Chapter XXV The Scorpion or the Grasshopper: Which?
THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONCLUDED
The discovery flung us into a state of alarm that made us forget allour past and present sufferings. We now knew all that the monstermeant to convey when he said to Christine Daae:
"Yes or no! If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"
Yes, buried under the ruins of the Paris Grand Opera!
The monster had given her until eleven o'clock in the evening. He hadchosen his time well. There would be many people, many "members of thehuman race," up there, in the resplendent theater. What finer retinuecould be expected for his funeral? He would go down to the tombescorted by the whitest shoulders in the world, decked with the richestjewels.
Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!
We were all to be blown up in the middle of the performance ... ifChristine Daae said no!
Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening! ...
And what else could Christine say but no? Would she not prefer toespouse death itself rather than that living corpse? She did not knowthat on her acceptance or refusal depended the awful fate of manymembers of the human race!
Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!
And we dragged ourselves through the darkness, feeling our way to thestone steps, for the light in the trap-door overhead that led to theroom of mirrors was now extinguished; and we repeated to ourselves:
"Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!"
At last, I found the staircase. But, suddenly I drew myself up on thefirst step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind:
"What is the time?"
Ah, what was the time? ... For, after all, eleven o'clock to-morrowevening might be now, might be this very moment! Who could tell us thetime? We seemed to have been imprisoned in that hell for days and days... for years ... since the beginning of the world. Perhaps we shouldbe blown up then and there! Ah, a sound! A crack! "Did you hearthat? ... There, in the corner ... good heavens! ... Like a sound ofmachinery! ... Again! ... Oh, for a light! ... Perhaps it's themachinery that is to blow everything up! ... I tell you, a crackingsound: are you deaf?"
M. de Chagny and I began to yell like madmen. Fear spurred us on. Werushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went, anythingto escape the dark, to return to the mortal light of the room ofmirrors!
We found the trap-door still open, but it was now as dark in the roomof mirrors as in the cellar which we had left. We dragged ourselvesalong the floor of the torture-chamber, the floor that separated usfrom the powder-magazine. What was the time? We shouted, we called: M.de Chagny to Christine, I to Erik. I reminded him that I had saved hislife. But no answer, save that of our despair, of our madness: whatwas the time? We argued, we tried to calculate the time which we hadspent there, but we were incapable of reasoning. If only we could seethe face of a watch! ... Mine had stopped, but M. de Chagny's wasstill going ... He told me that he had wound it up before dressing forthe Opera ... We had not a match upon us ... And yet we must know ...M. de Chagny broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands... Hequestioned the hands of the watch with his finger-tips, going by theposition of the ring of the watch ... Judging by the space between thehands, he thought it might be just eleven o'clock!
But perhaps it was not the eleven o'clock of which we stood in dread.Perhaps we had still twelve hours before us!
Suddenly, I exclaimed: "Hush!"
I seemed to hear footsteps in the next room. Some one tapped againstthe wall. Christine Daae's voice said:
"Raoul! Raoul!" We were now all talking at once, on either side ofthe wall. Christine sobbed; she was not sure that she would find M. deChagny alive. The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had donenothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the "yes" which sherefused. And yet she had promised him that "yes," if he would take herto the torture-chamber. But he had obstinately declined, and haduttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race! Atlast, after hours and hours of that hell, he had that moment gone out,leaving her alone to reflect for the last time.
"Hours and hours? What is the time now? What is the time, Christine?"
"It is eleven o'clock! Eleven o'clock, all but five minutes!"
"But which eleven o'clock?"
"The eleven o'clock that is to decide life or death! ... He told me sojust before he went ... He is terrible ... He is quite mad: he toreoff his mask and his yellow eyes shot flames! ... He did nothing butlaugh! ... He said, 'I give you five minutes to spare your blushes!Here,' he said, taking a key from the little bag of life and death,'here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on themantelpiece in the Louis-Philippe room... In one of the caskets, youwill find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverlyimitated in Japanese bronze: they will say yes or no for you. If youturn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that youhave said yes. The grasshopper will mean no.' And he laughed like adrunken demon. I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me thekey of the torture-chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted methat request ... But he told me that there was no future need for thatkey and that he was going to throw it into the lake! ... And he againlaughed like a drunken demon and left me. Oh, his last words were,'The grasshopper! Be careful of the grasshopper! A grasshopper doesnot only turn: it hops! It hops! And it hops jolly high!'"
The five minutes had nearly elapsed and the scorpion and thegrasshopper were scratching at my brain. Nevertheless, I hadsufficient lucidity left to understand that, if the grasshopper wereturned, it would hop ... and with it many members of the human race!There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electriccurrent intended to blow up the powder-magazine!
M. de Chagny, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force fromhearing Christine's voice, explained to her, in a few hurried words,the situation in which we and all the Opera were. He told her to turnthe scorpion at once.
There was a pause.
"Christine," I cried, "where are you?"
"By the scorpion."
"Don't touch it!"
The idea had come to me--for I knew my Erik--that the monster hadperhaps deceived the girl once more. Perhaps it was the scorpion thatwould blow everything up. After all, why wasn't he there? The fiveminutes were long past ... and he was not back... Perhaps he had takenshelter and was waiting for the explosion! ... Why had he notreturned? ... He could not really expect Christine ever to consent tobecome his voluntary prey! ... Why had he not returned?
"Don't touch the scorpion!" I said.
"Here he comes!" cried Christine. "I hear him! Here he is!"
We heard his steps approaching the Louis-Philippe room. He came up toChristine, but did not speak. Then I raised my voice:
"Erik! It is I! Do you know me?"
With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied:
"So you are not dead in there? Well, then, see that you keep quiet."
I tried to speak, but he said coldly:
"Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up." And he added,"The honor rests with mademoiselle ... Mademoiselle has not touchedthe scorpion"--how deliberately he spoke!--"mademoiselle has nottouched the grasshopper"--with that composure!--"but it is not too lateto do the right thing. There, I open the caskets without a key, for Iam a trap-door lover and I open and shut what I please and as I please.I open the little ebony caskets: mademoiselle, look at the little dearsinside. Aren't they pretty? If you turn the grasshopper,mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up. There is enough gun-powderunder our feet to blow up a whole quarter of Paris. If you turn thescorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder will be soaked and drowned.Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding, you shall make a very handsomepresent to a few hundred Parisians who are at this moment applauding apoor masterpiece of Meyerbeer's ... you shall make them a present oftheir lives ... For, with your own fair hands, you shall turn thescorpion ... And merrily, m
errily, we will be married!"
A pause; and then:
"If, in two minutes, mademoiselle, you have not turned the scorpion, Ishall turn the grasshopper ... and the grasshopper, I tell you, HOPSJOLLY HIGH!"
The terrible silence began anew. The Vicomte de Chagny, realizing thatthere was nothing left to do but pray, went down on his knees andprayed. As for me, my blood beat so fiercely that I had to take myheart in both hands, lest it should burst. At last, we heard Erik'svoice:
"The two minutes are past ... Good-by, mademoiselle... Hop,grasshopper! "Erik," cried Christine, "do you swear to me, monster, doyou swear to me that the scorpion is the one to turn?
"Yes, to hop at our wedding."
"Ah, you see! You said, to hop!"
"At our wedding, ingenuous child! ... The scorpion opens the ball...But that will do! ... You won't have the scorpion? Then I turn thegrasshopper!"
"Erik!"
"Enough!"
I was crying out in concert with Christine. M. de Chagny was still onhis knees, praying.
"Erik! I have turned the scorpion!"
Oh, the second through which we passed!
Waiting! Waiting to find ourselves in fragments, amid the roar and theruins!
Feeling something crack beneath our feet, hearing an appalling hissthrough the open trap-door, a hiss like the first sound of a rocket!
It came softly, at first, then louder, then very loud. But it was notthe hiss of fire. It was more like the hiss of water. And now itbecame a gurgling sound: "Guggle! Guggle!"
We rushed to the trap-door. All our thirst, which vanished when theterror came, now returned with the lapping of the water.
The water rose in the cellar, above the barrels, thepowder-barrels--"Barrels! ... Barrels! Any barrels to sell?"--and wewent down to it with parched throats. It rose to our chins, to ourmouths. And we drank. We stood on the floor of the cellar and drank.And we went up the stairs again in the dark, step by step, went up withthe water.
The water came out of the cellar with us and spread over the floor ofthe room. If, this went on, the whole house on the lake would beswamped. The floor of the torture-chamber had itself become a regularlittle lake, in which our feet splashed. Surely there was water enoughnow! Erik must turn off the tap!
"Erik! Erik! That is water enough for the gunpowder! Turn off thetap! Turn off the scorpion!"
But Erik did not reply. We heard nothing but the water rising: it washalf-way to our waists!
"Christine!" cried M. de Chagny. "Christine! The water is up to ourknees!"
But Christine did not reply ... We heard nothing but the water rising.
No one, no one in the next room, no one to turn the tap, no one to turnthe scorpion!
We were all alone, in the dark, with the dark water that seized us andclasped us and froze us!
"Erik! Erik!"
"Christine! Christine!"
By this time, we had lost our foothold and were spinning round in thewater, carried away by an irresistible whirl, for the water turned withus and dashed us against the dark mirror, which thrust us back again;and our throats, raised above the whirlpool, roared aloud.
Were we to die here, drowned in the torture-chamber? I had never seenthat. Erik, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, had nevershown me that, through the little invisible window.
"Erik! Erik!" I cried. "I saved your life! Remember! ... You weresentenced to death! But for me, you would be dead now! ... Erik!"
We whirled around in the water like so much wreckage. But, suddenly,my straying hands seized the trunk of the iron tree! I called M. deChagny, and we both hung to the branch of the iron tree.
And the water rose still higher.
"Oh! Oh! Can you remember? How much space is there between thebranch of the tree and the dome-shaped ceiling? Do try to remember!... After all, the water may stop, it must find its level! ... There,I think it is stopping! ... No, no, oh, horrible! ... Swim! Swim foryour life!"
Our arms became entangled in the effort of swimming; we choked; wefought in the dark water; already we could hardly breathe the dark airabove the dark water, the air which escaped, which we could hearescaping through some vent-hole or other.
"Oh, let us turn and turn and turn until we find the air hole and thenglue our mouths to it!"
But I lost my strength; I tried to lay hold of the walls! Oh, howthose glass walls slipped from under my groping fingers! ... We whirledround again! ... We began to sink! ... One last effort! ... A lastcry: "Erik! ... Christine! ..."
"Guggle, guggle, guggle!" in our ears. "Guggle! Guggle!" At thebottom of the dark water, our ears went, "Guggle! Guggle!"
And, before losing consciousness entirely, I seemed to hear, betweentwo guggles:
"Barrels! Barrels! Any barrels to sell?"