, as you, say: Good morning, madam, how are you? It cannot be denied that there are presumptuous singers, who make the great mistake of not measuring their strength, and who, in their pride, want to achieve, with the weak voice that heaven bestows upon them, exceptional effects and to launch notes that were forbidden to them when they came into the world. It is then that heaven, to punish them, sends them, without their knowing it, into their mouths, a toad, a toad that makes a quack! Everyone knows that. But no one could admit that a Carlotta, who had at least two octaves in her voice, still had a toad in it. One could not have forgotten her strident counter-Fs, her unheard-of staccatos in The Magic Flute. One remembered Don Juan, where she played Elvira and where she won the most resounding triumph, one evening, by herself giving the B-flat that her comrade Dona Anna could not. So, really, what did this squeak mean, at the end of this quiet, peaceful, tiny solitary voice that sang in her heart? It was not natural. There was a spell underneath. This toad smelled of burning. Poor, miserable, desperate, destroyed Carlotta!… In the hall, the rumor grew. Had it been anyone other than Carlotta to whom such an adventure had befallen, she would have been booed! But with this one, whose perfect instrument was known, one showed no anger, but consternation and terror. So men must have suffered this sort of terror, if there were any who witnessed the catastrophe that broke the arms of the Venus de Milo!… and yet they were able to see the blow that struck… and
understand… But there? This toad was incomprehensible!… So much so that after a few seconds spent wondering if she herself had really heard, coming from her own mouth, this note,–was it a note, this sound?–could one call it a sound? A sound is still music–this infernal noise, she wanted to persuade herself that it had not been so; that there had been there, for an instant, an illusion of her ear, and not a criminal betrayal of the vocal organ… She cast her eyes, bewildered, around her as if to seek refuge, protection, or rather the spontaneous assurance of the innocence of her voice. Her clenched fingers had gone to her throat in a gesture of defense and protest. No! No! This quack was not hers! And it seemed that Carolus Fonta himself was of this opinion, looking at her with an indescribable expression of gigantic, childish stupefaction. For after all, he was near her. He had not left her. Perhaps he could tell her how such a thing had happened! No, he could not! His eyes were stupidly riveted to Carlotta’s mouth like the eyes of little children considering the conjurer’s inexhaustible hat. How could such a small mouth have contained such a great quack? All this, toad, quack, emotion, terror, noise in the hall, confusion on stage, in the wings—some of the extras showed frightened faces—all this, which I am describing to you in detail, lasted a few seconds. A few dreadful seconds that seemed especially interminable to the two directors up there, in dressing room number 5. Moncharmin and Richard were very pale. This unprecedented and inexplicable episode filled them with an anguish that was all the more mysterious because they had been under the direct influence of the ghost for a moment. They had felt its breath. A few of Moncharmin’s hairs had stood on end under that breath… And Richard had passed his handkerchief over his sweating forehead… Yes, he was there… around them… behind They, beside them, felt him without seeing him!… They heard his breathing… and so close to them, so close to them!… You know when someone is present… Well, they knew now!… they were sure there were three of them in the box… They trembled… They had the idea of ​​fleeing… They didn’t dare… They didn’t dare make a movement, exchange a word that could have told the phantom that they knew he was there!… What was going to happen? What was going to happen? Then came the squeak! Above all the noise in the room their double exclamation of horror was heard. They felt themselves under the blows of the phantom. Leaning over their box, they looked at Carlotta as if they no longer recognized her. This daughter of hell must have given with her squeak the signal of some catastrophe. Ah! catastrophe, they were waiting for it! The phantom had promised it to them! The hall was cursed! Their double directorial chest was already panting under the weight of the catastrophe. Richard’s strangled voice was heard shouting to Carlotta: “Well! Go on! No!” Carlotta did not continue… She began again, bravely, heroically, the fatal verse at the end of which the toad had appeared. A frightening silence succeeded all the noises. Only Carlotta’s voice once again filled the sonorous vessel. I’m listening!… “The hall is listening too– … And I understand that solitary voice, quack! Quack!… which sings in my… quack! The toad has also started again. The hall bursts into a prodigious tumult. Falling back into their seats, the two directors do not even dare to turn around; they lack the strength. The ghost laughs in their necks! And finally they distinctly hear in their right ear her voice, the impossible voice, the voice without a mouth, the voice that says: “She’s singing tonight enough to take down the chandelier!” With one movement, they raised their heads to the ceiling and let out a terrible cry. The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier, slid, came towards them, at the call of this satanic voice. Unhooked, the chandelier plunged from the heights of the hall and crashed into the middle of the orchestra, amid a thousand clamors. It was a terror, a general sauve qui peut. My intention is not to relive a historic moment here. The curious need only open the newspapers of the time. There were many injured and one dead. The chandelier had crashed down on the head of the unfortunate woman who had come to the Opera that evening for the first time in her life, on the one whom M. Richard had designated as replacing Mame Giry, the Phantom’s usherette, in her duties as usherette! She had died instantly, and the next day a newspaper appeared with this headline: Two hundred thousand kilos on the head of a concierge! That was her entire funeral oration. Chapter 9. The Mysterious Coupé. That tragic evening was bad for everyone. Carlotta had fallen ill. As for Christine Daaé, she had disappeared after the performance. Fifteen days had passed without her being seen again at the theater, without her being seen outside the theater. This first disappearance, which took place without scandal, must not be confused with the famous kidnapping which, some time later, was to occur under such inexplicable and tragic circumstances. Raoul was the first, naturally, to understand nothing about the diva’s absence. He had written to her at Madame Valérius’s address and had received no reply. He had not been particularly surprised at first, knowing her state of mind and her resolve to break off all relations with him, although he had not yet been able to guess the reason. His grief had only increased, and he ended up worrying about not seeing the singer on any program. Faust was performed without her. In the afternoon, around five o’clock, he went to inquire with the management about the causes of Christine Daaé’s disappearance. He found the directors very preoccupied. Even their friends no longer recognized them: they had lost all joy and enthusiasm. They were seen crossing the theater, heads bowed, foreheads worried, and cheeks pale as if they were pursued by some abominable thought, or prey to some malice of fate which takes hold of its man and never lets go. The fall of the chandelier had entailed many responsibilities, but it was difficult to get the directors to explain themselves on this subject. The investigation had concluded that it was an accident, caused by wear and tear of the suspension means, but it would still have been the duty of the old directors as well as the new ones to note this wear and to remedy it before it caused a catastrophe. And I must say that the directors Richard and Moncharmin appeared at that time so changed, so distant… so mysterious… so incomprehensible, that many subscribers imagined that some event even more dreadful than the fall of the chandelier had altered the mood of the directors. In their daily dealings, they were very impatient, except, however, with Madame Giry who had been reinstated in her duties. One can imagine the way in which they received the Viscount de Chagny when he came to ask them for news of Christine. They merely replied that she was on leave. He asked how long this leave was to last; he was rather curtly told that it was unlimited, Christine Daaé having requested it for health reasons. “So she’s ill!” he cried, “what’s the matter with her? ” “We don’t know! ” “So you didn’t send the theater doctor to her? ” “No!” she did not claim it and, as we have confidence in her, we took her word for it. The matter did not seem natural to Raoul, who left the Opera prey to the darkest thoughts. He resolved, whatever might happen, to go and find out from Mama Valérius. No doubt he remembered the energetic terms of Christine’s letter, which forbade him to do anything to see her. But what he had seen at Perros, what he had heard behind the door of the box, the conversation he had had with Christine at the edge of the moor, made him suspect some machination which, however diabolical , was nonetheless human. The young girl’s exalted imagination, her tender and credulous soul, the primitive education that had surrounded her early years with a circle of legends, the continual thought of her dead father, and above all the state of sublime ecstasy into which music plunged her as soon as this art manifested itself to her under certain exceptional conditions—had he not been able to judge this during the scene in the cemetery?—all this appeared to him to constitute a moral terrain propitious to the evil enterprises of some mysterious and unscrupulous character . Whose victim was Christine Daaé? This was the very sensible question that Raoul asked himself as he hurried to see Mama Valérius. For the Viscount had a most healthy mind. Without doubt, he was a poet and loved music in its most winged form, and he was a great lover of the old Breton tales where the korrigans dance, and above all he was in love with that little fairy from the North , Christine Daaé; Nevertheless, he only believed in the supernatural in matters of religion, and the most fantastic story in the world was not capable of making him forget that two and two make four.
What would he learn at Mama Valérius’s? He trembled as he rang the doorbell of a small apartment on the Rue Notre Dame des Victoires. The maid who, one evening, had left the dressing room in front of him Christine came to open the door. He asked if Madame Valérius was visible. He was told that she was ill, in bed, and unable to receive. “Give me my card,” he said. He didn’t wait long. The maid returned and showed him into a small, rather dark and sparsely furnished drawing room where the two portraits of Professor Valérius and Father Daaé faced each other. “Madame apologizes to Monsieur le Vicomte,” said the servant. ” She will only be able to receive him in her room, for her poor legs can no longer support her. ” Five minutes later, Raoul was shown into a nearly dark room, where he immediately distinguished, in the half-light of an alcove, the kind face of Christine’s benefactress. Now, Mama Valérius’s hair was completely white, but her eyes had not aged: never, on the contrary, had her gaze been so clear, nor so pure, nor so childlike. “M. de Chagny!” she said joyfully, holding out both hands to the visitor… Ah! It’s heaven sent you!… we’ll be able to talk about her. This last sentence rang very lugubriously in the young man’s ears . He immediately asked: “Madame… where is Christine?” And the old lady calmly replied: “But, she’s with her good genius! What good genius?” cried poor Raoul. “But the angel of music!” The Viscount de Chagny, dismayed, fell onto a chair. Really, Christine was with the angel of music! And Mama Valérius, in her bed, smiled at him, putting a finger to her mouth, to recommend silence. She added: “You mustn’t tell anyone!” “You can count on me!” replied Raoul, not knowing exactly what he was saying, for his thoughts about Christine, already very confused, were becoming more and more confused, and it seemed that everything was beginning to revolve around him, around the room, around this extraordinary, good lady with white hair, with eyes like pale blue skies , with eyes like empty skies… You can count on me… “I know! I know!” she said with a good, happy laugh. “But come closer to me, like when you were very little. Give me your hands, like when you were telling me the story of little Lotte that Father Daaé told you. I like you, you know, Monsieur Raoul. And Christine likes you too!” –… She likes me… sighed the young man, who was having difficulty gathering his thoughts around the genius of Mama Valérius, the angel Christine had spoken to him about so strangely, the death’s head he had glimpsed in a sort of nightmare on the steps of the high altar at Perros, and also the Phantom of the Opera, whose fame had reached his ears one evening when he had lingered on the stage, a stone’s throw from a group of stagehands who recalled the cadaverous description that the hanged Joseph Buquet had given them before his mysterious end… He asked in a low voice: –What makes you believe, madame, that Christine likes me? –She spoke to me about you every day! –Really?… And what did she say to you?… –She told me that you had made a declaration to her?… And the good old woman burst into laughter, showing all her teeth, which she had jealously preserved. Raoul stood up, his forehead flushed , suffering terribly. “Well! Where are you going?… Would you please sit down?… Do you think you’re going to leave me like this?… You’re angry because I laughed, I beg your pardon… After all, it wasn’t your fault what happened… You didn’t know… You’re young… and you thought Christine was free… ” “Is Christine engaged?” the unfortunate Raoul asked in a strangled voice . “But no! But no!… You know perfectly well that Christine— she would like it—can’t get married!” –What! But I don’t know anything!… And why can’t Christine get married? –But because of the genius of music!… –Again… –Yes, he forbids her!… –He forbids her!… The genius of music forbids her to get married!… Raoul leaned over Mama Valérius, his jaw thrust forward, as if to bite her. He would have wanted to devour her but he would not have looked at her with more ferocious eyes. There are moments when too great innocence of mind appears so monstrous that it becomes hateful. Raoul found Madame Valérius too innocent. She had no idea of ​​the dreadful look that weighed on her. She resumed with the most natural air: –Oh! he forbids her… without forbidding her. … He simply told her that if she married, she would no longer hear him! That’s all!… and that he would leave forever!… So, you understand, she doesn’t want to let the Genius of Music go. That’s only natural. “Yes, yes,” Raoul complied in a whisper, “that’s only natural. “Besides, I thought Christine had told you all that when she found you in Perros where she had gone with her good genius. ” “Ah! ah! She had gone to Perros with the good genius? ” “That is to say, he had arranged to meet her there in the cemetery of Perros at Daaé’s tomb! He had promised to play the Resurrection of Lazarus on her father’s violin! ” Raoul de Chagny stood up and pronounced these decisive words with great authority: “Madame, you are going to tell me where he lives, that genius there!” The old lady did not seem particularly surprised by this indiscreet question. She raised her eyes and replied: “In heaven! ” Such candor disconcerted him. Such simple and perfect faith in a genie who, every evening, descended from heaven to frequent the artists’ dressing rooms at the Opera, left him stupid. He realized now the state of mind in which a young girl raised between a superstitious fiddler and an enlightened good lady could find herself , and he shuddered at the thought of the consequences of all this. “Is Christine still an honest girl?” he could not help asking suddenly. “On my share of paradise, I swear it!” exclaimed the old woman, who, this time, seemed outraged… and if you doubt it, sir, I don’t know what you came here to do!… Raoul tore off his gloves. “How long ago did she become acquainted with this genie?” ” About three months!… Yes, it was three months ago that he began to give her lessons!” The Viscount stretched out his arms in an immense and desperate gesture and let them fall with despair. “The genius is giving him lessons!… And where?” “Now that she has gone with him, I cannot tell you, but a fortnight ago, it was happening in Christine’s dressing room. Here, it would be impossible in this small apartment. The whole house would hear them. Whereas at the Opera, at eight o’clock in the morning, there is no one. We don’t disturb them!… Do you understand?” “I understand! I understand!” cried the Viscount, and he hurriedly took leave of the old mother, who was wondering aside if the Viscount was not a little crazy. Crossing the drawing-room, Raoul found himself face to face with the maid and, for a moment, he intended to question her, but he thought he caught a slight smile on her lips. He thought she was making fun of him. He fled. Didn’t he know enough?… He had wanted to be informed, what more could he want?… He returned to his brother’s home on foot, in a pitiful state… He would have liked to punish himself, to bang his forehead against the walls! To have believed in so much innocence, so much purity! To have tried, for a moment, to explain everything with naivety, simplicity of mind, immaculate candor! The genius of music! He knew him Now! He saw him! It was beyond any doubt some awful tenor, a handsome boy, who sang with his heart in his mouth! He found himself ridiculous and unhappy as could be! Ah! the miserable, small, insignificant, and foolish young man that M. le Vicomte de Chagny! thought Raoul furiously. And she, what an audacious and satanically cunning creature! All the same, this run through the streets had done him good, refreshed a little the flame of his brain. When he entered his room, he thought only of throwing himself on his bed to stifle his sobs. But his brother was there and Raoul let himself fall into his arms, like a baby. The count, paternally, consoled him, without asking him for explanations; besides, Raoul would have hesitated to tell him the story of the musical genius. If there are things one does not boast about, there are others for which there is too much humiliation to be pitied. The Count took his brother to dinner at the cabaret. With such fresh despair, it is likely that Raoul would have declined every invitation that evening if, to persuade him, the Count had not told him that the previous evening, in an alley in the Bois, the lady of his thoughts had been encountered in gallant company. At first, the Viscount did not want to believe it, and then he was given such precise details that he no longer protested. Finally, was this not the most banal adventure? She had been seen in a coupé with the window down. She seemed to be taking a long, deep breath of the icy night air. The moonlight was superb. She had been perfectly recognized. As for her companion, only a vague silhouette could be distinguished in the shadows. The carriage was moving at a walking pace, along a deserted alley behind the stands of Longchamp. Raoul dressed frantically, already ready, to forget his distress, to throw himself, as they say, into the whirlwind of pleasure. Alas! he was a sad guest and having left the Count early , he found himself, around ten o’clock in the evening, in a club carriage behind the stands of Longchamp. It was freezing cold. The road appeared deserted and very bright under the moon. He ordered the coachman to wait patiently at the corner of a small adjacent alley and, hiding himself as much as possible, he began to beat his soles. He had not been engaged in this hygienic exercise for half an hour when a carriage, coming from Paris, turned the corner of the road and, calmly, at the pace of its horse, headed in his direction. He thought at once: it’s her! And his heart began to beat with great dull thuds, like those he had already heard in his chest when he listened to the man’s voice behind the door of the box… My God! How he loved her! The carriage still moved forward. As for him, he hadn’t moved. He was waiting!… If it was her, he was determined to jump at the head of the horses!… At all costs, he wanted to have an explanation with the angel of music!… A few more steps and the coupé would be at his height. He had no doubt that it was she… A woman, in fact, was leaning her head out of the window. And, suddenly, the moon illuminated it with a pale halo. “Christine! ” The sacred name of his love burst from his lips and heart. He couldn’t hold him back!… He leaped to catch him, for this name thrown in the face of the night, had been like the expected signal for a furious rush of the entire carriage, which passed in front of him without his having taken the time to put his plan into execution. The window of the door had risen. The figure of the young woman had disappeared. And the coupé, behind which he was running, was already nothing more than a black dot on the white road. He called again: Christine!… Nothing answered him. He stopped, in the middle of the silence. He threw a desperate glance at the sky, at the stars; he knocked his fist against it his chest on fire; he loved and he was not loved! With a dull eye, he considered this desolate and cold road, the pale and dead night. Nothing was colder, nothing was deader than his heart: he had loved an angel and he despised a woman! Raoul, how she has played with you, the little fairy of the North! Isn’t it , isn’t it useless to have such a fresh cheek, such a timid brow, always ready to cover itself with the pink veil of modesty to pass through the lonely night, in the depths of a luxury coupé, in the company of a mysterious lover? Isn’t it that there should be sacred limits to hypocrisy and lies?… And that one should not have the clear eyes of childhood when one has the soul of a courtesan? … She had passed without answering his call… So, why had he come across her path? By what right did he suddenly raise before her, who only asks for his forgetfulness, the reproach of his presence?… Go away!… disappear!… You don’t count!… He was thinking of dying and he was twenty years old!… His servant surprised him, in the morning, sitting on his bed. He hadn’t undressed and the valet was afraid of some misfortune when he saw him, so disastrous was his face. Raoul snatched the mail he was bringing from his hands . He had recognized a letter, a piece of paper, a handwriting. Christine said to him: My friend, be, the day after tomorrow, at the masked ball at the Opera, at midnight, in the small salon which is behind the chimney of the great foyer; stand by the door which leads to the Rotunda. Do not speak of this meeting to anyone in the world. Put yourself in white domino, well masked. On my life, do not let anyone recognize you. Christine. Chapter 10. At the Masked Ball. The envelope, all smeared with mud, bore no stamp. To deliver to M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny and the address in pencil. This had certainly been thrown out in the hope that a passerby would pick up the note and deliver it to the house; which had happened. The note had been found on a sidewalk in the Place de l’Opéra. Raoul reread it feverishly. It was all he needed to revive hope. The dark image he had formed for a moment of a Christine forgetful of her duties to herself, gave way to the first imagination he had had of an unfortunate innocent child, the victim of imprudence and her own over-sensitivity. To what extent, at this hour, was she really a victim? Whose prisoner was she? Into what abyss had she been dragged? He asked himself with a very cruel anguish; But even this pain seemed bearable compared to the delirium into which he was driven by the idea of ​​a hypocritical and lying Christine! What had happened? What influence had she been subjected to! What monster had ravished her, and with what weapons? … … With what weapons then, if not those of music? Yes, yes, the more he thought about it, the more he persuaded himself that it was from this quarter that he would discover the truth. Had he forgotten the tone in which, at Perros, she had told him that she had received a visit from the heavenly envoy? And should not Christine’s own story, in these latter days, help him to illuminate the darkness in which he was struggling? Had he ignored the despair that had seized her after her father’s death and the disgust she had then felt for all things in life, even her art? At the Conservatoire, she had passed like a poor singing machine, devoid of soul. And, suddenly, she had woken up, as if under the breath of a divine intervention. The angel of music had come! She sings Marguerite from Faust and triumphs!… The Angel of music!… Who then, who then is passing himself off in her eyes as this marvelous genius?… Who then, informed about the legend dear to old Daaé, uses it to this to the point that the young girl is no longer in his hands anything but a defenseless instrument that he makes vibrate at will? And Raoul reflected that such an adventure was not exceptional. He remembered what had happened to Princess Belmonte, who had just lost her husband and whose despair had become stupor… For a month, the princess could neither speak nor cry. This physical and moral inertia was getting worse every day and the weakening of reason was gradually leading to the annihilation of life. The sick woman was carried every evening to her gardens; but she did not even seem to understand where she was . Raff, the greatest singer in Germany, who was passing through Naples, wanted to visit these gardens, renowned for their beauty. One of the princess’s wives asked the great artist to sing, without showing himself, near the grove where she was lying. Raff consented and sang a simple air that the princess had heard from her husband in the early days of their marriage. This air was expressive and touching. The melody, the words, the artist’s admirable voice, all combined to deeply stir the princess’s soul. Tears sprang from her eyes… she wept, was saved, and remained convinced that her husband, that evening, had come down from heaven to sing her the air of old! –Yes… that evening!… One evening, Raoul now thought, just one evening… But this beautiful imagination would not have held up in the face of repeated experience… She would have ended up discovering Raff, behind his grove, the ideal and doleful Princess of Belmonte, if she had returned there every evening for three months… The angel of music, for three months, had given lessons to Christine… Ah! He was a punctual teacher!… And now he was taking her to the Bois!… With his clenched fingers, slid over his chest, where his jealous heart beat, Raoul tore at his flesh. Inexperienced, he now wondered with terror what game the young lady was inviting him to play for the next masquerade? And to what extent could a girl from the Opera mock a good young man brand new to love? What misery!… Thus Raoul’s thoughts went to extremes. He no longer knew whether to pity Christine or curse her and, alternately, he pitied and cursed her. Just in case, however, he equipped himself with a white domino. Finally, the time for the meeting arrived. His face covered like a mask trimmed with long, thick lace, all bejeweled in white, the Viscount felt quite ridiculous for having donned this costume of romantic masquerades. A man of the world did not disguise himself to go to the Opera ball. He would have made people smile. One thought consoled the Viscount: that he would certainly not be recognized! And then, this costume and this mask had another advantage: Raoul would be able to walk around in it as if he were at home, all alone, with the dismay of his soul and the sadness of his heart. He would have no need to pretend; it would be superfluous for him to compose a mask for his face: he had it! This ball was an exceptional celebration, given before Shrovetide, in honor of the anniversary of the birth of an illustrious draughtsman of the joys of yesteryear, an emulator of Gavarni, whose pencil had immortalized the chicards and the descent of the Courtille. So it must have had a much more cheerful, noisier, more bohemian aspect than the ordinary masked balls. Many artists had gathered there, followed by a whole clientele of models and artists who, around midnight, began to make a great noise. Raoul climbed the grand staircase at five minutes to midnight, did not linger in any way to consider around him the spectacle of the multicolored costumes spread out along the marble steps, in one of the most sumptuous settings in the world, did not allow himself to be approached by any mischievous mask, did not respond to any joke, and shook the enterprising familiarity of several couples already too gay. Having crossed the large foyer and escaped a farandole which, for a moment, had imprisoned him, he finally entered the drawing room that Christine’s note had indicated to him. There, in this small space, there was a mad world; for it was there the crossroads where all those who were going to have supper at the Rotonde or who were returning from a glass of champagne met . The tumult there was ardent and joyful. Raoul thought that Christine had, for their mysterious rendezvous, preferred this crowd to some isolated corner: one was there, under the mask, more concealed. He leaned against the door and waited. He did not wait long. A black domino passed, which quickly squeezed the tips of his fingers. He understood that it was her. He followed. “Is that you, Christine?” he asked between his teeth. The domino turned sharply and raised its finger to the level of its lips, no doubt to advise it not to repeat its name again. Raoul continued to follow in silence. He was afraid of losing her, after having found her so strangely. He no longer felt any hatred towards her. He no longer even doubted that she must have nothing to reproach herself for, however bizarre and inexplicable her conduct appeared. He was ready for every kindness, every pardon, every cowardice. He loved. And, certainly, they would very naturally explain to him, very soon , the reason for such a singular absence… The black domino, from time to time, turned to see if it was still followed by the white domino. As Raoul thus crossed, behind his guide, the great public foyer, he could not help but notice among all the crowds, a crowd… among all the groups trying their hand at the wildest extravagances, a group that pressed around a character whose disguise, original appearance, macabre aspect caused a sensation… This character was dressed all in scarlet with an immense plumed hat on a skull. Ah! what a beautiful imitation of a skull that was! The artists around him were giving him great success, congratulating him… asking him by which master, in which workshop, frequented by Pluto, such a beautiful skull had been made, drawn, made up for him! The Grim Reaper herself must have posed. The man with the skull, the plumed hat and the scarlet garment trailed behind him an immense red velvet cloak whose flame stretched regally on the parquet floor; and on this coat was embroidered in gold letters a sentence that everyone read and repeated aloud: Do not touch me! I am the Red Death passing by!… And someone wanted to touch him… but a skeleton hand, emerging from a purple sleeve, brutally seized the wrist of the imprudent man and the latter, having felt the grip of the bones, the frenzied embrace of Death which seemed never to let him go, let out a cry of pain and terror. The Red Death having finally given him freedom, he fled, like a madman, amidst jeers. It was at this moment that Raoul crossed paths with the funereal character who, just then, had just turned to his side. And he was on the point of letting out a cry: The death’s head of Perros Guirec! He had recognized it!… He wanted to rush away, forgetting Christine; but the black domino, which also seemed to be in the grip of a strange emotion, had taken his arm and was dragging him… was dragging him away from the hearth, away from this demonic crowd where the Red Death was passing… At every moment, the black domino turned around and it seemed to him, no doubt, twice, to see something that frightened him, because he still hastened his march and that of Raoul as if they were being pursued. Thus, they climbed two floors. There, the stairs, the corridors were almost deserted. The black domino pushed open the door of a box and signaled to the white domino to enter behind him. Christine, for it was indeed her, he could still recognize her by her voice, Christine immediately closed the door of the box behind him, recommending him in a low voice to stay in the back part of this box and not to show himself. Raoul removed his mask. Christine kept hers on. And as the young man was about to ask the singer to take it off, he was quite astonished to see her lean against the partition and listen attentively to what was happening next door. Then she half-opened the door and looked into the corridor, saying in a low voice: He must have gone up above, to the Blind’s box!… Suddenly she cried: He’s coming back down! She wanted to close the door, but Raoul opposed it, for he had seen a red foot land on the highest step of the staircase leading to the upper floor , and then another… and slowly, majestically, the whole scarlet garment of the Red Death descended. And he saw Perros Guirec’s death’s head again. “It’s him!” he cried… “This time, he won’t escape me!” But Christine had closed the door just as Raoul was rushing forward. He wanted to push her out of her way… “Who, then?” she asked in a completely changed voice… “Who, then, won’t escape you?” Brutally, Raoul tried to overcome the young girl’s resistance, but she pushed him back with unexpected force… He understood, or thought he understood, and became furious at once. “Who, then?” he asked angrily… “But him?” the man who hides beneath this hideous mortuary image!… the evil genius of the Perros cemetery!… the Red Death!… Finally, your friend, madame… Your Angel of Music! But I will tear his mask from his face, as I will tear mine, and we will look at each other, this time face to face, without veil and without lie, and I will know who you love and who loves you! He burst into insane laughter, while Christine, behind her mask, made a painful moan. She stretched out her two arms with a tragic gesture, which placed a barrier of white flesh on the door. –In the name of our love, Raoul, you will not pass!… He stopped. What had she said?… In the name of their love?… But never, never yet had she told him that she loved him. And yet, she had not lacked opportunities!… She had seen him already quite unhappy, in tears before her, imploring a kind word of hope that had not come!… She had seen him ill, almost dead from terror and cold after the night in the cemetery at Perros? Had she even stayed by his side at the moment when he most needed her care? No! She had run away!… And she said she loved him! She spoke in the name of their love. Come on ! She had no other aim than to delay him for a few seconds… She had to give the Red Death time to escape… Their love? She was lying!… And he told her so, with an accent of childish hatred. “You are lying, madame! For you do not love me, and you never have loved me! You must be a poor, unfortunate little young man like me to let yourself be played, to let yourself be fooled as I have been!” Why then, by your attitude, by the joy in your look, by your very silence, did you, during our first meeting at Perros, allow me all hopes? – all honest hopes, madame, for I am an honest man and I believed you to be an honest woman, when you only intended to mock me! Alas! you have mocked everyone! You have shamefully abused the candid heart of your benefactress herself, who nevertheless continues to believe in your sincerity when you walk to the Opera ball, with the Red Death!… I despise you!… And he wept. She let him insult her. She thought of only one thing thing: to hold him back. –You will ask me for forgiveness one day for all these nasty words, Raoul, and I will forgive you!… He shook his head. –No! No! You had driven me mad!… when I think that I, I had only one goal in life: to give my name to a girl from the Opera!… –Raoul!… unhappy!… –I will die of shame! –Live, my friend, came the deep and altered voice of Christine… and farewell! –Farewell, Raoul!… The young man advanced, with a faltering step. He dared one more sarcasm: –Oh! you will allow me to come and applaud you from time to time. –I will not sing any more, Raoul!… –Really, he added with even more irony… They are creating leisure for you: my compliments!… But we will see each other again at the Bois one of these evenings! –Neither in the woods nor anywhere else, Raoul, you will see me again… –Could we at least know to what darkness you will return?… To what hell are you going, mysterious lady?… or to what paradise?… –I came to tell you… my friend… but I can tell you nothing more… … You wouldn’t believe me! You have lost faith in me, Raoul, it’s over!… She said this It’s over! in such a desperate tone that the young man shuddered and remorse for his cruelty began to trouble his soul… –But finally, he cried… Will you tell us what all this means!… You are free, without restraint… You walk around the town… you put on a domino to run the ball… Why don’t you go home?… What have you been doing for the past two weeks?… What is this story about the angel of music that you told Mama Valérius? Someone could have deceived you, abused your credulity… I witnessed it myself at Perros… but now you know what to expect!… You seem very sensible to me, Christine… You know what you are doing!… and yet Mama Valérius continues to wait for you, invoking your good genius!… Explain yourself, Christine, I beg you!… Others would be deceived!… what is this comedy?… Christine simply took off her mask and said: “It’s a tragedy! My friend…” Raoul then saw her face and could not suppress an exclamation of surprise and terror. The fresh colors of the past had disappeared. A deadly pallor spread over those features that he had known so charming and so sweet, reflections of peaceful grace and conscience without struggle. How tormented they were now! The furrow of pain had pitilessly dug them, and Christine’s beautiful, clear eyes , once limpid as the lakes that served as eyes for little Lotte, appeared this evening to be of an obscure, mysterious, and unfathomable depth, and all surrounded by a terribly sad shadow . “My friend! My friend!” he moaned, stretching out his arms… “You promised to forgive me… ” “Perhaps!… perhaps one day…” she said, putting her mask back on , and went away, forbidding him to follow her with a gesture that chased him away… He wanted to rush after her, but she turned and repeated her farewell gesture with such sovereign authority that he dared not take another step. He watched her go away… And then he went down into the crowd in his turn , not knowing exactly what he was doing, his temples pounding, his heart torn, and he asked, in the room he was crossing, if anyone had seen the Red Death pass by. They said to him: Who is this Red Death? He replied: It is a gentleman disguised with a death’s head and in a large red cloak. They told him everywhere that the Red Death had just passed by, trailing his royal cloak, but he did not meet her anywhere, and he returned, towards two o’clock in the morning, in the corridor behind the stage that led to Christine Daaé’s dressing room. His steps had led him to this place where he had begun to suffer. He knocked on the door. There was no answer. He entered as he had entered, while searching everywhere for the man’s voice. The dressing room was deserted. A gas lamp burned, in pilot mode. On a small desk, there was some writing paper. He thought of writing to Christine, but footsteps were heard in the corridor… He only had time to hide in the boudoir which was separated from the dressing room by a simple curtain. A hand was pushing open the dressing room door. It was Christine! He held his breath. He wanted to see! He wanted to know!… Something told him that he was going to witness part of the mystery and that he would perhaps begin to understand… Christine entered, removed her mask with a weary gesture and threw it on the table. She sighed, let her beautiful head fall into her hands… What was she thinking?… Raoul?… No! For Raoul heard her murmur: Poor Erik! At first he thought he had misheard. At first, he was convinced that if anyone was to be pitied, it was him, Raoul. What could be more natural, after what had just happened between them, than for her to say with a sigh: Poor Raoul! But she repeated, shaking her head: Poor Erik? What was this Erik doing in Christine’s sighs and why was the little fairy from the North pitying Erik when Raoul was so unhappy? Christine began to write, calmly, quietly, so peacefully, that Raoul, who was still trembling from the tragedy that separated them, was singularly and annoyingly impressed. How cool-headed! he said to himself… She wrote like this, filling two, three, four pages. Suddenly, she raised her head and hid the pages in her bodice… She seemed to be listening… Raoul listened too… Where did this strange noise, this distant rhythm, come from?… A muffled song seemed to come from the walls… Yes, one would have said that the walls were singing!… The song became clearer… the words were intelligible… a voice could be distinguished… a very beautiful and very sweet and very captivating voice… but so much sweetness remained male and thus one could judge that this voice did not belong to a woman… The voice was still approaching… it went beyond the wall… it arrived… and the voice was now in the room, in front of Christine. Christine stood up and spoke to the voice as if she were speaking to someone who was standing at her side. “Here I am, Erik,” she said, “I am ready. It is you who are late, my friend. ” Raoul, who was watching cautiously behind his curtain, could not believe his eyes which showed him nothing. Christine’s face brightened. A kind smile came to rest on her bloodless lips, a smile like those convalescents have when they begin to hope that the illness that has struck them will not carry them off. The bodiless voice began to sing again, and certainly Raoul had never yet heard anything in the world—as a voice uniting, at the same time, with the same breath, extremes—more broadly and heroically sweet, more victoriously insidious, more delicate in strength, more powerful in delicacy, finally more irresistibly triumphant. There were definitive accents there that sang like masters and that must certainly, by the sole virtue of their hearing, give birth to lofty accents in mortals who feel, love, and translate music. There was a tranquil and pure source of harmony from which the faithful could safely and devoutly drink, certain as they were of drinking in the musical grace. And their art, suddenly, having touched the divine, was transfigured by it. Raoul listened to this voice with fever and he began to understand how Christine Daaé could have appeared one evening to the astonished public, with accents of an unknown beauty, of a superhuman exaltation, doubtless still under the influence of the mysterious and invisible master! And he understood all the more such a considerable event by listening to the exceptional voice that it sang nothing exceptional: with silt, it had made azure. The banality of the verse and the ease and almost popular vulgarity of the melody only appeared transformed more into beauty by a breath that lifted them and carried them into the sky on the wings of passion. For this angelic voice glorified a pagan hymn. This voice sang the wedding night of Romeo and Juliet. Raoul saw Christine stretch her arms out toward the voice, as she had done in the cemetery at Perros, toward the invisible violin that was playing The Resurrection of Lazarus… Nothing could convey the passion whose voice said: Destiny chains you to me without return!… Raoul’s heart was pierced and, struggling against the spell that seemed to take away all his will and all his energy, and almost all his lucidity at the moment he needed it most, he managed to draw the curtain that hid him and walked toward Christine. She, who was advancing toward the back of the box, the whole side of which was occupied by a large mirror that reflected her image, could not see him, for he was completely behind her and entirely hidden by her. Destiny chains you to me without return!… Christine was still walking toward her image and her image was descending toward her. The two Christines—the body and the image—ended up touching, merging, and Raoul stretched out his arm to seize them both at once . But by a sort of dazzling miracle that made him stagger, Raoul was suddenly thrown back, while an icy wind swept across his face; he saw not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines, who circled around him with such lightness, who mocked and fled so quickly, that his hand could not touch any of them. Finally, everything became motionless again and he saw himself, in the mirror. But Christine had disappeared. He rushed onto the ice. He bumped into the walls. No one! And yet the lodge still echoed with a distant, passionate rhythm: Destiny, chain you to me without return!… His hands pressed his sweating forehead, felt his waking flesh, groped in the gloom, restored to the flame of the gas burner all its strength. He was sure that he was not dreaming. He found himself at the center of a formidable game, physical and moral, to which he had no key and which might perhaps crush him. He vaguely felt like an adventurous prince who had crossed the forbidden boundary of a fairy tale and who should no longer be surprised to be prey to the magical phenomena that he had thoughtlessly defied and unleashed for love… Which way? Which way had Christine gone?… Which way would she return?… Would she return?… Alas! had she not assured him that all was over!… and did not the wall repeat: Destiny chain you to me without return? To me? Whose? Then, exhausted, defeated, his mind vague, he sat down in the very place Christine had occupied a moment ago. Like her, he let his head fall into his hands. When he raised it, tears flowed abundantly down his young face, real and heavy tears, such as jealous children have, tears that wept over a misfortune that was by no means fantastic, but common to all lovers on earth and which he specified aloud: “Who is this Erik?” he said. Chapter 11. We Must Forget the Name of the Man’s Voice. The day after Christine had disappeared from his sight in a kind of dazzling state that still made him doubt his senses, the Viscount de Chagny went to Mama Valérius’s house to inquire. He came across a charming picture. At the bedside of the old lady who, sitting up in bed, was knitting, Christine was making lace. Never had a more charming oval, never a purer brow, never a softer gaze bent over a virgin’s work. Fresh colors had returned to the young girl’s cheeks. The bluish ring around her clear eyes had disappeared. Raoul no longer recognized the tragic face of the day before. If the veil of melancholy spread over these adorable features had not appeared to the young man as the last vestige of the incredible drama in which this mysterious child was struggling , he might have thought that Christine was not its incomprehensible heroine. She stood up as he approached, without apparent emotion, and held out her hand. But Raoul’s stupefaction was such that he remained there, annihilated, without a gesture, without a word. “Well, Monsieur de Chagny,” exclaimed Mama Valérius. ” So you no longer know our Christine?” His good genius has given her back to us! “Mother!” interrupted the young girl curtly, while a deep blush rose to her eyes, “Mother, I thought it would never be a question of this again!… You know very well that there is no such thing as a musical genius! ” “My daughter, he gave you lessons for three months!” “Mother, I promised to explain everything to you one day soon; I hope so… but, until that day, you promised me silence and never to question me again! ” “If only you would promise me, you, never to leave me again! But did you promise me that, Christine? ” “Mother, all this could not interest M. de Chagny… ” “That is what deceives you, mademoiselle,” interrupted the young man in a voice that he wanted to make firm and brave and which was still only trembling; “everything that concerns you interests me to a point that you will perhaps end up understanding.” I will not hide from you that my astonishment equals my joy in finding you at the side of your adopted tolerant mother, and that what happened between us yesterday, what you were able to tell me, what I was able to guess, nothing made me expect such a speedy return. I would be the first to rejoice if you did not persist in keeping all this a secret that could be fatal to you…, and I have been your friend for too long not to worry, with Madame Valérius, about a disastrous adventure that will remain dangerous as long as we have not unraveled its plot and of which you will end up being the victim, Christine. At these words, Mama Valérius stirred in her bed. “What does that mean?” she cried… Christine is in danger then? “Yes, madame…” Raoul declared courageously, despite Christine’s signs . “My God!” exclaimed the good and naive old woman, panting. You must
tell me everything, Christine! Why were you reassuring me? And what danger is this, Monsieur de Chagny? “An impostor is abusing her good faith! ” “The angel of music is an impostor? ” “She told you herself that there is no angel of music! ” “Hey! What in Heaven’s name is it?” begged the helpless woman. “You will kill me!” “There is, madame, around us, around you, around Christine, an earthly mystery much more to be feared than all the ghosts and all the genies! ” Mama Valérius turned a terrified face towards Christine, but the latter had already rushed to her adoptive mother and was holding her in her arms: “Don’t believe it! Good mother… don’t believe it,” she repeated… and she tried, with her caresses, to console her, for the old lady was heaving sighs that would break the soul. “Then tell me you won’t leave me again!” implored the professor ‘s widow . Christine was silent and Raoul continued: “That’s what you have to promise, Christine… It’s the only thing that may reassure us, your mother and me! We undertake not to ask you a single question about the past, if you promise to remain under our protection in the future… “That is an undertaking I do not ask of you, and it is a promise I will not make to you!” the young girl declared proudly. “I am free to do what I do, Monsieur de Chagny; you have no right to control them, and I will ask you to refrain from doing so from now on. As for what I have done in the last two weeks, there is only one man in the world who would have the right to demand that I tell him about it : my husband! Now, I have no husband, and I will never marry!” Saying this forcefully, she stretched out her hand towards Raoul, as if to make her words more solemn, and Raoul turned pale, not only because of the very words he had just heard, but because he had just noticed, on Christine’s finger, a gold ring. “You have no husband, and yet you wear a wedding ring.” And he wanted to seize her hand, but Christine quickly took it away. “It’s a gift!” she said, still blushing and trying in vain to hide her embarrassment. “Christine! Since you have no husband, this ring can only have been given to you by one who hopes to become one! Why deceive us further? Why torture me further? This ring is a promise! and this promise has been accepted! ” “That’s what I told her!” exclaimed the old lady. “And what did she answer you, madame?” “What I wanted,” cried Christine, exasperated. “Don’t you think , sir, that this interrogation has lasted too long?… As for me… ” Raoul, very moved, was afraid of letting her utter the words of a definitive break. He interrupted her: “Forgive me for speaking to you like that, mademoiselle… You know very well what honest feeling makes me meddle, at this moment, in things which, without doubt, do not concern me! But let me tell you what I saw… and I saw more than you think, Christine… or what I thought I saw, for, in truth, it is the least that in such an adventure, one doubts the testimony of one’s eyes… ” “What did you see, sir, or think you saw?” “I saw your ecstasy at the sound of the voice, Christine!” of the voice that came out of the wall, or from a dressing room, or from an apartment next door… yes, your ecstasy!… And that is what, for you, frightens me!… You are under the most dangerous of spells!… And it seems, however, that you have realized the imposture, since you say today that there is no genius of music… So, Christine, why did you follow him this time again? Why did you get up, your face radiant, as if you really heard the angels?… Ah! this voice is very dangerous, Christine, since I myself, while I was hearing it, was so delighted by it, that you disappeared from my sight, without being able to say where you went!… Christine! Christine! In the name of heaven, in the name of your father who is in heaven and who loved you so much, and who loved me, Christine, you are going to tell us, your benefactress and me, to whom this voice belongs! And in spite of yourself, we will save you!… Come on! The name of this man, Christine?… Of this man who had the audacity to put a gold ring on your finger! “Monsieur de Chagny,” declared the young girl coldly, “you will never know!”… At which the sour voice of Mama Valérius was heard, suddenly taking Christine’s side, seeing with what hostility her ward had just addressed the Viscount. “And if she loves him, Viscount, this man, that is none of your business yet! ” “Alas! Madame,” continued Raoul humbly, unable to hold back his tears… “Alas! I believe, in fact, that Christine loves him… Everything tells me proves, but that is not the only thing that makes me despair, for what I am not sure of, madame, is that the one Christine loves is worthy of this love! “That is for me alone to judge, sir!” Christine said, looking Raoul straight in the face and showing him a face prey to sovereign irritation. “When one takes,” continued Raoul, who felt his strength abandoning him, ” such romantic means to seduce a young girl… ” “The man must, must it not, be miserable or the young girl very stupid? ” “Christine! ” “Raoul, why do you thus condemn a man you have never seen, whom no one knows and of whom you yourself know nothing?… ” “Yes, Christine… Yes… I know at least the name that you claim to hide from me forever… Your angel of music, mademoiselle, is called Erik!” Christine immediately betrayed herself. This time she became as white as an altar cloth. She stammered: “Who told you?” “You yourself! ” “How so? ” “Pitying him the other evening, the night of the masked ball.” When you arrived in your dressing room, didn’t you say: “Poor Erik!” “Well! Christine, there was, somewhere, a poor Raoul who heard you. ” “This is the second time you’ve been listening at doors, Monsieur de Chagny! ” “I wasn’t behind the door!… I was in the dressing room!… in your boudoir, mademoiselle. ” “Wretch!” moaned the young girl, showing every sign of unspeakable terror… “Wretch! Do you want us to kill you? ” “Perhaps!” Raoul said “perhaps” with such love and despair that Christine could not hold back a sob. She then took his hands and looked at him with all the pure tenderness of which she was capable, and the young man, under her gaze, felt that his pain was already soothed. “Raoul,” she said. “You must forget the man’s voice and not even remember his name… and never again attempt to penetrate the mystery of the man’s voice. Is this mystery really terrible? ” “There is none more dreadful on earth!” A silence separated the young people. Raoul was overwhelmed. “Swear to me that you will do nothing to find out,” she insisted. ” Swear to me that you will never come into my dressing room again if I do not call you there . ” “You promise to call me there sometimes, Christine? ” “I promise. ” “When ? ” “Tomorrow. ” “Then I swear this to you! ” These were their last words that day. He kissed her hands and left, cursing Erik and promising himself to be patient. Chapter 12. Above the Trappes. The next day, he saw her again at the Opera. She still had the gold ring on her finger. She was gentle and kind. She talked to him about his plans, his future, his career. He told her that the departure of the polar expedition had been brought forward and that in three weeks, in a month at the latest, he would leave France. She urged him almost gaily to consider this journey with joy, as a stage of his future glory. And when he replied that glory without love held no charm in his eyes, she treated him like a child whose sorrows must be fleeting. He said to her: “How can you, Christine, speak so lightly of such serious things? We may never see each other again!… I may die during this expedition!… ” “And me too,” she said simply… She was no longer smiling, she was no longer joking. She seemed to be thinking of something new that was entering her mind for the first time. Her eyes were lit up. “What are you thinking, Christine? ” “I think we shall never see each other again. ” “And that is what makes you so radiant?” “And that in a month, we will have to say goodbye… forever!…” “Unless, Christine, we pledge our faith and wait for each other forever.” She put her hand over his mouth: “Be quiet, Raoul!… That’s not the point, you know that !… And we will never get married! That’s understood! ” She seemed to have difficulty suddenly containing an overflowing joy. She clapped her hands with childish glee… Raoul looked at her, worried, without understanding. “But… but…” she said again, hearing her two hands to the young man, or rather giving them to him, as if, suddenly, she had decided to make him a present of them. But if we can’t get married, we can… we can get engaged!… No one will know but us, Raoul!… There have been secret marriages!… There may well be secret engagements!… We are engaged, my friend, for a month!… In a month, you will leave, and I will be able to be happy, with the memory of that month, all my life! She was delighted with her idea… And she became serious again. “This,” she said, “is a happiness that will harm no one.” Raoul had understood. He rushed on this inspiration. He wanted to make it a reality right away. He bowed before Christine with unparalleled humility and said: “Mademoiselle, I have the honor of asking for your hand! ” “But you already have them both, my dear fiancé!… Oh! Raoul, how happy we are going to be!… We are going to play at being the future little husband and the future little wife!… Raoul said to himself: the imprudent one! In a month, I will have had time to make her forget or to penetrate and destroy the mystery of the man’s voice, and in a month Christine will consent to become my wife. In the meantime, let’s play! It was the prettiest game in the world, and one they enjoyed like the pure children they were. Ah! how wonderful things they said to each other ! and how many eternal vows were exchanged! The idea that there would no longer be anyone to keep these vows after the month had passed left them in a state of confusion that they savored with terrible delight, between laughter and tears. They played at heart like others play at ball; only, as it was indeed their two hearts that they were sending back to each other, they had to be very, very skillful, to receive it without hurting them. One day—it was the eighth of the game—Raoul’s heart ached greatly, and the young man stopped the game with these extravagant words: I’m not leaving for the North Pole anymore. Christine, who, in her innocence, had not considered the possibility of this, suddenly discovered the danger of the game and reproached herself bitterly. She didn’t reply a word to Raoul and went home. This took place in the afternoon, in the singer’s dressing room where she gave him all his appointments and where they enjoyed real dinner parties over three biscuits, two glasses of port, and a bouquet of violets. In the evening, she didn’t sing. And he didn’t receive the customary letter, although they had given each other permission to write to each other every day of that month. The next morning, he ran to Mama Valérius, who told him that Christine was away for two days. She had left the previous evening at five o’clock, saying that she would not be back until the day after tomorrow. Raoul was upset. He hated Mama Valérius, who had told him such news with such astonishing calmness. He tried to get something out of her, but the good lady obviously knew nothing. She simply agreed to answer the young man’s frantic questions : “It’s Christine’s secret!” And she raised her finger, saying this with a touching unction that recommended discretion and, at the same time, had the pretension of reassuring. “Ah! well,” Raoul exclaimed spitefully, as he went down the stairs. like a madman, ah! well! the young girls are well looked after with that Mama Valérius there!… Where could Christine be?… Two days… Two days less in their short-lived happiness! And this was his fault!… Wasn’t it understood that he had to leave?… And if his firm intention was not to leave, why had he spoken so soon? He accused himself of clumsiness and was the most unhappy of men for forty-eight hours, at the end of which Christine reappeared. She reappeared in triumph. She finally regained the unprecedented success of the gala evening. Since the adventure with the toad, Carlotta had not been able to appear on stage. The terror of a new hiccup dwelled in her heart and robbed her of all her strength; and the places, witnesses to her incomprehensible defeat, had become odious to her. She found a way to break her contract. Daaé, momentarily, was asked to fill the vacant position. A veritable delirium greeted him in the Juive.
The Viscount, present at this evening, was naturally the only one to suffer while listening to the thousand echoes of this new triumph; for he saw that Christine still had her gold ring: A distant voice whispered in the young man’s ear: Tonight, she still has the gold ring, and it was not you who gave it to her. Tonight, she has again given her soul, and it was not yours. And still the voice pursued him: If she does not want to tell you what she has been doing for the past two days…, if she hides from you the place of her retreat, you must go and ask Erik! He ran onto the stage. He stood in her way. She saw him, for her eyes were searching for him. She said to him: Quick! Quick! Come! And she dragged him into the box, no longer worrying about all the courtiers of her young glory who were murmuring outside her closed door: It’s a scandal! Raoul fell at once at her knees. He swore to her that he would leave and begged her not to take another hour away from the ideal happiness she had promised him. She let her tears flow. They embraced like a desperate brother and sister who have just been struck by a common grief and who come together to mourn a dead man. Suddenly, she tore herself away from the young man’s sweet and timid embrace, seemed to listen to something unknown… and, with a brief gesture, she showed Raoul the door. When he was on the threshold, she said to him, so quietly that the Viscount guessed her words more than he heard them : “Tomorrow, my dear fiancé! And be happy, Raoul…, it is for you that I sang this evening!” So he returned. But, alas! these two days of absence had broken the spell of their amiable lie. They looked at each other in the box, without saying anything more, with their sad eyes. Raoul held back from crying out: I’m jealous! I’m jealous! I’m jealous! But she heard him all the same. Then she said: Let’s go for a walk, my friend, the air will do us good . Raoul thought she was going to suggest some country outing, far from this monument, which he hated like a prison and whose jailer he felt furiously walking within the walls… the jailer Erik… But she led him onto the stage, and made him sit on the wooden edge of a fountain, in the peace and dubious coolness of a first set set for the next spectacle; Another day she wandered with him, holding his hand, through the deserted paths of a garden whose climbing plants had been cut back by the skilled hands of a decorator, as if the real heavens, the real flowers, the real earth were forever forbidden to her and she were condemned to breathe no other atmosphere than that of the theater! The young man hesitated to ask her the slightest question, for , as it appeared to him at once that she could not answer them, he feared to make her suffer needlessly. From time to time From time to time a fireman passed by, watching over their melancholic idyll from afar. Sometimes she bravely tried to deceive herself and him about the false beauty of this setting invented for the illusion of men. Her ever-vivid imagination adorned it with the most dazzling colors, such as, she said, that nature could not provide comparable ones. She became excited, while Raoul slowly pressed her feverish hand. She said: Look, Raoul, these walls, these woods, these cradles, these images of painted canvas, all this has seen the most sublime loves, for here they were invented by poets, who exceed the height of men by a hundred cubits. Tell me then that our love is indeed there, my Raoul, since he too was invented, and that he too is, alas! only an illusion! Sorry, he did not answer. Then: “Our love is too sad on earth, let’s take it to the sky!… See how easy it is here!” And she would carry him higher than the clouds, into the magnificent disorder of the gridiron, and she would delight in making him dizzy by running ahead of him on the fragile decks of the arch, among the thousands of ropes attached to the pulleys, the winches, the drums, in the middle of a veritable aerial forest of yards and masts. If he hesitated, she would say to him with an adorable pout: “You, a sailor!” And then they would come back down to dry land, that is to say, into some solid corridor that led them to laughter, to dancing, to youth scolded by a stern voice: Loosen up, young ladies!… Watch your pointe shoes!… This is the class of little girls, of those who have just passed the age of six or who are about to turn nine or ten… and they already have the low-cut bodice, the light tutu, the white trousers and the pink stockings, and they work, they work with all their aching little feet in the hope of becoming students of the quadrilles, compiled, little subjects, first dancers, with lots of diamonds around them… While waiting, Christine distributes sweets to them. Another day, she would take him into a vast room of her palace, full of finery, knights’ cast-offs, lances, shields and plumes, and she reviewed all the ghosts of warriors motionless and covered in dust. She spoke kind words to them, promising that they would see again the evenings dazzling with light, and the musical parades before the resounding footlights. She thus led him through her entire empire, which was artificial, but immense, extending over seventeen floors from the ground floor to the ridge and inhabited by an army of subjects. She passed among them like a popular queen, encouraging the work, sitting in the shops, giving wise advice to the workers whose hands hesitated to cut into the rich fabrics that were to clothe heroes. Inhabitants of this country practiced all the trades. There were cobblers and goldsmiths. All had learned to love her, for she was interested in the troubles and little quirks of each one. She knew unknown corners inhabited in secret by old households. She knocked at their door and presented Raoul to them like a prince charming who had asked for her hand, and the two of them, seated on some worm-eaten prop, listened to the legends of the Opera as they had once, in their childhood, listened to the old Breton tales. These old men remembered nothing but the Opera. They had lived there for countless years. The vanished administrations had forgotten them there; the palace revolutions had ignored them; outside, the history of France had passed without their having noticed, and no one remembered them. Thus the precious days passed and Raoul and Christine, by the excessive interest they seemed to take in external things, tried clumsily to hide from each other the only thought of their hearts. One certain fact was that Christine, who had shown herself to be the strongest until then, suddenly became nervous beyond expression. In their expeditions, she would start running for no reason or stop abruptly, and her hand, which had become ice cold in an instant, would hold the young man back. Her eyes sometimes seemed to be chasing imaginary shadows. She would cry: This way, then this way, then this way, laughing, with a breathless laugh that often ended in tears. Raoul then wanted to speak, to question despite his promises, his commitments. But, even before he had formulated a question, she would answer feverishly: Nothing!… I swear to you there is nothing. Once, on the stage, they were passing in front of a half-open trapdoor, Raoul leaned over the dark abyss and said: You showed me the upper parts of your empire, Christine… but strange stories are told about the lower parts… Do you want us to go down there? Hearing this, she took him in her arms, as if she feared to see him disappear into the black hole, and she said to him in a low voice, trembling: Never!… I forbid you to go there!… And besides, it is not mine!… Everything that is under the earth belongs to him! Raoul looked into her eyes and said to her in a harsh voice: “So he lives down there? ” “I didn’t tell you that!… Who told you such a thing? Come on! Come on! There are times, Raoul, when I wonder if you are not mad?… You are always hearing impossible things !… Come on! Come on!” And she was literally dragging him, for he wanted to stay obstinately near the trapdoor, and this hole attracted him. The trapdoor was suddenly closed, and so suddenly, without their even having seen the hand that was operating it, that they were completely stunned. “Perhaps it was him who was there?” he finally said. She shrugged her shoulders, but she did not seem at all reassured. “No! no! It’s the trapdoor closers. Trapdoor closers have to do something… They open and close trapdoors for no reason… It’s like door closers ; they have to pass the time. ” “And what if it were him, Christine?” “But no! But no! He’s locked himself in! He’s working. ” “Oh! Really, he’s working? ” “Yes, he can’t open and close trapdoors and work. We ‘re quite at ease. ” Saying this, she shuddered. “What is he working at? ” “Oh! to something terrible!… So we are very calm!… When he works at this, he sees nothing; he neither eats, nor drinks, nor breathes… for days and nights… he is a living dead man and he has no time to amuse himself with the traps! She shuddered again, she leaned forward, listening from the side of the trap… Raoul let her do and say. He fell silent. He now feared that the sound of his voice would suddenly make her think, stopping her in the still so fragile course of her confidences. She had not left him… she still held him in her arms… she sighed in turn: “If it were him!” Raoul, timid, asked: “Are you afraid of him?” She said: “But no! But no!” The young man, quite involuntarily, adopted the attitude of taking pity on her, as one does with an impressionable being who is still prey to a recent dream. He seemed to be saying: because you know, I’m here! And his gesture was, almost involuntarily, threatening; then Christine looked at him with astonishment, like a phenomenon of courage and virtue, and she seemed, in her thoughts, to measure at its true value so much useless and audacious chivalry. She embraced poor Raoul like a sister who would reward him, with a fit of tenderness, for having closed his little fraternal fist to defend her against the ever-possible dangers of life. Raoul understood and blushed with shame. He felt as weak as she was. He said to himself: She claims she’s not afraid, but she’s trembling away from the trapdoor. It was the truth. The next day and the days following, they went to lodge their curious and chaste loves, almost in the attic, far from the trapdoors. Christine’s agitation only increased as the hours passed. Finally, one afternoon, she arrived very late, her face so pale and her eyes so reddened by a certain despair, that Raoul resolved to do all the extremes, to the one, for example, which he expressed to her straight away, of leaving for the North Pole only if she confided to him the secret of the Man’s Voice. “Be quiet! In the name of heaven, be quiet. If he could hear you, unhappy Raoul!” And the young girl’s wild eyes looked around them . “I will take you from his power, Christine, I swear it! And you will not even think of him again, which is necessary. ” “Is that possible? ” She allowed herself this doubt, which was an encouragement, as she led the young man to the top floor of the theater, to the heights, where one is very far, very far from the trapdoors. “I will hide you in an unknown corner of the world, where he will not come looking for you. You will be saved, and then I will leave since you have sworn never to marry.” Christine threw herself on Raoul’s hands and clasped them with incredible transport. But, worried again, she turned her head. “Higher!” she simply said… even higher!… And she led him towards the summits. He had difficulty following her. They were soon under the roofs, in the labyrinth of timbers. They glided between the flying buttresses, the rafters, the braces, the sides, the slopes and the ramps; they ran from beam to beam as, in a forest, they would have run from tree to tree, with formidable trunks… And, despite the precaution she took to look behind her at every moment, she did not see a shadow that followed her like its shadow, that stopped with her, that left again when it paid off and that made no more noise than a shadow should. Raoul, for his part, noticed nothing, for, when he had Christine before him, nothing interested him in what was happening behind. Chapter 13. The Lyre of Apollo. Thus, they arrived at the roofs. She glided over them, light and familiar, like a swallow. Their gaze, between the three domes and the triangular pediment, scanned the deserted space. She breathed deeply , above Paris whose whole valley was visible in labor. She looked at Raoul with confidence. She called him close to her, and side by side they walked, high up there, on the zinc streets, in the cast-iron avenues; they reflected their twin forms in the vast reservoirs full of still water where, in the right season, the dance kids, about twenty little boys, dive and learn to swim. The shadow behind them, always faithful to their steps, had appeared, flattening itself on the roofs, lengthening itself with movements of black wings, at the crossroads of the iron alleys, turning around the pools, skirting, silent, the domes; and the unfortunate children had no suspicion of its presence, when they finally sat down, confident, under the high protection of Apollo, who raised with his bronze gesture, his prodigious lyre, in the heart of a burning sky. A fiery spring evening surrounded them. Clouds, which had just received their light robes of gold and purple from the setting sun, passed slowly, letting them trail above the young people; and Christine said to Raoul: Soon, we will go further and faster than the clouds, to the end of the world, and then you will abandon me, Raoul. But if, when the time came for you to take me away, I no longer agreed to follow you, well then! Raoul, you would take me away! With what force, which seemed directed against herself, she said this to him, while she nervously pressed herself against him. The young man was struck by it. “So you’re afraid of changing your mind, Christine? ” “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head strangely. “He’s a demon!” And she shuddered. She nestled in his arms with a moan. “Now I’m afraid of going back to live with him: in the earth! ” “What forces you to go back there, Christine? ” “If I don’t go back to him, great misfortunes may happen!… But I can’t go any longer!… I can’t go any longer!… I know very well that one must have pity for people who live underground… But this one is too horrible! And yet, the time is approaching; I only have one day left?” and if I don’t come, it’s he who will come looking for me with his voice. He will drag me with him, to his home, underground , and he will kneel before me, with his death’s head! And he will tell me that he loves me! And he will cry! Ah! those tears! Raoul! those tears in the two black holes of the death’s head! I can’t see those tears flow anymore! She wrung her hands terribly, while Raoul, himself seized by this contagious despair, pressed her to his heart: No! no! You will no longer hear him say that he loves you! You will no longer see his tears flow! Let’s run away!… Right away, Christine, let’s run away! And already he wanted to drag her away. But she stopped him. “No, no,” she said, shaking her head painfully, “not now!… It would be too cruel… Let him hear me sing again tomorrow evening, one last time… and then we will go away.” At midnight, you will come and get me in my lodge; at midnight exactly. At that moment, he will be waiting for me in the dining room by the lake… we will be free and you will take me away!… Even if I refuse, you must swear this to me, Raoul… for I feel that, this time, if I go back there, I may never come back… She added: “You cannot understand!” And she heaved a sigh to which it seemed to her that, behind her, another sigh had responded. “You did not hear? ” Her teeth were chattering. “No,” assured Raoul, “I did not hear anything… ” “It is too dreadful,” she admitted, “to tremble all the time like that!… And yet, here, we are in no danger; we are at home, at my home, in the sky, in the open air, in broad daylight. The sun is in flames, and night birds do not like to look at the sun!” I’ve never seen him in the light of day… It must be horrible!… she stammered, turning wild eyes toward Raoul. Ah! The first time I saw him!… I thought he was going to die! “Why?” asked Raoul, truly frightened by the tone of this strange and formidable confidence… why did you think he was going to die? “BECAUSE I SAW HIM!!!” This time Raoul and Christine turned around at the same time. “There’s someone here who’s suffering!” said Raoul… perhaps someone injured… Did you hear? “I couldn’t tell you,” admitted Christine, “even when he’s not here, my ears are full of his sighs… However, if you heard…” They stood up, looked around them … They were quite alone on the immense lead roof. They sat down again. Raoul asked: “How did you see him for the first time?” –I had been hearing him for three months without seeing him. The first time I heard him, I believed, like you, that this adorable voice, which had suddenly begun to sing beside me, was singing in a nearby box. I went out and looked for him everywhere; but my box is very isolated, Raoul, as you know, and it was impossible to find the voice outside my dressing room, while it remained faithfully in my dressing room. And not only did it sing, but it spoke to me, it answered my questions like a real man’s voice, with this difference that it was as beautiful as the voice of an angel. How can one explain such an incredible phenomenon? I had never ceased to think of the angel of music that my poor papa had promised to send me as soon as he died. I dare to speak to you of such childishness, Raoul, because you knew my father, and he loved you and you believed, at the same time as me, when you were very small, in the angel of music, and I am quite sure that you will not smile, nor that you will mock. I had preserved, my friend, the tender and credulous soul of little Lotte and it is not the company of Mama Valérius that would have taken it from me. I carried this little white soul in my naive hands and naively I held it out, I offered it to the man’s voice, believing I was offering it to the angel. The fault certainly lay, to a certain extent, with my adoptive mother, from whom I hid nothing of the inexplicable phenomenon. She was the first to say to me: It must be the angel; in any case, you can always ask him. This is what I did and the man’s voice replied that indeed it was the angel’s voice that I was waiting for and that my father had promised me when he died. From that moment on, a great intimacy was established between the voice and me, and I had absolute confidence in it. It told me that it had come down to earth to give me a taste of the supreme joys of eternal art, and it asked my permission to give me music lessons every day. I consented with fervent ardor and did not miss any of the meetings she gave me, from the first hour, in my dressing room, when this corner of the Opera was completely deserted. To tell you what these lessons were! You yourself, who heard the voice, cannot form an idea of ​​them. “Obviously not! I cannot form an idea,” affirmed the young man. “What did you accompany yourself with?” “With music I do not know, which was behind the wall and which was of incomparable accuracy. And then one would have said, my friend, that the Voice knew exactly to what extent my father, in dying, had left me of my work and what simple method he had also used; and thus, recalling myself, or rather, my organ recalling all the past lessons and benefiting from them at once, with the present ones, I made prodigious progress, such as, in other conditions, would have taken years! Remember that I am quite delicate, my friend, and that my voice was initially poorly characterized; the low strings were naturally underdeveloped; the high tones were rather harsh and the middle range veiled. It was against all these faults that my father had fought and triumphed for a moment; it was these faults that the Voice finally overcame. Little by little, I increased the volume of the sounds in proportions that my past weakness did not allow me to hope for: I learned to give my breathing the widest range. But above all, the Voice confided to me the secret of developing chest sounds in a soprano voice. Finally, it enveloped all this in the sacred fire of inspiration, it awakened in me an ardent, devouring, sublime life. The Voice had the virtue, in making itself heard, of raising me up to itself. It put me in unison with its superb flight. The soul of the Voice inhabited my mouth and breathed harmony into it! After a few weeks, I no longer recognized myself when I sang!… I was even terrified… I was afraid, for a moment, that there was some spell underneath; but Mama Valérius reassured me. She knew I was too simple a girl, she said, to give the demon a hold. My progress had remained secret, between the Voice, Mama Valérius and I, on the very order of the Voice. Strangely enough, outside the box, I sang with my everyday voice, and no one noticed anything. I did everything the Voice wanted. It told me: You must wait… you’ll see! We will astonish Paris! And I waited. I was living in a kind of ecstatic dream in which the Voice commanded. At this point, Raoul, I saw you one evening in the hall. My joy was such that I didn’t even think of hiding it when I went back to my box. Unfortunately for us, the Voice was already there and it saw clearly, from my expression, that there was something new. It asked me what was wrong with me and I saw no problem in telling it our sweet story, nor in hiding from it the place you held in my heart. Then the Voice fell silent: I called to it, it didn’t answer me; I begged it, it was in vain. I was terrified that she was gone forever! Would to God, my friend!… I went home that evening in a desperate state. I threw my arms around Mama Valérius’s neck, saying to her: You know, the Voice has gone! It may never come back! And she was as frightened as I was and asked me for an explanation. I told her everything. She said to me: By Jove! The Voice is jealous! This, my friend, made me think that I loved you… Here Christine stopped for a moment. She leaned her head on Raoul’s breast and they remained silent for a moment, in each other’s arms . The emotion that gripped them was such that they did not see , or rather did not feel moving, a few steps from them, the creeping shadow of two large black wings which approached, at the level of the roofs, so close, so close to them, that it could have, by closing over them, suffocated them… “The next day,” Christine continued with a deep sigh, “I returned to my lodge all pensive. The Voice was there. O my friend! It spoke to me with great sadness. It told me quite clearly that, if I had to give my heart on earth, it, the Voice, had nothing left to do but return to heaven. And it told me this with such an accent of human pain that I should have, from that day on, been wary and begun to understand that I had been strangely the victim of my deluded senses. But my faith in this apparition of the Voice, with which the thought of my father was so intimately mingled, was still whole. I feared nothing so much as not hearing from her anymore; on the other hand, I had reflected on the feeling that drew me towards you; I had measured all its useless danger; I did not even know if you remembered me. Whatever happened, your situation in the world forever forbade me the thought of an honest union; I swore to the Voice that you were nothing to me but a brother and that you would never be anything else and that my heart was empty of all earthly love… And here is the reason, my friend, why I averted my eyes when, on the stage or in the corridors, you tried to attract my attention, the reason why I did not recognize you… why I did not see you !… Meanwhile, the hours of lessons, between the Voice and me, passed in a divine delirium. Never had the beauty of sounds possessed me to this point and one day the Voice said to me: Go now, Christine Daaé, you can bring to men a little of the music of heaven! How, that evening, which was the evening of the gala, did Carlotta not come to the theater? How was I called to replace her? I do not know; but I sang… I sang with an unknown transport; I was light as if someone had given me wings; I believed for a moment that my burning soul had left its body! “Oh Christine!” said Raoul, whose eyes were moist at the memory, “that evening, my heart vibrated with each accent of your voice. I saw your tears flow down your pale cheeks, and I wept with you. How could you sing, sing while weeping?” “My strength left me,” said Christine, “I closed my eyes… When I opened them again, you were at my side! But the Voice was there too, Raoul!… I was afraid for you and again, this time, I didn’t want to recognize you and I started to laugh when you reminded me that you had picked up my scarf in the sea!… Alas? You can’t fool the Voice!… It had recognized you !… And the Voice was jealous!… The two following days, it made terrible scenes… It said to me: You love him! If you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t run away from him! He’s an old friend whose hand you would shake, like all the others… If you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t be afraid to find yourself, in your lodge, alone with him and with me!… If you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t chase him away!… “That’s enough!” I said to the irritated Voice; tomorrow I must go to Perros, to my father’s grave; I will ask Mr. Raoul de Chagny to accompany me there. “As you please,” she replied, “but know that I too will be in Perros, for I am everywhere you are, Christine, and if you are still worthy of me, if you have not lied to me, I will play for you, at midnight, on your father’s grave, the Resurrection of Lazarus, with the dead man’s violin. Thus, I was led, my friend, to write you the letter that brought you to Perros. How could I have been so deceived? How, faced with such personal preoccupations of the Voice, did I not suspect some imposture? Alas! I no longer possessed myself: I was his thing!… And the means at the disposal of the Voice must easily have deceived a child like me! “But finally,” cried Raoul, “at this point in Christine’s story where she seemed to be deploring with tears the all-too-perfect innocence of a very unwise mind… but finally you soon learned the truth!… How come you didn’t immediately emerge from this abominable nightmare? “Learn the truth!… Raoul!… Escape from this nightmare!… But I only entered into this nightmare, unhappy man, from the day I learned this truth!… Be quiet! Be quiet!” I said nothing to you … and now that we are about to descend from heaven to earth, pity me, Raoul!… pity me!… One evening, a fatal evening… look… it was the evening when so many misfortunes were to occur… the evening when Carlotta could believe herself transformed on the stage into a hideous toad and when she began to scream as if she had lived all her life on the edge of the marshes… the evening when the hall was suddenly plunged into darkness, under the thunder of the chandelier crashing onto the floor… There were dead and wounded that evening, and the whole theater resounded with the saddest clamors. My first thought, Raoul, in the glare of the catastrophe, was at the same time for you and for the Voice, for you were, at that time, the two equal halves of my heart. I was immediately reassured about you, for I had seen you in your brother’s dressing room and I knew that you were in no danger. As for the Voice, she had told me that she would be attending the performance, and I was afraid for her; yes, truly afraid, as if she had been an ordinary living person who was capable of dying. I said to myself: My God! Perhaps the chandelier had crushed the Voice. I was then on the stage, and so distraught that I was about to run into the hall to look for the Voice among the dead and wounded, when the idea came to me that, if nothing untoward had happened to her, she must already be in my dressing room, where she would be eager to reassure me. I only made a leap to my dressing room. The Voice was not there. I locked myself in my lodge, and with tears in my eyes, I begged her, if she was still alive, to manifest herself to me. The Voice did not answer me, but suddenly I heard a long, admirable moan that I knew well. It was the complaint of Lazarus, when, at the voice of Jesus, he begins to lift his eyelids and see the light of day again. It was the tears of my father’s violin. I recognized the bow stroke of Daaé, the same one, Raoul, who once held us motionless on the roads of Perros, the same one who had enchanted the night of the cemetery. And then, it was again, on the invisible and triumphant instrument, the cry of joy of Life, and the Voice, finally making itself heard, began to sing the dominating and sovereign phrase: Come! and believe in me! Those who believe in me will live again! March! Those who have believed in me will not die! I cannot tell you the impression I received from this music, which sang eternal life at the moment when, just as we were noticing, poor unfortunates, crushed by this fatal lustre, were giving up their souls… It seemed to me that it was commanding me too to come, to get up, to walk towards it. It was moving away, I followed it. Come! and believe in me! I believed in it, I was coming… I was coming, and, extraordinary thing, my box, before my steps, seemed to lengthen… lengthen… Obviously, there must have been, there, an effect of ice… for I had the ice before me… And, suddenly, I found myself outside my box, without knowing how. Raoul here abruptly interrupted the young girl: –What! Without knowing how? Christine Christine! You must try not to dream any more! –Hey! poor friend, I was not dreaming! I found myself outside my box without knowing how! You who saw me disappear from my dressing room one evening, my friend, you could perhaps explain this to me, but I cannot !… I can only tell you one thing, that, finding myself in front of my mirror, I suddenly no longer saw it in front of me and that I looked behind it… but there was no more mirror, no more dressing room … I was in a dark corridor… I was afraid and I screamed!… Everything was black around me; in the distance, a faint red glow lit up an angle of the wall, a corner of a crossroads. I screamed. My voice alone filled the walls, for the singing and the violins had fallen silent. And suddenly, in the darkness, a hand was placed on mine… or, rather, something bony and icy which imprisoned my wrist and would not let go. I screamed. An arm imprisoned my waist and I was lifted up… I struggled for a moment in horror; my fingers slid along the damp stones, where they did not take hold. And then, I stopped moving, I thought I was going to die of terror. I was being carried towards the small red light; we entered this light and then I saw that I was in the hands of a man wrapped in a large black cloak and who had a mask that hid his entire face… I made a supreme effort: my limbs stiffened, my mouth opened again to scream my terror, but a hand closed it, a hand that I felt on my lips, on my flesh… and which smelled of death! I fainted. How long did I remain unconscious? I cannot say. When I opened my eyes again, we were still, the black man and I, in the midst of darkness. A dull lantern, placed on the ground, lit the gushing of a fountain. The water, lapping, coming out of the wall, disappeared almost immediately under the ground on which I was lying; my head rested on the knee of the man in the black coat and mask and my silent companion refreshed my temples with a care, an attention, a delicacy which seemed to me more horrible to bear than the brutality of his abduction just now. His hands, however light they were, still smelled of death. I pushed them away, but without strength. I asked in a breath: Who are you? Where is the Voice? Only a sigh answered me. Suddenly, a warm breath passed over my face and vaguely, in the darkness, beside the black form of the man, I distinguished a white form. The black form lifted me up and placed me on the white form. And immediately, a joyful neighing struck my astonished ears and I murmured: Caesar! The beast started. My friend, I was half lying on a saddle and I had recognized the white horse of the Prophet, which I had spoiled so often with treats. Now, one evening, the rumor spread through the theater that this beast had disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Phantom of the Opera. I believed in the Voice; I had never believed in the Phantom, and yet here I was, shivering, wondering if I was not the Phantom’s prisoner! I called, from the bottom of my heart, to the Voice for help, for I would never have imagined that the Voice and the Phantom were one and the same! Have you heard of the Phantom of the Opera, Raoul? “Yes,” replied the young man. “But tell me, Christine, what happened to you when you were on the Prophet’s white horse? ” “I made no movement and let myself be led… Little by little, a strange torpor succeeded the state of anguish and terror into which this infernal adventure had thrown me. The black form supported me, and I did nothing more to escape it. A singular peace was pervaded within me, and I thought I was under the beneficial influence of some elixir. I had full command of my senses. My eyes were getting used to the darkness, which, moreover, lit up, here and there, with brief gleams… I judged that we were in a narrow circular gallery, and I imagined that this gallery went around the Opera, which, underground, is immense. Once
, my friend, only once, I had descended into these prodigious underground passages, but I had stopped at the third floor, not daring to go further into the earth. And yet, two more floors, where a city could have been housed, opened up beneath my feet. But the figures that had appeared to me had made me flee. There are demons there, all black in front of boilers, and they wave shovels , pitchforks, stir up braziers, light flames, threaten you, if you approach them, by suddenly opening the red mouths of the furnaces on you!… Now, while Caesar, calmly, in this night of nightmare, carried me on his back, I suddenly saw , far, very far away, and very small, very small, as if at the end of an upturned spyglass, the black demons in front of the red braziers of their radiators… They appeared… They disappeared… They reappeared at the strange whim of our walk… Finally, they disappeared completely. The human form still supported me, and Caesar walked without a guide and with sure footing… I could not tell you, even approximately, how long this journey, in the night, lasted; I had only the idea that we were turning! that we were turning! that we were descending in an inflexible spiral to the very heart of the earth’s abysses; and even then, wasn’t it my head that was spinning?… However, I don’t think so. No! I was incredibly lucid. Caesar, for a moment, raised his nostrils, sniffed the atmosphere and accelerated his pace a little. I smelled the humid air and then Caesar stopped. The night had cleared. A bluish glow surrounded us. I looked where we were. We were at the edge of a lake whose leaden waters were lost in the distance, in the darkness… but the blue light illuminated this shore and I saw a small boat, attached to an iron ring, on the quay! Certainly, I knew that all this existed, and the vision of this lake and this boat underground had nothing supernatural about it. But think of the exceptional conditions in which I approached this shore. The souls of the dead could not have felt more anxious when approaching the Styx. Charon was certainly no more gloomy or mute than the human form that carried me into the boat. Had the elixir exhausted its effect? ​​The coolness of these places Was it enough to restore me completely to myself? But my torpor was vanishing, and I made a few movements which denoted the recommencement of my terror. My sinister companion must have noticed it, because, with a quick gesture, he dismissed Caesar who fled into the darkness of the gallery and whose four irons I heard beating the resounding steps of a staircase, then the man threw himself into the boat which he freed from its iron bond; he seized the oars and rowed with force and promptness. His eyes, under the mask, did not leave me; I felt the weight of their motionless pupils on me. The water, around us, made no sound. We glided in that bluish glow that I told you about and then we were again completely in the night, and we landed. The boat struck a hard body. And I was again carried away in arms. I had regained the strength to scream. I screamed. And then, suddenly, I fell silent, stunned by the light. Yes, a dazzling light, in the midst of which I had been placed. I jumped up. I had all my strength. In the center of a room that seemed to me adorned, decorated, furnished only with flowers, magnificent and stupid flowers because of the silk ribbons that tied them to baskets, like those sold in the boutiques on the boulevards, flowers too civilized like those I was accustomed to finding in my dressing room after each premiere; in the center of this very Parisian embalming, the black form of a man in a mask stood , arms crossed… and she spoke: “Don’t worry, Christine,” she said; “you are in no danger. It was the Voice!” My fury equaled my stupefaction. I jumped on this mask and wanted to tear it off, to see the face of the Voice. The human form said to me: “You are in no danger if you do not touch the mask!” And gently imprisoning my wrists, she made me sit down. And then, she knelt before me, and said nothing more! The humility of this gesture gave me back some courage; the light, by clarifying everything around me, restored me to the reality of life. However extraordinary it appeared, the adventure was now surrounded by mortal things that I could see and touch. The tapestries on these walls, this furniture, these torches, these vases and even these flowers, of which I could almost say where they came from, in their gilded baskets, and how much they had cost, fatally confined my imagination within the limits of a salon as banal as many others which had at least the excuse of not being located in the basement of the Opera. I was doubtless dealing with some frightful eccentric who, mysteriously, had lodged himself in the cellars, as others, out of need, and with the mute complicity of the administration, had found a definitive shelter in the attic of this modern Tower of Babel, where intrigue was indulged, where people sang in all languages, where people loved in all dialects. And then the Voice, the Voice that I had recognized under the mask, which had not been able to hide it from me, was what was on its knees before me: a man! I no longer even thought about the horrible situation in which I found myself, I did not even ask what was going to become of me and what was the obscure and coldly tyrannical design that had led me into this salon as one locks a prisoner in a dungeon, a slave in a harem. No! no! no! I slandered: The Voice, that’s it: a man! and I began to cry. The man, still on his knees, no doubt understood the meaning of my tears, for he said: “It’s true, Christine!… I am neither an angel, nor a genie, nor a ghost… I am Erik! ” Here again, Christine’s story was interrupted. It seemed to the young people that the echo had repeated behind them: Erik!… What echo?… They turned around, and they realized that night had come. Raoul made a movement as if to get up, but Christine held him close to her: Stay! You must know everything here! –Why here, Christine? I fear for you the coolness of the night. –We must only fear the trapdoors, my friend, and here we are at the end of the world of trapdoors… and I have no right to see you outside the theater… This is not the moment to upset him… Let us not arouse his suspicions… –Christine! Christine! Something tells me that we are wrong to wait until tomorrow evening and that we should flee at once! –I tell you that if he does not hear me sing tomorrow evening, he will be infinitely saddened. –It is difficult not to cause Erik pain and to flee from him forever… –You are right, Raoul, in that… for, certainly, from my flight he will die… The young girl added in a dull voice; “But also the game is equal… because we risk him killing us. ” “So he loves you? ” “To the point of crime! ” “But his home is not untraceable… We can go and look for him there. As long as Erik is not a ghost, we can talk to him and even force him to answer! ” Christine shook her head: “No! No! We can do nothing against Erik!… We can only flee! ” “And how, being able to flee, did you return to him? ” “Because you had to… And you will understand that when you know how I left his house?” “Ah! I hate him!…” cried Raoul… “And you, Christine, tell me… I need you to tell me this so that I can listen more calmly to the rest of this extraordinary love story… and you, do you hate him? ” “No!” said Christine simply. “Eh! Why so many words!… You certainly love him!” Your fear, your terrors, all that is still love, and the most delicious kind! The kind you don’t admit to yourself, Raoul explained bitterly. The kind that gives you the shivers when you think about it… Just think, a man who lives in a palace underground! And he sneered… “So you want me to go back there!” the young girl interrupted abruptly… “Be careful, Raoul, I told you: I’ll never come back ! ” There was a frightening silence between the three of them… the two who were talking and the shadow that was listening behind… “Before I answer you,” Raoul finally said in a slow voice, “I would like to know what feeling he inspires in you, since you don’t hate him… ” “Horror!” she said… And she uttered these words with such force that they drowned out the sighs of the night. “That’s what’s so terrible,” she continued, “in a growing fever… I abhor him and I don’t hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? See Erik at my feet, in the house by the lake, underground . He accuses himself, he curses himself, he begs my forgiveness!… He confesses his imposture. He loves me!” He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love!… He stole me for love!… He shut me up with him, in the earth, for love… but he respects me, but he crawls, but he moans, but he weeps!… And when I get up, Raoul, when I tell him that I can only despise him if he does not immediately give me back this freedom, which he took from me, incredible thing… he offers it to me… I have only to leave… He is ready to show me the mysterious path;… only… only he has risen, he too, and I am obliged to remember that, if he is neither ghost, nor angel, nor genie, he is still the Voice, for he sings!… And I listen to him…, and I stay!… That evening, we did not exchange another word… He had seized a harp and he began to sing to me, he, voice of a man, voice of an angel, the romance of Desdemona. The memory I had of having sung it myself made me ashamed. My friend, there is a virtue in music which makes nothing exist any longer of the external world outside these sounds that strike your heart. My extravagant adventure was forgotten. Only the voice lived again and I followed it, intoxicated, on its harmonious journey; I was part of Orpheus’s flock! She led me through pain, and through joy, through martyrdom, through despair, through gladness, through death and through triumphant marriages… I listened… She sang… She sang to me unknown pieces… and made me hear a new music that gave me a strange impression of sweetness, of languor, of rest… a music that, after having lifted my soul, calmed it little by little, and led it to the threshold of dream. I fell asleep. When I awoke, I was alone, on a chaise longue, in a small, simple room, furnished with an ordinary mahogany bed, with walls hung with toile de Jouy, and lit by a lamp placed on the marble of an old Louis Philippe chest of drawers. What was this new setting ?… I ran my hand over my forehead, as if to chase away a bad dream… Alas! I didn’t take long to realize that I hadn’t been dreaming! I was a prisoner and I could only leave my room to enter a most comfortable bathroom; hot and cold water at will. On returning to my room, I saw on my chest of drawers a note in red ink which gave me complete information about my sad situation and which, if it had still been necessary , would have removed all my doubts about the reality of events: My dear Christine, the note read, be completely reassured about your fate. You have no better or more respectful friend in the world than me. You are alone, at this moment, in this house which belongs to you. I am going out to run around the stores and bring you all the linen you may need. “Decidedly!” I cried, “I have fallen into the hands of a madman! What will become of me?” And how long does this wretch think he can keep me locked up in his underground prison? I ran around my little apartment like a madwoman, always looking for a way out that I couldn’t find. I bitterly accused myself of my stupid superstition and I took a terrible pleasure in mocking the perfect innocence with which I had welcomed, through the walls, the Voice of the genius of music… When one was so stupid, one had to expect the most unheard-of catastrophes and one had deserved them all! I wanted to hit myself and I began to laugh at myself and cry over myself at the same time. It was in this state that Erik found me. After giving three short, sharp knocks on the wall, he entered calmly through a door that I hadn’t been able to find and which he left open. He was laden with boxes and packages and he laid them without haste on my bed, while I showered him with insults and ordered him to remove this mask, if he had the pretension to hide the face of an honest man behind it. He answered me with great serenity: “You will never see Erik’s face.” And he reproached me for not having yet done my toilet at this time of day; he deigned to inform me that it was two o’clock in the afternoon. He gave me half an hour to do so, saying this, he took care to wind my watch and set it to the right time. After which, he invited me to go into the dining room, where an excellent lunch, he announced, awaited us. I was very hungry, I threw the door in his face and went into the bathroom . I took a bath after placing near me a magnificent pair of scissors with which I was determined to kill myself, if Erik, after behaving like a madman, stopped behaving like an honest man. The coolness of the water did me the greatest good and, when I reappeared before Erik, I had taken the wise resolution not to hurt or offend him in any way, to flatter him if necessary to obtain a prompt release. It was He, the first, who spoke to me of his plans for me, and explained them to me, to reassure me, he said. He enjoyed my company too much to deprive himself of it immediately, as he had agreed to do the day before, in the face of the indignant expression of my fear. I had to understand now, that I had no reason to be terrified to see him at my side. He loved me, but he would only tell me so as much as I allowed him and the rest of the time would be spent in music. “What do you mean by the rest of the time?” I asked him. He answered me firmly: “Five days. ” “And after that, I will be free? ” “You will be free, Christine, because, after these five days, you will have learned to no longer fear me, and then you will come back to see poor Erik from time to time!…” The tone in which he pronounced these last words moved me deeply. It seemed to me that I discovered there such real, such pitiful despair that I raised a tender face to the mask. I could not see the eyes behind the mask and this did nothing to lessen the strange feeling of unease that one had in questioning this mysterious square of black silk; but under the material, at the end of the mask’s beard, appeared one, two, three, four tears. Silently, he indicated a place for me opposite him, at a small pedestal table that occupied the center of the room where, the day before, he had played the harp for me, and I sat down, very troubled. However, I ate with a good appetite some crayfish, a chicken wing washed down with a little Tokay wine that he had brought himself, he told me, from the cellars of Königsberg, formerly frequented by Falstaff. As for him, he did not eat, he did not drink. I asked him what his nationality was, and if the name Erik did not reveal a Scandinavian origin. He replied that he had neither name nor homeland, and that he had taken the name Erik by chance. I asked him why, since he loved me, he had found no other way to let me know than to drag me with him and lock me in the earth! “It is very difficult,” I said, “to make oneself loved in a tomb. ” “One has,” he replied, in a singular tone, “the rendezvous one can have .
” Then he stood up and held out his fingers to me, for he wanted, he said, to do me the honors of his apartment, but I quickly withdrew my hand from his with a cry. What I had touched there was both damp and bony, and I remembered that his hands smelled of death. “Oh! pardon,” he moaned. And he opened a door before me. “Here is my room,” he said. “It’s quite curious to visit… if you want to see it?” I didn’t hesitate. His manner, his words, his whole air told me to have confidence… and then, I felt that there was no need to be afraid. I entered. It seemed to me that I was entering a death chamber. The walls were all hung in black, but instead of the white tears that usually complete this funereal ornament, one could see on an enormous musical staff, the repeated notes of the Dies iræ. In the middle of this room, there was a canopy where red brocatelle curtains hung and, under this canopy, an open coffin. At this sight, I recoiled. “It’s in there that I sleep,” said Erik. “One must get used to everything in life, even to eternity.” I turned my head away, so sinister had I received from this spectacle. My eyes then encountered the keyboard of an organ that took up an entire section of the wall. On the music stand was a notebook, all scrawled with red markings. I asked permission to look at it and read on the first page: Don Juan Triumphant. “Yes,” he said to me, “I compose sometimes. I began this work twenty years ago . When it is finished, I will take it with me in this coffin and I will never wake up again. ” “You must work on it as little as possible,” I said. “I sometimes work there for fifteen days and fifteen nights in a row, during which I live only on music, and then I rest for years. ” “Will you play me something of your triumphant Don Juan?” I asked, believing I would please him and overcoming the repugnance I felt at remaining in this chamber of death. “Never ask me that,” he replied in a somber voice. “That Don Juan was not written to the words of a Lorenzo d’Aponte, inspired by wine, petty love affairs, and vice, finally punished by God. I will play Mozart for you if you like, which will make your beautiful tears flow and inspire you with honest reflections. But my Don Juan is burning, Christine, and yet he is not struck down by fire from heaven!…” With that, we returned to the living room we had just left. I noticed that nowhere in this apartment were there any mirrors. I was about to reflect on this, but Erik had just sat down at the piano. He said to me: “You see, Christine, there is a music so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. You haven’t reached that music yet, fortunately, because you would lose your fresh color and no one would recognize you when you returned to Paris. Let’s sing the Opera, Christine Daaé.” He said to me: “Let’s sing the Opera, Christine Daaé,” as if he were hurling an insult at me. But I didn’t have time to dwell on the air he had given to his words. We began the duet from Othello right away, and already the catastrophe was upon us. This time, he had left me the role of Desdemona, which I sang with a despair, a real terror that I had never reached until that day. The proximity of such a partner, instead of annihilating me, inspired in me a magnificent terror. The events of which I was the victim brought me singularly close to the poet’s thoughts and I found accents by which the musician would have been dazzled. As for him, his voice was thunderous, his vindictive soul was carried to each sound, and terribly increased its power. Love, jealousy, hatred, burst around us in heart-rending cries. Erik’s black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice. He was Othello himself. I thought he was going to strike me, that I was going to fall under his blows and yet, I made no move to flee from him, to avoid his fury like the timid Desdemona. On the contrary, I drew closer to him, attracted, fascinated, finding charms in death at the center of such a passion; but, before dying, I wanted to know, to carry away the sublime image in my last glance, those unknown features that the fire of eternal art was to transfigure. I
wanted to see the face of the Voice and, instinctively, with a gesture that I was not the master of, for I no longer possessed myself, my quick fingers tore off the mask… Oh! horror!… horror!… horror!… Christine stopped at this vision that she still seemed to push away with her two trembling hands, while the echoes of the night, as they had repeated Erik’s name, repeated three times the clamor: Horror! horror! horror! Raoul and Christine, even more closely united by the terror of the story, raised their eyes towards the stars that shone in a peaceful and pure sky. Raoul said: “It is strange, Christine, how this night, so sweet and so calm, is full of moans. One would say that it is lamenting with us!” She replies: “Now that you are going to know the secret, your ears, like mine, will be full of lamentations.” She takes Raoul’s protective hands in hers and, shaken by a long shudder, she continues: “Oh! yes, even if I live a hundred years, I will always hear the superhuman clamor he uttered, the cry of his infernal pain and rage, while the thing appeared to my eyes, immense with horror, like my mouth which would not close and yet which no longer screamed. Oh! Raoul, the thing! How can I no longer see the thing! If my ears are forever full of its screams, my eyes are forever haunted by its face! What an image! How can I no longer see it and how can I make you see it?… Raoul, you saw the death’s heads when they were dried up by the centuries and perhaps, if you were not the victim of a dreadful nightmare, you saw his death’s head, in the night of Perros. Or did you see the Red Death walking around at the last masked ball! But all those death’s heads were motionless, and their mute horror did not live! But imagine, if you can, the mask of Death suddenly coming to life to express with the four black holes of his eyes, his nose and his mouth anger at its utmost, the sovereign fury of a demon, and no look into the holes of the eyes, for, as I learned later, one never sees his burning eyes except in the deepest night… I must have been, pressed against the wall, the very image of Terror as he was that of Hideousness. Then, he brought the dreadful grinding of his lipless teeth closer to me and, while I fell on my knees, he hissed hatefully at me senseless things, words without connection, curses, delirium… Do I know!… Do I Leaning over me: –Look, he cried! You wanted to see! See! Feast your eyes, intoxicate your soul with my accursed ugliness! Look at Erik’s face! Now you know the face of the Voice! Wasn’t it enough for you to hear me? You wanted to know what I was made of. You women are so curious! And he would start laughing, repeating: You women are so curious!… with a rumbling, hoarse, foaming, formidable laugh… He would also say things like these: “Are you satisfied? I’m handsome, eh?… When a woman has seen me, like you, she is mine. She loves me forever! I’m a Don Juan type.” And, standing up to his full height, his fist on his hip, rocking the hideous thing that was his head on his shoulders, he thundered: “Look at me! I am Don Juan triumphant!” And as I turned my head away, begging for mercy, he brought my head back to him, brutally, by my hair, into which his deadly fingers had entered. “Enough! Enough!” interrupted Raoul. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him! In the name of heaven, Christine, tell me where the dining room by the lake is! I must kill him! ” “Hey! Be quiet, Raoul, if you want to know! ” “Ah! yes, I want to know how and why you went back there! That’s the secret, Christine, be careful! There’s no other! But, in any case, I’ll kill him! ” “Oh! my Raoul! Listen now! Since you want to know, listen! He was dragging me by the hair, and then… and then… Oh! that’s even more horrible! ” “Well, tell me, now!” exclaimed Raoul, fiercely. “Tell me quickly! ” “Then he hissed at me: What? Am I frightening you?” It’s possible!… You think perhaps that I still have a mask, eh? And that this… this! My head, is a mask? Well, but! he began to scream. Tear it off like the other one! Come on! come on! again! again! I want it! Your hands! Your hands!… Give your hands!… if they are not enough for you, I will lend you mine… and we will work together to tear off the mask. I rolled at his feet, but he seized my hands, Raoul… and he dug them into the horror of his face… With my nails, he tore at his flesh, his horrible dead flesh! “Learn! learn!” he cried deep in his throat that blew like a forge… learn that I am made entirely of death!… from head to toe!… and that it is a corpse that loves you, that adores you and that will never leave you again! never!… I’m going to have the coffin enlarged, Christine, for later, when we’ve reached the end of our love life!… Look! I’m not laughing anymore, you see, I’m crying… I’m crying for you, Christine, who tore off the mask, and who, because of that, will never be able to leave me again!… As long as you could believe me handsome, Christine, you could come back!… I know you would have come back… but now that you know my hideousness, you would run away forever … I’m keeping you!!! Also, why did you want to see me? Mad! Mad Christine, who wanted to see me!… when my father, he, never saw me, and when my mother, so as not to see me again, gave me, weeping, my first mask as a present! He had finally let go of me and was now dragging himself along the floor with horrible hiccups. And then, like a reptile, he crawled, dragged himself out of the room, entered his bedroom, the door of which closed , and I remained alone, given over to my horror and my reflections, but freed from the vision of the thing. A prodigious silence, the silence of the tomb, had succeeded this storm and I was able to reflect on the terrible consequences of the gesture which had torn off the mask. The last words of the Monster had informed me sufficiently. I had imprisoned myself forever and my curiosity was going to be the cause of all my misfortunes. He had warned me sufficiently… He had repeated to me that I was in no danger as long as I did not touch the mask, and I had touched it. I cursed my imprudence, but I noted with a shudder that the monster’s reasoning was logical. Yes, I would have come back if I hadn’t seen his face… He had already touched me enough, interested me, moved me to pity even with his hidden tears, so that I wasn’t insensitive to his prayer. Finally, I wasn’t ungrateful, and his impossibility couldn’t make me forget that he was the voice and that he had warmed me with his genius. I would have come back! And now, out of these catacombs, I certainly wouldn’t come back! You don’t come back to shut yourself up in a tomb with a corpse that loves you! From certain frenzied ways he had, during the scene, of looking at me or rather of bringing the two black holes of his invisible gaze close to me, I had been able to measure the savagery of his passion. For not having taken me in his arms, when I could offer him no resistance, it was necessary that this monster be doubled by an angel and perhaps, after all, he was a little, the Angel of Music, and perhaps he would have been completely so if God had clothed him in beauty instead of dressing him in rottenness! Already, lost at the thought of the fate reserved for me, prey to the terror of seeing the door of the room with the coffin reopen, and of seeing again the face of the monster without a mask, I had slipped into my own apartment and seized the scissors, which could put an end to my dreadful destiny… when the sounds of the organ were heard… It was then, my friend, that I began to understand Erik’s words about what he called, with a contempt that had stupefied me: opera music. What I heard had nothing more to do with what had charmed me until that day. His triumphant Don Juan, for there was no doubt in my mind that he had rushed to his masterpiece to forget the horror of the present moment, his triumphant Don Juan seemed to me at first nothing more than a long, dreadful and magnificent sob in which poor Erik had poured all his accursed misery. I saw again the notebook with the red notes and I easily imagined that this music had been written with blood. It led me through all the details of the martyrdom; it made me enter into all the corners of the abyss, the abyss inhabited by the ugly man; it showed me Erik atrociously striking his poor hideous head against the funereal walls of this hell, and fleeing there, so as not to frighten them, the gaze of the men. I witnessed, annihilated, panting, pitiful and defeated, the blossoming of these gigantic chords in which Pain was deified, and then the sounds rising from the abyss suddenly grouped together in a prodigious and threatening flight, their whirling troop seemed to climb the sky like an eagle soars to the sun, and such a triumphant symphony seemed to set the world ablaze that I understood that the work was finally accomplished and that Ugliness, lifted on the wings of Love, had dared to look Beauty in the face! I was as if drunk; the door that separated me from Erik gave way under my efforts. He had stood up when he heard me, but he did not dare to turn around. Erik, I cried, show me your face, without terror. I swear to you that you are the most sorrowful and the most sublime of men, and if Christine Daaé shudders from now on when looking at you, it is because she will think of the splendor of your genius! Then Erik turned around, for he believed me, and I too, alas!… I had faith in myself… He raised his unchained hands to Destiny, and fell at my knees with words of love… … With words of love in his deathly mouth… and the music had fallen silent… He kissed the hem of my dress; he did not see that I closed my eyes.
What more shall I tell you, my friend? You now know the drama… For fifteen days, it was repeated… fifteen days during which I lied to him. My lie was as dreadful as the monster who inspired it, and at this price I was able to acquire my freedom. I burned his mask. And I did so well that, even when he was no longer singing, he dared to seek one of my glances, like a timid dog prowling around his master. He was thus, around me, like a faithful slave, and surrounded me with a thousand cares. Little by little, I inspired such confidence in him, that he dared to walk me to the banks of Lake Avernus and take me in a boat on its leaden waters; in the last days of my captivity, he made me, at night, pass through the gates that close the underground passages of the Rue Scribe. There, a crew awaited us, and carried us towards the solitudes of the Bois. The night we met you almost proved tragic for me, for he has a terrible jealousy of you, which I only fought by assuring him of your imminent departure… Finally, after fifteen days of this abominable captivity where I was alternately burned with pity, enthusiasm, despair and horror, he believed me when I said to him: I will return! “And you have returned, Christine,” moaned Raoul. “It is true, my friend, and I must say that it was not the dreadful threats with which he accompanied my release that helped me to keep my word; but the heart-rending sob he uttered on the threshold of his tomb! Yes, that sob,” repeated Christine, shaking her head painfully, “chained me to the unfortunate man more than I myself had supposed at the moment of our farewells. Poor Erik! Poor Erik! “Christine,” said Raoul, rising, “you say you love me, but barely a few hours had passed since you had regained your freedom, and already you were returning to Erik!… Remember the masked ball! –Things were understood thus… remember also that those few hours I spent with you, Raoul… to the great peril of both of us… –During those few hours, I doubted that you loved me. –Do you still doubt it, Raoul?… Learn then that each of my trips to Erik has increased my horror for him, for each of these trips, instead of calming him as I had hoped, has made him mad with love!… and I’m afraid!… I’m afraid!… –You are afraid… but do you love me?… If Erik were handsome, would you love me, Christine? –Unhappy man! Why tempt fate? Why ask me things that I hide deep in my conscience like one hides sin? She rose in turn, surrounded the young man’s head with her beautiful, trembling arms, and said to him: “Oh, my fiancé of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give you my lips. For the first and last time, here they are.” He took them, but the night that surrounded them was so torn that they fled as if from the approach of a storm, and their eyes, where Erik’s terror dwelt, showed them, before they disappeared into the forest of the attic, high up above them, an immense night bird that looked at them with its fiery eyes, and that seemed to be hanging on the strings of Apollo’s lyre! Chapter 14. A Masterstroke of the Trappes Lover. Raoul and Christine ran and ran. Now they were fleeing the roof where there were the burning eyes that one only sees in the depths of night; and they only stopped at the eighth floor, descending to the ground. That evening there was no performance, and the corridors of the Opera were deserted. Suddenly a strange figure stood before the young people, blocking their path: “No! Not this way!” And the figure indicated another corridor by which they were to reach the wings. Raoul wanted to stop, to ask for an explanation. “Go! Go quickly!” commanded this vague form, hidden in a sort of greatcoat and wearing a pointed cap. Christine was already dragging Raoul along, forcing him to run again: “But who is it? But who is this one?” the young man asked. And Christine replied: “It’s The Persian!… “What’s he doing here…” “We don’t know!… He’s still in the Opera!” “What you’re making me do is cowardly, Christine,” said Raoul, who was very moved. “You’re making me run away, it’s the first time in my life.
” “Bah!” replied Christine, who was beginning to calm down, “I really think we’ve fled the shadow of our imagination! ” “If we really saw Erik, I should have nailed him to Apollo’s lyre, as they nail the owl to the walls in our Breton farms , and there would have been no more question of it. ” “My good Raoul, you would have had to climb up to Apollo’s lyre first ; it’s not an easy climb. ” “The burning eyes were definitely there. ” “Well! Now you’re like me, ready to see him everywhere, but you think about it later and say to yourself: what I took for the burning eyes were probably only the golden nails of two stars that looked down on the city through the strings of the lyre.” And Christine went down another floor. Raoul followed. He said: “Since you are quite determined to leave, Christine, I assure you again that it would be better to flee at once. Why wait until tomorrow? Perhaps he heard us this evening!… ” “But no! But no! He is working, I repeat, on his triumphant Don Juan, and he is not paying attention to us. ” “You are so unsure of this that you keep looking behind you. ” “Let’s go to my dressing room. ” “Let’s make an appointment outside the Opera. ” “Never, until the very moment of our flight! It would be bad luck for us not to keep my word. I promised him that we would only meet here. ” “It is fortunate for me that he has allowed you to do this again. Do you know,” Raoul said bitterly, “that you were quite audacious in allowing us to play the game of the engagement. ” “But, my dear fellow, he knows about it. He said to me: I have confidence in you, Christine.” M. Raoul de Chagny is in love with you and must leave. Before leaving, let him be as unhappy as I am!… –And what does that mean, please? –I should be the one asking you, my friend. So one is unhappy when one loves? –Yes, Christine, when one loves and when one is not sure of being beloved. “Is it for Erik that you say this? ” “For Erik and for me,” said the young man, shaking his head with a thoughtful and desolate air. They arrived at Christine’s dressing room. “How do you think you are safer in this dressing room than in the theater?” asked Raoul. “Since you could hear him through the walls, he can hear us. ” “No! He gave me his word that he would no longer be behind the walls of my dressing room, and I believe Erik’s word. My dressing room and my room, in the apartment by the lake, are mine, exclusively mine, and sacred to him. ” “How could you have left this dressing room to be transported into the dark corridor, Christine? If we tried to repeat your gestures, would you? ” “It is dangerous, my friend, for the ice could still carry me away, and instead of fleeing, I would be obliged to go to the end of the secret passage that leads to the shores of the lake and there call Erik. ” “Would he hear you ?” –Wherever I call Erik, everywhere Erik will hear me… He’s the one who told me, he’s a very curious genius. You mustn’t think, Raoul, that he’s simply a man who amused himself by living underground . He does things that no other man could do; he knows things that the living world is ignorant of. –Be careful, Christine, you’ll turn him into a ghost again. –No, he’s not a ghost; he’s a man of heaven and earth, that’s all. –A man of heaven and earth… that’s all!… How you talk about him!… And you’re still determined to flee from him? –Yes, tomorrow. –Do you want me to tell you why I want you to flee tonight ?
–Tell me, my friend. –Because, tomorrow, you won’t be determined to do anything at all! –Then, Raoul, you’ll carry me off in spite of myself!… Isn’t that understood? –Here then, tomorrow evening! At midnight I will be in your dressing room , said the young man gloomily; whatever happens, I will keep my promise. You say that after attending the performance, he must go and wait for you in the dining room by the lake? “That is indeed where he gave me an appointment. ” “And how were you supposed to get to his house, Christine, if you don’t know how to get out of your dressing room through the ice? ” “But by going directly to the edge of the lake. ” “Through all the underpasses? By the stairs and corridors where the stagehands and the service people pass? How could you have kept such a secret? Everyone would have followed Christine Daaé and she would have arrived with a crowd on the edge of the lake. ” Christine took an enormous key from a box and showed it to Raoul. “What is this?” said Raoul. “It’s the key to the gate of the underground passage on Rue Scribe. ” “I understand, Christine. It leads directly to the lake. Give me this key, will you? ” “Never!” she replied energetically. That would be treason! Suddenly, Raoul saw Christine change color. A deathly pallor spread over her features. “Oh! my God!” she cried… “Erik! Erik! Have pity on me! ” “Be quiet!” ordered the young man… “Didn’t you tell me he could hear you?” But the singer’s attitude became more and more inexplicable. She slid her fingers over each other, repeating in a bewildered voice: “Oh! my God! Oh! my God!” “But what is it? What is it?” implored Raoul. “The ring. ” “What, the ring? I beg you, Christine, come to your senses!” “The gold ring he gave me…” “Ah? It was Erik who gave you the gold ring! ” “You know that, Raoul!” But what you don’t know is what he said to me when he gave it to me: I give you back your freedom, Christine, but it’s on the condition that this ring will always be on your finger. As long as you keep it, you will be protected from everything danger and Erik will remain your friend. But if you ever part with him, woe to you, Christine, for Erik will take revenge!… My friend, my friend! The ring is no longer on my finger!… woe to us! They looked around them in vain for the ring. They could not find it. The young girl would not calm down. “It was while I gave you that kiss, up there, under Apollo’s lyre,” she tried to explain, trembling; “the ring will have slipped from my finger and will have slid over the city! How can I find it now? And what misfortune, Raoul, are we threatened with! Ah! flee! flee! Flee at once,” insisted Raoul once more. She hesitated. He thought she was going to say yes… And then her clear eyes became clouded and she said: No! Tomorrow! And she left him precipitately, in complete dismay, continuing to slide her fingers over each other, no doubt in the hope that the ring would reappear like that. As for Raoul, he went home, very preoccupied by everything he had heard. “If I don’t save her from the hands of that charlatan,” he said aloud in his room as he lay down, “she’s lost; but I will save her!” He extinguished his lamp, and in the darkness felt the need to insult Erik. He cried out three times in a loud voice: “Charlatan!… Charlatan!… Charlatan!… But suddenly he rose on one elbow; a cold sweat ran down his temples. Two eyes, burning like braziers, had just lit up at the foot of his bed. They stared at him fixedly, terribly, in the dark night. Raoul was brave, and yet he trembled. He reached out his hand, groping, hesitant, uncertain, onto the nightstand. Having found the box of matches, he turned on the light. The eyes disappeared. He thought, not at all reassured: “She told me that her eyes were only visible in the dark. Her eyes disappeared with the light, but he might still be there.” And he got up, searched, cautiously looked around. He looked under his bed, like a child. Then he felt ridiculous. He said aloud: “What is there to believe? What is there not to believe in such a fairy tale? Where does reality end, where fantasy begins? What did she see? What did she think she saw? ” He added, trembling: “And what did I see myself? Did I really see the burning eyes just now? Did they only shine in my imagination? Now I ‘m no longer sure of anything! And I wouldn’t swear on those eyes.” He lay back down. Once again, it was dark. The eyes reappeared. “Oh!” sighed Raoul. Sitting up, he stared at them as bravely as he could. After a silence, which he spent gathering all his courage, he suddenly shouted: “Is it you, Erik? Man! Genius or ghost! Is it you?” He reflected: “If it’s him… he’s on the balcony!” Then he ran in his shirt to a small piece of furniture, from which he groped for a revolver. Armed, he opened the French window. The night was extremely cool. Raoul only took the time to glance at the deserted balcony and went back in, closing the door. He lay back down, shivering, the revolver on the nightstand, within reach. Once again he blew out the candle. The eyes were still there, at the end of the bed. Were they between the bed and the windowpane, or behind the windowpane, that is, on the balcony? That’s what Raoul wanted to know. He also wanted to know if those eyes belonged to a human being… he wanted to know everything… So, patiently, coldly, without disturbing the night that surrounded him, the young man took up his revolver again and aimed. He aimed at the two gold stars that were still looking at him with such a singular, motionless brilliance. He aimed a little above the two stars. Certainly! If these stars were eyes, and if above these eyes, there was a forehead, and if Raoul were not too clumsy… The detonation rolled with a terrible crash in the peace of the sleeping house… And while, in the corridors, footsteps rushed, Raoul, sitting up, his arm outstretched, ready to fire again, looked… The two stars, this time, had disappeared. Light, people, Count Philippe, terribly anxious. –What is it, Raoul? –There is, that I believe I dreamed, replied the young man. I shot at two stars which prevented me from sleeping. –Are you rambling?… You are ill!… I beg you, Raoul, what happened ?… and the count seized the revolver. “No, no, I’m not rambling!… Besides, we’ll soon find out…” He got up, put on a dressing gown, put on his slippers, took a light from a servant, and opening the French window, returned to the balcony. The Count had noticed that the window had been pierced by a bullet at eye level. Raoul was leaning over the balcony with his candle. “Oh! oh!” he said… “blood!… blood!… Here… there… more blood! So much the better!… A bleeding ghost… it’s less dangerous!” he sneered. “Raoul! Raoul! Raoul!” The Count shook him as if he wanted to rouse a sleepwalker from his dangerous slumber. “But, brother, I’m not asleep!” protested Raoul, impatient. “You can see this blood like everyone else. I thought I was dreaming and shot at two stars.” Those were Erik’s eyes… and here is his blood!… He added, suddenly worried: “After all, I may have been wrong to shoot, and Christine is quite capable of not forgiving me!… All this would not have happened if I had taken the precaution of letting the window curtains fall when I went to bed. ” “Raoul! Have you suddenly gone mad? Wake up! ” “Again! You would do better, my brother, to help me look for Erik… because, after all, a bleeding ghost should be able to be found… ” The Count’s valet said: “It’s true, sir, that there is blood on the balcony.” A servant brought a lamp by the light of which everything was examined . The trail of blood followed the balcony railing and was going to join a gutter and the trail of blood went up along the gutter. “My friend,” said Count Philippe, “you shot a cat. ” “The misfortune!” said Raoul with a new sneer, which rang painfully in the Count’s ears, is that it is quite possible. With Erik, you never know! Is it Erik? Is it the cat? Is it the ghost? Is it flesh or shadow? No! No! With Erik, you never know! Raoul began to make this sort of bizarre remarks which responded so intimately and so logically to the preoccupations of his mind and which followed so well upon the strange confidences, at once real and supernatural in appearance, of Christine Daaé; and these remarks contributed not a little to persuading many that the young man’s brain was disturbed. The Count himself was taken in by it and later the examining magistrate, on the report of the police commissioner, had no difficulty in concluding. “Who is Erik?” asked the Count, pressing his brother’s hand. “He’s my rival! And if he’s not dead, so much the worse!” With a gesture he chased the servants away. The bedroom door closed behind the two Chagnys. But the people did not leave so quickly that the Count’s valet heard Raoul say distinctly and forcefully: “Tonight! I will abduct Christine Daaé.” This sentence was later repeated to the examining magistrate, Faure. But it was never known exactly what was said between the two brothers during this meeting. The servants said that this was not the first quarrel that had caused them to shut themselves in that night. Through the walls, shouts could be heard, and the talk was always about an actress named Christine Daaé. At lunch—at breakfast that morning, which the Count was having in his study, Philippe gave the order that they should go and ask his brother to come and join him. Raoul arrived, somber and silent. The scene was very short. The Count:—Read this! Philippe hands his brother a newspaper: L’Époque. With his finger, he points to the next item. The Viscount, half-heartedly, reading: Great news in the suburbs: there is a promise of marriage between Miss Christine Daaé, an opera singer, and Mr. Viscount Raoul de Chagny. If the backstage gossip is to be believed, Count Philippe would have sworn that for the first time the Chagnys would not keep their promise. Since love, at the Opera more than anywhere else, is all-powerful, one wonders what means Count Philippe has at his disposal to prevent the Viscount, his brother, from leading the new Marguerite to the altar . It is said that the two brothers adore each other, but the Count is strangely mistaken if he hopes that brotherly love will yield to love itself! The sad Count: You see, Raoul, you are making us look ridiculous!… This little girl has completely turned your head with her stories of ghosts .
The Viscount had therefore reported Christine’s story to his brother. The Viscount: Goodbye, my brother! The Count: Is that understood? Are you leaving this evening? The Viscount does not answer…. with her?… You will not do such a stupid thing? Silence from the Viscount. I will know how to stop you! The Viscount: Goodbye, my brother! He leaves. This scene was recounted to the examining magistrate by the Count himself, who was not to see his brother Raoul again until that same evening, at the Opera, a few minutes before Christine’s disappearance. Raoul spent the entire day preparing for the kidnapping. The horses, the carriage, the coachman, the provisions, the luggage, the necessary money, the route—they were not to take the railway to confuse the ghost—all this occupied him until nine o’clock in the evening. At nine o’clock, a sort of sedan with the curtains drawn over the hermetically sealed doors came to join the line from the Rotonde. It was harnessed to two sturdy horses and driven by a coachman whose face was difficult to distinguish, so muffled was it in the long folds of a muffler. In front of this sedan were three carriages. The investigation later established that these were the coupés of Carlotta, who had suddenly returned to Paris, of Sorelli, and at the head, of Count Philippe de Chagny. No one got out of the sedan. The coachman remained in his seat. The three other coachmen also remained in theirs. A shadow, wrapped in a large black coat and wearing a soft black felt hat, passed along the sidewalk between the Rotunda and the carriages. It seemed to be examining the sedan more closely. It approached the horses, then the coachman, then the shadow moved away without having uttered a word. The investigation later believed that this shadow was that of Viscount Raoul de Chagny; as for me, I do not believe it, since that evening, as on other evenings, Viscount de Chagny had a top hat which, moreover, has been found. I think rather that this shadow was that of the ghost who was aware of everything, as we will see immediately. Faust was being performed, as if by chance. The hall was one of the most brilliant. The suburb was magnificently represented. At that time, subscribers did not cede, did not rent or sublet, nor did they share their boxes with finance or commerce or foreigners. Today, in the box of Marquis So-and-so, who still retains this title: box of Marquis So-and-so, since the Marquis is, by contract, the holder, in this box, let us say, lounging around, such a salt pork merchant and his family,—which is the right of the pork merchant since he pays for the Marquis’s box.—In the past, these customs were almost unknown. Opera boxes were salons where one was almost certain to meet or see people of the world who, sometimes, loved music. All this fine company knew each other, without necessarily being in close contact. But everyone’s names were put to their faces and the count of Chagny’s physiognomy was unknown to anyone. The echo that appeared that morning in L’Époque must have already had its small effect, for all eyes were turned towards the box where Count Philippe, of very indifferent appearance and carefree mien, was all alone. The feminine element of this brilliant assembly seemed singularly intrigued and the absence of the viscount gave rise to a hundred whispers behind the fans. Christine Daaé was received rather coldly. This special audience did not forgive her for having looked so high. The diva realized the poor disposition of part of the audience, and was troubled by it. The regulars, who claimed to be aware of the Viscount’s love affairs, did not refrain from smiling at certain passages of the role of Marguerite. Thus, they ostentatiously turned towards Philippe de Chagny’s box when Christine sang the phrase: I would like to know who this young man was, if he is a great lord and what his name is. His chin resting on his hand, the Count did not seem to pay attention to these manifestations. He stared at the stage; but was he looking at her? He seemed far from everything… More and more, Christine lost all self-confidence. She was trembling. She was heading for disaster… Carolus Fonta wondered if she was not ill, if she would be able to stay on stage until the end of the act, which was the one in the garden. In the audience, people remembered the misfortune that befell Carlotta at the end of this act, and the historic hiccup that had momentarily suspended her career in Paris. Just then, Carlotta made her entrance into a front box, a sensational entrance. Poor Christine raised her eyes to this new source of emotion. She recognized her rival. She thought she saw her sneer. This saved her. She forgot everything, to triumph once more . From that moment on, she sang with all her soul. She tried to surpass everything she had done until then and she succeeded. In the last act, when she began to invoke the angels and lift herself off the ground, she carried the entire trembling audience into a new flight, and everyone could believe they had wings. At this superhuman call, in the center of the amphitheater, a man stood up and remained standing, facing the actress, as if with a single movement he were leaving the earth… It was Raoul: Pure angels! Radiant angels! Pure angels! Radiant angels! And Christine, arms outstretched, throat ablaze, enveloped in the glory of her hair loose on her bare shoulders, threw forth the divine cry: Carry my soul to the bosom of the two! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It was then that, all of a sudden, a sudden darkness fell over the theater. It was so quick that the spectators barely had time to utter a cry of stupor, for the light illuminated the stage again. … But Christine Daaé was no longer there!… What had become of her?… What was this miracle?… Everyone looked at each other without understanding and the emotion was immediately at its peak. The excitement was no less on the stage and in the audience. From the wings people rushed to the place where, at that very moment, Christine was singing. The show was interrupted in the midst of the greatest disorder. Where then? Where had Christine gone? What spell had snatched her from thousands of enthusiastic spectators and into the very arms of Carolus Fonta? In truth, one could wonder if, Granting her ardent prayer, the angels had not really carried her body and soul to the bosom of heaven? Raoul, still standing in the amphitheater, had let out a cry. Count Philippe had stood up in his box. People watched the scene, they watched the count, they watched Raoul, and they wondered if this curious event had something to do with the report that had appeared that very morning in a newspaper. But Raoul hastily left his place, the count disappeared from his box, and, while the curtain was being lowered, the subscribers rushed towards the backstage entrance. The audience awaited an announcement in an indescribable hubbub. Everyone was talking at once. Each one claimed to explain how things had happened. Some said: She fell into a trapdoor; others: She was taken into the friezes; the unfortunate woman was perhaps the victim of a new trick inaugurated by the new management; others still: It’s an ambush. The coincidence of the disappearance and the darkness proves it sufficiently. Finally the curtain rose slowly, and Carolus Fonta, advancing to the conductor’s desk, announced in a deep and sad voice: Ladies and gentlemen, an unprecedented event has just occurred, one that leaves us in deep disquiet. Our comrade, Christine Daaé, has disappeared before our eyes without our being able to know how! Chapter 15. Singular Attitude of a Safety Pin. On the stage, there is a nameless crush. Artists, stagehands, dancers, walkers, extras, chorus members, subscribers, everyone is questioning, shouting, jostling.–What has become of her?–She has been kidnapped!–It was the Viscount de Chagny who carried her off!–No, it was the Count!–Ah! There is Carlotta! It was Carlotta who did it! — No! It was the ghost! And some of them laugh, especially since a careful examination of the trapdoors and floors has pushed away the idea of ​​an accident. In this noisy crowd, a group of three people are noticed , talking in low voices with desperate gestures. It is Gabriel, the singing master; Mercier, the administrator; and Rémy the secretary. They have withdrawn to the corner of a drum that connects the stage with the wide corridor of the dance foyer. There, behind enormous props, they are discussing: — I knocked! They didn’t answer! They may no longer be in the office. In any case, it is impossible to know, because they took the keys. This is how Rémy the secretary speaks, and there is no doubt that he means the directors by these words. They gave orders during the last intermission not to come and disturb them under any circumstances . They are not responsible for anyone. “All the same,” exclaims Gabriel… “you don’t kidnap a singer, in the middle of the stage, every day!…” “Did you shout that to them?” asks Mercier. “I’m going back,” says Rémy, and, running, he disappears. At that, the stage manager arrives. “Well? Mr. Mercier, are you coming? What are you two doing here ? We need you, Mr. Administrator. ” “I don’t want to do anything or know anything before the commissioner arrives,” declares Mercier. “I sent for Mifroid. We’ll see when he gets here! ” “And I tell you that you must go down to the organ at once. ” “Not before the commissioner arrives… ” “I’ve already gone down to the organ. ” “Ah! And what did you see? ” “Well! I didn’t see anyone!” Don’t you hear me, nobody! “What do you want me to do about it?” “Obviously,” replies the stage manager, frantically running his hands through a rebellious fleece. “Obviously! But perhaps if there were someone at the organ, that someone could explain to us how the stage suddenly went dark. Now, Mauclair is nowhere, do you understand? Mauclair was the lighting chief who dispensed at will on the stage of the Opera, day and night. “Mauclair is nowhere,” Mercier repeats, shaken. “Well! And his assistants? ” “Neither Mauclair nor his assistants! No one in lighting, I tell you! You can imagine,” the stage manager yells, “that this little girl didn’t get away by herself! There was a set-up there that we should know about… And the directors who aren’t here?… I forbade us to go down to the lighting department, I put a fireman in front of the organ stop niche! Didn’t I do the right thing? ” “Yes, yes, you did the right thing…” And now let’s wait for the commissioner. The stage manager walks away, shrugging his shoulders, furious, mouthing insults at these wimps who remain quietly huddled in a corner when the whole theater is in turmoil . Gabriel and Mercier were hardly at peace. Only, they had received an order that paralyzed them. The directors were not to be disturbed for any reason in the world. Rémy had broken this order and it had not worked out for him. As it happens, here he is returning from his new expedition. His expression is curiously frightened. “Well! Have you spoken to them?” Mercier asks. Rémy replies: “Moncharmin finally opened the door for me. His eyes were bulging out of his head. I thought he was going to hit me. I couldn’t get a word in edgeways, and do you know what he shouted at me? Do you have a safety pin?” “No!” “Well! Leave me alone!… I want to tell him that something incredible is happening at the theater…” He shouts: “A safety pin? Give me a safety pin right away !” An office boy who had heard him—he was shouting like a deaf man—runs up with a safety pin, gives it to him, and immediately Moncharmin shuts the door in my face! And there you go! —And you couldn’t have said to him: Christine Daaé…— Hey! I would have liked to have seen you there!… He was foaming at the mouth… He was thinking only of his safety pin… I think that, if it hadn’t been brought to him immediately, he would have had a stroke! Certainly, all this isn’t natural, and our directors are going mad!… Mr. Secretary Rémy isn’t happy. He’s showing it. —It can’t go on like this! I’m not used to being treated like this! Suddenly Gabriel breathes: —It’s another blow from the F. de l’O. Rémy sniggers. Mercier sighs, seems ready to let slip a secret… but having looked at Gabriel, who signals him to be quiet, he remains silent. However, Mercier, who feels his responsibility growing as the minutes pass and the directors fail to appear , can no longer stand it: “Hey! I’ll run and call them myself,” he decides. Gabriel, suddenly very somber and very serious, stops him. “Think about what you’re doing, Mercier!” “If they’re staying in their office, it’s because, perhaps, it’s necessary! F. de l’O has more than one trick up his sleeve! ” But Mercier shakes his head. “Too bad! I’m going! If they’d listened to me, they would have told the police everything long ago ! ” And he leaves. “Everything what?” Rémy asks immediately. “What would they have told the police? Ah! You’re quiet, Gabriel!… You’re in on the secret too! Well then!” You wouldn’t do badly to get me involved if you do n’t want me to shout that you’re all going mad!… Yes, mad, indeed ! Gabriel rolls his stupid eyes and pretends not to understand this inappropriate outburst from Mr. Private Secretary. “What confidence?” he murmurs. “I don’t know what you mean.” Rémy is getting exasperated. “This evening Richard and Moncharmin, right here, during the intermissions, were making mad gestures. ” “I didn’t notice,” Gabriel grumbles, very annoyed. “You’re the only one!… Do you think I didn’t see them?… And that Mr. Parabise, the director of Crédit Central, didn’t notice anything?… And that Mr. Ambassador de la Borderie has his eyes in his pocket?… But, Mr. Singing Master, all the subscribers were pointing at our directors! “What did they do, our directors?” asks Gabriel in his most foolish way. “What did they do? But you know better than anyone what they did !… You were there!… And you were watching them, you and Mercier!… And you were the only ones not laughing…” “I don’t understand!” Very cold, very withdrawn, Gabriel stretches out his arms and lets them fall, a gesture which obviously means that he is not interested in the matter… Rémy continues. “What is this new habit?… They don’t want anyone to approach them now? ” “What?” They don’t want us to approach them anymore? “They don’t want us to touch them anymore?” “Really, have you noticed that they don’t want us to touch them? That’s certainly strange! ” “You agree! It’s not too soon! And they’re walking backwards! ” “Backwards! You’ve noticed that our directors walk backwards! I thought it was only crayfish who walked backwards. ” “Don’t laugh, Gabriel! Don’t laugh! ” “I’m not laughing,” protests Gabriel, who appears as serious as a pope. “Could you explain to me, please, Gabriel, you who are the close friend of the management, why, during the intermission in the garden, in front of the foyer, as I was advancing with my hand outstretched towards Mr. Richard, I heard Mr. Moncharmin hurriedly say to me in a low voice: ‘ Move away! Move away!'” Above all, don’t touch Mr. Director?… Am I a plague victim? –Incredible! –And a few moments later, when Ambassador de La Borderie went in turn towards Mr. Richard, didn’t you see Mr. Moncharmin throw himself between them and didn’t you hear him cry out: Mr. Ambassador, I beg you, don’t touch Mr. Director! –Frightening!… And what was Richard doing during that time? –What was he doing? You saw it clearly! He turned around, bowed in front of him, when there was no one in front of him! and retreated backwards. –Backwards? –And Moncharmin, behind Richard, had also made a half-turn, that is to say, he had completed a quick half-circle behind Richard, and he too was retreating backwards!… And they went off like that to the administration stairs, backwards!… backwards!… Finally! If they are not mad, will you explain to me what that means? –Perhaps they were rehearsing, indicates Gabriel, without conviction, a ballet figure! Mr. Secretary Rémy feels outraged by such a vulgar joke in such a dramatic moment. His eyes narrow, his lips pinch. He leans towards Gabriel’s ear. –Don’t be smart, Gabriel. Things are happening here for which Mercier and you could take your share of the responsibility. –What is it? asks Gabriel. –Christine Daaé is not the only one who disappeared suddenly this evening. –Ah! bah! –There is no ah! Well! Could you tell me why, when Mother Giry came down to the home just now, Mercier took her by the hand and led her away with him? “Well!” said Gabriel, “I didn’t notice. ” “You noticed it so well, Gabriel, that you followed Mercier and Mother Giry to Mercier’s office. Since that moment, we’ve seen you and Mercier, but we haven’t seen Mother Giry again… ” “Do you think we ate her? ” “No! But you locked her up in the office, and, When you pass near the office door, do you know what you hear? You hear these words: Ah! the bandits! Ah! the bandits! At this moment of this singular conversation, Mercier arrives, all out of breath. “There!” he says in a dull voice… “It’s stronger than anything!… I shouted to them: It’s very serious! Open up! It’s me, Mercier.” I heard footsteps. The door opened and Moncharmin appeared. He
was very pale. He asked me: “What do you want?” I replied: “Christine Daaé has been kidnapped.” Do you know what he answered me? Good for her! And he closed the door, placing this in my hand. Mercier opens his hand; Rémy and Gabriel look. “The safety pin !” cries Rémy. “Strange! Strange!” Gabriel says softly, unable to stop himself from shivering. Suddenly a voice made all three of them turn around. “Excuse me, gentlemen, could you tell me where Christine Daaé is?” Despite the gravity of the circumstances, such a question would undoubtedly have made them burst out laughing if they hadn’t seen a face so pained that they immediately felt sorry for him. It was Viscount Raoul de Chagny. Chapter 16. Christine! Christine! Raoul’s first thought, after Christine Daaé’s fantastic disappearance , had been to accuse Erik. He no longer doubted the almost supernatural power of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera, where the latter had diabolically established his empire. And Raoul had rushed onto the stage, in a madness of despair and love. Christine! Christine! he moaned, distraught, calling her as she must have called him from the depths of this dark abyss where the monster had carried her off like prey, still trembling with her divine exaltation, all dressed in the white shroud in which she was already offering herself to the angels of paradise! “Christine! Christine!” Raoul repeated… and it seemed to him that he could hear the cries of the young girl through these fragile planks which separated him from her! He bent down, he listened!… he wandered on the plateau like a madman. Ah! to go down! to go down! to go down! into this pit of darkness from which all exits are closed to him! Ah! this fragile obstacle which usually slides so easily on itself to reveal the abyss towards which all his desire tends… these planks which his step makes creak and which ring under his weight with the prodigious emptiness below… these planks are more than motionless this evening: they seem immutable… They give themselves the solid air of never having moved… and now the stairs which allow one to descend beneath the stage are forbidden to everyone!… Christine! Christine!… They push him away laughing… They mock him … They think he has a deranged brain, the poor fiancé!… In what frenzied race, among the corridors of night and mystery known only to him, has Erik dragged the pure child to this dreadful lair of the Louis Philippe room, whose door opens onto this lake of Hell?… Christine! Christine! You don’t answer! Are you even still alive, Christine! Did you not exhale your last breath in a minute of superhuman horror, under the burning breath of the monster! Horrid thoughts cross like thunderous lightning through Raoul’s congested brain. Obviously, Erik must have surprised their secret, knowing that he was betrayed by Christine! What revenge will he have! What would not the Angel of Music dare, hurled from the height of his pride? Christine is lost in the all-powerful arms of the monster! And Raoul still thinks of the golden stars that came last night to wander on his balcony, why did he not strike them down with his powerless weapon! Certainly! there are extraordinary human eyes that dilate in the darkness and shine like stars or like the eyes of cats. Certain albino men, who appear to have rabbit eyes during the day have cat’s eyes at night, everyone knows that! Yes, yes, it was indeed Erik that Raoul had shot! Why hadn’t he killed him? The monster had fled through the gutter like cats or convicts, who everyone knows this again—would climb sheer into the sky, with the support of a gutter. No doubt Erik was then planning some decisive action against the young man, but he had been wounded, and he had escaped to turn against poor Christine. So thinks poor Raoul cruelly as he runs to the singer’s dressing room… Christine!… Christine!… Bitter tears burn the eyelids of the young man who sees scattered on the furniture the clothes intended to clothe his beautiful fiancée at the hour of their flight!… Ah! why didn’t she want to leave sooner! Why did she delay so long?… Why did she play with the threatening catastrophe?… with the monster’s heart?… Why did she want to, supreme pity! to throw as last prey to this demon’s soul, this celestial song:… Pure angels! Radiant angels! Carry my soul to the bosom of heaven!… Raoul, whose throat rolls with sobs, oaths and insults, feels with his clumsy palms the large mirror that opened one evening before him to let Christine descend to the dark abode. He presses, he presses, he gropes… but the mirror, it seems, obeys only Erik… Perhaps gestures are useless with a mirror like that?… Perhaps it would be enough to pronounce certain words?… When he was a very small child, he was told that there were objects that obeyed speech like this! Suddenly, Raoul remembers… a gate opening onto Rue Scribe… An underground passage leading directly from the Lake to Rue Scribe… Yes, Christine did indeed tell him about that!… And after having noted, alas! that the heavy key is no longer in the box, he nevertheless runs to the rue Scribe. There he is outside, he runs his trembling hands over the cyclopean stones, he looks for exits… he comes across bars… are these those?… or those there?… or is it not this air vent?… He plunges helpless glances between the bars… what a deep night there!… He listens!… What silence!… He turns around the monument!… Ah! Here are vast bars! Prodigious grilles !… It’s the door to the administration courtyard! … Raoul runs to the concierge: Excuse me, madame, could you not show me a grilled door, yes a door made of bars, bars… of iron… which opens onto the rue Scribe… and which leads to the Lake! You know well, the Lake? Yes, the Lake, what! The lake which is under the ground… under the ground of the Opera. –Sir, I know very well that there is a lake under the Opera, but I don’t know which door leads there… I’ve never been there!… –And the Rue Scribe, madame? The Rue Scribe? Have you ever been to the Rue Scribe? She laughs! She bursts out laughing! Raoul runs away roaring, he leaps, climbs stairs, goes down others, crosses the entire administration, finds himself in the light of the stage. He stops, his heart beating to bursting in his panting chest: what if Christine Daaé had been found? Here is a group: he asks: –Pardon, gentlemen, you haven’t seen Christine Daaé? And they laugh. At the same moment, the stage rumbles with a new noise, and, in a crowd of black-clad people surrounding him with many explanatory arm movements, a man appears who seems very calm and shows a pleasant face, all pink and chubby, framed by curly hair, lit by two blue eyes of marvelous serenity. Administrator Mercier points out the new arrival to Viscount de Chagny, saying to him: “This is the man, sir, to whom you must now put your question. I present to you Police Commissioner Mifroid. ” “Ah! Viscount de Chagny! Delighted to see you, sir.” says the commissioner. If you would take the trouble to follow me… And now where are the directors?… where are the directors?… As the administrator remains silent, the secretary Rémy takes it upon himself to inform the commissioner that the directors are locked in their offices and that they still know nothing about the event. “Is it possible!… Let’s go to their office!” And Mr. Mifroid, followed by an ever-growing procession, heads towards the administration. Mercier takes advantage of the crush to slip a key into Gabriel’s hand: “This is all going wrong,” he whispers to him… “Go and give Mother Giry some air …” And Gabriel moves away. Soon they arrive in front of the director’s door. Mercier pleads in vain ; the door won’t open. “Open in the name of the law!” commands the clear and slightly worried voice of Mr. Mifroid. Finally, the door opens. We rush into the offices, following in the footsteps of the commissioner. Raoul is the last to enter. As he prepares to follow the group into the apartment, a hand is placed on his shoulder and he hears these words spoken in his ear: “Erik’s secrets are no one’s business!” He turns around, stifling a cry. The hand that had been placed on his shoulder is now on the lips of a person with an ebony complexion, jade eyes, and an astrakhan cap… The Persian! The stranger continues the gesture, which recommends discretion, and at the moment when the astonished viscount is about to ask him the reason for his mysterious intervention, he bows and disappears. Chapter 17. Astonishing revelations of Madame Giry, relating to her personal relations with the Phantom of the Opera Before following Police Commissioner Mifroid to the home of Messrs. the directors, the reader will allow me to inform him of certain extraordinary events which had just taken place in this office where the secretary Rémy and the administrator Mercier had tried in vain to enter, and where Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin had so hermetically sealed themselves off in a plan which the reader is still unaware of, but which it is my historical duty, – I mean my duty as a historian, – not to conceal from him any longer. I had the opportunity to say how disagreeably the mood of the Directors had changed for some time, and I made it understood that this transformation could not have been caused solely by the fall of the chandelier in the conditions that we know. Let us therefore inform the reader – despite all the desire that the Directors would have that such an event remain forever hidden – that the Phantom had managed to quietly collect his first twenty thousand francs. Ah! there had been tears and gnashing of teeth! The thing, however, had been done in the simplest way possible: One morning, the directors found a ready-made envelope on their desk. This envelope was addressed: To Mr. F. de l’O. personal and was accompanied by a short note from F. de l’O. himself: The time to execute the clauses of the specifications has come: you will slip twenty thousand- franc notes into this envelope, which you will seal with your own seal , and you will give it to Mrs. Giry , who will do the necessary. The directors did not need to be told twice; without wasting time wondering again how these diabolical missions could reach an office that they took great care to lock, they found the opportunity to get their hands on the mysterious blackmailer. And after having told everything under the seal of the greatest secrecy to Gabriel and Mercier, they put the twenty thousand francs in the envelope and entrusted it without asking for an explanation to Mrs. Giry, who was reinstated in her duties. The usherette showed no surprise. I need not say whether she was under surveillance! rest, she went immediately to the ghost’s dressing room and placed the precious envelope on the shelf of the handrest. The two directors, as well as Gabriel and Mercier, were hidden in such a way that this envelope would not be lost sight of by them for a second during the entire performance and even after, because, as the envelope had not moved, those who were watching it did not move either and the theater emptied and Madame Giry left while Messrs. the Directors, Gabriel and Mercier were still there. Finally they grew tired and the envelope was opened after seeing that the seals had not been broken. At first glance, Richard and Moncharmin judged that the tickets were still there, but at the second glance they realized that they were no longer the same ones. The twenty real tickets were gone and had been replaced by twenty tickets from the Sainte Farce! It was rage and then also terror! “It’s stronger than Robert Houdin’s!” cried Gabriel. “Yes,” replied Richard, “and it costs more! Moncharmin wanted us to run and fetch the commissioner; Richard opposed it. He doubtless had his plan; he said: Let’s not be ridiculous! All Paris would laugh. F. de l’O. won the first round, we ‘ll win the second.” He was evidently thinking of the next monthly payment. All the same, they had been so perfectly outsmarted that , during the weeks that followed, they could not overcome a certain despondency. And that, in my opinion, was quite understandable. If the commissioner was not summoned immediately, it was because it must not be forgotten that the directors kept deep inside themselves the thought that such a bizarre adventure could be nothing more than a hateful joke, doubtless contrived by their predecessors, and of which it was advisable not to divulge anything until the end of it was known. This thought, on the other hand, was troubled at times in Moncharmin by a suspicion that came to him concerning Richard himself, who sometimes had burlesque imaginations. And so, ready for all eventualities, they awaited events by watching and having watched Mother Giry, to whom Richard wanted nothing to be said. If she is an accomplice, he said, the notes have been long gone. But, as far as I am concerned, she is only an imbecile! “There are many imbeciles in this affair!” Moncharmin had replied thoughtfully. “Could anyone have suspected it?” Richard moaned, but don’t be afraid… next time all my precautions will be taken… And so the next time came… it fell on the very day that was to see the disappearance of Christine Daaé. In the morning, a missive from the Phantom reminded them of the deadline. Do as you did last time, F. de l’O. kindly instructed. It went very well. Give the envelope, in which you will have slipped the twenty thousand francs, to this excellent Madame Giry. And the note was accompanied by the customary envelope. All that remained was to fill it out. This operation was to be accomplished that same evening, half an hour before the performance. So it was about half an hour before the curtain rose on this all-too-famous performance of Faust that we entered the director’s den. Richard showed the envelope to Moncharmin, then he counted out the twenty thousand francs in front of him and slipped them into the envelope, but without closing it. “And now,” he said, “call me Mother Giry.” They went to fetch the old woman. She entered with a beautiful curtsy. The lady still had on her black taffeta dress, which was turning rusty and lilac, and her hat with soot-colored feathers. She seemed in a good mood. She said at once: “Good evening, gentlemen! Is it for the envelope again?” “Yes, Madame Giry,” said Richard with great kindness. “It’s for the envelope… And for something else too. ” “At your service, Mr. Director: At your service!… And what is this other thing, please?” “First, Madame Giry, I have a little question to ask you. ” “Do so, Mr. Director, Mame Giry is here to answer you. ” “Are you always on good terms with the ghost? ” “It couldn’t be better, Mr. Director, it couldn’t be better. ” “Ah! We’re delighted with it… I say, Madame Giry, ” said Richard, adopting the tone of an important confidence… “Between ourselves, we can tell you… You’re not an animal. ” “But, Mr. Director!” exclaimed the usherette, stopping the amiable swinging of the two black feathers in her soot-colored hat , “I beg you to believe that no one has ever doubted it ! We are in agreement and we are going to get along.” The ghost story is a good joke, isn’t it?… Well! Just between us… it’s gone on long enough. Madame Giry looked at the directors as if they had spoken Chinese to her. She approached Richard’s desk and said, rather worried: “What do you mean?… I don’t understand you! ” “Ah! You understand us very well. In any case, you must understand us… And, first of all, you’re going to tell us his name. ” “Who is it? ” “The one you’re the accomplice of, Mame Giry! ” “I’m the accomplice of the ghost? Me?… The accomplice of what? ” “You do whatever he wants. ” “Oh!… he’s not very cumbersome, you know. ” “And he’s always giving you tips! ” “I’m not complaining! ” “How much does he give you to carry this envelope to him? ” “Ten francs. ” “Blimey! It’s not expensive? ” “Why not?” “I’ll tell you that later, Mame Giry. At this moment, we would like to know for what reason… extraordinary… you gave yourself body and soul to this ghost rather than to another… It ‘s not for a hundred sous or ten francs that one can have the friendship and devotion of Mame Giry. ” “That’s true!… And by Jove, I can tell you that reason, Mr. Director! Certainly there is no dishonor in that!… on the contrary. ” “We have no doubt about it, Mame Giry! ” “Well, there you go… the ghost doesn’t like me telling his stories. ” “Ah! ah!” sneered Richard. –But, that one, it only concerns me!… resumed the old woman… so, it was in dressing room number 5… one evening, I found a letter for me there… a sort of note written in red ink… That note there, Mr. Director, I wouldn’t need to read it to you… I know it by heart… and I’ll never forget it… even if I lived to be a hundred years old!… And Madame Giry, standing very straight, recited the letter with touching eloquence : Madame.–1825, Mlle Ménétrier, coryphée, became Marquise de Cussy.–1832, Mlle Marie Taglioni, dancer, was made Countess Gilbert des Voisins.–1846, la Sota, dancer, married a brother of the King of Spain.–1847, Lola Montés, dancer, morganatically married King Louis of Bavaria and was created Countess of Landsfeld.–1848, Miss Maria, dancer, becomes Baroness d’Hermeville.–1870, Thérèse Hessler, dancer, marries Don Fernando, brother of the King of Portugal… Richard and Moncharmin listen to the old woman, who, as she advances in the curious enumeration of these glorious marriages, becomes animated, straightens up, takes on audacity, and finally, inspired like a sibyl on her tripod, launches in a voice bursting with pride the last sentence of the prophetic letter: –1885. Meg Giry, Empress! Exhausted by this supreme effort, the usherette falls back on her chair, saying: Gentlemen, this was signed: The Phantom of the Opera! I had already heard of the phantom, but I only believed in it half. From the day he announced to me that my little Meg, the flesh of my flesh, the fruit of my womb, would be empress, I believed it completely . In truth, in truth, there was no need to consider at length the exalted physiognomy of Mam’ Giry to understand what could have been obtained from this beautiful intelligence with these two words: Phantom and Empress. But who then held the strings of this extravagant mannequin?… Who? “You’ve never seen him, he talks to you, and you believe everything he tells you?” asked Moncharmin. “Yes; first of all, it is to him that I owe that my little Meg became coryphaeus. I had said to the phantom: For her to be empress in 1885, you have no time to lose, she must be coryphaeus immediately.” He answered me: “It’s understood.” And he only had to say one word to Mr. Poligny, it was done… –You see, Mr. Poligny saw him! –No more than I did, but he heard him! The ghost whispered a word in his ear, you know! The evening he came out so pale from box number 5. Moncharmin sighed. –What a story! he moaned. –Ah! replied Mame Giry, I always believed there were secrets between the Phantom and Mr. Poligny. Everything the Phantom asked of Mr. Poligny, Mr. Poligny granted… Mr. Poligny had nothing to refuse the Phantom.
–You hear, Richard, Poligny had nothing to refuse the Phantom. –Yes, yes, I hear that! declared Richard. Mr. Poligny is a friend of the Phantom! and, as Madame Giry is a friend of Monsieur Poligny, we are indeed there,’ he added in a very harsh tone. ‘But Monsieur Poligny does not concern me… The only person whose fate really interests me, I do not hide it, is Madame Giry!… Madame Giry, do you know what is in this envelope? ‘ ‘My God, no!’ she said. ‘Well! look! Madame Giry slips into the envelope a troubled look, but which immediately regains its brightness. ‘Thousand-franc notes!’ she cries! ‘Yes, Madame Giry!… yes, thousand-franc notes!… And you knew it well! ‘ ‘Me, Mr. Director… Me! I swear to you… ‘ ‘Don’t swear, Madame Giry!… And now, I am going to tell you this other thing for which I brought you here… Madame Giry, I am going to have you arrested.’ The two black feathers of the soot-colored hat, which usually took the form of two question marks, immediately changed into an exclamation point; as for the hat itself, it swayed menacingly over her stormy chignon. Surprise, indignation, protest, and terror were again expressed in little Meg’s mother by a sort of extravagant pirouette, a skid of offended virtue that brought her in one bound right under the nose of the director, who could not restrain himself from pushing back his chair. “Have me arrested! ” The mouth that said this seemed as if it were about to spit in Mr. Richard’s face the three teeth it still had. Mr. Richard was heroic. He did not retreat any further. His threatening index finger was already pointing to the absent magistrates the usher of box number 5. “I am going to have you arrested, Madame Giry, like a thief!” “Repeat!” And Madame Giry slapped Director Richard in the face before Director Moncharmin had time to intervene. A vengeful response! It was not the withered hand of the angry old woman that came down on the director’s cheek, but the envelope itself, the cause of the whole scandal, the magic envelope that suddenly opened to let the notes escape, which flew away in a fantastic swirl of giant butterflies. The two directors cried out, and the same thought brought them both to their knees, feverishly gathering and hastily examining the precious papers. “Are they still true? Moncharmin. ” “Are they still true? Richard. ” “They’re still true!!!” Above them, Madame Giry’s three teeth clash in a resounding melee, full of hideous interjections. But all that’s quite clearly heard is this leitmotif: “Me, a thief!… A thief, me? ” She’s suffocating. She cries out: “I’m devastated!” And suddenly, she bounces under Richard’s nose. “In any case,” she squeals, “you, Monsieur Richard, you must know better than I where the twenty thousand francs have gone! ” “Me?” Richard asks, astonished. “And how would I know?” Moncharmin, stern and worried, immediately wants the good woman to explain herself. “What does this mean?” he asks. And why, Madame Giry, do you claim that Monsieur Richard should know better than you where the twenty thousand francs have gone? As for Richard, who feels himself blushing under Moncharmin’s gaze, he takes Madame Giry’s hand and shakes it violently. His voice imitates thunder. It rumbles, it rolls… it strikes with lightning… “Why should I know better than you where the twenty thousand francs have gone? Why? ” “Because they went into your pocket!” the old woman gasps, looking at him now as if she saw the devil. It is Monsieur Richard’s turn to be struck down, first by this unexpected reply, then by Moncharmin’s increasingly suspicious look . Suddenly, he loses the strength he would need at this difficult moment to repel such a despicable accusation. Thus, the most innocent, surprised in the peace of their hearts, suddenly appear, because the blow that strikes them makes them pale, or blush, or stagger, or straighten up, or collapse, or protest, or say nothing when they should speak, or speak when they should say nothing, or remain dry when they should be wiping themselves, or sweat when they should remain dry, they suddenly appear, I say, guilty. Moncharmin has stopped the vengeful impulse with which Richard, who was innocent, was about to rush at Madame Giry and he hastens, encouraging, to question her… gently. “How could you suspect my colleague Richard of putting twenty thousand francs in his pocket? ” “I never said that!” declares Madame Giry, since it was I myself in person who put the twenty thousand francs in Monsieur Richard’s pocket . And she added in a low voice: “Too bad! That’s it!… May the Phantom forgive me! And as Richard begins to howl again, Moncharmin authoritatively orders him to be silent: “Pardon! Pardon! Pardon! Let this woman explain herself! Let me question her. ” And he adds: “It is truly strange that you take it in such a tone!… We are approaching the moment when this whole mystery will be cleared up! You are furious! You are wrong… I am very amused.” Mame Giry, martyr, raises her head, which radiates faith in her own innocence. “You tell me that there were twenty thousand francs in the envelope that I put in M. Richard’s pocket, but, I repeat, I knew nothing about it… Nor did M. Richard either, for that matter! ” “Ah! ah!” said Richard, suddenly affecting an air of bravery that displeased Moncharmin. “I knew nothing about it either!” You put twenty thousand francs in my pocket and I knew nothing about it! I am very pleased, Madame Giry. “Yes,” agreed the terrible lady… “it’s true!… Neither of us knew anything about it!… But you, you must have finally realized it. Richard would certainly devour Madame Giry if Moncharmin were not there! But Moncharmin protects her. He precipitates the interrogation. “What sort of envelope did you put in Monsieur Richard’s pocket ? It was not the one we gave you, the one you carried, in front of us, in box number 5, and yet, that one alone, contained the twenty thousand francs. “Pardon! It was indeed the one the director gave me, which I slipped into the director’s pocket,” explains Mother Giry. ” As for the one I placed in the ghost’s dressing room, it was another envelope exactly the same, and which I had, all prepared, in my sleeve, and which was given to me by the ghost!” So saying, Mother Giry takes from her sleeve an envelope all prepared and identical with its address to the one containing the twenty thousand francs. The directors seize it. They examine it, they note that stamps sealed with their own directorial seal, close it. They open it… It contains twenty tickets from the Holy Farce, like those which so astonished them a month before. “How simple!” says Richard. “How simple!” repeats Moncharmin, more solemn than ever. “The most illustrious tricks,” replies Richard, “have always been the simplest.” All it takes is a friend… “Or a gossip!” Moncharmin adds in his muted voice. And he continues, his eyes fixed on Madame Giry, as if he wanted to hypnotize her: “It was indeed the ghost who sent you this envelope, and it was indeed he who told you to substitute it for the one we gave you? It was indeed he who told you to put the latter in Monsieur Richard’s pocket? ” “Oh! it was indeed him! ” “Then could you show us, madame, a sample of your little talents?” “Here is the envelope. Act as if we knew nothing. ” “At your service, gentlemen!” Mother Giry has taken back the envelope filled with her twenty bills and is heading for the door. She is about to leave. The two directors are already upon her. “Ah! no! Ah! no! Don’t fool us anymore! We’ve had enough! We’re not going to start again!” “Pardon me, gentlemen,” the old woman apologizes, “pardon me… You tell me to act as if you knew nothing!… Well, if you knew nothing, I would go away with your envelope! “And then, how would you slip it into my pocket?” Richard argues , whom Moncharmin never takes his left eye off, while his right is very busy with Madame Giry—a difficult position for the gaze; but Moncharmin is determined to do anything to discover the truth. “I must slip it into your pocket when you least expect it, Mr. Director. You know that I always come, during the evening, to take a little tour behind the scenes, and often, as is my mother’s right, I accompany my daughter to the dance hall; I carry her slippers, at the time of entertainment, and even her little watering can… In short, I come and go as I please… Gentlemen subscribers are coming too… You too, Mr. Director… There are people… I go behind you, and I slip the envelope into the back pocket of your coat… It’s not rocket science! “It’s not rocket science,” Richard scolds, rolling his thundering Jupiter eyes , “it’s not rocket science! But I’ve caught you in the act of lying, you old witch! ” The insult strikes the honorable lady less than the blow that one wants to strike at her good faith. She straightens up, shaggy, her three teeth exposed. “Because? ” “Because that evening I spent it in the hall watching box No. 5 and the fake envelope that you had left there.” I didn’t go down to the dance foyer for a second… –So, Mr. Director, it wasn’t that evening that I gave you the envelope!… But at the next performance… Look, it was the evening when the Under Secretary of State for Fine Arts… At these words, Mr. Richard abruptly stops Madame Giry… –Hey! That’s true, he said thoughtfully, I remember… I remember now! The Under Secretary of State came backstage. He sent for me. I went down to the dance foyer for a moment. I was on the steps of the foyer… The Under Secretary of State and his chief of staff were in the foyer itself… Suddenly I turned around… It was you who were passing behind me… Madame Giry… It seemed to me that you had brushed past me… There was only you behind me… Oh! I can still see you… I can still see you! “Well, yes, that’s it, Mr. Director! That’s it! I had just finished my little business in your pocket! That pocket there, Mr. Director, is very convenient!” And Madame Giry once again puts her words into action. She passes behind Mr. Richard and so nimbly that Moncharmin himself, who is watching with both eyes this time, is impressed, she places the envelope in the pocket of one of the tails of Mr. Director’s coat . “Obviously!” exclaims Richard, a little pale… That’s very strong of F. de l’O. The problem, for him, was thus: to eliminate any dangerous intermediary between the one who gives the twenty thousand francs and the one who takes them! He could not find better than to come and take them from my pocket without my noticing, since I did not even know they were there… Is that admirable? “Oh! admirable! No doubt,” Moncharmin added… “only, you forget, Richard, that I gave ten thousand francs of those twenty thousand and that nothing was put in my pocket!” Chapter 18. CONTINUATION OF THE CURIOUS ATTITUDE OF A SAFETY PIN Moncharmin’s last sentence expressed in a way that was too obvious the suspicion in which he now held his collaborator for it not to immediately result in a stormy explanation, at the end of which it was understood that Richard was going to comply with all Moncharmin’s wishes, with the aim of helping him to discover the wretch who was playing them. So we come to the intermission in the garden during which Mr. Rémy, the secretary who misses nothing, has so curiously observed the strange behavior of his directors, and from then on nothing will be easier for us than to find a reason for such exceptionally baroque attitudes and especially so little in conformity with the idea that one should have of directorial dignity. The behavior of Richard and Moncharmin was all mapped out by the revelation that had just been made to them: 1° Richard was to repeat exactly, that evening, the gestures he had performed when the first twenty thousand francs disappeared; 2° Moncharmin was not to lose sight for a second of Richard’s back pocket into which Madame Giry had slipped the second twenty thousand. At the exact place where he had been when he greeted Mr. the Under Secretary of State for Fine Arts, Mr. Richard came to stand with, a few steps away, behind him, Mr. Moncharmin. Madame Giry passes by, brushes past Monsieur Richard, drops the twenty thousand in the pocket of her director’s coat, and disappears… Or rather, she is made to disappear. Carrying out the order Moncharmin gave him a few moments before, before the reenactment of the scene, Mercier goes to lock the good lady in the administration office. Thus, it will be impossible for the old woman to communicate with her ghost. And she lets it happen, for Madame Giry is now nothing more than a poor, featherless figure, terrified with terror, opening the eyes of a bewildered fowl under a disheveled crest, already hearing in the echoing corridor the sound of the footsteps of the commissioner with whom she is threatened, and heaving sighs that would split the columns of the grand staircase. Meanwhile, Monsieur Richard bends, curtsies, salutes, walks backward as if he had before him that high and all-powerful civil servant, the Under Secretary of State for Fine Arts. However, if such marks of politeness would not have raised any astonishment in the case where Mr. the director had found himself Mr. the under-secretary of state, they caused the spectators of this a scene so natural, but so inexplicable, a stupefaction quite understandable when there was no one in front of the director. Mr. Richard bowed into the void… bowed before nothingness… and retreated–walked backwards–before nothing… … Finally, a few steps away, Mr. Moncharmin did the same thing as him. … And pushing Mr. Rémy away, begged Mr. Ambassador de Le Borderie and Mr. Director of the Crédit Central not to touch Mr. Director. Moncharmin, who had his own idea, did not want Richard to come and tell him about the missing twenty thousand francs: It may be Mr. Ambassador or Mr. Director of the Crédit Central, or even Mr. Secretary Rémy. Especially since, during the first scene, by Richard’s own admission, Richard had not, after being brushed against by Madame Giry, met anyone in that part of the theater… Why then, I ask you, since they had to repeat exactly the same gestures, would he meet anyone today? Having first walked backward to greet, Richard continued to walk in this way out of caution… until the administration corridor… Thus, he was always watched from behind by Moncharmin and he himself watched his approaches from the front. Once again, this completely new way of walking in the wings that the directors of the National Academy of Music had adopted was obviously not to go unnoticed. It was noticed. Fortunately for Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin that at the time of this very curious scene, the little rats were almost all in the attics. For the directors would have been a success with the young girls. … But they were only thinking of their twenty thousand francs. Arriving in the semi-dark corridor of the administration, Richard said in a low voice to Moncharmin: “I’m sure no one has touched me… now you’re going to stay far enough away from me and watch me in the shadows until you reach the door of my office… you mustn’t alert anyone and we’ll see what happens. ” But Moncharmin replied: “No, Richard! No!… Walk in front… I’ll walk immediately behind! I’m not leaving your side! ” “But,” cried Richard, “no one will ever be able to steal our twenty thousand francs like that! ” “I certainly hope so!” declared Moncharmin. “Then what we’re doing is absurd! ” “We’re doing exactly what we did last time… Last time, I met you as you left the set, at the corner of this corridor… and I followed behind you. ” “That’s true!” sighed Richard, shaking his head and passively obeying Moncharmin. Two minutes later, the two directors locked themselves in the director’s office. It was Moncharmin himself who put the key in his pocket. “We both stayed locked in like that last time,” he said, “until you left the Opera to go home. ” “That’s true! And no one came to disturb us? ” “No one. ” “Then,” Richard asked, trying to gather his memories, “then I must have been robbed on the way from the Opera to my home… ” “No!” Moncharmin said in a tone sharper than ever… “No… that’s not possible… I was the one who drove you home in my car. The twenty thousand francs disappeared from your house, there’s no longer a shadow of a doubt in my mind. ” That was Moncharmin’s idea now. “That’s incredible!” Richard protested… “I’m sure of my servants!… and if one of them had done that, he would have disappeared by now.” Moncharmin shrugged, seeming to say that he wasn’t going into those details. At which point Richard began to think that Moncharmin was taking him with him. in a very unbearable tone. “Moncharmin, that’s enough!” “Richard, that’s too much! ” “You dare suspect me? ” “Yes, of a deplorable joke! ” “You don’t joke with twenty thousand francs! ” “That’s my opinion!” declares Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper, which he ostentatiously delves into. “What are you going to do?” asks Richard. “You’re going to read the newspaper now! ” “Yes, Richard, until the hour when I take you home. ” “Like last time? ” “Like last time.” Richard snatches the newspaper from Moncharmin’s hands. Moncharmin stands up, more irritated than ever. He finds before him an exasperated Richard who says to him, crossing his arms over his chest—a gesture of insolent defiance since the beginning of the world: “There,” says Richard, “I’m thinking of this.” I think of what I might think, if, like last time, after having spent the evening alone with you, you were to drive me home, and if, at the moment of parting, I noticed that the twenty thousand francs had disappeared from my coat pocket… like last time. “And what might you think?” exclaimed Moncharmin, crimson. “I might think that, since you have not left my side for a moment, and since, according to your wish, you were the only one to approach me like last time, I might think that if these twenty thousand francs are no longer in my pocket, they have a good chance of being in yours! ” Moncharmin leaped at the hypothesis. “Oh!” he cried, “a safety pin! “What do you want to do with a safety pin? “Tie yourself up!… A safety pin!… a safety pin! “You want to tie me up with a safety pin?” “Yes, tie yourself up with the twenty thousand francs!… Like that, whether here, or on the way from here to your home or yours, you will feel the hand that will pull your pocket… and you will see if it is mine, Richard!… Ah! It is you who suspects me now… A safety pin! And it was at that moment that Moncharmin opened the door of the corridor, shouting: “A safety pin! Who will give me a safety pin?” And we also know how, at the same moment, the secretary Rémy, who did not have a safety pin, was received by the director Moncharmin, while an office boy procured for him the much-desired pin. And this is what happened: Moncharmin, after having closed the door, knelt behind Richard’s back.
“I hope,” he said, “that the twenty thousand francs are still there?” “Me too,” said Richard. “The real ones?” asked Moncharmin, who was determined this time not to be fooled. “Look! I don’t want to touch them,” declared Richard. Moncharmin removed the envelope from Richard’s pocket and tremblingly pulled out the notes, for this time, in order to be able to frequently verify the presence of the notes, they had neither sealed the envelope nor even glued it. He was reassured to see that they were all there, completely authentic. He gathered them in the pocket of the basque and pinned them with great care. After which he sat down behind the basque, which he never took his eyes off, while Richard, seated at his desk, did not move. “A little patience, Richard,” commanded Moncharmin, “we only have a few minutes left… The clock will soon strike twelve . It was at twelve that we left last time. ” “Oh! I will have all the patience I need!” The hour passed, slow, heavy, mysterious, stifling. Richard tried to laugh. “I’ll end up believing,” he said, “in the ghost’s omnipotence. And at this moment, particularly, don’t you find that there’s something in the atmosphere of this room that’s unsettling, that’s… indispose, who frightens? “That’s true,” admitted Moncharmin, who was truly impressed. “The ghost!” Richard continued in a low voice, as if he feared being heard by invisible ears… the ghost! If all the same it were a ghost who was recently striking the three sharp raps on this table that we heard so clearly… who places the magic envelopes there… who speaks in box number 5… who kills Joseph Buquet… who takes down the chandelier… and who robs us! Because finally! Because finally! Because finally! There’s only you here and me!… and if the notes disappear without us having anything to do with it, neither you nor I… we’ll have to believe in the ghost… in the ghost…” At that moment, the clock on the mantelpiece chimed and the first stroke of midnight sounded. The two directors shuddered. An anguish gripped them, the cause of which they could not have said and which they tried in vain to combat. Sweat trickled down their foreheads. And the twelfth stroke rang strangely in their ears. When the clock fell silent, they heaved a sigh and stood up. “I think we can go,” said Moncharmin. “I think so,” Richard complied. “Before I leave, will you allow me to look in your pocket? ” “But how! Moncharmin! I must! ” “Well?” Richard asked Moncharmin, who was feeling his way. “Well! I can still feel the pin. ” “Obviously, as you said so well, they can no longer rob us without my noticing.” But Moncharmin, whose hands were still busy around his pocket, shouted: “I can still feel the pin, but I can no longer feel the bills. ” “No!” Don’t joke, Moncharmin!… This isn’t the time. –But feel for yourself. With a gesture, Richard took off his coat. The two directors tore out their pockets!… The pocket was empty. The strangest thing was that the pin remained stuck in the same place. Richard and Moncharmin turned pale. There was no longer any doubt about the spell. –The ghost, Moncharmin murmured. But Richard suddenly sprang upon his colleague. –You’re the only one who’s touched my pocket!… Give me back my twenty thousand francs!… Give me back my twenty thousand francs!… –Upon my soul, sighs Moncharmin, who seems ready to swoon… I swear I don’t have them… And as there was still a knock at the door, he went to open it, walking with an almost automatic step, barely seeming to recognize the administrator Mercier, exchanging random words with him, understanding nothing of what the other was saying to him; and placing, with an unconscious gesture, in the hand of this completely bewildered faithful servant, the safety pin that could no longer be of any use to him… Chapter 19. The Police Commissioner, the Viscount and the Persian. The first words of the police commissioner, upon entering the director’s office, were to ask for news of the singer. –Christine Daaé is not here? He was followed, as I said, by a dense crowd. “Christine Daaé? No,” replied Richard, “why? As for Moncharmin, he no longer has the strength to utter a word… His state of mind is much more serious than Richard’s, for Richard may still suspect Moncharmin, but Moncharmin, for his part, finds himself faced with the great mystery… the one that has made humanity shudder since its birth: the Unknown. Richard continued, for the crowd around the directors and the commissioner observed an impressive silence: “Why are you asking me, Mr. Commissioner, if Christine Daaé is not here?” “Because we must find her, gentlemen directors of the National Academy of Music,” declared the police commissioner solemnly. “What! We must find her! Has she disappeared then?” “In the middle of a performance!” “In the middle of a performance! It’s extraordinary!” “Isn’t that so? And what’s just as extraordinary as this disappearance is that I’m the one telling you! ” “Indeed…” Richard agrees, taking his head in his hands and murmuring: “What’s this new story? Oh! Definitely, there’s enough to make you resign!” And he pulls out a few hairs from his mustache without even noticing: “So,” he says as if in a dream, “she disappeared in the middle of the performance. ” “Yes, she was taken from the prison, at the moment when she was calling on heaven’s help, but I doubt she was taken by angels. ” “And I’m sure of it!” Everyone turns around. A young man, pale and trembling with emotion, repeats: “I’m sure of it! ” “You’re sure of what?” Mifroid asks. “That Christine Daaé was taken by an angel, Commissioner , and I could tell you her name… ” “Ah!” Ah! Monsieur Viscount de Chagny, you claim that Miss Christine Daaé was abducted by an angel, by an angel of the Opera, no doubt? Raoul looks around him. Obviously, he is looking for someone. At this moment when it seems so necessary to call the police for help on behalf of his fiancée, he would not be sorry to see again this mysterious stranger who, just now, recommended discretion. But he does not find him anywhere. Come on! He must speak!… He would not be able to explain himself before this crowd who stare at him with indiscreet curiosity. “Yes, sir, by an angel of the Opera,” he replied to M. Mifroid, “and I will tell you where he lives when we are alone… ” “You are right, sir.” And the police commissioner, making Raoul sit down next to him, showed everyone the door, except of course the directors, who, however, would not have protested, so much did they seem above all contingencies. Then Raoul made up his mind: “Monsieur Commissioner, this angel is called Erik, he lives at the Opera and he is the Angel of Music! ” “The Angel of Music! Truly! That is very curious!… The Angel of Music!” And, turning towards the directors, Police Commissioner Mifroid asked: “Gentlemen, do you have that angel in your house? ” Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin shook their heads without even smiling. “Oh!” said the Viscount, “these gentlemen have certainly heard of the Phantom of the Opera. Well! I can assure them that the Phantom of the Opera and the Angel of Music are the same thing. And his real name is Erik.” M. Mifroid stood up and looked at Raoul attentively. “Pardon me, sir, do you intend to mock justice? ” “Me!” protested Raoul, who thought painfully: Another one who won’t listen to me. “So, what are you singing to me with your Phantom of the Opera? ” “I say that these gentlemen have heard of him.” “Gentlemen, it seems that you know the Phantom of the Opera?” Richard stood up, holding the last hairs of his mustache in his hand. “No! Commissioner, no, we don’t know him! But we would like to know him! For, just this evening, he stole twenty thousand francs from us!” And Richard turned a terrible look on Moncharmin that seemed to say: Give me back the twenty thousand francs or I’ll tell everything. Moncharmin understood this so well that he made a frantic gesture: “Ah! tell everything!” Tell me everything!… As for Mifroid, he looked in turn at the directors and Raoul and wondered if he hadn’t gotten lost in a lunatic asylum. He ran his hand through his hair: “A ghost,” he said, “who, in the same evening, kidnaps a singer and steals twenty thousand francs, is a very busy ghost! If you don’t mind , we’ll put the questions in order. The singer first, then the twenty thousand francs! Come, Monsieur de Chagny, let’s try to talk.” Seriously. You believe that Miss Christine Daaé was abducted by an individual named Erik. So you know this individual? Have you seen him? “Yes, Commissioner. ” “Where? ” “In a cemetery.” Mr. Mifroid jumped, began to look at Raoul again, and said: “Obviously!… that’s usually where one encounters ghosts. And what were you doing in this cemetery? ” “Sir,” said Raoul, “I am well aware of the oddity of my answers and the effect they are having on you. But I beg you to believe that I am in complete reason. The salvation of the person who is dearest to me in the world, along with my beloved brother Philippe, is at stake. I would like to convince you in a few words, for time is pressing and minutes are precious. Unfortunately, if I don’t tell you the strangest story imaginable, from the beginning, you won’t believe me.” I’m going to tell you, Mr. Inspector, everything I know about the Phantom of the Opera. Alas! Mr. Inspector, I don’t know much… ” Keep talking! Keep talking!” exclaimed Richard and Moncharmin , suddenly very interested; unfortunately for the hope they had entertained for a moment of learning some detail likely to put them on the trail of their hoaxer, they soon had to face the sad fact that M. Raoul de Chagny had completely lost his mind. This whole story of Perros Guirec, of death’s heads, of the enchanted violin, could only have originated in the deranged brain of a lover. It was clear, moreover, that Mr. Inspector Mifroid was increasingly sharing this way of seeing things, and certainly the magistrate would have put an end to these disordered remarks, of which we gave a glimpse in the first part of this story, if circumstances themselves had not taken it upon themselves to interrupt them. The door had just opened and a singularly dressed individual in a large black frock coat and wearing a top hat, both threadbare and shiny, which reached down to his ears, entered . He ran to the commissioner and spoke to him in a low voice. It was probably some agent of the Sûreté who had come to report on an urgent mission. During this conversation, M. Mifroid never took his eyes off Raoul. And finally, addressing him, he said: “Sir, that’s enough about the ghost. We’ll talk a little about you, if you don’t mind; were you supposed to carry off Miss Christine Daaé this evening? ” “Yes, Commissioner.” “Just as she was leaving the theater? ” “Yes, Commissioner. ” “Were all your arrangements made for that? ” “Yes, Commissioner.” “The carriage that brought you was supposed to carry you both off.” The coachman was warned… his route was planned in advance… Better still! He had to find fresh horses at each stage… –That’s true, Commissioner. –And yet, your carriage is still there, awaiting your orders, near the Rotonde, isn’t it? –Yes, Commissioner. –Did you know that there were, beside yours, three other carriages? –I didn’t pay the slightest attention to them… –They were those of Miss Sorelli, who had not found a place in the courtyard of the administration; of the Carlotta and of your brother, Count de Chagny… –It’s possible… –What is certain, on the other hand… is that, if your own carriage, that of the Sorelli and that of the Carlotta are still in their places, along the pavement of the Rotonde… that of Count de Chagny is no longer there… –That has nothing to do with it, Commissioner… –Pardon! Wasn’t the Count opposed to your marriage with Miss Daaé? –That could only concern the family. –You answered me… he was opposed to it… and that is why you kidnapped Christine Daaé, far from the possible attempts of your brother… Well, Monsieur de Chagny, allow me to inform you that your brother was quicker than you!… It was he who kidnapped Christine Daaé! –Oh! moans Raoul, putting his hand to his heart, it’s not possible… Are you sure of that? –Immediately after the disappearance of the artist, which was organized with accomplices that we will still have to establish, he threw himself into his car, which raced furiously through Paris. –Through Paris? grumbles poor Raoul… What do you mean by through Paris? –And out of Paris… –Out of Paris… which road? –The road to Brussels. A hoarse cry escapes the mouth of the unfortunate young man. –Oh! he cries, I swear I’ll catch them. And in two bounds, he was out of the office. “And bring us back there,” the commissioner shouts joyfully… “Huh? That’s a tip that’s as good as the Angel of Music’s!” Whereupon Mr. Mifroid turns to his astonished audience and gives them this honest but not at all childish little police lesson: “I have no idea if it was really the Count of Chagny who kidnapped Christine Daaé… but I need to know, and I don’t believe that at this hour anyone better than the Viscount, her brother, wants to inform me… At this moment, he’s running, he’s stealing! He’s my main assistant! Such, gentlemen, is the art of policing that we think is so complicated, and which nevertheless appears so simple once we discover that it must consist of having this policing carried out mainly by people who are not!” But Police Commissioner Mifroid might not have been so pleased with himself if he had known that his swift messenger’s journey had been halted as soon as he entered the first corridor, empty, however, of the crowd of curious onlookers who had been dispersed. The corridor seemed deserted. However, Raoul had seen his path blocked by a large shadow. “Where are you going so fast, Monsieur de Chagny?” the shadow had asked. Raoul, growing impatient, had raised his head and recognized the astrakhan cap from earlier. He stopped. “It’s you again!” he cried in a feverish voice, “you who know Erik’s secrets and don’t want me to talk about them. And who are you? ” “You know it well!… I am the Persian!” said the shadow. Chapter 20. The Viscount and the Persian. Raoul then remembered that his brother, one evening at a play, had shown him this vague character about whom nothing was known, once it had been said of him that he was a Persian, and that he lived in an old little apartment in the Rue de Rivoli. The man with the ebony complexion, the jade eyes, and the astrakhan cap, leaned over Raoul. “I hope, Monsieur de Chagny, that you have not betrayed Erik’s secret? ” “And why should I have hesitated to betray this monster, monsieur?” Raoul replied haughtily, trying to free himself from the importunate man. ” Is he your friend then? ” “I hope you have said nothing about Erik, monsieur, because Erik’s secret is Christine Daaé’s! And to speak of one is to speak of the other! ” “Oh! monsieur!” said Raoul, more and more impatient, you seem to know about many things that interest me, and yet I don’t have time to listen to you! –Once again, Monsieur de Chagny, where are you going so quickly? –Can’t you guess? To the aid of Christine Daaé… –Then, sir, stay here!… because Christine Daaé is here!… –With Erik? –With Erik! –How do you know? –I was at the performance, and there’s only one Erik in the world to plot such an abduction!… Oh! he said with a deep sigh, I recognized the monster’s hand!… “So you know him?” The Persian didn’t answer, but Raoul heard another sigh. “Sir!” said Raoul, “I don’t know what your intentions are… but can you do anything for me?… I mean for Christine Daaé? ” “I believe so, Monsieur de Chagny, and that’s why I approached you. ” “What can you do? ” “Try to get to her… and to him! ” “Sir! That’s an undertaking I’ve already attempted in vain this evening… but if you do me such a service, my life is yours!… Sir, one more word: the police commissioner has just informed me that Christine Daaé has been abducted by my brother, Count Philippe… ” “Oh! Monsieur de Chagny, I don’t believe it… ” “That’s not possible, is it? ” “I don’t know if it’s possible, but there are ways of abducting, and Count Philippe, as far as I know, has never worked in the fairy world.” “Your arguments are striking, sir, and I’m nothing but a madman! Oh! sir! Let’s run! Let’s run! I trust you entirely! How could I not believe you when no one else believes me? When you’re the only one who doesn’t smile when Erik’s name is mentioned! ” Saying this, the young man, whose hands were burning with fever, had, with a spontaneous gesture, taken the Persian’s hands. They were freezing. “Silence!” said the Persian, stopping and listening to the distant sounds of the theater and the slightest creaking that occurred in the walls and neighboring corridors. “Let’s not say that word here anymore. Let’s say ‘He’; ​​we’ll have less chance of attracting his attention… ” “So you think he’s very close to us? ” “Anything is possible, sir… if he isn’t, at this moment, with his victim, in the house by the Lake. ” “Ah! You know that house too?” –… If he is not in this house, he may be in this wall, in this floor, in this ceiling! What do I know?… The eye in this keyhole!… The ear in this beam!… And the Persian, begging him to muffle the sound of his footsteps, led Raoul into corridors that the young man had never seen, even at the time when Christine was leading him through this labyrinth. –Provided, said the Persian, provided that Darius has arrived! –Who is this, Darius? asked the young man again, running. –Darius! He is my servant… They were at that moment in the center of a truly deserted square, an immense room dimly lit by a small lamp. The Persian stopped Raoul and, in a low voice, so low that Raoul could hardly hear him, he asked him: –What did you say to the commissioner? “I told him that Christine Daaé’s thief was the angel of music,” said the Phantom of the Opera, “and that his real name was…” “Pshutt!… And the commissioner believed you? ” “No.” “He didn’t attach any importance to what you said? ” “None at all! ” “He took you for a bit of a madman? ” “Yes.
” “So much the better!” sighed the Persian. And the race began again. After going up and down several staircases unknown to Raoul, the two men found themselves facing a door which the Persian opened with a small passkey he took from a waistcoat pocket. The Persian, like Raoul, was naturally in a suit. Only, if Raoul had a top hat, the Persian had an astrakhan cap, as I have already pointed out. It was a breach of the code of elegance that governed the wings where the top hat is required, but it is understood that in France everything is allowed to foreigners: the traveling cap to the English, the astrakhan cap to the Persians. “Sir,” said the Persian, “your top hat will hinder you on the expedition we are planning… You would do well to leave it in the dressing room…” “Which box?” asked Raoul. “But Christine Daaé’s!” And the Persian, having led Raoul through the door he had just opened, showed him the actress’s box opposite. Raoul was unaware that one could come to Christine’s by any other route than the one he usually followed. He was then at the end of the corridor which he usually walked down before knocking at the door of the box. “Oh! Monsieur, you know the Opera well! ” “Less well than he does!” said the Persian modestly. And he pushed the young man into Christine’s box. It was just as Raoul had left it a few moments before. The Persian, after closing the door, went towards the very thin panel which separated the box from a vast storage room which adjoined it. He listened, then coughed loudly. Immediately there was a stir in the storage room, and a few seconds later there was a knock at the dressing room door. “Come in!” said the Persian. A man entered, also wearing an astrakhan cap and a long greatcoat. He bowed and took a richly carved box from under his coat. He placed it on the dressing table, bowed again, and went to the door. “Did no one see you come in, Darius? ” “No, master. ” “Let no one see you leave.” The servant risked a glance into the corridor and quickly disappeared. “Sir,” said Raoul, “I’m thinking of one thing: we might very well be surprised here, and that would obviously be a nuisance. The commissioner will soon come and search this dressing room. ” “Bah! It’s not the commissioner we should fear.” The Persian had opened the box. There was a pair of long pistols, magnificently designed and decorated. ” Immediately after Christine Daaé’s abduction, I sent word to my servant to bring me these weapons, sir. I have known them for a long time; there are none more reliable. ” “You want to fight a duel?” asked the young man, surprised by the arrival of this arsenal. “It is indeed a duel we are going to, sir,” replied the other, examining the caps of his pistols. ” And what a duel!” Whereupon he handed a pistol to Raoul and said to him again: “In this duel, we will be two against one: but be prepared for anything, sir, for I do not hide from you that we are going to have to deal with the most terrible adversary imaginable. But you love Christine Daaé, do you not? ” “Yes, I do, sir!” But you, who don’t love her, will you explain to me why I find you ready to risk your life for her!… You certainly hate Erik! “No, sir,” said the Persian sadly, “I don’t hate him. If I hated him, he would have stopped doing harm a long time ago. ” “Did he harm you?” “The harm he did me, I have forgiven him. ” “It’s quite extraordinary,” continued the young man, “to hear you speak of that man! You call him a monster, you speak of his crimes, he has harmed you, and I find in you that unheard-of pity that made me despair in Christine herself!” The Persian did not reply. He went to get a stool and brought it against the wall opposite the large mirror that took up the entire section opposite. Then he climbed onto the stool and, his nose on the paper with which the wall was covered, he seemed to be looking for something . “Well!” “Sir!” said Raoul, boiling with impatience. “I ‘m waiting for you. Come on! ” “Where are we going?” asked the other, without turning his head. “But to meet the monster! Come down! Didn’t you tell me you had the means? ” “I’m looking for him. ” And the Persian’s nose wandered again along the wall. “Ah!” said the man in the cap suddenly, “it’s there!” And his finger, above his head, pressed a corner of the drawing on the paper. Then he turned and threw himself down from the stool. “In half a minute,” he said, “we’ll be in her way!” And, crossing the entire dressing room, he went to feel the large mirror. “No! It won’t give way yet…” he murmured. “Oh! we’re going out through the mirror,” said Raoul! “Like Christine!” “You knew then that Christine Daaé had gone out through that mirror? ” “In front of me, sir!” “I was hidden there under the curtain of the dressing room and I saw her disappear, not through the mirror, but into the mirror! ” “And what did you do? ” “I thought, sir, it was an aberration of my senses! Madness! A dream! ” “Some new whim of the ghost,” sneered the Persian. “Ah! Monsieur de Chagny,” he continued, still holding his hand on the mirror, “would to heaven that we had to deal with a ghost!” We could leave our pair of pistols in their box!… Put down your hat, I beg you… there… and now close your coat as much as you can over your breastplate… like me… lower the lapels… raise the collar… we must make ourselves as invisible as possible… He added again, after a short silence, and pressing on the mirror: “The release of the counterweight, when you act on the spring inside the box, is a little slow to produce its effect. It is not the same when you are behind the wall and can act directly on the counterweight. Then the mirror turns, instantly, and is carried away with mad rapidity… ” “What counterweight?” asked Raoul. “Well! But the one that makes this whole section of wall rise on its pivot! You can imagine that it does not move by itself, by magic! ” And the Persian, drawing Raoul close to him with one hand, continued to press the other of the one holding the pistol against the mirror. “You’ll see, in a moment, if you pay close attention, the ice will rise a few millimeters and then move a few more millimeters from left to right. It will then be on a pivot, and it will turn. We’ll never know what you can do with a counterweight! A child can, with his little finger, make a house turn… when a section of wall, however heavy, is brought by the counterweight onto its pivot, perfectly balanced, it weighs no more than a top on its tip. ” “It doesn’t turn!” said Raoul impatiently. “Hey! Wait a minute! You have time to get impatient, sir! The mechanism, obviously, is rusty or the spring is no longer working.” The Persian’s brow grew worried. “And then,” he said, “there may be something else. ” “What, sir! ” “Perhaps he has simply cut the counterweight rope and immobilized the whole system… ” “Why? Doesn’t he know we’re going down that way?” “He may suspect it, for he knows I know the system. ” “Was he the one who showed it to you? ” “No! I looked behind him, and behind his mysterious disappearances, and I found it. Oh! it’s the simplest system of secret doors! It’s a mechanism as old as the sacred palaces of Thebes with a hundred gates, like the throne room at Ecbatana, like the tripod room at Delphi. ” “It doesn’t work!… And Christine, sir!… Christine!…” The Persian said coldly: “We will do everything humanly possible!… but he can stop us at the first step! ” “So he is the master of these walls? ” “He commands the walls, the gates, the trapdoors. In our country, we called him by a name that means: the trapdoor lover.” –That’s exactly how Christine told me about it… with the same mystery and granting him the same formidable power?… But all this seems quite extraordinary to me!… Why do these walls obey him, him alone? Didn’t he build them? “Yes, sir!” And as Raoul looked at him, dumbfounded, the Persian signaled to him to be silent, then his gesture showed him the mirror… It was like a trembling reflection. Their double image was blurred as in a shivering wave, and then everything became motionless again. “You see, sir, that it’s not turning! Let’s take another one. ” “Tonight, there are no others!” declared the Persian, in a singularly lugubrious voice… And now, attention! And be ready to fire!” He himself raised his pistol in front of the mirror. Raoul imitated his gesture. The Persian drew the young man with his free arm to his chest, and suddenly the mirror turned in a dazzling flash, a blinding crossfire; It turned, like one of those rolling doors with compartments that now opens onto public rooms … it turned, carrying Raoul and the Persian with its irresistible movement and throwing them abruptly from full light into the deepest darkness. Chapter 21. In the Underside of the Opera. Hand up, ready to fire! Raoul’s companion repeated hastily. Behind them, the wall, continuing to make a complete turn on itself, had closed. The two men remained motionless for a few moments, holding their breath. In this darkness reigned a silence that nothing came to disturb. Finally, the Persian decided to make a movement, and Raoul heard him sliding on his knees, searching for something in the night with his groping hands. Suddenly, before the young man, the darkness cautiously lit up with the light of a small, dull lantern, and Raoul instinctively recoiled as if to escape the investigation of an enemy secret. But he understood at once that this fire belonged to the Persian, whose every move he was following. The little red disc moved along the walls, above, below, all around them, meticulously. These walls were formed, on the right, by a wall, on the left, by a wooden partition , above and below the floors. And Raoul told himself that Christine had passed by there the day she had followed the voice of the Angel of Music. This must have been Erik’s usual path when he came through the walls to surprise Christine’s good faith and intrigue her innocence. And Raoul, who remembered the Persian’s words, thought that this path had been mysteriously established by the care of the Phantom himself. Now, he was to learn later that Erik had found there, all prepared for him, a secret corridor whose existence he had long been the only one to know. This corridor had been created during the Paris Commune to allow the jailers to lead their prisoners directly to the dungeons that had been built in the cellars, for the federals had occupied the building immediately after March 18 and had made the very top a point of departure for hot-air balloons charged with carrying their incendiary proclamations to the departments, and, at the very bottom, a state prison. The Persian had knelt down and placed his lantern on the ground. He seemed busy with some quick work on the floor and, suddenly, he dimmed his light. Then Raoul heard a slight click and saw in the floor of the corridor a very pale luminous square. It was as if a window had just opened onto the still-lit underside of the Opera. Raoul could no longer see the Persian, but he suddenly felt him at his side and heard his breathing. “Follow me, and do whatever I do.” Raoul was directed toward the luminous skylight. Then he saw the Persian still kneeling and, hanging by his hands from the skylight, letting himself slide down below. The Persian then held his pistol between his teeth. Curiously, the Viscount had complete confidence in the Persian. Despite knowing nothing about him, and most of what he said had only increased the obscurity of this adventure, he did not hesitate to believe that, in this decisive hour, the Persian was with him against Erik. His emotion had seemed sincere to him when he had spoken to him of the monster; the interest he had shown in him did not seem suspect to him. Finally, if the Persian had harbored some sinister plan against Raoul, he would not have armed him with his own hands. And then, to tell the truth, was it not necessary to arrive at Christine at all costs? Raoul had no choice of means. If he had hesitated, even with doubts about the intentions of the Persian, the young man would have considered himself the worst of cowards. Raoul, in his turn, knelt down and hung from the trapdoor with both hands. Let go of everything! he heard, and he fell into the arms of the Persian who immediately ordered him to throw himself flat on his stomach, closed the trapdoor above their heads, without Raoul being able to see by what stratagem, and came to lie down beside the viscount. The latter wanted to ask him a question, but the Persian’s hand pressed on his mouth and immediately he heard a voice which he recognized as that of the police commissioner who had just questioned him. Raoul and the Persian were then both behind a partition which concealed them perfectly. Nearby, a narrow staircase led up to a small room, in which the commissioner must have been walking around asking questions, because the sound of his footsteps could be heard at the same time as that of his voice. The light which surrounded the objects was very weak, but, emerging from this thick darkness which reigned in the secret corridor above, Raoul had no difficulty in distinguishing the shape of things. And he could not suppress a muffled exclamation, for there were three corpses there. The first was stretched out on the narrow landing of the little staircase that led up to the door behind which the commissioner could be heard; the other two had rolled to the bottom of the staircase, arms outstretched. Raoul, passing his fingers through the partition that hid him, could have touched the hand of one of these unfortunates. “Silence!” the Persian said again in a whisper. He too had seen the bodies stretched out and he had a word to explain everything: “Him! ” The commissioner’s voice was then heard more clearly. He demanded explanations about the lighting system, which the stage manager gave him. The commissioner must therefore be in the organ or in its outbuildings. Contrary to what one might believe, especially when it comes to an opera house, the organ is in no way intended to make music. At that time, electricity was only used for certain very limited stage effects and for bell ringing. The immense building and the stage itself were still lit by gas, and it was always with hydrogen gas that the lighting of a set was regulated and modified, and this by means of a special apparatus to which the multiplicity of its pipes gave the name of organ stop. A niche was reserved next to the prompter’s hole for the lighting chief, who, from there, gave his orders to his employees and supervised their execution. It was in this niche that Mauclair stood at all performances. Now, Mauclair was not in his niche, and his employees were not in their place. “Mauclair! Mauclair!” The stage manager’s voice now echoed in the basement like a drum. But Mauclair did not answer: ” We said that a door opened onto a small staircase that rose from the second basement.” The commissioner pushed her, but she resisted: Look! Look! he said… Look, Mr. Manager, I can’t open this door… is it always so difficult? The manager, with a vigorous push of his shoulder, pushed the door open. He noticed that he was pushing a human body at the same time and could not suppress an exclamation: this body, he recognized it immediately: “Mauclair!” All the people who had followed the commissioner on this visit to the organ came forward, worried. “The poor fellow! He’s dead,” moaned the manager. But Commissioner Mifroid, whom nothing surprises, was already leaning over this large body. “No,” he said, “he’s dead drunk! That’s not the same thing. ” “It would be the first time,” declared the manager. “Then they made him take a narcotic… It’s quite possible.” Mifroid got up, went down a few more steps and cried: “Look! By the light of a small red lantern, at the bottom of the stairs, two other bodies were lying there. The manager recognized Mauclair’s assistants… Mifroid went down and examined them. “They’re sleeping soundly,” he said. “A very curious affair!” We can no longer doubt the intervention of a stranger in the lighting department… and this stranger was obviously working for the kidnapper!… But what a strange idea to kidnap an artist on stage!… That’s playing the hardball, or I don’t know anything about it! Get me the theater doctor. And Mr. Mifroid repeated: “Curious! Very curious affair!” Then he turned toward the interior of the small room, addressing people whom, from where they were, neither Raoul nor the Persian could see. “What do you say to all this, gentlemen?” he asked. “You’re the only ones who don’t give your opinion. You must have a little opinion, though…” Then, above the landing, Raoul and the Persian saw the two frightened figures of MM. the directors,–only their faces were visible above the landing–and they heard Moncharmin’s moved voice: “Things are happening here, Mr. Inspector, that we cannot explain.” And the two figures disappeared. “Thank you for the information, gentlemen,” said Mifroid, mockingly. “But the stage manager, whose chin was then resting in the hollow of his right hand, which is the gesture of deep reflection, said: “This is not the first time that Mauclair has fallen asleep at the theater. I remember finding him one evening, snoring in his little niche, next to his snuffbox. ” “How long ago was that?” asked Mr. Mifroid, meticulously wiping the lenses of his glasses, for Mr. Inspector was short-sighted, as happens to the most beautiful eyes in the world. “My God!” said the manager. “No, not so long ago. ” “Here!” It was evening. ” Well, yes, it was the evening when Carlotta, you know very well, Mr. Inspector, made her famous quack!” “Really, the evening when Carlotta made her famous quack?” And Mr. Mifroid, having put the transparent glasses back on his nose , stared attentively at the manager, as if he wanted to penetrate his thoughts. “Mauclair taken then?” he asked in a careless tone. “Why, yes, Mr. Inspector… Here, right on this board is his snuffbox… Oh! He’s a great auctioneer. ” “And me too!” said Mr. Mifroid, and he put the snuffbox in his pocket. Raoul and the Persian, without anyone suspecting their presence, witnessed the transport of the three bodies, which the stagehands came to remove. The inspector followed them, and everyone behind him went back upstairs. Their footsteps could still be heard echoing on the plateau for a few moments. When they were alone, the Persian signaled to Raoul to stand up. The latter obeyed; but as, at the same time, he had not placed his hand high in front of his eyes, ready to shoot, as the Persian never failed to do, the latter advised him to take up this position again and not to depart from it, whatever happened. “But that tires the hand unnecessarily!” murmured Raoul, “and if I shoot, I will no longer be sure of myself! “Change your weapon hand, then!” conceded the Persian. “I don’t know how to shoot with my left hand!” To which the Persian replied with this bizarre declaration, which was evidently not made to clarify the situation in the young man’s troubled mind: “It is not a question of shooting with your left hand or your right hand; it is a question of having one of your hands placed as if it were going to pull the trigger of a pistol, the arm being half bent; as for the pistol itself, after all, you can put it in your pocket .” And he added: “Let this be understood, or I will no longer be responsible for anything! It is a question of life or death. Now, silence and follow me!” They were then in the second basement; Raoul could only glimpse, by the light of a few motionless candles, here and there, in their glass prisons, a tiny part of this extravagant, sublime, and childish abyss, amusing as a Guignol box, frightening as a chasm, which is the underside of the stage at the Opera. They are formidable and five in number. They reproduce all the planes of the stage, its trapdoors and its trappillons. Only the ribs are replaced by rails. Transverse frames support the trapdoors and trappillons. Posts, resting on cast iron or stone blocks, on shaped sandstones or caps, form series of trusses that allow free passage for the glories and other combinations or tricks. These devices are given a certain stability by connecting them by means of iron hooks and according to the needs of the moment. The winches, the drums, the counterweights are generously distributed in the underside. They are used to maneuver the large sets, to make changes in sight, to cause the sudden disappearance of fairy characters. It is from the underworld, said Messrs. X., Y., Z. , who devoted such an interesting study to Garnier’s work, it is from the underworld that we transform the decrepit into beautiful riders, the hideous witches into fairies radiant with youth. Satan comes from the underworld, just as he sinks into it. The lights of hell escape from it, the choirs of demons take their place there. … And the ghosts walk there as if at home… Raoul followed the Persian, obeying his recommendations to the letter, not trying to understand the gestures he ordered him… telling himself that he had no hope left but in himself. … What would he have done without his companion in this terrifying maze? Would he not have been stopped at every step by the prodigious interweaving of beams and ropes? Would he not have become caught, unable to extricate himself, in this gigantic spider’s web? And if he had been able to pass through this network of wires and counterweights constantly reborn before him, would he not have run the risk of falling into one of those holes which opened at times under his feet and whose depth of darkness the eye could not perceive! … They descended… They descended again… Now they were in the third basement. And their progress was always illuminated by some distant light. The lower they descended, the more the Persian seemed to take precautions… He never ceased to turn towards Raoul and to advise him to hold himself as he should, showing him the way in which he himself held his fist, now unarmed, but always ready to fire as if he had a pistol. Suddenly a resounding voice nailed them to the spot. Someone above them was yelling. “All the door closers on the plateau! Is the police commissioner asking for them? ” Footsteps were heard, and shadows glided through the darkness. The Persian had lured Raoul behind a rack… They saw passing near them, above them, old men bent over by the years and old burden of opera sets. Some could barely drag themselves…; others, out of habit, with their backs low and their hands outstretched , were looking for doors to close. For they were the door closers… the old exhausted stagehands whom a charitable management had taken pity on… They had made them door closers in the lower and upper sections. They were constantly going back and forth from the top to the bottom of the stage to close the doors–and they were also called at that time, because since then, I believe they are all dead: the draft chasers. Drafts, wherever they come from, are very bad for the voice. The Persian and Raoul congratulated themselves in private on this incident which freed them from troublesome witnesses, because some of the door closers, having nothing more to do and hardly having a home, remained out of laziness or need, at the Opera, where they spent the night. One could knock upon them, wake them up, attract a demand for explanations. Mr. Mifroid’s investigation momentarily saved our two companions from these unpleasant encounters. But they did not have long to enjoy their solitude… Other shadows, now, were coming down the same path by which the door closers had gone up. These shadows each had a small lantern in front of them… which they waved loudly, carrying it up and down, examining everything around them and seeming, quite obviously, to be looking for something or someone. Devil! murmured the Persian… I don’t know what they’re looking for, but they might well find us… let’s flee!… quickly!… Hand on guard, sir, always ready to fire!… Bend your arm, more, there!… hand at eye level, as if you were fighting a duel and waiting for the fire commander!… Leave your pistol in your pocket!… Quick, let’s go down! He was dragging Raoul down into the fourth basement… at eye level, a matter of life or death!… There, this way, up those stairs! They were coming to the fifth basement… Ah! What a duel, sir, what a duel!… The Persian, having arrived at the bottom of the fifth basement, breathed… He seemed to enjoy a little more security than he had shown just now when they had both stopped at the third, but nevertheless he did not depart from the attitude of the hand!… Raoul had time to be astonished once more—without, moreover, making any new observation, none at all! for in truth, it was not the moment—to be astonished, I said, in silence, at this extraordinary conception of personal defense which consisted of keeping one’s pistol in one’s pocket while the hand remained quite ready to use it as if the pistol were still in the hand, at eye level; the ready position of the fire commander! in the duel of that period. And, on this subject, Raoul believed he could still think this: I remember very well that he said to me: These are pistols that I am sure of. From which it seemed logical to him to draw this interrogative conclusion: What does it matter to him to be sure of a pistol that he finds useless to use? But the Persian stopped him in his vague attempts at cogitation. Gesturing to him to stay in place, he went up a few steps of the staircase they had just left. Then quickly, he returned to Raoul. “We are stupid,” he whispered to him, “we will soon be rid of the shadows with the lanterns…” It is the firemen who are making their rounds.
The two men then remained on the defensive for at least five long minutes, then the Persian led Raoul again towards the staircase they had just descended; but, suddenly, his gesture ordered him to remain still again. … Before them, the night was stirring. “Flat on your stomach!” the Persian breathed! –The two men lay down on the ground. It was high time. … A shadow that this time carried no lantern, …a shadow simply in the shadow passed. It passed close to them, touching them. They felt, on their faces, the warm breath of its coat… For they could distinguish it well enough to see that the shadow had a coat that enveloped it from head to toe. On its head, a soft felt hat. … It moved away, skimming the walls with its feet and sometimes, kicking the walls in the corners. –Phew! said the Persian… we had a close call… This shadow knows me and has already brought me back to the director’s office twice. –Is it someone from the theater police? asked Raoul. –It’s someone much worse! replied the Persian without further explanation. –It’s not… him? –Him?… if he doesn’t come from behind, we’ll always see his golden eyes!… That’s kind of our strength in the night. But he can come from behind… stealthily… and we’re dead if we don’t always hold our hands as if they were going to pull, at eye level, from the front! The Persian had hardly finished formulating this line of attitude when, before the two men, a fantastic figure appeared. … A whole figure… a face; not just two golden eyes. … But a whole luminous face… a whole figure on fire! Yes, a figure on fire that advanced at the height of a man, but without a body! This figure gave off fire. It appeared, in the night, like a flame in the shape of a man’s face. –Oh! said the Persian between his teeth, it’s the first time I ‘ve seen it!… The fire lieutenant wasn’t crazy! He had seen it!… What is that flame there? It’s not him! But it may be he who sends it to us!… Watch out!… Watch out!… Your hand at eye level, in heaven’s name!… at eye level! The burning figure, which seemed like a figure from hell—a burning demon—still advanced at human height, without body, in front of the two terrified men… –Perhaps he’s sending us that figure from the front, to better surprise us from behind… or from the sides… you never know with him!… I know a lot of his tricks!… but that one!… that one!… I don’t know him yet!… Let’s flee! … out of caution!… aren’t we?… out of caution!… with your hand at eye level.. And they both fled, all along the long underground corridor that opened before them. After a few seconds of this race, which seemed to them like long, long minutes, they stopped. “Yet,” said the Persian, “he rarely comes this way! This side doesn’t concern him!… This side doesn’t lead to the Lake or to the Lake’s dwelling!… But perhaps he knows that we are after him!… although I promised him to leave him alone from now on and not to concern myself with his stories anymore. ” So saying, he turned his head, and Raoul also turned his head. Now, they saw the burning head again behind their two heads. It had followed them… And it must have run too and perhaps faster than them, for it seemed to them that it had come closer. At the same time, they began to distinguish a certain noise whose nature it was impossible for them to guess; they simply realized that this noise seemed to move and come closer with the flame in the shape of a man. There were squeaking, or rather grinding sounds, as if thousands of fingernails had been scraping the blackboard, a frightfully unbearable noise which is still sometimes produced by a small stone inside the stick of chalk grinding against the blackboard. They moved back again, but the flame figure advanced, advanced always, gaining on them. You could see his features very well now. His eyes were all round and fixed, his nose a little crooked and his mouth large with a lower lip in a semicircle, hanging down; almost like the eyes, nose and lip of the moon, when the moon is all red, the color of blood. How did this red moon slide in the darkness, at the height of a man without a point of support, without a body to support it, at least apparently? And how did it go so fast, so straight, with its eyes fixed, so fixed? And all this grinding, cracking, screeching that it dragged with it, where did it come from? At one point, the Persian and Raoul could no longer retreat and they flattened themselves against the wall, not knowing what would become of them because of this incomprehensible figure of fire and especially, now, of the more intense, more swarming, more alive, very numerous noise, because certainly this noise was made up of hundreds of small noises which stirred in the darkness, under the flaming head. It advances, the flaming head… there it is!… with its noise!… there it is at the height!… And the two companions, flattened against the wall, feel their hair stand on end in horror on their heads, for they now know where the thousand noises come from. They come in a troop, rolled in the shadow by innumerable small rushing waves, faster than the waves which trot on the sand, at the rising tide, small waves of night which billow under the moon, under the flaming head moon. And the little waves pass over their legs, rise up their legs, irresistibly. Then, Raoul and the Persian can no longer hold back their cries of horror, terror, and pain. Nor can they continue to hold their hands at eye level—the posture of a pistol duel at that time, before the command: Fire!—Their hands go down to their legs to push back the little shiny islands, rolling with sharp little things, waves that are full of paws, and nails, and claws, and teeth. Yes, yes, Raoul and the Persian are ready to faint like Fire Lieutenant Papin. But the fire head has turned toward them at their scream. And it speaks to them: —Don’t move! Don’t move!… Above all, don’t follow me!… I’m the rat killer!… Let me pass with my rats!… And suddenly, the fiery head disappears, vanished into the darkness, while in front of it the corridor, in the distance, lights up, a simple result of the maneuver that the rat killer has just subjected his dark lantern to. Just now, so as not to frighten the rats in front of him, he had turned his dark lantern on itself, illuminating his own head; now to hasten his escape, he lights up the black space in front of it… Then he leaps, dragging with him all the waves of rats, climbing, screeching, all the thousand noises… The Persian and Raoul, freed, breathe, although still trembling. “I should have remembered that Erik had told me about the rat killer,” said the Persian, “but he hadn’t told me that he appeared in that guise… and it’s strange that I’ve never met him. Ah! I thought that was another one of the monster’s tricks!…” he sighed… “But no! He never comes around here!” “So we’re a long way from the lake?” asked Raoul. “When will we get there, sir?… Let’s go to the lake! Let’s go to the lake!… When we get to the lake, we’ll call out, we’ll shake the walls, we ‘ll shout!… Christine will hear us!… And he will hear us too!… And since you know him, we’ll talk to him! ” “Child!” said the Persian… “We’ll never enter the Lake’s dwelling by the Lake! ” “Why is that?” –Because that’s where he’s built up all his defenses… I myself have never been able to reach the other bank!… the bank of the house!… You have to cross the lake first… and it’s well guarded!… I fear that more than one of those—former stagehands, old door closers—who were never seen again, simply tried to cross the lake… It’s terrible… I almost died there myself… If the monster hadn’t recognized me in time!…. A word of advice, sir, never approach the Lake… And above all, plug your ears if you hear the Voice under the Veal singing, the voice of the Siren. “But then,” Raoul continued in a transport of fever, impatience, and rage , “what are we doing here?… If you can’t do anything for Christine, at least let me die for her. ” The Persian tried to calm the young man. “We have only one way to save Christine Daaé, believe me, and that is to enter this house without the monster noticing. ” “Can we hope for that, sir? ” “Eh!” If I didn’t have that hope, I wouldn’t have come looking for you! –And how can we get into the Lake’s house without going through the Lake?
–By the third basement, from which we were so unfortunately driven out… sir, and where we are going to return at once… I’ll tell you, sir, said the Persian, his voice suddenly altered… I’ll tell you the exact place… It’s between a farm and an abandoned set of the King of Lahore, exactly, exactly where Joseph Buquet died… –Ah! That chief stagehand who was found hanged? –Yes, sir, added the Persian in a strange tone, and whose rope could not be found!… Come on! Be brave… and let’s go!… and put your hand back in guard, sir… But where are we then? The Persian had to light his dull lantern again. He directed the luminous jet onto two vast corridors which crossed at right angles and whose vaults disappeared into infinity. “We must be,” he said, “in the part reserved more particularly for the water service… I don’t see any fire coming from the radiators.” He preceded Raoul, searching for his way, stopping abruptly when he feared the passage of some hydraulic engineer, then they had to avoid the glow of a sort of underground forge which was being extinguished and before which Raoul recognized the demons glimpsed by Christine during her first journey on the day of her first captivity. Thus, they returned little by little to the prodigious underside of the stage. They must then have been at the very bottom of the tank, at a very great depth, if one considers that the earth was dug fifteen meters below the layers of water which existed in all this part of the capital; and all the water had to be drained… So much was removed that, to get an idea of ​​the mass of water expelled by the pumps, one would have to imagine the surface area of ​​the courtyard of the Louvre and the height of one and a half times the towers of Notre Dame. All the same, a lake had to be kept. At that moment, the Persian touched a wall and said: “If I am not mistaken, here is a wall that could well belong to the lake’s dwelling!” He then struck against a wall of the tank. And perhaps it is not useless for the reader to know how the bottom and walls of the tank were constructed . In order to prevent the water surrounding the construction from remaining in immediate contact with the walls supporting any restoration of the theatrical machinery, the whole of whose framework, carpentry, metalwork, and canvases painted in tempera must be specially protected from humidity, the architect saw himself in the necessity of establishing a double envelope everywhere. The work on this double envelope took a whole year. It was against the wall of the first inner envelope that the Persian knocked when speaking to Raoul about the house on the Lake. To someone familiar with the architecture of the monument, the Persian’s gesture seemed to indicate that Erik’s mysterious house had been built in the double envelope, formed of a large wall built like a cofferdam, then by a brick wall, an enormous layer of cement and another wall several meters thick. At the Persian’s words, Raoul had thrown himself against the wall, and listened avidly. … But he heard nothing… nothing but distant footsteps echoing on the floor in the upper parts of the theater. The Persian had once again extinguished his lantern. –Attention! he said… watch your hand! and now silence! for we are going to try again to enter his house. And he led him to the small staircase which they had just descended. … They went back up, stopping at each step, spying on the shadow and the silence… Thus they found themselves on the third floor below… The Persian then signaled to Raoul to get down on his knees, and it was thus, dragging themselves on their knees and on one hand – the other hand still being in the indicated position – that they arrived against the back wall. Against this wall, there was a vast abandoned canvas from the set of The King of Lahore. … And, very close to this set, a rack… Between this set and this rack, there was just enough room for a body. … A body, which one day had been found hanging… the body of Joseph Buquet. The Persian, still on his knees, had stopped. He was listening. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate and looked at Raoul, then his eyes fixed above, towards the second one below, which sent them the faint glow of a lantern, in the space between two boards. Obviously, this glow bothered the Persian. Finally, he nodded and made up his mind. He slipped between the rack and the set of The King of Lahore. Raoul was at his heels. The Persian’s free hand felt the wall. Raoul saw him press hard on the wall for a moment, as he had pressed on the wall of Christine’s lodge… …And a stone toppled… There was now a hole in the wall… This time the Persian took his pistol out of his pocket and indicated to Raoul that he should imitate him. He cocked the pistol. And resolutely, still on his knees, he stepped into the hole that the stone, as it toppled, had made in the wall. Raoul, who had wanted to go first, had to be content with following him. This hole was very narrow. The Persian stopped almost immediately. Raoul could hear him feeling the stone around him. And then, he took out his dull lantern again and leaned forward, examined something beneath him, and immediately extinguished the lantern. Raoul heard him say to him in a whisper: “We’ll have to drop a few meters, without noise; undo your boots.” The Persian was already carrying out this operation himself. He passed his shoes to Raoul. “Put them down,” he said, “beyond the wall… We’ll find them again when we leave. ” With that, the Persian moved forward a little. Then he turned completely around, still on his knees, and found himself face to face with Raoul. He said to him: “I’m going to hang by my hands from the end of the stone and let myself fall into his house. Then you will do exactly as I do. Don’t worry: I will receive you in my arms. ” The Persian did as he said; and below him, Raoul soon heard a dull noise which was evidently produced by the Persian’s fall. The young man shuddered, fearing that this noise would reveal their presence. However, more than this noise, the absence of any other noise was a terrible source of anxiety for Raoul. What! According to the Persian, they had just entered the very walls of the Lake’s residence, and Christine was not heard!… Not a cry!… Not a call!… Not a moan!… Great gods! Had they arrived too late?… Scraping the wall with his knees, clinging to the stone with his nervous fingers, Raoul, in his turn, let himself fall. And immediately he felt an embrace. “It’s me!” said the Persian, “silence!” And they remained motionless, listening… Never, around them, had the night been more opaque… Never had the silence been heavier or more terrible… Raoul dug his nails into his lips to keep from screaming: Christine! It’s me!… Tell me if you’re not dead, Christine? Finally, the game of the dull lantern began again. The Persian directed its rays above their heads, against the wall, looking for the hole through which they had come and no longer finding it… “Oh!” he said… “the stone has closed of its own accord.” And the luminous jet of the lantern descended along the wall, then to the parquet floor. The Persian bent down and picked up something, a sort of thread which he examined for a second and then threw away with horror. “The thread of the Punjab!” he murmured. “What is it?” asked Raoul. “That,” replied the Persian, shivering, “could well be the hangman’s noose that we have been looking for so long!” And, suddenly seized by a new anxiety, he moved the little red disk of his lantern over the walls… Thus, by a strange event, he lit up a tree trunk that seemed still completely alive with its leaves… and the branches of this tree rose all along the wall and were about to disappear into the ceiling. Because of the smallness of the luminous disk, it was difficult at first to take things into account… one saw a corner of branches… and then a leaf… and another… and beside it, one saw nothing at all… nothing but the luminous jet that seemed to reflect itself… Raoul slid his hand over this nothing at all, over this reflection… “Look!” he said… “the wall, it’s a mirror! ” “Yes! a mirror!” said the Persian, in a tone of the deepest emotion . And he added, passing his hand that held the pistol over his sweating forehead: “We have fallen into the torture chamber!” Note 3: Mr. Pedro Gailhard himself told me that he had again created positions as door closers for old stagehands, whom he himself did not want to fire. Note 4: At that time, the firefighters still had the mission, outside of performances, of ensuring the safety of the Opera; but this service has since been abolished. When I asked Mr. Pedro Gailhard the reason, he replied that it was because they were afraid that, in their complete inexperience of the theater’s underbelly , they would set it on fire. Note 5: The author, no more than the Persian, will give any other explanation for this apparition of a shadow. While everything in this historical story will normally be explained in the course of sometimes seemingly abnormal events , the author will not expressly make the reader understand what the Persian meant by these words: He is someone much worse! than someone from the theater police. The reader will have to guess, because the author promised the former director of the Opera, Mr. Pedro Gailhard, to keep secret the extremely interesting and useful personality of the wandering shadow in the cloak who, while condemning himself to live in the lower parts of the theater, rendered such prodigious services to those who, on gala evenings, for example, dare to venture into the upper parts. I am speaking here of state services, and I cannot say more, my word. Note 6: The former director of the Opera, Mr. Pedro Gailhard, told me one day at Cap d’Ail, at Mrs. Pierre Wolff’s, about the immense underground depredation caused by the ravages of rats, until the day when the administration negotiated, for a rather high price, moreover, with an individual who promised to eliminate the scourge by coming to visit the cellars every two weeks. Since then, there are no more rats at the Opera, except those that are allowed in the dance hall. Mr. Gailhard thought that this man had discovered a secret perfume that attracted rats to him like the rooster levent with which some fishermen adorn their legs attracts fish. He would drag them, in his footsteps, into some cave, where the rats, intoxicated, would let themselves be drowned. We have seen the terror that the appearance of this figure had already caused to the lieutenant of firemen, terror that had gone as far as fainting–conversation with Mr. Gailhard–and, for me, there is no doubt that the flaming head encountered by this fireman is the same one that put the Persian and the Viscount of Chagny in such cruel turmoil . Papers of the Persian. Note 7: These two pairs of boots were never found, which had been placed, according to the papers of the Persian, just between the rack and the decor of the King of Lahore, at the place where Joseph Briquet was found hanged. They must have been taken by some stagehand or door closer. Chapter 22. INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE TRIBULATIONS OF A PERSIAN IN THE DOWNSTAIRS OF THE OPERA The Persian’s Story. The Persian himself recounted how he had tried in vain, until that night, to enter the Lake’s house by the lake; how he had discovered the entrance to the third downstairs, and how, finally, the Viscount of Chagny and he found themselves grappling with the infernal imagination of the ghost in the torture chamber . Here is the written account that he left us under conditions that will be specified later and in which I have not changed a word. I give it as is, because I did not believe it necessary to pass over in silence the personal adventures of the daroga around the Lake’s house, before he fell in with Raoul. If, for a few moments, this very interesting beginning seems to take us a little away from the torture chamber, it is only to better bring us there immediately, after having explained to you some very important things and certain attitudes and ways of doing things of the Persian, which may have seemed quite extraordinary. It was the first time that I entered the house of the Lake, writes the Persian. In vain I had begged the trapdoor enthusiast—that is what, among us, in Persia, we called Erik—to open its mysterious doors for me. He had always refused. I, who was paid to know many of his secrets and tricks, had tried in vain, by trickery, to force the order. Since I had found Erik at the Opera, where he seemed to have taken up residence, I had often spied on him, sometimes in the corridors above, sometimes in those below, sometimes on the very shore of the Lake, when he thought he was alone, when he climbed into the little boat and landed directly at the opposite wall. But the shadow surrounding him was always too opaque to allow me to see the exact spot where he was opening his door in the wall. Curiosity, and also a terrible idea that came to me while reflecting on some remarks the monster had made to me, pushed me, one day when I thought I was alone in my turn, to throw myself into the little boat and steer it towards that part of the wall where I had seen Erik disappear. It was then that I had dealings with the Siren who guarded the approaches to these places, and whose charm had almost been fatal to me, in the precise circumstances described below. I had no sooner left the shore than the silence in which I was sailing was imperceptibly disturbed by a sort of singing breath that surrounded me. It was at once a breath and a music; it rose gently from the waters of the Lake and I was enveloped in it without being able to discover by what artifice. It followed me, moved with me, and it was so sweet that it did not frighten me. On the contrary, in the desire to get closer to the source of this sweet and captivating harmony, I leaned over my little boat towards the waters, for there was no doubt for me that this song came from the waters themselves. I was already in the middle of the Lake and there was no one else in the boat but me; the voice,–for it was now distinctly a voice,–was beside me, on the waters. I leaned over… I leaned over again… The Lake was perfectly calm and the moonbeam which, after passing through the air vent of the Rue Scribe, came to illuminate it, showed me absolutely nothing on its smooth, inky-black surface. I shook my ears a little in an attempt to rid myself of a possible buzzing, but I had to surrender to the evidence that there is no buzzing in the ears as harmonious as the singing breath which followed me and which, now, attracted me. If I had been a superstitious spirit or easily accessible to the weak, I would not have failed to think that I was dealing with some siren charged with troubling the traveler bold enough to travel on the waters of the house of the Lake, but, thank God! I am from a country where they love the fantastic too much not to know it thoroughly and I myself had once studied it too much with the simplest tricks , someone who knows his trade can make the poor human imagination work . I therefore had no doubt that I was grappling with a new invention of Erik, but once again this invention was so perfect that, leaning over the little boat, I was driven less by the desire to discover its deception than to enjoy its charm. And I leaned, I leaned… to the point of capsizing. Suddenly, two monstrous arms emerged from the bosom of the waters and grabbed my neck, dragging me into the abyss with irresistible force. I would certainly have been lost if I hadn’t had time to utter a cry, by which Erik recognized me. For it was he, and instead of drowning me as he had certainly intended, he swam and gently set me down on the bank. “See how imprudent you are,” he said to me, standing up before me, dripping with this hellish water. “Why try to enter my home! I didn’t invite you. I don’t want you, or anyone in the world! Did you save my life only to make it unbearable? However great the service rendered, Erik may end up forgetting it, and you know that nothing can hold Erik back, not even Erik himself.” He was speaking, but now I had no other desire than to know what I already called the mermaid’s trick. He was willing to satisfy my curiosity, for Erik, who is a real monster—for me, that is how I judge him, having had, alas! in Persia, the opportunity to see him at work—is still in certain ways a real presumptuous and vain child, and he loves nothing more, after having astonished everyone, than to prove all the truly miraculous ingenuity of his mind. He began to laugh and showed me a long reed stalk. “It’s as silly as a cabbage!” he said, “but it’s very convenient for breathing and singing in the water! It’s a trick I taught the pirates of Tonkin, who can thus remain hidden for hours at the bottom of rivers. ” I spoke to him sternly. “It’s a trick that nearly killed me!” I said… and it may have been fatal to others! He didn’t answer me, but he stood up in front of me with that air of childish menace that I know well. I didn’t let myself be intimidated. I said to him very clearly: “You know what you promised me, Erik! No more crimes! ” “Did I really,” he asked, assuming a friendly air, ” commit crimes? ” “Unhappy man!” I cried… “So you have forgotten the rosy hours of Mazenderan? ” “Yes,” he replied, suddenly sad, “I prefer to have forgotten them, but I did make the little sultana laugh. ” “All that,” I declared, “is in the past… but there is the present…” and you owe me an account for the present, since, if I had wanted it, it would not exist for you!… Remember this, Erik: I saved your life! And I took advantage of the turn the conversation had taken to speak to him about something that, for some time, had often come to mind. “Erik,” I asked… “Erik, swear to me… ” “What?” he said, “you know very well that I don’t keep my oaths. Oaths are made to catch fools. ” “Tell me… You can say that to me? ” “Well?
” “Well!… The chandelier… the chandelier? Erik… ” “What, the chandelier? ” “You know what I can say? ” “Ah!” he sneered, “that, the chandelier… I’ll tell you!… The chandelier, that’s not me!… It was very worn, the chandelier… When he laughed, Erik was even more frightening. He jumped into the boat, chuckling in such a sinister way that I couldn’t help but tremble. “Very worn out, dear Daroga! Very worn out, the chandelier!… It fell all by itself… It went boom! And now, a word of advice, Daroga, go and dry yourself, if you don’t want to catch a head cold!… and never get back into my boat… and above all, don’t try to enter my house… I’m not always here… Daroga! And I would be sorry to dedicate my mass for the dead to you!” So saying and chuckling, he stood at the stern of his boat and rowed with a monkey-like sway. He looked very much like the fatal rock then, with his golden eyes as well. And then, soon I saw nothing but his eyes and finally he disappeared into the night of the lake. From that day on, I gave up trying to enter his home by way of the lake! Obviously, that entrance was too well guarded, especially since he knew that I knew it. But I thought there must be another one, because more than once I had seen Erik disappear into the third basement, while I was watching him and without being able to imagine how. I cannot repeat it too often, since I had found Erik, installed at the Opera, I lived in perpetual terror of his horrible fantasies, not at all as far as I could concern myself, certainly, but I dreaded everything about him for others. And when some accident happened, some fatal event, I never failed to say to myself: It may be Erik!… as others around me said: It’s the Phantom!… How many times have I not heard this phrase uttered by people who were smiling! The unfortunates! If they had known that this phantom existed in flesh and blood and was far more terrible than the vain shadow they evoked, I swear they would have stopped mocking!… If they had only known what Erik was capable of, especially in a field of maneuver like the Opera!… And if they had known the depths of my formidable thoughts!… As for me, I was no longer alive!… Although Erik had announced to me very solemnly that he had changed and that he had become the most virtuous of men, since he was loved for himself, a phrase which left me terribly perplexed at the time, I could not help but shudder at the thought of the monster. His horrible, unique and repulsive ugliness placed him outside the pale of humanity, and it had often appeared to me that he no longer believed, by that very fact, that he had any duty towards the human race. The way he had spoken to me of his loves had only increased my trances, for I foresaw in this event to which he had alluded in a tone of boasting that I knew him to be, the cause of new dramas and more dreadful than all the rest. I knew to what degree of sublime and disastrous despair Erik’s grief could go, and the words he had spoken to me—vaguely foreshadowing the most horrible catastrophe—never ceased to inhabit my fearful thoughts. On the other hand, I had discovered the bizarre moral commerce that had taken place established between the monster and Christine Daaé. Hidden in the storage room which follows the dressing room of the young diva, I had attended admirable musical sessions, which obviously plunged Christine into a marvelous ecstasy, but all the same I had not thought that Erik’s voice – which was resounding like thunder or sweet like that of angels, at will – could make us forget his ugliness. I understood everything when I discovered that Christine had not yet seen him! I had the opportunity to enter the dressing room and, remembering the lessons he had given me in the past, I had no difficulty in finding the thing which made the wall which supported the mirror pivot, and I noted by means of hollow bricks, of megaphone bricks, he made himself heard by Christine as if he had been at her side. From there, too, I discovered the path that led to the fountain and the dungeon—the Communards’ dungeon—and also the trapdoor that would allow Erik to enter directly into the area beneath the stage. A few days later, what was my astonishment to learn, with my own eyes and ears, that Erik and Christine Daaé were seeing each other, and to surprise the monster, leaning over the little weeping fountain, in the Communards’ path at the very end, underground, and in the process of refreshing the forehead of the fainted Christine Daaé. A white horse, the Prophet’s horse, which had disappeared from the stables beneath the Opera, was standing quietly beside them. I showed myself. It was terrible. I saw sparks fly from two golden eyes and, before I could say a word, I was struck full in the forehead by a blow that stunned me. When I came to, Erik, Christine, and the white horse had disappeared. I had no doubt that the unfortunate woman was a prisoner in the house on the Lake. Without hesitation, I resolved to return to the shore, despite the certain danger of such an undertaking. For twenty-four hours I watched, hidden near the black bank, for the appearance of the monster, for I thought that he must come out, forced as he was to go and get his provisions. And in this connection, I must say that, when he went out into Paris or dared to show himself in public, he put in place of his horrible nostril a pasteboard nose trimmed with a mustache, which did not entirely remove his macabre air, since, when he passed, people would say behind him: Look, there’s Father Cheat Death passing by, but which made him almost—I say almost—bearable to see. So I was watching for him on the shore of the Lake, – of Lake Avernus, as he had called, several times, in front of me, sneering, his lake – and tired of my long patience, I was still saying to myself: He has passed by another door, the one on the third floor below, when I heard a little lapping in the dark, I saw the two golden eyes shining like lanterns , and soon the boat was approaching. Erik jumped onto the shore and came to me. – You have been here for twenty-four hours, he said to me; you are bothering me! I am telling you that all this will end very badly! And it is indeed you who will have wanted it! for my patience is prodigious for you!… You think you are following me, immense simpleton, – verbatim – and it is I who am following you, and I know everything that you know about me, here. I spared you yesterday, on my way to the Communards; but I tell you, truly, that I will not see you there again! All this is very imprudent, my word! and I wonder if you still know what speaking means! He was so very angry that I took care not to interrupt him at that moment. After blowing like a seal, he clarified his horrible thought—which corresponded to my fearful thought. —Yes, one must know once and for all—once and for all, it is said—what speaking means! I tell you that with your imprudence—for you have already been arrested twice by the shadow in the felt hat, who didn’t know what you were doing downstairs and who led you to the directors, who took you for a fanciful Persian who was fond of fairy tales and theater backstage. I was there… yes, I was there in the office; you know very well that I am everywhere– so I tell you that with your imprudence, people will end up wondering what you are looking for here… and they will end up knowing that you are looking for Erik… and they will want, like you, to look for Erik… and they will discover the house on the Lake… So, too bad, old man! too bad!… I am no longer responsible for anything!
He blew again like a seal. –You’re welcome!… If Erik’s secrets do not remain Erik’s secrets, too bad for many of those of the human race! That is all I had to say to you and, unless you are a huge simpleton–textual–that should be enough for you; Unless you know what talking means!… He sat on the back of his boat and tapped the wood of the small craft with his heels, waiting for what I had to say to him; I simply said to him: “It’s not Erik I’m looking for here!” ” And who is it? ” “You know it well: it’s Christine Daaé!” He replied: “I have every right to arrange to meet her at my house. I am loved for myself. ” “That’s not true,” I said; “you kidnapped her and you’re holding her prisoner! ” “Listen,” he said to me, “will you promise me that you won’t bother with my business if I prove to you that I am loved for myself? ” “Yes, I promise,” I replied without hesitation, for I thought that for such a monster, such proof was impossible to make. “Well, there you go! It’s quite simple!… Christine Daaé will leave here as she pleases and will return!… Yes, she will return! because it pleases her… she will return of her own accord, because she loves me for myself!… –Oh! I doubt she’ll come back!… But it’s your duty to let her go. –My duty, you immense fool! verbatim–It’s my will… my will to let her go, and she will come back… because she loves me!… All this, I tell you, will end in a wedding… a wedding à la Madeleine, you immense fool! verbatim. Do you believe me, in the end? When I tell you that my wedding mass is already written… you’ll see this Kyrie… He tapped his heels again on the wood of the boat, in a kind of rhythm that he accompanied in a low voice while singing: Kyrie!… Kyrie!… Kyrie Eleïson!… You’ll see, you’ll see this mass! “Listen,” I concluded, “I’ll believe you if I see Christine Daaé leave the house on the Lake and return freely! ” “And you won’t mind my business anymore? ” “Well! You’ll see about that tonight… Come to the masked ball. Christine and I will go and have a little look around… Then you can hide in the storeroom and you’ll see that Christine, who will have returned to her dressing room, will be happy to return to the path of the Communards. ” “That’s understood! If I saw that, indeed, I would only have to bow, because a very beautiful person always has the right to love the most horrible monster, especially when, like this one, he has the seduction of music and when this person is precisely a very distinguished singer. ” “And now, go away!” because I have to leave to go to the market!… So I left, still worried about Christine Daaé, but having above all, deep down, a terrible thought, since he had awakened her so formidably about my imprudence. I said to myself: How will all this end? And, although I was rather fatalistic by temperament, I could not get rid of an indefinable anguish because of the incredible responsibility that I had taken one day, by letting live the monster that today threatened many of those of the human race. To my prodigious astonishment, things happened as it had had announced it. Christine Daaé left the house on the Lake and returned there several times without apparently being forced to. My mind then wanted to detach itself from this mysterious lover, but it was very difficult, especially for me—because of the dreaded thought—not to think of Erik. However, resigned to extreme prudence, I did not commit the error of returning to the shores of the Lake or of taking the path of the Communards. But the haunting of the secret door on the third floor pursuing me, I went more than once directly to this place that I knew was deserted most of the day. I made interminable stops there, twiddling my thumbs and hidden by a set of the King of Lahore, which had been left there, I do not know why, because the King of Lahore was not often performed . So much patience was to be rewarded. One day, I saw the monster coming towards me, on his knees. I was certain that he did not see me. He passed between the scenery there and a rack, went to the wall and, at a place I specified from a distance, activated a spring which caused a stone to tip over, opening a passage for him. He disappeared through this passage and the stone closed behind him. I had the secret of the monster, a secret which could, at my time, deliver me the dwelling of the Lake. To make sure of it, I waited at least half an hour and, in turn, activated the spring. Everything happened as for Erik. But I took care not to enter the hole myself, knowing that Erik was at home. On the other hand, the idea that I could be surprised here by Erik suddenly reminded me of the death of Joseph Buquet and, not wanting to compromise such a discovery, which could be useful to many people, to many of those of the human race, I left the underside of the theater, after having carefully put the stone back in place, following a system which had not varied since Persia. You can well imagine that I was always very interested in the intrigue of Erik and Christine Daaé, not because I was obeying a morbid curiosity in this circumstance, but because, as I have already said, of this dreadful thought which never left me : If, I thought, Erik discovers that he is not loved for himself, we can expect anything. And, constantly wandering—prudently—in the Opera, I soon learned the truth about the sad loves of the monster. He occupied Christine’s mind with terror, but the heart of the sweet child belonged entirely to Viscount Raoul de Chagny. While they were both playing, like two innocent fiancés, in the upper floors of the Opera—fleeing from the monster—they did not suspect that someone was watching over them. I was determined to do anything: to kill the monster if necessary and then to give explanations to the law. But Erik did not show himself —and I was no more reassured for that. I must state my whole calculation. I believed that the monster, driven from his home by jealousy, would thus allow me to enter the house on the Lake without danger, through the passage on the third floor below. It was in everyone’s interest to know exactly what could possibly be in there! One day, tired of waiting for an opportunity, I played the stone and immediately I heard tremendous music; the monster was working, with all the doors open in his home, on his triumphant Don Juan. I knew that this was his life’s work . I was careful not to move and I remained prudently in my dark hole. He stopped playing for a moment and began to walk through his home, like a madman. And he said aloud, in a resounding voice: All this must be over first! Really over! This word still did not reassure me and, as the music started again, I closed the stone very gently. Now, despite this closed stone, I still heard a vague, distant song, which rose from the depths of the earth, as I had heard the song of the siren rise from the bottom of the waters. And I remembered the words of some stagehands who had been laughed at at the time of Joseph Buquet’s death: There was around the body of the hanged man a noise like the singing of the dead. On the day of Christine Daaé’s abduction, I arrived at the theater only quite late in the evening and trembling at the thought of hearing bad news. I had spent a terrible day, for I had not ceased, since reading a morning newspaper announcing the marriage of Christine and the Viscount de Chagny, to ask myself if, after all, I would not do better to denounce the monster. But reason returned to me and I remained convinced that such an attitude could only precipitate the possible catastrophe. When my carriage dropped me off in front of the Opera, I looked at this monument as if I were truly astonished to see it still standing! But I am, like any good oriental, a bit of a fatalist and I went in, expecting anything! The kidnapping of Christine Daaé at the prison, which naturally surprised everyone, found me prepared. It was certain that Erik had conjured her away, like the king of conjurers that he truly is. And I thought that this time it was the end for Christine and perhaps for everyone. So much so that for a moment I wondered if I should not advise all those people, who were lingering at the theater, to escape. But I was still stopped in this thought of denunciation, by the certainty in which I was that I would be taken for a madman. Finally, I was not unaware that if, for example, I shouted to make all those people leave: Fire ! I could be the cause of a catastrophe, suffocation in the flight, trampling, savage struggles, – worse than the catastrophe itself. However, I resolved to act without further delay, personally. The moment seemed to me, moreover, propitious. I had a good chance that Erik was thinking, at that hour, only of his captive. I had to take advantage of it to enter his home by the third basement and I thought, for this enterprise, to enlist the help of this poor , desperate little viscount, who, at the first word, accepted with a confidence in me that touched me deeply; I had sent my servant for my pistols. Darius joined us with the box in Christine’s dressing room. I gave a pistol to the viscount and advised him to be ready to shoot like myself, for, after all, Erik could be waiting for us behind the wall. We had to go by the Communards’ path and through the trapdoor. The little viscount had asked me, upon seeing my pistols, if we were going to fight a duel? Certainly! and I said: What a duel! But I didn’t have time, of course, to explain anything to him. The little viscount is brave, but all the same he knew almost nothing about his adversary! And it was so much the better! What is a duel with the most terrible of swordsmen compared to a fight with the most brilliant of conjurers? I myself found it difficult to come to terms with the thought that I was going to enter into a fight with a man who is only visible when he wants to be and who, on the other hand, sees everything around him, when everything remains obscure to you!… With a man whose bizarre science, subtlety, imagination and skill allow him to dispose of all natural forces, combined to create before your eyes or your ears the illusion that will destroy you!… And this, in the basement of the Opera, that is to say in the very land of phantasmagoria! Can one imagine this without shuddering? Can one even have an idea of ​​what might happen to the eyes or ears of an inhabitant of the Opera, if one had locked up in the Opera–in his five underwear and his twenty-five tops–a ferocious and funny Robert Houdin, sometimes mocking and sometimes hating! sometimes emptying pockets and sometimes killing!… Think of that: Fighting the trapdoor enthusiast?–My God! in Did he make among us, in all our palaces, these astonishing pivoting traps which are the best of traps!–Fight the trap-lover in the land of traps!… If my hope was that he had not left Christine Daaé in this residence of the Lake where he had to transport her, once again, fainting, my terror was that he was already somewhere around us, preparing the Punjab noose. No one better than him knows how to throw the Punjab noose and he is the prince of stranglers as he is the king of conjurers. When he had finished making the little sultana laugh, in the time of the rose-tinted hours of Mazenderan, she herself asked that he amuse himself by making her shiver. And he had found nothing better than the game of the Punjab noose. Erik, who had stayed in India, had returned with incredible skill in strangling. He would be locked up in a courtyard where a warrior—most often, a man condemned to death—armed with a long pike and a broad sword would be brought. Erik, on the other hand, had only his noose, and it was always at the moment when the warrior thought he had struck Erik down with a formidable blow that the noose would be heard whistling. With a flick of the wrist, Erik would tighten the thin lasso around his enemy’s neck and immediately drag him before the little sultana and her wives, who were looking out of a window and applauding. The little sultana, too, learned to throw the Punjab noose and thus killed several of her wives and even her visiting friends. But I prefer to leave this terrible subject of Mazenderan’s Rose Hours. If I mentioned it, it was because, having arrived with the Viscount de Chagny in the basement of the Opera, I had to warn my companion against the ever-threatening possibility of strangulation around us. Certainly! Once in the basement, my pistols could no longer be of any use to us, for I was quite sure that from the moment he had not opposed our entry into the Communards’ path at the first attempt, Erik would no longer let himself be seen. But he could always strangle us. I did not have time to explain all this to the Viscount and I do not even know if, having had that time, I would have used it to tell him that there was somewhere , in the shadows, a Punjabi lace ready to whistle. It was quite useless to complicate the situation and I confined myself to advising M. de Chagny to always hold his hand at eye level, his arm bent in the position of the pistol shooter awaiting the command to fire. In this position, it is impossible, even for the most skillful strangler, to usefully throw the Punjab noose. At the same time as the neck, it catches your arm or hand and thus this noose, which can be easily untied, becomes harmless. After avoiding the police commissioner and some door closers, then the firemen, and meeting the rat killer for the first time and passing unnoticed by the man in the felt hat, the viscount and I arrived safely in the third basement, between the rack and the scenery of the King of Lahore. I played the stone and we jumped into the house that Erik had built for himself in the double envelope of the foundation walls of the Opera, and that, as quietly as possible, since Erik was one of the first masonry contractors for Philippe Garnier, the architect of the Opera, and he had continued to work, mysteriously, all alone, when the work was officially suspended, during the war, the siege of Paris and the Commune. I knew my Erik well enough to caress the presumption of succeeding in discovering all the tricks that he had been able to make for himself during all that time: so I was not at all reassured by jumping into his house. I knew what he had done to a certain palace in Mazenderan. From the most honest construction in the world, he had soon made the devil’s house, where one could no longer utter a word without that she was spied on or reported by the echo. How many family dramas ! How many bloody tragedies the monster dragged behind him with his trapdoors! Not to mention that one could never, in the palaces he had rigged, know exactly where one was. He had astonishing inventions. Certainly, the most curious, the most horrible and the most dangerous of all was the torture chamber. Except in exceptional cases where the little sultana amused herself by making the bourgeois suffer, hardly anyone but those condemned to death were allowed to enter. It was, in my opinion, the most atrocious imagination of the rose-colored hours of Mazenderan. Also, when the visitor who had entered the torture chamber had had enough, he was always allowed to finish it off with a Punjabi lace that was left at his disposal at the foot of the iron tree! Now, what was my emotion, immediately after entering the monster’s dwelling, on realizing that the room into which we had just jumped, Viscount de Chagny and I, was precisely the exact reconstruction of the torture chamber of the pink hours of Mazenderan. At our feet, I found the Punjab noose that I had so feared all evening. I was convinced that this thread had already been used for Joseph Buquet. The chief machinist must have, like me, surprised Erik one evening when he was playing the stone on the third floor. Curious, he had in turn tried to pass before the stone closed and had fallen into the torture chamber, and had only emerged hanged. I could well imagine Erik dragging the body he wanted to get rid of to the King of Lahore set and hanging it there, to make an example or to increase the superstitious terror that was supposed to help him guard the approaches to the cave! But, after some reflection, Erik came back to look for the Punjab noose, which is very singularly made of cat intestines and which could have excited the curiosity of an investigating magistrate. This explained the disappearance of the hangman’s noose. And there I was, discovering it at our feet, the noose, in the torture chamber!… I am not faint-hearted, but a cold sweat flooded my face. The lantern, whose little red disc I was moving along the walls of the all-too-famous chamber, was trembling in my hand. M. de Chagny noticed this and said to me: “What is going on, sir?” I violently signaled to him to be silent, for I could still have this supreme hope that we were in the torture chamber, without the monster knowing anything about it! And even this hope was not salvation because I could still very well imagine that, on the side of the third below, the torture chamber was charged with guarding the dwelling of the Lake, and, perhaps, automatically. Yes, the tortures were perhaps going to begin automatically. Who could have said what gestures they expected from us for that? I recommended the most absolute immobility to my companion. A crushing silence weighed on us. And my red lantern continued to circle the torture chamber… I recognized it… I recognized it… Note 8: An administrative report, from Tonkin and arriving in Paris at the end of July 1900, tells how the famous gang leader De Tham, hunted down with his pirates by our soldiers, was able to escape them, along with all his people, thanks to the game of reeds. Note 9: Daroga, in Persia, commander-in-chief of the government police. Note 10: Here the Persian could have admitted that Erik’s fate also interested him for himself, because he was well aware that if the government of Tehran had learned that Erik was still alive, it would have been the end of the former Daroga’s modest pension. It is fair, moreover, to add that the Persian had a noble and generous heart and we have no doubt that the catastrophes he feared for the others had not strongly occupied his mind. His conduct, moreover , in this whole affair, proves it sufficiently and is above all praise. Chapter 23. In The Torture Chamber. Continuation of the Persian’s story. We were in the center of a small room of perfectly hexagonal shape… whose six sections of walls were internally lined with mirrors… from top to bottom… In the corners, we could clearly see the ice additions… the small sectors intended to turn on their drums… yes, yes, I recognize them… and I recognize the iron tree in a corner, at the end of one of these small sectors… the iron tree, with its iron branch… for the hanged. I had seized my companion’s arm. The Viscount of Chagny was trembling, ready to cry out to his fiancée for the help he was bringing her… I feared that he would be unable to contain himself. Suddenly, we heard a noise to our left. At first it was like a door opening and closing in the next room, then there was a dull moan. I held M. de Chagny’s arm even tighter , then we distinctly heard these words: “Take it or leave it! The wedding mass or the mass for the dead. ” I recognized the monster’s voice. There was another moan. After that, a long silence. I was convinced now that the monster was unaware of our presence in his home, for had it been otherwise, he would have made sure that we could not hear him. All he had to do was hermetically close the small invisible window through which the torture-lovers look into the torture chamber. And then, I was sure that if he had known of our presence, the tortures would have begun immediately. So, from then on, we had a big advantage over Erik: we were at his side and he knew nothing about it. The important thing was not to let him know, and I feared nothing so much as the impulse of the Viscount of Chagny, who wanted to rush through the walls to join Christine Daaé, whose moan we thought we could hear, at intervals,. “The mass for the dead is not cheerful!” Erik’s voice continued, “while the wedding mass, tell me about that! It’s magnificent! You have to make a resolution and know what you want! As for me, it’s impossible to continue living like that, deep in the earth, in a hole, like a mole! Don Juan triumphant is over, now I want to live like everyone else. I want to have a wife like everyone else and we’ll go for walks on Sundays. I’ve invented a mask that makes me look like anyone else. We won’t even turn around. You’ll be the happiest of women.” And we will sing to ourselves , until we die. You cry! You are afraid of me! Yet I am not wicked at heart! Love me and you will see! All I lacked was to be loved to be good! If you loved me, I would be as gentle as a lamb and you would do with me whatever you wished. Soon the moaning that accompanied this sort of litany of love grew and grew. I have never heard anything more desperate and M. de Chagny and I recognized that this frightening lamentation belonged to Erik himself. As for Christine, she must, somewhere, perhaps on the other side of the wall before us, be standing, mute with horror, no longer having the strength to cry out, with the monster at her knees. This lamentation was sonorous and rumbling and rattling like the wail of an ocean. Three times Erik brought this lament out of the rock of his throat. “You don’t love me!” You don’t love me! You don’t love me! And then he softened: “Why are you crying? You know very well that you make me sad.” A silence. Each silence for us was a hope, We said to each other: He has perhaps we had left Christine behind the wall. And we were only thinking about the possibility of warning Christine Daaé of our presence without the monster suspecting anything. We could only leave the torture chamber now if Christine opened the door for us; and it was on this first condition that we could help her, for we did not even know where the door could be around us. Suddenly, the silence next door was broken by the sound of an electric bell. There was a leap from the other side of the wall and Erik’s thunderous voice: “The bell is ringing! Why don’t you come in!” A mournful sneer. ” Who is it that has come to disturb us again? Wait here for me a little… I’m going to tell the siren to open.” And footsteps moved away, a door closed. I did not have time to think about the new horror that was being prepared; I forgot that the monster only came out for a new crime perhaps; I understood only one thing: Christine alone was behind the wall! The Viscount of Chagny was already calling her. “Christine! Christine! From the moment we heard what was being said in the next room, there was no reason why my companion should not be heard in turn. And yet, the Viscount had to repeat his call several times. Finally a faint voice reached us. “I’m dreaming,” she was saying! “Christine! Christine! It’s me, Raoul. Silence. ” “But answer me, Christine!… if you are alone, in the name of heaven, answer me. ” Then Christine’s voice murmured Raoul’s name. “Yes! Yes! It’s me! It’s not a dream!… Christine, have faith!… We are here to save you… but not for imprudence!… When you hear the monster, warn us. “Raoul!… Raoul!” She was told several times that she was not dreaming and that Raoul de Chagny had been able to come to her, led by a devoted companion who knew the secret of Erik’s home. But immediately the all-too-quick joy we brought her was succeeded by a greater terror. She wanted Raoul to leave at once. She trembled lest Erik discover her hiding place, for, in that case, he would not have hesitated to kill the young man. She told us in a few hurried words that Erik had become completely mad with love and that he had decided to kill everyone, including himself , if she did not agree to become his wife in front of the mayor and the priest, the priest of the Madeleine. He had given her until eleven o’clock the following evening to think it over. That was the final deadline. She would then have to choose, as he said, between the wedding mass and the mass for the dead! And Erik had uttered this sentence that Christine had not quite understood: Yes or no; if it is no, everyone is dead and buried! But I understood this sentence completely, for it answered in a terrible way to my fearful thought. “Could you tell us where Erik is?” I asked. She replied that he must have left the house. “Could you make sure?” “No!… I am tied up… I cannot move.” On learning this, M. de Chagny and I could not restrain a cry of rage. Our safety, all three of us, depended on the young girl’s freedom of movement . “Oh! To free her! To reach her! ” “But where are you?” Christine asked again… There are only two doors in my room: the Louis Philippe room, which I told you about, Raoul!… a door through which Erik comes and goes, and another which he has never opened in front of me and which he has forbidden me to ever go through, because it is, he says, the most dangerous of doors… the door of torture!… –Christine, we are behind that door there!… “Are you in the torture chamber? ” “Yes, but we can’t see the door. ” “Ah! If I could only drag myself over there! I’d knock on the door and you’d see where the door is. ” “Is it a door with a lock?” I asked. “Yes, with a lock. ” I thought: “It opens on the other side with a key, like all doors, but on our side, it opens with the spring and the counterweight, and that won’t be easy to discover. ” “Mademoiselle!” I said, “you absolutely must open this door for us.” “But how?” replied the tearful voice of the unfortunate woman… We
heard a body crumpling, evidently trying to free itself from the bonds that imprisoned it… “We’ll only get out of this by trickery,” I said. You must have the key to this door… “I know where it is,” replied Christine, who seemed exhausted by the effort she had just made… “But I’m well tied up!… The wretch!… And there was a sob… “Where is the key?” I asked, ordering M. de Chagny to be quiet and let me take charge of the matter, for we didn’t have a moment to lose. “In the bedroom, next to the organ, with another little bronze key which he also forbade me to touch. They are both in a little leather bag which he calls: The little bag of life and death… Raoul! Raoul!… flee!… everything here is mysterious and terrible… and Erik is going to go completely mad… And you are in the torture chamber!… Go the way you came! That room must have reasons to be called by such a name! ” “Christine!” said the young man, we will leave here together or we will die together! “It is up to us to leave here safe and sound,” I whispered, “but we must keep our cool. Why did he tie you up, mademoiselle? You cannot escape from his house! He knows that very well! ” “I wanted to kill myself! The monster, this evening, after having transported me here unconscious, half-chloroformed, had gone away. He had, it seems,—he told me so,—gone to his banker’s!… When he came back, he found my face covered in blood… I had wanted to kill myself! I had hit my forehead against the walls. ” “Christine!” moaned Raoul, and he began to sob. –So, he tied me up… I don’t have the right to die until tomorrow evening at eleven o’clock!… This whole conversation through the wall was much more broken and much more cautious than I could give the impression by transcribing it here. Often we stopped in the middle of a sentence, because we thought we heard a creaking, a step, an unusual movement… She said to us: No! No! It’s not him!… He’s out! He really is out! I recognized the noise made by the wall of the Lake as it closes. –Mademoiselle! I declared, it was the monster himself who tied you up… it’s he who will untie you… It’s only a matter of playing the necessary act for that !… Don’t forget that he loves you! –Unhappy woman! we heard, how could I ever forget him ! –Remember it to smile at him… beg him… tell him that these bonds hurt you. But Christine Daaé said to us: “Shh!… I hear something in the wall of the Lake!… It’s him!… Go away!… Go away!… Go away!… ” “We wouldn’t leave, even if we wanted to!” I affirmed in such a way as to impress the young girl. “We can’t leave! And we’re in the torture chamber! Silence!” Christine whispered again. All three of us fell silent. Heavy footsteps dragged themselves slowly behind the wall, then stopped and made the floorboards creak again. Then there was a tremendous sigh followed by a cry of horror from Christine and we heard Erik’s voice. “I beg your pardon for showing you such a face! I’m in a fine state, aren’t I? Is it the other man’s fault? Why did he ring? Do I ask those passing by what time it is? He won’t ask anyone the time again. It’s the siren’s fault… ” Another sigh, deeper, more formidable, coming from the depths of the abyss of a soul. “Why did you cry out, Christine? ” “Because I’m suffering, Erik. ” “I thought I’d frightened you… ” “Erik, loosen my bonds… am I not your prisoner? You’ll still want to die…” “You gave me until tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock, Erik…” The footsteps still drag on the floor. –After all, since we must die together… and I’m in as much of a hurry as you are… yes, I too have had enough of this life, you understand!… Wait, don’t move, I’ll free you… You have only one word to say: no! and it will be over immediately, for everyone … You’re right… you’re right! Why wait until tomorrow evening at eleven o’clock? Ah! yes, because it would have been more beautiful!… I’ve always had the disease of decorum… of the grandiose… it’s childish!… One must only think of oneself in life!… of one’s own death… the rest is superfluous… Do you look how wet I am?… Ah! My darling, I was wrong to go out… The weather is bad enough not to put a dog outside!… Apart from that, Christine, I think I’m hallucinating… You know, the one who rang the mermaid’s bell just now,–go and see if he rings at the bottom of the lake–well, he looked like… There, turn around… are you happy? You’re free… My God! Your wrists, Christine! I hurt them, don’t you think?… That alone deserves death….. Speaking of death, I must sing his mass! Hearing these terrible words, I couldn’t help having a dreadful presentiment… I too had once rung the monster’s bell… and without knowing it, certainly!… I must have set some warning current in motion… And I remembered the two arms emerging from the waters as black as ink… Who was the unfortunate man lost on these banks? The thought of that unfortunate man almost prevented me from rejoicing in Christine’s stratagem, and yet, the Viscount of Chagny whispered in my ear this magic word: delivered!… Who then? Who was the other? The one for whom we were hearing at that moment the mass of the dead? Ah! the sublime and furious song! The whole house of the Lake rumbled… all the bowels of the earth shuddered… We had put our ears against the wall of ice to better hear Christine Daaé’s playing , the game she was playing for our deliverance, but we heard nothing more than the playing of the mass of the dead. It was more like a mass for the damned… It made, deep down in the earth, a circle of demons. I remember that the Dies iræ that he sang enveloped us like a storm. Yes, we had thunder and lightning around us… Certainly! I had heard him sing once… He even went so far as to make the stone mouths of my androcephalic bulls sing, on the walls of the palace of Mazenderan… But to sing like that, never! never! He sang like the god of thunder… Suddenly, the organ and the voice stopped so abruptly that M. de Chagny and I recoiled behind the wall, so seized were we… And the voice, suddenly changed, transformed, distinctly grated all those metallic syllables. –What is this shelter you have made of my bag? Chapter 24. The Tortures Begin. Continuation of the Persian’s story The voice repeated furiously: –What have you done with my bag? Christine Daaé should not trembling more than us. “Is it to take my bag that you wanted me to free you, you say?” We heard hurried footsteps, Christine running back into the Louis Philippe room, as if to seek shelter in front of our wall.
“Why are you running?” said the angry voice that had followed. “Will you give me back my bag! Don’t you know that it’s the bag of life and death?” “Listen to me, Erik,” sighed the young woman… “since from now on it’s understood that we must live together… what does that matter to you?… Everything that’s yours belongs to me!” This was said in such a trembling way that it was pitiful. The unfortunate woman had to use what energy she had left to overcome her terror… But it wasn’t with such childish tricks, said through chattering teeth, that one could surprise the monster. “You know very well that there are only two keys in there… What do you want to do?” he asked. “I would like,” she said, “to visit this room that I don’t know and that you have always hidden from me… It’s a woman’s curiosity!” she added, in a tone that was meant to be cheerful and which must have only succeeded in increasing Erik’s suspicion, it sounded so false… “I don’t like curious women!” Erik replied, “and you should be wary after the Bluebeard story… Come on! Give me back my bag!… Give me back my bag!… Will you leave the key!… Little curious girl!” And he sneered while Christine gave a cry of pain… Erik had just taken the bag from her. It was at that moment that the viscount, unable to restrain himself any longer, uttered a cry of rage and helplessness, which I managed with great difficulty to stifle on his lips… “Ah, but!” said the monster… What’s that?… Didn’t you hear, Christine? “No! No!” replied the poor woman; “I didn’t hear anything! ” “It seemed to me that someone had shouted! ” “A shout!… Are you going mad, Erik?… Who do you think is shouting, deep down in this house?… It was I who shouted, because you were hurting me!… I didn’t hear anything!… “How you tell me that!… You’re trembling!… You’re so moved!… You’re lying!… They shouted! They shouted!… There’s someone in the torture chamber!… Ah! I understand now!… “There’s no one there, Erik!… “I understand!… ” No one!… “Your fiancé… perhaps!… ” Hey! I don’t have a fiancé!… You know that very well!… ” Another evil sneer. –Besides, it’s so easy to know… My little Christine, my love… we don’t need to open the door to see what’s going on in the torture chamber… Do you want to see? Do you want to see?… Look!… If there’s someone… if there really is someone, you’ll see the invisible window light up there, near the ceiling… All you have to do is draw the black curtain and then turn off the light here… There, it’s done… Let’s turn it off! You’re not afraid of the night, in the company of your little husband!… Then Christine’s dying voice was heard. –No!… I’m afraid!… I tell you I’m afraid in the night!… This room doesn’t interest me at all anymore!… It’s you who frighten me all the time, like a child, with this torture chamber!… So, I was curious, it’s true!… But it doesn’t interest me at all anymore… at all!… And what I feared most of all began automatically… We were, suddenly, flooded with light!… Yes, behind our wall, it was like a blaze. The Viscount de Chagny, who wasn’t expecting it, was so surprised that he staggered. And the angry voice burst out from beside him. –I told you there was someone!… There, do you see now, the window?… the luminous window!… Up there!… The one who is behind this wall he can’t see it!… But you, you’re going to climb the double ladder. That’s what it’s there for!… You’ve often asked me what it’s for… Well! Now you know!… It’s used to look out of the window of the torture chamber… little curious one!… –What tortures?… what tortures are there in there?… Erik! Erik! Tell me you want to scare me!… Tell me, if you love me, Erik!… Isn’t there no tortures? These are stories for children!… –Go and see, my darling, at the little window!… I don’t know if the Viscount, beside me, now heard the young woman’s faint voice, so preoccupied was he with the incredible spectacle which had just appeared before his bewildered gaze… As for me, who had seen this spectacle too often already, through the little window of Mazenderan’s Heures roses, I was only preoccupied with what was being said nearby, seeking a reason to act, a resolution to make . –Go and see, go and see at the little window!… You’ll tell me!… You’ll tell me later what his nose is like! We heard the ladder being rolled up against the wall… –Come up then!… No!… No, I’ll go up… me, my darling!… –Well! yes… I’ll go and see… leave me! –Ah! My little darling!… My little darling!… how cute you are… How kind of you to spare me this trouble at my age!… You’ll tell me what his nose is like!… If people only suspected the joy of having a nose… a nose of one’s own… they would never come and walk around the torture chamber!… At that moment, we distinctly heard above our heads these words: –My friend, there’s no one here!… –No one?… Are you sure there’s no one here?… –My goodness, no… there’s no one here… –Well, so much the better!… What’s the matter, Christine?… Well, what! You’re not going to feel ill!… Since there’s no one here!… There!… go down!… there!… Pull yourself together! Since there’s no one here… But how do you like the scenery?… –Oh! very good!… –Come on! It’s better!… Isn’t it, it’s better!… So much the better, it’s better!… No emotion!… And what a strange house isn’t it , where one can see such landscapes?… –Yes, one would think oneself at the Musée Grévin!… But, tell me, Erik… there are no tortures in there!… Do you know that you gave me a fright!… –Why, since there’s no one here!… –Did you make that room, Erik?… Do you know that it’s very beautiful! You are definitely a great artist, Erik… –Yes, a great artist in my style. –But, tell me, Erik, why did you call this room the torture room?… –Oh! It’s very simple. First of all, what did you see? –I saw a forest!… –And what is there in a forest? –Trees!… –And what’s in a tree? –Birds… –You saw birds… –No, I didn’t see any birds. –Then what did you see! Look!… You saw branches! And what’s in a branch? said the terrible voice… There’s a gallows! That’s why I call my forest the torture chamber!… You see, it’s only a figure of speech! It’s all for fun!… I never express myself like the others!… I don’t do anything like the others!… But I’m very tired of it!… very tired!… I’ve had enough, you see? of having a forest in my house, and a torture chamber!… And of being housed like a charlatan at the bottom of a box with a false bottom!… I’ve had enough! I’ve had enough!… I want to have a quiet apartment, with ordinary doors and windows and an honest woman in it, like everyone else!… You should understand that, Christine, and I shouldn’t have to keep repeating it to you !… A woman like everyone else!… A woman I would love, whom I would take for walks on Sundays, and whom I would make laugh all week long! Ah! You wouldn’t be bored with me! I have more than one trick up my sleeve, not to mention card tricks!… Here! Do you want me to do some card tricks for you? That will always pass a few minutes, while we wait until tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock!… My little Christine!… My little Christine!… Are you listening to me?… You’re not pushing me away anymore!… Tell me? You love me!… No! You don’t love me!… But that doesn’t matter! You’ll love me! In the past, you couldn’t look at my mask because you knew what was behind it… And now you want to look at it and you forget what’s behind it, and you want to stop pushing me away!… You get used to everything, when you want to… when you have the good will!… How many young people who didn’t love each other before marriage adored each other afterward! Ah! I don’t know what I’m saying anymore… But you’d have fun with me!… There isn’t one like me, for example, that, I swear before the good Lord who will marry us—if you’re reasonable—there isn’t one like me to play the ventriloquist! I’m the first ventriloquist in the world!… You’re laughing!… Perhaps you don’t believe me!… Listen! The wretch who was, in fact, the world’s first ventriloquist was stunning the little girl – I was perfectly aware of this – to divert her attention from the torture chamber!… Stupid calculation!… Christine was thinking only of us!… She repeated several times, in the sweetest tone she could find and with the most ardent supplication: Turn off the little window!… Erik! Turn off the little window!… For she thought well that this light, suddenly appearing at the little window, and of which the monster had spoken in such a threatening manner, had its terrible reason for being… Only one thing should momentarily reassure her, it was that she had seen us both, behind the wall, in the center of the magnificent blaze, standing and well !… But she would have been more reassured, certainly!… if the light had gone out… The other had already begun to play the ventriloquist. He said: –Look! I’ll lift my mask a little! Oh! only a little… Do you see my lips? What kind of lips I have? They don’t move!… My mouth is closed… my kind of mouth… and yet you hear my voice!… I speak with my stomach… it’s quite natural… they call that being a ventriloquist!… It’s well known: listen to my voice… where do you want it to go? In your left ear? In your right ear?… In the table?… In the little ebony boxes on the mantelpiece?… Ah! That surprises you… My voice is in the little boxes on the mantelpiece! Do you want it far away?… Do you want it close?… Resounding?… High-pitched?… Nasal?… My voice goes everywhere!… everywhere!… Listen, my darling… in the little box on the right of the mantelpiece, and listen to what it says: Should we turn the scorpion?… And now, crack! Listen to what she says in the little box on the left: Should we turn the grasshopper?… And now, crack!… Here she is in the little leather bag… What does she say? I am the little bag of life and death! And now, crack!… here she is in Carlotta’s throat, deep in the golden throat, in Carlotta’s crystal throat, my word!… What does she say? She says: It’s me, Mr. Toad! It’s me who sings: I listen to this solitary voice… quack!… which sings in my quack! … And now, crack, she has arrived on a chair in the ghost’s dressing room… and she says: Madame Carlotta sings tonight until she can take down the chandelier!… And now, crack!… Ah! ah! ah! ah!… where is Erik’s voice?… Listen, Christine, my darling!… Listen… She is behind the door of the torture chamber!… Listen to me!… It is I who am in the torture chamber!… And what do I say? I say: Woe to those who are lucky enough to have a nose, a real nose of their own, and who come to wander into the torture chamber!… Ah! ah! ah! Cursed voice of the formidable ventriloquist! It was everywhere, everywhere!… It passed through the little invisible window… through the walls… it ran around us… between us… Erik was there!… He was speaking to us!… We made a gesture as if to throw ourselves upon him… but, already, faster, more elusive than the sonorous voice of the Echo, Erik’s voice had bounced off behind the wall!… Soon, we could no longer hear anything at all, for this is what happened: Christine’s voice: –Erik! Erik!… You’re tiring me with your voice… Be quiet, Erik!… Don’t you think it’s hot in here?… –Oh! Yes! replies Erik’s voice, the heat is becoming unbearable!… And again Christine’s voice, rasping with anguish: –What’s that!… The wall is so hot!… The wall is burning!… –I’ll tell you, Christine, my darling, it’s because of the forest next door!…. –Well!… what do you mean!… the forest?… –So you didn’t see that it was a Congo forest? And the monster’s laughter rose so terribly that we could no longer distinguish Christine’s supplicating cries!… The Viscount of Chagny was shouting and banging against the walls like a madman… I could no longer hold him back… But all we could hear was the monster’s laughter… and the monster himself must have heard only his laughter… And then there was the sound of a quick struggle, of a body falling to the floor and being dragged … and the crash of a door being slammed shut… and then, nothing, nothing around us but the blazing silence of midday… in the heart of an African forest!… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 25. Barrels Barrels Do You Have Barrels For Sale?. Continuation of the Persian’s story I said that this room in which we found ourselves, Mr. Viscount de Chagny and I, was regularly hexagonal and furnished entirely with mirrors. We have since seen, notably in certain exhibitions, these kinds of rooms arranged exactly like this and called: house of mirages or palace of illusions. But the invention is entirely due to Erik, who built, before my eyes, the first room of this kind during the Rose Hours of Mazenderan. It was enough to place some decorative motif in the corners , like a column, for example, to instantly have a palace with a thousand columns, because, by the effect of the mirrors, the real room was increased by six hexagonal rooms, each of which multiplied infinitely. Formerly, to amuse the little sultana, he had thus arranged a decor which became the innumerable temple; but the little sultana quickly grew tired of such a childish illusion, and then Erik transformed his invention into a torture chamber. Instead of the architectural motif placed in the corners, he put in the first painting an iron tree. Why was this tree, which perfectly imitated life, with its painted leaves, made of iron? Because it had to be strong enough to withstand all the attacks of the patient who was locked in the torture chamber. We will see how, twice, the decoration thus obtained was instantly transformed into two other successive decorations, thanks to the automatic rotation of the drums which were in the corners and which had been divided into thirds, matching the angles of the mirrors and each supporting a decorative motif which appeared in turn. The walls of this strange room offered no hold to the patient, since, apart from the decorative motif of unfailing solidity , they were only decorated with mirrors and mirrors quite thick so that they had nothing to fear from the rage of the wretch who was thrown there, moreover, with bare hands and feet. No furniture. The ceiling was luminous. An ingenious system of electric heating which has since been imitated, made it possible to increase the temperature of the walls at will and thus to give the room the desired atmosphere… I endeavor to enumerate all the precise details of a completely natural invention giving this supernatural illusion, with a few painted branches, of an equatorial forest ablaze by the midday sun, so that no one can question the current tranquility of my brain, so that no one has the right to say: This man has gone mad or this man is lying, or this man takes us for imbeciles. If I had simply told it like this: Having descended to the bottom of a cave, we encountered an equatorial forest ablaze by the midday sun, I would have achieved a fine effect of stupid astonishment, but I am not seeking any effect, my aim being, in writing these lines, to relate what exactly happened to Mr. Viscount de Chagny and me during a terrible adventure which, for a moment, occupied the justice of this country. I now pick up the facts where I left them. When the ceiling lit up and, around us, the forest lit up, the Viscount’s stupor surpassed anything that can be imagined. The appearance of this impenetrable forest whose innumerable trunks and branches entwined us to infinity, plunged him into a frightening consternation. He ran his hands over his forehead as if to chase away a dreamlike vision, and his eyes blinked like eyes that struggle upon waking to regain awareness of the reality of things. For a moment, he forgot to listen! I said that the appearance of the forest did not surprise me. So I listened to what was happening in the next room for the two of us. Finally, my attention was especially attracted less by the setting, which my thoughts were getting rid of, than by the ice itself that produced it. This ice, in places, was broken. Yes, it had scratches; they had managed to star it, despite its solidity, and that proved to me, beyond any doubt, that the torture chamber in which we found ourselves had already been used! An unfortunate man, whose feet and hands were less bare than the condemned men of Mazenderan’s Rose Hours, had certainly fallen into this deadly Illusion, and, mad with rage, had struck these mirrors which, despite their slight injuries, had nonetheless continued to reflect his agony! And the branch of the tree where he had ended his torture was arranged in such a way that before dying, he had been able to see a thousand hanged men wriggling with him—supreme consolation ! Yes! Yes! Joseph Buquet had passed by there!… Were we going to die like him? I didn’t think so, for I knew that we had a few hours before us and that I could use them more usefully than Joseph Buquet had been able to. Didn’t I have a thorough knowledge of most of Erik’s tricks? It was now or never to use them. At first, I no longer thought at all about returning through the passage that had led us into this cursed room, I did not concern myself with the possibility of reactivating the interior stone that closed this passage. The reason was simple: I did not have the means!… We had jumped from too high in the torture chamber and no piece of furniture now allowed us to reach this passage, not even the branch of the iron tree, not even the shoulders of one of us as a stepping stone. There was only one possible exit, the one that opened onto the Louis Philippe room, and in which Erik and Christine Daaé were . But if this exit were in the ordinary state of a door of the On Christine’s side, it was absolutely invisible to us… So we had to try to open it without even knowing where it was , which was no ordinary task. When I was quite sure that there was no longer any hope for us, on Christine Daaé’s side, when I heard the monster dragging or rather dragging the unfortunate young girl out of Louis Philippe’s room so that she would not disturb our torture, I decided to get down to business immediately, that is to say, to looking for the trick of the door. But first I had to calm M. de Chagny, who was already walking around the clearing like a hallucinated person, uttering incoherent cries. The snatches of conversation that he had been able to overhear, despite his excitement, between Christine and the monster, had contributed not a little to putting him out of his mind; If you add to this the blow of the magic forest and the burning heat which was beginning to make sweat trickle down his temples, you will have no difficulty in understanding that M. de Chagny’s mood was beginning to undergo a certain exaltation. Despite all my recommendations, my companion no longer showed any prudence. He went back and forth without reason, rushing towards a non-existent space, believing he was entering an alley which led him to the horizon and hitting his forehead, after a few steps, with the very reflection of his illusion of a forest! As he did so, he shouted: Christine! Christine!… and he waved his pistol, still calling with all his might to the monster, challenging the Angel of Music to a duel to the death, and he also insulted his illusory forest. It was torture which produced its effect on an unprejudiced mind. I tried as much as possible to fight him, by reasoning with this poor viscount as calmly as possible: by making him touch with his finger the mirrors and the iron tree, the branches on the drums and by explaining to him, according to the laws of optics, all the luminous imagery in which we were enveloped and of which we could not, like common ignoramuses, be the victims! –We are in a room, a small room, that is what I must repeat to you constantly… and we will leave this room when we have found the door. Well then! let us look for it! And I promised him that, if he would let me do it, without getting dizzy with his cries and his mad ramblings, I would have found the trick of the door before an hour. Then he lay down on the floor, as one does in the woods, and declared that he would wait until I had found the door to the forest, since he had nothing better to do! And he felt he should add that from where he was, the view was splendid. The torture, despite everything I had said, was taking effect. As for me, forgetting the forest, I took up a panel of mirrors and began to feel it in all directions, looking for the weak point, on which it was necessary to press to turn the doors according to Erik’s system of pivoting doors and trapdoors. Sometimes this weak point could be a simple spot on the mirror, as big as a pea, and under which was located the spring to be activated. I searched! I searched! I felt as high as my hands could reach. Erik was about the same height as me and I thought that he had not placed the spring higher than necessary for his height—it was only a hypothesis, but my only hope.—I had decided to do this, without weakness, and meticulously, the tour of the six panels of mirrors and then to examine the floor very carefully as well. While I was feeling the panels with the greatest care, I tried not to lose a minute because the heat was getting to me more and more and we were literally cooking in this burning forest. I had been working like this for half an hour and I was already finished. with three panels when our bad luck wanted me to turn around at a dull exclamation uttered by the Viscount. “I’m suffocating!” he said… “All this ice is sending back an infernal heat!… Are you going to find your spring soon?… If you delay a little, we’ll roast here! ” I was not unhappy to hear him speak thus. He hadn’t said a word about the forest and I hoped that my companion’s reason could fight long enough against the torture. But he added: “What consoles me is that the monster has given Christine until tomorrow evening at eleven o’clock: if we can’t get out of there and help her, at least we’ll be dead before she does! Erik’s mass can be of use to everyone!” And he sucked in a breath of hot air that almost made him faint… As I did not have the same desperate reasons as the Viscount of Chagny for accepting death, I turned back, after a few words of encouragement, to my sign, but I had been wrong in speaking of taking a few steps; so much so that in the incredible tangle of the illusory forest, I certainly could not find my sign! I saw myself obliged to start all over again, at random… So I could not prevent myself from showing my disappointment and the Viscount understood that everything had to be done again. This gave him a new blow. “We will never get out of this forest!” he moaned. And his despair only grew. And, as it grew, his despair made him forget more and more that he was dealing only with ice and believe more and more that he was grappling with a real forest. I had started searching again… feeling around… The fever, in my turn, was getting to me… because I found nothing… absolutely nothing… In the next room it was still the same silence. We were quite lost in the forest… with no way out… no compass… no guide… with nothing. Oh! I knew what awaited us if no one came to our aid… or if I didn’t find the spring… But no matter how hard I looked for the spring, I found only branches… admirably beautiful branches that stood straight up in front of me or curved preciously above my head… But they gave no shade! This was quite natural, moreover, since we were in an equatorial forest with the sun just above our heads… a forest in the Congo… On several occasions, M. de Chagny and I had taken off and put on our clothes, finding sometimes that they gave us more warmth and sometimes that they guaranteed us, on the contrary, some of this warmth. I was still resisting morally, but M. de Chagny seemed to me to have completely given up. He claimed that he had been walking for three days and three nights without stopping in this forest, looking for Christine Daaé. From time to time, he thought he saw her behind a tree trunk or slipping through the branches, and he called her with supplicating words that brought tears to my eyes. Christine! Christine! he said, why are you running away from me? Don’t you love me ? Aren’t we engaged? Christine, stop! You see I’m exhausted! Christine, have pity! I’m going to die in the forest… far from you! Oh! I’m thirsty! he said finally in a delirious tone. I too was thirsty… my throat was on fire… And yet, crouching now on the floor, that didn’t stop me from searching… searching… searching for the spring of the invisible door… especially since staying in the forest was becoming dangerous as evening approached… Already the shadow of night was beginning to envelop us… it had come very quickly, as night falls in equatorial countries… suddenly, with barely any twilight… Now the night in the forests of the equator is always dangerous, especially when, like us, we don’t have anything to light a fire with to keep wild beasts away. I had tried, leaving aside for a moment the search for my spring, to break some branches that I would have lit with my dull lantern, but I too had come up against the famous ice, and that had reminded me in time that we were only dealing with images of branches… With the day, the heat had not gone away, on the contrary… It was now even hotter under the blue light of the moon. I advised the Viscount to keep our weapons ready to fire and not to stray from our camp, while I was still looking for my spring. Suddenly the roar of the lion was heard, a few steps away. Our ears were torn. “Oh!” said the Viscount in a low voice, “he’s not far away!… Can’t you see him?… there… through the trees!” in this thicket… If he roars again, I’ll shoot!… And the roaring began again, more formidable. And the Viscount fired, but I don’t think he hit the lion; only, he broke a window; I noticed it the next morning at dawn. During the night, we must have traveled a good distance, because we suddenly found ourselves at the edge of the desert, an immense desert of sand, stones and rocks. It was really not worth leaving the forest to fall into the desert. Weary of the war, I lay down beside the Viscount, personally tired of looking for springs that I could not find. I was quite astonished and I told the Viscount that we had not had other bad encounters during the night. Usually, after the lion, there was the leopard, and then sometimes the buzzing of the tsetse fly. These were very easy effects to obtain, and I explained to M. de Chagny, while we were resting before crossing the desert, that Erik obtained the roar of the lion with a long tambourine, terminated by a donkey skin at one of its ends. Over this skin is wrapped a gut rope attached by its center to another rope of the same kind which crosses the drum in its entirety. Erik then has only to rub this rope with a glove coated with rosin and, by the way he rubs, he imitates to the point of being mistaken for the voice of the lion or the leopard, or even the buzzing of the tsetse fly. This idea that Erik could be in the room, next door, with his tricks, suddenly threw me into the resolution to enter into negotiations with him, because, obviously, it was necessary to give up the idea of ​​surprising him. And now he must know what to expect about the inhabitants of the torture chamber. I called him: Erik! Erik!… I shouted as loud as I could across the desert, but no one answered my voice… Everywhere around us, the silence and the naked immensity of this petrified desert… What would become of us in the midst of this dreadful solitude?… Literally, we were beginning to die of heat, hunger and thirst… thirst above all… Finally, I saw M. de Chagny raise himself on his elbow and point out a point on the horizon… He had just discovered the oasis!… Yes, way down there, way down there, the desert gave way to the oasis… an oasis with water… water as clear as ice… water that reflected the iron tree!… Ah, that… that was the picture of the mirage… I recognized it at once… the most terrible… No one had been able to resist it… no one… I tried to retain all my reason… and not to hope for water… because I knew that if one hoped for the water, the water that reflected the iron tree and that if, after having hoped for the water, one came up against the ice, there was only one thing left to do: hang oneself from the iron tree!… So, I shouted to M. de Chagny: It’s the mirage!… it’s the mirage!… don’t believe in the water!… it’s still the trick of the ice!… So he sent me packing, as they say, with my ice thing, my springs, my revolving doors and my palace of mirages!… He angrily declared that I was mad or blind to imagine that all that water flowing down there, between such beautiful countless trees, was not real water!… And the desert was real! And the forest too!… He was not the one to be fooled… he had traveled enough… and to all countries… And he dragged himself along, saying: –Water! Water!… And his mouth was open as if he were drinking… And I too had my mouth open as if I were drinking… For not only did we see the water, but we also heard it!… We heard it flowing… lapping!… Do you understand this word lapping?… It is a word that one hears with the tongue!… The tongue is pulled out of the mouth to listen to it better!… Finally, the most intolerable torture of all, we heard the rain and it was not raining! That was the demonic invention… Oh! I knew very well too how Erik obtained it! He filled with small stones a very narrow and very long box, cut at intervals with wooden and metal valves. The small stones, as they fell, encountered these sluice gates and ricocheted from one to the other, and there followed jerky sounds that were reminiscent, to the point of being mistaken, of the crackling of a rainstorm. … Also, one should have seen how we stuck out our tongues, M. de Chagny and I, dragging ourselves towards the lapping bank… our eyes and ears were full of water, but our tongues remained as dry as horn!… Arriving at the ice, M. de Chagny licked it… and I too… I licked the ice… It was burning!… Then we rolled on the ground, with a desperate rattle. M. de Chagny brought the last pistol that had remained loaded to his temple and I looked at the lace of the Punjab at my feet. I knew why, in this third setting, the iron tree had returned!… The iron tree was waiting for me!… But as I looked at the Punjab lace, I saw something that made me shudder so violently that M. de Chagny was stopped in his movement of self-harm. Already, he was murmuring: Goodbye, Christine!… I had taken his arm. And then I took the pistol from him… and then I dragged myself on my knees until I had seen. I had just discovered near the Punjab lace, in the groove of the parquet, a black-headed nail whose use I was not ignorant of… At last! I had found the spring!… the spring that was going to open the door!… that was going to give us freedom!… that was going to deliver Erik to us. I felt the nail… I showed M. de Chagny a radiant figure!… The black-headed nail gave way under my pressure… And then… …And then it wasn’t a door that opened in the wall, but a trapdoor that was released in the floor. Immediately, from this black hole, fresh air reached us. We leaned over this square of shadow as if over a limpid spring. Our chins in the cool shadow, we drank it in. And we bent more and more over the trapdoor. What could there be in this hole, in this cellar that had just mysteriously opened its door in the floor?… Perhaps there was water in there?… Water to drink… I stretched out my arm in the darkness and I encountered a stone, and then another… a staircase… a black staircase that led down to the cellar. The Viscount was already ready to throw himself into the hole!… In there, even if we didn’t find any water, we could escape the radiant embrace of those abominable mirrors… But I stopped the Viscount, because I feared another trick from the monster and, my dull lantern lit, I went down first… The staircase plunged into the deepest darkness and turned on itself. Ah! the adorable coolness of the staircase and of the darkness!… This coolness must have come less from the ventilation system necessarily established by Erik than from the very coolness of the earth which must have been completely saturated with water at the level where we were… And then, the lake must not have been far away!… We were soon at the bottom of the staircase… Our eyes began to adjust to the shadows, to distinguish around us, shapes… round shapes… on which I directed the luminous jet of my barrels!… We were in Erik’s cellar! That was where he must have kept his wine and perhaps his drinking water… I knew that Erik was very fond of good wines… Ah! there was something to drink there!… M. de Chagny caressed the round shapes and repeated tirelessly: –Barrels! barrels!… So many barrels!… In fact, there was a certain quantity of them aligned very symmetrically in two rows between which we found ourselves… They were small barrels and I imagined that Erik had chosen them of this size for ease of transport to the house on the Lake!… We examined them one after the other, looking to see if one of them had some weeping sound, thereby indicating to us that someone had drawn from it from time to time. But all the barrels were very hermetically sealed. Then, after having lifted one half to see that it was full, we got down on our knees and with the blade of a small knife that I had on me, I set about popping the plug. At that moment, I thought I heard, as if coming from very far away, a sort of monotonous chant whose rhythm was familiar to me, for I had heard it very often in the streets of Paris: Barrels!… Barrels!… Do you have any barrels… for sale?… My hand was immobilized on the bung… M. de Chagny had also heard. He said to me: “It’s funny!… it’s as if it were the barrel singing!… The chant began again more distantly… Barrels!… Barrels!… Do you have any barrels for sale?… “Oh! oh! I swear to you,” said the Viscount, “that the chant is fading into the barrel!… We got up and went to look behind the barrel… “It’s inside!” said M. de Chagny; it’s inside!… But we couldn’t hear anything anymore… and we were reduced to blaming the bad state, the real disturbance of our senses… And we returned to the plughole. M. de Chagny put his two joined hands underneath and with a last effort, I popped the plughole. “What is that?” the Viscount immediately cried… “It ‘s not water! The Viscount had brought his two full hands close to my lantern… I leaned over the Viscount’s hands… and immediately I threw my lantern so abruptly away from us that it broke and went out… and was lost to us… What I had just seen in M. de Chagny’s hands… was gunpowder ! Note 11: At the time when the Persian was writing, it is easy to understand why he took so many precautions against the spirit of incredulity; Today, when everyone has been able to see these kinds of rooms, they would be superfluous. Chapter 26. Should We Turn the Scorpion? Should We Turn the Grasshopper? End of the Persian’s story. Thus, descending to the bottom of the vault, I had touched the very depths of my thoughts, formidable! The wretch had not deceived me with his vague threats to many of those of the human race! Outside of humanity, he had built for himself, far from men, a subterranean beast’s lair, determined to blow everything up with him in a dazzling catastrophe if those above the earth came to hunt him down in the lair where he had taken refuge in his monstrous ugliness. The discovery we had just made threw us into an agitation that made us forget all our past sorrows, all our present sufferings… Our exceptional situation, even though just now we had found ourselves on the very edge of self-harm, had not yet appeared to us with more precise terror. We now understood everything that the monster had meant and said to Christine Daaé and everything that was meant by the abominable phrase: Yes or no!… If it is no, everyone is dead and buried!… Yes, buried under the debris of what had been the great Paris Opera!… Could one imagine a more frightful crime to leave the world in an apotheosis of horror? Prepared for the tranquility of its retreat, the catastrophe was going to serve to avenge the loves of the most horrible monster that had yet walked under the bridge !… Tomorrow evening, at eleven o’clock, last deadline!… Ah! He had chosen his hour well!… There would be a lot of people at the party!… many of those of the human race… up there… in the flamboyant upper floors of the music house!… What more beautiful procession could he dream of to die in?… He was going to descend into the grave with the most beautiful shoulders in the world, adorned with every jewel… Tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock!… We were to jump in the middle of the performance… if Christine Daaé said: No!… Tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock!… And how could Christine Daaé not say: No? Did n’t she prefer to marry death itself rather than this living corpse? Was she not unaware that the devastating fate of many of the human race depended on her refusal?… Tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock!… And, as we drag ourselves through the darkness, fleeing the powder, trying to find the stone steps again… for up there, above our heads… the trapdoor that leads into the room of mirrors has in turn gone out… we repeat to ourselves: Tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock!… … Finally, I find the staircase again… but suddenly, I stand up straight on the first step, for a terrible thought suddenly fills my brain with flame: –What time is it? Ah! What time is it? What time!… because finally tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock, it may be today, it may be right now!… who could tell us what time it is!… It seems to me that we have been locked in this hell for days and days… for years… since the beginning of the world… All this may be about to blow up right now!… Ah! a noise!… a cracking!… Did you hear, sir?… There!… there, in that corner… good heavens!… like a mechanical noise!… Again!… Ah! light !… it may be the machinery that is about to blow everything up!… I tell you: a cracking… are you deaf then? Mr.
de Chagny and I start screaming like madmen… fear is on our heels… we climb the stairs, rolling up the steps… The trapdoor may be closed up there! It may be that closed door that is causing all this darkness… Ah! to come out of the darkness! come out of the dark!… Rediscover the deadly clarity of the Room of Mirrors!… … But we have arrived at the top of the stairs… no, the trapdoor is not closed, but it is as dark now in the Room of Mirrors as in the cellar we are leaving!… We come completely out of the cellar… we drag ourselves across the floor of the torture chamber… the floor that separates us from this powder magazine… what time is it?… We shout, we call!… M. de Chagny cries out, with all his renewed strength: Christine!… Christine!… And I, I call Erik!… I remind him that I saved his life!… But nothing answers us!… nothing but our own despair… our own madness… what time is it?… Tomorrow evening, eleven o’clock!… We discuss… we try to measure the time we have spent here… but we are incapable of reasoning… If we could only see the dial of a watch, with hands that work!… My watch has stopped for a long time… but M. de Chagny’s is still working… He tells me that he wound it up while dressing for the evening, before coming to the Opera… We are trying to draw some conclusion from this fact that lets us hope that we have not yet arrived at the fatal minute… … The slightest noise that comes to us through the trapdoor that I have tried in vain to close, throws us back into the most atrocious anguish… What time is it?… We no longer have a match on us… And yet we should know… M. de Chagny thinks of breaking the glass of his watch and feeling the two hands… A silence during which he feels, he questions the hands with his fingertips. The ring of the watch serves as a point of reference!… He estimates from the spacing of the hands that it may be exactly eleven o’clock… But the eleven o’clock that makes us shudder may have passed, mayn’t it?… It may be eleven minutes past ten … and we would have at least another twelve hours ahead of us. And, suddenly, I shout: –Silence! I thought I heard footsteps in the house next door. I wasn’t mistaken! I hear the sound of doors, followed by hurried footsteps. Someone is banging on the wall. Christine Daaé’s voice: –Raoul! Raoul! Ah! We’re all shouting at once now, from one side of the wall and the other. Christine sobs, she didn’t know if she would find M. de Chagny alive!… The monster was terrible, it seems… He did nothing but rave while waiting for her to say the yes that she refused him… And yet, she promised him this yes if he would take her to the torture chamber!… But he had stubbornly opposed it, with atrocious threats addressed to all those of the human race… Finally, after hours and hours of this hell, he had just left … leaving her alone to think one last time… … Hours and hours!… What time is it? What time is it, Christine?… –It’s eleven o’clock!… five minutes to eleven!… –But what eleven o’clock?… –The eleven o’clock that will decide life or death!… He just repeated it to me as he left, Christine’s rasping voice continued … He’s dreadful!… He’s delirious and he’s torn off his mask and his golden eyes are shooting out flames!… And he’s doing nothing but laughing!… He said to me, laughing, like a drunken demon: Five minutes! I ‘ll leave you alone because of your well-known modesty!… I don’t want you to blush in front of me when you say yes, like timid fiancées!… What the devil! we know his world! I told you he was like a drunken demon!… Look! and he’s dipped into the little bag of life and death Look! he told me, here is the little bronze key that opens the ebony boxes on the mantelpiece of Louis Philippe’s room… In one of these boxes, you will find a scorpion and in the other a grasshopper, animals very well imitated in Japanese bronze; they are animals that say yes and no! That is to say, you will only have to turn the scorpion on its pivot, in the opposite position to that in which you found it… this will mean to me, when I return to Louis Philippe’s room , to the betrothal room: yes!… The grasshopper, if you turn it, will mean: no! to me, when I return to Louis Philippe’s room, to the death room!… And he laughed like a drunken demon! I was just asking him on my knees for the key to the torture chamber, promising to be his wife forever if he granted me that… But he told me that we would never need that key again and that he was going to throw it into the bottom of the lake!… And then, laughing like a drunken demon, he told me left me, telling me that he would not return for another five minutes, because he knew all that one owes, when one is a gallant man, to the modesty of women!… Ah! yes, again he shouted to me: The grasshopper!… Beware of the grasshopper!… A grasshopper doesn’t just turn, it jumps!… it jumps!… it jumps beautifully!… I am trying here to reproduce with sentences, broken words, exclamations, the meaning of Christine’s delirious words!… For, she too, during these twenty-four hours, had had to touch the depths of human pain… and perhaps she had suffered more than us!… At every moment, Christine interrupted herself and interrupted us to cry out: Raoul! Are you suffering?… And she felt the walls, which were cold now, and she asked why they had been so hot!… And the five minutes passed and, in my poor brain, the scorpion and the grasshopper scratched with all their paws ! I had, however, retained enough lucidity to understand that if you turned the grasshopper, the grasshopper jumped… and with it many of those of the human race! No doubt that the grasshopper commanded some electric current intended to blow up the powder magazine!… Hastily, M. de Chagny, who now seemed, since he had heard Christine’s voice again, to have recovered all his moral strength, explained to the young girl what a formidable situation we found ourselves in, we and the whole Opera… The scorpion had to be turned, immediately… This scorpion, which answered the yes so desired by Erik, must be something that would perhaps prevent the catastrophe from occurring. “Go!… go then, Christine, my beloved wife!” commanded Raoul. There was a silence. “Christine,” I cried, “where are you? ” “Near the scorpion! ” “Don’t touch it!” The idea had come to me—for I knew my Erik—that the monster had deceived the young woman again. Perhaps it was the scorpion that was going to blow everything up. For, after all, why wasn’t he there? The five minutes had been up for a long time now … and he hadn’t come back… And he had doubtless taken shelter!… And he was perhaps waiting for the tremendous explosion… He was only waiting for that!… He couldn’t hope, in truth, that Christine would ever consent to be his willing prey!… Why hadn’t he come back? … Don’t touch the scorpion!… “Him!” cried Christine. “I can hear him!… There he is!… He was coming, indeed.” We heard his footsteps approaching Louis Philippe’s room. He had joined Christine. He hadn’t said a word… Then I raised my voice: “Erik! It’s me! Do you recognize me?” To this call, he immediately replied in an extraordinarily peaceful tone: “So you’re not dead in there?… Well, try to keep quiet. ” I wanted to interrupt him, but he said so coldly that I froze behind my wall: “Not another word, daroga, or I’ll blow everything up!” And he immediately added: “The honor must go to Mademoiselle!… Mademoiselle didn’t touch the scorpion, how calmly he spoke! Mademoiselle didn’t touch the grasshopper with such frightening cold blood! But it ‘s not too late to do the right thing.” Look, I open without a key, because I am a trapdoor enthusiast, and I open and close whatever I want, however I want… I open the little ebony boxes: look there, mademoiselle, in the little ebony boxes… the pretty little creatures… Are they quite well imitated… and how harmless they seem… But the habit does not make the monk! All this in a white, uniform voice… If you turn the grasshopper, we all jump, mademoiselle… There is enough powder under our feet to make us jump a district of Paris… if you turn the scorpion, all this powder is drowned!… Mademoiselle, on the occasion of our wedding, you are going to give a very nice present to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding a very poor masterpiece by Meyerbeer… You are going to give them the gift of life… for you are going, mademoiselle, with your pretty hands—what a weary voice that voice was—you are going to turn the scorpion!… And gay, gay, we shall get married! A silence, and then: –If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion—I have a watch, added Erik’s voice, a watch that works beautifully…—I turn the grasshopper… and the grasshopper, it jumps beautifully!… The silence resumed, more frightening in itself than all the other frightening silences. I knew that when Erik had taken on this peaceful, calm, and weary voice, it was because he was at the end of everything, capable of the most titanic crime or the most frenzied devotion and that a syllable unpleasant to his ear could unleash the hurricane. M. de Chagny, for his part, had understood that there was nothing left to do but pray, and, on his knees, he prayed… As for me, my blood was beating so hard that I had to grasp my heart in my hand, for great fear that it would burst… It was because we had a horrifying presentiment of what was happening in those supreme seconds in the panicked thoughts of Christine Daaé… it was because we understood her hesitation to turn the scorpion… Once again, if it were the scorpion that was going to blow everything up!… If Erik had resolved to swallow us all up with him! Finally, Erik’s voice, soft this time, angelic sweetness… –The two minutes are up… farewell, miss!… jump, grasshopper!… –Erik, cried Christine, who must have rushed to the monster’s hand, do you swear to me, monster, do you swear to me on your infernal love, that it is the scorpion that must be turned… –Yes, to jump at our wedding… –Ah! You see! We are going to jump! –At our wedding!… innocent child!… The scorpion opens the ball!… But that’s enough!… Don’t you want the scorpion? Let me have the grasshopper! –Erik!… –Enough!… I had joined my cries to Christine’s. M. de Chagny, still on his knees, continued to pray… –Erik! I have turned the scorpion!!… Ah! The second we lived there! Waiting! Waiting until we are nothing more than crumbs, amidst the thunder and ruins… … To feel the cracking beneath our feet, in the open abyss… things … things that could be the beginning of the apotheosis of horror… for, through the open trapdoor in the darkness, a black mouth in the black night, a disturbing hiss–like the first sound of a rocket–came… … At first very thin… and then thicker… then very loud… But listen! listen! and hold back with both hands your heart ready to leap with many of those of the human race. This is not the hiss of fire. Wouldn’t it be like a water rocket?… To the trapdoor! To the trapdoor! Listen! listen! It now goes gurgling… gurgling… To the trapdoor!… to the trapdoor!… to the trapdoor!… How fresh! To the fresh! To the fresh! All our thirst, which had gone when the trying one came, returns stronger with the sound of the water. Water! Water! Water rising!… Rising in the cellar, over the barrels, all the barrels of powder, barrels! barrels!… Do you have any barrels to sell? Water!… Water towards which we descend with burning throats… Water rising up to our chins, up to our mouths… And we drink… At the bottom of the cellar, we drink, right from the cellar… And we go back up, in the dark night, the stairs, step by step, the staircase that we had descended in front of the water and that we are going back up with the water. Really, there is a lot of powder lost and well drowned! with plenty of water!… It is a fine job! We do not look at the water, in the house of the Lake! If this continues, the whole lake will flow into the cellar… Because, in truth, we no longer know where it will stop… Here we are out of the cellar and the water is still rising… And the water also comes out of the cellar, spreads over the floor… If this continues, the whole house of the Lake will be flooded. The floor of the room of mirrors is itself a real little lake in which our feet are splashing. That is enough water as it is! Erik must turn off the tap: Erik! Erik! There is enough water for the powder! Turn the tap! Close the scorpion! But Erik doesn’t answer… We can’t hear anything but the water rising… we’re now up to our knees in it!… “Christine! Christine! The water’s rising! It’s rising up to our knees,” shouts M. de Chagny. But Christine doesn’t answer… we can’t hear anything but the water rising. Nothing! Nothing! In the next room… No one! No one to turn the tap! No one to turn off the scorpion! We’re all alone, in the dark, with the black water squeezing us, climbing up, freezing us! Erik! Erik! Christine! Christine! Now we’ve lost our footing and we’re spinning in the water, carried along in an irresistible rotating movement, for the water spins with us and we collide with the black mirrors that push us back… and our
throats, raised above the whirlpool, scream… Are we going to die here? Drowned in the torture chamber?… I’ve never seen anything like it? Erik, at the time of Mazenderan’s Rose Hours , never showed me this through the little invisible window!… Erik! Erik! I saved your life! Remember!… You were condemned!… You were going to die!… I opened the doors of life to you!… Erik!… Ah! We are spinning in the water like wrecks!… But suddenly I seized the trunk of the iron tree with my stray hands!… and I called M. de Chagny… and there we are, both hanging from the branch of the iron tree… And the water is still rising! Ah! Ah! Remember! How much space is there between the branch of the iron tree and the domed ceiling of the room of mirrors?… Try to remember!… After all, the water may stop… it will surely find its level… Look! It seems to me that it is stopping!… No! No! Horror!… Let’s swim! Let’s swim!… our swimming arms intertwine; we’re suffocating!… we’re struggling in the black water!… we’re already having trouble breathing the black air above the black water… the leaking air, which we hear leaking above our heads through some kind of ventilation device… Ah! Let’s turn! Let’s turn! Let’s turn until we find the air vent… we’ll press our mouths to the air vent… But my strength is leaving me, I’m trying to cling to the walls! Ah! how slippery the walls of ice are to my searching fingers… We turn again!… We sink… One last effort!… One last cry!… Erik!… Christine!… gulp, gulp, gulp!… in the ears!… gulp, gulp, gulp!… at the bottom of the black water, our ears go gulp gulp!… And it seems to me again, before losing consciousness completely , that I hear between two gurgles… Barrels!… barrels!… Do you have any barrels to sell? Chapter 27. The End of the Phantom’s Loves. This is where the written account left me by the Persian ends. Despite the horror of a situation that seemed to definitively doom them to death, M. de Chagny and his companion were saved by the sublime devotion of Christine Daaé. And I have all the rest of the adventure from the mouth of the daroga himself. When I went to see him, he was still living in his little apartment on the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries. He was very ill, and it took nothing less than all my ardor as a reporter and historian in the service of truth to persuade him to relive the incredible drama with me. It was still his old and faithful servant Darius who waited on him and took me to him. The daroga received me at the corner of the window overlooking the garden, seated in a large armchair where he tried to straighten a torso that must not have been without beauty. Our Persian still had his magnificent eyes, but his poor face was very tired. He had had his head completely shaved, which he usually covered with an astrakhan cap; he was dressed in a large, very simple greatcoat in the sleeves of which he unconsciously amused himself by twiddling his thumbs, but his mind remained very lucid.
He could not remember the old torments without being seized by a certain fever and it was in fragments that I wrested from him the surprising end of this strange story. Sometimes, he had to be asked for a long time to answer my questions, and sometimes, excited by his memories, he spontaneously evoked before me, with striking clarity , the frightening image of Erik and the terrible hours that M. de
Chagny and he had lived in the residence of the Lake. You should have seen the shudder that agitated him when he described to me his awakening in the disturbing darkness of the Louis Philippe room… after the drama of the waters… And here is the end of this terrible story, as he told it to me in order to complete the written account that he had been kind enough to entrust to me: When he opened his eyes, the daroga saw himself stretched out on a bed… M. de Chagny was lying on a sofa, next to the wardrobe with a mirror. An angel and a demon watched over them… After the mirages and illusions of the torture chamber, the precision of the bourgeois details of this small, quiet room seemed to have been invented again with the intention of confusing the mind of the mortal foolhardy enough to stray into this realm of living nightmare. This boat bed, these waxed mahogany chairs, this chest of drawers and these coppers, the care with which these little squares of crocheted lace were placed on the backs of the armchairs, the clock and on each side of the fireplace the little boxes with such an inoffensive appearance… finally, this shelf filled with shells, red pincushions, mother-of-pearl boats and an enormous ostrich egg… all discreetly lit by a lampshade placed on a pedestal table… all this furniture, which was of a touching domestic ugliness, so peaceful, so reasonable in the depths of the cellars of the Opera, disconcerted the imagination more than all past phantasmagoria. And the shadow of the man in the mask, in this small, old-fashioned, precise and clean setting, appeared all the more formidable. She bent down to the Persian’s ear and said in a low voice: “Are you better, daroga?… Are you looking at my furniture?… It’s all I have left of my poor, miserable mother…” He still told her things he no longer remembered; but—and this seemed very strange to him—the Persian had the precise memory that, during this outdated vision of the Louis Philippe room, only Erik spoke. Christine Daaé did not say a word; she moved silently and like a Sister of Charity who had taken a vow of silence… She brought a cordial in a cup… or steaming tea… The man in the mask took it from her hands and offered it to the Persian. As for M. de Chagny, he was asleep… Erik said, pouring a little rum into the daroga’s cup and showing him the stretched-out viscount: “He came to long before we could know if you would still be alive one day, daroga.” He’s fine… He’s asleep… We mustn’t wake him… For a moment, Erik left the room and the Persian, lifting himself up on his elbow, looked around him… He saw, sitting by the fireplace, the white silhouette of Christine Daaé. He spoke to her … he called her… but he was still very weak and he fell back on the pillow… Christine came to him, placed her hand on his forehead, then moved away… And the Persian remembered that then, as she left, she did not spare a glance for M. de Chagny who, beside him, it is true, was sleeping very peacefully… and she returned to sit in her armchair, by the fireplace, silent as a Sister of Charity who has taken a vow of silence… Erik returned with some small bottles which he placed on the mantelpiece. And still very quietly, so as not to wake M. de Chagny, he said to the Persian, after sitting at his bedside and feeling his pulse: “Now you are both saved.” And I will soon take you back to the earth, to please my wife. Whereupon he stood up, without further explanation, and disappeared again. The Persian was now looking at Christine Daaé’s tranquil profile under the lamp. She was reading from a tiny book with a gilt edge, like those seen in religious books. The Imitation has one of those editions. And the Persian still had in his ear the natural tone with which the other had said: To please my wife… Very softly, the daroga called again, but Christine must have been reading very far away, because she did not hear… Erik returned… made the daroga drink a potion, after having warned him not to speak another word to his wife or to anyone else, because that could be very dangerous for everyone’s health. From that moment on, the Persian still remembers Erik’s black shadow and Christine’s white silhouette, which always glided silently across the room, leaning over him and over M. de Chagny. The Persian was still very weak, and the slightest noise, the door of the mirrored wardrobe creaking open , for example, gave him a headache… and then he fell asleep like M. de Chagny. This time, he was to wake up only at home, cared for by his faithful Darius, who told him that the previous night he had been found leaning against the door of his apartment, where he must have been carried by a stranger, who had taken care to ring before leaving. As soon as the daroga had recovered his strength and his responsibility, he sent to ask for news of the viscount at the home of Count Philippe. He was told that the young man had not reappeared and that Count Philippe was dead. His body had been found on the bank of the Lake of the Opera, near the Rue Scribe. The Persian remembered the funeral mass he had attended behind the wall of the room of mirrors, and he no longer doubted the crime or the criminal. Without difficulty, alas! knowing Erik, he reconstructed the drama. After believing that his brother had kidnapped Christine Daaé, Philippe had rushed after him on this road to Brussels, where he knew that everything was prepared for such an adventure. Not having met the young people there, he had returned to the Opera, remembered Raoul’s strange confidences about his fantastic rival, learned that the viscount had tried everything to penetrate the underground areas of the theater and finally that he had disappeared, leaving his hat in the diva’s dressing room, next to a box of pistols. And the count, who no longer doubted his brother’s madness, had in turn launched himself into this infernal subterranean labyrinth. Was anything more necessary, in the Persian’s eyes, for the count’s corpse to be found on the bank of the Lake, where the song of the siren, Erik’s siren, this concierge of the Lake of the Dead, kept watch? So the Persian did not hesitate. Terrified by this new crime, unable to remain in the uncertainty in which he found himself regarding the definitive fate of the Viscount and Christine Daaé, he decided to do everything tell the justice system. Now the investigation of the case had been entrusted to Judge Faure and it was at his house that he went to knock. One can imagine how a skeptical, down-to-earth, superficial mind, I say as I think, and completely unprepared for such a confidence, received the daroga’s deposition. The latter was treated like a madman. The Persian, despairing of ever being heard, had then started to write. Since the justice system did not want his testimony, the press might seize it, and one evening he had just written the last line of the story that I have faithfully reported here when his servant Darius announced to him a stranger who had not given his name, whose face it was impossible to see and who had simply declared that he would not leave the place until he had spoken to the daroga. The Persian, immediately sensing the personality of this singular visitor, ordered that he be brought in immediately. The daroga was not mistaken. It was the Phantom! It was Erik! He seemed extremely weak and was holding onto the wall as if he were afraid of falling… Having removed his hat, he revealed a forehead as pale as wax. The rest of his face was hidden by the mask. The Persian stood before him. “Assassin of Count Philippe, what have you done with his brother and Christine Daaé?” At this formidable apostrophe, Erik staggered and remained silent for a moment, then, dragging himself to an armchair, he let himself fall into it with a deep sigh. And there, he said in short sentences, in short words, in short breath: –Daroga, don’t talk to me about Count Philippe… He was dead… already… when I left my house… he was dead… already… when… the siren sang… it was an accident… a sad… a… lamentably sad… accident… He had fallen very clumsily and simply and naturally into the Lake!… –You’re lying! cried the Persian. Then Erik bowed his head and said: –I didn’t come here… to talk to you about Count Philippe… but to tell you that… I’m going to die… –Where are Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daaé?… –I’m going to die. –Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daaé? –… of love… daroga… I’m going to die of love… that’s how it is… I loved her so much!… And I still love her, daroga, since I’m dying of it, I tell you… If you knew how beautiful she was when she allowed me to kiss her alive, on her eternal salvation… It was the first time, daroga, the first time, you hear, that I kissed a woman… Yes, alive, I kissed her alive and she was beautiful as a dead woman?… The Persian had stood up and dared to touch Erik. He shook his arm. –Will you finally tell me if she is dead or alive?… –Why are you shaking me like this? Erik replied with an effort… I tell you that it is I who am going to die… yes, I kissed her alive… –And now she is dead? –I tell you that I kissed her like that on the forehead… and she didn’t take her forehead away from my mouth!… Ah! She’s an honest girl! As for being dead, I don’t think so, although that’s no longer my business… No! No! She’s not dead! And I shouldn’t learn that someone has touched a hair on her head! She’s a brave and honest girl who saved your life, to boot, daroga, at a time when I wouldn’t have given two cents for your Persian skin. In fact, no one was paying attention to you. Why were you there with that young man? You were going to die into the bargain! My word, she begged me for her young man, but I replied that, since she had turned scorpion, I had become by that very fact, and by her good will, her fiancé and that she didn’t need two fiancés, which was fair enough; as for You, you didn’t exist, you already didn’t exist anymore, I tell you, and you were going to die with the other fiancé! Only, listen carefully, daroga, as you were screaming like people possessed because of the water, Christine came to me, her beautiful big blue eyes open and she swore to me, on her eternal salvation, that she consented to be my living wife! Until then, in the depths of her eyes, daroga, I had always seen my dead wife; it was the first time that I saw my living wife there. She was sincere, on her eternal salvation. She would not kill herself. Deal concluded. Half a minute later, all the waters had returned to the Lake, and I pulled your tongue out, daroga, because I really believed, my word, that you would stay there!… Finally!… There! It was agreed! I had to take you back to your home on the top of the earth. Finally, when you had cleared the floor of the Louis Philippe room for me, I came back there, all alone. “What had you done with the Viscount de Chagny?” interrupted the Persian. “Ah! You understand… that one, daroga, I wasn’t going to just carry him back to the earth like that… He was a hostage… But I couldn’t keep him in the house by the lake either, because of Christine; so I locked him up very comfortably, I chained him up properly; the perfume of Mazenderan had made him limp as a rag in the Communards’ vault, which is in the most deserted part of the farthest cellar of the Opera, lower than the fifth floor below, where no one ever goes and where one can make oneself heard by no one. I was very calm and I returned to Christine. She was waiting for me… At this point in his story, it seems that the Ghost rose so solemnly that the Persian, who had resumed his seat in his armchair , had to rise too, as if obeying the same movement and feeling that it was impossible to remain seated at such a solemn moment, and even, the Persian himself told me, he took off his astrakhan cap, although his head was shaved. “Yes! She was waiting for me,” Erik continued, who began to tremble like a leaf, but to tremble with a truly solemn emotion… she was waiting for me, quite upright, alive, like a real living bride, on her eternal salvation… And when I came forward, more timid than a little child, she did not run away… no, no… she stayed… she waited for me… I even believe, daroga, that she has a little… oh! not much… but a little, like a living bride, stretched out her forehead… And… and… I… kissed her!… Me!… me!… me!… And she didn’t die!… And she stayed quite naturally beside me, after I had kissed her, like that… on the forehead… Ab! how good it is, daroga, to kiss someone!… You can’t know, you!… But me! me!… My mother, daroga, my poor miserable mother never wanted me to kiss her… She ran away… throwing my mask at me!… nor any woman!… never!… never!… Ah! ah! ah! Then, wasn’t it?… from such happiness, wasn’t it, I wept. And I fell weeping at her feet… and I kissed her feet… her little feet, weeping… You too weep, daroga; and she too wept… the angel wept!… As he recounted these things, Erik sobbed and the Persian, indeed, could not hold back his tears before this masked man who, his shoulders shaking, his hands on his chest, sometimes moaned with pain and sometimes with tenderness. –… Oh! daroga, I felt her tears flowing on my forehead! mine ! mine! They were warm… they were soft! they went everywhere under my mask, her tears! they were going to mingle with my tears in my eyes!… they flowed even into my mouth… Ah! her tears, on me! Listen, daroga, listen, what I did… I tore off my mask so as not to lose a single one of her tears… And she didn’t run away!… And she didn’t die! She stayed alive, crying… over me… with me… We cried together!… Lord of heaven! You gave me all the happiness in the world!… And Erik collapsed, groaning on the armchair. –Ah! I’m not going to die yet… right away… but let me cry! he had said to the Persian. After a moment, the Man in the Mask had continued: –Listen, daroga… listen carefully to this… while I was at her feet… I heard her say, Poor unfortunate Erik! and she took my hand!… As for me, you understand, I was nothing more than a poor dog ready to die for her… as I tell you, daroga! Imagine that I had in my hand a ring, a gold ring that I had given her… that she had lost… and that I found… a wedding ring, what!… I slipped it into her little hand and I said to her: Here!… take this!… take this for yourself… and for him… It will be my wedding present… the present for poor unfortunate Erik… I know that you love him, the young man… don’t cry anymore!… She asked me, in a very gentle voice, what I meant; then, I made her understand, and she understood at once that I was for her only a poor dog ready to die… but that she, she could marry the young man whenever she wanted, because she had cried with me… Ah! daroga… you think… that… when I told her that, it was as if I were calmly cutting my heart into four, but she had cried with me… and she had said: Poor unfortunate Erik!… Erik’s emotion was such that he had to warn the Persian not to look at him, because he was suffocating and he was obliged to remove his mask. In this connection, the daroga told me that he himself had gone to the window and had opened it, his heart rising with pity, but taking great care to look at the tops of the trees in the Tuileries gardens so as not to encounter the monster’s face. –I went, Erik continued, to free the young man and I told him to follow me to Christine… They kissed in front of me in the Louis Philippe room… Christine had my ring… I made Christine swear that when I was dead she would come one night, passing by the Lake on the Rue Scribe, to bury me in great secrecy with the gold ring she had been wearing until that moment… I told her how she would find my body and what to do with it… Then Christine kissed me for the first time, in her turn, there, on the forehead… don’t look, daroga! there, on the forehead… on my forehead!… don’t look, daroga! and they both left… Christine was no longer crying… I alone was crying… daroga, daroga… if Christine keeps her oath, she will come back soon!… And Erik was silent. The Persian had not asked him any more questions. He was completely reassured about the fate of Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daaé, and no one of the human race could, after hearing it that night, have doubted Erik’s weeping words. The monster had put his mask back on and gathered his strength to leave the daroga. He had told him that, when he felt his end very near, he would send him, to thank him for the good that he had once wished him, what was most dear to him in the world: all Christine Daaé’s papers, which she had written at the very moment of this adventure for Raoul, and which she had left for Erik, and some objects that came to him from her, two handkerchiefs, a pair of gloves and a shoe knot. On a question from the Persian, Erik informed him that the two young people, as soon as they saw themselves free, had decided to go and look for a priest at the bottom of some solitude where they would hide their happiness and that they had taken, for this purpose, the Gare du Nord du Monde. Finally, Erik was counting on the Persian to, as soon as he had received the promised relics and papers, announce his death to the two young people. To do this, he would have to pay a line to the obituary notices in the newspaper L’Époque. That was all. The Persian had escorted Erik to the door of his apartment and Darius had accompanied him to the sidewalk, supporting him. A cab was waiting. Erik got in. The Persian, who had returned to the window, heard him say to the coachman: Terre plein de l’Opéra. And then, the cab had driven off into the night. The Persian had, for the last time, seen poor unfortunate Erik. Three weeks later, the newspaper L’Époque had published this obituary: ERIK IS DEAD. EPILOGUE Such is the true story of the Phantom of the Opera. As I announced at the beginning of this work, there can be no doubt now that Erik really lived. Too much evidence of this existence is now available to everyone for us not to be able to reasonably follow Erik’s actions throughout the entire Chagny drama. There is no need to repeat here how much this affair captivated the capital. This artist kidnapped, the Count of Chagny dead in such exceptional circumstances, his brother disappeared and the triple sleep of the lighting employees at the Opera!… What dramas! What passions! What crimes had taken place around the idyll of Raoul and the sweet and charming Christine!… What had become of the sublime and mysterious singer of whom the earth was never, ever to hear again?… She was represented as the victim of the rivalry of the two brothers, and no one imagined what had happened; No one understood that since Raoul and Christine had both disappeared, the two fiancés had withdrawn far from the world to taste a happiness that they would not have wanted public after the unexplained death of Count Philippe… They had taken a train one day at the Gare du Nord du Monde… I too, perhaps, one day, will take the train at that station and I will go looking around your lakes, oh Norway! oh silent Scandinavia! the traces may still be alive of Raoul and Christine, and also of Mama Valérius, who also disappeared at the same time!… Perhaps one day, I will hear with my ears the solitary Echo of the North of the World, repeating the song of the one who knew the Angel of Music?… Long after the case, through the unintelligent care of Mr. Faure, the investigating judge, was closed, the press, from time to time, still sought to penetrate the mystery… and continued to wonder where was the monstrous hand that had prepared and executed so many unheard-of catastrophes! Crime and disappearance. A newspaper on the boulevard, which was aware of all the backstage gossip , had been the only one to write: –This hand is that of the Phantom of the Opera. And even then, it had done so naturally in an ironic manner. Only the Persian, whom no one wanted to hear and who did not renew , after Erik’s visit, his first attempt with Justice, possessed the whole truth. And he held the main proofs which had come to him with the pious relics announced by the Phantom… It was up to me to complete these proofs, with the help of the daroga himself. I kept him informed of my research from day to day and he guided them. For years and years he had not returned to the Opera, but he had retained the most precise memory of the monument and he was no better guide to help me discover its most hidden corners. It was also he who indicated to me the sources from which I could draw, the people to question; it is he who pushed me to knock on Mr. Poligny’s door, at the moment when the poor man was almost in agony. I did not know he was so low and I will never forget the effect that my questions about the ghost had on him. He looked at me as if he saw the devil and answered me only with a few sentences without connection, but which attested – this was the essential thing – to the extent to which F. de l’O. had, in his time, thrown disruption into this already very agitated life. Mr. Poligny was what is commonly called a reveler. When I reported to the Persian the meager result of my visit to Mr. Poligny, the daroga gave me a vague smile and said to me: Poligny never knew how much that extraordinary scoundrel Erik – sometimes the Persian spoke of Erik as a god, sometimes as a vile scoundrel – made him walk. Poligny was superstitious and Erik knew it. Erik also knew a great deal about the public and private affairs of the Opera.
When M. Poligny heard a mysterious voice telling him, in box number 5, how he was using his time and the trust of his partner, he didn’t ask for more. Struck at first as if by a voice from heaven, he thought he was damned, and then, as the voice asked him for money, he saw clearly in the end that he was being played by a blackmailer of whom Debienne himself was a victim. Both of them, already tired of their management for many reasons, left without trying to learn more about the personality of this strange F. de l’O., who had sent them such a singular specification. They left all the mystery to the next management with a deep sigh of satisfaction, well rid of a story that had greatly intrigued them without making either of them laugh. Thus spoke the Persian about MM. Debienne and Poligny. On this subject, I spoke to him about their successors and I was surprised that in the Memoirs of a Director, by M. Moncharmin, the deeds and actions of F. de l’O. were spoken of in such a complete manner in the first part, only to end up saying nothing more or almost nothing about them in the second. To which the Persian, who knew these Memoirs as well as if he had written them, pointed out to me that I would find the explanation of the whole affair if I took the trouble to reflect on the few lines that, in the second part of these Memoirs, Moncharmin was kind enough to devote to the Phantom. Here are these lines, which interest us, moreover, quite particularly, since we find recounted in them the very simple way in which the famous story of the twenty thousand francs ended : Regarding F. de l’O. It is Mr. Moncharmin who is speaking, some of whose singular fancies I have narrated here, at the beginning of my Memoirs, I only want to say one thing, that he redeemed with a fine gesture all the trouble he had caused my dear colleague and, I must admit, myself. He doubtless judged that there were limits to any joke, especially when it costs so much and when the police commissioner is involved, because, at the very moment when we had arranged to meet Mr. Mifroid in our office to tell him the whole story, a few days after Christine Daaé’s disappearance, we found on Richard’s desk, in a beautiful envelope on which one could read in red ink: From F. de l’O., the rather large sums that he had managed to temporarily withdraw, and in a sort of game, from the director’s cash register. Richard was immediately of the opinion that we should leave it at that and not push the matter further. I agreed to agree with Richard. And all’s well that ends well. Isn’t that so, my dear F. de l’O. ? Obviously, Moncharmin, especially after this restitution, continued to believe that he had been for a moment the plaything of burlesque imagination of Richard, as, for his part, Richard did not cease to believe that Moncharmin had, to avenge himself for some jokes, amused himself by inventing the whole affair of the F. de l’O. Wasn’t this the moment to ask the Persian to tell me by what artifice the Phantom made twenty thousand francs disappear into Richard’s pocket, despite the safety pin. He replied that he had not gone into this minor detail, but that, if I wanted to work on the spot myself, I should certainly find the key to the enigma in the director’s office itself, remembering that Erik had not been nicknamed the trapdoor enthusiast for nothing. And I promised the Persian to engage, as soon as I had the time, in useful investigations in this direction. I will tell the reader immediately that the results of these investigations were perfectly satisfactory. I did not believe, in truth, to discover so much undeniable proof of the authenticity of the phenomena attributed to the Phantom. And it is good that it is known that the papers of the Persian, those of Christine Daaé, the declarations made to me by the former collaborators of Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin and by little Meg herself, this excellent Madame Giry being, alas! deceased, and by Sorelli, who is now retired at Louveciennes—it is good, I say, that it is known that all this, which constitutes the documentary evidence of the existence of the Phantom, evidence that I am going to deposit in the archives of the Opera, is verified by several important discoveries of which I can justly take some pride. If I have not been able to find the residence of the Lake, Erik having definitively sealed off all the secret entrances and I am still sure that it would be easy to enter if the Lake were drained, as I have several times requested of the administration of fine arts, I have nevertheless discovered the secret corridor of the Communards, whose wooden wall is falling into ruins in places; and, likewise, I have brought to light the trapdoor by which the Persian and Raoul descended into the basement of the theater. I have noted, in the Communards’ dungeon, many initials traced on the walls by the unfortunates who were locked up there and, among these initials, an R and a C.–RC? Is this not significant? Raoul de Chagny! The letters are still very visible today. I did not, of course, stop there. In the first and third below, I have played two strikes of a pivoting system, completely unknown to the stagehands, who only use horizontally sliding trapdoors. Finally, I can say, with full knowledge of the facts, to the reader: Visit the Opera one day, ask to walk there in peace without a stupid guide, enter box No. 5 and knock on the enormous column which separates this box from the front of the stage; knock with your cane or with your fist and listen… up to the height of your head: the column sounds hollow! And after that, do not be surprised that it could have been inhabited by the voice of the Phantom; there is, in this column, room for two men. If you are surprised that during the phenomena of Lodge No. 5 no one turned towards this column, do not forget that it has the appearance of solid marble and that the voice that was enclosed seemed to come from the opposite side because the voice of the ventriloquist ghost came from wherever he wanted. The column is worked, sculpted, excavated and fiddled with by the artist’s chisel. I do not despair of one day discovering the piece of sculpture that was supposed to lower and raise at will, to leave a free and mysterious passage to the correspondence of the Ghost with Madame Giry and to his generosity. Certainly, all this, which I saw, felt, touched, is nothing compared to what in reality an enormous and fabulous being like Erik must have created in the mystery of a monument like that of the Opera, but I would give all these discoveries for the one I was given the opportunity to make, in front of the administrator himself, in the director’s office, a few centimeters from the armchair: a trapdoor, the width of the parquet floorboards, the length of a forearm, no more… a trapdoor that folds down like the lid of a box, a trapdoor through which I see a hand emerging, working dexterously in the hem of a tailcoat that is trailing… It was through there that the forty thousand francs had gone!… It was also through there that, thanks to some trickery, they had returned… When I spoke about it with understandable emotion to the Persian, I said to him: –So Erik was simply having fun – since the forty thousand francs have returned – by being facetious with his specifications?… He replied: –Don’t believe it!… Erik needed money… Believing himself out of humanity, he was not hindered by scruples and he used the extraordinary gifts of skill and imagination that he had received from nature in compensation for the atrocious ugliness with which it had endowed him, to exploit humans, and this sometimes in the most artistic way in the world, for the trick was often worth its weight in gold. If he returned the forty thousand francs, of his own accord, to Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin, it was because at the time of restitution he no longer needed them! He had renounced his marriage to Christine Daaé. He had renounced all things above earth. According to the Persian, Erik was originally from a small town near Rouen. He was the son of a masonry contractor. He had fled early from his father’s home, where his ugliness was an object of horror and terror for his parents. For a time, he had exhibited himself at fairs, where his impresario presented him as if he were still dead. He had to cross Europe from fair to fair and complete his strange education as an artist and magician at the very source of art and magic, among the Bohemians. A whole period of Erik’s existence was rather obscure. We find him again at the Nizhny Novgorod fair, where he then performed in all his frightful glory. Already he sang as no one in the world had ever sung; he played the ventriloquist and indulged in extraordinary juggling acts of which the caravans, on their return to Asia, still spoke all along the way. Thus his reputation spread beyond the walls of the palace of Mazenderan, where the little sultana, favorite of the sha in shah, was bored. A fur trader, who was on his way to Samarkand and returning from Nizhny Novgorod, recounted the miracles he had seen in Erik’s tent. The trader was brought to the Palace, and Mazenderan’s daroga had to question him. Then the daroga was charged with searching for Erik. He brought him back to Persia, where for a few months he ruled, as they say in Europe, as rain and sunshine. He thus committed quite a few horrors, for he seemed to know neither good nor evil, and he cooperated in some fine political assassinations as calmly as he fought, with diabolical inventions, the Emir of Afghanistan, at war with the Empire. The sha en shah took a liking to him. It is at this moment that Mazenderan’s Rosy Hours are set , of which the daroga’s account has given us a glimpse. As Erik had, in architecture, quite personal ideas and he conceived a palace as a magician might imagine a combination box, the sha en shah commissioned him to build a construction of this kind, which he carried out successfully and which was, it seems, so ingenious that His Majesty could walk everywhere without being seen and disappear without it being possible to discover by what artifice. When the sha en shah saw himself the master of such a jewel, he ordered, as a certain Tsar had done to the brilliant architect of a church in Red Square in Moscow, that Erik’s golden eyes be gouged out. But he reflected that, even blind, Erik could still build, for another sovereign, such an incredible residence, and then, finally, that, Erik alive, someone had the secret of the marvelous palace. Erik’s death was decided, as well as that of all the workers who had labored under his orders. The daroga of Mazenderan was charged with the execution of this abominable order. Erik had rendered him some services and had made him laugh. He saved him by providing him with the means to escape. But he almost paid with his head for this generous weakness. Fortunately for the daroga, a corpse half-eaten by seabirds was found on the shore of the Caspian Sea, which was taken to be Erik’s, because some of the daroga’s friends had dressed the body in belongings that had belonged to Erik himself. The daroga was left with the loss of his favor, his property, and exile. The Persian Treasury, however, continued to give him a small annuity of a few hundred francs a month, because the daroga was of royal blood, and it was then that he came to take refuge in Paris. As for Erik, he had passed through Asia Minor, then gone to Constantinople where he entered the service of the Sultan. I will have made it clear what services he was able to render to a sovereign haunted by all terrors when I say that it was Erik who built all the famous trapdoors, secret chambers, and mysterious safes that were found at Yildiz Kiosk after the last Turkish revolution. It was he who had the imagination to make automatons dressed like the prince and looking just like the prince himself, automatons that made people believe that the leader of the faithful was standing in one place, awake, when he was resting in another. Naturally, he had to leave the Sultan’s service for the same reasons he had had to flee Persia. He knew too much. So, very tired of his adventurous, formidable, and monstrous life, he wanted to become someone like everyone else. And he became a contractor, like an ordinary contractor who builds houses for everyone, with ordinary bricks! He tendered some foundation work to the Opera. When he saw himself in the underworld of such a vast theater, his natural artist, fanciful and magical, took over. And then, wasn’t he always so ugly? He dreamed of creating a home unknown to the rest of the earth and which would hide him forever from the gaze of men. We know and can guess the rest. It is throughout this incredible and yet true adventure. Poor unfortunate Erik! Should we pity him? Should we curse him? He only asked to be someone, like everyone else! But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or play tricks with it, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the noblest of the human race! He had a heart to contain the empire of the world, and he finally had to be content with a cellar. Decidedly, we must pity the Phantom of the Opera! I prayed, despite his crimes, over his remains and may God have mercy on him! Why did God make a man as ugly as that? I am sure, of course, that I prayed over his corpse the other day when they took him out of the earth, at the very spot where they buried living voices; it was his skeleton. It was not by the ugliness of his head that I recognized him, for when they have been dead for so long, all men are ugly, but by the gold ring he was wearing and that Christine Daaé had certainly come to slip onto his finger, before burying him, as she had promised. The skeleton was located very close to the small fountain, at the spot where for the first time, when he led her into the underside of the theater, the Angel of Music had held the fainting Christine Daaé in his trembling arms. And now, what are we going to do with this skeleton? Are we not going to throw it in the common grave?… I say: the place of the skeleton of the Phantom of the Opera is in the archives of the National Academy of Music; it is not an ordinary skeleton. Note 12: I was still talking about it forty-eight hours before the appearance of this work, to Mr. Dujardin Beaumetz, our very friendly Under Secretary of State for Fine Arts, who left me some hope, and I told him that it was the duty of the State to put an end to the legend of the Phantom in order to reestablish on indisputable bases the very curious story of Erik. For this, it is necessary, and it would be the crowning achievement of my personal work, to rediscover the House by the Lake, in which there may still be treasures for musical art. There is no longer any doubt that Erik was an incomparable artist. Who is to say that we will not find in the House by the Lake the famous score of his triumphant Don Juan? Note 13: Interview with Mohamed Ali Bey, the day after the entry of the troops from Salonika into Constantinople, by the special correspondent of Le Matin .
You have just explored the dark galleries and dazzling splendor of the Opera through “The Phantom of the Opera” by Gaston Leroux. This story, between melody and terror, reveals how love and suffering can shape tragic destinies. The Phantom, a figure both feared and pitiful, remains etched in the imagination as the symbol of devouring passions and unspeakable secrets. Thank you for sharing this literary journey with us. For more captivating and immersive discoveries, subscribe and continue exploring the greatest literary classics on this channel.