Chapter XII Apollo's Lyre
On this way, they reached the roof. Christine tripped over it aslightly as a swallow. Their eyes swept the empty space between thethree domes and the triangular pediment. She breathed freely overParis, the whole valley of which was seen at work below. She calledRaoul to come quite close to her and they walked side by side along thezinc streets, in the leaden avenues; they looked at their twin shapesin 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 thetwo children little suspected its presence when they at last sat down,trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo, who, with a greatbronze gesture, lifted his huge lyre to the heart of a crimson sky.
It was a gorgeous spring evening. Clouds, which had just receivedtheir gossamer robe of gold and purple from the setting sun, driftedslowly by; and Christine said to Raoul:
"Soon we shall go farther and faster than the clouds, to the end of theworld, and then you will leave me, Raoul. But, if, when the momentcomes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you--well you mustcarry 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 ademon!" And she shivered and nestled in his arms with a moan. "I amafraid 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! ... ButI can't do it, I can't do it! ... I know one ought to be sorry forpeople who live underground ... But he is too horrible! And yet thetime is at hand; I have only a day left; and, if I do not go, he willcome 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. Andhe 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! Ican 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 atonce!"
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 betoo cruel ... let him hear me sing to-morrow evening ... and then wewill go away. You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room atmidnight exactly. He will then be waiting for me in the dining-room bythe lake ... we shall be free and you shall take me away ... You mustpromise me that, Raoul, even if I refuse; for I feel that, if I go backthis time, I shall perhaps never return."
And she gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh, behindher, 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 theopen air, in the light. The sun is flaming; and night-birds can notbear to look at the sun. I have never seen him by daylight ... it mustbe awful! ... Oh, the first time I saw him! ... I thought that he wasgoing to die."
"Why?" asked Raoul, really frightened at the aspect which this strangeconfidence 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 beenhurt. Did you hear?"
"I can't say," Christine confessed. "Even when he is not there, myears are full of his sighs. Still, if you heard ..."
They stood up and looked around them. They were quite alone on theimmense 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 Iheard it, I thought, as you did, that that adorable voice was singingin 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 findthe voice outside my room, whereas it went on steadily inside. And itnot only sang, but it spoke to me and answered my questions, like areal man's voice, with this difference, that it was as beautiful as thevoice of an angel. I had never got the Angel of Music whom my poorfather had promised to send me as soon as he was dead. I really thinkthat 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 noharm 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 myfather had promised me. From that time onward, the voice and I becamegreat friends. It asked leave to give me lessons every day. I agreedand never failed to keep the appointment which it gave me in mydressing-room. You have no idea, though you have heard the voice, ofwhat 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 thewall and wonderfully accurate. The voice seemed to understand mineexactly, 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 evenfrightened. I seemed to dread a sort of witchcraft behind it; butMamma Valerius reassured me. She said that she knew I was much toosimple a girl to give the devil a hold on me ... My progress, by thevoice's own order, was kept a secret between the voice, Mamma Valeriusand myself. It was a curious thing, but, outside the dressing-room, Isang with my ordinary, every-day voice and nobody noticed anything. Idid all that the voice asked. It said, 'Wait and see: we shallastonish 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 thehouse. I was so glad that I never thought of concealing my delightwhen I reached my dressing-room. Unfortunately, the voice was therebefore me and soon noticed, by my air, that something had happened. Itasked what was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our storysecret or concealing the place which you filled in my heart. Then thevoice was silent. I called to it, but it did not reply; I begged andentreated, but in vain. I was terrified lest it had gone for good. Iwish to Heaven it had, dear! ... That night, I went home in adesperate condition. I told Mamma Valerius, who said, 'Why, of course,the voice is jealous!' And that, dear, first revealed to me that Iloved you."
Christine stopped and laid her head on Raoul's shoulder. They sat likethat for a moment, in silence, and they did not see, did not perceivethe movement, at a few steps from them, of the creeping shadow of twogreat black wings, a shadow that came along the roof so near, so nearthem that it could have stifled them by closing over them.
"The next day," Christine continued, with a sigh, "I went back to mydressing-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 mustbestow my heart on earth, there was nothing for the voice to do but togo back to Heaven. And it said this with such an accent of HUMANsorrow that I ought then and there to have suspected and begun tobelieve that I was the victim of my deluded senses. But my faith inthe voice, with which the memory of my father was so closelyintermingled, remained undisturbed. I feared nothing so much as that Imight never hear it again; I had thought about my love for you andrealized all the useless danger of it; and I did not even know if youremembered me. Whatever happened, your position in society forbade meto contemplate the possibility of ever marrying you; and I swore to thevoice that you were no more than a brother to me nor ever would be andthat my heart was incapable of any earthly love. And that, dear, waswhy I refused to recognize or see you when I met you on the stage or inthe passages. Meanwhile, the hours during which the voice taught mewere 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 ofHeaven
.' I don't know how it was that Carlotta did not come to thetheater that night nor why I was called upon to sing in her stead; butI sang with a rapture I had never known before and I felt for a momentas if my soul were leaving my body!"
"Oh, Christine," said Raoul, "my heart quivered that night at everyaccent of your voice. I saw the tears stream down your cheeks and Iwept with you. How could you sing, sing like that while crying?"
"I felt myself fainting," said Christine, "I closed my eyes. When Iopened 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 andbegan to laugh when you reminded me that you had picked up my scarf inthe sea! ... Alas, there is no deceiving the voice! ... The voicerecognized you and the voice was jealous! ... It said that, if I didnot love you, I would not avoid you, but treat you like any other oldfriend. 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'sgrave, and I shall ask M. Raoul de Chagny to go with me.' 'Do as youplease,' replied the voice, 'but I shall be at Perros too, for I amwherever you are, Christine; and, if you are still worthy of me, if youhave not lied to me, I will play you The Resurrection of Lazarus, onthe stroke of midnight, on your father's tomb and on your father'sviolin.' That, dear, was how I came to write you the letter thatbrought 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 Idid not suspect some impostor? Alas, I was no longer mistress ofmyself: I had become his thing!"
"But, after all," cried Raoul, "you soon came to know the truth! Whydid you not at once rid yourself of that abominable nightmare?"
"Know the truth, Raoul? Rid myself of that nightmare? But, my poorboy, I was not caught in the nightmare until the day when I learned thetruth! ... Pity me, Raoul, pity me! ... You remember the terribleevening when Carlotta thought that she had been turned into a toad onthe stage and when the house was suddenly plunged in darkness throughthe chandelier crashing to the floor? There were killed and woundedthat night and the whole theater rang with terrified screams. My firstthought was for you and the voice. I was at once easy, where you wereconcerned, for I had seen you in your brother's box and I knew that youwere not in danger. But the voice had told me that it would be at theperformance and I was really afraid for it, just as if it had been anordinary person who was capable of dying. I thought to myself, 'Thechandelier may have come down upon the voice.' I was then on the stageand was nearly running into the house, to look for the voice among thekilled and wounded, when I thought that, if the voice was safe, itwould be sure to be in my dressing-room and I rushed to my room. Thevoice 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. Thevoice did not reply, but suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail whichI knew well. It is the plaint of Lazarus when, at the sound of theRedeemer'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 thevoice began to sing the leading phrase, 'Come! And believe in me!Whoso believes in me shall live! Walk! Whoso hath believed in meshall never die! ...' I can not tell you the effect which that musichad upon me. It seemed to command me, personally, to come, to stand upand come to it. It retreated and I followed. 'Come! And believe inme!' I believed in it, I came ... I came and--this was theextraordinary thing--my dressing-room, as I moved, seemed to lengthenout ... to lengthen out ... Evidently, it must have been an effect ofmirrors ... for I had the mirror in front of me ... And, suddenly, Iwas outside the room without knowing how!"
"What! Without knowing how? Christine, Christine, you must reallystop 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 toexplain it; but I can not. I can only tell you that, suddenly, therewas 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 faintred glimmer at a distant corner of the wall. I tried out. My voicewas the only sound, for the singing and the violin had stopped. And,suddenly, a hand was laid on mine ... or rather a stone-cold, bonything that seized my wrist and did not let go. I cried out again. Anarm took me round the waist and supported me. I struggled for a littlewhile and then gave up the attempt. I was dragged toward the littlered light and then I saw that I was in the hands of a man wrapped in alarge cloak and wearing a mask that hid his whole face. I made onelast effort; my limbs stiffened, my mouth opened to scream, but a handclosed it, a hand which I felt on my lips, on my skin ... a hand thatsmelt of death. Then I fainted away.
"When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness. Alantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well. The watersplashing from the well disappeared, almost at once, under the floor onwhich I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the blackcloak and the black mask. He was bathing my temples and his handssmelt 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 hotbreath passed over my face and I perceived a white shape, beside theman's black shape, in the darkness. The black shape lifted me on tothe white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and Imurmured, 'Cesar!' The animal quivered. Raoul, I was lying half backon 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, oneevening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse haddisappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost. I believedin the voice, but had never believed in the ghost. Now, however, Ibegan to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was the ghost's prisoner. Icalled upon the voice to help me, for I should never have imagined thatthe voice and the ghost were one. You have heard about the Operaghost, have you not, Raoul?"
"Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse of theProfeta?"
"I made no movement and let myself go. The black shape held me up, andI made no effort to escape. A curious feeling of peacefulness cameover me and I thought that I must be under the influence of somecordial. I had the full command of my senses; and my eyes became usedto the darkness, which was lit, here and there, by fitful gleams. Icalculated that we were in a narrow circular gallery, probably runningall round the Opera, which is immense, underground. I had once beendown into those cellars, but had stopped at the third floor, thoughthere were two lower still, large enough to hold a town. But thefigures of which I caught sight had made me run away. There are demonsdown there, quite black, standing in front of boilers, and they wieldshovels and pitchforks and poke up fires and stir up flames and, if youcome too near them, they frighten you by suddenly opening the redmouths of their furnaces ... Well, while Cesar was quietly carrying meon his back, I saw those black demons in the distance, looking quitesmall, in front of the red fires of their furnaces: they came intosight, disappeared and came into sight again, as we went on our windingway. At last, they disappeared altogether. The shape was stillholding me up and Cesar walked on, unled and sure-footed. I could nottell you, even approximately, how long this ride lasted; I only knowthat we seemed to turn and turn and often went down a spiral stair intothe very heart of the earth. Even then, it may be that my head wasturning, 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 alittle. I felt a moistness in the air and Cesar stopped. The darknesshad lifted. A sort of bluey light surrounded us. We were on the edgeof a lake, whose leaden waters stretched into the distance, into thedarkness; but the blue light lit up the bank and I saw a little boatfastened to an iron ring on the wharf!"
"A boat!"
"Yes, but I knew that all that existed and that there was nothingsupernatural about that underground lake and boat. But think of theexceptional conditions in which I arrived upon that shore! I don'tknow whether the effects of the cordial had worn off when the man'sshape lifted me i
nto the boat, but my terror began all over again. Mygruesome escort must have noticed it, for he sent Cesar back and Iheard his hoofs trampling up a staircase while the man jumped into theboat, untied the rope that held it and seized the oars. He rowed witha quick, powerful stroke; and his eyes, under the mask, never left me.We slipped across the noiseless water in the bluey light which I toldyou of; then we were in the dark again and we touched shore. And I wasonce 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 inthe midst of which I had been put down. I sprang to my feet. I was inthe middle of a drawing-room that seemed to me to be decorated, adornedand furnished with nothing but flowers, flowers both magnificent andstupid, because of the silk ribbons that tied them to baskets, likethose which they sell in the shops on the boulevards. They were muchtoo civilized flowers, like those which I used to find in mydressing-room after a first night. And, in the midst of all theseflowers, stood the black shape of the man in the mask, with armscrossed, and he said, 'Don't be afraid, Christine; you are in nodanger.' IT WAS THE VOICE!
"My anger equaled my amazement. I rushed at the mask and tried tosnatch it away, so as to see the face of the voice. The man said, 'Youare in no danger, so long as you do not touch the mask.' And, taking megently by the wrists, he forced me into a chair and then went down onhis knees before me and said nothing more! His humility gave me backsome of my courage; and the light restored me to the realties of life.However extraordinary the adventure might be, I was now surrounded bymortal, visible, tangible things. The furniture, the hangings, thecandles, the vases and the very flowers in their baskets, of which Icould almost have told whence they came and what they cost, were boundto confine my imagination to the limits of a drawing-room quite ascommonplace as any that, at least, had the excuse of not being in thecellars of the Opera. I had, no doubt, to do with a terrible,eccentric person, who, in some mysterious fashion, had succeeded intaking up his abode there, under the Opera house, five stories belowthe level of the ground. And the voice, the voice which I hadrecognized under the mask, was on its knees before me, WAS A MAN! AndI began to cry... The man, still kneeling, must have understood thecause of my tears, for he said, 'It is true, Christine! ... I am not anAngel, nor a genius, nor a ghost ... I am Erik!'"
Christine's narrative was again interrupted. An echo behind themseemed 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 besideher.
"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 aremiles away from the trap-doors ... and I am not allowed to see yououtside the theater. This is not the time to annoy him. We must notarouse his suspicion."
"Christine! Christine! Something tells me that we are wrong to waittill 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 causehim infinite pain."
"It is difficult not to cause him pain and yet to escape from him forgood."
"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 ... forwe 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 andforce 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 Ileft him."
"Oh, I hate him!" cried Raoul. "And you, Christine, tell me, do youhate him too?"
"No," said Christine simply.
"No, of course not ... Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, allof that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kindwhich 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 whospoke and the shadow that listened, behind them.
"Before answering that," said Raoul, at last, speaking very slowly, "Ishould like to know with what feeling he inspires you, since you do nothate him."
"With horror!" she said. "That is the terrible thing about it. Hefills 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. Heaccuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness! ... Heconfesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense andtragic love... He has carried me off for love! ... He has imprisonedme with him, underground, for love! ... But he respects me: he crawls,he moans, he weeps! ... And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him thatI could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me myliberty ... 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 thevoice ... 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 furnishedlittle bedroom, with an ordinary mahogany bedstead, lit by a lampstanding 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 frommy room led to a very comfortable bath-room. On returning to thebedroom, 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 haveno better nor more respectful friend in the world than myself. You arealone, at present, in this home which is yours. I am going outshopping to fetch you all the things that you can need.' I felt surethat I had fallen into the hands of a madman. I ran round my littleapartment, looking for a way of escape which I could not find. Iupbraided myself for my absurd superstition, which had caused me tofall into the trap. I felt inclined to laugh and to cry at the sametime.
"This was the state of mind in which Erik found me. After giving threetaps on the wall, he walked in quietly through a door which I had notnoticed and which he left open. He had his arms full of boxes andparcels and arranged them on the bed, in a leisurely fashion, while Ioverwhelmed him with abuse and called upon him to take off his mask, ifit covered the face of an honest man. He replied serenely, 'You shallnever see Erik's face.' And he reproached me with not having finisheddressing at that time of day: he was good enough to tell me that it wastwo o'clock in the afternoon. He said he would give me half an hourand, 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 waitingfor us.
"I was very angry, slammed the door in his face and went to thebath-room ... When I came out again, feeling greatly refreshed, Eriksaid that he loved me, but that he would never tell me so except when Iallowed 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,' hesaid, 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, youwill have learned not to see me; and then, from time to time, you willcome to see your poor Erik!' He pointed to a chair opposite him, at asmall table, and I sat down, feeling greatly perturbed. However, I atea 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 o
r drink. I asked him what his nationality was and ifthat name of Erik did not point to his Scandinavian origin. He saidthat he had no name and no country and that he had taken the name ofErik by accident.
"After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers, saying hewould like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away my hand andgave 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!' hemoaned. And he opened a door before me. 'This is my bedroom, if youcare to see it. It is rather curious.' His manners, his words, hisattitude gave me confidence and I went in without hesitation. I feltas if I were entering the room of a dead person. The walls were allhung with black, but, instead of the white trimmings that usually setoff that funereal upholstery, there was an enormous stave of music withthe notes of the DIES IRAE, many times repeated. In the middle of theroom 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.' Thesight upset me so much that I turned away my head.
"Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of thewalls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I askedleave to look at it and read, 'Don Juan Triumphant.' 'Yes,' he said, 'Icompose sometimes.' I began that work twenty years ago. When I havefinished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake upagain.' 'You must work at it as seldom as you can,' I said. Hereplied, '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 atime.' 'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?' Iasked, 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 willonly make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he isnot struck by fire from Heaven.' Thereupon we returned to thedrawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the wholeapartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already satdown to the piano. He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some musicthat is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it.Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would loseall your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned toParis. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.' He spokethese 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 atonce began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us.I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayedbefore. As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul atevery note. Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowingcries. Erik's black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moorof Venice. He was Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to seebeneath the mask. I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with amovement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers toreaway 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, nowthrice moaned the cry:
"Horror! ... Horror! ... Horror!"
Raoul and Christine, clasping each other closely, raised their eyes tothe stars that shone in a clear and peaceful sky. Raoul said:
"Strange, Christine, that this calm, soft night should be so full ofplaintive sounds. One would think that it was sorrowing with us."
"When you know the secret, Raoul, your ears, like mine, will be full oflamentations."
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 superhumancry of grief and rage which he uttered when the terrible sight appearedbefore my eyes ... Raoul, you have seen death's heads, when they havebeen dried and withered by the centuries, and, perhaps, if you were notthe victim of a nightmare, you saw HIS death's head at Perros. Andthen you saw Red Death stalking about at the last masked ball. But allthose death's heads were motionless and their dumb horror was notalive. But imagine, if you can, Red Death's mask suddenly coming tolife in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes, itsnose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon; ANDNOT A RAY OF LIGHT FROM THE SOCKETS, for, as I learned later, you cannot 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 andcurses 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'sface! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content tohear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women areso inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a very good-lookingfellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs tome. 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, heroared, 'Look at me! I AM DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!' And, when I turnedaway 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 killhim!"
"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 theother! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Giveme your hands!' And he seized my hands and dug them into his awfulface. He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead fleshwith my nails! ... 'Know,' he shouted, while his throat throbbed andpanted like a furnace, 'know that I am built up of death from head tofoot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and willnever, never leave you! ... Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying,crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who thereforecan never leave me again! ... As long as you thought me handsome, youcould have come back, I know you would have come back ... but, now thatyou know my hideousness, you would run away for good... So I shall keepyou here! ... Why did you want to see me? Oh, mad Christine, whowanted to see me! ... When my own father never saw me and when mymother, 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 thefloor, uttering terrible sobs. And then he crawled away like a snake,went into his room, closed the door and left me alone to myreflections. Presently I heard the sound of the organ; and then Ibegan to understand Erik's contemptuous phrase when he spoke aboutOpera music. What I now heard was utterly different from what I hadheard up to then. His Don Juan Triumphant (for I had not a doubt butthat he had rushed to his masterpiece to forget the horror of themoment) seemed to me at first one long, awful, magnificent sob. But,little by little, it expressed every emotion, every suffering of whichmankind is capable. It intoxicated me; and I opened the door thatseparated us. Erik rose, as I entered, BUT DARED NOT TURN IN MYDIRECTION. 'Erik,' I cried, 'show me your face without fear! I swearthat you are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again Ishiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of thesplendor 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 myeyes.
"What mo
re can I tell you, dear? You now know the tragedy. It went onfor a fortnight--a fortnight during which I lied to him. My lies wereas hideous as the monster who inspired them; but they were the price ofmy liberty. I burned his mask; and I managed so well that, even whenhe was not singing, he tried to catch my eye, like a dog sitting by itsmaster. He was my faithful slave and paid me endless littleattentions. Gradually, I gave him such confidence that he ventured totake me walking on the banks of the lake and to row me in the boat onits leaden waters; toward the end of my captivity he let me out throughthe gates that closed the underground passages in the Rue Scribe. Herea carriage awaited us and took us to the Bois. The night when we metyou was nearly fatal to me, for he is terribly jealous of you and I hadto tell him that you were soon going away ... Then, at last, after afortnight of that horrible captivity, during which I was filled withpity, enthusiasm, despair and horror by turns, he believed me when Isaid, 'I WILL COME BACK!'"
"And you went back, Christine," groaned Raoul.
"Yes, dear, and I must tell you that it was not his frightful threatswhen setting me free that helped me to keep my word, but the harrowingsob which he gave on the threshold of the tomb. ... That sob attachedme to the unfortunate man more than I myself suspected when sayinggood-by to him. Poor Erik! Poor Erik!"
"Christine," said Raoul, rising, "you tell me that you love me; but youhad recovered your liberty hardly a few hours before you returned toErik! 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 toErik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits, instead ofcalming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love! And I am sofrightened, 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'sneck and said:
"Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give youmy lips! Take them, for the first time and the last."
He kissed her lips; but the night that surrounded them was rentasunder, they fled as at the approach of a storm and their eyes, filledwith dread of Erik, showed them, before they disappeared, high up abovethem, an immense night-bird that stared at them with its blazing eyesand seemed to cling to the string of Apollo's lyre.