The Phantom of the Opera
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Gaston Leroux >> The Phantom of the Opera
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"No, no, go on."
"You are too good, gentlemen," with a smirk. "Well, then,
Mephistopheles went on with his serenade"--Mme. Giry, burst into
song again--" `Saint, unclose thy portals holy and accord the bliss,
to a mortal bending lowly, of a pardon-kiss.' And then M. Maniera
again hears the voice in his right ear, saying, this time, `Ha, ha!
Julie wouldn't mind according a kiss to Isidore!' Then he turns
round again, but, this time, to the left; and what do you think
he sees? Isidore, who had taken his lady's hand and was covering
it with kisses through the little round place in the glove--
like this, gentlemen"--rapturously kissing the bit of palm left bare
in the middle of her thread gloves. "Then they had a lively time
between them! Bang! Bang! M. Maniera, who was big and strong,
like you, M. Richard, gave two blows to M. Isidore Saack,
who was small and weak like M. Moncharmin, saving his presence.
There was a great uproar. People in the house shouted, `That will do!
Stop them! He'll kill him!' Then, at last, M. Isidore Saack managed
to run away."
"Then the ghost had not broken his leg?" asked M. Moncharmin,
a little vexed that his figure had made so little impression on
Mme. Giry.
"He did break it for him, sir," replied Mme. Giry haughtily.
"He broke it for him on the grand staircase, which he ran down
too fast, sir, and it will be long before the poor gentleman will
be able to go up it again!"
"Did the ghost tell you what he said in M. Maniera's right ear?"
asked M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous.
"No, sir, it was M. Maniera himself. So----"
"But you have spoken to the ghost, my good lady?"
"As I'm speaking to you now, my good sir!" Mme. Giry replied.
"And, when the ghost speaks to you, what does he say?"
"Well, he tells me to bring him a footstool!"
This time, Richard burst out laughing, as did Moncharmin and Remy,
the secretary. Only the inspector, warned by experience, was careful
not to laugh, while Mme. Giry ventured to adopt an attitude that
was positively threatening.
"Instead of laughing," she cried indignantly, "you'd do better
to do as M. Poligny did, who found out for himself."
"Found out about what?" asked Moncharmin, who had never been so much
amused in his life.
"About the ghost, of course!...Look here..."
She suddenly calmed herself, feeling that this was a solemn moment
in her life:
"LOOK HERE," she repeated. "They were playing La Juive. M. Poligny
thought he would watch the performance from the ghost's box.
...Well, when Leopold cries, `Let us fly!'--you know--and Eleazer
stops them and says, `Whither go ye?'...well, M. Poligny--
I was watching him from the back of the next box, which was empty--
M. Poligny got up and walked out quite stiffly, like a statue,
and before I had time to ask him, `Whither go ye?' like Eleazer,
he was down the staircase, but without breaking his leg.
"Still, that doesn't let us know how the Opera ghost came to ask
you for a footstool," insisted M. Moncharmin.
"Well, from that evening, no one tried to take the ghost's private
box from him. The manager gave orders that he was to have it at
each performance. And, whenever he came, he asked me for a footstool."
"Tut, tut! A ghost asking for a footstool! Then this ghost
of yours is a woman?"
"No, the ghost is a man."
"How do you know?"
"He has a man's voice, oh, such a lovely man's voice! This is
what happens: When he comes to the opera, it's usually in the middle
of the first act. He gives three little taps on the door of Box Five.
The first time I heard those three taps, when I knew there was
no one in the box, you can think how puzzled I was! I opened
the door, listened, looked; nobody! And then I heard a voice say,
`Mme. Jules' my poor husband's name was Jules--`a footstool, please.'
Saving your presence, gentlemen, it made me feel all-overish like.
But the voice went on, `Don't be frightened, Mme. Jules, I'm the
Opera ghost!' And the voice was so soft and kind that I hardly
felt frightened. THE VOICE WAS SITTING IN THE CORNER CHAIR,
ON THE RIGHT, IN THE FRONT ROW."
"Was there any one in the box on the right of Box Five?"
asked Moncharmin.
"No; Box Seven, and Box Three, the one on the left, were both empty.
The curtain had only just gone up."
"And what did you do?"
"Well, I brought the footstool. Of course, it wasn't for himself
he wanted it, but for his lady! But I never heard her nor saw her."
"Eh? What? So now the ghost is married!" The eyes of the two
managers traveled from Mme. Giry to the inspector, who, standing behind
the box-keeper, was waving his arms to attract their attention.
He tapped his forehead with a distressful forefinger, to convey
his opinion that the widow Jules Giry was most certainly mad,
a piece of pantomime which confirmed M. Richard in his determination
to get rid of an inspector who kept a lunatic in his service.
Meanwhile, the worthy lady went on about her ghost, now painting
his generosity:
"At the end of the performance, he always gives me two francs,
sometimes five, sometimes even ten, when he has been many days
without coming. Only, since people have begun to annoy him again,
he gives me nothing at all.
"Excuse me, my good woman," said Moncharmin, while Mme. Giry tossed
the feathers in her dingy hat at this persistent familiarity,
"excuse me, how does the ghost manage to give you your two francs?"
"Why, he leaves them on the little shelf in the box, of course.
I find them with the program, which I always give him. Some evenings,
I find flowers in the box, a rose that must have dropped from his
lady's bodice...for he brings a lady with him sometimes; one day,
they left a fan behind them."
"Oh, the ghost left a fan, did he? And what did you do with it?"
"Well, I brought it back to the box next night."
Here the inspector's voice was raised.
"You've broken the rules; I shall have to fine you, Mme. Giry."
"Hold your tongue, you fool!" muttered M. Firmin Richard.
"You brought back the fan. And then?"
"Well, then, they took it away with them, sir; it was not there
at the end of the performance; and in its place they left me a box
of English sweets, which I'm very fond of. That's one of the ghost's
pretty thoughts."
"That will do, Mme. Giry. You can go."
When Mme. Giry had bowed herself out, with the dignity that never
deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided
to dispense with that old madwoman's services; and, when he
had gone in his turn, they instructed the acting-manager to make
up the inspector's accounts. Left alone, the managers told
each other of the idea which they both had in mind, which was
that they should look into that little matter of Box Five themselves.
Chapter V The Enchanted Violin
Christine Daae, owing to intrigues to which I will return later,
did not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera. After the
famous gala night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich's;
but this was the last occasion on which she was heard in private.
She refused, without plausible excuse, to appear at a charity concert
to which she had promised her assistance. She acted throughout
as though she were no longer the mistress of her own destiny and as
though she feared a fresh triumph.
She knew that the Comte de Chagny, to please his brother, had done
his best on her behalf with M. Richard; and she wrote to thank him
and also to ask him to cease speaking in her favor. Her reason
for this curious attitude was never known. Some pretended that it
was due to overweening pride; others spoke of her heavenly modesty.
But people on the stage are not so modest as all that; and I think
that I shall not be far from the truth if I ascribe her action
simply to fear. Yes, I believe that Christine Daae was frightened
by what had happened to her. I have a letter of Christine's (it
forms part of the Persian's collection), relating to this period,
which suggests a feeling of absolute dismay:
"I don't know myself when I sing," writes the poor child.
She showed herself nowhere; and the Vicomte de Chagny tried
in vain to meet her. He wrote to her, asking to call upon her,
but despaired of receiving a reply when, one morning, she sent
him the following note:
MONSIEUR:
I have not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea
to rescue my scarf. I feel that I must write to you to-day,
when I am going to Perros, in fulfilment of a sacred duty.
To-morrow is the anniversary of the death of my poor father,
whom you knew and who was very fond of you. He is buried there,
with his violin, in the graveyard of the little church, at the bottom
of the slope where we used to play as children, beside the road where,
when we were a little bigger, we said good-by for the last time.
The Vicomte de Chagny hurriedly consulted a railway guide,
dressed as quickly as he could, wrote a few lines for his valet
to take to his brother and jumped into a cab which brought him
to the Gare Montparnasse just in time to miss the morning train.
He spent a dismal day in town and did not recover his spirits
until the evening, when he was seated in his compartment in the
Brittany express. He read Christine's note over and over again,
smelling its perfume, recalling the sweet pictures of his childhood,
and spent the rest of that tedious night journey in feverish dreams
that began and ended with Christine Daae. Day was breaking when he
alighted at Lannion. He hurried to the diligence for Perros-Guirec.
He was the only passenger. He questioned the driver and learned that,
on the evening of the previous day, a young lady who looked
like a Parisian had gone to Perros and put up at the inn known
as the Setting Sun.
The nearer he drew to her, the more fondly he remembered the story
of the little Swedish singer. Most of the details are still unknown
to the public.
There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala, a peasant
who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week
and singing in the choir on Sundays. This peasant had a little daughter
to whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read.
Daae's father was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it.
Not a fiddler throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia
played as he did. His reputation was widespread and he was always
invited to set the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals.
His wife died when Christine was entering upon her sixth year.
Then the father, who cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his
patch of ground and went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune.
He found nothing but poverty.
He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair,
strumming his Scandinavian melodies, while his child, who never
left his side, listened to him in esctasy or sang to his playing.
One day, at Ljimby Fair, Professor Valerius heard them and took
them to Gothenburg. He maintained that the father was the first
violinist in the world and that the daughter had the making of a
great artist. Her education and instruction were provided for.
She made rapid progress and charmed everybody with her prettiness,
her grace of manner and her genuine eagerness to please.
When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae
and Christine with them. "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as
her daughter. As for Daae, he began to pine away with homesickness.
He never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream
which he kept up with his violin. For hours at a time, he remained
locked up in his bedroom with his daughter, fiddling and singing,
very, very softly. Sometimes Mamma Valerius would come and listen
behind the door, wipe away a tear and go down-stairs again on tiptoe,
sighing for her Scandinavian skies.
Daae seemed not to recover his strength until the summer,
when the whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away
corner of Brittany, where the sea was of the same color as in his
own country. Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach
and pretend that the sea stopped its roaring to listen to them.
And then he induced Mamma Valerius to indulge a queer whim of his.
At the time of the "pardons," or Breton pilgrimages, the village
festival and dances, he went off with his fiddle, as in the old days,
and was allowed to take his daughter with him for a week.
They gave the smallest hamlets music to last them for a year and
slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at the inn, lying close
together on the straw, as when they were so poor in Sweden.
At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, made no collection,
refused the halfpence offered them; and the people around could
not understand the conduct of this rustic fiddler, who tramped
the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven.
They followed them from village to village.
One day, a little boy, who was out with his governess, made her take
a longer walk than he intended, for he could not tear himself from
the little girl whose pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her.
They came to the shore of an inlet which is still called Trestraou,
but which now, I believe, harbors a casino or something of the sort.
At that time, there was nothing but sky and sea and a stretch
of golden beach. Only, there was also a high wind, which blew
Christine's scarf out to sea. Christine gave a cry and put out
her arms, but the scarf was already far on the waves. Then she heard
a voice say:
"It's all right, I'll go and fetch your scarf out of the sea."
And she saw a little boy running fast, in spite of the outcries
and the indignant protests of a worthy lady in black. The little boy
ran into the sea, dressed as he was, and brought her back her scarf.
Boy and scarf were both soaked through. The lady in black made a
great fuss, but Christine laughed merrily and kissed the little boy,
who was none other than the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, staying at
Lannion with his aunt.
During the season, they saw each other and played together almost
every day. At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valerius,
Daae consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons.
In this way, Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed
Christine's childhood. They also both had the same calm and dreamy
little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends;
and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors,
like beggars:
"Ma'am..." or, "Kind gentleman...have you a little story
to tell us, please?"
And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them;
for nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life,
seen the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.
But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence
of the evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daae came
and sat down by them on the roadside and, in a low voice, as though
fearing lest he should frighten the ghosts whom he evoked, told them
the legends of the land of the North. And, the moment he stopped,
the children would ask for more.
There was one story that began:
"A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep, still lakes
that open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains..."
And another:
"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden
as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes.
She wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her
frock and her little red shoes and her fiddle, but most of all loved,
when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music."
While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's
blue eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was
very lucky to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep.
The Angel of Music played a part in all Daddy Daae's tales;
and he maintained that every great musician, every great artist
received a visit from the Angel at least once in his life.
Sometimes the Angel leans over their cradle, as happened to Lotte,
and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle
at six better than men at fifty, which, you must admit,
is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later,
because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons
or practise their scales. And, sometimes, he does not come at all,
because the children have a bad heart or a bad conscience.
No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant
to hear him. He often comes when they least expect him, when they
are sad and disheartened. Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial
harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives.
Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown
to the rest of mankind. And they can not touch an instrument,
or open their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put
all other human sounds to shame. Then people who do not know
that the Angel has visited those persons say that they have genius.
Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel of Music.
But Daddy Daae shook his head sadly; and then his eyes lit up,
as he said:
"You will hear him one day, my child! When I am in Heaven,
I will send him to you!"
Daddy was beginning to cough at that time.
Three years later, Raoul and Christine met again at Perros.
Professor Valerius was dead, but his widow remained in France
with Daddy Daae and his daughter, who continued to play the violin
and sing, wrapping in their dream of harmony their kind patroness,
who seemed henceforth to live on music alone. The young man,
as he now was, had come to Perros on the chance of finding them
and went straight to the house in which they used to stay.
He first saw the old man; and then Christine entered, carrying the
tea-tray. She flushed at the sight of Raoul, who went up to her
and kissed her. She asked him a few questions, performed her duties
as hostess prettily, took up the tray again and left the room.
Then she ran into the garden and took refuge on a bench, a prey
to feelings that stirred her young heart for the first time.
Raoul followed her and they talked till the evening, very shyly.
They were quite changed, cautious as two diplomatists, and told each
other things that had nothing to do with their budding sentiments.
When they took leave of each other by the roadside, Raoul, pressing a
kiss on Christine's trembling hand, said:
"Mademoiselle, I shall never forget you!"
And he went away regretting his words, for he knew that Christine
could not be the wife of the Vicomte de Chagny.
As for Christine, she tried not to think of him and devoted herself
wholly to her art. She made wonderful progress and those who heard
her prophesied that she would be the greatest singer in the world.
Meanwhile, the father died; and, suddenly, she seemed to have lost,
with him, her voice, her soul and her genius. She retained just,
but only just, enough of this to enter the CONSERVATOIRE, where she
did not distinguish herself at all, attending the classes without
enthusiasm and taking a prize only to please old Mamma Valerius,
with whom she continued to live.
The first time that Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed
by the girl's beauty and by the sweet images of the past which
it evoked, but was rather surprised at the negative side of her art.
He returned to listen to her. He followed her in the wings. He waited
for her behind a Jacob's ladder. He tried to attract her attention.
More than once, he walked after her to the door of her box, but she
did not see him. She seemed, for that matter, to see nobody.
She was all indifference. Raoul suffered, for she was very beautiful
and he was shy and dared not confess his love, even to himself.
And then came the lightning-flash of the gala performance:
the heavens torn asunder and an angel's voice heard upon earth for
the delight of mankind and the utter capture of his heart.
And then...and then there was that man's voice behind
the door--"You must love me!"--and no one in the room. ...
Why did she laugh when he reminded her of the incident of the scarf?
Why did she not recognize him? And why had she written to him?...
Perros was reached at last. Raoul walked into the smoky sitting-room
of the Setting Sun and at once saw Christine standing before him,
smiling and showing no astonishment.
"So you have come," she said. "I felt that I should find you here,
when I came back from mass. Some one told me so, at the church."
"Who?" asked Raoul, taking her little hand in his.
"Why, my poor father, who is dead."
There was a silence; and then Raoul asked:
"Did your father tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I
can not live without you?"
Christine blushed to the eyes and turned away her head.
In a trembling voice, she said:
"Me? You are dreaming, my friend!"
And she burst out laughing, to put herself in countenance.
"Don't laugh, Christine; I am quite serious," Raoul answered.
And she replied gravely: "I did not make you come to tell me
such things as that."
"You `made me come,' Christine; you knew that your letter would
not leave me indignant and that I should hasten to Perros.
How can you have thought that, if you did not think I loved you?"
"I thought you would remember our games here, as children, in which
my father so often joined. I really don't know what I thought.
... Perhaps I was wrong to write to you....This anniversary
and your sudden appearance in my room at the Opera, the other evening,
reminded me of the time long past and made me write to you as
the little girl that I then was. ..."
There was something in Christine's attitude that seemed to Raoul
not natural. He did not feel any hostility in her; far from it:
the distressed affection shining in her eyes told him that.
But why was this affection distressed? That was what he wished to know
and what was irritating him.
"When you saw me in your dressing-room, was that the first time
you noticed me, Christine?"
She was incapable of lying.
"No," she said, "I had seen you several times in your brother's box.
And also on the stage."
"I thought so!" said Raoul, compressing his lips. "But then why,
when you saw me in your room, at your feet, reminding you that I
had rescued your scarf from the sea, why did you answer as though
you did not know me and also why did you laugh?"
The tone of these questions was so rough that Christine stared
at Raoul without replying. The young man himself was aghast at
the sudden quarrel which he had dared to raise at the very moment
when he had resolved to speak words of gentleness, love and
submission to Christine. A husband, a lover with all rights,
would talk no differently to a wife, a mistress who had offended him.
But he had gone too far and saw no other way out of the ridiculous
position than to behave odiously.
"You don't answer!" he said angrily and unhappily. "Well, I will
answer for you. It was because there was some one in the room
who was in your way, Christine, some one that you did not wish
to know that you could be interested in any one else!"
"If any one was in my way, my friend," Christine broke in coldly,
"if any one was in my way, that evening, it was yourself, since I
told you to leave the room!"
"Yes, so that you might remain with the other!"
"What are you saying, monsieur?" asked the girl excitedly.
"And to what other do you refer?"
"To the man to whom you said, `I sing only for you!...to-night
I gave you my soul and I am dead!'"
Christine seized Raoul's arm and clutched it with a strength
which no one would have suspected in so frail a creature.
"Then you were listening behind the door?"
"Yes, because I love you everything....And I heard everything...."
"You heard what?"
And the young girl, becoming strangely calm, released Raoul's arm.
"He said to you, `Christine, you must love me!'"
At these words, a deathly pallor spread over Christine's face,
dark rings formed round her eyes, she staggered and seemed on the
point of swooning. Raoul darted forward, with arms outstretched,
but Christine had overcome her passing faintness and said,
in a low voice:
"Go on! Go on! Tell me all you heard!"
At an utter loss to understand, Raoul answered: "I heard
him reply, when you said you had given him your soul,
`Your soul is a beautiful thing, child, and I thank you.
No emperor ever received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight.'"
Christine carried her hand to her heart, a prey to indescribable
emotion. Her eyes stared before her like a madwoman's. Raoul
was terror-stricken. But suddenly Christine's eyes moistened
and two great tears trickled, like two pearls, down her ivory cheeks.
"Christine!"
"Raoul!"
The young man tried to take her in his arms, but she escaped
and fled in great disorder.
While Christine remained locked in her room, Raoul was at his wit's
end what to do. He refused to breakfast. He was terribly concerned
and bitterly grieved to see the hours, which he had hoped to find
so sweet, slip past without the presence of the young Swedish girl.
Why did she not come to roam with him through the country where they
had so many memories in common? He heard that she had had a mass said,
that morning, for the repose of her father's soul and spent a long
time praying in the little church and on the fiddler's tomb.
Then, as she seemed to have nothing more to do at Perros and,
in fact, was doing nothing there, why did she not go back to Paris
at once?
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