myself in the hopeless pursuit of a vain image. At last,

I received the proof that my presentiments had not deceived me,

and I was rewarded for all my efforts on the day when I acquired

the certainty that the Opera ghost was more than a mere shade.

On that day, I had spent long hours over THE MEMOIRS OF A MANAGER,

the light and frivolous work of the too-skeptical Moncharmin, who,

during his term at the Opera, understood nothing of the mysterious

behavior of the ghost and who was making all the fun of it that he

could at the very moment when he became the first victim of the

curious financial operation that went on inside the "magic envelope."

I had just left the library in despair, when I met the delightful

acting-manager of our National Academy, who stood chatting on a landing

with a lively and well-groomed little old man, to whom he introduced

me gaily. The acting-manager knew all about my investigations

and how eagerly and unsuccessfully I had been trying to discover

the whereabouts of the examining magistrate in the famous Chagny case,

M. Faure. Nobody knew what had become of him, alive or dead;

and here he was back from Canada, where he had spent fifteen years,

and the first thing he had done, on his return to Paris, was to come

to the secretarial offices at the Opera and ask for a free seat.

The little old man was M. Faure himself.

We spent a good part of the evening together and he told me the whole

Chagny case as he had understood it at the time. He was bound to

conclude in favor of the madness of the viscount and the accidental

death of the elder brother, for lack of evidence to the contrary;

but he was nevertheless persuaded that a terrible tragedy had taken

place between the two brothers in connection with Christine Daae.

He could not tell me what became of Christine or the viscount.

When I mentioned the ghost, he only laughed. He, too, had been told

of the curious manifestations that seemed to point to the existence

of an abnormal being, residing in one of the most mysterious

corners of the Opera, and he knew the story of the envelope;

but he had never seen anything in it worthy of his attention

as magistrate in charge of the Chagny case, and it was as much

as he had done to listen to the evidence of a witness who appeared

of his own accord and declared that he had often met the ghost.

This witness was none other than the man whom all Paris called the

"Persian" and who was well-known to every subscriber to the Opera.

The magistrate took him for a visionary.

I was immensely interested by this story of the Persian. I wanted,

if there were still time, to find this valuable and eccentric witness.

My luck began to improve and I discovered him in his little flat

in the Rue de Rivoli, where he had lived ever since and where he died

five months after my visit. I was at first inclined to be suspicious;

but when the Persian had told me, with child-like candor,

all that he knew about the ghost and had handed me the proofs

of the ghost's existence--including the strange correspondence

of Christine Daae--to do as I pleased with, I was no longer able

to doubt. No, the ghost was not a myth!

I have, I know, been told that this correspondence may have been

forged from first to last by a man whose imagination had certainly

been fed on the most seductive tales; but fortunately I discovered

some of Christine's writing outside the famous bundle of letters and,

on a comparison between the two, all my doubts were removed.

I also went into the past history of the Persian and found that he

was an upright man, incapable of inventing a story that might have

defeated the ends of justice.

This, moreover, was the opinion of the more serious people who,

at one time or other, were mixed up in the Chagny case, who were

friends of the Chagny family, to whom I showed all my documents

and set forth all my inferences. In this connection, I should

like to print a few lines which I received from General D------:

SIR:

I can not urge you too strongly to publish the results of your inquiry.

I remember perfectly that, a few weeks before the disappearance

of that great singer, Christine Daae, and the tragedy which

threw the whole of the Faubourg Saint-Germain into mourning,

there was a great deal of talk, in the foyer of the ballet,

on the subject of the "ghost;" and I believe that it only ceased

to be discussed in consequence of the later affair that excited us

all so greatly. But, if it be possible--as, after hearing you,

I believe--to explain the tragedy through the ghost, then I

beg you sir, to talk to us about the ghost again.

Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always

be more easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent

people have tried to picture two brothers killing each other

who had worshiped each other all their lives.

Believe me, etc.

Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over

the ghost's vast domain, the huge building which he had made

his kingdom. All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived,

corroborated the Persian's documents precisely; and a wonderful

discovery crowned my labors in a very definite fashion. It will be

remembered that, later, when digging in the substructure of the Opera,

before burying the phonographic records of the artist's voice,

the workmen laid bare a corpse. Well, I was at once able

to prove that this corpse was that of the Opera ghost. I made

the acting-manager put this proof to the test with his own hand;

and it is now a matter of supreme indifference to me if the papers

pretend that the body was that of a victim of the Commune.

The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars

of the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their

skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt

which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions.

I came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains

of the Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for

the unheard-of chance described above.

But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it.

For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction

by thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for

the first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daae),

M. Remy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late acting-manager,

M. Gabriel, the late chorus-master, and more particularly Mme. la

Baronne de Castelot-Barbezac, who was once the "little Meg"

of the story (and who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star

of our admirable corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy

Mme. Giry, now deceased, who had charge of the ghost's private box.

All these were of the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them,

I shall be able to reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror,

in their smallest details, before the reader's eyes.

And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing

on the threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank

the present management the Opera, which has so kindly assisted me

in all my inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together with

M. Gabion, the acting-manager, and that most amiable of men,

the architect intrusted with the preservation of the building,

who did not hesitate to lend me the works of Charles Garnier,

although he was almost sure that I would never return them to him.

Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the generosity of my friend

and former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who allowed me to dip

into his splendid theatrical library and to borrow the rarest

editions of books by which he set great store.

GASTON LEROUX.

It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of

the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their retirement.

Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the principal dancers,

was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the ballet, who had come

up from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte. They rushed in amid

great confusion, some giving vent to forced and unnatural laughter,

others to cries of terror. Sorelli, who wished to be alone for a moment

to "run through" the speech which she was to make to the resigning

managers, looked around angrily at the mad and tumultuous crowd.

It was little Jammes--the girl with the tip-tilted nose,

the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white

neck and shoulders--who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:

"It's the ghost!" And she locked the door.

Sorelli's dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace elegance.

A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two provided

the necessary furniture. On the walls hung a few engravings,

relics of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in

the Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini.

But the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet,

who were lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their

time singing, quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers

and buying one another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum,

until the call-boy's bell rang.

Sorelli was very superstitious. She shuddered when she heard

little Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool"

and then, as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general,

and the Opera ghost in particular, at once asked for details:

"Have you seen him?"

"As plainly as I see you now!" said little Jammes, whose legs were

giving way beneath her, and she dropped with a moan into a chair.

Thereupon little Giry--the girl with eyes black as sloes,

hair black as ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin

stretched over poor little bones--little Giry added:

"If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!"

"Oh, yes!" cried the chorus of ballet-girls.

And they all began to talk together. The ghost had appeared to them

in the shape of a gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood

before them in the passage, without their knowing where he came from.

He seemed to have come straight through the wall.

"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head.

"You see the ghost everywhere!"

And it was true. For several months, there had been nothing discussed

at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about

the building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody,

to whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen,

no one knowing how or where. As became a real ghost, he made no noise

in walking. People began by laughing and making fun of this specter

dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend

soon swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet.

All the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more

or less often. And those who laughed the loudest were not the most

at ease. When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence

or his passing by accident, comic or serious, for which the general

superstition held him responsible. Had any one met with a fall,

or suffered a practical joke at the hands of one of the other girls,

or lost a powderpuff, it was at once the fault of the ghost,

of the Opera ghost.

After all, who had seen him? You meet so many men in dress-clothes

at the Opera who are not ghosts. But this dress-suit had

a peculiarity of its own. It covered a skeleton. At least,

so the ballet-girls said. And, of course, it had a death's head.

Was all this serious? The truth is that the idea of the skeleton

came from the description of the ghost given by Joseph Buquet,

the chief scene-shifter, who had really seen the ghost. He had run

up against the ghost on the little staircase, by the footlights,

which leads to "the cellars." He had seen him for a second--

for the ghost had fled--and to any one who cared to listen to him

he said:

"He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame.

His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils.

You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man's skull.

His skin, which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead,

is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little worth

talking about that you can't see it side-face; and THE ABSENCE

of that nose is a horrible thing TO LOOK AT. All the hair he

has is three or four long dark locks on his forehead and behind

his ears."

This chief scene-shifter was a serious, sober, steady man,

very slow at imagining things. His words were received with interest

and amazement; and soon there were other people to say that they too

had met a man in dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders.

Sensible men who had wind of the story began by saying that Joseph

Buquet had been the victim of a joke played by one of his assistants.

And then, one after the other, there came a series of incidents

so curious and so inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began

to feel uneasy.

For instance, a fireman is a brave fellow! He fears nothing,

least of all fire! Well, the fireman in question, who had gone

to make a round of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems,

had ventured a little farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on

the stage, pale, scared, trembling, with his eyes starting out of

his head, and practically fainted in the arms of the proud mother

of little Jammes.[1] And why? Because he had seen coming toward him,

AT THE LEVEL OF HIS HEAD, BUT WITHOUT A BODY ATTACHED TO IT,

A HEAD OF FIRE! And, as I said, a fireman is not afraid of fire.

----

[1] I have the anecdote, which is quite authentic, from M. Pedro

Gailhard himself, the late manager of the Opera.

The fireman's name was Pampin.

The corps de ballet was flung into consternation. At first sight,

this fiery head in no way corresponded with Joseph Buquet's

description of the ghost. But the young ladies soon persuaded

themselves that the ghost had several heads, which he changed about

as he pleased. And, of course, they at once imagined that they

were in the greatest danger. Once a fireman did not hesitate

to faint, leaders and front-row and back-row girls alike had plenty

of excuses for the fright that made them quicken their pace when

passing some dark corner or ill-lighted corridor. Sorelli herself,

on the day after the adventure of the fireman, placed a horseshoe

on the table in front of the stage-door-keeper's box, which every

one who entered the Opera otherwise than as a spectator must

touch before setting foot on the first tread of the staircase.

This horse-shoe was not invented by me--any more than any other

part of this story, alas!--and may still be seen on the table

in the passage outside the stage-door-keeper's box, when you enter

the Opera through the court known as the Cour de l'Administration.

To return to the evening in question.

"It's the ghost!" little Jammes had cried.

An agonizing silence now reigned in the dressing-room. Nothing

was heard but the hard breathing of the girls. At last, Jammes,

flinging herself upon the farthest corner of the wall, with every

mark of real terror on her face, whispered:

"Listen!"

Everybody seemed to hear a rustling outside the door. There was no

sound of footsteps. It was like light silk sliding over the panel.

Then it stopped.

Sorelli tried to show more pluck than the others. She went up

to the door and, in a quavering voice, asked:

"Who's there?"

But nobody answered. Then feeling all eyes upon her, watching her

last movement, she made an effort to show courage, and said very loudly:

"Is there any one behind the door?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Of course there is!" cried that little dried plum

of a Meg Giry, heroically holding Sorelli back by her gauze skirt.

"Whatever you do, don't open the door! Oh, Lord, don't open

the door!"

But Sorelli, armed with a dagger that never left her, turned the key

and drew back the door, while the ballet-girls retreated to the inner

dressing-room and Meg Giry sighed:

"Mother! Mother!"

Sorelli looked into the passage bravely. It was empty;

a gas-flame, in its glass prison, cast a red and suspicious light

into the surrounding darkness, without succeeding in dispelling it.

And the dancer slammed the door again, with a deep sigh.

"No," she said, "there is no one there."

"Still, we saw him!" Jammes declared, returning with timid little steps

to her place beside Sorelli. "He must be somewhere prowling about.

I shan't go back to dress. We had better all go down to the foyer

together, at once, for the `speech,' and we will come up again together."

And the child reverently touched the little coral finger-ring which

she wore as a charm against bad luck, while Sorelli, stealthily,

with the tip of her pink right thumb-nail, made a St. Andrew's cross

on the wooden ring which adorned the fourth finger of her left hand.

She said to the little ballet-girls:

"Come, children, pull yourselves together! I dare say no one has

ever seen the ghost."

"Yes, yes, we saw him--we saw him just now!" cried the girls.

"He had his death's head and his dress-coat, just as when he appeared

to Joseph Buquet!"

"And Gabriel saw him too!" said Jammes. "Only yesterday!

Yesterday afternoon--in broad day-light----"

"Gabriel, the chorus-master?"

"Why, yes, didn't you know?"

"And he was wearing his dress-clothes, in broad daylight?"

"Who? Gabriel?"

"Why, no, the ghost!"

"Certainly! Gabriel told me so himself. That's what he knew him by.

Gabriel was in the stage-manager's office. Suddenly the door opened

and the Persian entered. You know the Persian has the evil eye----"

"Oh, yes!" answered the little ballet-girls in chorus, warding off

ill-luck by pointing their forefinger and little finger at the absent

Persian, while their second and third fingers were bent on the palm

and held down by the thumb.

"And you know how superstitious Gabriel is," continued Jammes.

"However, he is always polite. When he meets the Persian, he just

puts his hand in his pocket and touches his keys. Well, the moment

the Persian appeared in the doorway, Gabriel gave one jump from

his chair to the lock of the cupboard, so as to touch iron!

In doing so, he tore a whole skirt of his overcoat on a nail.

Hurrying to get out of the room, he banged his forehead against a

hat-peg and gave himself a huge bump; then, suddenly stepping back,

he skinned his arm on the screen, near the piano; he tried to lean

on the piano, but the lid fell on his hands and crushed his fingers;

he rushed out of the office like a madman, slipped on the staircase

and came down the whole of the first flight on his back.

I was just passing with mother. We picked him up. He was covered

with bruises and his face was all over blood. We were frightened out

of our lives, but, all at once, he began to thank Providence that he

had got off so cheaply. Then he told us what had frightened him.

He had seen the ghost behind the Persian, THE GHOST WITH THE DEATH'S

HEAD just like Joseph Buquet's description!"

Jammes had told her story ever so quickly, as though the ghost

were at her heels, and was quite out of breath at the finish.

A silence followed, while Sorelli polished her nails in great excitement.

It was broken by little Giry, who said:

"Joseph Buquet would do better to hold his tongue."

"Why should he hold his tongue?" asked somebody.

"That's mother's opinion," replied Meg, lowering her voice

and looking all about her as though fearing lest other ears

than those present might overhear.

"And why is it your mother's opinion?"

"Hush! Mother says the ghost doesn't like being talked about."

"And why does your mother say so?"

"Because--because--nothing--"

This reticence exasperated the curiosity of the young ladies,

who crowded round little Giry, begging her to explain herself.

They were there, side by side, leaning forward simultaneously

in one movement of entreaty and fear, communicating their terror

to one another, taking a keen pleasure in feeling their blood freeze

in their veins.

"I swore not to tell!" gasped Meg.

But they left her no peace and promised to keep the secret, until Meg,

burning to say all she knew, began, with her eyes fixed on the door:

"Well, it's because of the private box."

"What private box?"

"The ghost's box!"

"Has the ghost a box? Oh, do tell us, do tell us!"

"Not so loud!" said Meg. "It's Box Five, you know, the box

on the grand tier, next to the stage-box, on the left."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"I tell you it is. Mother has charge of it. But you swear you

won't say a word?"

"Of course, of course."

"Well, that's the ghost's box. No one has had it for over a month,

except the ghost, and orders have been given at the box-office

that it must never be sold."

"And does the ghost really come there?"

"Yes."

"Then somebody does come?"

"Why, no! The ghost comes, but there is nobody there."

The little ballet-girls exchanged glances. If the ghost came to the box,

he must be seen, because he wore a dress-coat and a death's head.

This was what they tried to make Meg understand, but she replied:

"That's just it! The ghost is not seen. And he has no dress-coat

and no head! All that talk about his death's head and his head of

fire is nonsense! There's nothing in it. You only hear him when he

is in the box. Mother has never seen him, but she has heard him.

Mother knows, because she gives him his program."

Sorelli interfered.

"Giry, child, you're getting at us!"

Thereupon little Giry began to cry.

"I ought to have held my tongue--if mother ever came to know!

But I was quite right, Joseph Buquet had no business to talk

of things that don't concern him--it will bring him bad luck--

mother was saying so last night----"

There was a sound of hurried and heavy footsteps in the passage

and a breathless voice cried:

"Cecile! Cecile! Are you there?"

"It's mother's voice," said Jammes. "What's the matter?"

She opened the door. A respectable lady, built on the lines of a

Pomeranian grenadier, burst into the dressing-room and dropped groaning

into a vacant arm-chair. Her eyes rolled madly in her brick-dust colored

face.

"How awful!" she said. "How awful!"

"What? What?"

"Joseph Buquet!"

"What about him?"

"Joseph Buquet is dead!"

The room became filled with exclamations, with astonished outcries,

with scared requests for explanations.

"Yes, he was found hanging in the third-floor cellar!"

"It's the ghost!" little Giry blurted, as though in spite of herself;

but she at once corrected herself, with her hands pressed to her mouth:

"No, no!--I, didn't say it!--I didn't say it!----"

All around her, her panic-stricken companions repeated under

their breaths:

"Yes--it must be the ghost!"

Sorelli was very pale.

"I shall never be able to recite my speech," she said.

Ma Jammes gave her opinion, while she emptied a glass of liqueur

that happened to be standing on a table; the ghost must have

something to do with it.

The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death.

The verdict at the inquest was "natural suicide." In his Memoirs

of Manager, M. Moncharmin, one of the joint managers who succeeded MM.

Debienne and Poligny, describes the incident as follows:

"A grievous accident spoiled the little party which MM.

Debienne and Poligny gave to celebrate their retirement. I was

in the manager's office, when Mercier, the acting-manager, suddenly

came darting in. He seemed half mad and told me that the body

of a scene-shifter had been found hanging in the third cellar under

the stage, between a farm-house and a scene from the Roi de Lahore.

I shouted:

"`Come and cut him down!'

"By the time I had rushed down the staircase and the Jacob's ladder,

the man was no longer hanging from his rope!"

So this is an event which M. Moncharmin thinks natural. A man

hangs at the end of a rope; they go to cut him down; the rope

has disappeared. Oh, M. Moncharmin found a very simple explanation!

Listen to him:

"It was just after the ballet; and leaders and dancing-girls lost

no time in taking their precautions against the evil eye."

There you are! Picture the corps de ballet scuttling down the

Jacob's ladder and dividing the suicide's rope among themselves

in less time than it takes to write! When, on the other hand,

I think of the exact spot where the body was discovered--

the third cellar underneath the stage!--imagine that SOMEBODY

must have been interested in seeing that the rope disappeared

after it had effected its purpose; and time will show if I am wrong.

The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet

was very popular. The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls,

crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess,

made for the foyer through the ill-lit passages and staircases,

trotting as fast as their little pink legs could carry them.

On the first landing, Sorelli ran against the Comte de Chagny,

who was coming up-stairs. The count, who was generally so calm,

seemed greatly excited.

"I was just going to you," he said, taking off his hat. "Oh, Sorelli,

what an evening! And Christine Daae: what a triumph!"

"Impossible!" said Meg Giry. "Six months ago, she used to sing like

a CROCK! But do let us get by, my dear count," continues the brat,

with a saucy curtsey. "We are going to inquire after a poor man

who was found hanging by the neck."

Just then the acting-manager came fussing past and stopped when he

heard this remark.

"What!" he exclaimed roughly. "Have you girls heard already?

Well, please forget about it for tonight--and above all don't let

M. Debienne and M. Poligny hear; it would upset them too much

on their last day."

They all went on to the foyer of the ballet, which was already full

of people. The Comte de Chagny was right; no gala performance ever

equalled this one. All the great composers of the day had conducted their

own works in turns. Faure and Krauss had sung; and, on that evening,

Christine Daae had revealed her true self, for the first time,

to the astonished and enthusiastic audience. Gounod had conducted

the Funeral March of a Marionnette; Reyer, his beautiful overture

to Siguar; Saint Saens, the Danse Macabre and a Reverie Orientale;

Massenet, an unpublished Hungarian march; Guiraud, his Carnaval;

Delibes, the Valse Lente from Sylvia and the Pizzicati from Coppelia.

Mlle. Krauss had sung the bolero in the Vespri Siciliani;

and Mlle. Denise Bloch the drinking song in Lucrezia Borgia.

But the real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had

begun by singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet. It was

the first time that the young artist sang in this work of Gounod,

which had not been transferred to the Opera and which was revived

at the Opera Comique after it had been produced at the old Theatre

Lyrique by Mme. Carvalho. Those who heard her say that her voice,

in these passages, was seraphic; but this was nothing to the superhuman

notes that she gave forth in the prison scene and the final trio

in FAUST, which she sang in the place of La Carlotta, who was ill.

No one had ever heard or seen anything like it.

Daae revealed a new Margarita that night, a Margarita of a splendor,

a radiance hitherto unsuspected. The whole house went mad,

rising to its feet, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine

sobbed and fainted in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be

carried to her dressing-room. A few subscribers, however, protested.

Why had so great a treasure been kept from them all that time?

Till then, Christine Daae had played a good Siebel to Carlotta's

rather too splendidly material Margarita. And it had needed

Carlotta's incomprehensible and inexcusable absence from this gala

night for the little Daae, at a moment's warning, to show all that she

could do in a part of the program reserved for the Spanish diva!

Well, what the subscribers wanted to know was, why had Debienne

and Poligny applied to Daae, when Carlotta was taken ill? Did they

know of her hidden genius? And, if they knew of it, why had they

kept it hidden? And why had she kept it hidden? Oddly enough,

she was not known to have a professor of singing at that moment.

She had often said she meant to practise alone for the future.

The whole thing was a mystery.

The Comte de Chagny, standing up in his box, listened to all this

frenzy and took part in it by loudly applauding. Philippe Georges

Marie Comte de Chagny was just forty-one years of age.

He was a great aristocrat and a good-looking man, above middle

height and with attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead

and his rather cold eyes. He was exquisitely polite to the women

and a little haughty to the men, who did not always forgive him

for his successes in society. He had an excellent heart and an

irreproachable conscience. On the death of old Count Philibert,

he became the head of one of the oldest and most distinguished

families in France, whose arms dated back to the fourteenth century.

The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and, when the old count,

who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for Philippe to accept

the management of so large an estate. His two sisters and his

brother, Raoul, would not hear of a division and waived their claim

to their shares, leaving themselves entirely in Philippe's hands,

as though the right of primogeniture had never ceased to exist.

When the two sisters married, on the same day, they received their

portion from their brother, not as a thing rightfully belonging

to them, but as a dowry for which they thanked him.

The Comtesse de Chagny, nee de Moerogis de La Martyniere, had died in

giving birth to Raoul, who was born twenty years after his elder brother.

At the time of the old count's death, Raoul was twelve years of age.

Philippe busied himself actively with the youngster's education.

He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters

and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer,

who lived at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea.

The lad entered the Borda training-ship, finished his course

with honors and quietly made his trip round the world. Thanks to

powerful influence, he had just been appointed a member of the official

expedition on board the Requin, which was to be sent to the Arctic

Circle in search of the survivors of the D'Artoi's expedition,

of whom nothing had been heard for three years. Meanwhile, he was

enjoying a long furlough which would not be over for six months;

and already the dowagers of the Faubourg Saint-Germain were pitying

the handsome and apparently delicate stripling for the hard work

in store for him.

The shyness of the sailor-lad--I was almost saying his innocence--

was remarkable. He seemed to have but just left the women's

apron-strings. As a matter of fact, petted as he was by his two

sisters and his old aunt, he had retained from this purely feminine

education manners that were almost candid and stamped with a charm

that nothing had yet been able to sully. He was a little over

twenty-one years of age and looked eighteen. He had a small,

fair mustache, beautiful blue eyes and a complexion like a girl's.

Philippe spoiled Raoul. To begin with, he was very proud of him

and pleased to foresee a glorious career for his junior in the navy

in which 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 of absence to show him Paris, with all its luxurious

and artistic delights. The count considered that, at Raoul's age,

it is not good to be too good. Philippe himself had a character

that was very well-balanced in work and pleasure alike;

his demeanor was always faultless; and he was incapable of setting

his brother a bad example. He took him with him wherever he went.

He even introduced him to the foyer of the ballet. I know that

the count was said to be "on terms" with Sorelli. But it could

hardly be reckoned as a crime for this nobleman, a bachelor,

with plenty of leisure, especially since his sisters were settled,

to come and spend an hour or two after dinner in the company

of a dancer, who, though not so very, very witty, had the finest

eyes that ever were seen! And, besides, there are places where

a true Parisian, when he has the rank of the Comte de Chagny,

is bound to show himself; and at that time the foyer of the ballet

at the Opera was one of those places.

Lastly, Philippe would perhaps not have taken his brother behind

the scenes of the Opera if Raoul had not been the first to ask him,

repeatedly renewing his request with a gentle obstinacy which

the count remembered at a later date.

On that evening, Philippe, after applauding the Daae, turned to

Raoul and saw that he was quite pale.

"Don't you see," said Raoul, "that the woman's fainting?"

"You look like fainting yourself," said the count. "What's the matter?"

But Raoul had recovered himself and was standing up.

"Let's go and see," he said, "she never sang like that before."

The count gave his brother a curious smiling glance and seemed quite

pleased. They were soon at the door leading from the house to the stage.

Numbers of subscribers were slowly making their way through.

Raoul tore his gloves without knowing what he was doing and Philippe

had much too kind a heart to laugh at him for his impatience.

But he now understood why Raoul was absent-minded when spoken to

and why he always tried to turn every conversation to the subject

of the Opera.

They reached the stage and pushed through the crowd of gentlemen,

scene-shifters, supers and chorus-girls, Raoul leading the way,

feeling that his heart no longer belonged to him, his face set

with passion, while Count Philippe followed him with difficulty

and continued to smile. At the back of the stage, Raoul had to stop

before the inrush of the little troop of ballet-girls who blocked

the passage which he was trying to enter. More than one chaffing

phrase darted from little made-up lips, to which he did not reply;

and at last he was able to pass, and dived into the semi-darkness

of a corridor ringing with the name of "Daae! Daae!" The count

was surprised to find that Raoul knew the way. He had never taken

him to Christine's himself and came to the conclusion that Raoul must

have gone there alone while the count stayed talking in the foyer

with Sorelli, who often asked him to wait until it was her time to

"go on" and sometimes handed him the little gaiters in which she ran

down from her dressing-room to preserve the spotlessness of her satin

dancing-shoes and her flesh-colored tights. Sorelli had an excuse;

she had lost her mother.

Postponing his usual visit to Sorelli for a few minutes, the count

followed his brother down the passage that led to Daae's dressing-room

and saw that it had never been so crammed as on that evening,

when the whole house seemed excited by her success and also by her

fainting fit. For the girl had not yet come to; and the doctor

of the theater had just arrived at the moment when Raoul entered

at his heels. Christine, therefore, received the first aid

of the one, while opening her eyes in the arms of the other.

The count and many more remained crowding in the doorway.

"Don't you think, Doctor, that those gentlemen had better clear

the room?" asked Raoul coolly. "There's no breathing here."

"You're quite right," said the doctor.

And he sent every one away, except Raoul and the maid, who looked

at Raoul with eyes of the most undisguised astonishment.

She had never seen him before and yet dared not question him;

and the doctor imagined that the young man was only acting as he did

because he had the right to. The viscount, therefore, remained in

the room watching Christine as she slowly returned to life,

while even the joint managers, Debienne and Poligny, who had come

to offer their sympathy and congratulations, found themselves thrust

into the passage among the crowd of dandies. The Comte de Chagny,

who was one of those standing outside, laughed:

"Oh, the rogue, the rogue!" And he added, under his breath:

"Those youngsters with their school-girl airs! So he's a Chagny

after all!"

He turned to go to Sorelli's dressing-room, but met her on the way,

with her little troop of trembling ballet-girls, as we have seen.

Meanwhile, Christine Daae uttered a deep sigh, which was answered

by a groan. She turned her head, saw Raoul and started. She looked

at the doctor, on whom she bestowed a smile, then at her maid,

then at Raoul again.

"Monsieur," she said, in a voice not much above a whisper,

"who are you?"

"Mademoiselle," replied the young man, kneeling on one knee

and pressing a fervent kiss on the diva's hand, "I AM THE LITTLE

BOY WHO WENT INTO THE SEA TO RESCUE YOUR SCARF."

Christine again looked at the doctor and the maid; and all three

began to laugh.

Raoul turned very red and stood up.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "since you are pleased not to recognize me, I

should like to say something to you in private, something very important."

"When I am better, do you mind?" And her voice shook. "You have

been very good."

"Yes, you must go," said the doctor, with his pleasantest smile.

"Leave me to attend to mademoiselle."

"I am not ill now," said Christine suddenly, with strange

and unexpected energy.

She rose and passed her hand over her eyelids.

"Thank you, Doctor. I should like to be alone. Please go away,

all of you. Leave me. I feel very restless this evening."

The doctor tried to make a short protest, but, perceiving the girl's

evident agitation, he thought the best remedy was not to thwart her.

And he went away, saying to Raoul, outside:

"She is not herself to-night. She is usually so gentle."

Then he said good night and Raoul was left alone. The whole of this

part of the theater was now deserted. The farewell ceremony was no

doubt taking place in the foyer of the ballet. Raoul thought that

Daae might go to it and he waited in the silent solitude, even hiding

in the favoring shadow of a doorway. He felt a terrible pain at his

heart and it was of this that he wanted to speak to Daae without delay.

Suddenly the dressing-room door opened and the maid came out by herself,

carrying bundles. He stopped her and asked how her mistress was.

The woman laughed and said that she was quite well, but that he

must not disturb her, for she wished to be left alone. And she

passed on. One idea alone filled Raoul's burning brain: of course,

Daae wished to be left alone FOR HIM! Had he not told her that he

wanted to speak to her privately?

Hardly breathing, he went up to the dressing-room and, with his

ear to the door to catch her reply, prepared to knock. But his

hand dropped. He had heard A MAN'S VOICE in the dressing-room, saying,

in a curiously masterful tone:

"Christine, you must love me!"

And Christine's voice, infinitely sad and trembling, as though

accompanied by tears, replied:

"How can you talk like that? WHEN I SING ONLY FOR YOU!"

Raoul leaned against the panel to ease his pain. His heart, which

had seemed gone for ever, returned to his breast and was throbbing

loudly. The whole passage echoed with its beating and Raoul's ears

were deafened. Surely, if his heart continued to make such a noise,

they would hear it inside, they would open the door and the young

man would be turned away in disgrace. What a position for a Chagny!

To be caught listening behind a door! He took his heart in his two hands

to make it stop.

The man's voice spoke again: "Are you very tired?"

"Oh, to-night I gave you my soul and I am dead!" Christine replied.

"Your soul is a beautiful thing, child," replied the grave man's voice,

"and I thank you. No emperor ever received so fair a gift.

THE ANGELS WEPT TONIGHT."

Raoul heard nothing after that. Nevertheless, he did not go away,

but, as though he feared lest he should be caught, he returned to

his dark corner, determined to wait for the man to leave the room.

At one and the same time, he had learned what love meant, and hatred.

He knew that he loved. He wanted to know whom he hated. To his

great astonishment, the door opened and Christine Daae appeared,

wrapped in furs, with her face hidden in a lace veil, alone. She closed

the door behind her, but Raoul observed that she did not lock it.

She passed him. He did not even follow her with his eyes, for his

eyes were fixed on the door, which did not open again.

When the passage was once more deserted, he crossed it,

opened the door of the dressing-room, went in and shut the door.

He found himself in absolute darkness. The gas had been turned out.

"There is some one here!" said Raoul, with his back against

the closed door, in a quivering voice. "What are you hiding for?"

All was darkness and silence. Raoul heard only the sound of his

own breathing. He quite failed to see that the indiscretion

of his conduct was exceeding all bounds.

"You shan't leave this until I let you!" he exclaimed. "If you

don't answer, you are a coward! But I'll expose you!"

And he struck a match. The blaze lit up the room. There was no

one in the room! Raoul, first turning the key in the door, lit the

gas-jets. He went into the dressing-closet, opened the cupboards,

hunted about, felt the walls with his moist hands. Nothing!

"Look here!" he said, aloud. "Am I going mad?"

He stood for ten minutes listening to the gas flaring in the silence

of the empty room; lover though he was, he did not even think of stealing

a ribbon that would have given him the perfume of the woman he loved.

He went out, not knowing what he was doing nor where he was going.

At a given moment in his wayward progress, an icy draft struck

him in the face. He found himself at the bottom of a staircase,

down which, behind him, a procession of workmen were carrying a sort

of stretcher, covered with a white sheet.

"Which is the way out, please?" he asked of one of the men.

"Straight in front of you, the door is open. But let us pass."

Pointing to the stretcher, he asked mechanically: "What's that?"

The workmen answered:

"`That' is Joseph Buquet, who was found in the third cellar,

hanging between a farm-house and a scene from the ROI DE LAHORE."

He took off his hat, fell back to make room for the procession

and went out.

During this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place.

I have already said that this magnificent function was being given

on the occasion of the retirement of M. Debienne and M. Poligny,

who had determined to "die game," as we say nowadays. They had been

assisted in the realization of their ideal, though melancholy,

program by all that counted in the social and artistic world of Paris.

All these people met, after the performance, in the foyer of the ballet,

where Sorelli waited for the arrival of the retiring managers

with a glass of champagne in her hand and a little prepared speech

at the tip of her tongue. Behind her, the members of the Corps

de Ballet, young and old, discussed the events of the day in whispers

or exchanged discreet signals with their friends, a noisy crowd

of whom surrounded the supper-tables arranged along the slanting floor.

A few of the dancers had already changed into ordinary dress; but most

of them wore their skirts of gossamer gauze; and all had thought it

the right thing to put on a special face for the occasion: all, that is,

except little Jammes, whose fifteen summers--happy age!--seemed already

to have forgotten the ghost and the death of Joseph Buquet. She never

ceased to laugh and chatter, to hop about and play practical jokes,

until Mm. Debienne and Poligny appeared on the steps of the foyer,

when she was severely called to order by the impatient Sorelli.

Everybody remarked that the retiring managers looked cheerful,

as is the Paris way. None will ever be a true Parisian who has

not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one

of sadness, boredom or indifference over his inward joy. You know

that one of your friends is in trouble; do not try to console him:

he will tell you that he is already comforted; but, should he have met

with good fortune, be careful how you congratulate him: he thinks

it so natural that he is surprised that you should speak of it.

In Paris, our lives are one masked ball; and the foyer of the ballet

is the last place in which two men so "knowing" as M. Debienne

and M. Poligny would have made the mistake of betraying their grief,

however genuine it might be. And they were already smiling rather

too broadly upon Sorelli, who had begun to recite her speech,

when an exclamation from that little madcap of a Jammes broke

the smile of the managers so brutally that the expression of distress

and dismay that lay beneath it became apparent to all eyes:

"The Opera ghost!"

Jammes yelled these words in a tone of unspeakable terror; and her

finger pointed, among the crowd of dandies, to a face so pallid,

so lugubrious and so ugly, with two such deep black cavities

under the straddling eyebrows, that the death's head in question

immediately scored a huge success.

"The Opera ghost! The Opera ghost!" Everybody laughed and pushed

his neighbor and wanted to offer the Opera ghost a drink, but he

was gone. He had slipped through the crowd; and the others vainly

hunted for him, while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes

and while little Giry stood screaming like a peacock.

Sorelli was furious; she had not been able to finish her speech;

the managers, had kissed her, thanked her and run away as fast as

the ghost himself. No one was surprised at this, for it was known

that they were to go through the same ceremony on the floor above,

in the foyer of the singers, and that finally they were themselves

to receive their personal friends, for the last time, in the great

lobby outside the managers' office, where a regular supper would

be served.

Here they found the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and

M. Firmin Richard, whom they hardly knew; nevertheless, they were

lavish in protestations of friendship and received a thousand

flattering compliments in reply, so that those of the guests who had

feared that they had a rather tedious evening in store for them

at once put on brighter faces. The supper was almost gay and a

particularly clever speech of the representative of the government,

mingling the glories of the past with the successes of the future,

caused the greatest cordiality to prevail.

The retiring managers had already handed over to their successors the

two tiny master-keys which opened all the doors--thousands of doors--

of the Opera house. And those little keys, the object of general

curiosity, were being passed from hand to hand, when the attention

of some of the guests was diverted by their discovery, at the end

of the table, of that strange, wan and fantastic face, with the

hollow eyes, which had already appeared in the foyer of the ballet

and been greeted by little Jammes' exclamation:

"The Opera ghost!"

There sat the ghost, as natural as could be, except that he neither

ate nor drank. Those who began by looking at him with a smile ended

by turning away their heads, for the sight of him at once provoked

the most funereal thoughts. No one repeated the joke of the foyer,

no one exclaimed:

"There's the Opera ghost!"

He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not

have stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them;

but every one felt that if the dead did ever come and sit at

the table of the living, they could not cut a more ghastly figure.

The friends of Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin thought that this

lean and skinny guest was an acquaintance of Debienne's or Poligny's,

while Debienne's and Poligny's friends believed that the cadaverous

individual belonged to Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin's party.

The result was that no request was made for an explanation;

no unpleasant remark; no joke in bad taste, which might have offended

this visitor from the tomb. A few of those present who knew the story

of the ghost and the description of him given by the chief scene-shifter--

they did not know of Joseph Buquet's death--thought, in their own minds,

that the man at the end of the table might easily have passed for him;

and yet, according to the story, the ghost had no nose and the person

in question had. But M. Moncharmin declares, in his Memoirs,

that the guest's nose was transparent: "long, thin and transparent"

are his exact words. I, for my part, will add that this might

very well apply to a false nose. M. Moncharmin may have taken

for transparency what was only shininess. Everybody knows

that orthopaedic science provides beautiful false noses for

those who have lost their noses naturally or as the result

of an operation.

Did the ghost really take a seat at the managers' supper-table

that night, uninvited? And can we be sure that the figure was

that of the Opera ghost himself? Who would venture to assert

as much? I mention the incident, not because I wish for a second

to make the reader believe--or even to try to make him believe--

that the ghost was capable of such a sublime piece of impudence;

but because, after all, the thing is impossible.

M. Armand Moncharmin, in chapter eleven of his Memoirs, says:

"When I think of this first evening, I can not separate the secret

confided to us by MM. Debienne and Poligny in their office from

the presence at our supper of that GHOSTLY person whom none of us knew."

What happened was this: Mm. Debienne and Poligny, sitting at

the center of the table, had not seen the man with the death's head.

Suddenly he began to speak.

"The ballet-girls are right," he said. "The death of that poor

Buquet is perhaps not so natural as people think."

Debienne and Poligny gave a start.

"Is Buquet dead?" they cried.

"Yes," replied the man, or the shadow of a man, quietly. "He was found,

this evening, hanging in the third cellar, between a farm-house

and a scene from the Roi de Lahore."

The two managers, or rather ex-managers, at once rose and stared

strangely at the speaker. They were more excited than they need

have been, that is to say, more excited than any one need be by

the announcement of the suicide of a chief scene-shifter. They looked

at each other. They, had both turned whiter than the table-cloth.

At last, Debienne made a sign to Mm. Richard and Moncharmin;

Poligny muttered a few words of excuse to the guests; and all four

went into the managers' office. I leave M. Moncharmin to complete

the story. In his Memoirs, he says:

"Mm. Debienne and Poligny seemed to grow more and more excited,

and they appeared to have something very difficult to tell us.

First, they asked us if we knew the man, sitting at the end of the table,

who had told them of the death of Joseph Buquet; and, when we answered

in the negative, they looked still more concerned. They took the

master-keys from our hands, stared at them for a moment and advised

us to have new locks made, with the greatest secrecy, for the rooms,

closets and presses that we might wish to have hermetically closed.

They said this so funnily that we began to laugh and to ask if there

were thieves at the Opera. They replied that there was something worse,

which was the GHOST. We began to laugh again, feeling sure that

they were indulging in some joke that was intended to crown our

little entertainment. Then, at their request, we became `serious,'

resolving to humor them and to enter into the spirit of the game.

They told us that they never would have spoken to us of the ghost,

if they had not received formal orders from the ghost himself

to ask us to be pleasant to him and to grant any request that he

might make. However, in their relief at leaving a domain where

that tyrannical shade held sway, they had hesitated until the last

moment to tell us this curious story, which our skeptical minds

were certainly not prepared to entertain. But the announcement of

the death of Joseph Buquet had served them as a brutal reminder that,

whenever they had disregarded the ghost's wishes, some fantastic

or disastrous event had brought them to a sense of their dependence.

"During these unexpected utterances made in a tone of the most secret

and important confidence, I looked at Richard. Richard, in his

student days, had acquired a great reputation for practical joking,

and he seemed to relish the dish which was being served up to him

in his turn. He did not miss a morsel of it, though the seasoning

was a little gruesome because of the death of Buquet. He nodded

his head sadly, while the others spoke, and his features assumed

the air of a man who bitterly regretted having taken over the Opera,

now that he knew that there was a ghost mixed up in the business.

I could think of nothing better than to give him a servile imitation

of this attitude of despair. However, in spite of all our efforts,

we could not, at the finish, help bursting out laughing in the faces

of MM. Debienne and Poligny, who, seeing us pass straight from

the gloomiest state of mind to one of the most insolent merriment,

acted as though they thought that we had gone mad.

"The joke became a little tedious; and Richard asked half-seriously

and half in jest:

"`But, after all, what does this ghost of yours want?'

"M. Poligny went to his desk and returned with a copy of the

memorandum-book. The memorandum-book begins with the well-known

words saying that `the management of the Opera shall give to

the performance of the National Academy of Music the splendor that

becomes the first lyric stage in France' and ends with Clause 98,

which says that the privilege can be withdrawn if the manager

infringes the conditions stipulated in the memorandum-book.

This is followed by the conditions, which are four in number.

"The copy produced by M. Poligny was written in black ink

and exactly similar to that in our possession, except that,

at the end, it contained a paragraph in red ink and in a queer,

labored handwriting, as though it had been produced by dipping

the heads of matches into the ink, the writing of a child

that has never got beyond the down-strokes and has not learned

to join its letters. This paragraph ran, word for word, as follows:

"`5. Or if the manager, in any month, delay for more than a fortnight

the payment of the allowance which he shall make to the Opera ghost,

an allowance of twenty thousand francs a month, say two hundred

and forty thousand francs a year.'

"M. Poligny pointed with a hesitating finger to this last clause,

which we certainly did not expect.

"`Is this all? Does he not want anything else?' asked Richard,

with the greatest coolness.

"`Yes, he does,' replied Poligny.

"And he turned over the pages of the memorandum-book until he

came to the clause specifying the days on which certain private

boxes were to be reserved for the free use of the president of

the republic, the ministers and so on. At the end of this clause,

a line had been added, also in red ink:

"`Box Five on the grand tier shall be placed at the disposal

of the Opera ghost for every performance.'

"When we saw this, there was nothing else for us to do but to rise

from our chairs, shake our two predecessors warmly by the hand

and congratulate them on thinking of this charming little joke,

which proved that the old French sense of humor was never likely

to become extinct. Richard added that he now understood why MM.

Debienne and Poligny were retiring from the management of the National

Academy of Music. Business was impossible with so unreasonable

a ghost.

"`Certainly, two hundred and forty thousand francs are not be picked up

for the asking,' said M. Poligny, without moving a muscle of his face.

`And have you considered what the loss over Box Five meant to us?

We did not sell it once; and not only that, but we had to return

the subscription: why, it's awful! We really can't work to keep ghosts!

We prefer to go away!'

"`Yes,' echoed M. Debienne, `we prefer to go away. Let us go.'"

"And he stood up. Richard said: `But, after all all, it seems

to me that you were much too kind to the ghost. If I had such

a troublesome ghost as that, I should not hesitate to have him arrested.'

"`But how? Where?' they cried, in chorus. `We have never seen him!'

"`But when he comes to his box?'

"'WE HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM IN HIS BOX.'

"`Then sell it.'

"`Sell the Opera ghost's box! Well, gentlemen, try it.'

"Thereupon we all four left the office. Richard and I had `never

laughed so much in our lives.'"

Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous Memoirs during the fairly long

period of his co-management that we may well ask if he ever found

time to attend to the affairs of the Opera otherwise than by telling

what went on there. M. Moncharmin did not know a note of music,

but he called the minister of education and fine arts by his

Christian name, had dabbled a little in society journalism and enjoyed

a considerable private income. Lastly, he was a charming fellow

and showed that he was not lacking in intelligence, for, as soon as he

made up his mind to be a sleeping partner in the Opera, he selected

the best possible active manager and went straight to Firmin Richard.

Firmin Richard was a very distinguished composer, who had published

a number of successful pieces of all kinds and who liked nearly every

form of music and every sort of musician. Clearly, therefore, it was

the duty of every sort of musician to like M. Firmin Richard.

The only things to be said against him were that he was rather

masterful in his ways and endowed with a very hasty temper.

The first few days which the partners spent at the Opera were given

over to the delight of finding themselves the head of so magnificent

an enterprise; and they had forgotten all about that curious,

fantastic story of the ghost, when an incident occurred that

proved to them that the joke--if joke it were--was not over.

M. Firmin Richard reached his office that morning at eleven

o'clock. His secretary, M. Remy, showed him half a dozen letters

which he had not opened because they were marked "private."

One of the letters had at once attracted Richard's attention not

only because the envelope was addressed in red ink, but because he

seemed to have seen the writing before. He soon remembered that it

was the red handwriting in which the memorandum-book had been

so curiously completed. He recognized the clumsy childish hand.

He opened the letter and read:

DEAR MR. MANAGER:

I am sorry to have to trouble you at a time when you must be

so very busy, renewing important engagements, signing fresh ones

and generally displaying your excellent taste. I know what you

have done for Carlotta, Sorelli and little Jammes and for a few

others whose admirable qualities of talent or genius you have suspected.

Of course, when I use these words, I do not mean to apply them

to La Carlotta, who sings like a squirt and who ought never to

have been allowed to leave the Ambassadeurs and the Cafe Jacquin;

nor to La Sorelli, who owes her success mainly to the coach-builders;

nor to little Jammes, who dances like a calf in a field. And I am

not speaking of Christine Daae either, though her genius is certain,

whereas your jealousy prevents her from creating any important part.

When all is said, you are free to conduct your little business as you

think best, are you not?

All the same, I should like to take advantage of the fact that you

have not yet turned Christine Daae out of doors by hearing her

this evening in the part of Siebel, as that of Margarita has been

forbidden her since her triumph of the other evening; and I will

ask you not to dispose of my box to-day nor on the FOLLOWING DAYS,

for I can not end this letter without telling you how disagreeably

surprised I have been once or twice, to hear, on arriving at the Opera,

that my box had been sold, at the box-office, by your orders.

I did not protest, first, because I dislike scandal, and, second,

because I thought that your predecessors, MM. Debienne and Poligny,

who were always charming to me, had neglected, before leaving,

to mention my little fads to you. I have now received a reply

from those gentlemen to my letter asking for an explanation,

and this reply proves that you know all about my Memorandum-Book and,

consequently, that you are treating me with outrageous contempt.

IF YOU WISH TO LIVE IN PEACE, YOU MUST NOT BEGIN BY TAKING AWAY

MY PRIVATE BOX.

Believe me to be, dear Mr. Manager, without prejudice to these

little observations,

Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant,

OPERA GHOST.

The letter was accompanied by a cutting from the agony-column

of the Revue Theatrale, which ran:

O. G.--There is no excuse for R. and M. We told them and left

your memorandum-book in their hands. Kind regards.

M. Firmin Richard had hardly finished reading this letter when

M. Armand Moncharmin entered, carrying one exactly similar.

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"They are keeping up the joke," said M. Richard, "but I don't call

it funny."

"What does it all mean?" asked M. Moncharmin. "Do they imagine that,

because they have been managers of the Opera, we are going to let

them have a box for an indefinite period?"

"I am not in the mood to let myself be laughed at long,"

said Firmin Richard.

"It's harmless enough," observed Armand Moncharmin. "What is it

they really want? A box for to-night?"

M. Firmin Richard told his secretary to send Box Five on the grand

tier to Mm. Debienne and Poligny, if it was not sold. It was not.

It was sent off to them. Debienne lived at the corner of the Rue

Scribe and the Boulevard des Capucines; Poligny, in the Rue Auber.

O. Ghost's two letters had been posted at the Boulevard des

Capucines post-office, as Moncharmin remarked after examining

the envelopes.

"You see!" said Richard.

They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that two men of that age

should amuse themselves with such childish tricks.

"They might have been civil, for all that!" said Moncharmin.

"Did you notice how they treat us with regard to Carlotta,

Sorelli and Little Jammes?"

"Why, my dear fellow, these two are mad with jealousy! To think that

they went to the expense of, an advertisement in the Revue Theatrale!

Have they nothing better to do?"

"By the way," said Moncharmin, "they seem to be greatly interested

in that little Christine Daae!"

"You know as well as I do that she has the reputation of being

quite good," said Richard.

"Reputations are easily obtained," replied Moncharmin. "Haven't I

a reputation for knowing all about music? And I don't know one key

from another."

"Don't be afraid: you never had that reputation," Richard declared.

Thereupon he ordered the artists to be shown in, who, for the last

two hours, had been walking up and down outside the door behind

which fame and fortune--or dismissal--awaited them.

The whole day was spent in discussing, negotiating, signing or

cancelling contracts; and the two overworked managers went

to bed early, without so much as casting a glance at Box Five

to see whether M. Debienne and M. Poligny were enjoying the performance.

Next morning, the managers received a card of thanks from the ghost:

DEAR, MR. MANAGER:

Thanks. Charming evening. Daae exquisite. Choruses want waking up.

Carlotta a splendid commonplace instrument. Will write you soon

for the 240,000 francs, or 233,424 fr. 70 c., to be correct.

Mm. Debienne and Poligny have sent me the 6,575 fr. 30 c.

representing the first ten days of my allowance for the current year;

their privileges finished on the evening of the tenth inst.

Kind regards. O. G.

On the other hand, there was a letter from Mm. Debienne and Poligny:

GENTLEMEN:

We are much obliged for your kind thought of us, but you will

easily understand that the prospect of again hearing Faust,

pleasant though it is to ex-managers of the Opera, can not make us

forget that we have no right to occupy Box Five on the grand tier,

which is the exclusive property of HIM of whom we spoke to you when

we went through the memorandum-book with you for the last time.

See Clause 98, final paragraph.

Accept, gentlemen, etc.

"Oh, those fellows are beginning to annoy me!" shouted Firmin Richard,

snatching up the letter.

And that evening Box Five was sold.

The next morning, Mm. Richard and Moncharmin, on reaching their office,

found an inspector's report relating to an incident that had happened,

the night before, in Box Five. I give the essential part of the report:

I was obliged to call in a municipal guard twice, this evening,

to clear Box Five on the grand tier, once at the beginning and once

in the middle of the second act. The occupants, who arrived

as the curtain rose on the second act, created a regular scandal

by their laughter and their ridiculous observations. There

were cries of "Hush!" all around them and the whole house was

beginning to protest, when the box-keeper came to fetch me. I entered

the box and said what I thought necessary. The people did not seem

to me to be in their right mind; and they made stupid remarks.

I said that, if the noise was repeated, I should be compelled

to clear the box. The moment I left, I heard the laughing again,

with fresh protests from the house. I returned with a municipal

guard, who turned them out. They protested, still laughing,

saying they would not go unless they had their money back. At last,

they became quiet and I allowed them to enter the box again.

The laughter at once recommenced; and, this time, I had them turned

out definitely.

"Send for the inspector," said Richard to his secretary, who had

already read the report and marked it with blue pencil.

M. Remy, the secretary, had foreseen the order and called

the inspector at once.

"Tell us what happened," said Richard bluntly.

The inspector began to splutter and referred to the report.

"Well, but what were those people laughing at?" asked Moncharmin.

"They must have been dining, sir, and seemed more inclined to lark

about than to listen to good music. The moment they entered the box,

they came out again and called the box-keeper, who asked them what

they wanted. They said, `Look in the box: there's no one there,

is there?' `No,' said the woman. `Well,' said they, `when we went in,

we heard a voice saying THAT THE BOX WAS TAKEN!'"

M. Moncharmin could not help smiling as he looked at M. Richard;

but M. Richard did not smile. He himself had done too much in

that way in his time not to recognize, in the inspector's story,

all the marks of one of those practical jokes which begin

by amusing and end by enraging the victims. The inspector,

to curry favor with M. Moncharmin, who was smiling, thought it

best to give a smile too. A most unfortunate smile! M. Richard

glared at his subordinate, who thenceforth made it his business

to display a face of utter consternation.

"However, when the people arrived," roared Richard, "there was

no one in the box, was there?"

"Not a soul, sir, not a soul! Nor in the box on the right, nor in

the box on the left: not a soul, sir, I swear! The box-keeper

told it me often enough, which proves that it was all a joke."

"Oh, you agree, do you?" said Richard. "You agree! It's a joke!

And you think it funny, no doubt?"

"I think it in very bad taste, sir."

"And what did the box-keeper say?"

"Oh, she just said that it was the Opera ghost. That's all she said!"

And the inspector grinned. But he soon found that he had made

a mistake in grinning, for the words had no sooner left his mouth

than M. Richard, from gloomy, became furious.

"Send for the box-keeper!" he shouted. "Send for her! This minute!

This minute! And bring her in to me here! And turn all those

people out!"

The inspector tried to protest, but Richard closed his mouth

with an angry order to hold his tongue. Then, when the wretched

man's lips seemed shut for ever, the manager commanded him to open

them once more.

"Who is this `Opera ghost?'" he snarled.

But the inspector was by this time incapable of speaking a word.

He managed to convey, by a despairing gesture, that he knew nothing

about it, or rather that he did not wish to know.

"Have you ever seen him, have you seen the Opera ghost?"

The inspector, by means of a vigorous shake of the head, denied ever

having seen the ghost in question.

"Very well!" said M. Richard coldly.

The inspector's eyes started out of his head, as though to ask why

the manager had uttered that ominous "Very well!"

"Because I'm going to settle the account of any one who has not

seen him!" explained the manager. "As he seems to be everywhere,

I can't have people telling me that they see him nowhere.

I like people to work for me when I employ them!"

Having said this, M. Richard paid no attention to the inspector

and discussed various matters of business with his acting-manager,

who had entered the room meanwhile. The inspector thought he

could go and was gently--oh, so gently!--sidling toward the door,

when M. Richard nailed the man to the floor with a thundering:

"Stay where you are!"

M. Remy had sent for the box-keeper to the Rue de Provence,

close to the Opera, where she was engaged as a porteress.

She soon made her appearance.

"What's your name?"

"Mme. Giry. You know me well enough, sir; I'm the mother

of little Giry, little Meg, what!"

This was said in so rough and solemn a tone that, for a moment,

M. Richard was impressed. He looked at Mme. Giry, in her faded shawl,

her worn shoes, her old taffeta dress and dingy bonnet. It was quite

evident from the manager's attitude, that he either did not know

or could not remember having met Mme. Giry, nor even little Giry,

nor even "little Meg!" But Mme. Giry's pride was so great that

the celebrated box-keeper imagined that everybody knew her.

"Never heard of her!" the manager declared. "But that's no reason,

Mme. Giry, why I shouldn't ask you what happened last night to make

you and the inspector call in a municipal guard."

"I was just wanting to see you, sir, and talk to you about it,

so that you mightn't have the same unpleasantness as M. Debienne

and M. Poligny. They wouldn't listen to me either, at first."

"I'm not asking you about all that. I'm asking what happened

last night."

Mme. Giry turned purple with indignation. Never had she been

spoken to like that. She rose as though to go, gathering up

the folds of her skirt and waving the feathers of her dingy bonnet

with dignity, but, changing her mind, she sat down again and said,

in a haughty voice:

"I'll tell you what happened. The ghost was annoyed again!"

Thereupon, as M. Richard was on the point of bursting out, M. Moncharmin

interfered and conducted the interrogatory, whence it appeared

that Mme. Giry thought it quite natural that a voice should be heard

to say that a box was taken, when there was nobody in the box.

She was unable to explain this phenomenon, which was not new to her,

except by the intervention of the ghost. Nobody could see the ghost

in his box, but everybody could hear him. She had often heard him;

and they could believe her, for she always spoke the truth.

They could ask M. Debienne and M. Poligny, and anybody who knew her;

and also M. Isidore Saack, who had had a leg broken by the ghost!

"Indeed!" said Moncharmin, interrupting her. "Did the ghost break

poor Isidore Saack's leg?"

Mme. Giry opened her eyes with astonishment at such ignorance.

However, she consented to enlighten those two poor innocents.

The thing had happened in M. Debienne and M. Poligny's time, also in

Box Five and also during a performance of FAUST. Mme. Giry coughed,

cleared her throat--it sounded as though she were preparing to sing

the whole of Gounod's score--and began:

"It was like this, sir. That night, M. Maniera and his lady,

the jewelers in the Rue Mogador, were sitting in the front of the box,

with their great friend, M. Isidore Saack, sitting behind Mme. Maniera.

Mephistopheles was singing"--Mme. Giry here burst into song herself--"

`Catarina, while you play at sleeping,' and then M. Maniera heard

a voice in his right ear (his wife was on his left) saying, `Ha, ha!

Julie's not playing at sleeping!' His wife happened to be called

Julie. So. M. Maniera turns to the right to see who was talking

to him like that. Nobody there! He rubs his ear and asks himself,

if he's dreaming. Then Mephistopheles went on with his serenade.

... But, perhaps I'm boring you gentlemen?"

"No, no, go on."

"You are too good, gentlemen," with a smirk. "Well, then,

Mephistopheles went on with his serenade"--Mme. Giry, burst into

song again--" `Saint, unclose thy portals holy and accord the bliss,

to a mortal bending lowly, of a pardon-kiss.' And then M. Maniera

again hears the voice in his right ear, saying, this time, `Ha, ha!

Julie wouldn't mind according a kiss to Isidore!' Then he turns

round again, but, this time, to the left; and what do you think

he sees? Isidore, who had taken his lady's hand and was covering

it with kisses through the little round place in the glove--

like this, gentlemen"--rapturously kissing the bit of palm left bare

in the middle of her thread gloves. "Then they had a lively time

between them! Bang! Bang! M. Maniera, who was big and strong,

like you, M. Richard, gave two blows to M. Isidore Saack,

who was small and weak like M. Moncharmin, saving his presence.

There was a great uproar. People in the house shouted, `That will do!

Stop them! He'll kill him!' Then, at last, M. Isidore Saack managed

to run away."

"Then the ghost had not broken his leg?" asked M. Moncharmin,

a little vexed that his figure had made so little impression on

Mme. Giry.

"He did break it for him, sir," replied Mme. Giry haughtily.

"He broke it for him on the grand staircase, which he ran down

too fast, sir, and it will be long before the poor gentleman will

be able to go up it again!"

"Did the ghost tell you what he said in M. Maniera's right ear?"

asked M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous.

"No, sir, it was M. Maniera himself. So----"

"But you have spoken to the ghost, my good lady?"

"As I'm speaking to you now, my good sir!" Mme. Giry replied.

"And, when the ghost speaks to you, what does he say?"

"Well, he tells me to bring him a footstool!"

This time, Richard burst out laughing, as did Moncharmin and Remy,

the secretary. Only the inspector, warned by experience, was careful

not to laugh, while Mme. Giry ventured to adopt an attitude that

was positively threatening.

"Instead of laughing," she cried indignantly, "you'd do better

to do as M. Poligny did, who found out for himself."

"Found out about what?" asked Moncharmin, who had never been so much

amused in his life.

"About the ghost, of course!...Look here..."

She suddenly calmed herself, feeling that this was a solemn moment

in her life:

"LOOK HERE," she repeated. "They were playing La Juive. M. Poligny

thought he would watch the performance from the ghost's box.

...Well, when Leopold cries, `Let us fly!'--you know--and Eleazer

stops them and says, `Whither go ye?'...well, M. Poligny--

I was watching him from the back of the next box, which was empty--

M. Poligny got up and walked out quite stiffly, like a statue,

and before I had time to ask him, `Whither go ye?' like Eleazer,

he was down the staircase, but without breaking his leg.

"Still, that doesn't let us know how the Opera ghost came to ask

you for a footstool," insisted M. Moncharmin.

"Well, from that evening, no one tried to take the ghost's private

box from him. The manager gave orders that he was to have it at

each performance. And, whenever he came, he asked me for a footstool."

"Tut, tut! A ghost asking for a footstool! Then this ghost

of yours is a woman?"

"No, the ghost is a man."

"How do you know?"

"He has a man's voice, oh, such a lovely man's voice! This is

what happens: When he comes to the opera, it's usually in the middle

of the first act. He gives three little taps on the door of Box Five.

The first time I heard those three taps, when I knew there was

no one in the box, you can think how puzzled I was! I opened

the door, listened, looked; nobody! And then I heard a voice say,

`Mme. Jules' my poor husband's name was Jules--`a footstool, please.'

Saving your presence, gentlemen, it made me feel all-overish like.

But the voice went on, `Don't be frightened, Mme. Jules, I'm the

Opera ghost!' And the voice was so soft and kind that I hardly

felt frightened. THE VOICE WAS SITTING IN THE CORNER CHAIR,

ON THE RIGHT, IN THE FRONT ROW."

"Was there any one in the box on the right of Box Five?"

asked Moncharmin.

"No; Box Seven, and Box Three, the one on the left, were both empty.

The curtain had only just gone up."

"And what did you do?"

"Well, I brought the footstool. Of course, it wasn't for himself

he wanted it, but for his lady! But I never heard her nor saw her."

"Eh? What? So now the ghost is married!" The eyes of the two

managers traveled from Mme. Giry to the inspector, who, standing behind

the box-keeper, was waving his arms to attract their attention.

He tapped his forehead with a distressful forefinger, to convey

his opinion that the widow Jules Giry was most certainly mad,

a piece of pantomime which confirmed M. Richard in his determination

to get rid of an inspector who kept a lunatic in his service.

Meanwhile, the worthy lady went on about her ghost, now painting

his generosity:

"At the end of the performance, he always gives me two francs,

sometimes five, sometimes even ten, when he has been many days

without coming. Only, since people have begun to annoy him again,

he gives me nothing at all.

"Excuse me, my good woman," said Moncharmin, while Mme. Giry tossed

the feathers in her dingy hat at this persistent familiarity,

"excuse me, how does the ghost manage to give you your two francs?"

"Why, he leaves them on the little shelf in the box, of course.

I find them with the program, which I always give him. Some evenings,

I find flowers in the box, a rose that must have dropped from his

lady's bodice...for he brings a lady with him sometimes; one day,

they left a fan behind them."

"Oh, the ghost left a fan, did he? And what did you do with it?"

"Well, I brought it back to the box next night."

Here the inspector's voice was raised.

"You've broken the rules; I shall have to fine you, Mme. Giry."

"Hold your tongue, you fool!" muttered M. Firmin Richard.

"You brought back the fan. And then?"

"Well, then, they took it away with them, sir; it was not there

at the end of the performance; and in its place they left me a box

of English sweets, which I'm very fond of. That's one of the ghost's

pretty thoughts."

"That will do, Mme. Giry. You can go."

When Mme. Giry had bowed herself out, with the dignity that never

deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided

to dispense with that old madwoman's services; and, when he

had gone in his turn, they instructed the acting-manager to make

up the inspector's accounts. Left alone, the managers told

each other of the idea which they both had in mind, which was

that they should look into that little matter of Box Five themselves.

Christine Daae, owing to intrigues to which I will return later,

did not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera. After the

famous gala night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich's;

but this was the last occasion on which she was heard in private.

She refused, without plausible excuse, to appear at a charity concert

to which she had promised her assistance. She acted throughout

as though she were no longer the mistress of her own destiny and as

though she feared a fresh triumph.

She knew that the Comte de Chagny, to please his brother, had done

his best on her behalf with M. Richard; and she wrote to thank him

and also to ask him to cease speaking in her favor. Her reason

for this curious attitude was never known. Some pretended that it

was due to overweening pride; others spoke of her heavenly modesty.

But people on the stage are not so modest as all that; and I think

that I shall not be far from the truth if I ascribe her action

simply to fear. Yes, I believe that Christine Daae was frightened

by what had happened to her. I have a letter of Christine's (it

forms part of the Persian's collection), relating to this period,

which suggests a feeling of absolute dismay:

"I don't know myself when I sing," writes the poor child.

She showed herself nowhere; and the Vicomte de Chagny tried

in vain to meet her. He wrote to her, asking to call upon her,

but despaired of receiving a reply when, one morning, she sent

him the following note:

MONSIEUR:

I have not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea

to rescue my scarf. I feel that I must write to you to-day,

when I am going to Perros, in fulfilment of a sacred duty.

To-morrow is the anniversary of the death of my poor father,

whom you knew and who was very fond of you. He is buried there,

with his violin, in the graveyard of the little church, at the bottom

of the slope where we used to play as children, beside the road where,

when we were a little bigger, we said good-by for the last time.

The Vicomte de Chagny hurriedly consulted a railway guide,

dressed as quickly as he could, wrote a few lines for his valet

to take to his brother and jumped into a cab which brought him

to the Gare Montparnasse just in time to miss the morning train.

He spent a dismal day in town and did not recover his spirits

until the evening, when he was seated in his compartment in the

Brittany express. He read Christine's note over and over again,

smelling its perfume, recalling the sweet pictures of his childhood,

and spent the rest of that tedious night journey in feverish dreams

that began and ended with Christine Daae. Day was breaking when he

alighted at Lannion. He hurried to the diligence for Perros-Guirec.

He was the only passenger. He questioned the driver and learned that,

on the evening of the previous day, a young lady who looked

like a Parisian had gone to Perros and put up at the inn known

as the Setting Sun.

The nearer he drew to her, the more fondly he remembered the story

of the little Swedish singer. Most of the details are still unknown

to the public.

There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala, a peasant

who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week

and singing in the choir on Sundays. This peasant had a little daughter

to whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read.

Daae's father was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it.

Not a fiddler throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia

played as he did. His reputation was widespread and he was always

invited to set the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals.

His wife died when Christine was entering upon her sixth year.

Then the father, who cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his

patch of ground and went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune.

He found nothing but poverty.

He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair,

strumming his Scandinavian melodies, while his child, who never

left his side, listened to him in ecstasy or sang to his playing.

One day, at Ljimby Fair, Professor Valerius heard them and took

them to Gothenburg. He maintained that the father was the first

violinist in the world and that the daughter had the making of a

great artist. Her education and instruction were provided for.

She made rapid progress and charmed everybody with her prettiness,

her grace of manner and her genuine eagerness to please.

When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae

and Christine with them. "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as

her daughter. As for Daae, he began to pine away with homesickness.

He never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream

which he kept up with his violin. For hours at a time, he remained

locked up in his bedroom with his daughter, fiddling and singing,

very, very softly. Sometimes Mamma Valerius would come and listen

behind the door, wipe away a tear and go down-stairs again on tiptoe,

sighing for her Scandinavian skies.

Daae seemed not to recover his strength until the summer,

when the whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away

corner of Brittany, where the sea was of the same color as in his

own country. Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach

and pretend that the sea stopped its roaring to listen to them.

And then he induced Mamma Valerius to indulge a queer whim of his.

At the time of the "pardons," or Breton pilgrimages, the village

festival and dances, he went off with his fiddle, as in the old days,

and was allowed to take his daughter with him for a week.

They gave the smallest hamlets music to last them for a year and

slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at the inn, lying close

together on the straw, as when they were so poor in Sweden.

At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, made no collection,

refused the halfpence offered them; and the people around could

not understand the conduct of this rustic fiddler, who tramped

the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven.

They followed them from village to village.

One day, a little boy, who was out with his governess, made her take

a longer walk than he intended, for he could not tear himself from

the little girl whose pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her.

They came to the shore of an inlet which is still called Trestraou,

but which now, I believe, harbors a casino or something of the sort.

At that time, there was nothing but sky and sea and a stretch

of golden beach. Only, there was also a high wind, which blew

Christine's scarf out to sea. Christine gave a cry and put out

her arms, but the scarf was already far on the waves. Then she heard

a voice say:

"It's all right, I'll go and fetch your scarf out of the sea."

And she saw a little boy running fast, in spite of the outcries

and the indignant protests of a worthy lady in black. The little boy

ran into the sea, dressed as he was, and brought her back her scarf.

Boy and scarf were both soaked through. The lady in black made a

great fuss, but Christine laughed merrily and kissed the little boy,

who was none other than the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, staying at

Lannion with his aunt.

During the season, they saw each other and played together almost

every day. At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valerius,

Daae consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons.

In this way, Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed

Christine's childhood. They also both had the same calm and dreamy

little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends;

and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors,

like beggars:

"Ma'am..." or, "Kind gentleman...have you a little story

to tell us, please?"

And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them;

for nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life,

seen the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.

But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence

of the evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daae came

and sat down by them on the roadside and, in a low voice, as though

fearing lest he should frighten the ghosts whom he evoked, told them

the legends of the land of the North. And, the moment he stopped,

the children would ask for more.

There was one story that began:

"A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep, still lakes

that open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains..."

And another:

"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden

as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes.

She wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her

frock and her little red shoes and her fiddle, but most of all loved,

when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music."

While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's

blue eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was

very lucky to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep.

The Angel of Music played a part in all Daddy Daae's tales;

and he maintained that every great musician, every great artist

received a visit from the Angel at least once in his life.

Sometimes the Angel leans over their cradle, as happened to Lotte,

and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle

at six better than men at fifty, which, you must admit,

is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later,

because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons

or practise their scales. And, sometimes, he does not come at all,

because the children have a bad heart or a bad conscience.

No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant

to hear him. He often comes when they least expect him, when they

are sad and disheartened. Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial

harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives.

Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown

to the rest of mankind. And they can not touch an instrument,

or open their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put

all other human sounds to shame. Then people who do not know

that the Angel has visited those persons say that they have genius.

Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel of Music.

But Daddy Daae shook his head sadly; and then his eyes lit up,

as he said:

"You will hear him one day, my child! When I am in Heaven,

I will send him to you!"

Daddy was beginning to cough at that time.

Three years later, Raoul and Christine met again at Perros.

Professor Valerius was dead, but his widow remained in France

with Daddy Daae and his daughter, who continued to play the violin

and sing, wrapping in their dream of harmony their kind patroness,

who seemed henceforth to live on music alone. The young man,

as he now was, had come to Perros on the chance of finding them

and went straight to the house in which they used to stay.

He first saw the old man; and then Christine entered, carrying the

tea-tray. She flushed at the sight of Raoul, who went up to her

and kissed her. She asked him a few questions, performed her duties

as hostess prettily, took up the tray again and left the room.

Then she ran into the garden and took refuge on a bench, a prey

to feelings that stirred her young heart for the first time.

Raoul followed her and they talked till the evening, very shyly.

They were quite changed, cautious as two diplomatists, and told each

other things that had nothing to do with their budding sentiments.

When they took leave of each other by the roadside, Raoul, pressing a

kiss on Christine's trembling hand, said:

"Mademoiselle, I shall never forget you!"

And he went away regretting his words, for he knew that Christine

could not be the wife of the Vicomte de Chagny.

As for Christine, she tried not to think of him and devoted herself

wholly to her art. She made wonderful progress and those who heard

her prophesied that she would be the greatest singer in the world.

Meanwhile, the father died; and, suddenly, she seemed to have lost,

with him, her voice, her soul and her genius. She retained just,

but only just, enough of this to enter the CONSERVATOIRE, where she

did not distinguish herself at all, attending the classes without

enthusiasm and taking a prize only to please old Mamma Valerius,

with whom she continued to live.

The first time that Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed

by the girl's beauty and by the sweet images of the past which

it evoked, but was rather surprised at the negative side of her art.

He returned to listen to her. He followed her in the wings. He waited

for her behind a Jacob's ladder. He tried to attract her attention.

More than once, he walked after her to the door of her box, but she

did not see him. She seemed, for that matter, to see nobody.

She was all indifference. Raoul suffered, for she was very beautiful

and he was shy and dared not confess his love, even to himself.

And then came the lightning-flash of the gala performance:

the heavens torn asunder and an angel's voice heard upon earth for

the delight of mankind and the utter capture of his heart.

And then...and then there was that man's voice behind

the door--"You must love me!"--and no one in the room. ...

Why did she laugh when he reminded her of the incident of the scarf?

Why did she not recognize him? And why had she written to him?...

Perros was reached at last. Raoul walked into the smoky sitting-room

of the Setting Sun and at once saw Christine standing before him,

smiling and showing no astonishment.

"So you have come," she said. "I felt that I should find you here,

when I came back from mass. Some one told me so, at the church."

"Who?" asked Raoul, taking her little hand in his.

"Why, my poor father, who is dead."

There was a silence; and then Raoul asked:

"Did your father tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I

can not live without you?"

Christine blushed to the eyes and turned away her head.

In a trembling voice, she said:

"Me? You are dreaming, my friend!"

And she burst out laughing, to put herself in countenance.

"Don't laugh, Christine; I am quite serious," Raoul answered.

And she replied gravely: "I did not make you come to tell me

such things as that."

"You `made me come,' Christine; you knew that your letter would

not leave me indignant and that I should hasten to Perros.

How can you have thought that, if you did not think I loved you?"

"I thought you would remember our games here, as children, in which

my father so often joined. I really don't know what I thought.

... Perhaps I was wrong to write to you....This anniversary

and your sudden appearance in my room at the Opera, the other evening,

reminded me of the time long past and made me write to you as

the little girl that I then was. ..."

There was something in Christine's attitude that seemed to Raoul

not natural. He did not feel any hostility in her; far from it:

the distressed affection shining in her eyes told him that.

But why was this affection distressed? That was what he wished to know

and what was irritating him.

"When you saw me in your dressing-room, was that the first time

you noticed me, Christine?"

She was incapable of lying.

"No," she said, "I had seen you several times in your brother's box.

And also on the stage."

"I thought so!" said Raoul, compressing his lips. "But then why,

when you saw me in your room, at your feet, reminding you that I

had rescued your scarf from the sea, why did you answer as though

you did not know me and also why did you laugh?"

The tone of these questions was so rough that Christine stared

at Raoul without replying. The young man himself was aghast at

the sudden quarrel which he had dared to raise at the very moment

when he had resolved to speak words of gentleness, love and

submission to Christine. A husband, a lover with all rights,

would talk no differently to a wife, a mistress who had offended him.

But he had gone too far and saw no other way out of the ridiculous

position than to behave odiously.

"You don't answer!" he said angrily and unhappily. "Well, I will

answer for you. It was because there was some one in the room

who was in your way, Christine, some one that you did not wish

to know that you could be interested in any one else!"

"If any one was in my way, my friend," Christine broke in coldly,

"if any one was in my way, that evening, it was yourself, since I

told you to leave the room!"

"Yes, so that you might remain with the other!"

"What are you saying, monsieur?" asked the girl excitedly.

"And to what other do you refer?"

"To the man to whom you said, `I sing only for you!...to-night

I gave you my soul and I am dead!'"

Christine seized Raoul's arm and clutched it with a strength

which no one would have suspected in so frail a creature.

"Then you were listening behind the door?"

"Yes, because I love you everything....And I heard everything...."

"You heard what?"

And the young girl, becoming strangely calm, released Raoul's arm.

"He said to you, `Christine, you must love me!'"

At these words, a deathly pallor spread over Christine's face,

dark rings formed round her eyes, she staggered and seemed on the

point of swooning. Raoul darted forward, with arms outstretched,

but Christine had overcome her passing faintness and said,

in a low voice:

"Go on! Go on! Tell me all you heard!"

At an utter loss to understand, Raoul answered: "I heard

him reply, when you said you had given him your soul,

`Your soul is a beautiful thing, child, and I thank you.

No emperor ever received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight.'"

Christine carried her hand to her heart, a prey to indescribable

emotion. Her eyes stared before her like a madwoman's. Raoul

was terror-stricken. But suddenly Christine's eyes moistened

and two great tears trickled, like two pearls, down her ivory cheeks.

"Christine!"

"Raoul!"

The young man tried to take her in his arms, but she escaped

and fled in great disorder.

While Christine remained locked in her room, Raoul was at his wit's

end what to do. He refused to breakfast. He was terribly concerned

and bitterly grieved to see the hours, which he had hoped to find

so sweet, slip past without the presence of the young Swedish girl.

Why did she not come to roam with him through the country where they

had so many memories in common? He heard that she had had a mass said,

that morning, for the repose of her father's soul and spent a long

time praying in the little church and on the fiddler's tomb.

Then, as she seemed to have nothing more to do at Perros and,

in fact, was doing nothing there, why did she not go back to Paris

at once?

Raoul walked away, dejectedly, to the graveyard in which the church

stood and was indeed alone among the tombs, reading the inscriptions;

but, when he turned behind the apse, he was suddenly struck by the

dazzling note of the flowers that straggled over the white ground.

They were marvelous red roses that had blossomed in the morning,

in the snow, giving a glimpse of life among the dead, for death was

all around him. It also, like the flowers, issued from the ground,

which had flung back a number of its corpses. Skeletons and skulls

by the hundred were heaped against the wall of the church, held in

position by a wire that left the whole gruesome stack visible.

Dead men's bones, arranged in rows, like bricks, to form the first

course upon which the walls of the sacristy had been built.

The door of the sacristy opened in the middle of that bony structure,

as is often seen in old Breton churches.

Raoul said a prayer for Daae and then, painfully impressed by all

those eternal smiles on the mouths of skulls, he climbed the slope

and sat down on the edge of the heath overlooking the sea.

The wind fell with the evening. Raoul was surrounded by icy darkness,

but he did not feel the cold. It was here, he remembered,

that he used to come with little Christine to see the Korrigans

dance at the rising of the moon. He had never seen any, though his

eyes were good, whereas Christine, who was a little shortsighted,

pretended that she had seen many. He smiled at the thought and then

suddenly gave a start. A voice behind him said:

"Do you think the Korrigans will come this evening?"

It was Christine. He tried to speak. She put her gloved hand

on his mouth.

"Listen, Raoul. I have decided to tell you something serious,

very serious....Do you remember the legend of the Angel

of Music?"

"I do indeed," he said. "I believe it was here that your father

first told it to us."

"And it was here that he said, `When I am in Heaven, my child,

I will send him to you.' Well, Raoul, my father is in Heaven,

and I have been visited by the Angel of Music."

"I have no doubt of it," replied the young man gravely, for it

seemed to him that his friend, in obedience to a pious thought,

was connecting the memory of her father with the brilliancy of her

last triumph.

Christine appeared astonished at the Vicomte de Chagny's coolness:

"How do you understand it?" she asked, bringing her pale face

so close to his that he might have thought that Christine was going

to give him a kiss; but she only wanted to read his eyes in spite

of the dark.

"I understand," he said, "that no human being can sing as you

sang the other evening without the intervention of some miracle.

No professor on earth can teach you such accents as those.

You have heard the Angel of Music, Christine."

"Yes," she said solemnly, "IN MY DRESSING-ROOM. That is where he

comes to give me my lessons daily."

"In your dressing-room?" he echoed stupidly.

"Yes, that is where I have heard him; and I have not been the only

one to hear him."

"Who else heard him, Christine?"

"You, my friend."

"I? I heard the Angel of Music?"

"Yes, the other evening, it was he who was talking when you were

listening behind the door. It was he who said, `You must love me.'

But I then thought that I was the only one to hear his voice.

Imagine my astonishment when you told me, this morning, that you could

hear him too,"

Raoul burst out laughing. The first rays of the moon came and

shrouded the two young people in their light. Christine turned

on Raoul with a hostile air. Her eyes, usually so gentle, flashed fire.

"What are you laughing at? YOU think you heard a man's voice,

I suppose?"

"Well!..." replied the young man, whose ideas began to grow

confused in the face of Christine's determined attitude.

"It's you, Raoul, who say that? You, an old playfellow of my own!

A friend of my father's! But you have changed since those days.

What are you thinking of? I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny,

and I don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices.

If you had opened the door, you would have seen that there was nobody

in the room!"

"That's true! I did open the door, when you were gone, and I found

no one in the room."

"So you see!...Well?"

The viscount summoned up all his courage.

"Well, Christine, I think that somebody is making game of you."

She gave a cry and ran away. He ran after her, but, in a tone

of fierce anger, she called out: "Leave me! Leave me!"

And she disappeared.

Raoul returned to the inn feeling very weary, very low-spirited

and very sad. He was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom

saying that she would not be down to dinner. Raoul dined alone,

in a very gloomy mood. Then he went to his room and tried to read,

went to bed and tried to sleep. There was no sound in the next room.

The hours passed slowly. It was about half-past eleven when he

distinctly heard some one moving, with a light, stealthy step,

in the room next to his. Then Christine had not gone to bed!

Without troubling for a reason, Raoul dressed, taking care not

to make a sound, and waited. Waited for what? How could he tell?

But his heart thumped in his chest when he heard Christine's door

turn slowly on its hinges. Where could she be going, at this hour,

when every one was fast asleep at Perros? Softly opening the door, he

saw Christine's white form, in the moonlight, slipping along the passage.

She went down the stairs and he leaned over the baluster above her.

Suddenly he heard two voices in rapid conversation. He caught

one sentence: "Don't lose the key."

It was the landlady's voice. The door facing the sea was opened

and locked again. Then all was still.

Raoul ran back to his room and threw back the window.

Christine's white form stood on the deserted quay.

The first floor of the Setting Sun was at no great height and a tree

growing against the wall held out its branches to Raoul's impatient

arms and enabled him to climb down unknown to the landlady.

Her amazement, therefore, was all the greater when, the next morning,

the young man was brought back to her half frozen, more dead

than alive, and when she learned that he had been found stretched

at full length on the steps of the high altar of the little church.

She ran at once to tell Christine, who hurried down and,

with the help of the landlady, did her best to revive him.

He soon opened his eyes and was not long in recovering when he saw

his friend's charming face leaning over him.

A few weeks later, when the tragedy at the Opera compelled the

intervention of the public prosecutor, M. Mifroid, the commissary

of police, examined the Vicomte de Chagny touching the events of

the night at Perros. I quote the questions and answers as given

in the official report pp. 150 et seq.:

Q. "Did Mlle. Daae not see you come down from your room

by the curious road which you selected?"

R. "No, monsieur, no, although, when walking behind her, I took no

pains to deaden the sound of my footsteps. In fact, I was anxious

that she should turn round and see me. I realized that I had no excuse

for following her and that this way of spying on her was unworthy

of me. But she seemed not to hear me and acted exactly as though

I were not there. She quietly left the quay and then suddenly

walked quickly up the road. The church-clock had struck a quarter

to twelve and I thought that this must have made her hurry, for she

began almost to run and continued hastening until she came to the church."

Q. "Was the gate open?"

R. "Yes, monsieur, and this surprised me, but did not seem

to surprise Mlle. Daae."

Q. "Was there no one in the churchyard?"

R. "I did not see any one; and, if there had been, I must have seen him.

The moon was shining on the snow and made the night quite light."

Q. "Was it possible for any one to hide behind the tombstones?"

R. "No, monsieur. They were quite small, poor tombstones, partly hidden

under the snow, with their crosses just above the level of the ground.

The only shadows were those of the crosses and ourselves.

The church stood out quite brightly. I never saw so clear a night.

It was very fine and very cold and one could see everything."

Q. "Are you at all superstitious?"

R. "No, monsieur, I am a practising Catholic,"

Q. "In what condition of mind were you?"

R. "Very healthy and peaceful, I assure you. Mlle. Daae's curious

action in going out at that hour had worried me at first; but, as soon

as I saw her go to the churchyard, I thought that she meant to fulfil

some pious duty on her father's grave and I considered this so natural

that I recovered all my calmness. I was only surprised that she

had not heard me walking behind her, for my footsteps were quite

audible on the hard snow. But she must have been taken up with her

intentions and I resolved not to disturb her. She knelt down by

her father's grave, made the sign of the cross and began to pray.

At that moment, it struck midnight. At the last stroke, I saw

Mlle. Daae life{sic} her eyes to the sky and stretch out her arms

as though in ecstasy. I was wondering what the reason could be,

when I myself raised my head and everything within me seemed drawn

toward the invisible, WHICH WAS PLAYING THE MOST PERFECT MUSIC!

Christine and I knew that music; we had heard it as children.

But it had never been executed with such divine art, even by M. Daae.

I remembered all that Christine had told me of the Angel of Music.

The air was The Resurrection of Lazarus, which old M. Daae

used to play to us in his hours of melancholy and of faith.

If Christine's Angel had existed, he could not have played better,

that night, on the late musician's violin. When the music stopped,

I seemed to hear a noise from the skulls in the heap of bones;

it was as though they were chuckling and I could not help shuddering."

Q. "Did it not occur to you that the musician might be hiding

behind that very heap of bones?"

R. "It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur, so much

so that I omitted to follow Mlle. Daae, when she stood up and walked

slowly to the gate. She was so much absorbed just then that I

am not surprised that she did not see me."

Q. "Then what happened that you were found in the morning lying

half-dead on the steps of the high altar?"

R. "First a skull rolled to my feet...then another...then

another...It was as if I were the mark of that ghastly game

of bowls. And I had an idea that false step must have destroyed

the balance of the structure behind which our musician was concealed.

This surmise seemed to be confirmed when I saw a shadow suddenly

glide along the sacristy wall. I ran up. The shadow had already

pushed open the door and entered the church. But I was quicker than

the shadow and caught hold of a corner of its cloak. At that moment,

we were just in front of the high altar; and the moonbeams fell

straight upon us through the stained-glass windows of the apse.

As I did not let go of the cloak, the shadow turned round; and I

saw a terrible death's head, which darted a look at me from a pair

of scorching eyes. I felt as if I were face to face with Satan;

and, in the presence of this unearthly apparition, my heart gave way,

my courage failed me...and I remember nothing more until I

recovered consciousness at the Setting Sun."

Chapter VI A Visit to Box Five

We left M. Firmin Richard and M. Armand Moncharmin at the moment

when they were deciding "to look into that little matter of Box Five."

Leaving behind them the broad staircase which leads from the lobby

outside the managers' offices to the stage and its dependencies,

they crossed the stage, went out by the subscribers' door and

entered the house through the first little passage on the left.

Then they made their way through the front rows of stalls and

looked at Box Five on the grand tier, They could not see it well,

because it was half in darkness and because great covers were flung

over the red velvet of the ledges of all the boxes.

They were almost alone in the huge, gloomy house; and a great silence

surrounded them. It was the time when most of the stage-hands go

out for a drink. The staff had left the boards for the moment,

leaving a scene half set. A few rays of light, a wan, sinister light,

that seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary,

fell through some opening or other upon an old tower that raised

its pasteboard battlements on the stage; everything, in this

deceptive light, adopted a fantastic shape. In the orchestra stalls,

the drugget covering them looked like an angry sea, whose glaucous

waves had been suddenly rendered stationary by a secret order

from the storm phantom, who, as everybody knows, is called Adamastor.

MM. Moncharmin and Richard were the shipwrecked mariners

amid this motionless turmoil of a calico sea. They made

for the left boxes, plowing their way like sailors who leave their

ship and try to struggle to the shore. The eight great polished

columns stood up in the dusk like so many huge piles supporting

the threatening, crumbling, big-bellied cliffs whose layers were

represented by the circular, parallel, waving lines of the balconies

of the grand, first and second tiers of boxes. At the top,

right on top of the cliff, lost in M. Lenepveu's copper ceiling,

figures grinned and grimaced, laughed and jeered at MM. Richard and

Moncharmin's distress. And yet these figures were usually very serious.

Their names were Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis,

Pomona, Daphne, Clytie, Galatea and Arethusa. Yes, Arethusa herself

and Pandora, whom we all know by her box, looked down upon the two

new managers of the Opera, who ended by clutching at some piece

of wreckage and from there stared silently at Box Five on the grand tier.

I have said that they were distressed. At least, I presume so.

M. Moncharmin, in any case, admits that he was impressed. To quote

his own words, in his Memoirs:

"This moonshine about the Opera ghost in which, since we first

took over the duties of MM. Poligny and Debienne, we had been

so nicely steeped"--Moncharmin's style is not always irreproachable--

"had no doubt ended by blinding my imaginative and also my

visual faculties. It may be that the exceptional surroundings

in which we found ourselves, in the midst of an incredible silence,

impressed us to an unusual extent. It may be that we were the sport

of a kind of hallucination brought about by the semi-darkness of

the theater and the partial gloom that filled Box Five. At any rate,

I saw and Richard also saw a shape in the box. Richard said nothing,

nor I either. But we spontaneously seized each other's hand.

We stood like that for some minutes, without moving, with our

eyes fixed on the same point; but the figure had disappeared.

Then we went out and, in the lobby, communicated our impressions

to each other and talked about `the shape.' The misfortune was that

my shape was not in the least like Richard's. I had seen a thing

like a death's head resting on the ledge of the box, whereas Richard

saw the shape of an old woman who looked like Mme. Giry. We soon

discovered that we had really been the victims of an illusion,

whereupon, without further delay and laughing like madmen, we ran

to Box Five on the grand tier, went inside and found no shape of any kind."

Box Five is just like all the other grand tier boxes. There is

nothing to distinguish it from any of the others. M. Moncharmin

and M. Richard, ostensibly highly amused and laughing at each other,

moved the furniture of the box, lifted the cloths and the chairs

and particularly examined the arm-chair in which "the man's voice"

used to sit. But they saw that it was a respectable arm-chair,

with no magic about it. Altogether, the box was the most ordinary box

in the world, with its red hangings, its chairs, its carpet and its ledge

covered in red velvet. After, feeling the carpet in the most serious

manner possible, and discovering nothing more here or anywhere else,

they went down to the corresponding box on the pit tier below.

In Box Five on the pit tier, which is just inside the first exit

from the stalls on the left, they found nothing worth mentioning either.

"Those people are all making fools of us!" Firmin Richard ended

by exclaiming. "It will be FAUST on Saturday: let us both see

the performance from Box Five on the grand tier!"

Chapter VII Faust and What Followed

On the Saturday morning, on reaching their office, the joint

managers found a letter from O. G. worded in these terms:

MY DEAR MANAGERS:

So it is to be war between us?

If you still care for peace, here is my ultimatum. It consists

of the four following conditions:

1. You must give me back my private box; and I wish it to be at

my free disposal from henceforward.

2. The part of Margarita shall be sung this evening by Christine Daae.

Never mind about Carlotta; she will be ill.

3. I absolutely insist upon the good and loyal services of Mme. Giry,

my box-keeper, whom you will reinstate in her functions forthwith.

4. Let me know by a letter handed to Mme. Giry, who will see

that it reaches me, that you accept, as your predecessors did,

the conditions in my memorandum-book relating to my monthly allowance.

I will inform you later how you are to pay it to me.

If you refuse, you will give FAUST to-night in a house with a curse

upon it.

Take my advice and be warned in time. O. G.

"Look here, I'm getting sick of him, sick of him!" shouted Richard,

bringing his fists down on his office-table.

Just then, Mercier, the acting-manager, entered.

"Lachenel would like to see one of you gentlemen," he said.

"He says that his business is urgent and he seems quite upset."

"Who's Lachenel?" asked Richard.

"He's your stud-groom."

"What do you mean? My stud-groom?"

"Yes, sir," explained Mercier, "there are several grooms at the Opera

and M. Lachenel is at the head of them."

"And what does this groom do?"

"He has the chief management of the stable."

"What stable?"

"Why, yours, sir, the stable of the Opera."

"Is there a stable at the Opera? Upon my word, I didn't know.

Where is it?"

"In the cellars, on the Rotunda side. It's a very important department;

we have twelve horses."

"Twelve horses! And what for, in Heaven's name?"

"Why, we want trained horses for the processions in the Juive,

The Profeta and so on; horses `used to the boards.' It is the grooms'

business to teach them. M. Lachenel is very clever at it. He used

to manage Franconi's stables."

"Very well...but what does he want?"

"I don't know; I never saw him in such a state."

"He can come in."

M. Lachenel came in, carrying a riding-whip, with which he struck

his right boot in an irritable manner.

"Good morning, M. Lachenel," said Richard, somewhat impressed.

"To what do we owe the honor of your visit?"

"Mr. Manager, I have come to ask you to get rid of the whole stable."

"What, you want to get rid of our horses?"

"I'm not talking of the horses, but of the stablemen."

"How many stablemen have you, M. Lachenel?"

"Six stablemen! That's at least two too many."

"These are `places,'" Mercier interposed, "created and forced

upon us by the under-secretary for fine arts. They are filled

by protegees of the government and, if I may venture to..."

"I don't care a hang for the government!" roared Richard.

"We don't need more than four stablemen for twelve horses."

"Eleven," said the head riding-master, correcting him.

"Twelve," repeated Richard.

"Eleven," repeated Lachenel.

"Oh, the acting-manager told me that you had twelve horses!"

"I did have twelve, but I have only eleven since Cesar was stolen."

And M. Lachenel gave himself a great smack on the boot with his whip.

"Has Cesar been stolen?" cried the acting-manager. "Cesar, the white

horse in the Profeta?"

"There are not two Cesars," said the stud-groom dryly. "I was ten

years at Franconi's and I have seen plenty of horses in my time.

Well, there are not two Cesars. And he's been stolen."

"How?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows. That's why I have come to ask you

to sack the whole stable."

"What do your stablemen say?"

"All sorts of nonsense. Some of them accuse the supers.

Others pretend that it's the acting-manager's doorkeeper..."

"My doorkeeper? I'll answer for him as I would for myself!"

protested Mercier.

"But, after all, M. Lachenel," cried Richard, "you must have some idea."

"Yes, I have," M. Lachenel declared. "I have an idea and I'll

tell you what it is. There's no doubt about it in my mind."

He walked up to the two managers and whispered. "It's the ghost

who did the trick!"

Richard gave a jump.

"What, you too! You too!"

"How do you mean, I too? Isn't it natural, after what I saw?"

"What did you see?"

"I saw, as clearly as I now see you, a black shadow riding a white

horse that was as like Cesar as two peas!"

"And did you run after them?"

"I did and I shouted, but they were too fast for me and disappeared

in the darkness of the underground gallery."

M. Richard rose. "That will do, M. Lachenel. You can go....

We will lodge a complaint against THE GHOST."

"And sack my stable?"

"Oh, of course! Good morning."

M. Lachenel bowed and withdrew. Richard foamed at the mouth.

"Settle that idiot's account at once, please."

"He is a friend of the government representative's!" Mercier ventured

to say.

"And he takes his vermouth at Tortoni's with Lagrene, Scholl and Pertuiset,

the lion-hunter," added Moncharmin. "We shall have the whole press

against us! He'll tell the story of the ghost; and everybody

will be laughing at our expense! We may as well be dead as ridiculous!"

"All right, say no more about it."

At that moment the door opened. It must have been deserted

by its usual Cerberus, for Mme. Giry entered without ceremony,

holding a letter in her hand, and said hurriedly:

"I beg your pardon, excuse me, gentlemen, but I had a letter this

morning from the Opera ghost. He told me to come to you, that you

had something to..."

She did not complete the sentence. She saw Firmin Richard's face;

and it was a terrible sight. He seemed ready to burst. He said nothing,

he could not speak. But suddenly he acted. First, his left arm

seized upon the quaint person of Mme. Giry and made her describe

so unexpected a semicircle that she uttered a despairing cry.

Next, his right foot imprinted its sole on the black taffeta of a

skirt which certainly had never before undergone a similar outrage

in a similar place. The thing happened so quickly that Mme. Giry,

when in the passage, was still quite bewildered and seemed not

to understand. But, suddenly, she understood; and the Opera

rang with her indignant yells, her violent protests and threats.

About the same time, Carlotta, who had a small house of her own

in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, rang for her maid, who brought

her letters to her bed. Among them was an anonymous missive,

written in red ink, in a hesitating, clumsy hand, which ran:

If you appear to-night, you must be prepared for a great misfortune

at the moment when you open your mouth to sing...a misfortune

worse than death.

The letter took away Carlotta's appetite for breakfast.

She pushed back her chocolate, sat up in bed and thought hard.

It was not the first letter of the kind which she had received,

but she never had one couched in such threatening terms.

She thought herself, at that time, the victim of a thousand jealous

attempts and went about saying that she had a secret enemy who had

sworn to ruin her. She pretended that a wicked plot was being hatched

against her, a cabal which would come to a head one of those days;

but she added that she was not the woman to be intimidated.

The truth is that, if there was a cabal, it was led by Carlotta

herself against poor Christine, who had no suspicion of it.

Carlotta had never forgiven Christine for the triumph which she had

achieved when taking her place at a moment's notice. When Carlotta

heard of the astounding reception bestowed upon her understudy,

she was at once cured of an incipient attack of bronchitis and a

bad fit of sulking against the management and lost the slightest

inclination to shirk her duties. From that time, she worked with all

her might to "smother" her rival, enlisting the services of influential

friends to persuade the managers not to give Christine an opportunity

for a fresh triumph. Certain newspapers which had begun to extol

the talent of Christine now interested themselves only in the fame

of Carlotta. Lastly, in the theater itself, the celebrated,

but heartless and soulless diva made the most scandalous remarks

about Christine and tried to cause her endless minor unpleasantnesses.

When Carlotta had finished thinking over the threat contained

in the strange letter, she got up.

"We shall see," she said, adding a few oaths in her native Spanish

with a very determined air.

The first thing she saw, when looking out of her window, was a hearse.

She was very superstitious; and the hearse and the letter convinced

her that she was running the most serious dangers that evening.

She collected all her supporters, told them that she was threatened

at that evening's performance with a plot organized by Christine Daae

and declared that they must play a trick upon that chit by filling

the house with her, Carlotta's, admirers. She had no lack of them,

had she? She relied upon them to hold themselves prepared for any

eventuality and to silence the adversaries, if, as she feared,

they created a disturbance.

M. Richard's private secretary called to ask after the diva's health

and returned with the assurance that she was perfectly well and that,

"were she dying," she would sing the part of Margarita that evening.

The secretary urged her, in his chief's name, to commit no imprudence,

to stay at home all day and to be careful of drafts; and Carlotta could

not help, after he had gone, comparing this unusual and unexpected

advice with the threats contained in the letter.

It was five o'clock when the post brought a second anonymous letter

in the same hand as the first. It was short and said simply:

You have a bad cold. If you are wise, you will see that it

is madness to try to sing to-night.

Carlotta sneered, shrugged her handsome shoulders and sang two

or three notes to reassure herself.

Her friends were faithful to their promise. They were all at the Opera

that night, but looked round in vain for the fierce conspirators

whom they were instructed to suppress. The only unusual thing

was the presence of M. Richard and M. Moncharmin in Box Five.

Carlotta's friends thought that, perhaps, the managers had wind,

on their side, of the proposed disturbance and that they had

determined to be in the house, so as to stop it then and there;

but this was unjustifiable supposition, as the reader knows.

M. Richard and M. Moncharmin were thinking of nothing but their ghost.

"Vain! In vain do I call, through my vigil weary, On creation

and its Lord! Never reply will break the silence dreary! No sign!

No single word!"

The famous baritone, Carolus Fonta, had hardly finished Doctor Faust's

first appeal to the powers of darkness, when M. Firmin Richard,

who was sitting in the ghost's own chair, the front chair on the right,

leaned over to his partner and asked him chaffingly:

"Well, has the ghost whispered a word in your ear yet?"

"Wait, don't be in such a hurry," replied M. Armand Moncharmin,

in the same gay tone. "The performance has only begun and you know

that the ghost does not usually come until the middle of the first act."

The first act passed without incident, which did not surprise

Carlotta's friends, because Margarita does not sing in this act.

As for the managers, they looked at each other, when the curtain fell.

"That's one!" said Moncharmin.

"Yes, the ghost is late," said Firmin Richard.

"It's not a bad house," said Moncharmin, "for `a house with a curse

on it.'"

M. Richard smiled and pointed to a fat, rather vulgar woman,

dressed in black, sitting in a stall in the middle of the auditorium

with a man in a broadcloth frock-coat on either side of her.

"Who on earth are `those?'" asked Moncharmin.

"`Those,' my dear fellow, are my concierge, her husband and her brother."

"Did you give them their tickets?"

"I did. .. My concierge had never been to the Opera--this is,

the first time--and, as she is now going to come every night,

I wanted her to have a good seat, before spending her time showing

other people to theirs."

Moncharmin asked what he meant and Richard answered that he had

persuaded his concierge, in whom he had the greatest confidence,

to come and take Mme. Giry's place. Yes, he would like to see if,

with that woman instead of the old lunatic, Box Five would continue

to astonish the natives?

"By the way," said Moncharmin, "you know that Mother Giry is going

to lodge a complaint against you."

"With whom? The ghost?"

The ghost! Moncharmin had almost forgotten him. However, that mysterious

person did nothing to bring himself to the memory of the managers;

and they were just saying so to each other for the second time,

when the door of the box suddenly opened to admit the startled

stage-manager.

"What's the matter?" they both asked, amazed at seeing him there

at such a time.

"It seems there's a plot got up by Christine Daae's friends

against Carlotta. Carlotta's furious."

"What on earth...?" said Richard, knitting his brows.

But the curtain rose on the kermess scene and Richard made a sign

to the stage-manager to go away. When the two were alone again,

Moncharmin leaned over to Richard:

"Then Daae has friends?" he asked.

"Yes, she has."

"Whom?"

Richard glanced across at a box on the grand tier containing

no one but two men.

"The Comte de Chagny?"

"Yes, he spoke to me in her favor with such warmth that, if I

had not known him to be Sorelli's friend..."

"Really? Really?" said Moncharmin. "And who is that pale young

man beside him?"

"That's his brother, the viscount."

"He ought to be in his bed. He looks ill."

The stage rang with gay song:

"Red or white liquor,

Coarse or fine!

What can it matter,

So we have wine?"

Students, citizens, soldiers, girls and matrons whirled light-heartedly

before the inn with the figure of Bacchus for a sign. Siebel made

her entrance. Christine Daae looked charming in her boy's clothes;

and Carlotta's partisans expected to hear her greeted with an ovation

which would have enlightened them as to the intentions of her friends.

But nothing happened.

On the other hand, when Margarita crossed the stage and sang

the only two lines allotted her in this second act:

"No, my lord, not a lady am I, nor yet a beauty,

And do not need an arm to help me on my way,"

Carlotta was received with enthusiastic applause. It was so

unexpected and so uncalled for that those who knew nothing about

the rumors looked at one another and asked what was happening.

And this act also was finished without incident.

Then everybody said: "Of course, it will be during the next act."

Some, who seemed to be better informed than the rest, declared that

the "row" would begin with the ballad of the KING OF THULE and rushed

to the subscribers' entrance to warn Carlotta. The managers left

the box during the entr'acte to find out more about the cabal of which

the stage-manager had spoken; but they soon returned to their seats,

shrugging their shoulders and treating the whole affair as silly.

The first thing they saw, on entering the box, was a box of English

sweets on the little shelf of the ledge. Who had put it there?

They asked the box-keepers, but none of them knew. Then they went back

to the shelf and, next to the box of sweets, found an opera glass.

They looked at each other. They had no inclination to laugh.

All that Mme. Giry had told them returned to their memory...and

then...and then...they seemed to feel a curious sort of draft

around them....They sat down in silence.

The scene represented Margarita's garden:

"Gentle flow'rs in the dew,

Be message from me..."

As she sang these first two lines, with her bunch of roses and lilacs

in her hand, Christine, raising her head, saw the Vicomte de Chagny

in his box; and, from that moment, her voice seemed less sure,

less crystal-clear than usual. Something seemed to deaden and dull

her singing. ...

"What a queer girl she is!" said one of Carlotta's friends

in the stalls, almost aloud. "The other day she was divine;

and to-night she's simply bleating. She has no experience, no training."

"Gentle flow'rs, lie ye there

And tell her from me..."

The viscount put his head under his hands and wept. The count, behind

him, viciously gnawed his mustache, shrugged his shoulders and frowned.

For him, usually so cold and correct, to betray his inner feelings

like that, by outward signs, the count must be very angry. He was.

He had seen his brother return from a rapid and mysterious journey

in an alarming state of health. The explanation that followed was

unsatisfactory and the count asked Christine Daae for an appointment.

She had the audacity to reply that she could not see either him

or his brother. ...

"Would she but deign to hear me

And with one smile to cheer me..."

"The little baggage!" growled the count.

And he wondered what she wanted. What she was hoping for.

...She was a virtuous girl, she was said to have no friend,

no protector of any sort....That angel from the North must be

very artful!

Raoul, behind the curtain of his hands that veiled his boyish tears,

thought only of the letter which he received on his return to Paris,

where Christine, fleeing from Perros like a thief in the night,

had arrived before him:

MY DEAR LITTLE PLAYFELLOW:

You must have the courage not to see me again, not to speak of

me again. If you love me just a little, do this for me, for me

who will never forget you, my dear Raoul. My life depends upon it.

Your life depends upon it. YOUR LITTLE CHRISTINE.

Thunders of applause. Carlotta made her entrance.

"I wish I could but know who was he

That addressed me,

If he was noble, or, at least, what his name is..."

When Margarita had finished singing the ballad of the KING OF THULE,

she was loudly cheered and again when she came to the end

of the jewel song:

"Ah, the joy of past compare

These jewels bright to wear!..."

Thenceforth, certain of herself, certain of her friends in the house,

certain of her voice and her success, fearing nothing, Carlotta flung

herself into her part without restraint of modesty....She was no

longer Margarita, she was Carmen. She was applauded all the more;

and her debut with Faust seemed about to bring her a new success,

when suddenly...a terrible thing happened.

Faust had knelt on one knee:

"Let me gaze on the form below me,

While from yonder ether blue

Look how the star of eve, bright and tender,

lingers o'er me,

To love thy beauty too!"

And Margarita replied:

"Oh, how strange!

Like a spell does the evening bind me!

And a deep languid charm

I feel without alarm

With its melody enwind me

And all my heart subdue."

At that moment, at that identical moment, the terrible thing happened.

...Carlotta croaked like a toad:

"Co-ack!"

There was consternation on Carlotta's face and consternation on

the faces of all the audience. The two managers in their box could

not suppress an exclamation of horror. Every one felt that the thing

was not natural, that there was witchcraft behind it. That toad

smelt of brimstone. Poor, wretched, despairing, crushed Carlotta!

The uproar in the house was indescribable. If the thing had

happened to any one but Carlotta, she would have been hooted.

But everybody knew how perfect an instrument her voice was;

and there was no display of anger, but only of horror and dismay,

the sort of dismay which men would have felt if they had witnessed

the catastrophe that broke the arms of the Venus de Milo.

... And even then they would have seen...and understood...

But here that toad was incomprehensible! So much so that,

after some seconds spent in asking herself if she had really

heard that note, that sound, that infernal noise issue from

her throat, she tried to persuade herself that it was not so,

that she was the victim of an illusion, an illusion of the ear,

and not of an act of treachery on the part of her voice. ...

Meanwhile, in Box Five, Moncharmin and Richard had turned very pale.

This extraordinary and inexplicable incident filled them with a dread

which was the more mysterious inasmuch as for some little while,

they had fallen within the direct influence of the ghost. They had

felt his breath. Moncharmin's hair stood on end. Richard wiped the

perspiration from his forehead. Yes, the ghost was there, around them,

behind them, beside them; they felt his presence without seeing him,

they heard his breath, close, close, close to them!...They were

sure that there were three people in the box....They trembled

....They thought of running away....They dared not....

They dared not make a movement or exchange a word that would

have told the ghost that they knew that he was there!...What

was going to happen?

This happened.

"Co-ack!" Their joint exclamation of horror was heard all over the house.

THEY FELT THAT THEY WERE SMARTING UNDER THE GHOST'S ATTACKS.

Leaning over the ledge of their box, they stared at Carlotta

as though they did not recognize her. That infernal girl must

have given the signal for some catastrophe. Ah, they were waiting

for the catastrophe! The ghost had told them it would come!

The house had a curse upon it! The two managers gasped and panted

under the weight of the catastrophe. Richard's stifled voice was

heard calling to Carlotta:

"Well, go on!"

No, Carlotta did not go on....Bravely, heroically, she started

afresh on the fatal line at the end of which the toad had appeared.

An awful silence succeeded the uproar. Carlotta's voice alone once

more filled the resounding house:

"I feel without alarm..."

The audience also felt, but not without alarm. ..

"I feel without alarm...

I feel without alarm--co-ack!

With its melody enwind me--co-ack!

And all my heart sub--co-ack!"

The toad also had started afresh!

The house broke into a wild tumult. The two managers collapsed

in their chairs and dared not even turn round; they had not

the strength; the ghost was chuckling behind their backs!

And, at last, they distinctly heard his voice in their right ears,

the impossible voice, the mouthless voice, saying:

"SHE IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING THE CHANDELIER DOWN!"

With one accord, they raised their eyes to the ceiling and uttered

a terrible cry. The chandelier, the immense mass of the chandelier was

slipping down, coming toward them, at the call of that fiendish voice.

Released from its hook, it plunged from the ceiling and came smashing

into the middle of the stalls, amid a thousand shouts of terror.

A wild rush for the doors followed.

The papers of the day state that there were numbers wounded

and one killed. The chandelier had crashed down upon the head

of the wretched woman who had come to the Opera for the first time

in her life, the one whom M. Richard had appointed to succeed

Mme. Giry, the ghost's box-keeper, in her functions! She died on

the spot and, the next morning, a newspaper appeared with this heading:

TWO HUNDRED KILOS ON THE HEAD OF A CONCIERGE

That was her sole epitaph!

Chapter VIII The Mysterious Brougham

That tragic evening was bad for everybody. Carlotta fell ill.

As for Christine Daae, she disappeared after the performance.

A fortnight elapsed during which she was seen neither at the Opera

nor outside.

Raoul, of course, was the first to be astonished at the prima

donna's absence. He wrote to her at Mme. Valerius' flat and received

no reply. His grief increased and he ended by being seriously alarmed

at never seeing her name on the program. FAUST was played without her.

One afternoon he went to the managers' office to ask the reason

of Christine's disappearance. He found them both looking

extremely worried. Their own friends did not recognize them:

they had lost all their gaiety and spirits. They were seen crossing

the stage with hanging heads, care-worn brows, pale cheeks, as though

pursued by some abominable thought or a prey to some persistent sport

of fate.

The fall of the chandelier had involved them in no little responsibility;

but it was difficult to make them speak about it. The inquest had

ended in a verdict of accidental death, caused by the wear and tear

of the chains by which the chandelier was hung from the ceiling;

but it was the duty of both the old and the new managers to have

discovered this wear and tear and to have remedied it in time.

And I feel bound to say that MM. Richard and Moncharmin at this

time appeared so changed, so absent-minded, so mysterious,

so incomprehensible that many of the subscribers thought that some

event even more horrible than the fall of the chandelier must

have affected their state of mind.

In their daily intercourse, they showed themselves very impatient,

except with Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her functions.

And their reception of the Vicomte de Chagny, when he came to ask

about Christine, was anything but cordial. They merely told him

that she was taking a holiday. He asked how long the holiday was for,

and they replied curtly that it was for an unlimited period,

as Mlle. Daae had requested leave of absence for reasons of health.

"Then she is ill!" he cried. "What is the matter with her?"

"We don't know."

"Didn't you send the doctor of the Opera to see her?"

"No, she did not ask for him; and, as we trust her, we took her word."

Raoul left the building a prey to the gloomiest thoughts. He resolved,

come what might, to go and inquire of Mamma Valerius. He remembered

the strong phrases in Christine's letter, forbidding him to make

any attempt to see her. But what he had seen at Perros, what he had

heard behind the dressing-room door, his conversation with Christine

at the edge of the moor made him suspect some machination which,

devilish though it might be, was none the less human. The girl's

highly strung imagination, her affectionate and credulous mind,

the primitive education which had surrounded her childhood with a

circle of legends, the constant brooding over her dead father and,

above all, the state of sublime ecstasy into which music threw her

from the moment that this art was made manifest to her in certain

exceptional conditions, as in the churchyard at Perros; all this

seemed to him to constitute a moral ground only too favorable for

the malevolent designs of some mysterious and unscrupulous person.

Of whom was Christine Daae the victim? This was the very reasonable

question which Raoul put to himself as he hurried off to Mamma Valerius.

He trembled as he rang at a little flat in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires.

The door was opened by the maid whom he had seen coming out of Christine's

dressing-room one evening. He asked if he could speak to Mme. Valerius.

He was told that she was ill in bed and was not receiving visitors.

"Take in my card, please," he said.

The maid soon returned and showed him into a small and scantily

furnished drawing-room, in which portraits of Professor Valerius

and old Daae hung on opposite walls.

"Madame begs Monsieur le Vicomte to excuse her," said the servant.

"She can only see him in her bedroom, because she can no longer stand

on her poor legs."

Five minutes later, Raoul was ushered into an ill-lit room where he

at once recognized the good, kind face of Christine's benefactress

in the semi-darkness of an alcove. Mamma Valerius' hair was now

quite white, but her eyes had grown no older; never, on the contrary,

had their expression been so bright, so pure, so child-like.

"M. de Chagny!" she cried gaily, putting out both her hands to her visitor.

"Ah, it's Heaven that sends you here!...We can talk of HER."

This last sentence sounded very gloomily in the young man's ears.

He at once asked:

"Madame...where is Christine?"

And the old lady replied calmly:

"She is with her good genius!"

"What good genius?" exclaimed poor Raoul.

"Why, the Angel of Music!"

The viscount dropped into a chair. Really? Christine was with

the Angel of Music? And there lay Mamma Valerius in bed, smiling to

him and putting her finger to her lips, to warn him to be silent!

And she added:

"You must not tell anybody!"

"You can rely on me," said Raoul.

He hardly knew what he was saying, for his ideas about Christine,

already greatly confused, were becoming more and more entangled;

and it seemed as if everything was beginning to turn around him,

around the room, around that extraordinary good lady with the white hair

and forget-me-not eyes.

"I know! I know I can!" she said, with a happy laugh. "But why don't

you come near me, as you used to do when you were a little boy?

Give me your hands, as when you brought me the story of little Lotte,

which Daddy Daae had told you. I am very fond of you, M. Raoul,

you know. And so is Christine too!"

"She is fond of me!" sighed the young man. He found a difficulty

in collecting his thoughts and bringing them to bear on Mamma Valerius'

"good genius," on the Angel of Music of whom Christine had spoken

to him so strangely, on the death's head which he had seen in a sort

of nightmare on the high altar at Perros and also on the Opera ghost,

whose fame had come to his ears one evening when he was standing

behind the scenes, within hearing of a group of scene-shifters

who were repeating the ghastly description which the hanged man,

Joseph Buquet, had given of the ghost before his mysterious death.

He asked in a low voice: "What makes you think that Christine

is fond of me, madame?"

"She used to speak of you every day."

"Really?...And what did she tell you?"

"She told me that you had made her a proposal!"

And the good old lady began laughing wholeheartedly. Raoul sprang

from his chair, flushing to the temples, suffering agonies.

"What's this? Where are you going? Sit down again at once,

will you?...Do you think I will let you go like that?...If

you're angry with me for laughing, I beg your pardon. .. After all,

what has happened isn't your fault. .. Didn't you know?...Did

you think that Christine was free?..."

"Is Christine engaged to be married?" the wretched Raoul asked,

in a choking voice.

"Why no! Why no!...You know as well as I do that Christine

couldn't marry, even if she wanted to!"

"But I don't know anything about it!...And why can't Christine marry?"

"Because of the Angel of Music, of course!..."

"I don't follow..."

"Yes, he forbids her to!..."

"He forbids her!...The Angel of Music forbids her to marry!"

"Oh, he forbids her...without forbidding her. It's like this:

he tells her that, if she got married, she would never hear

him again. That's all!...And that he would go away for ever!

.. So, you understand, she can't let the Angel of Music go.

It's quite natural."

"Yes, yes," echoed Raoul submissively, "it's quite natural."

"Besides, I thought Christine had told you all that, when she met

you at Perros, where she went with her good genius."

"Oh, she went to Perros with her good genius, did she?"

"That is to say, he arranged to meet her down there,

in Perros churchyard, at Daae's grave. He promised

to play her The Resurrection of Lazarus on her father's violin!"

Raoul de Chagny rose and, with a very authoritative air,

pronounced these peremptory words:

"Madame, you will have the goodness to tell me where that genius lives."

The old lady did not seem surprised at this indiscreet command.

She raised her eyes and said:

"In Heaven!"

Such simplicity baffled him. He did not know what to say in

the presence of this candid and perfect faith in a genius who came

down nightly from Heaven to haunt the dressing-rooms at the Opera.

He now realized the possible state of mind of a girl brought up

between a superstitious fiddler and a visionary old lady and he

shuddered when he thought of the consequences of it all.

"Is Christine still a good girl?" he asked suddenly, in spite

of himself.

"I swear it, as I hope to be saved!" exclaimed the

old woman, who, this time, seemed to be incensed.

"And, if you doubt it, sir, I don't know what you are here for!"

Raoul tore at his gloves.

"How long has she known this `genius?'"

"About three months....Yes, it's quite three months since he

began to give her lessons."

The viscount threw up his arms with a gesture of despair.

"The genius gives her lessons!...And where, pray?"

"Now that she has gone away with him, I can't say; but, up to a fortnight

ago, it was in Christine's dressing-room. It would be impossible in this

little flat. The whole house would hear them. Whereas, at the Opera,

at eight o'clock in the morning, there is no one about, do you see!"

"Yes, I see! I see!" cried the viscount.

And he hurriedly took leave of Mme. Valerius, who asked herself

if the young nobleman was not a little off his head.

He walked home to his brother's house in a pitiful state.

He could have struck himself, banged his head against the walls!

To think that he had believed in her innocence, in her purity!

The Angel of Music! He knew him now! He saw him! It was beyond

a doubt some unspeakable tenor, a good-looking jackanapes, who mouthed

and simpered as he sang! He thought himself as absurd and as wretched

as could be. Oh, what a miserable, little, insignificant, silly young

man was M. le Vicomte de Chagny! thought Raoul, furiously. And she,

what a bold and damnable sly creature!

His brother was waiting for him and Raoul fell into his arms,

like a child. The count consoled him, without asking for explanations;

and Raoul would certainly have long hesitated before telling him

the story of the Angel of Music. His brother suggested taking him

out to dinner. Overcome as he was with despair, Raoul would probably

have refused any invitation that evening, if the count had not,

as an inducement, told him that the lady of his thoughts had been seen,

the night before, in company of the other sex in the Bois.

At first, the viscount refused to believe; but he received such exact

details that he ceased protesting. She had been seen, it appeared,

driving in a brougham, with the window down. She seemed to be slowly

taking in the icy night air. There was a glorious moon shining.

She was recognized beyond a doubt. As for her companion, only his

shadowy outline was distinguished leaning back in the dark.

The carriage was going at a walking pace in a lonely drive behind

the grand stand at Longchamp.

Raoul dressed in frantic haste, prepared to forget his distress

by flinging himself, as people say, into "the vortex of pleasure."

Alas, he was a very sorry guest and, leaving his brother early,

found himself, by ten o'clock in the evening, in a cab,

behind the Longchamp race-course.

It was bitterly cold. The road seemed deserted and very bright

under the moonlight. He told the driver to wait for him patiently at

the corner of a near turning and, hiding himself as well as he could,

stood stamping his feet to keep warm. He had been indulging

in this healthy exercise for half an hour or so, when a carriage

turned the corner of the road and came quietly in his direction,

at a walking pace.

As it approached, he saw that a woman was leaning her head from

the window. And, suddenly, the moon shed a pale gleam over her features.

"Christine!"

The sacred name of his love had sprung from his heart and his lips.

He could not keep it back. .. He would have given anything

to withdraw it, for that name, proclaimed in the stillness of

the night, had acted as though it were the preconcerted signal

for a furious rush on the part of the whole turn-out, which dashed

past him before he could put into execution his plan of leaping

at the horses' heads. The carriage window had been closed and

the girl's face had disappeared. And the brougham, behind which

he was now running, was no more than a black spot on the white road.

He called out again: "Christine!"

No reply. And he stopped in the midst of the silence.

With a lack-luster eye, he stared down that cold, desolate road

and into the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder than his heart,

nothing half so dead: he had loved an angel and now he despised

a woman!

Raoul, how that little fairy of the North has trifled with you!

Was it really, was it really necessary to have so fresh and young

a face, a forehead so shy and always ready to cover itself with

the pink blush of modesty in order to pass in the lonely night,

in a carriage and pair, accompanied by a mysterious lover?

Surely there should be some limit to hypocrisy and lying!...

She had passed without answering his cry....And he was thinking

of dying; and he was twenty years old!...

His valet found him in the morning sitting on his bed. He had not

undressed and the servant feared, at the sight of his face, that some

disaster had occurred. Raoul snatched his letters from the man's hands.

He had recognized Christine's paper and hand-writing. She said:

DEAR:

Go to the masked ball at the Opera on the night after to-morrow.

At twelve o'clock, be in the little room behind the chimney-place

of the big crush-room. Stand near the door that leads to the Rotunda.

Don't mention this appointment to any one on earth. Wear a white

domino and be carefully masked. As you love me, do not let yourself

be recognized. CHRISTINE.

Chapter IX At the Masked Ball

The envelope was covered with mud and unstamped. It bore the words

"To be handed to M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny," with the address

in pencil. It must have been flung out in the hope that a passer-by

would pick up the note and deliver it, which was what happened.

The note had been picked up on the pavement of the Place de l'Opera.

Raoul read it over again with fevered eyes. No more was needed

to revive his hope. The somber picture which he had for a moment

imagined of a Christine forgetting her duty to herself made way

for his original conception of an unfortunate, innocent child,

the victim of imprudence and exaggerated sensibility. To what extent,

at this time, was she really a victim? Whose prisoner was she?

Into what whirlpool had she been dragged? He asked himself these

questions with a cruel anguish; but even this pain seemed endurable

beside the frenzy into which he was thrown at the thought of a lying

and deceitful Christine. What had happened? What influence had

she undergone? What monster had carried her off and by what means?

...

By what means indeed but that of music? He knew Christine's story.

After her father's death, she acquired a distaste of everything in life,

including her art. She went through the CONSERVATOIRE like a poor

soulless singing-machine. And, suddenly, she awoke as though through the

intervention of a god. The Angel of Music appeared upon the scene!

She sang Margarita in FAUST and triumphed!...

The Angel of Music!...For three months the Angel of Music had been

giving Christine lessons....Ah, he was a punctual singing-master!...

And now he was taking her for drives in the Bois!...

Raoul's fingers clutched at his flesh, above his jealous heart.

In his inexperience, he now asked himself with terror what game

the girl was playing? Up to what point could an opera-singer make

a fool of a good-natured young man, quite new to love? O misery!...

Thus did Raoul's thoughts fly from one extreme to the other.

He no longer knew whether to pity Christine or to curse her;

and he pitied and cursed her turn and turn about. At all events,

he bought a white domino.

The hour of the appointment came at last. With his face in a mask

trimmed with long, thick lace, looking like a pierrot in his white wrap,

the viscount thought himself very ridiculous. Men of the world

do not go to the Opera ball in fancy-dress! It was absurd.

One thought, however, consoled the viscount: he would certainly

never be recognized!

This ball was an exceptional affair, given some time before Shrovetide,

in honor of the anniversary of the birth of a famous draftsman;

and it was expected to be much gayer, noisier, more Bohemian than

the ordinary masked ball. Numbers of artists had arranged to go,

accompanied by a whole cohort of models and pupils, who, by midnight,

began to create a tremendous din. Raoul climbed the grand staircase

at five minutes to twelve, did not linger to look at the motley

dresses displayed all the way up the marble steps, one of the richest

settings in the world, allowed no facetious mask to draw him into

a war of wits, replied to no jests and shook off the bold familiarity

of a number of couples who had already become a trifle too gay.

Crossing the big crush-room and escaping from a mad whirl of dancers

in which he was caught for a moment, he at last entered the room

mentioned in Christine's letter. He found it crammed; for this

small space was the point where all those who were going to supper

in the Rotunda crossed those who were returning from taking a glass

of champagne. The fun, here, waxed fast and furious.

Raoul leaned against a door-post and waited. He did not wait long.

A black domino passed and gave a quick squeeze to the tips of

his fingers. He understood that it was she and followed her:

"Is that you, Christine?" he asked, between his teeth.

The black domino turned round promptly and raised her finger

to her lips, no doubt to warn him not to mention her name again.

Raoul continued to follow her in silence.

He was afraid of losing her, after meeting her again in such

strange circumstances. His grudge against her was gone. He no

longer doubted that she had "nothing to reproach herself with,"

however peculiar and inexplicable her conduct might seem. He was

ready to make any display of clemency, forgiveness or cowardice.

He was in love. And, no doubt, he would soon receive a very natural

explanation of her curious absence.

The black domino turned back from time to time to see if the white

domino was still following.

As Raoul once more passed through the great crush-room, this time

in the wake of his guide, he could not help noticing a group crowding

round a person whose disguise, eccentric air and gruesome appearance

were causing a sensation. It was a man dressed all in scarlet,

with a huge hat and feathers on the top of a wonderful death's head.

From his shoulders hung an immense red-velvet cloak, which trailed

along the floor like a king's train; and on this cloak was embroidered,

in gold letters, which every one read and repeated aloud,

"Don't touch me! I am Red Death stalking abroad!"

Then one, greatly daring, did try to touch him...but a skeleton

hand shot out of a crimson sleeve and violently seized the rash

one's wrist; and he, feeling the clutch of the knucklebones,

the furious grasp of Death, uttered a cry of pain and terror.

When Red Death released him at last, he ran away like a very madman,

pursued by the jeers of the bystanders.

It was at this moment that Raoul passed in front of the funereal

masquerader, who had just happened to turn in his direction.

And he nearly exclaimed:

"The death's head of Perros-Guirec!"

He had recognized him!...He wanted to dart forward, forgetting Christine;

but the black domino, who also seemed a prey to some strange excitement,

caught him by the arm and dragged him from the crush-room,

far from the mad crowd through which Red Death was stalking. ...

The black domino kept on turning back and, apparently, on two

occasions saw something that startled her, for she hurried

her pace and Raoul's as though they were being pursued.

They went up two floors. Here, the stairs and corridors

were almost deserted. The black domino opened the door of a

private box and beckoned to the white domino to follow her.

Then Christine, whom he recognized by the sound of her voice,

closed the door behind them and warned him, in a whisper,

to remain at the back of the box and on no account to show himself.

Raoul took off his mask. Christine kept hers on. And, when Raoul

was about to ask her to remove it, he was surprised to see her put

her ear to the partition and listen eagerly for a sound outside.

Then she opened the door ajar, looked out into the corridor and,

in a low voice, said:

"He must have gone up higher." Suddenly she exclaimed: "He is

coming down again!"

She tried to close the door, but Raoul prevented her; for he had seen,

on the top step of the staircase that led to the floor above,

A RED FOOT, followed by another...and slowly, majestically,

the whole scarlet dress of Red Death met his eyes. And he once

more saw the death's head of Perros-Guirec.

"It's he!" he exclaimed. "This time, he shall not escape me!..."

But Christian{sic} had slammed the door at the moment when Raoul

was on the point of rushing out. He tried to push her aside.

"Whom do you mean by `he'?" she asked, in a changed voice.

"Who shall not escape you?"

Raoul tried to overcome the girl's resistance by force, but she

repelled him with a strength which he would not have suspected in her.

He understood, or thought he understood, and at once lost his temper.

"Who?" he repeated angrily. "Why, he, the man who hides behind

that hideous mask of death!...The evil genius of the churchyard

at Perros!...Red Death!...In a word, madam, your friend...

your Angel of Music!...But I shall snatch off his mask,

as I shall snatch off my own; and, this time, we shall look each

other in the face, he and I, with no veil and no lies between us;

and I shall know whom you love and who loves you!"

He burst into a mad laugh, while Christine gave a disconsolate moan

behind her velvet mask. With a tragic gesture, she flung out her

two arms, which fixed a barrier of white flesh against the door.

"In the name of our love, Raoul, you shall not pass!..."

He stopped. What had she said?...In the name of their love?...

Never before had she confessed that she loved him. And yet she

had had opportunities enough....Pooh, her only object was to gain

a few seconds!...She wished to give the Red Death time to escape...

And, in accents of childish hatred, he said:

"You lie, madam, for you do not love me and you have never loved me!

What a poor fellow I must be to let you mock and flout me as you

have done! Why did you give me every reason for hope, at Perros...

for honest hope, madam, for I am an honest man and I believed you

to be an honest woman, when your only intention was to deceive me!

Alas, you have deceived us all! You have taken a shameful advantage

of the candid affection of your benefactress herself, who continues

to believe in your sincerity while you go about the Opera ball

with Red Death!...I despise you!..."

And he burst into tears. She allowed him to insult her.

She thought of but one thing, to keep him from leaving the box.

"You will beg my pardon, one day, for all those ugly words, Raoul,

and when you do I shall forgive you!"

He shook his head. "No, no, you have driven me mad! When I think

that I had only one object in life: to give my name to an opera wench!"

"Raoul!...How can you?"

"I shall die of shame!"

"No, dear, live!" said Christine's grave and changed voice.

"And...good-by. Good-by, Raoul..."

The boy stepped forward, staggering as he went. He risked one

more sarcasm:

"Oh, you must let me come and applaud you from time to time!"

"I shall never sing again, Raoul!..."

"Really?" he replied, still more satirically. "So he is taking

you off the stage: I congratulate you!...But we shall meet

in the Bois, one of these evenings!"

"Not in the Bois nor anywhere, Raoul: you shall not see me again

..."

"May one ask at least to what darkness you are returning?...For

what hell are you leaving, mysterious lady...or for what paradise?"

"I came to tell you, dear, but I can't tell you now...you would

not believe me! You have lost faith in me, Raoul; it is finished!"

She spoke in such a despairing voice that the lad began to feel

remorse for his cruelty.

"But look here!" he cried. "Can't you tell me what all this means!

... You are free, there is no one to interfere with you. ...

You go about Paris....You put on a domino to come to the ball.

... Why do you not go home?...What have you been doing this

past fortnight?...What is this tale about the Angel of Music,

which you have been telling Mamma Valerius? Some one may have taken

you in, played upon your innocence. I was a witness of it myself,

at Perros...but you know what to believe now! You seem to me

quite sensible, Christine. You know what you are doing....And

meanwhile Mamma Valerius lies waiting for you at home and appealing

to your `good genius!'...Explain yourself, Christine, I beg of you!

Any one might have been deceived as I was. What is this farce?"

Christine simply took off her mask and said: "Dear, it is a tragedy!"

Raoul now saw her face and could not restrain an exclamation of

surprise and terror. The fresh complexion of former days was gone.

A mortal pallor covered those features, which he had known so

charming and so gentle, and sorrow had furrowed them with pitiless

lines and traced dark and unspeakably sad shadows under her eyes.

"My dearest! My dearest!" he moaned, holding out his arms.

"You promised to forgive me..."

"Perhaps!...Some day, perhaps!" she said, resuming her mask;

and she went away, forbidding him, with a gesture, to follow her.

He tried to disobey her; but she turned round and repeated her gesture

of farewell with such authority that he dared not move a step.

He watched her till she was out of sight. Then he also went down among

the crowd, hardly knowing what he was doing, with throbbing temples

and an aching heart; and, as he crossed the dancing-floor, he asked

if anybody had seen Red Death. Yes, every one had seen Red Death;

but Raoul could not find him; and, at two o'clock in the morning,

he turned down the passage, behind the scenes, that led to

Christine Daae's dressing-room.

His footsteps took him to that room where he had first known suffering.

He tapped at the door. There was no answer. He entered, as he

had entered when he looked everywhere for "the man's voice."

The room was empty. A gas-jet was burning, turned down low.

He saw some writing-paper on a little desk. He thought of writing

to Christine, but he heard steps in the passage. He had only time

to hide in the inner room, which was separated from the dressing-room

by a curtain.

Christine entered, took off her mask with a weary movement and flung

it on the table. She sighed and let her pretty head fall into her

two hands. What was she thinking of? Of Raoul? No, for Raoul

heard her murmur: "Poor Erik!"

At first, he thought he must be mistaken. To begin with, he was

persuaded that, if any one was to be pitied, it was he, Raoul.

It would have been quite natural if she had said, "Poor Raoul,"

after what had happened between them. But, shaking her head,

she repeated: "Poor Erik!"

What had this Erik to do with Christine's sighs and why was she

pitying Erik when Raoul was so unhappy?

Christine began to write, deliberately, calmly and so placidly

that Raoul, who was still trembling from the effects of the tragedy

that separated them, was painfully impressed.

"What coolness!" he said to himself.

She wrote on, filling two, three, four sheets. Suddenly, she raised

her head and hid the sheets in her bodice....She seemed

to be listening... Raoul also listened... Whence came

that strange sound, that distant rhythm?...A faint singing

seemed to issue from the walls...yes, it was as though

the walls themselves were singing!...The song became plainer

...the words were now distinguishable...he heard a voice,

a very beautiful, very soft, very captivating voice...but,

for all its softness, it remained a male voice...The voice came

nearer and nearer...it came through the wall...it approached

...and now the voice was IN THE ROOM, in front of Christine.

Christine rose and addressed the voice, as though speaking to some one:

"Here I am, Erik," she said. "I am ready. But you are late."

Raoul, peeping from behind the curtain, could not believe his eyes,

which showed him nothing. Christine's face lit up. A smile

of happiness appeared upon her bloodless lips, a smile like that

of sick people when they receive the first hope of recovery.

The voice without a body went on singing; and certainly Raoul had

never in his life heard anything more absolutely and heroically sweet,

more gloriously insidious, more delicate, more powerful, in short,

more irresistibly triumphant. He listened to it in a fever and he

now began to understand how Christine Daae was able to appear

one evening, before the stupefied audience, with accents of a beauty

hitherto unknown, of a superhuman exaltation, while doubtless still

under the influence of the mysterious and invisible master.

The voice was singing the Wedding-night Song from Romeo and Juliet.

Raoul saw Christine stretch out her arms to the voice as she

had done, in Perros churchyard, to the invisible violin playing The

Resurrection of Lazarus. And nothing could describe the passion

with which the voice sang:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

The strains went through Raoul's heart. Struggling against the charm

that seemed to deprive him of all his will and all his energy and

of almost all his lucidity at the moment when he needed them most,

he succeeded in drawing back the curtain that hid him and he walked to

where Christine stood. She herself was moving to the back of the room,

the whole wall of which was occupied by a great mirror that reflected her

image, but not his, for he was just behind her and entirely covered by her.

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

Christine walked toward her image in the glass and the image came

toward her. The two Christines--the real one and the reflection--

ended by touching; and Raoul put out his arms to clasp the two

in one embrace. But, by a sort of dazzling miracle that sent

him staggering, Raoul was suddenly flung back, while an icy blast swept

over his face; he saw, not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines

spinning round him, laughing at him and fleeing so swiftly that he

could not touch one of them. At last, everything stood still again;

and he saw himself in the glass. But Christine had disappeared.

He rushed up to the glass. He struck at the walls. Nobody!

And meanwhile the room still echoed with a distant passionate singing:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

Which way, which way had Christine gone?...Which way would she

return?...

Would she return? Alas, had she not declared to him that everything

was finished? And was the voice not repeating:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

To me? To whom?

Then, worn out, beaten, empty-brained, he sat down on the chair

which Christine had just left. Like her, he let his head fall into

his hands. When he raised it, the tears were streaming down his

young cheeks, real, heavy tears like those which jealous children shed,

tears that wept for a sorrow which was in no way fanciful, but which

is common to all the lovers on earth and which he expressed aloud:

"Who is this Erik?" he said.

Chapter X Forget the Name of the Man's Voice

The day after Christine had vanished before his eyes in a sort

of dazzlement that still made him doubt the evidence of his senses,

M. le Vicomte de Chagny called to inquire at Mamma Valerius'.

He came upon a charming picture. Christine herself was seated

by the bedside of the old lady, who was sitting up against

the pillows, knitting. The pink and white had returned to the young

girl's cheeks. The dark rings round her eyes had disappeared.

Raoul no longer recognized the tragic face of the day before.

If the veil of melancholy over those adorable features had not

still appeared to the young man as the last trace of the weird

drama in whose toils that mysterious child was struggling,

he could have believed that Christine was not its heroine at all.

She rose, without showing any emotion, and offered him her hand.

But Raoul's stupefaction was so great that he stood there dumfounded,

without a gesture, without a word.

"Well, M. de Chagny," exclaimed Mamma Valerius, "don't you know

our Christine? Her good genius has sent her back to us!"

"Mamma!" the girl broke in promptly, while a deep blush mantled to

her eyes. "I thought, mamma, that there was to be no more question

of that!...You know there is no such thing as the Angel of Music!"

"But, child, he gave you lessons for three months!"

"Mamma, I have promised to explain everything to you one of these days;

and I hope to do so but you have promised me, until that day,

to be silent and to ask me no more questions whatever!"

"Provided that you promised never to leave me again! But have you

promised that, Christine?"

"Mamma, all this can not interest M. de Chagny."

"On the contrary, mademoiselle," said the young man, in a voice

which he tried to make firm and brave, but which still trembled,

"anything that concerns you interests me to an extent which perhaps

you will one day understand. I do not deny that my surprise equals

my pleasure at finding you with your adopted mother and that,

after what happened between us yesterday, after what you said and

what I was able to guess, I hardly expected to see you here so soon.

I should be the first to delight at your return, if you were not

so bent on preserving a secrecy that may be fatal to you...and I

have been your friend too long not to be alarmed, with Mme. Valerius,

at a disastrous adventure which will remain dangerous so long as we

have not unraveled its threads and of which you will certainly end

by being the victim, Christine."

At these words, Mamma Valerius tossed about in her bed.

"What does this mean?" she cried. "Is Christine in danger?"

"Yes, madame," said Raoul courageously, notwithstanding the signs

which Christine made to him.

"My God!" exclaimed the good, simple old woman, gasping for breath.

"You must tell me everything, Christine! Why did you try to reassure me?

And what danger is it, M. de Chagny?"

"An impostor is abusing her good faith."

"Is the Angel of Music an impostor?"

"She told you herself that there is no Angel of Music."

"But then what is it, in Heaven's name? You will be the death

of me!"

"There is a terrible mystery around us, madame, around you,

around Christine, a mystery much more to be feared than any number

of ghosts or genii!"

Mamma Valerius turned a terrified face to Christine, who had already

run to her adopted mother and was holding her in her arms.

"Don't believe him, mummy, don't believe him," she repeated.

"Then tell me that you will never leave me again," implored the widow.

Christine was silent and Raoul resumed.

"That is what you must promise, Christine. It is the only thing

that can reassure your mother and me. We will undertake not to ask

you a single question about the past, if you promise us to remain

under our protection in future."

"That is an undertaking which I have not asked of you and a promise

which I refuse to make you!" said the young girl haughtily.

"I am mistress of my own actions, M. de Chagny: you have no right

to control them, and I will beg you to desist henceforth.

As to what I have done during the last fortnight, there is only one man

in the world who has the right to demand an account of me: my husband!

Well, I have no husband and I never mean to marry!"

She threw out her hands to emphasize her words and Raoul turned pale,

not only because of the words which he had heard, but because he

had caught sight of a plain gold ring on Christine's finger.

"You have no husband and yet you wear a wedding-ring."

He tried to seize her hand, but she swiftly drew it back.

"That's a present!" she said, blushing once more and vainly striving

to hide her embarrassment.

"Christine! As you have no husband, that ring can only have been

given by one who hopes to make you his wife! Why deceive us further?

Why torture me still more? That ring is a promise; and that promise

has been accepted!"

"That's what I said!" exclaimed the old lady.

"And what did she answer, madame?"

"What I chose," said Christine, driven to exasperation.

"Don't you think, monsieur, that this cross-examination has lasted

long enough? As far as I am concerned..."

Raoul was afraid to let her finish her speech. He interrupted her:

"I beg your pardon for speaking as I did, mademoiselle. You know

the good intentions that make me meddle, just now, in matters which,

you no doubt think, have nothing to do with me. But allow me to

tell you what I have seen--and I have seen more than you suspect,

Christine--or what I thought I saw, for, to tell you the truth,

I have sometimes been inclined to doubt the evidence of my eyes."

"Well, what did you see, sir, or think you saw?"

"I saw your ecstasy AT THE SOUND OF THE VOICE, Christine: the voice

that came from the wall or the next room to yours...yes,

YOUR ECSTASY! And that is what makes me alarmed on your behalf.

You are under a very dangerous spell. And yet it seems that you

are aware of the imposture, because you say to-day THAT THERE

IS NO ANGEL OF MUSIC! In that case, Christine, why did you follow

him that time? Why did you stand up, with radiant features,

as though you were really hearing angels?...Ah, it is a very

dangerous voice, Christine, for I myself, when I heard it, was so much

fascinated by it that you vanished before my eyes without my seeing

which way you passed! Christine, Christine, in the name of Heaven,

in the name of your father who is in Heaven now and who loved you

so dearly and who loved me too, Christine, tell us, tell your

benefactress and me, to whom does that voice belong? If you do,

we will save you in spite of yourself. Come, Christine, the name

of the man! The name of the man who had the audacity to put a ring

on your finger!"

"M. de Chagny," the girl declared coldly, "you shall never know!"

Thereupon, seeing the hostility with which her ward had addressed

the viscount, Mamma Valerius suddenly took Christine's part.

"And, if she does love that man, Monsieur le Vicomte, even then it

is no business of yours!"

"Alas, madame," Raoul humbly replied, unable to restrain his tears,

"alas, I believe that Christine really does love him!...But

it is not only that which drives me to despair; for what I am not

certain of, madame, is that the man whom Christine loves is worthy

of her love!"

"It is for me to be the judge of that, monsieur!" said Christine,

looking Raoul angrily in the face.

"When a man," continued Raoul, "adopts such romantic methods

to entice a young girl's affections. .."

"The man must be either a villain, or the girl a fool: is that it?"

"Christine!"

"Raoul, why do you condemn a man whom you have never seen,

whom no one knows and about whom you yourself know nothing?"

"Yes, Christine....Yes....I at least know the name

that you thought to keep from me for ever....The name

of your Angel of Music, mademoiselle, is Erik!"

Christine at once betrayed herself. She turned as white as a sheet

and stammered: "Who told you?"

"You yourself!"

"How do you mean?"

"By pitying him the other night, the night of the masked ball.

When you went to your dressing-room, did you not say, `Poor Erik?'

Well, Christine, there was a poor Raoul who overheard you."

"This is the second time that you have listened behind the door,

M. de Chagny!"

"I was not behind the door...I was in the dressing-room,

in the inner room, mademoiselle."

"Oh, unhappy man!" moaned the girl, showing every sign

of unspeakable terror. "Unhappy man! Do you want to be killed?"

"Perhaps."

Raoul uttered this "perhaps" with so much love and despair in his

voice that Christine could not keep back a sob. She took his hands

and looked at him with all the pure affection of which she was capable:

"Raoul," she said, "forget THE MAN'S VOICE and do not even remember

its name. .. You must never try to fathom the mystery of THE

MAN'S VOICE."

"Is the mystery so very terrible?"

"There is no more awful mystery on this earth. Swear to me that you

will make no attempt to find out," she insisted. "Swear to me

that you will never come to my dressing-room, unless I send for you."

"Then you promise to send for me sometimes, Christine?"

"I promise."

"When?"

"To-morrow."

"Then I swear to do as you ask."

He kissed her hands and went away, cursing Erik and resolving

to be patient.

Chapter XI Above the Trap-Doors

The next day, he saw her at the Opera. She was still wearing

the plain gold ring. She was gentle and kind to him. She talked

to him of the plans which he was forming, of his future, of his career.

He told her that the date of the Polar expedition had been put forward

and that he would leave France in three weeks, or a month at latest.

She suggested, almost gaily, that he must look upon the voyage

with delight, as a stage toward his coming fame. And when he

replied that fame without love was no attraction in his eyes,

she treated him as a child whose sorrows were only short-lived.

"How can you speak so lightly of such serious things?" he asked.

"Perhaps we shall never see each other again! I may die during

that expedition."

"Or I," she said simply.

She no longer smiled or jested. She seemed to be thinking

of some new thing that had entered her mind for the first time.

Her eyes were all aglow with it.

"What are you thinking of, Christine?"

"I am thinking that we shall not see each other again..."

"And does that make you so radiant?"

"And that, in a month, we shall have to say good-by for ever!"

"Unless, Christine, we pledge our faith and wait for each other

for ever."

She put her hand on his mouth.

"Hush, Raoul!...You know there is no question of that...

And we shall never be married: that is understood!"

She seemed suddenly almost unable to contain an overpowering gaiety.

She clapped her hands with childish glee. Raoul stared at her

in amazement.

"But...but," she continued, holding out her two hands to Raoul,

or rather giving them to him, as though she had suddenly resolved

to make him a present of them, "but if we can not be married, we can

... we can be engaged! Nobody will know but ourselves, Raoul.

There have been plenty of secret marriages: why not a secret

engagement?...We are engaged, dear, for a month! In a month,

you will go away, and I can be happy at the thought of that month

all my life long!"

She was enchanted with her inspiration. Then she became serious again.

"This," she said, "IS A HAPPINESS THAT WILL HARM NO ONE."

Raoul jumped at the idea. He bowed to Christine and said:

"Mademoiselle, I have the honor to ask for your hand."

"Why, you have both of them already, my dear betrothed!...

Oh, Raoul, how happy we shall be!...We must play at being

engaged all day long."

It was the prettiest game in the world and they enjoyed it like

the children that they were. Oh, the wonderful speeches they made

to each other and the eternal vows they exchanged! They played at

hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really

their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very,

very handy to catch them, each time, without hurting them.

One day, about a week after the game began, Raoul's heart was badly

hurt and he stopped playing and uttered these wild words:

"I shan't go to the North Pole!"

Christine, who, in her innocence, had not dreamed of such a possibility,

suddenly discovered the danger of the game and reproached herself bitterly.

She did not say a word in reply to Raoul's remark and went straight home.

This happened in the afternoon, in the singer's dressing-room,

where they met every day and where they amused themselves by dining

on three biscuits, two glasses of port and a bunch of violets.

In the evening, she did not sing; and he did not receive his

usual letter, though they had arranged to write to each other daily

during that month. The next morning, he ran off to Mamma Valerius,

who told him that Christine had gone away for two days. She had

left at five o'clock the day before.

Raoul was distracted. He hated Mamma Valerius for giving him such

news as that with such stupefying calmness. He tried to sound her,

but the old lady obviously knew nothing.

Christine returned on the following day. She returned in triumph.

She renewed her extraordinary success of the gala performance.

Since the adventure of the "toad," Carlotta had not been able

to appear on the stage. The terror of a fresh "co-ack" filled her

heart and deprived her of all her power of singing; and the theater

that had witnessed her incomprehensible disgrace had become odious

to her. She contrived to cancel her contract. Daae was offered

the vacant place for the time. She received thunders of applause in

the Juive.

The viscount, who, of course, was present, was the only one

to suffer on hearing the thousand echoes of this fresh triumph;

for Christine still wore her plain gold ring. A distant voice

whispered in the young man's ear:

"She is wearing the ring again to-night; and you did not give it

to her. She gave her soul again tonight and did not give it to you.

... If she will not tell you what she has been doing the past two

days...you must go and ask Erik!"

He ran behind the scenes and placed himself in her way. She saw

him for her eyes were looking for him. She said:

"Quick! Quick!...Come!"

And she dragged him to her dressing-room.

Raoul at once threw himself on his knees before her. He swore

to her that he would go and he entreated her never again to withhold

a single hour of the ideal happiness which she had promised him.

She let her tears flow. They kissed like a despairing brother

and sister who have been smitten with a common loss and who meet

to mourn a dead parent.

Suddenly, she snatched herself from the young man's soft and timid

embrace, seemed to listen to something, and, with a quick gesture,

pointed to the door. When he was on the threshold, she said,

in so low a voice that the viscount guessed rather than heard her words:

"To-morrow, my dear betrothed! And be happy, Raoul: I sang

for you to-night!"

He returned the next day. But those two days of absence had broken

the charm of their delightful make-believe. They looked at each other,

in the dressing-room, with their sad eyes, without exchanging a word.

Raoul had to restrain himself not to cry out:

"I am jealous! I am jealous! I am jealous!"

But she heard him all the same. Then she said:

"Come for a walk, dear. The air will do you good."

Raoul thought that she would propose a stroll in the country,

far from that building which he detested as a prison whose jailer

he could feel walking within the walls...the jailer Erik....

But she took him to the stage and made him sit on the wooden

curb of a well, in the doubtful peace and coolness of a first scene

set for the evening's performance.

On another day, she wandered with him, hand in, hand, along the deserted

paths of a garden whose creepers had been cut out by a decorator's

skilful hands. It was as though the real sky, the real flowers,

the real earth were forbidden her for all time and she condemned

to breathe no other air than that of the theater. An occasional

fireman passed, watching over their melancholy idyll from afar.

And she would drag him up above the clouds, in the magnificent

disorder of the grid, where she loved to make him giddy by running

in front of him along the frail bridges, among the thousands of ropes

fastened to the pulleys, the windlasses, the rollers, in the midst

of a regular forest of yards and masts. If he hesitated, she said,

with an adorable pout of her lips:

"You, a sailor!"

And then they returned to terra firma, that is to say, to some

passage that led them to the little girls' dancing-school, where

brats between six and ten were practising their steps, in the hope

of becoming great dancers one day, "covered with diamonds...."

Meanwhile, Christine gave them sweets instead.

She took him to the wardrobe and property-rooms, took him all over

her empire, which was artificial, but immense, covering seventeen

stories from the ground-floor to the roof and inhabited by an

army of subjects. She moved among them like a popular queen,

encouraging them in their labors, sitting down in the workshops,

giving words of advice to the workmen whose hands hesitated to cut

into the rich stuffs that were to clothe heroes. There were

inhabitants of that country who practised every trade. There

were cobblers, there were goldsmiths. All had learned to know

her and to love her, for she always interested herself in all

their troubles and all their little hobbies.

She knew unsuspected corners that were secretly occupied by little

old couples. She knocked at their door and introduced Raoul to them

as a Prince Charming who had asked for her hand; and the two of them,

sitting on some worm-eaten "property," would listen to the legends

of the Opera, even as, in their childhood, they had listened to the old

Breton tales. Those old people remembered nothing outside the Opera.

They had lived there for years without number. Past managements

had forgotten them; palace revolutions had taken no notice of them;

the history of France had run its course unknown to them; and nobody

recollected their existence.

The precious days sped in this way; and Raoul and Christine,

by affecting excessive interest in outside matters, strove awkwardly

to hide from each other the one thought of their hearts. One fact

was certain, that Christine, who until then had shown herself

the stronger of the two, became suddenly inexpressibly nervous.

When on their expeditions, she would start running without reason

or else suddenly stop; and her hand, turning ice-cold in a moment,

would hold the young man back. Sometimes her eyes seemed to

pursue imaginary shadows. She cried, "This way," and "This way,"

and "This way," laughing a breathless laugh that often ended

in tears. Then Raoul tried to speak, to question her, in spite

of his promises. But, even before he had worded his question,

she answered feverishly:

"Nothing...I swear it is nothing."

Once, when they were passing before an open trapdoor on the stage,

Raoul stopped over the dark cavity.

"You have shown me over the upper part of your empire, Christine,

but there are strange stories told of the lower part. Shall we

go down?"

She caught him in her arms, as though she feared to see him disappear

down the black hole, and, in a trembling voice, whispered:

"Never!...I will not have you go there!...Besides, it's not

mine...EVERYTHING THAT IS UNDERGROUND BELONGS TO HIM!"

Raoul looked her in the eyes and said roughly:

"So he lives down there, does he?"

"I never said so....Who told you a thing like that? Come away!

I sometimes wonder if you are quite sane, Raoul....You always

take things in such an impossible way....Come along! Come!"

And she literally dragged him away, for he was obstinate and wanted

to remain by the trap-door; that hole attracted him.

Suddenly, the trap-door was closed and so quickly that they did

not even see the hand that worked it; and they remained quite dazed.

"Perhaps HE was there," Raoul said, at last.

She shrugged her shoulders, but did not seem easy.

"No, no, it was the `trap-door-shutters.' They must do something,

you know....They open and shut the trap-doors without

any particular reason....It's like the `door-shutters:'

they must spend their time somehow."

"But suppose it were HE, Christine?"

"No, no! He has shut himself up, he is working."

"Oh, really! He's working, is he?"

"Yes, he can't open and shut the trap-doors and work at the same time."

She shivered.

"What is he working at?"

"Oh, something terrible!...But it's all the better for us.

...When he's working at that, he sees nothing; he does not eat,

drink, or breathe for days and nights at a time...he becomes a

living dead man and has no time to amuse himself with the trap-doors."

She shivered again. She was still holding him in her arms.

Then she sighed and said, in her turn:

"Suppose it were HE!"

"Are you afraid of him?"

"No, no, of course not," she said.

For all that, on the next day and the following days, Christine was

careful to avoid the trap-doors. Her agitation only increased as

the hours passed. At last, one afternoon, she arrived very late,

with her face so desperately pale and her eyes so desperately red,

that Raoul resolved to go to all lengths, including that which he

foreshadowed when he blurted out that he would not go on the North Pole

expedition unless she first told him the secret of the man's voice.

"Hush! Hush, in Heaven's name! Suppose HE heard you,

you unfortunate Raoul!"

And Christine's eyes stared wildly at everything around her.

"I will remove you from his power, Christine, I swear it.

And you shall not think of him any more."

"Is it possible?"

She allowed herself this doubt, which was an encouragernent,

while dragging the young man up to the topmost floor of the theater,

far, very far from the trap-doors.

"I shall hide you in some unknown corner of the world, where HE

can not come to look for you. You will be safe; and then I shall

go away...as you have sworn never to marry."

Christine seized Raoul's hands and squeezed them with incredible rapture.

But, suddenly becoming alarmed again, she turned away her head.

"Higher!" was all she said. "Higher still!"

And she dragged him up toward the summit.

He had a difficulty in following her. They were soon under

the very roof, in the maze of timber-work. They slipped

through the buttresses, the rafters, the joists; they ran

from beam to beam as they might have run from tree to tree in a forest.

And, despite the care which she took to look behind her at every moment,

she failed to see a shadow which followed her like her own shadow,

which stopped when she stopped, which started again when she did

and which made no more noise than a well-conducted shadow should.

As for Raoul, he saw nothing either; for, when he had Christine in

front of him, nothing interested him that happened behind.

Chapter XII Apollo's Lyre

On this way, they reached the roof. Christine tripped over it

as lightly as a swallow. Their eyes swept the empty space between

the three domes and the triangular pediment. She breathed freely

over Paris, the whole valley of which was seen at work below.

She called Raoul to come quite close to her and they walked side

by side along the zinc streets, in the leaden avenues; they looked

at their twin shapes in the huge tanks, full of stagnant water, where,

in the hot weather, the little boys of the ballet, a score or so,

learn to swim and dive.

The shadow had followed behind them clinging to their steps;

and the two children little suspected its presence when they at

last sat down, trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo,

who, with a great bronze gesture, lifted his huge lyre to the heart

of a crimson sky.

It was a gorgeous spring evening. Clouds, which had just received

their gossamer robe of gold and purple from the setting sun,

drifted slowly by; and Christine said to Raoul:

"Soon we shall go farther and faster than the clouds, to the end of

the world, and then you will leave me, Raoul. But, if, when the moment

comes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you--well you must

carry me off by force!"

"Are you afraid that you will change your mind, Christine?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head in an odd fashion.

"He is a demon!" And she shivered and nestled in his arms with a moan.

"I am afraid now of going back to live with him...in the ground!"

"What compels you to go back, Christine?"

"If I do not go back to him, terrible misfortunes may happen!...

But I can't do it, I can't do it!...I know one ought to be sorry

for people who live underground....But he is too horrible!

And yet the time is at hand; I have only a day left; and, if I

do not go, he will come and fetch me with his voice. And he will

drag me with him, underground, and go on his knees before me,

with his death's head. And he will tell me that he loves me!

And he will cry! Oh, those tears, Raoul, those tears in the two

black eye-sockets of the death's head! I can not see those tears

flow again!"

She wrung her hands in anguish, while Raoul pressed her to his heart.

"No, no, you shall never again hear him tell you that he loves you!

You shall not see his tears! Let us fly, Christine, let us fly

at once!"

And he tried to drag her away, then and there. But she stopped him.

"No, no," she said, shaking her head sadly. "Not now!...It would

be too cruel...let him hear me sing to-morrow evening...and then

we will go away. You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room

at midnight exactly. He will then be waiting for me in the dining-room

by the lake...we shall be free and you shall take me away....

You must promise me that, Raoul, even if I refuse; for I feel that,

if I go back this time, I shall perhaps never return."

And she gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh,

behind her, replied.

"Didn't you hear?"

Her teeth chattered.

"No," said Raoul, "I heard nothing."

"It is too terrible," she confessed, "to be always trembling

like this!...And yet we run no danger here; we are at home,

in the sky, in the open air, in the light. The sun is flaming;

and night-birds can not bear to look at the sun. I have never seen

him by daylight...it must be awful!...Oh, the first time I

saw him!...I thought that he was going to die."

"Why?" asked Raoul, really frightened at the aspect which this

strange confidence was taking.

"BECAUSE I HAD SEEN HIM!"

This time, Raoul and Christine turned round at the same time:

"There is some one in pain," said Raoul. "Perhaps some one has

been hurt. Did you hear?"

"I can't say," Christine confessed. "Even when he is not there,

my ears are full of his sighs. Still, if you heard..."

They stood up and looked around them. They were quite alone

on the immense lead roof. They sat down again and Raoul said:

"Tell me how you saw him first."

"I had heard him for three months without seeing him. The first time I

heard it, I thought, as you did, that that adorable voice was singing

in another room. I went out and looked everywhere; but, as you know,

Raoul, my dressing-room is very much by itself; and I could not find

the voice outside my room, whereas it went on steadily inside.

And it not only sang, but it spoke to me and answered my questions,

like a real man's voice, with this difference, that it was as beautiful

as the voice of an angel. I had never got the Angel of Music whom

my poor father had promised to send me as soon as he was dead.

I really think that Mamma Valerius was a little bit to blame.

I told her about it; and she at once said, `It must be the Angel;

at any rate, you can do no harm by asking him.' I did so;

and the man's voice replied that, yes, it was the Angel's voice,

the voice which I was expecting and which my father had promised me.

From that time onward, the voice and I became great friends.

It asked leave to give me lessons every day. I agreed and never failed

to keep the appointment which it gave me in my dressing-room. You

have no idea, though you have heard the voice, of what those lessons

were like."

"No, I have no idea," said Raoul. "What was your accompaniment?"

"We were accompanied by a music which I do not know: it was behind

the wall and wonderfully accurate. The voice seemed to understand

mine exactly, to know precisely where my father had left off

teaching me. In a few weeks' time, I hardly knew myself when I sang.

I was even frightened. I seemed to dread a sort of witchcraft

behind it; but Mamma Valerius reassured me. She said that she

knew I was much too simple a girl to give the devil a hold on me.

... My progress, by the voice's own order, was kept a secret

between the voice, Mamma Valerius and myself. It was a curious

thing, but, outside the dressing-room, I sang with my ordinary,

every-day voice and nobody noticed anything. I did all that the

voice asked. It said, `Wait and see: we shall astonish Paris!'

And I waited and lived on in a sort of ecstatic dream. It was then

that I saw you for the first time one evening, in the house.

I was so glad that I never thought of concealing my delight when I

reached my dressing-room. Unfortunately, the voice was there before

me and soon noticed, by my air, that something had happened.

It asked what was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our

story secret or concealing the place which you filled in my heart.

Then the voice was silent. I called to it, but it did not reply;

I begged and entreated, but in vain. I was terrified lest it had

gone for good. I wish to Heaven it had, dear!...That night,

I went home in a desperate condition. I told Mamma Valerius, who said,

`Why, of course, the voice is jealous!' And that, dear, first revealed

to me that I loved you."

Christine stopped and laid her head on Raoul's shoulder. They sat

like that for a moment, in silence, and they did not see, did not

perceive the movement, at a few steps from them, of the creeping

shadow of two great black wings, a shadow that came along the roof

so near, so near them that it could have stifled them by closing

over them.

"The next day," Christine continued, with a sigh, "I went back

to my dressing-room in a very pensive frame of mind. The voice

was there, spoke to me with great sadness and told me plainly that,

if I must bestow my heart on earth, there was nothing for the voice

to do but to go back to Heaven. And it said this with such an accent

of HUMAN sorrow that I ought then and there to have suspected

and begun to believe that I was the victim of my deluded senses.

But my faith in the voice, with which the memory of my father

was so closely intermingled, remained undisturbed. I feared

nothing so much as that I might never hear it again; I had thought

about my love for you and realized all the useless danger of it;

and I did not even know if you remembered me. Whatever happened,

your position in society forbade me to contemplate the possibility

of ever marrying you; and I swore to the voice that you were no

more than a brother to me nor ever would be and that my heart was

incapable of any earthly love. And that, dear, was why I refused to

recognize or see you when I met you on the stage or in the passages.

Meanwhile, the hours during which the voice taught me were spent in

a divine frenzy, until, at last, the voice said to me, `You can now,

Christine Daae, give to men a little of the music of Heaven.'

I don't know how it was that Carlotta did not come to the theater

that night nor why I was called upon to sing in her stead; but I

sang with a rapture I had never known before and I felt for a moment

as if my soul were leaving my body!"

"Oh, Christine," said Raoul, "my heart quivered that night at every

accent of your voice. I saw the tears stream down your cheeks and I

wept with you. How could you sing, sing like that while crying?"

"I felt myself fainting," said Christine, "I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, you were by my side. But the voice was

there also, Raoul! I was afraid for your sake and again I would

not recognize you and began to laugh when you reminded me that

you had picked up my scarf in the sea!...Alas, there is no

deceiving the voice!...The voice recognized you and the voice

was jealous!...It said that, if I did not love you, I would not

avoid you, but treat you like any other old friend. It made me

scene upon scene. At last, I said to the voice, `That will do!

I am going to Perros to-morrow, to pray on my father's grave, and I

shall ask M. Raoul de Chagny to go with me.' `Do as you please,'

replied the voice, `but I shall be at Perros too, for I am wherever

you are, Christine; and, if you are still worthy of me, if you

have not lied to me, I will play you The Resurrection of Lazarus,

on the stroke of midnight, on your father's tomb and on your

father's violin.' That, dear, was how I came to write you the

letter that brought you to Perros. How could I have been

so beguiled? How was it, when I saw the personal, the selfish

point of view of the voice, that I did not suspect some impostor?

Alas, I was no longer mistress of myself: I had become his thing!"

"But, after all," cried Raoul, "you soon came to know the truth!

Why did you not at once rid yourself of that abominable nightmare?"

"Know the truth, Raoul? Rid myself of that nightmare? But, my poor boy,

I was not caught in the nightmare until the day when I learned

the truth!...Pity me, Raoul, pity me!...You remember

the terrible evening when Carlotta thought that she had been

turned into a toad on the stage and when the house was suddenly

plunged in darkness through the chandelier crashing to the floor?

There were killed and wounded that night and the whole theater rang

with terrified screams. My first thought was for you and the voice.

I was at once easy, where you were concerned, for I had seen you

in your brother's box and I knew that you were not in danger.

But the voice had told me that it would be at the performance and I

was really afraid for it, just as if it had been an ordinary person

who was capable of dying. I thought to myself, `The chandelier

may have come down upon the voice.' I was then on the stage

and was nearly running into the house, to look for the voice among

the killed and wounded, when I thought that, if the voice was safe,

it would be sure to be in my dressing-room and I rushed to my room.

The voice was not there. I locked my door and, with tears in my eyes,

besought it, if it were still alive, to manifest itself to me.

The voice did not reply, but suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail

which I knew well. It is the plaint of Lazarus when, at the sound

of the Redeemer's voice, he begins to open his eyes and see the light

of day. It was the music which you and I, Raoul, heard at Perros.

And then the voice began to sing the leading phrase, "Come! And believe

in me! Whoso believes in me shall live! Walk! Whoso hath believed

in me shall never die!...' I can not tell you the effect which that

music had upon me. It seemed to command me, personally, to come,

to stand up and come to it. It retreated and I followed. `Come! And

believe in me!' I believed in it, I came....I came and--

this was the extraordinary thing--my dressing-room, as I moved,

seemed to lengthen out...to lengthen out....Evidently,

it must have been an effect of mirrors...for I had the mirror

in front of me....And, suddenly, I was outside the room without

knowing how!"

"What! Without knowing how? Christine, Christine, you must really

stop dreaming!"

"I was not dreaming, dear, I was outside my room without

knowing how. You, who saw me disappear from my room one evening,

may be able to explain it; but I can not. I can only tell you that,

suddenly, there was no mirror before me and no dressing-room.

I was in a dark passage, I was frightened and I cried out.

It was quite dark, but for a faint red glimmer at a distant corner

of the wall. I tried out. My voice was the only sound,

for the singing and the violin had stopped. And, suddenly,

a hand was laid on mine...or rather a stone-cold, bony thing

that seized my wrist and did not let go. I cried out again.

An arm took me round the waist and supported me. I struggled

for a little while and then gave up the attempt. I was dragged

toward the little red light and then I saw that I was in the hands

of a man wrapped in a large cloak and wearing a mask that hid

his whole face. I made one last effort; my limbs stiffened,

my mouth opened to scream, but a hand closed it, a hand which I

felt on my lips, on my skin...a hand that smelt of death.

Then I fainted away.

"When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness.

A lantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well.

The water splashing from the well disappeared, almost at once,

under the floor on which I was lying, with my head on the knee

of the man in the black cloak and the black mask. He was bathing

my temples and his hands smelt of death. I tried to push them

away and asked, `Who are you? Where is the voice?' His only

answer was a sigh. Suddenly, a hot breath passed over my face

and I perceived a white shape, beside the man's black shape,

in the darkness. The black shape lifted me on to the white shape,

a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I murmured,

`Cesar!' The animal quivered. Raoul, I was lying half back on

a saddle and I had recognized the white horse out of the PROFETA,

which I had so often fed with sugar and sweets. I remembered that,

one evening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse

had disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost.

I believed in the voice, but had never believed in the ghost.

Now, however, I began to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was

the ghost's prisoner. I called upon the voice to help me, for I

should never have imagined that the voice and the ghost were one.

You have heard about the Opera ghost, have you not, Raoul?"

"Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse

of the Profeta?"

"I made no movement and let myself go. The black shape held me up,

and I made no effort to escape. A curious feeling of peacefulness

came over me and I thought that I must be under the influence of

some cordial. I had the full command of my senses; and my eyes became

used to the darkness, which was lit, here and there, by fitful gleams.

I calculated that we were in a narrow circular gallery, probably running

all round the Opera, which is immense, underground. I had once

been down into those cellars, but had stopped at the third floor,

though there were two lower still, large enough to hold a town.

But the figures of which I caught sight had made me run away.

There are demons down there, quite black, standing in front of boilers,

and they wield shovels and pitchforks and poke up fires and stir up

flames and, if you come too near them, they frighten you by suddenly

opening the red mouths of their furnaces....Well, while Cesar was quietly

carrying me on his back, I saw those black demons in the distance,

looking quite small, in front of the red fires of their furnaces:

they came into sight, disappeared and came into sight again, as we

went on our winding way. At last, they disappeared altogether.

The shape was still holding me up and Cesar walked on, unled and

sure-footed. I could not tell you, even approximately, how long

this ride lasted; I only know that we seemed to turn and turn and

often went down a spiral stair into the very heart of the earth.

Even then, it may be that my head was turning, but I don't think so:

no, my mind was quite clear. At last, Cesar raised his nostrils,

sniffed the air and quickened his pace a little. I felt a moistness

in the air and Cesar stopped. The darkness had lifted. A sort

of bluey light surrounded us. We were on the edge of a lake,

whose leaden waters stretched into the distance, into the darkness;

but the blue light lit up the bank and I saw a little boat fastened

to an iron ring on the wharf!"

"A boat!"

"Yes, but I knew that all that existed and that there was nothing

supernatural about that underground lake and boat. But think of the

exceptional conditions in which I arrived upon that shore! I don't

know whether the effects of the cordial had worn off when the man's

shape lifted me into the boat, but my terror began all over again.

My gruesome escort must have noticed it, for he sent Cesar back

and I heard his hoofs trampling up a staircase while the man jumped

into the boat, untied the rope that held it and seized the oars.

He rowed with a quick, powerful stroke; and his eyes, under the mask,

never left me. We slipped across the noiseless water in the bluey

light which I told you of; then we were in the dark again and we

touched shore. And I was once more taken up in the man's arms.

I cried aloud. And then, suddenly, I was silent, dazed by the light.

...Yes, a dazzling light in the midst of which I had been put down.

I sprang to my feet. I was in the middle of a drawing-room that

seemed to me to be decorated, adorned and furnished with nothing

but flowers, flowers both magnificent and stupid, because of

the silk ribbons that tied them to baskets, like those which they

sell in the shops on the boulevards. They were much too civilized

flowers, like those which I used to find in my dressing-room

after a first night. And, in the midst of all these flowers,

stood the black shape of the man in the mask, with arms crossed,

and he said, `Don't be afraid, Christine; you are in no danger.'

IT WAS THE VOICE!

"My anger equaled my amazement. I rushed at the mask and tried

to snatch it away, so as to see the face of the voice. The man said,

`You are in no danger, so long as you do not touch the mask.'

And, taking me gently by the wrists, he forced me into a chair

and then went down on his knees before me and said nothing more!

His humility gave me back some of my courage; and the light restored

me to the realties of life. However extraordinary the adventure might be,

I was now surrounded by mortal, visible, tangible things.

The furniture, the hangings, the candles, the vases and the very

flowers in their baskets, of which I could almost have told whence

they came and what they cost, were bound to confine my imagination

to the limits of a drawing-room quite as commonplace as any that,

at least, had the excuse of not being in the cellars of the Opera.

I had, no doubt, to do with a terrible, eccentric person, who, in some

mysterious fashion, had succeeded in taking up his abode there,

under the Opera house, five stories below the level of the ground.

And the voice, the voice which I had recognized under the mask,

was on its knees before me, WAS A MAN! And I began to cry. ...

The man, still kneeling, must have understood the cause of my tears,

for he said, `It is true, Christine!...I am not an Angel,

nor a genius, nor a ghost...I am Erik!'"

Christine's narrative was again interrupted. An echo behind them

seemed to repeat the word after her.

"Erik!"

What echo?...They both turned round and saw that night had fallen.

Raoul made a movement as though to rise, but Christine kept him

beside her.

"Don't go," she said. "I want you to know everything HERE!"

"But why here, Christine? I am afraid of your catching cold."

"We have nothing to fear except the trap-doors, dear, and here we

are miles away from the trap-doors...and I am not allowed to

see you outside the theater. This is not the time to annoy him.

We must not arouse his suspicion."

"Christine! Christine! Something tells me that we are wrong

to wait till to-morrow evening and that we ought to fly at once."

"I tell you that, if he does not hear me sing tomorrow, it will

cause him infinite pain."

"It is difficult not to cause him pain and yet to escape from him

for good."

"You are right in that, Raoul, for certainly he will die of my flight."

And she added in a dull voice, "But then it counts both ways...

for we risk his killing us."

"Does he love you so much?"

"He would commit murder for me."

"But one can find out where he lives. One can go in search of him.

Now that we know that Erik is not a ghost, one can speak to him

and force him to answer!"

Christine shook her head.

"No, no! There is nothing to be done with Erik except to run away!"

"Then why, when you were able to run away, did you go back to him?"

"Because I had to. And you will understand that when I tell you

how I left him."

"Oh, I hate him!" cried Raoul. "And you, Christine, tell me,

do you hate him too?"

"No," said Christine simply.

"No, of course not....Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror,

all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind

which people do not admit even to themselves," said Raoul bitterly.

"The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it.

... Picture it: a man who lives in a palace underground!"

And he gave a leer.

"Then you want me to go back there?" said the young girl cruelly.

"Take care, Raoul; I have told you: I should never return!"

There was an appalling silence between the three of them:

the two who spoke and the shadow that listened, behind them.

"Before answering that," said Raoul, at last, speaking very slowly,

"I should like to know with what feeling he inspires you, since you

do not hate him."

"With horror!" she said. "That is the terrible thing about it.

He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I

hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on

the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself,

he implores my forgiveness!...He confesses his cheat.

He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love.

... He has carried me off for love!...He has imprisoned me

with him, underground, for love!...But he respects me: he crawls,

he moans, he weeps!...And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told

him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there,

give me my liberty...he offered it...he offered to show me

the mysterious road...Only...only he rose too...and I

was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost,

nor a genius, he remained the voice...for he sang. And I listened

... and stayed!...That night, we did not exchange another word.

He sang me to sleep.

"When I woke up, I was alone, lying on a sofa in a simply furnished

little bedroom, with an ordinary mahogany bedstead, lit by a lamp

standing on the marble top of an old Louis-Philippe chest of drawers.

I soon discovered that I was a prisoner and that the only outlet from my

room led to a very comfortable bath-room. On returning to the bedroom,

I saw on the chest of drawers a note, in red ink, which said,

`My dear Christine, you need have no concern as to your fate.

You have no better nor more respectful friend in the world than myself.

You are alone, at present, in this home which is yours. I am going

out shopping to fetch you all the things that you can need.'

I felt sure that I had fallen into the hands of a madman.

I ran round my little apartment, looking for a way of escape which I

could not find. I upbraided myself for my absurd superstition,

which had caused me to fall into the trap. I felt inclined to laugh

and to cry at the same time.

"This was the state of mind in which Erik found me. After giving

three taps on the wall, he walked in quietly through a door which I

had not noticed and which he left open. He had his arms full

of boxes and parcels and arranged them on the bed, in a leisurely

fashion, while I overwhelmed him with abuse and called upon

him to take off his mask, if it covered the face of an honest man.

He replied serenely, `You shall never see Erik's face.' And he

reproached me with not having finished dressing at that time of day:

he was good enough to tell me that it was two o'clock in the afternoon.

He said he would give me half an hour and, while he spoke, wound up

my watch and set it for me. After which, he asked me to come to

the dining-room, where a nice lunch was waiting for us.

"I was very angry, slammed the door in his face and went to the

bath-room....When I came out again, feeling greatly refreshed,

Erik said that he loved me, but that he would never tell me

so except when I allowed him and that the rest of the time would

be devoted to music. `What do you mean by the rest of the time?'

I asked. `Five days,' he said, with decision. I asked him if I

should then be free and he said, `You will be free, Christine, for,

when those five days are past, you will have learned not to see me;

and then, from time to time, you will come to see your poor Erik!'

He pointed to a chair opposite him, at a small table, and I sat down,

feeling greatly perturbed. However, I ate a few prawns and the wing

of a chicken and drank half a glass of tokay, which he had himself,

he told me, brought from the Konigsberg cellars. Erik did not eat

or drink. I asked him what his nationality was and if that name

of Erik did not point to his Scandinavian origin. He said that he

had no name and no country and that he had taken the name of Erik

by accident.

"After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers,

saying he would like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away

my hand and gave a cry. What I had touched was cold and, at the

same time, bony; and I remembered that his hands smelt of death.

`Oh, forgive me!' he moaned. And he opened a door before me.

`This is my bedroom, if you care to see it. It is rather curious.'

His manners, his words, his attitude gave me confidence and I went

in without hesitation. I felt as if I were entering the room of a

dead person. The walls were all hung with black, but, instead of

the white trimmings that usually set off that funereal upholstery,

there was an enormous stave of music with the notes of the DIES IRAE,

many times repeated. In the middle of the room was a canopy,

from which hung curtains of red brocaded stuff, and, under the canopy,

an open coffin. `That is where I sleep,' said Erik. `One has to get

used to everything in life, even to eternity.' The sight upset me

so much that I turned away my head.

"Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side

of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes.

I asked leave to look at it and read, `Don Juan Triumphant.'

`Yes,' he said, `I compose sometimes.' I began that work twenty years ago.

When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin

and never wake up again.' `You must work at it as seldom as you can,'

I said. He replied, `I sometimes work at it for fourteen days

and nights together, during which I live on music only,

and then I rest for years at a time.' `Will you play me something

out of your Don Juan Triumphant?' I asked, thinking to please him.

`You must never ask me that,' he said, in a gloomy voice.

`I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep;

but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is not struck by fire

from Heaven.' Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed

that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going

to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano.

He said, `You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible

that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have

not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty

coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris.

Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.'

He spoke these last words as though he were flinging an insult

at me."

"What did you do?"

"I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words.

We at once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe

was upon us. I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I

had never displayed before. As for him, his voice thundered

forth his revengeful soul at every note. Love, jealousy, hatred,

burst out around us in harrowing cries. Erik's black mask made

me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice. He was

Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to see beneath the mask.

I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a movement

which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore

away the mask. Oh, horror, horror, horror!"

Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her,

while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik,

now thrice moaned the cry:

"Horror!...Horror!...Horror!"

Raoul and Christine, clasping each other closely, raised their eyes

to the stars that shone in a clear and peaceful sky. Raoul said:

"Strange, Christine, that this calm, soft night should be so full

of plaintive sounds. One would think that it was sorrowing with us."

"When you know the secret, Raoul, your ears, like mine, will be

full of lamentations."

She took Raoul's protecting hands in hers and, with a long shiver, continued:

"Yes, if I lived to be a hundred, I should always hear the superhuman

cry of grief and rage which he uttered when the terrible sight appeared

before my eyes....Raoul, you have seen death's heads, when they

have been dried and withered by the centuries, and, perhaps, if you

were not the victim of a nightmare, you saw HIS death's head at Perros.

And then you saw Red Death stalking about at the last masked ball.

But all those death's heads were motionless and their dumb horror

was not alive. But imagine, if you can, Red Death's mask suddenly

coming to life in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes,

its nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon;

AND NOT A RAY OF LIGHT FROM THE SOCKETS, for, as I learned later,

you can not see his blazing eyes except in the dark.

"I fell back against the wall and he came up to me, grinding his

teeth, and, as I fell upon my knees, he hissed mad, incoherent words

and curses at me. Leaning over me, he cried, `Look! You want

to see! See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness!

Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were

not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like!

Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied?

I'm a very good-looking fellow, eh?...When a woman has seen me,

as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me for ever. I am a kind

of Don Juan, you know!' And, drawing himself up to his full height,

with his hand on his hip, wagging the hideous thing that was

his head on his shoulders, he roared, `Look at me! I AM DON

JUAN TRIUMPHANT!' And, when I turned away my head and begged for mercy,

he drew it to him, brutally, twisting his dead fingers into my hair."

"Enough! Enough!" cried Raoul. "I will kill him. In Heaven's

name, Christine, tell me where the dining-room on the lake is!

I must kill him!"

"Oh, be quiet, Raoul, if you want to know!"

"Yes, I want to know how and why you went back; I must know!...

But, in any case, I will kill him!"

"Oh, Raoul, listen, listen!...He dragged me by my hair and then

...and then...Oh, it is too horrible!"

"Well, what? Out with it!" exclaimed Raoul fiercely.

"Out with it, quick!"

"Then he hissed at me. `Ah, I frighten you, do I?...I dare

say!...Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that

this...this...my head is a mask? Well,' he roared,

`tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come along! I insist!

Your hands! Your hands! Give me your hands!' And he seized my

hands and dug them into his awful face. He tore his flesh with

my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh with my nails!...`Know,'

he shouted, while his throat throbbed and panted like a furnace,

`know that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it

is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will never,

never leave you!...Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying,

crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore

can never leave me again!...As long as you thought me handsome,

you could have come back, I know you would have come back...but,

now that you know my hideousness, you would run away for good.

...So I shall keep you here!...Why did you want to see me?

Oh, mad Christine, who wanted to see me!...When my own father

never saw me and when my mother, so as not to see me, made me

a present of my first mask!'

"He had let go of me at last and was dragging himself about on the floor,

uttering terrible sobs. And then he crawled away like a snake,

went into his room, closed the door and left me alone to my reflections.

Presently I heard the sound of the organ; and then I began

to understand Erik's contemptuous phrase when he spoke about Opera music.

What I now heard was utterly different from what I had heard up to then.

His Don Juan Triumphant (for I had not a doubt but that he had rushed

to his masterpiece to forget the horror of the moment) seemed to me

at first one long, awful, magnificent sob. But, little by little,

it expressed every emotion, every suffering of which mankind is capable.

It intoxicated me; and I opened the door that separated us.

Erik rose, as I entered, BUT DARED NOT TURN IN MY DIRECTION.

`Erik,' I cried, `show me your face without fear! I swear that you

are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again I shiver

when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the splendor

of your genius!' Then Erik turned round, for he believed me, and I

also had faith in myself. He fell at my feet, with words of love...

with words of love in his dead mouth...and the music had ceased...

He kissed the hem of my dress and did not see that I closed my eyes.

"What more can I tell you, dear? You now know the tragedy.

It went on for a fortnight--a fortnight during which I lied to him.

My lies were as hideous as the monster who inspired them;

but they were the price of my liberty. I burned his mask;

and I managed so well that, even when he was not singing,

he tried to catch my eye, like a dog sitting by its master.

He was my faithful slave and paid me endless little attentions.

Gradually, I gave him such confidence that he ventured to take me

walking on the banks of the lake and to row me in the boat on its

leaden waters; toward the end of my captivity he let me out through

the gates that closed the underground passages in the Rue Scribe.

Here a carriage awaited us and took us to the Bois. The night when we

met you was nearly fatal to me, for he is terribly jealous of you

and I had to tell him that you were soon going away....Then,

at last, after a fortnight of that horrible captivity, during which I

was filled with pity, enthusiasm, despair and horror by turns,

he believed me when I said, `I WILL COME BACK!'"

"And you went back, Christine," groaned Raoul.

"Yes, dear, and I must tell you that it was not his frightful

threats when setting me free that helped me to keep my word,

but the harrowing sob which he gave on the threshold of the tomb.

... That sob attached me to the unfortunate man more than I myself

suspected when saying good-by to him. Poor Erik! Poor Erik!"

"Christine," said Raoul, rising, "you tell me that you love me;

but you had recovered your liberty hardly a few hours before you

returned to Erik! Remember the masked ball!"

"Yes; and do you remember those hours which I passed with you,

Raoul...to the great danger of both of us?"

"I doubted your love for me, during those hours."

"Do you doubt it still, Raoul?...Then know that each of my

visits to Erik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits,

instead of calming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love!

And I am so frightened, so frightened!..."

"You are frightened...but do you love me? If Erik were

good-looking, would you love me, Christine?"

She rose in her turn, put her two trembling arms round the young

man's neck and said:

"Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give

you my lips! Take them, for the first time and the last."

He kissed her lips; but the night that surrounded them was rent

asunder, they fled as at the approach of a storm and their eyes,

filled with dread of Erik, showed them, before they disappeared,

high up above them, an immense night-bird that stared at them with

its blazing eyes and seemed to cling to the string of Apollo's lyre.

Chapter XIII A Master-Stroke of the Trap-Door Lover

Raoul and Christine ran, eager to escape from the roof

and the blazing eyes that showed only in the dark; and they

did not stop before they came to the eighth floor on the way down.

There was no performance at the Opera that night and the passages

were empty. Suddenly, a queer-looking form stood before them

and blocked the road:

"No, not this way!"

And the form pointed to another passage by which they were to reach

the wings. Raoul wanted to stop and ask for an explanation.

But the form, which wore a sort of long frock-coat and a pointed

cap, said:

"Quick! Go away quickly!"

Christine was already dragging Raoul, compelling him to start

running again.

"But who is he? Who is that man?" he asked.

Christine replied: "It's the Persian."

"What's he doing here?"

"Nobody knows. He is always in the Opera."

"You are making me run away, for the first time in my life.

If we really saw Erik, what I ought to have done was to nail him

to Apollo's lyre, just as we nail the owls to the walls of our

Breton farms; and there would have been no more question of him."

"My dear Raoul, you would first have had to climb up to Apollo's lyre:

that is no easy matter."

"The blazing eyes were there!"

"Oh, you are getting like me now, seeing him everywhere!

What I took for blazing eyes was probably a couple of stars shining

through the strings of the lyre."

And Christine went down another floor, with Raoul following her.

"As you have quite made up your mind to go, Christine, I assure

you it would be better to go at once. Why wait for to-morrow? He

may have heard us to-night."

"No, no, he is working, I tell you, at his Don Juan Triumphant

and not thinking of us."

"You're so sure of that you keep on looking behind you!"

"Come to my dressing-room."

"Hadn't we better meet outside the Opera?"

"Never, till we go away for good! It would bring us bad luck,

if I did not keep my word. I promised him to see you only here."

"It's a good thing for me that he allowed you even that. Do you know,"

said Raoul bitterly, "that it was very plucky of you to let us play

at being engaged?"

"Why, my dear, he knows all about it! He said, `I trust you,

Christine. M. de Chagny is in love with you and is going abroad.

Before he goes, I want him to be as happy as I am.' Are people

so unhappy when they love?"

"Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of being loved."

They came to Christine's dressing-room.

"Why do you think that you are safer in this room than on the stage?"

asked Raoul. "You heard him through the walls here, therefore he

can certainly hear us."

"No. He gave me his word not to be behind the walls of my dressing-room

again and I believe Erik's word. This room and my bedroom

on the lake are for me, exclusively, and not to be approached by him."

"How can you have gone from this room into that dark passage,

Christine? Suppose we try to repeat your movements; shall we?"

"It is dangerous, dear, for the glass might carry me off again;

and, instead of running away, I should be obliged to go to the end

of the secret passage to the lake and there call Erik."

"Would he hear you?"

"Erik will hear me wherever I call him. He told me so. He is a

very curious genius. You must not think, Raoul, that he is simply

a man who amuses himself by living underground. He does things that

no other man could do; he knows things which nobody in the world knows."

"Take care, Christine, you are making a ghost of him again!"

"No, he is not a ghost; he is a man of Heaven and earth, that is all."

"A man of Heaven and earth...that is all!...A nice way to speak of him!

...And are you still resolved to run away from him?"

"Yes, to-morrow."

"To-morrow, you will have no resolve left!"

"Then, Raoul, you must run away with me in spite of myself;

is that understood?"

"I shall be here at twelve to-morrow night; I shall keep my promise,

whatever happens. You say that, after listening to the performance,

he is to wait for you in the dining-room on the lake?"

"Yes."

"And how are you to reach him, if you don't know how to go out

by the glass?"

"Why, by going straight to the edge of the lake."

Christine opened a box, took out an enormous key and showed it

to Raoul.

"What's that?" he asked.

"The key of the gate to the underground passage in the Rue Scribe."

"I understand, Christine. It leads straight to the lake.

Give it to me, Christine, will you?"

"Never!" she said. "That would be treacherous!"

Suddenly Christine changed color. A mortal pallor overspread

her features.

"Oh heavens!" she cried. "Erik! Erik! Have pity on me!"

"Hold your tongue!" said Raoul. "You told me he could hear you!"

But the singer's attitude became more and more inexplicable.

She wrung her fingers, repeating, with a distraught air;

"Oh, Heaven! Oh, Heaven!"

"But what is it? What is it?" Raoul implored.

"The ring...the gold ring he gave me."

"Oh, so Erik gave you that ring!"

"You know he did, Raoul! But what you don't know is that,

when he gave it to me, he said, `I give you back your liberty,

Christine, on condition that this ring is always on your finger.

As long as you keep it, you will be protected against all danger

and Erik will remain your friend. But woe to you if you ever part

with it, for Erik will have his revenge!'...My dear, my dear,

the ring is gone!...Woe to us both!"

They both looked for the ring, but could not find it.

Christine refused to be pacified.

"It was while I gave you that kiss, up above, under Apollo's lyre,"

she said. "The ring must have slipped from my finger and dropped

into the street! We can never find it. And what misfortunes are

in store for us now! Oh, to run away!"

"Let us run away at once," Raoul insisted, once more.

She hesitated. He thought that she was going to say yes.

... Then her bright pupils became dimmed and she said:

"No! To-morrow!"

And she left him hurriedly, still wringing and rubbing her fingers,

as though she hoped to bring the ring back like that.

Raoul went home, greatly perturbed at all that he had heard.

{two page color illustration}

They Sat Like that for a Moment in Silence

"If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said,

aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her."

He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark.

Thrice over, he shouted:

"Humbug!...Humbug!...Humbug!"

But, suddenly, he raised himself on his elbow. A cold sweat poured

from his temples. Two eyes, like blazing coals, had appeared

at the foot of his bed. They stared at him fixedly, terribly,

in the darkness of the night.

Raoul was no coward; and yet he trembled. He put out a groping,

hesitating hand toward the table by his bedside. He found the matches

and lit his candle. The eyes disappeared.

Still uneasy in his mind, he thought to himself:

"She told me that HIS eyes only showed in the dark. His eyes

have disappeared in the light, but HE may be there still."

And he rose, hunted about, went round the room. He looked

under his bed, like a child. Then he thought himself absurd,

got into bed again and blew out the candle. The eyes reappeared.

He sat up and stared back at them with all the courage he possessed.

Then he cried:

"Is that you, Erik? Man, genius, or ghost, is it you?"

He reflected: "If it's he, he's on the balcony!"

Then he ran to the chest of drawers and groped for his revolver.

He opened the balcony window, looked out, saw nothing and closed

the window again. He went back to bed, shivering, for the night

was cold, and put the revolver on the table within his reach.

The eyes were still there, at the foot of the bed. Were they

between the bed and the window-pane or behind the pane, that is

to say, on the balcony? That was what Raoul wanted to know.

He also wanted to know if those eyes belonged to a human being.

...He wanted to know everything. Then, patiently, calmly, he seized

his revolver and took aim. He aimed a little above the two eyes.

Surely, if they were eyes and if above those two eyes there was

a forehead and if Raoul was not too clumsy...

The shot made a terrible din amid the silence of the slumbering house.

And, while footsteps came hurrying along the passages, Raoul sat

up with outstretched arm, ready to fire again, if need be.

This time, the two eyes had disappeared.

Servants appeared, carrying lights; Count Philippe, terribly anxious:

"What is it?"

"I think I have been dreaming," replied the young man. "I fired

at two stars that kept me from sleeping."

"You're raving! Are you ill? For God's sake, tell me, Raoul:

what happened?"

And the count seized hold of the revolver.

"No, no, I'm not raving. .. Besides, we shall soon see..."

He got out of bed, put on a dressing-gown and slippers, took a light

from the hands of a servant and, opening the window, stepped out

on the balcony.

The count saw that the window had been pierced by a bullet at a

man's height. Raoul was leaning over the balcony with his candle:

"Aha!" he said. "Blood!...Blood!..... Here, there, more blood!

... That's a good thing! A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!"

he grinned.

"Raoul! Raoul! Raoul!"

The count was shaking him as though he were trying to waken

a sleep-walker.

"But, my dear brother, I'm not asleep!" Raoul protested impatiently.

"You can see the blood for yourself. I thought I had been dreaming

and firing at two stars. It was Erik's eyes...and here is his

blood!...After all, perhaps I was wrong to shoot; and Christine

is quite capable of never forgiving me....All this would not

have happened if I had drawn the curtains before going to bed."

"Raoul, have you suddenly gone mad? Wake up!"

"What, still? You would do better to help me find Erik...for,

after all, a ghost who bleeds can always be found."

The count's valet said:

"That is so, sir; there is blood on the balcony."

The other man-servant brought a lamp, by the light of which they

examined the balcony carefully. The marks of blood followed the rail

till they reached a gutter-spout; then they went up the gutter-spout.

"My dear fellow," said Count Philippe, "you have fired at a cat."

"The misfortune is," said Raoul, with a grin, "that it's

quite possible. With Erik, you never know. Is it Erik?

Is it the cat? Is it the ghost? No, with Erik, you can't tell!"

Raoul went on making this strange sort of remarks which corresponded

so intimately and logically with the preoccupation of his brain

and which, at the same time, tended to persuade many people

that his mind was unhinged. The count himself was seized with

this idea; and, later, the examining magistrate, on receiving

the report of the commissary of police, came to the same conclusion.

"Who is Erik?" asked the count, pressing his brother's hand.

"He is my rival. And, if he's not dead, it's a pity."

He dismissed the servants with a wave of the hand and the two

Chagnys were left alone. But the men were not out of earshot

before the count's valet heard Raoul say, distinctly and emphatically:

"I shall carry off Christine Daae to-night."

This phrase was afterward repeated to M. Faure, the examining-magistrate.

But no one ever knew exactly what passed between the two

brothers at this interview. The servants declared that this

was not their first quarrel. Their voices penetrated the wall;

and it was always an actress called Christine Daae that was in question.

At breakfast--the early morning breakfast, which the count took

in his study--Philippe sent for his brother. Raoul arrived silent

and gloomy. The scene was a very short one. Philippe handed

his brother a copy of the Epoque and said:

"Read that!"

The viscount read:

"The latest news in the Faubourg is that there is a promise of marriage

between Mlle. Christine Daae, the opera-singer, and M. le Vicomte

Raoul de Chagny. If the gossips are to be credited, Count Philippe

has sworn that, for the first time on record, the Chagnys shall not

keep their promise. But, as love is all-powerful, at the Opera as--

and even more than--elsewhere, we wonder how Count Philippe intends

to prevent the viscount, his brother, from leading the new Margarita

to the altar. The two brothers are said to adore each other;

but the count is curiously mistaken if he imagines that brotherly

love will triumph over love pure and simple."

"You see, Raoul," said the count, "you are making us ridiculous!

That little girl has turned your head with her ghost-stories."

The viscount had evidently repeated Christine's narrative

to his brother, during the night. All that he now said was:

"Good-by, Philippe."

"Have you quite made up your mind? You are going to-night? With her?"

No reply.

"Surely you will not do anything so foolish? I SHALL know

how to prevent you!"

"Good-by, Philippe," said the viscount again and left the room.

This scene was described to the examining-magistrate by the

count himself, who did not see Raoul again until that evening,

at the Opera, a few minutes before Christine's disappearance.

Raoul, in fact, devoted the whole day to his preparations for

the flight. The horses, the carriage, the coachman, the provisions,

the luggage, the money required for the journey, the road to be

taken (he had resolved not to go by train, so as to throw the ghost

off the scent): all this had to be settled and provided for;

and it occupied him until nine o'clock at night.

At nine o'clock, a sort of traveling-barouche with the curtains of its

windows close-down, took its place in the rank on the Rotunda side.

It was drawn by two powerful horses driven by a coachman whose

face was almost concealed in the long folds of a muffler.

In front of this traveling-carriage were three broughams,

belonging respectively to Carlotta, who had suddenly returned to Paris,

to Sorelli and, at the head of the rank, to Comte Philippe de Chagny.

No one left the barouche. The coachman remained on his box,

and the three other coachmen remained on theirs.

A shadow in a long black cloak and a soft black felt hat passed along

the pavement between the Rotunda and the carriages, examined the barouche

carefully, went up to the horses and the coachman and then moved away

without saying a word, The magistrate afterward believed that this

shadow was that of the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny; but I do not agree,

seeing that that evening, as every evening, the Vicomte de Chagny

was wearing a tall hat, which hat, besides, was subsequently found.

I am more inclined to think that the shadow was that of the ghost,

who knew all about the whole affair, as the reader will soon perceive.

They were giving FAUST, as it happened, before a splendid house.

The Faubourg was magnificently represented; and the paragraph

in that morning's EPOQUE had already produced its effect, for all

eyes were turned to the box in which Count Philippe sat alone,

apparently in a very indifferent and careless frame of mind.

The feminine element in the brilliant audience seemed curiously puzzled;

and the viscount's absence gave rise to any amount of whispering

behind the fans. Christine Daae met with a rather cold reception.

That special audience could not forgive her for aiming so high.

The singer noticed this unfavorable attitude of a portion

of the house and was confused by it.

The regular frequenters of the Opera, who pretended to know

the truth about the viscount's love-story, exchanged significant

smiles at certain passages in Margarita's part; and they made a show

of turning and looking at Philippe de Chagny's box when Christine sang:

"I wish I could but know who was he

That addressed me,

If he was noble, or, at least, what his name is."

The count sat with his chin on his hand and seemed to pay no attention

to these manifestations. He kept his eyes fixed on the stage;

but his thoughts appeared to be far away.

Christine lost her self-assurance more and more. She trembled.

She felt on the verge of a breakdown....Carolus Fonta

wondered if she was ill, if she could keep the stage until the end

of the Garden Act. In the front of the house, people remembered

the catastrophe that had befallen Carlotta at the end of that act

and the historic "co-ack" which had momentarily interrupted her

career in Paris.

Just then, Carlotta made her entrance in a box facing the stage,

a sensational entrance. Poor Christine raised her eyes upon this

fresh subject of excitement. She recognized her rival. She thought

she saw a sneer on her lips. That saved her. She forgot everything,

in order to triumph once more.

From that moment the prima donna sang with all her heart and soul.

She tried to surpass all that she had done till then; and she succeeded.

In the last act when she began the invocation to the angels,

she made all the members of the audience feel as though they too

had wings.

In the center of the amphitheater a man stood up and remained standing,

facing the singer. It was Raoul.

"Holy angel, in Heaven blessed..."

And Christine, her arms outstretched, her throat filled with music,

the glory of her hair falling over her bare shoulders, uttered the

divine cry:

"My spirit longs with thee to rest!"

It was at that moment that the stage was suddenly plunged in darkness.

It happened so quickly that the spectators hardly had time to utter

a sound of stupefaction, for the gas at once lit up the stage again.

But Christine Daae was no longer there!

What had become of her? What was that miracle? All exchanged

glances without understanding, and the excitement at once reached

its height. Nor was the tension any less great on the stage itself.

Men rushed from the wings to the spot where Christine had been

singing that very instant. The performance was interrupted amid

the greatest disorder.

Where had Christine gone? What witchcraft had snatched her,

away before the eyes of thousands of enthusiastic onlookers and from

the arms of Carolus Fonta himself? It was as though the angels

had really carried her up "to rest."

Raoul, still standing up in the amphitheater, had uttered a cry.

Count Philippe had sprung to his feet in his box. People looked

at the stage, at the count, at Raoul, and wondered if this

curious event was connected in any way with the paragraph in that

morning's paper. But Raoul hurriedly left his seat, the count

disappeared from his box and, while the curtain was lowered,

the subscribers rushed to the door that led behind the scenes.

The rest of the audience waited amid an indescribable hubbub.

Every one spoke at once. Every one tried to suggest an explanation

of the extraordinary incident.

At last, the curtain rose slowly and Carolus Fonta stepped

to the conductor's desk and, in a sad and serious voice, said:

"Ladies and gentlemen, an unprecedented event has taken place and

thrown us into a state of the greatest alarm. Our sister-artist,

Christine Daae, has disappeared before our eyes and nobody can

tell us how!"

Chapter XIV The Singular Attitude of a Safety-Pin

Behind the curtain, there was an indescribable crowd.

Artists, scene-shifters, dancers, supers, choristers, subscribers

were all asking questions, shouting and hustling one another.

"What became of her?"

"She's run away."

"With the Vicomte de Chagny, of course!"

"No, with the count!"

"Ah, here's Carlotta! Carlotta did the trick!"

"No, it was the ghost!" And a few laughed, especially as a

careful examination of the trap-doors and boards had put the idea

of an accident out of the question.

Amid this noisy throng, three men stood talking in a low voice

and with despairing gestures. They were Gabriel, the chorus-master;

Mercier, the acting-manager; and Remy, the secretary. They retired

to a corner of the lobby by which the stage communicates

with the wide passage leading to the foyer of the ballet.

Here they stood and argued behind some enormous "properties."

"I knocked at the door," said Remy. "They did not answer.

Perhaps they are not in the office. In any case, it's impossible

to find out, for they took the keys with them."

"They" were obviously the managers, who had given orders,

during the last entr'acte, that they were not to be disturbed

on any pretext whatever. They were not in to anybody.

"All the same," exclaimed Gabriel, "a singer isn't run away with,

from the middle of the stage, every day!"

"Did you shout that to them?" asked Mercier, impatiently.

"I'll go back again," said Remy, and disappeared at a run.

Thereupon the stage-manager arrived.

"Well, M. Mercier, are you coming? What are you two doing here?

You're wanted, Mr. Acting-Manager."

"I refuse to know or to do anything before the commissary arrives,"

declared Mercier. "I have sent for Mifroid. We shall see when

he comes!"

"And I tell you that you ought to go down to the organ at once."

"Not before the commissary comes."

"I've been down to the organ myself already."

"Ah! And what did you see?"

"Well, I saw nobody! Do you hear--nobody!"

"What do you want me to do down there for{sic}?"

"You're right!" said the stage-manager, frantically pushing his

hands through his rebellious hair. "You're right! But there

might be some one at the organ who could tell us how the stage came

to be suddenly darkened. Now Mauclair is nowhere to be found.

Do you understand that?"

Mauclair was the gas-man, who dispensed day and night at will on

the stage of the Opera.

"Mauclair is not to be found!" repeated Mercier, taken aback.

"Well, what about his assistants?"

"There's no Mauclair and no assistants! No one at the lights,

I tell you! You can imagine," roared the stage-manager, "that that

little girl must have been carried off by somebody else: she didn't

run away by herself! It was a calculated stroke and we have to find

out about it....And what are the managers doing all this time?

... I gave orders that no one was to go down to the lights and I

posted a fireman in front of the gas-man's box beside the organ.

Wasn't that right?"

"Yes, yes, quite right, quite right. And now let's wait

for the commissary."

The stage-manager walked away, shrugging his shoulders, fuming,

muttering insults at those milksops who remained quietly squatting

in a corner while the whole theater was topsyturvy{sic}.

Gabriel and Mercier were not so quiet as all that. Only they

had received an order that paralyzed them. The managers were not

to be disturbed on any account. Remy had violated that order

and met with no success.

At that moment he returned from his new expedition, wearing a

curiously startled air.

"Well, have you seen them?" asked Mercier.

"Moncharmin opened the door at last. His eyes were starting out

of his head. I thought he meant to strike me. I could not get

a word in; and what do you think he shouted at me? `Have you

a safety-pin?' `No!' `Well, then, clearout!' I tried to tell him

that an unheard-of thing had happened on the stage, but he roared,

`A safety-pin! Give me a safety-pin at once!' A boy heard him--

he was bellowing like a bull--ran up with a safety-pin and gave it

to him; whereupon Moncharmin slammed the door in my face, and there

you are!"

"And couldn't you have said, `Christine Daae.'"

"I should like to have seen you in my place. He was foaming at

the mouth. He thought of nothing but his safety-pin. I believe,

if they hadn't brought him one on the spot, he would have fallen

down in a fit!...Oh, all this isn't natural; and our managers

are going mad!...Besides, it can't go on like this! I'm not used

to being treated in that fashion!"

Suddenly Gabriel whispered:

"It's another trick of O. G.'s."

Rimy gave a grin, Mercier a sigh and seemed about to speak...but,

meeting Gabriel's eye, said nothing.

However, Mercier felt his responsibility increased as the minutes

passed without the managers' appearing; and, at last, he could

stand it no longer.

"Look here, I'll go and hunt them out myself!"

Gabriel, turning very gloomy and serious, stopped him.

"Be careful what you're doing, Mercier! If they're staying

in their office, it's probably because they have to! O. G. has

more than one trick in his bag!"

But Mercier shook his head.

"That's their lookout! I'm going! If people had listened to me,

the police would have known everything long ago!"

And he went.

"What's everything?" asked Remy. "What was there to tell the police?

Why don't you answer, Gabriel?...Ah, so you know something!

Well, you would do better to tell me, too, if you don't want me

to shout out that you are all going mad!...Yes, that's what

you are: mad!"

Gabriel put on a stupid look and pretended not to understand

the private secretary's unseemly outburst.

"What `something' am I supposed to know?" he said. "I don't know

what you mean."

Remy began to lose his temper.

"This evening, Richard and Moncharmin were behaving like lunatics,

here, between the acts."

"I never noticed it," growled Gabriel, very much annoyed.

"Then you're the only one!...Do you think that I didn't see

them?...And that M. Parabise, the manager of the Credit Central,

noticed nothing?...And that M. de La Borderie, the ambassador,

has no eyes to see with?...Why, all the subscribers were pointing

at our managers!"

"But what were our managers doing?" asked Gabriel, putting on his

most innocent air.

"What were they doing? You know better than any one what they

were doing!...You were there!...And you were watching them,

you and Mercier!...And you were the only two who didn't laugh."

"I don't understand!"

Gabriel raised his arms and dropped them to his sides again,

which gesture was meant to convey that the question did not interest

him in the least. Remy continued:

"What is the sense of this new mania of theirs? WHY WON'T THEY

HAVE ANY ONE COME NEAR THEM NOW?"

"What? WON'T THEY HAVE ANY ONE COME NEAR THEM?"

"AND THEY WON'T LET ANY ONE TOUCH THEM!"

"Really? Have you noticed THAT THEY WON'T LET ANY ONE TOUCH

THEM? That is certainly odd!"

"Oh, so you admit it! And high time, too! And THEN, THEY WALK BACKWARD!"

"BACKWARD! You have seen our managers WALK BACKWARD? Why, I thought

that only crabs walked backward!"

"Don't laugh, Gabriel; don't laugh!"

"I'm not laughing," protested Gabriel, looking as solemn as a judge.

"Perhaps you can tell me this, Gabriel, as you're an intimate friend

of the management: When I went up to M. Richard, outside the foyer,

during the Garden interval, with my hand out before me, why did

M. Moncharmin hurriedly whisper to me, `Go away! Go away!

Whatever you do, don't touch M. le Directeur!' Am I supposed to have

an infectious disease?"

"It's incredible!"

"And, a little later, when M. de La Borderie went up to M. Richard,

didn't you see M. Moncharmin fling himself between them and hear

him exclaim, `M. l'Ambassadeur I entreat you not to touch

M. le Directeur'?"

"It's terrible!...And what was Richard doing meanwhile?"

"What was he doing? Why, you saw him! He turned about,

BOWED IN FRONT OF HIM, THOUGH THERE WAS NOBODY IN FRONT OF HIM,

AND WITHDREW BACKWARD."

"BACKWARD?"

"And Moncharmin, behind Richard, also turned about; that is,

he described a semicircle behind Richard and also WALKED

BACKWARD!...And they went LIKE THAT to the staircase leading

to the managers' office: BACKWARD, BACKWARD, BACKWARD!

... Well, if they are not mad, will you explain what it means?"

"Perhaps they were practising a figure in the ballet," suggested Gabriel,

without much conviction in his voice.

The secretary was furious at this wretched joke, made at so

dramatic a moment. He knit his brows and contracted his lips.

Then he put his mouth to Gabriel's ear:

"Don't be so sly, Gabriel. There are things going on for which you

and Mercier are partly responsible."

"What do you mean?" asked Gabriel.

"Christine Daae is not the only one who suddenly disappeared to-night."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"There's no nonsense about it. Perhaps you can tell me why,

when Mother Giry came down to the foyer just now, Mercier took

her by the hand and hurried her away with him?"

"Really?" said Gabriel, "I never saw it."

"You did see it, Gabriel, for you went with Mercier and Mother Giry

to Mercier's office. Since then, you and Mercier have been seen,

but no one has seen Mother Giry."

"Do you think we've eaten her?"

"No, but you've locked her up in the office; and any one passing

the office can hear her yelling, `Oh, the scoundrels! Oh,

the scoundrels!'"

At this point of this singular conversation, Mercier arrived,

all out of breath.

"There!" he said, in a gloomy voice. "It's worse than ever!...

I shouted, `It's a serious matter! Open the door! It's I, Mercier.'

I heard footsteps. The door opened and Moncharmin appeared.

He was very pale. He said, `What do you want?' I answered, `Some one

has run away with Christine Daae.' What do you think he said?

`And a good job, too!' And he shut the door, after putting this

in my hand."

Mercier opened his hand; Remy and Gabriel looked.

"The safety-pin!" cried Remy.

"Strange! Strange!" muttered Gabriel, who could not help shivering.

Suddenly a voice made them all three turn round.

"I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Could you tell me where Christine

Daae is?"

In spite of the seriousness of the circumstances, the absurdity

of the question would have made them roar with laughter, if they

had not caught sight of a face so sorrow-stricken that they were

at once seized with pity. It was the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny.

Chapter XV Christine! Christine!

Raoul's first thought, after Christine Daae's fantastic disappearance,

was to accuse Erik. He no longer doubted the almost supernatural

powers of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera in

which he had set up his empire. And Raoul rushed on the stage,

in a mad fit of love and despair.

"Christine! Christine!" he moaned, calling to her as he felt

that she must be calling to him from the depths of that dark pit

to which the monster had carried her. "Christine! Christine!"

And he seemed to hear the girl's screams through the frail boards

that separated him from her. He bent forward, he listened,

...he wandered over the stage like a madman. Ah, to descend,

to descend into that pit of darkness every entrance to which was

closed to him,...for the stairs that led below the stage were

forbidden to one and all that night!

"Christine! Christine!..."

People pushed him aside, laughing. They made fun of him.

They thought the poor lover's brain was gone!

By what mad road, through what passages of mystery and darkness

known to him alone had Erik dragged that pure-souled child to the

awful haunt, with the Louis-Philippe room, opening out on the lake?

"Christine! Christine!...Why don't you answer?...Are you

alive?..."

Hideous thoughts flashed through Raoul's congested brain.

Of course, Erik must have discovered their secret, must have known

that Christine had played him false. What a vengeance would be his!

And Raoul thought again of the yellow stars that had come,

the night before, and roamed over his balcony. Why had he not put

them out for good? There were some men's eyes that dilated in the

darkness and shone like stars or like cats' eyes. Certainly Albinos,

who seemed to have rabbits' eyes by day, had cats' eyes at night:

everybody knew that!...Yes, yes, he had undoubtedly fired at Erik.

Why had he not killed him? The monster had fled up the gutter-spout

like a cat or a convict who--everybody knew that also--would scale

the very skies, with the help of a gutter-spout....No doubt Erik

was at that time contemplating some decisive step against Raoul,

but he had been wounded and had escaped to turn against poor

Christine instead.

Such were the cruel thoughts that haunted Raoul as he ran

to the singer's dressing-room.

"Christine! Christine!"

Bitter tears scorched the boy's eyelids as he saw scattered over

the furniture the clothes which his beautiful bride was to have worn

at the hour of their flight. Oh, why had she refused to leave earlier?

Why had she toyed with the threatening catastrophe? Why toyed

with the monster's heart? Why, in a final access of pity,

had she insisted on flinging, as a last sop to that demon's soul,

her divine song:

"Holy angel, in Heaven blessed,

My spirit longs with thee to rest!"

Raoul, his throat filled with sobs, oaths and insults,

fumbled awkwardly at the great mirror that had opened one night,

before his eyes, to let Christine pass to the murky dwelling below.

He pushed, pressed, groped about, but the glass apparently obeyed

no one but Erik....Perhaps actions were not enough with a glass

of the kind? Perhaps he was expected to utter certain words?

When he was a little boy, he had heard that there were things

that obeyed the spoken word!

Suddenly, Raoul remembered something about a gate opening into

the Rue Scribe, an underground passage running straight to the Rue

Scribe from the lake....Yes, Christine had told him about that.

...And, when he found that the key was no longer in the box,

he nevertheless ran to the Rue Scribe. Outside, in the street,

he passed his trembling hands over the huge stones, felt for outlets

...met with iron bars...were those they?...Or these?...

Or could it be that air-hole?...He plunged his useless eyes

through the bars....How dark it was in there!...He listened....

All was silence!...He went round the building...and came to bigger bars,

immense gates!...It was the entrance to the Cour de I'Administration.

Raoul rushed into the doorkeeper's lodge.

"I beg your pardon, madame, could you tell me where to find a gate

or door, made of bars, iron bars, opening into the Rue Scribe...

and leading to the lake?...You know the lake I mean?...Yes,

the underground lake...under the Opera."

"Yes, sir, I know there is a lake under the Opera, but I don't know

which door leads to it. I have never been there!"

"And the Rue Scribe, madame, the Rue Scribe? Have you never been

to the Rue Scribe?"

The woman laughed, screamed with laughter! Raoul darted away,

roaring with anger, ran up-stairs, four stairs at a time,

down-stairs, rushed through the whole of the business side

of the opera-house, found himself once more in the light of the stage.

He stopped, with his heart thumping in his chest: suppose Christine

Daae had been found? He saw a group of men and asked:

"I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Could you tell me where Christine

Daae is?"

And somebody laughed.

At the same moment the stage buzzed with a new sound and, amid a crowd

of men in evening-dress, all talking and gesticulating together,

appeared a man who seemed very calm and displayed a pleasant face,

all pink and chubby-cheeked, crowned with curly hair and lit up by a

pair of wonderfully serene blue eyes. Mercier, the acting-manager,

called the Vicomte de Chagny's attention to him and said:

"This is the gentleman to whom you should put your question, monsieur.

Let me introduce Mifroid, the commissary of police."

"Ah, M. le Vicomte de Chagny! Delighted to meet you, monsieur,"

said the commissary. "Would you mind coming with me?...And

now where are the managers?...Where are the managers?"

Mercier did not answer, and Remy, the secretary, volunteered the

information that the managers were locked up in their office

and that they knew nothing as yet of what had happened.

"You don't mean to say so! Let us go up to the office!"

And M. Mifroid, followed by an ever-increasing crowd, turned toward

the business side of the building. Mercier took advantage

of the confusion to slip a key into Gabriel's hand:

"This is all going very badly," he whispered. "You had better let

Mother Giry out."

And Gabriel moved away.

They soon came to the managers' door. Mercier stormed in vain:

the door remained closed.

"Open in the name of the law!" commanded M. Mifroid, in a loud

and rather anxious voice.

At last the door was opened. All rushed in to the office,

on the commissary's heels.

Raoul was the last to enter. As he was about to follow the rest

into the room, a hand was laid on his shoulder and he heard these words

spoken in his ear:

"ERIK'S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT HIMSELF!"

He turned around, with a stifled exclamation. The hand that was

laid on his shoulder was now placed on the lips of a person with an

ebony skin, with eyes of jade and with an astrakhan cap on his head:

the Persian! The stranger kept up the gesture that recommended

discretion and then, at the moment when the astonished viscount

was about to ask the reason of his mysterious intervention,

bowed and disappeared.

Chapter XVI Mme. Giry's Astounding Revelations as to Her

Personal Relations with the Opera Ghost

Before following the commissary into the manager's office I

must describe certain extraordinary occurrences that took place

in that office which Remy and Mercier had vainly tried to enter

and into which MM. Richard and Moncharmin had locked themselves

with an object which the reader does not yet know, but which it

is my duty, as an historian, to reveal without further postponement.

I have had occasion to say that the managers' mood had undergone

a disagreeable change for some time past and to convey the fact

that this change was due not only to the fall of the chandelier

on the famous night of the gala performance.

The reader must know that the ghost had calmly been paid his first

twenty thousand francs. Oh, there had been wailing and gnashing

of teeth, indeed! And yet the thing had happened as simply as could be.

One morning, the managers found on their table an envelope

addressed to "Monsieur O. G. (private)" and accompanied by a note

from O. G. himself:

The time has come to carry out the clause in the memorandum-book.

Please put twenty notes of a thousand francs each into this envelope,

seal it with your own seal and hand it to Mme. Giry, who will do

what is necessary.

The managers did not hesitate; without wasting time in asking

how these confounded communications came to be delivered in an

office which they were careful to keep locked, they seized this

opportunity of laying hands, on the mysterious blackmailer.

And, after telling the whole story, under the promise of secrecy,

to Gabriel and Mercier, they put the twenty thousand francs into the

envelope and without asking for explanations, handed it to Mme. Giry,

who had been reinstated in her functions. The box-keeper displayed

no astonishment. I need hardly say that she was well watched.

She went straight to the ghost's box and placed the precious envelope

on the little shelf attached to the ledge. The two managers,

as well as Gabriel and Mercier, were hidden in such a way that

they did not lose sight of the envelope for a second during the

performance and even afterward, for, as the envelope had not moved,

those who watched it did not move either; and Mme. Giry went

away while the managers, Gabriel and Mercier were still there.

At last, they became tired of waiting and opened the envelope,

after ascertaining that the seals had not been broken.

At first sight, Richard and Moncharmin thought that the notes were

still there; but soon they perceived that they were not the same.

The twenty real notes were gone and had been replaced by twenty notes,

of the "Bank of St. Farce"![2]

----

[2] Flash notes drawn on the "Bank of St. Farce" in France

correspond with those drawn on the "Bank of Engraving" in England.--

Translator's Note.

The managers' rage and fright were unmistakable. Moncharmin wanted

to send for the commissary of police, but Richard objected.

He no doubt had a plan, for he said:

"Don't let us make ourselves ridiculous! All Paris would laugh at us.

O. G. has won the first game: we will win the second."

He was thinking of the next month's allowance.

Nevertheless, they had been so absolutely tricked that they were

bound to suffer a certain dejection. And, upon my word, it was not

difficult to understand. We must not forget that the managers had

an idea at the back of their minds, all the time, that this strange

incident might be an unpleasant practical joke on the part of their

predecessors and that it would not do to divulge it prematurely.

On the other hand, Moncharmin was sometimes troubled with a suspicion

of Richard himself, who occasionally took fanciful whims into

his head. And so they were content to await events, while keeping

an eye on Mother Giry. Richard would not have her spoken to.

"If she is a confederate," he said, "the notes are gone long ago.

But, in my opinion, she is merely an idiot."

"She's not the only idiot in this business," said Moncharmin pensively.

"Well, who could have thought it?" moaned Richard. "But don't

be afraid...next time, I shall have taken my precautions."

The next time fell on the same day that beheld the disappearance

of Christine Daae. In the morning, a note from the ghost reminded them

that the money was due. It read:

Do just as you did last time. It went very well. Put the twenty

thousand in the envelope and hand it to our excellent Mme. Giry.

And the note was accompanied by the usual envelope. They had only

to insert the notes.

This was done about half an hour before the curtain rose on the

first act of Faust. Richard showed the envelope to Moncharmin.

Then he counted the twenty thousand-franc notes in front of him

and put the notes into the envelope, but without closing it.

"And now," he said, "let's have Mother Giry in."

The old woman was sent for. She entered with a sweeping courtesy.

She still wore her black taffeta dress, the color of which was rapidly

turning to rust and lilac, to say nothing of the dingy bonnet.

She seemed in a good temper. She at once said:

"Good evening, gentlemen! It's for the envelope, I suppose?"

"Yes, Mme. Giry," said Richard, most amiably. "For the envelope

... and something else besides."

"At your service, M. Richard, at your service. And what is

the something else, please?"

"First of all, Mme. Giry, I have a little question to put to you."

"By all means, M. Richard: Mme. Giry is here to answer you."

"Are you still on good terms with the ghost?"

"Couldn't be better, sir; couldn't be better."

"Ah, we are delighted....Look here, Mme. Giry," said Richard,

in the tone of making an important confidence. "We may just as well

tell you, among ourselves...you're no fool!"

"Why, sir," exclaimed the box-keeper, stopping the pleasant nodding

of the black feathers in her dingy bonnet, "I assure you no one has

ever doubted that!"

"We are quite agreed and we shall soon understand one another.

The story of the ghost is all humbug, isn't it?...Well,

still between ourselves,...it has lasted long enough."

Mme. Giry looked at the managers as though they were talking Chinese.

She walked up to Richard's table and asked, rather anxiously:

"What do you mean? I don't understand."

"Oh, you, understand quite well. In any case, you've got to understand.

... And, first of all, tell us his name."

"Whose name?"

"The name of the man whose accomplice you are, Mme. Giry!"

"I am the ghost's accomplice? I?...His accomplice in what, pray?"

"You do all he wants."

"Oh! He's not very troublesome, you know."

"And does he still tip you?"

"I mustn't complain."

"How much does he give you for bringing him that envelope?"

"Ten francs."

"You poor thing! That's not much, is it?

"Why?"

"I'll tell you that presently, Mme. Giry. Just now we should like

to know for what extraordinary reason you have given yourself body

and soul, to this ghost...Mme. Giry's friendship and devotion

are not to be bought for five francs or ten francs."

"That's true enough....And I can tell you the reason, sir.

There's no disgrace about it. .. on the contrary."

"We're quite sure of that, Mme. Giry!"

"Well, it's like this...only the ghost doesn't like me to talk

about his business."

"Indeed?" sneered Richard.

"But this is a matter that concerns myself alone....Well,

it was in Box Five one evening, I found a letter addressed to myself,

a sort of note written in red ink. I needn't read the letter to

you sir; I know it by heart, and I shall never forget it if I live

to be a hundred!"

And Mme. Giry, drawing herself up, recited the letter with

touching eloquence:

MADAM:

1825. Mlle. Menetrier, leader of the ballet, became Marquise

de Cussy.

1832. Mlle. Marie Taglioni, a dancer, became Comtesse Gilbert

des Voisins.

1846. La Sota, a dancer, married a brother of the King of Spain.

1847. Lola Montes, a dancer, became the morganatic wife of King

Louis of Bavaria and was created Countess of Landsfeld.

1848. Mlle. Maria, a dancer, became Baronne d'Herneville.

1870. Theresa Hessier, a dancer, married Dom Fernando, brother to

the King of Portugal.

Richard and Moncharmin listened to the old woman, who, as she

proceeded with the enumeration of these glorious nuptials,

swelled out, took courage and, at last, in a voice bursting

with pride, flung out the last sentence of the prophetic letter:

1885. Meg Giry, Empress!

Exhausted by this supreme effort, the box-keeper fell into

a chair, saying:

"Gentlemen, the letter was signed, `Opera Ghost.' I had heard much

of the ghost, but only half believed in him. From the day when he

declared that my little Meg, the flesh of my flesh, the fruit

of my womb, would be empress, I believed in him altogether."

And really it was not necessary to make a long study of Mme. Giry's

excited features to understand what could be got out of that fine

intellect with the two words "ghost" and "empress."

But who pulled the strings of that extraordinary puppet?

That was the question.

"You have never seen him; he speaks to you and you believe all he says?"

asked Moncharmin.

"Yes. To begin with, I owe it to him that my little Meg was promoted

to be the leader of a row. I said to the ghost, `If she is to be empress

in 1885, there is no time to lose; she must become a leader at once.'

He said, `Look upon it as done.' And he had only a word to say

to M. Poligny and the thing was done."

"So you see that M. Poligny saw him!"

"No, not any more than I did; but he heard him. The ghost said

a word in his ear, you know, on the evening when he left Box Five,

looking so dreadfully pale."

Moncharmin heaved a sigh. "What a business!" he groaned.

"Ah!" said Mme. Giry. "I always thought there were secrets between

the ghost and M. Poligny. Anything that the ghost asked M. Poligny

to do M. Poligny did. M. Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."

"You hear, Richard: Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."

"Yes, yes, I hear!" said Richard. "M. Poligny is a friend of

the ghost; and, as Mme. Giry is a friend of M. Poligny, there we are!

... But I don't care a hang about M. Poligny," he added roughly.

"The only person whose fate really interests me is Mme. Giry.

... Mme. Giry, do you know what is in this envelope?"

"Why, of course not," she said.

"Well, look."

Mine. Giry looked into the envelope with a lackluster eye,

which soon recovered its brilliancy.

"Thousand-franc notes!" she cried.

"Yes, Mme. Giry, thousand-franc notes! And you knew it!"

"I, sir? I?...I swear..."

"Don't swear, Mme. Giry!...And now I will tell you the second

reason why I sent for you. Mme. Giry, I am going to have you arrested."

The two black feathers on the dingy bonnet, which usually affected

the attitude of two notes of interrogation, changed into two notes

of exclamation; as for the bonnet itself, it swayed in menace

on the old lady's tempestuous chignon. Surprise, indignation,

protest and dismay were furthermore displayed by little Meg's mother

in a sort of extravagant movement of offended virtue, half bound,

half slide, that brought her right under the nose of M. Richard,

who could not help pushing back his chair.

"HAVE ME ARRESTED!"

The mouth that spoke those words seemed to spit the three teeth

that were left to it into Richard's face.

M. Richard behaved like a hero. He retreated no farther.

His threatening forefinger seemed already to be pointing out

the keeper of Box Five to the absent magistrates.

"I am going to have you arrested, Mme. Giry, as a thief!"

"Say that again!"

And Mme. Giry caught Mr. Manager Richard a mighty box on the ear,

before Mr. Manager Moncharmin had time to intervene. But it

was not the withered hand of the angry old beldame that fell on

the managerial ear, but the envelope itself, the cause of all the trouble,

the magic envelope that opened with the blow, scattering the bank-notes,

which escaped in a fantastic whirl of giant butterflies.

The two managers gave a shout, and the same thought made them both

go on their knees, feverishly, picking up and hurriedly examining

the precious scraps of paper.

"Are they still genuine, Moncharmin?"

"Are they still genuine, Richard?"

"Yes, they are still genuine!"

Above their heads, Mme. Giry's three teeth were clashing in a

noisy contest, full of hideous interjections. But all that could

be clearly distinguished was this LEIT-MOTIF:

"I, a thief!...I, a thief, I?"

She choked with rage. She shouted:

"I never heard of such a thing!"

And, suddenly, she darted up to Richard again.

"In any case," she yelped, "you, M. Richard, ought to know better

than I where the twenty thousand francs went to!"

"I?" asked Richard, astounded. "And how should I know?"

Moncharmin, looking severe and dissatisfied, at once insisted

that the good lady should explain herself.

"What does this mean, Mme. Giry?" he asked. "And why do you say that

M. Richard ought to know better than you where the twenty-thousand

francs went to?"

As for Richard, who felt himself turning red under Moncharmin's eyes,

he took Mme. Giry by the wrist and shook it violently. In a voice

growling and rolling like thunder, he roared:

"Why should I know better than you where the twenty-thousand francs

went to? Why? Answer me!"

"Because they went into your pocket!" gasped the old woman,

looking at him as if he were the devil incarnate.

Richard would have rushed upon Mme. Giry, if Moncharmin had not

stayed his avenging hand and hastened to ask her, more gently:

"How can you suspect my partner, M. Richard, of putting twenty-thousand

francs in his pocket?"

"I never said that," declared Mme. Giry, "seeing that it was myself

who put the twenty-thousand francs into M. Richard's pocket."

And she added, under her voice, "There! It's out!...And may

the ghost forgive me!"

Richard began bellowing anew, but Moncharmin authoritatively ordered

him to be silent.

"Allow me! Allow me! Let the woman explain herself. Let me

question her." And he added: "It is really astonishing that you

should take up such a tone!...We are on the verge of clearing

up the whole mystery. And you're in a rage!...You're wrong

to behave like that. .. I'm enjoying myself immensely."

Mme. Giry, like the martyr that she was, raised her head, her face

beaming with faith in her own innocence.

"You tell me there were twenty-thousand francs in the envelope

which I put into M. Richard's pocket; but I tell you again that I

knew nothing about it... Nor M. Richard either, for that matter!"

"Aha!" said Richard, suddenly assuming a swaggering air which

Moncharmin did not like. "I knew nothing either! You put

twenty-thousand francs in my pocket and I knew nothing either!

I am very glad to hear it, Mme. Giry!"

"Yes," the terrible dame agreed, "yes, it's true. We neither of us

knew anything. But you, you must have ended by finding out!"

Richard would certainly have swallowed Mme. Giry alive,

if Moncharmin had not been there! But Moncharmin protected her.

He resumed his questions:

"What sort of envelope did you put in M. Richard's pocket?

It was not the one which we gave you, the one which you took to Box

Five before our eyes; and yet that was the one which contained

the twenty-thousand francs."

"I beg your pardon. The envelope which M. le Directeur gave

me was the one which I slipped into M. le Directeur's pocket,"

explained Mme. Giry. "The one which I took to the ghost's box was

another envelope, just like it, which the ghost gave me beforehand

and which I hid up my sleeve."

So saying, Mme. Giry took from her sleeve an envelope ready prepared

and similarly addressed to that containing the twenty-thousand francs.

The managers took it from her. They examined it and saw that it

was fastened with seals stamped with their own managerial seal.

They opened it. It contained twenty Bank of St. Farce notes like

those which had so much astounded them the month before.

"How simple!" said Richard.

"How simple!" repeated Moncharmin. And he continued with his eyes

fixed upon Mme. Giry, as though trying to hypnotize her.

"So it was the ghost who gave you this envelope and told you to

substitute it for the one which we gave you? And it was the ghost

who told you to put the other into M. Richard's pocket?"

"Yes, it was the ghost."

"Then would you mind giving us a specimen of your little talents?

Here is the envelope. Act as though we knew nothing."

"As you please, gentlemen."

Mme. Giry took the envelope with the twenty notes inside

it and made for the door. She was on the point of going

out when the two managers rushed at her:

"Oh, no! Oh, no! We're not going to be `done' a second time!

Once bitten, twice shy!"

"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said the old woman, in self-excuse,

"you told me to act as though you knew nothing....Well,

if you knew nothing, I should go away with your envelope!"

"And then how would you slip it into my pocket?" argued Richard,

whom Moncharmin fixed with his left eye, while keeping his right on

Mme. Giry: a proceeding likely to strain his sight, but Moncharmin

was prepared to go to any length to discover the truth.

"I am to slip it into your pocket when you least expect it, sir.

You know that I always take a little turn behind the scenes,

in the course of the evening, and I often go with my daughter

to the ballet-foyer, which I am entitled to do, as her mother;

I bring her her shoes, when the ballet is about to begin...in fact,

I come and go as I please....The subscribers come and go too.

... So do you, sir....There are lots of people about...

I go behind you and slip the envelope into the tail-pocket of your

dress-coat....There's no witchcraft about that!"

"No witchcraft!" growled Richard, rolling his eyes like Jupiter Tonans.

"No witchcraft! Why, I've just caught you in a lie, you old witch!"

Mme. Giry bristled, with her three teeth sticking out of her mouth.

"And why, may I ask?"

"Because I spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope

which you put there. I did not go to the ballet-foyer for a second."

"No, sir, and I did not give you the envelope that evening, but at

the next performance...on the evening when the under-secretary

of state for fine arts..."

At these words, M. Richard suddenly interrupted Mme. Giry:

"Yes, that's true, I remember now! The under-secretary went behind

the scenes. He asked for me. I went down to the ballet-foyer

for a moment. I was on the foyer steps....The under-secretary

and his chief clerk were in the foyer itself. I suddenly turned

around...you had passed behind me, Mme. Giry... You seemed

to push against me....Oh, I can see you still, I can see you still!"

"Yes, that's it, sir, that's it. I had just finished my little business.

That pocket of yours, sir, is very handy!"

And Mme. Giry once more suited the action to the word, She passed

behind M. Richard and, so nimbly that Moncharmin himself was impressed

by it, slipped the envelope into the pocket of one of the tails

of M. Richard's dress-coat.

"Of course!" exclaimed Richard, looking a little pale. "It's very

clever of O. G. The problem which he had to solve was this:

how to do away with any dangerous intermediary between the man

who gives the twenty-thousand francs and the man who receives it.

And by far the best thing he could hit upon was to come and take

the money from my pocket without my noticing it, as I myself did not

know that it was there. It's wonderful!"

"Oh, wonderful, no doubt!" Moncharmin agreed. "Only, you forget,

Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty

and that nobody put anything in my pocket!"

Chapter XVII The Safety-Pin Again

Moncharmin's last phrase so dearly expressed the suspicion in which he

now held his partner that it was bound to cause a stormy explanation,

at the end of which it was agreed that Richard should yield to all

Moncharmin's wishes, with the object of helping him to discover

the miscreant who was victimizing them.

This brings us to the interval after the Garden Act, with the strange

conduct observed by M. Remy and those curious lapses from the dignity

that might be expected of the managers. It was arranged between

Richard and Moncharmin, first, that Richard should repeat the exact

movements which he had made on the night of the disappearance

of the first twenty-thousand francs; and, second, that Moncharmin

should not for an instant lose sight of Richard's coat-tail pocket,

into which Mme. Giry was to slip the twenty-thousand francs.

M. Richard went and placed himself at the identical spot where he

had stood when he bowed to the under-secretary for fine arts.

M. Moncharmin took up his position a few steps behind him.

Mme. Giry passed, rubbed up against M. Richard, got rid of her

twenty-thousand francs in the manager's coat-tail pocket

and disappeared....Or rather she was conjured away.

In accordance with the instructions received from Moncharmin a few

minutes earlier, Mercier took the good lady to the acting-manager's

office and turned the key on her, thus making it impossible

for her to communicate with her ghost.

Meanwhile, M. Richard was bending and bowing and scraping and

walking backward, just as if he had that high and mighty minister,

the under-secretary for fine arts, before him. Only, though these

marks of politeness would have created no astonishment if the

under-secretary of state had really been in front of M. Richard,

they caused an easily comprehensible amazement to the spectators

of this very natural but quite inexplicable scene when M. Richard

had no body in front of him.

M. Richard bowed...to nobody; bent his back...before nobody;

and walked backward...before nobody....And, a few steps

behind him, M. Moncharmin did the same thing that he was doing

in addition to pushing away M. Remy and begging M. de La Borderie,

the ambassador, and the manager of the Credit Central "not to touch

M. le Directeur."

Moncharmin, who had his own ideas, did not want Richard to come

to him presently, when the twenty-thousand francs were gone,

and say:

"Perhaps it was the ambassador...or the manager of the Credit

Central...or Remy."

The more so as, at the time of the first scene,

as Richard himself admitted, Richard had met nobody

in that part of the theater after Mme. Giry had brushed up against him. ...

Having begun by walking backward in order to bow, Richard continued

to do so from prudence, until he reached the passage leading

to the offices of the management. In this way, he was constantly

watched by Moncharmin from behind and himself kept an eye on any

one approaching from the front. Once more, this novel method

of walking behind the scenes, adopted by the managers of our

National Academy of Music, attracted attention; but the managers

themselves thought of nothing but their twenty-thousand francs.

On reaching the half-dark passage, Richard said to Moncharmin,

in a low voice:

"I am sure that nobody has touched me....You had now better

keep at some distance from me and watch me till I come to door

of the office: it is better not to arouse suspicion and we can

see anything that happens."

But Moncharmin replied. "No, Richard, no! You walk ahead and I'll

walk immediately behind you! I won't leave you by a step!"

"But, in that case," exclaimed Richard, "they will never steal

our twenty-thousand francs!"

"I should hope not, indeed!" declared Moncharmin.

"Then what we are doing is absurd!"

"We are doing exactly what we did last time....Last time,

I joined you as you were leaving the stage and followed close behind

you down this passage."

"That's true!" sighed Richard, shaking his head and passively

obeying Moncharmin.

Two minutes later, the joint managers locked themselves into

their office. Moncharmin himself put the key in his pocket:

"We remained locked up like this, last time," he said, "until you

left the Opera to go home."

"That's so. No one came and disturbed us, I suppose?"

"No one."

"Then," said Richard, who was trying to collect his memory, "then I

must certainly have been robbed on my way home from the Opera."

"No," said Moncharmin in a drier tone than ever, "no, that's impossible.

For I dropped you in my cab. The twenty-thousand francs disappeared

at your place: there's not a shadow of a doubt about that."

"It's incredible!" protested Richard. "I am sure of my servants...

and if one of them had done it, he would have disappeared since."

Moncharmin shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that he

did not wish to enter into details, and Richard began to think

that Moncharmin was treating him in a very insupportable fashion.

"Moncharmin, I've had enough of this!"

"Richard, I've had too much of it!"

"Do you dare to suspect me?"

"Yes, of a silly joke."

"One doesn't joke with twenty-thousand francs."

"That's what I think," declared Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper

and ostentatiously studying its contents.

"What are you doing?" asked Richard. "Are you going to read

the paper next?"

"Yes, Richard, until I take you home."

"Like last time?"

"Yes, like last time."

Richard snatched the paper from Moncharmin's hands.

Moncharmin stood up, more irritated than ever, and found himself

faced by an exasperated Richard, who, crossing his arms on his chest, said:

"Look here, I'm thinking of this, I'M THINKING OF WHAT I MIGHT

THINK if, like last time, after my spending the evening alone

with you, you brought me home and if, at the moment of parting,

I perceived that twenty-thousand francs had disappeared from my

coat-pocket...like last time."

"And what might you think?" asked Moncharmin, crimson with rage.

"I might think that, as you hadn't left me by a foot's breadth

and as, by your own wish, you were the only one to approach me,

like last time, I might think that, if that twenty-thousand francs

was no longer in my pocket, it stood a very good chance of being

in yours!"

Moncharmin leaped up at the suggestion.

"Oh!" he shouted. "A safety-pin!"

"What do you want a safety-pin for?"

"To fasten you up with!...A safety-pin!...A safety-pin!"

"You want to fasten me with a safety-pin?"

"Yes, to fasten you to the twenty-thousand francs! Then, whether

it's here, or on the drive from here to your place, or at your place,

you will feel the hand that pulls at your pocket and you will

see if it's mine! Oh, so you're suspecting me now, are you?

A safety-pin!"

And that was the moment when Moncharmin opened the door

on the passage and shouted:

"A safety-pin!...somebody give me a safety-pin!"

And we also know how, at the same moment, Remy, who had no safety-pin,

was received by Moncharmin, while a boy procured the pin so eagerly

longed for. And what happened was this: Moncharmin first locked

the door again. Then he knelt down behind Richard's back.

"I hope," he said, "that the notes are still there?"

"So do I," said Richard.

"The real ones?" asked Moncharmin, resolved not to be "had" this time.

"Look for yourself," said Richard. "I refuse to touch them."

Moncharmin took the envelope from Richard's pocket and drew

out the bank-notes with a trembling hand, for, this time,

in order frequently to make sure of the presence of the notes,

he had not sealed the envelope nor even fastened it. He felt

reassured on finding that they were all there and quite genuine.

He put them back in the tail-pocket and pinned them with great care.

Then he sat down behind Richard's coat-tails and kept his eyes

fixed on them, while Richard, sitting at his writing-table, did

not stir.

"A little patience, Richard," said Moncharmin. "We have only

a few minutes to wait....The clock will soon strike twelve.

Last time, we left at the last stroke of twelve."

"Oh, I shall have all the patience necessary!"

The time passed, slow, heavy, mysterious, stifling. Richard tried

to laugh.

"I shall end by believing in the omnipotence of the ghost," he said.

"Just now, don't you find something uncomfortable, disquieting,

alarming in the atmosphere of this room?"

"You're quite right," said Moncharmin, who was really impressed.

"The ghost!" continued Richard, in a low voice, as though fearing lest

he should be overheard by invisible ears. "The ghost! Suppose, all

the same, it were a ghost who puts the magic envelopes on the table

... who talks in Box Five...who killed Joseph Buquet...

who unhooked the chandelier...and who robs us! For, after all,

after all, after all, there is no one here except you and me,

and, if the notes disappear and neither you nor I have anything to

do with it, well, we shall have to believe in the ghost...in the ghost."

At that moment, the clock on the mantlepiece gave its warning click

and the first stroke of twelve struck.

The two managers shuddered. The perspiration streamed from

their foreheads. The twelfth stroke sounded strangely in their ears.

When the clock stopped, they gave a sigh and rose from their chairs.

"I think we can go now," said Moncharmin.

"I think so," Richard a agreed.

"Before we go, do you mind if I look in your pocket?"

"But, of course, Moncharmin, YOU MUST!...Well?" he asked,

as Moncharmin was feeling at the pocket.

"Well, I can feel the pin."

"Of course, as you said, we can't be robbed without noticing it."

But Moncharmin, whose hands were still fumbling, bellowed:

"I can feel the pin, but I can't feel the notes!"

"Come, no joking, Moncharmin!...This isn't the time for it."

"Well, feel for yourself."

Richard tore off his coat. The two managers turned the pocket

inside out. THE POCKET WAS EMPTY. And the curious thing was

that the pin remained, stuck in the same place.

Richard and Moncharmin turned pale. There was no longer any doubt

about the witchcraft.

"The ghost!" muttered Moncharmin.

But Richard suddenly sprang upon his partner.

"No one but you has touched my pocket! Give me back my twenty-thousand

francs!...Give me back my twenty-thousand francs!..."

"On my soul," sighed Moncharmin, who was ready to swoon, "on my soul,

I swear that I haven't got it!"

Then somebody knocked at the door. Moncharmin opened it automatically,

seemed hardly to recognize Mercier, his business-manager, exchanged

a few words with him, without knowing what he was saying and,

with an unconscious movement, put the safety-pin, for which he

had no further use, into the hands of his bewildered subordinate....

Chapter XVIII The Commissary, The Viscount and the Persian

The first words of the commissary of police, on entering

the managers' office, were to ask after the missing prima donna.

"Is Christine Daae here?"

"Christine Daae here?" echoed Richard. "No. Why?"

As for Moncharmin, he had not the strength left to utter a word.

Richard repeated, for the commissary and the compact crowd which

had followed him into the office observed an impressive silence.

"Why do you ask if Christine Daae is here, M. LE COMMISSAIRE?"

"Because she has to be found," declared the commissary of police solemnly.

"What do you mean, she has to be found? Has she disappeared?"

"In the middle of the performance!"

"In the middle of the performance? This is extraordinary!"

"Isn't it? And what is quite as extraordinary is that you should

first learn it from me!"

"Yes," said Richard, taking his head in his hands and muttering.

"What is this new business? Oh, it's enough to make a man send in

his resignation!"

And he pulled a few hairs out of his mustache without even knowing

what he was doing.

"So she...so she disappeared in the middle of the performance?"

he repeated.

"Yes, she was carried off in the Prison Act, at the moment when she

was invoking the aid of the angels; but I doubt if she was carried

off by an angel."

"And I am sure that she was!"

Everybody looked round. A young man, pale and trembling

with excitement, repeated:

"I am sure of it!"

"Sure of what?" asked Mifroid.

"That Christine Daae was carried off by an angel, M. LE COMMISSAIRE

and I can tell you his name."

"Aha, M. le Vicomte de Chagny! So you maintain that Christine Daae

was carried off by an angel: an angel of the Opera, no doubt?"

"Yes, monsieur, by an angel of the Opera; and I will tell you

where he lives...when we are alone."

"You are right, monsieur."

And the commissary of police, inviting Raoul to take a chair,

cleared the room of all the rest, excepting the managers.

Then Raoul spoke:

"M. le Commissaire, the angel is called Erik, he lives in the Opera

and he is the Angel of Music!"

"The Angel of Music! Really! That is very curious!...The

Angel of Music!" And, turning to the managers, M. Mifroid asked,

"Have you an Angel of Music on the premises, gentlemen?"

Richard and Moncharmin shook their heads, without even speaking.

"Oh," said the viscount, "those gentlemen have heard of the Opera ghost.

Well, I am in a position to state that the Opera ghost and the Angel

of Music are one and the same person; and his real name is Erik."

M. Mifroid rose and looked at Raoul attentively.

"I beg your pardon, monsieur but is it your intention to make fun

of the law? And, if not, what is all this about the Opera ghost?"

"I say that these gentlemen have heard of him."

"Gentlemen, it appears that you know the Opera ghost?"

Richard rose, with the remaining hairs of his mustache in his hand.

"No, M. Commissary, no, we do not know him, but we wish that we did,

for this very evening he has robbed us of twenty-thousand francs!"

And Richard turned a terrible look on Moncharmin, which seemed

to say:

"Give me back the twenty-thousand francs, or I'll tell the whole story."

Moncharmin understood what he meant, for, with a distracted gesture,

he said:

"Oh, tell everything and have done with it!"

As for Mifroid, he looked at the managers and at Raoul by turns

and wondered whether he had strayed into a lunatic asylum.

He passed his hand through his hair.

"A ghost," he said, "who, on the same evening, carries off

an opera-singer and steals twenty-thousand francs is a ghost who

must have his hands very full! If you don't mind, we will take

the questions in order. The singer first, the twenty-thousand

francs after. Come, M. de Chagny, let us try to talk seriously.

You believe that Mlle. Christine Daae has been carried off by an

individual called Erik. Do you know this person? Have you seen him?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In a church yard."

M. Mifroid gave a start, began to scrutinize Raoul again and said:

"Of course!...That's where ghosts usually hang out!...And

what were you doing in that churchyard?"

"Monsieur," said Raoul, "I can quite understand how absurd my replies

must seem to you. But I beg you to believe that I am in full

possession of my faculties. The safety of the person dearest

to me in the world is at stake. I should like to convince you

in a few words, for time is pressing and every minute is valuable.

Unfortunately, if I do not tell you the strangest story that ever

was from the beginning, you will not believe me. I will tell you all

I know about the Opera ghost, M. Commissary. Alas, I do not know much!..."

"Never mind, go on, go on!" exclaimed Richard and Moncharmin,

suddenly greatly interested.

Unfortunately for their hopes of learning some detail that could put

them on the track of their hoaxer, they were soon compelled to accept

the fact that M. Raoul de Chagny had completely lost his head.

All that story about Perros-Guirec, death's heads and enchanted violins,

could only have taken birth in the disordered brain of a youth

mad with love. It was evident, also, that Mr. Commissary Mifroid

shared their view; and the magistrate would certainly have cut

short the incoherent narrative if circumstances had not taken

it upon themselves to interrupt it.

The door opened and a man entered, curiously dressed in an enormous

frock-coat and a tall hat, at once shabby and shiny, that came down to

his ears. He went up to the commissary and spoke to him in a whisper.

It was doubtless a detective come to deliver an important communication.

During this conversation, M. Mifroid did not take his eyes off Raoul.

At last, addressing him, he said:

"Monsieur, we have talked enough about the ghost. We will

now talk about yourself a little, if you have no objection:

you were to carry off Mlle. Christine Daae to-night?"

"Yes, M. le Commissaire."

"After the performance?"

"Yes, M. le Commissaire."

"All your arrangements were made?"

"Yes, M. le Commissaire."

"The carriage that brought you was to take you both away.

... There were fresh horses in readiness at every stage.

..."

"That is true, M. le Commissaire."

"And nevertheless your carriage is still outside the Rotunda

awaiting your orders, is it not?"

"Yes, M. le Commissaire."

"Did you know that there were three other carriages there,

in addition to yours?"

"I did not pay the least attention."

"They were the carriages of Mlle. Sorelli, which could not find room

in the Cour de l'Administration; of Carlotta; and of your brother,

M. le Comte de Chagny. ..."

"Very likely. ..."

"What is certain is that, though your carriage and Sorelli's

and Carlotta's are still there, by the Rotunda pavement, M. le

Comte de Chagny's carriage is gone."

"This has nothing to say to..."

"I beg your pardon. Was not M. le Comte opposed to your marriage

with Mlle. Daae?"

"That is a matter that only concerns the family."

"You have answered my question: he was opposed to it...and that

was why you were carrying Christine Daae out of your brother's reach.

... Well, M. de Chagny, allow me to inform you that your brother has

been smarter than you! It is he who has carried off Christine Daae!"

"Oh, impossible!" moaned Raoul, pressing his hand to his heart.

"Are you sure?"

"Immediately after the artist's disappearance, which was procured

by means which we have still to ascertain, he flung into his carriage,

which drove right across Paris at a furious pace."

"Across Paris?" asked poor Raoul, in a hoarse voice. "What do you

mean by across Paris?"

"Across Paris and out of Paris...by the Brussels road."

"Oh," cried the young man, "I shall catch them!" And he rushed

out of the office.

"And bring her back to us!" cried the commisary gaily...."Ah,

that's a trick worth two of the Angel of Music's!"

And, turning to his audience, M. Mifroid delivered a little lecture

on police methods.

"I don't know for a moment whether M. le Comte de Chagny has really

carried Christine Daae off or not...but I want to know and I

believe that, at this moment, no one is more anxious to inform us

than his brother....And now he is flying in pursuit of him!

He is my chief auxiliary! This, gentlemen, is the art of the police,

which is believed to be so complicated and which, nevertheless appears

so simple as soon its you see that it consists in getting your work

done by people who have nothing to do with the police."

But M. le Commissaire de Police Mifroid would not have been quite

so satisfied with himself if he had known that the rush of his rapid

emissary was stopped at the entrance to the very first corridor.

A tall figure blocked Raoul's way.

"Where are you going so fast, M. de Chagny?" asked a voice.

Raoul impatiently raised his eyes and recognized the astrakhan cap

of an hour ago. He stopped:

"It's you!" he cried, in a feverish voice. "You, who know Erik's

secrets and don't want me to speak of them. Who are you?"

"You know who I am!...I am the Persian!"

Chapter XIX The Viscount and the Persian

Raoul now remembered that his brother had once shown him that

mysterious person, of whom nothing was known except that he was a Persian

and that he lived in a little old-fashioned flat in the Rue de Rivoli.

The man with the ebony skin, the eyes of jade and the astrakhan

cap bent over Raoul.

"I hope, M. de Chagny," he said, "that you have not betrayed

Erik's secret?"

"And why should I hesitate to betray that monster, sir?"

Raoul rejoined haughtily, trying to shake off the intruder.

"Is he your friend, by any chance?"

"I hope that you said nothing about Erik, sir, because Erik's

secret is also Christine Daae's and to talk about one is to talk

about the other!"

"Oh, sir," said Raoul, becoming more and more impatient, "you seem

to know about many things that interest me; and yet I have no time

to listen to you!"

"Once more, M. de Chagny, where are you going so fast?"

"Can not you guess? To Christine Daae's assistance. ..."

"Then, sir, stay here, for Christine Daae is here!"

"With Erik?"

"With Erik."

"How do you know?"

"I was at the performance and no one in the world but Erik could

contrive an abduction like that!...Oh," he said, with a deep sigh,

"I recognized the monster's touch!..."

"You know him then?"

The Persian did not reply, but heaved a fresh sigh.

"Sir," said Raoul, "I do not know what your intentions are, but can

you do anything to help me? I mean, to help Christine Daae?"

"I think so, M. de Chagny, and that is why I spoke to you."

"What can you do?"

"Try to take you to her...and to him."

"If you can do me that service, sir, my life is yours!...One

word more: the commissary of police tells me that Christine Daae

has been carried off by my brother, Count Philippe."

"Oh, M. de Chagny, I don't believe a word of it."

"It's not possible, is it?"

"I don't know if it is possible or not; but there are ways and

ways of carrying people off; and M. le Comte Philippe has never,

as far as I know, had anything to do with witchcraft."

"Your arguments are convincing, sir, and I am a fool!...Oh,

let us make haste! I place myself entirely in your hands!...

How should I not believe you, when you are the only one to believe

me...when you are the only one not to smile when Erik's name

is mentioned?"

And the young man impetuously seized the Persian's hands.

They were ice-cold.

"Silence!" said the Persian, stopping and listening to the distant

sounds of the theater. "We must not mention that name here.

Let us say `he' and `him;' then there will be less danger of attracting

his attention."

"Do you think he is near us?"

"It is quite possible, Sir, if he is not, at this moment,

with his victim, IN THE HOUSE ON THE LAKE."

"Ah, so you know that house too?"

"If he is not there, he may be here, in this wall, in this floor,

in this ceiling!...Come!"

And the Persian, asking Raoul to deaden the sound of his footsteps,

led him down passages which Raoul had never seen before, even at the

time when Christine used to take him for walks through that labyrinth.

"If only Darius has come!" said the Persian.

"Who is Darius?"

"Darius? My servant."

They were now in the center of a real deserted square, an immense

apartment ill-lit by a small lamp. The Persian stopped Raoul and,

in the softest of whispers, asked:

"What did you say to the commissary?"

"I said that Christine Daae's abductor was the Angel of Music,

ALIAS the Opera ghost, and that the real name was..."

"Hush!...And did he believe you?"

"No."

"He attached no importance to what you said?"

"No."

"He took you for a bit of a madman?"

"Yes."

"So much the better!" sighed the Persian.

And they continued their road. After going up and down several

staircases which Raoul had never seen before, the two men

found themselves in front of a door which the Persian opened

with a master-key. The Persian and Raoul were both, of course,

in dress-clothes; but, whereas Raoul had a tall hat, the Persian

wore the astrakhan cap which I have already mentioned. It was

an infringement of the rule which insists upon the tall hat behind

the scenes; but in France foreigners are allowed every license:

the Englishman his traveling-cap, the Persian his cap of astrakhan.

"Sir," said the Persian, "your tall hat will be in your way:

you would do well to leave it in the dressing-room."

"What dressing-room?" asked Raoul.

"Christine Daae's."

And the Persian, letting Raoul through the door which he

had just opened, showed him the actress' room opposite.

They were at the end of the passage the whole length of which Raoul

had been accustomed to traverse before knocking at Christine's door.

"How well you know the Opera, sir!"

"Not so well as `he' does!" said the Persian modestly.

And he pushed the young man into Christine's dressing-room,

which was as Raoul had left it a few minutes earlier.

Closing the door, the Persian went to a very thin partition that

separated the dressing-room from a big lumber-room next to it.

He listened and then coughed loudly.

There was a sound of some one stirring in the lumber-room; and, a few

seconds later, a finger tapped at the door.

"Come in," said the Persian.

A man entered, also wearing an astrakhan cap and dressed in a long

overcoat. He bowed and took a richly carved case from under his coat,

put it on the dressing-table, bowed once again and went to the door.

"Did no one see you come in, Darius?"

"No, master."

"Let no one see you go out."

The servant glanced down the passage and swiftly disappeared.

The Persian opened the case. It contained a pair of long pistols.

"When Christine Daae was carried off, sir, I sent word to my servant

to bring me these pistols. I have had them a long time and they

can be relied upon."

"Do you mean to fight a duel?" asked the young man.

"It will certainly be a duel which we shall have to fight,"

said the other, examining the priming of his pistols. "And what a duel!"

Handing one of the pistols to Raoul, he added, "In this duel,

we shall be two to one; but you must be prepared for everything,

for we shall be fighting the most terrible adversary that you

can imagine. But you love Christine Daae, do you not?"

"I worship the ground she stands on! But you, sir, who do not

love her, tell me why I find you ready to risk your life for her!

You must certainly hate Erik!"

"No, sir," said the Persian sadly, "I do not hate him. If I hated him,

he would long ago have ceased doing harm."

"Has he done you harm?"

"I have forgiven him the harm which he has done me."

"I do not understand you. You treat him as a monster, you speak

of his crime, he has done you harm and I find in you the same

inexplicable pity that drove me to despair when I saw it in Christine!"

The Persian did not reply. He fetched a stool and set it

against the wall facing the great mirror that filled the whole

of the wall-space opposite. Then he climbed on the stool and,

with his nose to the wallpaper, seemed to be looking for something.

"Ah," he said, after a long search, "I have it!" And, raising his

finger above his head, he pressed against a corner in the pattern

of the paper. Then he turned round and jumped off the stool:

"In half a minute," he said, "he shall be ON HIS ROAD!" and crossing

the whole of the dressing-room he felt the great mirror.

"No, it is not yielding yet," he muttered.

"Oh, are we going out by the mirror?" asked Raoul. "Like Christine Daae."

"So you knew that Christine Daae went out by that mirror?"

"She did so before my eyes, sir! I was hidden behind the curtain

of the inner room and I saw her vanish not by the glass, but in

the glass!"

"And what did you do?"

"I thought it was an aberration of my senses, a mad dream.

"Or some new fancy of the ghost's!" chuckled the Persian.

"Ah, M. de Chagny," he continued, still with his hand on the mirror,

"would that we had to do with a ghost! We could then leave our pistols

in their case....Put down your hat, please...there...

and now cover your shirt-front as much as you can with your coat...

as I am doing....Bring the lapels forward...turn up

the collar....We must make ourselves as invisible as possible."

Bearing against the mirror, after a short silence, he said:

"It takes some time to release the counterbalance, when you press

on the spring from the inside of the room. It is different when you

are behind the wall and can act directly on the counterbalance.

Then the mirror turns at once and is moved with incredible rapidity."

"What counterbalance?" asked Raoul.

"Why, the counterbalance that lifts the whole of this wall on

to its pivot. You surely don't expect it to move of itself,

by enchantment! If you watch, you will see the mirror first rise

an inch or two and then shift an inch or two from left to right.

It will then be on a pivot and will swing round."

"It's not turning!" said Raoul impatiently.

"Oh, wait! You have time enough to be impatient, sir! The mechanism

has obviously become rusty, or else the spring isn't working.

...Unless it is something else," added the Persian, anxiously.

"What?"

"He may simply have cut the cord of the counterbalance and blocked

the whole apparatus."

"Why should he? He does not know that we are coming this way!"

"I dare say he suspects it, for he knows that I understand the system."

"It's not turning!...And Christine, sir, Christine?"

The Persian said coldly:

"We shall do all that it is humanly possible to do!...But

he may stop us at the first step!...He commands the walls,

the doors and the trapdoors. In my country, he was known by a name

which means the `trap-door lover.'"

"But why do these walls obey him alone? He did not build them!"

"Yes, sir, that is just what he did!"

Raoul looked at him in amazement; but the Persian made a sign to him

to be silent and pointed to the glass....There was a sort

of shivering reflection. Their image was troubled as in a rippling

sheet of water and then all became stationary again.

"You see, sir, that it is not turning! Let us take another road!"

"To-night, there is no other!" declared the Persian, in a singularly

mournful voice. "And now, look out! And be ready to fire."

He himself raised his pistol opposite the glass. Raoul imitated

his movement. With his free arm, the Persian drew the young man

to his chest and, suddenly, the mirror turned, in a blinding daze

of cross-lights: it turned like one of those revolving doors

which have lately been fixed to the entrances of most restaurants,

it turned, carrying Raoul and the Persian with it and suddenly

hurling them from the full light into the deepest darkness.

Chapter XX In the Cellars of the Opera

"Your hand high, ready to fire!" repeated Raoul's companion quickly.

The wall, behind them, having completed the circle which it

described upon itself, closed again; and the two men stood

motionless for a moment, holding their breath.

At last, the Persian decided to make a movement; and Raoul heard

him slip on his knees and feel for something in the dark with his

groping hands. Suddenly, the darkness was made visible by a small dark

lantern and Raoul instinctively stepped backward as though to escape

the scrutiny of a secret enemy. But he soon perceived that the light

belonged to the Persian, whose movements he was closely observing.

The little red disk was turned in every direction and Raoul

saw that the floor, the walls and the ceiling were all formed

of planking. It must have been the ordinary road taken by Erik

to reach Christine's dressing-room and impose upon her innocence.

And Raoul, remembering the Persian's remark, thought that it had been

mysteriously constructed by the ghost himself. Later, he learned

that Erik had found, all prepared for him, a secret passage,

long known to himself alone and contrived at the time of the Paris

Commune to allow the jailers to convey their prisoners straight

to the dungeons that had been constructed for them in the cellars;

for the Federates had occupied the opera-house immediately after

the eighteenth of March and had made a starting-place right at

the top for their Mongolfier balloons, which carried their incendiary

proclamations to the departments, and a state prison right at the bottom.

The Persian went on his knees and put his lantern on the ground.

He seemed to be working at the floor; and suddenly he turned off

his light. Then Raoul heard a faint click and saw a very pale

luminous square in the floor of the passage. It was as though

a window had opened on the Opera cellars, which were still lit.

Raoul no longer saw the Persian, but he suddenly felt him by his side

and heard him whisper:

"Follow me and do all that I do."

Raoul turned to the luminous aperture. Then he saw the Persian,

who was still on his knees, hang by his hands from the rim of the opening,

with his pistol between his teeth, and slide into the cellar below.

Curiously enough, the viscount had absolute confidence in the Persian,

though he knew nothing about him. His emotion when speaking of the

"monster" struck him as sincere; and, if the Persian had cherished

any sinister designs against him, he would not have armed him with

his own hands. Besides, Raoul must reach Christine at all costs.

He therefore went on his knees also and hung from the trap with both hands.

"Let go!" said a voice.

And he dropped into the arms of the Persian, who told him to lie

down flat, closed the trap-door above him and crouched down beside him.

Raoul tried to ask a question, but the Persian's hand was on his mouth

and he heard a voice which he recognized as that of the commissary

of police.

Raoul and the Persian were completely hidden behind a wooden partition.

Near them, a small staircase led to a little room in which the

commissary appeared to be walking up and down, asking questions.

The faint light was just enough to enable Raoul to distinguish the

shape of things around him. And he could not restrain a dull cry:

there were three corpses there.

The first lay on the narrow landing of the little staircase;

the two others had rolled to the bottom of the staircase.

Raoul could have touched one of the two poor wretches by passing

his fingers through the partition.

"Silence!" whispered the Persian.

He too had seen the bodies and he gave one word in explanation:

"HE!"

The commissary's voice was now heard more distinctly.

He was asking for information about the system of lighting,

which the stage-manager supplied. The commissary therefore

must be in the "organ" or its immediate neighborhood.

Contrary to what one might think, especially in connection with an

opera-house, the "organ" is not a musical instrument. At that time,

electricity was employed only for a very few scenic effects and for

the bells. The immense building and the stage itself were still

lit by gas; hydrogen was used to regulate and modify the lighting

of a scene; and this was done by means of a special apparatus which,

because of the multiplicity of its pipes, was known as the "organ."

A box beside the prompter's box was reserved for the chief gas-man,

who from there gave his orders to his assistants and saw that they

were executed. Mauclair stayed in this box during all the performances.

But now Mauclair was not in his box and his assistants not

in their places.

"Mauclair! Mauclair!"

The stage-manager's voice echoed through the cellars. But Mauclair

did not reply.

I have said that a door opened on a little staircase that led

to the second cellar. The commissary pushed it, but it resisted.

"I say," he said to the stage-manager, "I can't open this door:

is it always so difficult?"

The stage-manager forced it open with his shoulder. He saw that,

at the same time, he was pushing a human body and he could not keep

back an exclamation, for he recognized the body at once:

"Mauclair! Poor devil! He is dead!"

But Mr. Commissary Mifroid, whom nothing surprised, was stooping

over that big body.

"No," he said, "he is dead-drunk, which is not quite the same thing."

"It's the first time, if so," said the stage-manager

"Then some one has given him a narcotic. That is quite possible."

Mifroid went down a few steps and said:

"Look!"

By the light of a little red lantern, at the foot of the stairs,

they saw two other bodies. The stage-manager recognized Mauclair's

assistants. Mifroid went down and listened to their breathing.

"They are sound asleep," he said. "Very curious business!

Some person unknown must have interfered with the gas-man and his

staff...and that person unknown was obviously working on behalf

of the kidnapper....But what a funny idea to kidnap a performer

on the stage!...Send for the doctor of the theater, please."

And Mifroid repeated, "Curious, decidedly curious business!"

Then he turned to the little room, addressing the people whom Raoul

and the Persian were unable to see from where they lay.

"What do you say to all this, gentlemen? You are the only ones

who have not given your views. And yet you must have an opinion

of some sort."

Thereupon, Raoul and the Persian saw the startled faces of the joint

managers appear above the landing--and they heard Moncharmin's

excited voice:

"There are things happening here, Mr. Commissary, which we are

unable to explain."

And the two faces disappeared.

"Thank you for the information, gentlemen," said Mifroid, with a jeer.

But the stage-manager, holding his chin in the hollow of his

right hand, which is the attitude of profound thought, said:

"It is not the first time that Mauclair has fallen asleep in the theater.

I remember finding him, one evening, snoring in his little recess,

with his snuff-box beside him."

"Is that long ago?" asked M. Mifroid, carefully wiping his eye-glasses.

"No, not so very long ago....Wait a bit!...It was the night

... of course, yes...It was the night when Carlotta--you know,

Mr. Commissary--gave her famous `co-ack'!"

"Really? The night when Carlotta gave her famous `co-ack'?"

And M. Mifroid, replacing his gleaming glasses on his nose,

fixed the stage-manager with a contemplative stare.

"So Mauclair takes snuff, does he?" he asked carelessly.

"`Yes, Mr. Commissary....Look, there is his snuff-box

on that little shelf....Oh! he's a great snuff-taker!"

"So am I," said Mifroid and put the snuff-box in his pocket.

Raoul and the Persian, themselves unobserved, watched the removal

of the three bodies by a number of scene-shifters, who were

followed by the commissary and all the people with him.

Their steps were heard for a few minutes on the stage above.

When they were alone the Persian made a sign to Raoul to stand up.

Raoul did so; but, as he did not lift his hand in front of his eyes,

ready to fire, the Persian told him to resume that attitude and to

continue it, whatever happened.

"But it tires the hand unnecessarily," whispered Raoul. "If I

do fire, I shan't be sure of my aim."

"Then shift your pistol to the other hand," said the Persian.

"I can't shoot with my left hand."

Thereupon, the Persian made this queer reply, which was certainly

not calculated to throw light into the young man's flurried brain:

"It's not a question of shooting with the right hand or the left;

it's a question of holding one of your hands as though you

were going to pull the trigger of a pistol with your arm bent.

As for the pistol itself, when all is said, you can put that in

your pocket!" And he added, "Let this be clearly understood,

or I will answer for nothing. It is a matter of life and death.

And now, silence and follow me!"

The cellars of the Opera are enormous and they are five in number.

Raoul followed the Persian and wondered what he would have done

without his companion in that extraordinary labyrinth. They went

down to the third cellar; and their progress was still lit by some

distant lamp.

The lower they went, the more precautions the Persian seemed to take.

He kept on turning to Raoul to see if he was holding his arm properly,

showing him how he himself carried his hand as if always ready to fire,

though the pistol was in his pocket.

Suddenly, a loud voice made them stop. Some one above them shouted:

"All the door-shutters on the stage! The commissary of police

wants them!"

Steps were heard and shadows glided through the darkness. The Persian

drew Raoul behind a set piece. They saw passing before and above

them old men bent by age and the past burden of opera-scenery.

Some could hardly drag themselves along; others, from habit,

with stooping bodies and outstretched hands, looked for doors to shut.

They were the door-shutters, the old, worn-out scene-shifters, on

whom a charitable management had taken pity, giving them the job

of shutting doors above and below the stage. They went about

incessantly, from top to bottom of the building, shutting the doors;

and they were also called "The draft-expellers," at least at

that time, for I have little doubt that by now they are all dead.

Drafts are very bad for the voice, wherever they may come from.[3]

----

[3] M. Pedro Gailhard has himself told me that he created a few

additional posts as door-shutters for old stage-carpenters whom

he was unwilling to dismiss from the service of the Opera.

The two men might have stumbled over them, waking them up and

provoking a request for explanations. For the moment, M. Mifroid's

inquiry saved them from any such unpleasant encounters.

The Persian and Raoul welcomed this incident, which relieved them

of inconvenient witnesses, for some of those door-shutters, having

nothing else to do or nowhere to lay their heads, stayed at the Opera,

from idleness or necessity, and spent the night there.

But they were not left to enjoy their solitude for long. Other shades

now came down by the same way by which the door-shutters had gone up.

Each of these shades carried a little lantern and moved it about,

above, below and all around, as though looking for something or somebody.

"Hang it!" muttered the Persian. "I don't know what they are

looking for, but they might easily find us....Let us get away,

quick!...Your hand up, sir, ready to fire!...Bend your arm

... more...that's it!...Hand at the level of your eye,

as though you were fighting a duel and waiting for the word

to fire! Oh, leave your pistol in your pocket. Quick, come along,

down-stairs. Level of your eye! Question of life or death!...

Here, this way, these stairs!" They reached the fifth cellar.

"Oh, what a duel, sir, what a duel!"

Once in the fifth cellar, the Persian drew breath. He seemed

to enjoy a rather greater sense of security than he had displayed

when they both stopped in the third; but he never altered the attitude

of his hand. And Raoul, remembering the Persian's observation--"I

know these pistols can be relied upon"--was more and more astonished,

wondering why any one should be so gratified at being able to rely

upon a pistol which he did not intend to use!

But the Persian left him no time for reflection. Telling Raoul

to stay where he was, he ran up a few steps of the staircase

which they had just left and then returned.

"How stupid of us!" he whispered. "We shall soon have seen the end

of those men with their lanterns. It is the firemen going their

rounds."[4]

----

[4] In those days, it was still part of the firemen's duty to watch

over the safety of the Opera house outside the performances;

but this service has since been suppressed. I asked M. Pedro

Gailhard the reason, and he replied:

"It was because the management was afraid that, in their utter

inexperience of the cellars of the Opera, the firemen might set

fire to the building!"

The two men waited five minutes longer. Then the Persian took Raoul

up the stairs again; but suddenly he stopped him with a gesture.

Something moved in the darkness before them.

"Flat on your stomach!" whispered the Persian.

The two men lay flat on the floor.

They were only just in time. A shade, this time carrying no light,

just a shade in the shade, passed. It passed close to them,

near enough to touch them.

They felt the warmth of its cloak upon them. For they could

distinguish the shade sufficiently to see that it wore a cloak which

shrouded it from head to foot. On its head it had a soft felt hat....

It moved away, drawing its feet against the walls and sometimes

giving a kick into a corner.

"Whew!" said the Persian. "We've had a narrow escape; that shade

knows me and has twice taken me to the managers' office."

"Is it some one belonging to the theater police?" asked Raoul.

"It's some one much worse than that!" replied the Persian,

without giving any further explanation.[5]

----

[5] Like the Persian, I can give no further explanation touching

the apparition of this shade. Whereas, in this historic narrative,

everything else will be normally explained, however abnormal

the course of events may seem, I can not give the reader expressly

to understand what the Persian meant by the words, "It is some one

much worse than that!" The reader must try to guess for himself,

for I promised M. Pedro Gailhard, the former manager of the Opera,

to keep his secret regarding the extremely interesting and useful

personality of the wandering, cloaked shade which, while condemning

itself to live in the cellars of the Opera, rendered such immense

services to those who, on gala evenings, for instance, venture to stray

away from the stage. I am speaking of state services; and, upon my

word of honor, I can say no more.

"It's not...he?"

"He?...If he does not come behind us, we shall always see his

yellow eyes! That is more or less our safeguard to-night. But he

may come from behind, stealing up; and we are dead men if we do not

keep our hands as though about to fire, at the level of our eyes,

in front!"

The Persian had hardly finished speaking, when a fantastic face

came in sight...a whole fiery face, not only two yellow eyes!

Yes, a head of fire came toward them, at a man's height, but with no

body attached to it. The face shed fire, looked in the darkness

like a flame shaped as a man's face.

"Oh," said the Persian, between his teeth. "I have never seen this

before!...Pampin was not mad, after all: he had seen it!...

What can that flame be? It is not HE, but he may have sent it!

...Take care!...Take care! Your hand at the level of your eyes,

in Heaven's name, at the level of your eyes!...know most of his tricks...

but not this one....Come, let us run....it is safer.

Hand at the level of your eyes!"

And they fled down the long passage that opened before them.

After a few seconds, that seemed to them like long minutes,

they stopped.

"He doesn't often come this way," said the Persian. "This side

has nothing to do with him. This side does not lead to the lake

nor to the house on the lake....But perhaps he knows that we

are at his heels...although I promised him to leave him alone

and never to meddle in his business again!"

So saying, he turned his head and Raoul also turned his head;

and they again saw the head of fire behind their two heads.

It had followed them. And it must have run also, and perhaps faster

than they, for it seemed to be nearer to them.

At the same time, they began to perceive a certain noise of which they

could not guess the nature. They simply noticed that the sound

seemed to move and to approach with the fiery face. It was a noise

as though thousands of nails had been scraped against a blackboard,

the perfectly unendurable noise that is sometimes made by a little

stone inside the chalk that grates on the blackboard.

They continued to retreat, but the fiery face came on, came on,

gaining on them. They could see its features clearly now. The eyes

were round and staring, the nose a little crooked and the mouth large,

with a hanging lower lip, very like the eyes, nose and lip of the moon,

when the moon is quite red, bright red.

How did that red moon manage to glide through the darkness,

at a man's height, with nothing to support it, at least apparently?

And how did it go so fast, so straight ahead, with such staring,

staring eyes? And what was that scratching, scraping, grating sound

which it brought with it?

The Persian and Raoul could retreat no farther and flattened

themselves against the wall, not knowing what was going to happen

because of that incomprehensible head of fire, and especially now,

because of the more intense, swarming, living, "numerous" sound,

for the sound was certainly made up of hundreds of little sounds

that moved in the darkness, under the fiery face.

And the fiery face came on...with its noise...came level

with them!...

And the two companions, flat against their wall, felt their hair

stand on end with horror, for they now knew what the thousand

noises meant. They came in a troop, hustled along in the shadow

by innumerable little hurried waves, swifter than the waves

that rush over the sands at high tide, little night-waves foaming

under the moon, under the fiery head that was like a moon.

And the little waves passed between their legs, climbing up

their legs, irresistibly, and Raoul and the Persian could no

longer restrain their cries of horror, dismay and pain. Nor could

they continue to hold their hands at the level of their eyes:

their hands went down to their legs to push back the waves,

which were full of little legs and nails and claws and teeth.

Yes, Raoul and the Persian were ready to faint, like Pampin the fireman.

But the head of fire turned round in answer to their cries,

and spoke to them:

"Don't move! Don't move!...Whatever you do, don't come after me!

... I am the rat-catcher!...Let me pass, with my rats!..."

And the head of fire disappeared, vanished in the darkness,

while the passage in front of it lit up, as the result of the change

which the rat-catcher had made in his dark lantern. Before, so as not

to scare the rats in front of him, he had turned his dark lantern

on himself, lighting up his own head; now, to hasten their flight,

he lit the dark space in front of him. And he jumped along,

dragging with him the waves of scratching rats, all the thousand sounds.

Raoul and the Persian breathed again, though still trembling.

"I ought to have remembered that Erik talked to me about the rat-catcher,"

said the Persian. "But he never told me that he looked like that...

and it's funny that I should never have met him before....

Of course, Erik never comes to this part!"

{two page color illustration}

"Are we very far from the lake, sir?" asked Raoul. "When shall we

get there?...Take me to the lake, oh, take me to the lake!...

When we are at the lake, we will call out!...Christine will

hear us!...And HE will hear us, too!...And, as you know him,

we shall talk to him!" "Baby!" said the Persian. "We shall never

enter the house on the lake by the lake!...I myself have never

landed on the other bank...the bank on which the house stands.

...You have to cross the lake first...and it is well guarded!

...I fear that more than one of those men--old scene-shifters,

old door-shutters--who have never been seen again were simply tempted

to cross the lake....It is terrible....I myself would have

been nearly killed there...if the monster had not recognized me

in time!...One piece of advice, sir; never go near the lake.

...And, above all, shut your ears if you hear the voice singing

under the water, the siren's voice!"

"But then, what are we here for?" asked Raoul, in a transport of fever,

impatience and rage. "If you can do nothing for Christine, at least

let me die for her!" The Persian tried to calm the young man.

"We have only one means of saving Christine Daae, believe me,

which is to enter the house unperceived by the monster."

"And is there any hope of that, sir?"

"Ah, if I had not that hope, I would not have come to fetch you!"

"And how can one enter the house on the lake without crossing

the lake?"

"From the third cellar, from which we were so unluckily driven away.

We will go back there now....I will tell you," said the Persian,

with a sudden change in his voice, "I will tell you the exact

place, sir: it is between a set piece and a discarded scene from

ROI DE LAHORE, exactly at the spot where Joseph Buquet died.

... Come, sir, take courage and follow me! And hold your hand

at the level of your eyes!...But where are we?"

The Persian lit his lamp again and flung its rays down two enormous

corridors that crossed each other at right angles.

"We must be," he said, "in the part used more particularly

for the waterworks. I see no fire coming from the furnaces."

He went in front of Raoul, seeking his road, stopping abruptly

when he was afraid of meeting some waterman. Then they had to

protect themselves against the glow of a sort of underground forge,

which the men were extinguishing, and at which Raoul recognized

the demons whom Christine had seen at the time of her first captivity.

In this way, they gradually arrived beneath the huge cellars below

the stage. They must at this time have been at the very bottom

of the "tub" and at an extremely great depth, when we remember

that the earth was dug out at fifty feet below the water that lay

under the whole of that part of Paris.[6]

----

[6] All the water had to be exhausted, in the building of the Opera.

To give an idea of the amount of water that was pumped up, I can

tell the reader that it represented the area of the courtyard

of the Louvre and a height half as deep again as the towers of

Notre Dame. And nevertheless the engineers had to leave a lake.

The Persian touched a partition-wall and said:

"If I am not mistaken, this is a wall that might easily belong

to the house on the lake."

He was striking a partition-wall of the "tub," and perhaps it would be

as well for the reader to know how the bottom and the partition-walls

of the tub were built. In order to prevent the water surrounding

the building-operations from remaining in immediate contact

with the walls supporting the whole of the theatrical machinery,

the architect was obliged to build a double case in every direction.

The work of constructing this double case took a whole year.

It was the wall of the first inner case that the Persian struck

when speaking to Raoul of the house on the lake. To any one

understanding the architecture of the edifice, the Persian's

action would seem to indicate that Erik's mysterious house had

been built in the double case, formed of a thick wall constructed

as an embankment or dam, then of a brick wall, a tremendous

layer of cement and another wall several yards in thickness.

At the Persian's words, Raoul flung himself against the wall

and listened eagerly. But he heard nothing...nothing

... except distant steps sounding on the floor of the upper

portions of the theater.

The Persian darkened his lantern again.

"Look out!" he said. "Keep your hand up! And silence! For we

shall try another way of getting in."

And he led him to the little staircase by which they had come

down lately.

They went up, stopping at each step, peering into the darkness

and the silence, till they came to the third cellar. Here the

Persian motioned to Raoul to go on his knees; and, in this way,

crawling on both knees and one hand--for the other hand was held

in the position indicated--they reached the end wall.

Against this wall stood a large discarded scene from the ROI DE LAHORE.

Close to this scene was a set piece. Between the scene and the set

piece there was just room for a body...for a body which one day

was found hanging there. The body of Joseph Buquet.

The Persian, still kneeling, stopped and listened. For a moment,

he seemed to hesitate and looked at Raoul; then he turned his

eyes upward, toward the second cellar, which sent down the faint

glimmer of a lantern, through a cranny between two boards.

This glimmer seemed to trouble the Persian.

At last, he tossed his head and made up his mind to act. He slipped

between the set piece and the scene from the ROI DE LAHORE, with Raoul

close upon his heels. With his free hand, the Persian felt the wall.

Raoul saw him bear heavily upon the wall, just as he had pressed

against the wall in Christine's dressing-room. Then a stone gave way,

leaving a hole in the wall.

This time, the Persian took his pistol from his pocket and made

a sign to Raoul to do as he did. He cocked the pistol.

And, resolutely, still on his knees, he wiggled through the hole

in the wall. Raoul, who had wished to pass first, had to be content

to follow him.

The hole was very narrow. The Persian stopped almost at once.

Raoul heard him feeling the stones around him. Then the Persian took

out his dark lantern again, stooped forward, examined something beneath

him and immediately extinguished his lantern. Raoul heard him say,

in a whisper:

"We shall have to drop a few yards, without making a noise;

take off your boots."

The Persian handed his own shoes to Raoul.

"Put them outside the wall," he said. "We shall find them there

when we leave."[7]

----

[7] These two pairs of boots, which were placed, according to the Persian's

papers, just between the set piece and the scene from the ROI DE LAHORE,

on the spot where Joseph Buquet was found hanging, were never discovered.

They must have been taken by some stage-carpenter or "door-shutter."

He crawled a little farther on his knees, then turned right round

and said:

"I am going to hang by my hands from the edge of the stone and

let myself drop INTO HIS HOUSE. You must do exactly the same.

Do not be afraid. I will catch you in my arms."

Raoul soon heard a dull sound, evidently produced by the fall

of the Persian, and then dropped down.

He felt himself clasped in the Persian's arms.

"Hush!" said the Persian.

And they stood motionless, listening.

The darkness was thick around them, the silence heavy and terrible.

Then the Persian began to make play with the dark lantern again,

turning the rays over their heads, looking for the hole through

which they had come, and failing to find it:

"Oh!" he said. "The stone has closed of itself!"

And the light of the lantern swept down the wall and over the floor.

The Persian stooped and picked up something, a sort of cord,

which he examined for a second and flung away with horror.

"The Punjab lasso!" he muttered.

"What is it?" asked Raoul.

The Persian shivered. "It might very well be the rope by which

the man was hanged, and which was looked for so long."

And, suddenly seized with fresh anxiety, he moved the little red disk

of his lantern over the walls. In this way, he lit up a curious thing:

the trunk of a tree, which seemed still quite alive, with its leaves;

and the branches of that tree ran right up the walls and disappeared

in the ceiling.

Because of the smallness of the luminous disk, it was difficult

at first to make out the appearance of things: they saw a corner

of a branch...and a leaf...and another leaf...and,

next to it, nothing at all, nothing but the ray of light

that seemed to reflect itself....Raoul passed his hand over

that nothing, over that reflection.

"Hullo!" he said. "The wall is a looking-glass!"

"Yes, a looking-glass!" said the Persian, in a tone of deep emotion.

And, passing the hand that held the pistol over his moist forehead,

he added, "We have dropped into the torture-chamber!"

What the Persian knew of this torture-chamber and what there befell

him and his companion shall be told in his own words, as set down

in a manuscript which he left behind him, and which I copy VERBATIM.

Chapter XXI Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a

Persian in the Cellars of the Opera

THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE

It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake.

I had often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik

in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused.

I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance.

Watch him as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up

his permanent abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick

to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake.

One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat

and rowed toward that part of the wall through which I had seen

Erik disappear. It was then that I came into contact with the siren

who guarded the approach and whose charm was very nearly fatal

to me.

I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I

floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing

that hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music;

it rose softly from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it

through I knew not what artifice. It followed me, moved with me

and was so soft that it did not alarm me. On the contrary, in my

longing to approach the source of that sweet and enticing harmony,

I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt

in my mind that the singing came from the water itself. By this time,

I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake; the voice--

for it was now distinctly a voice--was beside me, on the water.

I leaned over, leaned still farther. The lake was perfectly calm,

and a moonbeam that passed through the air hole in the Rue Scribe

showed me absolutely nothing on its surface, which was smooth and

black as ink. I shook my ears to get rid of a possible humming;

but I soon had to accept the fact that there was no humming in

the ears so harmonious as the singing whisper that followed and now

attracted me.

Had I been inclined to superstition, I should have certainly thought

that I had to do with some siren whose business it was to confound

the traveler who should venture on the waters of the house on

the lake. Fortunately, I come from a country where we are too

fond of fantastic things not to know them through and through;

and I had no doubt but that I was face to face with some new

invention of Erik's. But this invention was so perfect that,

as I leaned out of the boat, I was impelled less by a desire

to discover its trick than to enjoy its charm; and I leaned out,

leaned out until I almost overturned the boat.

Suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters

and seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths

with irresistible force. I should certainly have been lost,

if I had not had time to give a cry by which Erik knew me.

For it was he; and, instead of drowning me, as was certainly

his first intention, he swam with me and laid me gently on the bank:

"How imprudent you are!" he said, as he stood before me, dripping with water.

"Why try to enter my house? I never invited you! I don't want you there,

nor anybody! Did you save my life only to make it unbearable to me?

However great the service you rendered him, Erik may end by forgetting

it; and you know that nothing can restrain Erik, not even Erik himself."

He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already

called the trick of the siren. He satisfied my curiosity, for Erik,

who is a real monster--I have seen him at work in Persia, alas--is also,

in certain respects, a regular child, vain and self-conceited,

and there is nothing he loves so much, after astonishing people,

as to prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind.

He laughed and showed me a long reed.

"It's the silliest trick you ever saw," he said, "but it's very useful for

breathing and singing in the water. I learned it from the Tonkin pirates,

who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the rivers."[8]

----

[8] An official report from Tonkin, received in Paris at the end

of July, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief De Tham

was tracked, together with his men, by our soldiers; and how

all of them succeeded in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds.

I spoke to him severely.

"It's a trick that nearly killed me!" I said. "And it may have

been fatal to others! You know what you promised me, Erik?

No more murders!"

"Have I really committed murders?" he asked, putting on his most

amiable air.

"Wretched man!" I cried. "Have you forgotten the rosy hours

of Mazenderan?"

"Yes," he replied, in a sadder tone, "I prefer to forget them.

I used to make the little sultana laugh, though!"

"All that belongs to the past," I declared; "but there is the present

... and you are responsible to me for the present, because,

if I had wished, there would have been none at all for you.

Remember that, Erik: I saved your life!"

And I took advantage of the turn of conversation to speak to him

of something that had long been on my mind:

"Erik," I asked, "Erik, swear that..."

"What?" he retorted. "You know I never keep my oaths. Oaths are

made to catch gulls with."

"Tell me...you can tell me, at any rate. ..."

"Well?"

"Well, the chandelier...the chandelier, Erik?..."

"What about the chandelier?"

"You know what I mean."

"Oh," he sniggered, "I don't mind telling you about the chandelier!

...IT WASN'T I!...The chandelier was very old and worn."

When Erik laughed, he was more terrible than ever. He jumped into

the boat, chuckling so horribly that I could not help trembling.

"Very old and worn, my dear daroga![9] Very old and worn,

the chandelier!...It fell of itself!...It came down

with a smash!...And now, daroga, take my advice and go

and dry yourself, or you'll catch a cold in the head!...

And never get into my boat again....And, whatever you do,

don't try to enter my house: I'm not always there...daroga!

And I should be sorry to have to dedicate my Requiem Mass to you!"

----

[9] DAROGA is Persian for chief of police.

So saying, swinging to and fro, like a monkey, and still chuckling,

he pushed off and soon disappeared in the darkness of the lake.

From that day, I gave up all thought of penetrating into his

house by the lake. That entrance was obviously too well guarded,

especially since he had learned that I knew about it. But I felt

that there must be another entrance, for I had often seen Erik

disappear in the third cellar, when I was watching him, though I

could not imagine how.

Ever since I had discovered Erik installed in the Opera, I lived

in a perpetual terror of his horrible fancies, not in so far as I

was concerned, but I dreaded everything for others.[10]

----

[10] The Persian might easily have admitted that Erik's fate also

interested himself, for he was well aware that, if the government

of Teheran had learned that Erik was still alive, it would have

been all up with the modest pension of the erstwhile daroga.

It is only fair, however, to add that the Persian had a noble and

generous heart; and I do not doubt for a moment that the catastrophes

which he feared for others greatly occupied his mind. His conduct,

throughout this business, proves it and is above all praise.

And whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always

thought to myself, "I should not be surprised if that were Erik,"

even as others used to say, "It's the ghost!" How often have I

not heard people utter that phrase with a smile! Poor devils!

If they had known that the ghost existed in the flesh, I swear they

would not have laughed!

Although Erik 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 sentence that, at first, perplexed me most terribly--

I could not help shuddering when I thought of the monster.

His horrible, unparalleled and repulsive ugliness put him without

the pale of humanity; and it often seemed to me that, for this reason,

he no longer believed that he had any duty toward the human race.

The way in which he spoke of his love affairs only increased my alarm,

for I foresaw the cause of fresh and more hideous tragedies in this

event to which he alluded so boastfully.

On the other hand, I soon discovered the curious moral traffic

established between the monster and Christine Daae. Hiding in

the lumber-room next to the young prima donna's dressing-room,

I listened to wonderful musical displays that evidently flung Christine

into marvelous ecstasy; but, all the same, I would never have thought

that Erik's voice--which was loud as thunder or soft as angels' voices,

at will--could have made her forget his ugliness. I understood all when

I learned that Christine had not yet seen him! I had occasion to go

to the dressing-room and, remembering the lessons he had once

given me, I had no difficulty in discovering the trick that made

the wall with the mirror swing round and I ascertained the means

of hollow bricks and so on--by which he made his voice carry

to Christine as though she heard it close beside her. In this way

also I discovered the road that led to the well and the dungeon--

the Communists' dungeon--and also the trap-door that enabled Erik

to go straight to the cellars below the stage.

A few days later, what was not my amazement to learn by my own eyes

and ears that Erik and Christine Daae saw each other and to catch

the monster stooping over the little well, in the Communists'

road and sprinkling the forehead of Christine Daae, who had fainted.

A white horse, the horse out of the PROFETA, which had disappeared

from the stables under the Opera, was standing quietly beside them.

I showed myself. It was terrible. I saw sparks fly from those yellow

eyes and, before I had time to say a word, I received a blow on

the head that stunned me.

When I came to myself, Erik, Christine and the white horse had disappeared.

I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the house on

the lake. Without hesitation, I resolved to return to the bank,

notwithstanding the attendant danger. For twenty-four hours, I lay

in wait for the monster to appear; for I felt that he must go out,

driven by the need of obtaining provisions. And, in this connection,

I may say, that, when he went out in the streets or ventured to show

himself in public, he wore a pasteboard nose, with a mustache

attached to it, instead of his own horrible hole of a nose.

This did not quite take away his corpse-like air, but it made

him almost, I say almost, endurable to look at.

I therefore watched on the bank of the lake and, weary of long waiting,

was beginning to think that he had gone through the other door,

the door in the third cellar, when I heard a slight splashing in

the dark, I saw the two yellow eyes shining like candles and soon

the boat touched shore. Erik jumped out and walked up to me:

"You've been here for twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're

annoying me. I tell you, all this will end very badly. And you

will have brought it upon yourself; for I have been extraordinarily

patient with you. You think you are following me, you great booby,

whereas it's I who am following you; and I know all that you know

about me, here. I spared you yesterday, in MY COMMUNISTS' ROAD;

but I warn you, seriously, don't let me catch you there again!

Upon my word, you don't seem able to take a hint!"

He was so furious that I did not think, for the moment,

of interrupting him. After puffing and blowing like a walrus,

he put his horrible thought into words:

"Yes, you must learn, once and for all--once and for all, I say--

to take a hint! I tell you that, with your recklessness--for you

have already been twice arrested by the shade in the felt hat,

who did not know what you were doing in the cellars and took you to

the managers, who looked upon you as an eccentric Persian interested

in stage mechanism and life behind the scenes: I know all about it,

I was there, in the office; you know I am everywhere--well, I tell

you that, with your recklessness, they will end by wondering what

you are after here...and they will end by knowing that you

are after Erik...and then they will be after Erik themselves

and they will discover the house on the lake....If they do,

it will be a bad lookout for you, old chap, a bad lookout!...

I won't answer for anything."

Again he puffed and blew like a walrus.

"I won't answer for anything!...If Erik's secrets cease to be

Erik's secrets, IT WILL BE A BAD LOOKOUT FOR A GOODLY NUMBER

OF THE HUMAN RACE! That's all I have to tell you, and unless you

are a great booby, it ought to be enough for you...except

that you don't know how to take a hint."

He had sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his

heels against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer.

I simply said:

"It's not Erik that I'm after here!"

"Who then?"

"You know as well as I do: it's Christine Daae," I answered.

He retorted: "I have every right to see her in my own house.

I am loved for my own sake."

"That's not true," I said. "You have carried her off and are

keeping her locked up."

"Listen," he said. "Will you promise never to meddle with my

affairs again, if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake?"

"Yes, I promise you," I replied, without hesitation, for I felt

convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.

"Well, then, it's quite simple....Christine Daae shall leave

this as she pleases and come back again!...Yes, come back again,

because she wishes...come back of herself, because she loves me

for myself!..."

"Oh, I doubt if she will come back!...But it is your duty to let

her go." "My duty, you great booby!...It is my wish...

my wish to let her go; and she will come back again...for she

loves me!...All this will end in a marriage...a marriage

at the Madeleine, you great booby! Do you believe me now?

When I tell you that my nuptial mass is written...wait till

you hear the KYRIE. ..."

He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang:

"KYRIE!...KYRIE!...KYRIE ELEISON!...Wait till you hear,

wait till you hear that mass."

"Look here," I said. "I shall believe you if I see Christine Daae

come out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord."

"And you won't meddle any more in my affairs?"

"No."

"Very well, you shall see that to-night. Come to the masked ball.

Christine and I will go and have a look round. Then you can hide

in the lumber-room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone

to her dressing-room, delighted to come back by the Communists' road.

...And, now, be off, for I must go and do some shopping!"

To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced.

Christine Daae left the house on the lake and returned to it

several times, without, apparently, being forced to do so. It was

very difficult for me to clear my mind of Erik. However, I resolved

to be extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning

to the shore of the lake, or of going by the Communists' road.

But the idea of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me,

and I repeatedly went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roi

de Lahore, which had been left there for some reason or other.

At last my patience was rewarded. One day, I saw the monster come

toward me, on his knees. I was certain that he could not see me.

He passed between the scene behind which I stood and a set piece,

went to the wall and pressed on a spring that moved a stone and

afforded him an ingress. He passed through this, and the stone closed

behind him.

I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring

in my turn. Everything happened as with Erik. But I was careful

not to go through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside.

On the other hand, the idea that I might be caught by Erik suddenly

made me think of the death of Joseph Buquet. I did not wish

to jeopardize the advantages of so great a discovery which might

be useful to many people, "to a goodly number of the human race,"

in Erik's words; and I left the cellars of the Opera after carefully

replacing the stone.

I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik

and Christine Daae, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of

the terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Erik was capable

of anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his

own sake, as he imagined. I continued to wander, very cautiously,

about the Opera and soon learned the truth about the monster's

dreary love-affair.

He filled Christine's mind, through the terror with which he

inspired her, but the dear child's heart belonged wholly to the

Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. While they played about, like an innocent

engaged couple, on the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster,

they little suspected that some one was watching over them.

I was prepared to do anything: to kill the monster, if necessary,

and explain to the police afterward. But Erik did not show himself;

and I felt none the more comfortable for that.

I must explain my whole plan. I thought that the monster,

being driven from his house by jealousy, would thus enable me to

enter it, without danger, through the passage in the third cellar.

It was important, for everybody's sake, that I should know exactly

what was inside. One day, tired of waiting for an opportunity,

I moved the stone and at once heard an astounding music:

the monster was working at his Don Juan Triumphant, with every door

in his house wide open. I knew that this was the work of his life.

I was careful not to stir and remained prudently in my dark hole.

He stopped playing, for a moment, and began walking about his place,

like a madman. And he said aloud, at the top of his voice:

"It must be finished FIRST! Quite finished!"

This speech was not calculated to reassure me and, when the

music recommenced, I closed the stone very softly.

On the day of the abduction of Christine Daae, I did not come

to the theater until rather late in the evening, trembling lest I

should hear bad news. I had spent a horrible day, for, after reading

in a morning paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage

between Christine and the Vicomte de Chagny, I wondered whether,

after all, I should not do better to denounce the monster.

But reason returned to me, and I was persuaded that this action

could only precipitate a possible catastrophe.

When, my cab set me down before the Opera, I was really almost

astonished to see it still standing! But I am something of a fatalist,

like all good Orientals, and I entered ready, for anything.

Christine Daae's abduction in the Prison Act, which naturally

surprised everybody, found me prepared. I was quite certain

that she had been juggled away by Erik, that prince of conjurers.

And I thought positively that this was the end of Christine and perhaps

of everybody, so much so that I thought of advising all these people

who were staying on at the theater to make good their escape.

I felt, however, that they would be sure to look upon me as mad

and I refrained.

On the other hand, I resolved to act without further delay,

as far as I was concerned. The chances were in my favor that Erik,

at that moment, was thinking only of his captive. This was the

moment to enter his house through the third cellar; and I resolved

to take with me that poor little desperate viscount, who, at the

first suggestion, accepted, with an amount of confidence in myself

that touched me profoundly. I had sent my servant for my pistols.

I gave one to the viscount and advised him to hold himself ready

to fire, for, after all, Erik might be waiting for us behind the wall.

We were to go by the Communists' road and through the trap-door.

Seeing my pistols, the little viscount asked me if we were going

to fight a duel. I said:

"Yes; and what a duel!" But, of course, I had no time to explain

anything to him. The little viscount is a brave fellow, but he

knew hardly anything about his adversary; and it was so much

the better. My great fear was that he was already somewhere near us,

preparing the Punjab lasso. No one knows better than he how to throw

the Punjab lasso, for he is the king of stranglers even as he is

the prince of conjurors. When he had finished making the little

sultana laugh, at the time of the "rosy hours of Mazenderan,"

she herself used to ask him to amuse her by giving her a thrill.

It was then that he introduced the sport of the Punjab lasso.

He had lived in India and acquired an incredible skill in the art

of strangulation. He would make them lock him into a courtyard

to which they brought a warrior--usually, a man condemned to death--

armed with a long pike and broadsword. Erik had only his lasso;

and it was always just when the warrior thought that he was going

to fell Erik with a tremendous blow that we heard the lasso whistle

through the air. With a turn of the wrist, Erik tightened the noose

round his adversary's neck and, in this fashion, dragged him before

the little sultana and her women, who sat looking from a window

and applauding. The little sultana herself learned to wield the Punjab

lasso and killed several of her women and even of the friends who

visited her. But I prefer to drop this terrible subject of the rosy

hours of Mazenderan. I have mentioned it only to explain why,

on arriving with the Vicomte de Chagny in the cellars of the Opera,

I was bound to protect my companion against the ever-threatening

danger of death by strangling. My pistols could serve no purpose,

for Erik was not likely to show himself; but Erik could always

strangle us. I had no time to explain all this to the viscount;

besides, there was nothing to be gained by complicating the position.

I simply told M. de Chagny to keep his hand at the level of his eyes,

with the arm bent, as though waiting for the command to fire.

With his victim in this attitude, it is impossible even for

the most expert strangler to throw the lasso with advantage.

It catches you not only round the neck, but also round the arm

or hand. This enables you easily to unloose the lasso, which then

becomes harmless.

After avoiding the commissary of police, a number of door-shutters

and the firemen, after meeting the rat-catcher and passing the man

in the felt hat unperceived, the viscount and I arrived without

obstacle in the third cellar, between the set piece and the scene

from the Roi de Lahore. I worked the stone, and we jumped

into the house which Erik had built himself in the double case

of the foundation-walls of the Opera. And this was the easiest

thing in the world for him to do, because Erik was one of the chief

contractors under Philippe Garnier, the architect of the Opera,

and continued to work by himself when the works were officially

suspended, during the war, the siege of Paris and the Commune.

I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping into

his house. I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Mazenderan.

From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it

into a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word

but it was overheard or repeated by an echo. With his trap-doors

the monster was responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds.

He hit upon astonishing inventions. Of these, the most curious,

horrible and dangerous was the so-called torture-chamber. Except

in special cases, when the little sultana amused herself by inflicting

suffering upon some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it

but wretches condemned to death. And, even then, when these had

"had enough," they were always at liberty to put an end to themselves

with a Punjab lasso or bowstring, left for their use at the foot

of an iron tree.

My alarm, therefore, was great when I saw that the room into

which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I had dropped was an exact

copy of the torture-chamber of the rosy hours of Mazenderan.

At our feet, I found the Punjab lasso which I had been dreading

all the evening. I was convinced that this rope had already done

duty for Joseph Buquet, who, like myself, must have caught Erik one

evening working the stone in the third cellar. He probably tried it

in his turn, fell into the torture-chamber and only left it hanged.

I can well imagine Erik dragging the body, in order to get rid of it,

to the scene from the Roi de Lahore, and hanging it there as an example,

or to increase the superstitious terror that was to help him

in guarding the approaches to his lair! Then, upon reflection,

Erik went back to fetch the Punjab lasso, which is very curiously

made out of catgut, and which might have set an examining

magistrate thinking. This explains the disappearance of the rope.

And now I discovered the lasso, at our feet, in the torture-chamber!

... I am no coward, but a cold sweat covered my forehead as I

moved the little red disk of my lantern over the walls.

M. de Chagny noticed it and asked:

"What is the matter, sir?"

I made him a violent sign to be silent.

Chapter XXII In the Torture Chamber

THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

We were in the middle of a little six-cornered room, the sides

of which were covered with mirrors from top to bottom.

In the corners, we could clearly see the "joins" in the glasses,

the segments intended to turn on their gear; yes, I recognized

them and I recognized the iron tree in the corner, at the bottom

of one of those segments...the iron tree, with its iron branch,

for the hanged men.

I seized my companion's arm: the Vicomte de Chagny was all a-quiver,

eager to shout to his betrothed that he was bringing her help.

I feared that he would not be able to contain himself.

Suddenly, we heard a noise on our left. It sounded at first

like a door opening and shutting in the next room; and then there

was a dull moan. I clutched M. de Chagny's arm more firmly still;

and then we distinctly heard these words:

"You must make your choice! The wedding mass or the requiem mass!"

I recognized the voice of the monster.

There was another moan, followed by a long silence.

I was persuaded by now that the monster was unaware of our presence

in his house, for otherwise he would certainly have managed not

to let us hear him. He would only have had to close the little

invisible window through which the torture-lovers look down into

the torture-chamber. Besides, I was certain that, if he had known

of our presence, the tortures would have begun at once.

The important thing was not to let him know; and I dreaded

nothing so much as the impulsiveness of the Vicomte de Chagny,

who wanted to rush through the walls to Christine Daae, whose moans

we continued to hear at intervals.

"The requiem mass is not at all gay," Erik's voice resumed,

"whereas the wedding mass--you can take my word for it--is magnificent!

You must take a resolution and know your own mind! I can't go

on living like this, like a mole in a burrow! Don Juan Triumphant

is finished; and now I want to live like everybody else. I want

to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays.

I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not

even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women.

And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight.

You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked.

Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself.

If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do

anything with me that you pleased."

Soon the moans that accompanied this sort of love's litany increased

and increased. I have never heard anything more despairing;

and M. de Chagny and I recognized that this terrible lamentation came

from Erik himself. Christine seemed to be standing dumb with horror,

without the strength to cry out, while the monster was on his knees

before her.

Three times over, Erik fiercely bewailed his fate:

"You don't love me! You don't love me! You don't love me!"

And then, more gently:

"Why do you cry? You know it gives me pain to see you cry!"

A silence.

Each silence gave us fresh hope. We said to ourselves:

"Perhaps he has left Christine behind the wall."

And we thought only of the possibility of warning Christine Daae

of our presence, unknown to the monster. We were unable to leave

the torture-chamber now, unless Christine opened the door to us;

and it was only on this condition that we could hope to help her,

for we did not even know where the door might be.

Suddenly, the silence in the next room was disturbed by the ringing

of an electric bell. There was a bound on the other side of the wall

and Erik's voice of thunder:

"Somebody ringing! Walk in, please!"

A sinister chuckle.

"Who has come bothering now? Wait for me here....I AM GOING

TO TELL THE SIREN TO OPEN THE DOOR."

Steps moved away, a door closed. I had no time to think of the fresh

horror that was preparing; I forgot that the monster was only going

out perhaps to perpetrate a fresh crime; I understood but one thing:

Christine was alone behind the wall!

The Vicomte de Chagny was already calling to her:

"Christine! Christine!"

As we could hear what was said in the next room, there was

no reason why my companion should not be heard in his turn.

Nevertheless, the viscount had to repeat his cry time after time.

At last, a faint voice reached us.

"I am dreaming!" it said.

"Christine, Christine, it is I, Raoul!"

A silence.

"But answer me, Christine!...In Heaven's name, if you are alone,

answer me!"

Then Christine's voice whispered Raoul's name.

"Yes! Yes! It is I! It is not a dream!...Christine,

trust me!...We are here to save you...but be prudent!

When you hear the monster, warn us!"

Then Christine gave way to fear. She trembled lest Erik should

discover where Raoul was hidden; she told us in a few hurried words

that Erik had gone quite mad with love and that he had decided TO

KILL EVERYBODY AND HIMSELF WITH EVERYBODY if she did not consent

to become his wife. He had given her till eleven o'clock the next

evening for reflection. It was the last respite. She must choose,

as he said, between the wedding mass and the requiem.

And Erik had then uttered a phrase which Christine did not

quite understand:

"Yes or no! If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"

But I understood the sentence perfectly, for it corresponded

in a terrible manner with my own dreadful thought.

"Can you tell us where Erik is?" I asked.

She replied that he must have left the house.

"Could you make sure?"

"No. I am fastened. I can not stir a limb."

When we heard this, M. de Chagny and I gave a yell of fury.

Our safety, the safety of all three of us, depended on the girl's

liberty of movement.

"But where are you?" asked Christine. "There are only two doors

in my room, the Louis-Philippe room of which I told you, Raoul; a door

through which Erik comes and goes, and another which he has never

opened before me and which he has forbidden me ever to go through,

because he says it is the most dangerous of the doors, the door

of the torture-chamber!"

"Christine, that is where we are!"

"You are in the torture-chamber?"

"Yes, but we can not see the door."

"Oh, if I could only drag myself so far! I would knock at the door

and that would tell you where it is."

"Is it a door with a lock to it?" I asked.

"Yes, with a lock."

"Mademoiselle," I said, "it is absolutely necessary, that you

should open that door to us!"

"But how?" asked the poor girl tearfully.

We heard her straining, trying to free herself from the bonds

that held her.

"I know where the key is," she said, in a voice that seemed exhausted

by the effort she had made. "But I am fastened so tight....Oh,

the wretch!"

And she gave a sob.

"Where is the key?" I asked, signing to M. de Chagny not to speak

and to leave the business to me, for we had not a moment to lose.

"In the next room, near 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 bag of life and death.

... Raoul! Raoul! Fly! Everything is mysterious and

terrible here, and Erik will soon have gone quite mad, and you

are in the torture-chamber!...Go back by the way you came.

There must be a reason why the room is called by that name!"

"Christine," said the young man. "we will go from here together

or die together!"

"We must keep cool," I whispered. "Why has he fastened you,

mademoiselle? You can't escape from his house; and he knows it!"

"I tried to commit suicide! The monster went out last night,

after carrying me here fainting and half chloroformed. He was

going TO HIS BANKER, so he said!...When he returned he found

me with my face covered with blood....I had tried to kill

myself by striking my forehead against the walls."

"Christine!" groaned Raoul; and he began to sob.

"Then he bound me....I am not allowed to die until eleven

o'clock to-morrow evening."

"Mademoiselle," I declared, "the monster bound you...and he

shall unbind you. You have only to play the necessary part!

Remember that he loves you!"

"Alas!" we heard. "Am I likely to forget it!"

"Remember it and smile to him...entreat him...tell him

that your bonds hurt you."

But Christine Daae said:

"Hush!...I hear something in the wall on the lake!...It

is he!...Go away! Go away! Go away!"

"We could not go away, even if we wanted to," I said, as impressively

as I could. "We can not leave this! And we are in the torture-chamber!"

"Hush!" whispered Christine again.

Heavy steps sounded slowly behind the wall, then stopped and made

the floor creak once more. Next came a tremendous sigh, followed by

a cry of horror from Christine, and we heard Erik's voice:

"I beg your pardon for letting you see a face like this!

What a state I am in, am I not? It's THE OTHER ONE'S FAULT!

Why did he ring? Do I ask people who pass to tell me the time?

He will never ask anybody the time again! It is the siren's fault."

{two page color illustration}

Another sigh, deeper, more tremendous still, came from the abysmal

depths of a soul.

"Why did you cry out, Christine?"

"Because I am in pain, Erik."

"I thought I had frightened you."

"Erik, unloose my bonds....Am I not your prisoner?"

"You will try to kill yourself again."

"You have given me till eleven o'clock to-morrow evening, Erik."

The footsteps dragged along the floor again.

"After all, as we are to die together...and I am just as eager

as you...yes, I have had enough of this life, you know.

...Wait, don't move, I will release you....You have only

one word to say: `NO!' And it will at once be over WITH EVERYBODY!

...You are right, you are right; why wait till eleven o'clock

to-morrow evening? True, it would have been grander, finer....But

that is childish nonsense....We should only think of ourselves

in this life, of our own death...the rest doesn't matter.

...YOU'RE LOOKING AT ME BECAUSE I AM ALL WET?... Oh,

my dear, it's raining cats and dogs outside!...Apart from that,

Christine, I think I am subject to hallucinations....You know,

the man who rang at the siren's door just now--go and look if he's

ringing at the bottom of the lake-well, he was rather like.

...There, turn round...are you glad? You're free now.

...Oh, my poor Christine, look at your wrists: tell me, have I

hurt them?...That alone deserves death....Talking of death,

I MUST SING HIS REQUIEM!"

Hearing these terrible remarks, I received an awful presentiment

...I too had once rung at the monster's door...and,

without knowing it, must have set some warning current in motion.

And I remembered the two arms that had emerged from the inky waters.

...What poor wretch had strayed to that shore this time?

Who was `the other one,' the one whose requiem we now heard sung?

Erik sang like the god of thunder, sang a DIES IRAE that enveloped

us as in a storm. The elements seemed to rage around us.

Suddenly, the organ and the voice ceased so suddenly that M. de

Chagny sprang back, on the other side of the wall, with emotion.

And the voice, changed and transformed, distinctly grated

out these metallic syllables: "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BAG?"

Chapter XXIII The Tortures Begin

THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED.

The voice repeated angrily: "What have you done with my bag?

So it was to take my bag that you asked me to release you!"

We heard hurried steps, Christine running back to the Louis-Philippe

room, as though to seek shelter on the other side of our wall.

"What are you running away for?" asked the furious voice,

which had followed her. "Give me back my bag, will you?

Don't you know that it is the bag of life and death?"

"Listen to me, Erik," sighed the girl. "As it is settled that we

are to live together...what difference can it make to you?"

"You know there are only two keys in it," said the monster.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to look at this room which I have never seen and which you

have always kept from me....It's woman's curiosity!" she said,

in a tone which she tried to render playful.

But the trick was too childish for Erik to be taken in by it.

"I don't like curious women," he retorted, "and you had better

remember the story of BLUE-BEARD and be careful....Come, give me

back my bag!...Give me back my bag!...Leave the key alone,

will you, you inquisitive little thing?"

And he chuckled, while Christine gave a cry of pain. Erik had

evidently recovered the bag from her.

At that moment, the viscount could not help uttering an exclamation

of impotent rage.

"Why, what's that?" said the monster. "Did you hear, Christine?"

"No, no," replied the poor girl. "I heard nothing."

"I thought I heard a cry."

"A cry! Are you going mad, Erik? Whom do you expect to give a cry,

in this house?...I cried out, because you hurt me! I heard nothing."

"I don't like the way you said that!...You're trembling.

... You're quite excited....You're lying!...That was a cry,

there was a cry!...There is some one in the torture-chamber!...

Ah, I understand now!"

"There is no one there, Erik!"

"I understand!"

"No one!"

"The man you want to marry, perhaps!"

"I don't want to marry anybody, you know I don't."

Another nasty chuckle. "Well, it won't take long to find out.

Christine, my love, we need not open the door to see what is happening

in the torture-chamber. Would you like to see? Would you like

to see? Look here! If there is some one, if there is really some

one there, you will see the invisible window light up at the top,

near the ceiling. We need only draw the black curtain and put out

the light in here. There, that's it....Let's put out the light!

You're not afraid of the dark, when you're with your little husband!"

Then we heard Christine's voice of anguish:

"No!...I'm frightened!...I tell you, I'm afraid of the dark!...

I don't care about that room now....You're always frightening me,

like a child, with your torture-chamber!...And so I became inquisitive.

...But I don't care about it now...not a bit...not a bit!"

And that which I feared above all things began, AUTOMATICALLY.

We were suddenly flooded with light! Yes, on our side of the wall,

everything seemed aglow. The Vicomte de Chagny was so much taken

aback that he staggered. And the angry voice roared:

"I told you there was some one! Do you see the window now?

The lighted window, right up there? The man behind the wall can't

see it! But you shall go up the folding steps: that is what they

are there for!...You have often asked me to tell you; and now you

know!...They are there to give a peep into the torture-chamber

...you inquisitive little thing!"

"What tortures?...Who is being tortured?...Erik, Erik, say you

are only trying to frighten me!...Say it, if you love me,

Erik!...There are no tortures, are there?"

"Go and look at the little window, dear!"

I do not know if the viscount heard the girl's swooning voice,

for he was too much occupied by the astounding spectacle that now

appeared before his distracted gaze. As for me, I had seen that sight

too often, through the little window, at the time of the rosy hours

of Mazenderan; and I cared only for what was being said next door,

seeking for a hint how to act, what resolution to take.

"Go and peep through the little window! Tell me what he looks like!"

We heard the steps being dragged against the wall.

"Up with you!...No!...No, I will go up myself, dear!"

"Oh, very well, I will go up. Let me go!"

"Oh, my darling, my darling!...How sweet of you!...How nice

of you to save me the exertion at my age!...Tell me what he

looks like!"

At that moment, we distinctly heard these words above our heads:

"There is no one there, dear!"

"No one?...Are you sure there is no one?"

"Why, of course not...no one!"

"Well, that's all right!...What's the matter, Christine?

You're not going to faint, are you...as there is no one there?...

Here...come down...there!...Pull yourself together...as there

is no one there!...BUT HOW DO YOU LIKE THE LANDSCAPE?"

"Oh, very much!"

"There, that's better!...You're better now, are you not?...

That's all right, you're better!...No excitement!...And

what a funny house, isn't it, with landscapes like that in it?"

"Yes, it's like the Musee Grevin....But, say, Erik...there

are no tortures in there!...What a fright you gave me!"

"Why...as there is no one there?"

"Did you design that room? It's very handsome. You're a

great artist, Erik."

"Yes, a great artist, in my own line."

"But tell me, Erik, why did you call that room the torture-chamber?"

"Oh, it's very simple. First of all, what did you see?"

"I saw a forest."

"And what is in a forest?"

"Trees."

"And what is in a tree?"

"Birds."

"Did you see any birds?"

"No, I did not see any birds."

"Well, what did you see? Think! You saw branches And what are

the branches?" asked the terrible voice. "THERE'S A GIBBET!

That is why I call my wood the torture-chamber!...You see,

it's all a joke. I never express myself like other people.

But I am very tired of it!...I'm sick and tired of having a forest

and a torture-chamber in my house and of living like a mountebank,

in a house with a false bottom!...I'm tired of it! I want to

have a nice, quiet flat, with ordinary doors and windows and a wife

inside it, like anybody else! A wife whom I could love and take

out on Sundays and keep amused on week-days...Here, shall I show

you some card-tricks? That will help us to pass a few minutes,

while waiting for eleven o'clock to-morrow evening....My dear little

Christine!...Are you listening to me?...Tell me you love me!...

No, you don't love me...but no matter, you will!...Once,

you could not look at my mask because you knew what was behind.

...And now you don't mind looking at it and you forget what is

behind!...One can get used to everything...if one wishes.

...Plenty of young people who did not care for each other

before marriage have adored each other since! Oh, I don't know

what I am talking about! But you would have lots of fun with me.

For instance, I am the greatest ventriloquist that ever lived, I am

the first ventriloquist in the world!...You're laughing....

Perhaps you don't believe me? Listen."

The wretch, who really was the first ventriloquist in the world,

was only trying to divert the child's attention from the torture-chamber;

but it was a stupid scheme, for Christine thought of nothing but us!

She repeatedly besought him, in the gentlest tones which she

could assume:

"Put out the light in the little window!...Erik, do put out

the light in the little window!"

For she saw that this light, which appeared so suddenly and of

which the monster had spoken in so threatening a voice, must mean

something terrible. One thing must have pacified her for a moment;

and that was seeing the two of us, behind the wall, in the midst

of that resplendent light, alive and well. But she would certainly

have felt much easier if the light had been put out.

Meantime, the other had already begun to play the ventriloquist.

He said:

"Here, I raise my mask a little....Oh, only a little!...

You see my lips, such lips as I have? They're not moving!...My

mouth is closed--such mouth as I have--and yet you hear my voice.

...Where will you have it? In your left ear? In your right ear?

In the table? In those little ebony boxes on the mantelpiece?...

Listen, dear, it's in the little box on the right of the mantelpiece:

what does it say? `SHALL I TURN THE SCORPION?'...And now, crack!

What does it say in the little box on the left? `SHALL I TURN

THE GRASSHOPPER?'...And now, crack! Here it is in the little

leather bag....What does it say? `I AM THE LITTLE BAG OF LIFE

AND DEATH!'...And now, crack! It is in Carlotta's throat,

in Carlotta's golden throat, in Carlotta's crystal throat, as I live!

What does it say? It says, `It's I, Mr. Toad, it's I singing!

I FEEL WITHOUT ALARM--CO-ACK--WITH ITS MELODY ENWIND ME--CO-ACK!'...

And now, crack! It is on a chair in the ghost's box and it says,

`MADAME CARLOTTA IS SINGING TO-NIGHT TO BRING THE CHANDELIER DOWN!'

...And now, crack! Aha! Where is Erik's voice now?

Listen, Christine, darling! Listen! It is behind the door of the

torture-chamber! Listen! It's myself in the torture-chamber! And

what do I say? I say, `Woe to them that have a nose, a real nose,

and come to look round the torture-chamber! Aha, aha, aha!'"

Oh, the ventriloquist's terrible voice! It was everywhere, everywhere.

It passed through the little invisible window, through the walls.

It ran around us, between us. Erik was there, speaking to us!

We made a movement as though to fling ourselves upon him.

But, already, swifter, more fleeting than the voice of the echo,

Erik's voice had leaped back behind the wall!

Soon we heard nothing more at all, for this is what happened:

"Erik! Erik!" said Christine's voice. "You tire me with your voice.

Don't go on, Erik! Isn't it very hot here?"

"Oh, yes," replied Erik's voice, "the heat is unendurable!"

"But what does this mean?...The wall is really getting quite

hot!...The wall is burning!"

"I'll tell you, Christine, dear: it is because of the forest

next door."

"Well, what has that to do with it? The forest?"

"WHY, DIDN'T YOU SEE THAT IT WAS AN AFRICAN FOREST?"

And the monster laughed so loudly and hideously that we could no

longer distinguish Christine's supplicating cries! The Vicomte de

Chagny shouted and banged against the walls like a madman. I could

not restrain him. But we heard nothing except the monster's laughter,

and the monster himself can have heard nothing else. And then there

was the sound of a body falling on the floor and being dragged along

and a door slammed and then nothing, nothing more around us save

the scorching silence of the south in the heart of a tropical forest!

Chapter XXIV "Barrels!...Barrels!...Any Barrels to Sell?"

THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

I have said that the room in which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I

were imprisoned was a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors.

Plenty of these rooms have been seen since, mainly at exhibitions:

they are called "palaces of illusion," or some such name.

But the invention belongs entirely to Erik, who built the first

room of this kind under my eyes, at the time of the rosy hours

of Mazenderan. A decorative object, such as a column, for instance,

was placed in one of the corners and immediately produced a hall

of a thousand columns; for, thanks to the mirrors, the real room

was multiplied by six hexagonal rooms, each of which, in its turn,

was multiplied indefinitely. But the little sultana soon tired

of this infantile illusion, whereupon Erik altered his invention

into a "torture-chamber." For the architectural motive placed

in one corner, he substituted an iron tree. This tree, with its

painted leaves, was absolutely true to life and was made of iron

so as to resist all the attacks of the "patient" who was locked into

the torture-chamber. We shall see how the scene thus obtained was twice

altered instantaneously into two successive other scenes, by means

of the automatic rotation of the drums or rollers in the corners.

These were divided into three sections, fitting into the angles

of the mirrors and each supporting a decorative scheme that came into

sight as the roller revolved upon its axis.

The walls of this strange room gave the patient nothing to lay

hold of, because, apart from the solid decorative object, they were

simply furnished with mirrors, thick enough to withstand any onslaught

of the victim, who was flung into the chamber empty-handed and barefoot.

There was no furniture. The ceiling was capable of being lit up.

An ingenious system of electric heating, which has since been imitated,

allowed the temperature of the walls and room to be increased

at will.

I am giving all these details of a perfectly natural invention,

producing, with a few painted branches, the supernatural illusion

of an equatorial forest blazing under the tropical sun, so that no

one may doubt the present balance of my brain or feel entitled

to say that I am mad or lying or that I take him for a fool.[11]

----

[11] It is very natural that, at the time when the Persian was writing,

he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity

on the part of those who were likely to read his narrative.

Nowadays, when we have all seen this sort of room, his precautions

would be superfluous.

I now return to the facts where I left them. When the ceiling lit up

and the forest became visible around us, the viscount's stupefaction

was immense. That impenetrable forest, with its innumerable

trunks and branches, threw him into a terrible state of consternation.

He passed his hands over his forehead, as though to drive away a dream;

his eyes blinked; and, for a moment, he forgot to listen.

I have already said that the sight of the forest did not surprise

me at all; and therefore I listened for the two of us to what was

happening next door. Lastly, my attention was especially attracted,

not so much to the scene, as to the mirrors that produced it.

These mirrors were broken in parts. Yes, they were marked and scratched;

they had been "starred," in spite of their solidity; and this proved

to me that the torture-chamber in which we now were HAD ALREADY

SERVED A PURPOSE.

Yes, some wretch, whose feet were not bare like those of the victims

of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had certainly fallen into this

"mortal illusion" and, mad with rage, had kicked against those

mirrors which, nevertheless, continued to reflect his agony.

And the branch of the tree on which he had put an end to his own

sufferings was arranged in such a way that, before dying, he had seen,

for his last consolation, a thousand men writhing in his company.

Yes, Joseph Buquet had undoubtedly been through all this!

Were we to die as he had done? I did not think so, for I knew

that we had a few hours before us and that I could employ them

to better purpose than Joseph Buquet was able to do. After all,

I was thoroughly acquainted with most of Erik's "tricks;" and now

or never was the time to turn my knowledge to account.

To begin with, I gave up every idea of returning to the passage that

had brought us to that accursed chamber. I did not trouble about

the possibility of working the inside stone that closed the passage;

and this for the simple reason that to do so was out of the question.

We had dropped from too great a height into the torture-chamber;

there was no furniture to help us reach that passage; not even

the branch of the iron tree, not even each other's shoulders were

of any avail.

There was only one possible outlet, that opening into the Louis-Philippe

room in which Erik and Christine Daae were. But, though this outlet looked

like an ordinary door on Christine's side, it was absolutely invisible

to us. We must therefore try to open it without even knowing where it was.

When I was quite sure that there was no hope for us from Christine

Daae's side, when I had heard the monster dragging the poor girl from

the Louis-Philippe room LEST SHE SHOULD INTERFERE WITH OUR TORTURES,

I resolved to set to work without delay.

But I had first to calm M. de Chagny, who was already walking

about like a madman, uttering incoherent cries. The snatches of

conversation which he had caught between Christine and the monster

had contributed not a little to drive him beside himself:

add to that the shock of the magic forest and the scorching heat

which was beginning to make the prespiration{sic} stream down his

temples and you will have no difficulty in understanding his state

of mind. He shouted Christine's name, brandished his pistol,

knocked his forehead against the glass in his endeavors to run

down the glades of the illusive forest. In short, the torture

was beginning to work its spell upon a brain unprepared for it.

I did my best to induce the poor viscount to listen to reason.

I made him touch the mirrors and the iron tree and the branches

and explained to him, by optical laws, all the luminous imagery

by which we were surrounded and of which we need not allow ourselves

to be the victims, like ordinary, ignorant people.

"We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying

to yourself. And we shall leave the room as soon as we have found

the door."

And I promised him that, if he let me act, without disturbing me

by shouting and walking up and down, I would discover the trick

of the door in less than an hour's time.

Then he lay flat on the floor, as one does in a wood, and declared

that he would wait until I found the door of the forest, as there

was nothing better to do! And he added that, from where he was,

"the view was splendid!" The torture was working, in spite of all

that I had said.

Myself, forgetting the forest, I tackled a glass panel and began

to finger it in every direction, hunting for the weak point on which

to press in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system

of pivots. This weak point might be a mere speck on the glass,

no larger than a pea, under which the spring lay hidden.

I hunted and hunted. I felt as high as my hands could reach.

Erik was about the same height as myself and I thought that he would

not have placed the spring higher than suited his stature.

While groping over the successive panels with the greatest care,

I endeavored not to lose a minute, for I was feeling more and more

overcome with the heat and we were literally roasting in that

blazing forest.

I had been working like this for half an hour and had finished

three panels, when, as ill-luck would have it, I turned round

on hearing a muttered exclamation from the viscount.

"I am stifling," he said. "All those mirrors are sending out

an infernal heat! Do you think you will find that spring soon?

If you are much longer about it, we shall be roasted alive!"

I was not sorry to hear him talk like this. He had not said a word

of the forest and I hoped that my companion's reason would hold

out some time longer against the torture. But he added:

"What consoles me is that the monster has given Christine until

eleven to-morrow evening. If we can't get out of here and go

to her assistance, at least we shall be dead before her!

Then Erik's mass can serve for all of us!"

And he gulped down a breath of hot air that nearly made him faint.

As I had not the same desperate reasons as M. le Vicomte for

accepting death, I returned, after giving him a word of encouragement,

to my panel, but I had made the mistake of taking a few steps while

speaking and, in the tangle of the illusive forest, I was no longer

able to find my panel for certain! I had to begin all over again,

at random, feeling, fumbling, groping.

Now the fever laid hold of me in my turn...for I found nothing,

absolutely nothing. In the next room, all was silence. We were

quite lost in the forest, without an outlet, a compass, a guide

or anything. Oh, I knew what awaited us if nobody came to our aid...

or if I did not find the spring! But, look as I might, I found

nothing but branches, beautiful