The Phantom of the Opera
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Gaston Leroux >> The Phantom of the Opera
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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-chamher!"
"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 litde 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.
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