Chapter XIII A Master-Stroke of the Trap-Door Lover
Raoul and Christine ran, eager to escape from the roof and the blazingeyes that showed only in the dark; and they did not stop before theycame to the eighth floor on the way down.
There was no performance at the Opera that night and the passages wereempty. Suddenly, a queer-looking form stood before them and blockedthe road:
"No, not this way!"
And the form pointed to another passage by which they were to reach thewings. 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 runningagain.
"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 wereally saw Erik, what I ought to have done was to nail him to Apollo'slyre, just as we nail the owls to the walls of our Breton farms; andthere 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 tookfor blazing eyes was probably a couple of stars shining through thestrings 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 itwould be better to go at once. Why wait for to-morrow? He may haveheard us to-night."
"No, no, he is working, I tell you, at his Don Juan Triumphant and notthinking 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 didnot 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 atbeing 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 sounhappy 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 cancertainly hear us."
"No. He gave me his word not to be behind the walls of my dressing-roomagain and I believe Erik's word. This room and my bedroom on the lakeare 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 thesecret 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 verycurious genius. You must not think, Raoul, that he is simply a man whoamuses himself by living underground. He does things that no other mancould 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 ofhim! ... 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 thatunderstood?"
"I shall be here at twelve to-morrow night; I shall keep my promise,whatever happens. You say that, after listening to the performance, heis 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 theglass?"
"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 tome, Christine, will you?"
"Never!" she said. "That would be treacherous!"
Suddenly Christine changed color. A mortal pallor overspread herfeatures.
"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 wrungher 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 gaveit to me, he said, 'I give you back your liberty, Christine, oncondition that this ring is always on your finger. As long as you keepit, you will be protected against all danger and Erik will remain yourfriend. But woe to you if you ever part with it, for Erik will havehis revenge!' ... My dear, my dear, the ring is gone! ... Woe to usboth!"
They both looked for the ring, but could not find it. Christinerefused to be pacified.
"It was while I gave you that kiss, up above, under Apollo's lyre," shesaid. "The ring must have slipped from my finger and dropped into thestreet! We can never find it. And what misfortunes are in store forus 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 herbright pupils became dimmed and she said:
"No! To-morrow!"
And she left him hurriedly, still wringing and rubbing her fingers, asthough she hoped to bring the ring back like that.
Raoul went home, greatly perturbed at all that he had heard.
They Sat Like that for a Moment in Silence]
"If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, ashe 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. Thriceover, he shouted:
"Humbug! ... Humbug! ... Humbug!"
But, suddenly, he raised himself on his elbow. A cold sweat pouredfrom his temples. Two eyes, like blazing coals, had appeared at thefoot of his bed. They stared at him fixedly, terribly, in the darknessof 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 matchesand 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 havedisappeared in the light, but HE may be there still."
And he rose, hunted about, went round the room. He looked under hisbed, like a child. Then he thought himself absurd, got into bed againand 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. Heopened the balcony window, looked out, saw nothing and closed thewindow 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 betweenthe bed and the window-pane or behind the pane, that is to say, on thebalcony? That was what Raoul wanted to know. He also wanted to knowif those eyes belonged to a human being... He wanted to knoweverything. Then, patiently, calmly, he seized his revolver and tookaim. He aimed a little above the two eyes. Surely, if they were eyesand if above those two eyes there was a forehead and if Raoul was nottoo clumsy ...
The shot made a terrible din amid the silence of the slumbering house.And, while footsteps came hurrying along the passages, Raoul sat upwith 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 twostars that kept me from sleeping."
"You're raving! Are you ill? For God's sake, tell me, Raoul: whathappened?"
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 lightfrom the hands of a servant and, opening the window, stepped out on thebalcony.
The count saw that the window had been pierced by a bullet at a man'sheight. Raoul was leaning over the balcony with his candle: "Aha!" hesaid. "Blood! ... Blood! ... Here, there, more blood! ... That's agood 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 asleep-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 andfiring 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 capableof never forgiving me ... All this would not have happened if I haddrawn 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, afterall, 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 theyexamined the balcony carefully. The marks of blood followed the railtill 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 quitepossible. With Erik, you never know. Is it Erik? Is it the cat? Isit the ghost? No, with Erik, you can't tell!"
Raoul went on making this strange sort of remarks which corresponded sointimately and logically with the preoccupation of his brain and which,at the same time, tended to persuade many people that his mind wasunhinged. The count himself was seized with this idea; and, later, theexamining magistrate, on receiving the report of the commissary ofpolice, 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 Chagnyswere left alone. But the men were not out of earshot before thecount's valet heard Raoul say, distinctly and emphatically:
"I shall carry off Christine Daae to-night."
This phrase was afterward repeated to M. Faure, theexamining-magistrate. But no one ever knew exactly what passed betweenthe two brothers at this interview. The servants declared that thiswas not their first quarrel. Their voices penetrated the wall; and itwas always an actress called Christine Daae that was in question.
At breakfast--the early morning breakfast, which the count took in hisstudy--Philippe sent for his brother. Raoul arrived silent and gloomy.The scene was a very short one. Philippe handed his brother a copy ofthe Epoque and said:
"Read that!"
The viscount read:
"The latest news in the Faubourg is that there is a promise of marriagebetween Mlle. Christine Daae, the opera-singer, and M. le Vicomte Raoulde Chagny. If the gossips are to be credited, Count Philippe has swornthat, for the first time on record, the Chagnys shall not keep theirpromise. But, as love is all-powerful, at the Opera as--and even morethan--elsewhere, we wonder how Count Philippe intends to prevent theviscount, his brother, from leading the new Margarita to the altar.The two brothers are said to adore each other; but the count iscuriously mistaken if he imagines that brotherly love will triumph overlove pure and simple."
"You see, Raoul," said the count, "you are making us ridiculous! Thatlittle girl has turned your head with her ghost-stories."
The viscount had evidently repeated Christine's narrative to hisbrother, 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 toprevent you!"
"Good-by, Philippe," said the viscount again and left the room.
This scene was described to the examining-magistrate by the counthimself, 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 theflight. The horses, the carriage, the coachman, the provisions, theluggage, the money required for the journey, the road to be taken (hehad resolved not to go by train, so as to throw the ghost off thescent): all this had to be settled and provided for; and it occupiedhim until nine o'clock at night.
At nine o'clock, a sort of traveling-barouche with the curtains of itswindows close-down, took its place in the rank on the Rotunda side. Itwas drawn by two powerful horses driven by a coachman whose face wasalmost concealed in the long folds of a muffler. In front of thistraveling-carriage were three broughams, belonging respectively toCarlotta, who had suddenly returned to Paris, to Sorelli and, at thehead of the rank, to Comte Philippe de Chagny. No one left thebarouche. The coachman remained on his box, and the three othercoachmen remained on theirs.
A shadow in a long black cloak and a soft black felt hat passed alongthe pavement between the Rotunda and the carriages, examined thebarouche carefully, went up to the horses and the coachman and thenmoved away without saying a word, The magistrate afterward believedthat this shadow was that of the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny; but I do notagree, seeing that that evening, as every evening, the Vicomte deChagny was wearing a tall hat, which hat, besides, was subsequentlyfound. I am more inclined to think that the shadow was that of theghost, who knew all about the whole affair, as the reader will soonperceive.
They were giving FAUST, as it happened, before a splendid house. TheFaubourg was magnificently represented; and the paragraph in thatmorning's EPOQUE had already produced its effect, for all eyes wereturned to the box in which Count Philippe sat alone, apparently in avery indifferent and careless frame of mind. The feminine element inthe brilliant audience seemed curiously puzzled; and the viscount'sabsence gave rise to any amount of whispering behind the fans.Christine Daae met with a rather cold reception. That special audiencecould not forgive her for aiming so high.
The singer noticed this unfavorable attitude of a portion of the houseand was confused by it.
The regular frequenters of the Opera, who pretended to know the truthabout the viscount's love-story, exchanged significant smiles atcertain passages in Margarita's part; and they made a show of turningand 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 attentionto these manifestations. He kept his eyes fixed on the stage; but histhoughts appeared to be far away.
Christine lost her se
lf-assurance more and more. She trembled. Shefelt on the verge of a breakdown ... Carolus Fonta wondered if she wasill, if she could keep the stage until the end of the Garden Act. Inthe front of the house, people remembered the catastrophe that hadbefallen 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, asensational entrance. Poor Christine raised her eyes upon this freshsubject of excitement. She recognized her rival. She thought she sawa sneer on her lips. That saved her. She forgot everything, in orderto triumph once more.
From that moment the prima donna sang with all her heart and soul. Shetried 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 madeall 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, theglory of her hair falling over her bare shoulders, uttered the divinecry:
"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 asound of stupefaction, for the gas at once lit up the stage again. ButChristine Daae was no longer there!
What had become of her? What was that miracle? All exchanged glanceswithout understanding, and the excitement at once reached its height.Nor was the tension any less great on the stage itself. Men rushedfrom the wings to the spot where Christine had been singing that veryinstant. The performance was interrupted amid the greatest disorder.
Where had Christine gone? What witchcraft had snatched her, awaybefore the eyes of thousands of enthusiastic onlookers and from thearms of Carolus Fonta himself? It was as though the angels had reallycarried her up "to rest."
Raoul, still standing up in the amphitheater, had uttered a cry. CountPhilippe had sprung to his feet in his box. People looked at thestage, at the count, at Raoul, and wondered if this curious event wasconnected in any way with the paragraph in that morning's paper. ButRaoul hurriedly left his seat, the count disappeared from his box and,while the curtain was lowered, the subscribers rushed to the door thatled behind the scenes. The rest of the audience waited amid anindescribable hubbub. Every one spoke at once. Every one tried tosuggest an explanation of the extraordinary incident.
At last, the curtain rose slowly and Carolus Fonta stepped to theconductor's desk and, in a sad and serious voice, said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, an unprecedented event has taken place andthrown us into a state of the greatest alarm. Our sister-artist,Christine Daae, has disappeared before our eyes and nobody can tell ushow!"