The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux (bill gates best books .TXT) 📗

ground only too favorable for the malevolent designs of some mysterious and unscrupulous person. Of whom was Christine Daaé the victim? This was the very reasonable question which Raoul put to himself as he hurried off to Mamma Valérius.

He trembled as he rang at a little flat in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. The door was opened by the maid whom he had seen coming out of Christine’s dressing-room one evening. He asked if he could speak to Mme. Valérius. He was told that she was ill in bed and was not receiving visitors.

“Take in my card, please,” he said.

The maid soon returned and showed him into a small and scantily furnished drawing-room, in which portraits of Professor Valérius and old Daaé hung on opposite walls.

“Madame begs monsieur le vicomte to excuse her,” said the servant. “She can only see him in her bedroom, because she can no longer stand on her poor legs.”

Five minutes later, Raoul was ushered into an ill-lit room where he at once recognized the good, kind face of Christine’s benefactress in the semidarkness of an alcove. Mamma Valérius’ hair was now quite white, but her eyes had grown no older; never, on the contrary, had their expression been so bright, so pure, so childlike.

“M. de Chagny!” she cried gaily, putting out both her hands to her visitor. “Ah, it’s Heaven that sends you here!⁠ ⁠… We can talk of her.”

This last sentence sounded very gloomily in the young man’s ears. He at once asked:

“Madame⁠ ⁠… where is Christine?”

And the old lady replied calmly:

“She is with her good genius!”

“What good genius?” exclaimed poor Raoul.

“Why, the Angel of Music!”

The viscount dropped into a chair. Really? Christine was with the Angel of Music? And there lay Mamma Valérius in bed, smiling to him and putting her finger to her lips, to warn him to be silent! And she added:

“You must not tell anybody!”

“You can rely on me,” said Raoul.

He hardly knew what he was saying, for his ideas about Christine, already greatly confused, were becoming more and more entangled; and it seemed as if everything was beginning to turn around him, around the room, around that extraordinary good lady with the white hair and forget-me-not eyes.

“I know! I know I can!” she said, with a happy laugh. “But why don’t you come near me, as you used to do when you were a little boy? Give me your hands, as when you brought me the story of little Lotte, which Daddy Daaé had told you. I am very fond of you, M. Raoul, you know. And so is Christine too!”

“She is fond of me!” sighed the young man. He found a difficulty in collecting his thoughts and bringing them to bear on Mamma Valérius’ “good genius,” on the Angel of Music of whom Christine had spoken to him so strangely, on the death’s head which he had seen in a sort of nightmare on the high altar at Perros and also on the Opera ghost, whose fame had come to his ears one evening when he was standing behind the scenes, within hearing of a group of scene-shifters who were repeating the ghastly description which the hanged man, Joseph Buquet, had given of the ghost before his mysterious death.

He asked in a low voice: “What makes you think that Christine is fond of me, madame?”

“She used to speak of you every day.”

“Really?⁠ ⁠… And what did she tell you?”

“She told me that you had made her a proposal!”

And the good old lady began laughing wholeheartedly. Raoul sprang from his chair, flushing to the temples, suffering agonies.

“What’s this? Where are you going?⁠ ⁠… Sit down again at once, will you?⁠ ⁠… Do you think I will let you go like that?⁠ ⁠… If you’re angry with me for laughing, I beg your pardon.⁠ ⁠… After all, what has happened isn’t your fault.⁠ ⁠… Didn’t you know?⁠ ⁠… Did you think that Christine was free?⁠ ⁠…”

“Is Christine engaged to be married?” the wretched Raoul asked, in a choking voice.

“Why no! Why no!⁠ ⁠… You know as well as I do that Christine couldn’t marry, even if she wanted to!⁠ ⁠…”

“But I don’t know anything about it!⁠ ⁠… And why can’t Christine marry?”

“Because of the Angel of Music, of course!⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t follow⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, he forbids her to!⁠ ⁠…”

“He forbids her!⁠ ⁠… The Angel of Music forbids her to marry!⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, he forbids her⁠ ⁠… without forbidding her. It’s like this: he tells her that, if she got married, she would never hear him again. That’s all!⁠ ⁠… And that he would go away forever!⁠ ⁠… So, you understand, she can’t let the Angel of Music go. It’s quite natural.”

“Yes, yes,” echoed Raoul submissively, “it’s quite natural.”

“Besides, I thought Christine had told you all that, when she met you at Perros, where she went with her good genius.”

“Oh, she went to Perros with her good genius, did she?”

“That is to say, he arranged to meet her down there, in Perros churchyard, at Daaé’s grave. He promised to play her ‘The Resurrection of Lazarus’ on her father’s violin!”

Raoul de Chagny rose and, with a very authoritative air, pronounced these peremptory words:

“Madame, you will have the goodness to tell me where that genius lives.”

The old lady did not seem surprised at this indiscreet command. She raised her eyes and said:

“In Heaven!”

Such simplicity baffled him. He did not know what to say in the presence of this candid and perfect faith in a genius who came down nightly from Heaven to haunt the dressing-rooms at the Opera.

He now realized the possible state of mind of a girl brought up between a superstitious fiddler and a visionary old lady and he shuddered when he thought of the consequences of it all.

“Is Christine still a good girl?” he asked suddenly, in spite of himself.

“I swear it, as I hope to be saved!” exclaimed the old woman, who, this time, seemed to be incensed. “And, if you doubt it, sir, I don’t know what you are here for!”

Raoul tore at his gloves.

“How long has she known this ‘genius?’ ”

“About three months.⁠ ⁠… Yes, it’s quite three months since he began to give