Chapter XII

On this way, they reached the roof. Christine tripped over it as lightly as a swallow. Their eyes swept the empty space between the three domes and the triangular pediment. She breathed freely over Paris. She called Raoul to come quite close to her and they walked side by side along the zinc streets, in the leaden avenues. The shadow had followed behind them clinging to their steps.

It was a gorgeous spring evening. Clouds drifted slowly by; and Christine said to Raoul:

“Soon we shall go farther and faster than the clouds, to the end of the world, and then you will leave me, Raoul. But, if, when the moment comes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you—well you must carry me off by force!”

“Are you afraid that you will change your mind, Christine?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “He is a demon! I am afraid 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! But I can’t do it, I can’t do it! He is very horrible! And I have only a day left; and, if I do not go, he will come 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. And he 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! I can not see those tears flow again!”

Raoul pressed her to his heart.

“No, no, you’ll never again hear him tell you that he loves you! You’ll not see his tears! Let us fly, Christine, let us fly at once!”

And he tried to drag her away. But she stopped him.

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “Not now! It would be too cruel. Let him hear me sing tomorrow evening and then we will go away. You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room at midnight exactly. He will then be waiting for me in the dining-room by the lake. We shall be free and you shall take me away. You must promise me that, Raoul, even if I refuse; for I feel that, if I go back this time, I shall perhaps never return.”

And she gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh, behind her, 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! Oh, the first time I saw him! I thought that he was going to die.”

“Why?” asked Raoul, really frightened.

“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 been hurt. Did you hear?”

“I can’t say,” Christine confessed. “Even when he is not there, my ears are full of his sighs. Still, if you heard…”

They stood up and looked around them. They were quite alone on the immense 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 I heard it, I thought, as you did, that that adorable voice was singing in another room. I went out and looked everywhere; but I could not find the voice outside my room. And it not only sang, but it spoke to me and answered my questions, like a real man’s voice, with this difference, that it was as beautiful as the voice of an angel. I told Mamma Valerius about it; and she at once said, ‘It must be the Angel; at any rate, you can do no harm by asking him.’ I did so; and the man’s voice replied that, yes, it was the Angel’s voice. From that time onward, the voice and I became great friends. It offered to give me lessons every day. I agreed and never. You have no idea, though you have heard the voice, of what 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 the wall. It said, ‘Wait and see: we shall astonish 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 the theatre. I was so glad that I never thought of concealing my delight when I reached my dressing-room. Unfortunately, the voice was there before me and soon noticed, that something had happened. It asked what was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our story secret or concealing the place which you filled in my heart. Then the voice was silent. I called to it, but it did not reply; I begged and entreated, but in vain. That night, I went home in a desperate condition. I told Mamma Valerius, who said, ‘Why, of course, the voice is jealous!’ And that, dear, first revealed to me that I loved you”.

Christine stopped and laid her head on Raoul’s shoulder. They sat like that for a moment, in silence, and they did not see, did not perceive the movement, at a few steps from them, of the creeping shadow of two great black wings.

“The next day,” Christine continued, with a sigh, “I went back to my dressing-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 must bestow my heart on earth, there was nothing for the voice to do but to go back to Heaven. I feared nothing so much as that I might never hear it again; I had thought about my love for you and realized all the useless danger of it; and I did not even know if you remembered me. Whatever happened, your position in society forbade me to contemplate the possibility of ever marrying you; and I swore to the voice that you were no more than a brother to me nor ever would be and that my heart was incapable of any earthly love. And that, dear, was why I refused to recognize or see you when I met you on the stage or in the passages. At last, the voice said to me, ‘You can now, Christine Daae, give to men a little of the music of Heaven.’ I don’t know how it was that Carlotta did not come to the theater that night nor why I was called upon to sing in her stead; but I sang with a rapture I had never known before and I felt for a moment as if my soul were leaving my body!”

“Oh, Christine,” said Raoul, “my heart quivered that night at every accent of your voice. I saw the tears stream down your cheeks and I wept with you. How could you sing, sing like that while crying?”

“I closed my eyes,” said Christine. “When I opened them, you were by my side. But the voice was there also, Raoul! I would not recognize you and began to laugh when you reminded me that you had picked up my scarf in the sea! Alas, one can’t deceive the voice! The voice recognized you and the voice was jealous! It said that, if I did not love you, I would not avoid you, but treat you like any other old friend. It made me scene upon scene. At last, I said to the voice, ‘That will do! I am going to Perros tomorrow, to pray on my father’s grave, and I shall ask M. Raoul de Chagny to go with me.’ ‘Do as you please,’ replied the voice, ‘but I shall be at Perros too, for I am wherever you are, Christine.’ That, dear, was how I came to write you the letter that brought you to Perros. How could I have been so beguiled? I did not suspect an impostor. Alas, I was no longer mistress of myself: I had become his thing!”

“But, after all,” cried Raoul, “you soon came to know the truth! Why did you not at once rid yourself of that abominable nightmare?”

“Know the truth, Raoul? Rid myself of that nightmare? But, my poor boy, I was not caught in the nightmare until the day when I learned the truth! Pity me, Raoul, pity me! You remember the terrible evening when Carlotta thought that she had been turned into a toad on the stage and when the house was suddenly plunged in darkness through the chandelier crashing to the floor? There were killed and wounded that night and the whole theater rang with terrified screams. My first thought was for you and the voice. I had seen you in your brother’s box and I knew that you were not in danger. But the voice had told me that it would be at the performance and I was really afraid. I rushed to my room. The voice was not there. The voice did not reply, but suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail which I knew well. It is the plaint of Lazarus when he begins to open his eyes and see the light of day. ‘Come! And believe in me! Whoso believes in me shall live! Walk! Whoso hath believed in me shall never die!’ I can not tell you the effect which that music had upon me. It seemed to command me, personally, to come, to stand up and come to it. ‘Come! And believe in me!’ I believed in it, I came… Evidently, it must have been an effect of mirrors for I had the mirror in front of me. And, suddenly, I was outside the room without knowing how!”

“What! Without knowing how? Christine, Christine, you must really stop 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 to explain it; but I can not. I can only tell you that, suddenly, there was 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 faint red glimmer at a distant corner of the wall. My voice was the only sound, for the singing had stopped. And, suddenly, a hand was laid on mine. I cried out again. An arm took me round the waist and supported me. I struggled for a little while and then gave up the attempt. I was dragged toward the little red light and then I saw that I was in the hands of a man wrapped in a large cloak and wearing a mask that hid his whole face. I made one last effort; my mouth opened to scream, but a hand closed it, a hand which I felt on my lips, on my skin; a hand that smelt of death. Then I fainted away.

“When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness. A lantern, standing on the ground, showed a well. My head was on the knee of the man in the black cloak and the black mask. He was bathing my temples and his hands smelt 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 hot breath passed over my face and I perceived a white shape, beside the man’s black shape, in the darkness. The black shape lifted me on to the white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I murmured, ‘Cesar!’ The animal quivered. Raoul, I was lying half back on 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, one evening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse had disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost. I believed in the voice, but had never believed in the ghost. Now, however, I began to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was the ghost’s prisoner. I called upon the voice to help me, for I should never have imagined that the voice and the ghost were one. You have heard about the Opera ghost, have you not, Raoul?”

“Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse of the Profeta?”

“I made no movement. The black shape held me up, and I made no effort to escape. My eyes became used to the darkness, which was lit, here and there, by fitful gleams. I calculated that we were in a narrow circular gallery, probably running all round the Opera, which is immense, underground. I had once been down into those cellars, but had stopped at the third floor, though there were two lower still, large enough to hold a town. But the figures of which I caught sight had made me run away. There are demons down there, quite black, standing in front of boilers, and they wield shovels and pitchforks and poke up fires and stir up flames. Well, while Cesar was quietly carrying me on his back, I saw those black demons in the distance, looking quite small, in front of the red fires of their furnaces: they came into sight, disappeared and came into sight again, as we went on our winding way. At last, they disappeared altogether. I could not tell you, even approximately, how long this ride lasted; I only know that we seemed to turn and turn and often went down a spiral stair into the very heart of the earth. At last, Cesar stopped. A sort of blue light surrounded us. We were on the edge of a lake, whose leaden waters stretched into the distance, into the darkness; but the blue light lit up the bank and I saw a little boat!”

“A boat!”

“Yes, my gruesome escort sent Cesar back and I heard his hoofs trampling up a staircase while the man jumped into the boat, untied the rope that held it and seized the oars. His eyes, under the mask, never left me. We slipped across the noiseless water in the blue light which I told you of; then we were in the dark again and we touched shore. And I was once more taken up in the man’s arms. I cried aloud. I had been put down. I sprang to my feet. I was in the middle of a drawing-room that seemed to me to be decorated, adorned and furnished with nothing but flowers. And, in the midst of all these flowers, stood the black shape of the man in the mask, with arms crossed, and he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Christine; you are in no danger.’ It was the voice!

“I rushed at the mask and tried to snatch it away, so as to see the face of the voice. The man said, ‘You are in no danger, so long as you do not touch the mask.’ And, taking me gently by the wrists, he forced me into a chair and then went down on his knees before me and said nothing more! His humility gave me back some of my courage; and the light restored me life. However extraordinary the adventure might be, I was now surrounded by mortal, visible, tangible things. The furniture, the candles, the vases and the flowers in their baskets. I had, no doubt, to do with a terrible, eccentric person, who had taken up his abode there, under the Opera house, five stories below the level of the ground. And the voice, the voice which I had recognized under the mask, was on its knees before me, was a man! I began to cry. The man, still kneeling, must have understood the cause of my tears, for he said, ‘It is true, Christine! I am not an Angel, nor a genius, nor a ghost. I am Erik!’”

Christine’s narrative was again interrupted. An echo behind them seemed to repeat the word after her.

“Erik!”

What echo? They both turned round and saw that night had fallen. Raoul made a movement, but Christine kept him beside her.

“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, and here we are miles away from the trap-doors. And I am not allowed to see you outside the theater. This is not the time to annoy him. We must not arouse his suspicion.”

“Christine! Christine! Something tells me that we are wrong to wait till tomorrow evening and that we ought to fly at once.”

“I tell you that, if he does not hear me sing tomorrow, it will cause him infinite pain.”

“It is difficult not to cause him pain and yet to escape from him for good.”

“You are right in that, Raoul, for certainly he will die of my flight.” And she added in a dull voice, “And we risk his killing us.”

“Does he love you so much?”

“He would commit murder for me.”

“But one can find out where he lives. Now that we know that Erik is not a ghost, one can speak to him and force 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 I left him.”

“Oh, I hate him!” cried Raoul. “And you, Christine, tell me, do you hate him too?”

“No,” said Christine simply.

“No, of course not. Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love,” said Raoul bitterly. “A man who lives in a palace underground!”

“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 who spoke and the shadow that listened, behind them.

“Before answering that,” said Raoul, at last, speaking very slowly, “I should like to know with what feeling he inspires you, since you do not hate him.”

“With horror!” she said. “That is the terrible thing about it. He fills 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. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness! He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love, He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love! But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps! And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty. He offered it. He offered to show me the mysterious road. He rose too. I remember that he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, but he remained the voice. And he began to sing. And I listened and stayed! That night, we did not exchange another word…

“When I woke up, I was alone, lying on a sofa in a simply furnished little bedroom. I soon discovered that I was a prisoner and that the only outlet from my room led to a very comfortable bathroom. On returning to the bedroom, I saw on the chest of drawers a note, in red ink, which said, ‘My dear Christine, you have no better nor more respectful friend in the world than myself. You are alone, at present, in this home which is yours. I am going out shopping to fetch you all the things that you can need.’ I felt sure that I had fallen into the hands of a madman. I ran round my little apartment, looking for a way of escape which I could not find. My absurd superstition had caused me to fall into the trap. I laughed and cried at the same time.

“This was the state of mind in which Erik found me. He walked in quietly through a door which I had not noticed and which he left open. He had his arms full of boxes and parcels and arranged them on the bed. I called upon him to take off his mask, if it covered the face of an honest man. He replied serenely, ‘You will never see Erik’s face.’ He told me that it was two o’clock in the afternoon. He said he would give me half an hour and, 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 waiting for us.

“I was very angry and went to the bathroom. When I came out again, Erik said that he loved me, but that he would never tell me so except when I allowed 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,’ he said. I asked him if I should then be free and he said, ‘You will be free, Christine, for, when those five days are past, you will have learned not to see me; and then, from time to time, you will come to see your poor Erik!’ He pointed to a chair opposite him, at a small table, and I sat down. However, I ate and drank. Erik did not eat or drink. I asked him what his nationality was and he said that he had no name and no country and that he had taken the name of Erik by accident.

“After lunch, he rose and said he would like to show me over his place. And he opened a door before me. ‘This is my bedroom. It is rather curious.’ His manners, his words, his attitude gave me confidence. I felt as if I were entering the room of a dead person. In the middle of the room was an open coffin. ‘That is where I sleep,’ said Erik. ‘One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.’

“Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I read, ‘Don Juan Triumphant.’

“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I compose sometimes. I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.’

“‘Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?’ I asked, thinking to please him.

“‘You must never ask me that,’ he said, in a gloomy voice. ‘I will play you Mozart, if you like.’

“Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano. He said, ‘You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae’”.

“What did you do?”

“I had no time to think about the meaning his words. We at once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us. I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed before. As for him, Erik was Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to see beneath the mask. I wanted to know the face of the voice, and swiftly my fingers tore away the mask. Oh, horror, horror, horror!”

Christine stopped, while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now thrice moaned the cry:

“Horror! Horror! Horror!”

Raoul and Christine raised their eyes to the stars that shone in a clear and peaceful sky. Christine took Raoul’s hands in hers and, with a long shiver, continued:

“I should always hear the superhuman cry of grief and rage which he uttered when the terrible sight appeared before my eyes! Raoul, you have seen death’s heads, when they have been dried and withered by the centuries. And then you saw Red Death at the last masked ball. But all those death’s heads were motionless. But imagine, if you can, Red Death’s mask suddenly coming to life in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes, its nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon.

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 words and curses at me. Leaning over me, he cried, ‘Look! You want to see! See! Look at my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik’s face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I’m a very good-looking fellow, eh? When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me for ever!’ He roared, ‘Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant!’ And, when I turned away 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 kill him!”

“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?” exclaimed Raoul fiercely. “Quick!”

“Then he hissed at me. ‘Ah, I frighten you, do I? Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this… my head is a mask? Well,’ he roared, ‘tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Give me your hands!’ And he seized my hands and dug them into his awful face. He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh with my nails! ‘Know,’ he shouted, ‘know that I am built up of death and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you! Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying, crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again! As long as you thought me handsome, you could have come back. But, now that you know my hideousness, you would run away for good! So I shall keep you here! Why did you want to see me? Oh, mad Christine, who wanted to see me! When my own father never saw me and when my mother, so as not to see me, made me a present of my first mask!’

“He was dragging himself about on the floor, uttering terrible sobs. And then he crawled away like a snake, went into his room, closed the door and left me alone. Presently I heard the sound of the organ. I opened the door that separated us. Erik rose, as I entered. ‘Erik,’ I cried, ‘show me your face without fear! I swear that you are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again I shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the splendor 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, and the music had ceased. He kissed the hem of my dress and did not see that I closed my eyes. Poor Erik! Poor Erik!”

“Christine,” said Raoul, rising, “you tell me that you love me; but you returned to Erik! 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? Each of my visits to Erik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits, instead of calming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love! And I am so frightened, so frightened!…”

“You are frightened; but do you love me? If Erik were good-looking, would you love me, Christine?”

She put her two trembling arms round the young man’s neck and said:

“Oh, my betrothed, if I did not love you, I would not give you my lips! Take them, for the first time and the last.”

He kissed her lips; but the night that surrounded them was rent asunder, they fled as at the approach of a storm and their eyes showed them, before they disappeared, high up above them, an immense night-bird that stared at them with its blazing eyes.