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

The viscount threw up his arms with a gesture of despair.

“The genius gives her lessons!⁠ ⁠… And where, pray?”

“Now that she has gone away with him, I can’t say; but, up to a fortnight ago, it was in Christine’s dressing-room. It would be impossible in this little flat. The whole house would hear them. Whereas, at the Opera, at eight o’clock in the morning, there is no one about, do you see!”

“Yes, I see! I see!” cried the viscount.

And he hurriedly took leave of Mme. Valérius, who asked herself if the young nobleman was not a little off his head.

He walked home to his brother’s house in a pitiful state. He could have struck himself, banged his head against the walls! To think that he had believed in her innocence, in her purity! The Angel of Music! He knew him now! He saw him! It was beyond a doubt some unspeakable tenor, a good-looking jackanapes, who mouthed and simpered as he sang! He thought himself as absurd and as wretched as could be. Oh, what a miserable, little, insignificant, silly young man was M. le Vicomte de Chagny! thought Raoul furiously. And she, what a bold and damnable sly creature!

His brother was waiting for him and Raoul fell into his arms, like a child. The count consoled him, without asking for explanations; and Raoul would certainly have long hesitated before telling him the story of the Angel of Music. His brother suggested taking him out to dinner. Overcome as he was with despair, Raoul would probably have refused any invitation that evening, if the count had not, as an inducement, told him that the lady of his thoughts had been seen, the night before, in company of the other sex in the Bois. At first, the viscount refused to believe; but he received such exact details that he ceased protesting. She had been seen, it appeared, driving in a brougham, with the window down. She seemed to be slowly taking in the icy night air. There was a glorious moon shining. She was recognized beyond a doubt. As for her companion, only his shadowy outline was distinguished leaning back in the dark. The carriage was going at a walking pace in a lonely drive behind the grand stand at Longchamp.

Raoul dressed in frantic haste, prepared to forget his distress by flinging himself, as people say, into “the vortex of pleasure.” Alas, he was a very sorry guest and, leaving his brother early, found himself, by ten o’clock in the evening, in a cab, behind the Longchamp racecourse.

It was bitterly cold. The road seemed deserted and very bright under the moonlight. He told the driver to wait for him patiently at the corner of a near turning and, hiding himself as well as he could, stood stamping his feet to keep warm. He had been indulging in this healthy exercise for half an hour or so, when a carriage turned the corner of the road and came quietly in his direction, at a walking pace.

As it approached, he saw that a woman was leaning her head from the window. And, suddenly, the moon shed a pale gleam over her features.

“Christine!”

The sacred name of his love had sprung from his heart and his lips. He could not keep it back.⁠ ⁠… He would have given anything to withdraw it, for that name, proclaimed in the stillness of the night, had acted as though it were the preconcerted signal for a furious rush on the part of the whole turnout, which dashed past him before he could put into execution his plan of leaping at the horses’ heads. The carriage window had been closed and the girl’s face had disappeared. And the brougham, behind which he was now running, was no more than a black spot on the white road.

He called out again: “Christine!”

No reply. And he stopped in the midst of the silence.

With a lackluster eye, he stared down that cold, desolate road and into the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder than his heart, nothing half so dead: he had loved an angel and now he despised a woman!

Raoul, how that little fairy of the North has trifled with you! Was it really, was it really necessary to have so fresh and young a face, a forehead so shy and always ready to cover itself with the pink blush of modesty in order to pass in the lonely night, in a carriage and pair, accompanied by a mysterious lover? Surely there should be some limit to hypocrisy and lying!⁠ ⁠…

She had passed without answering his cry.⁠ ⁠… And he was thinking of dying; and he was twenty years old!⁠ ⁠…

His valet found him in the morning sitting on his bed. He had not undressed and the servant feared, at the sight of his face, that some disaster had occurred. Raoul snatched his letters from the man’s hands. He had recognized Christine’s paper and handwriting. She said:

Dear:

Go to the masked ball at the Opera on the night after tomorrow. At twelve o’clock, be in the little room behind the chimney-place of the big crush-room. Stand near the door that leads to the Rotunda. Don’t mention this appointment to anyone on earth. Wear a white domino and be carefully masked. As you love me, do not let yourself be recognized.

Christine.

The envelope was covered with mud and unstamped. It bore the words “To be handed to M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny,” with the address in pencil. It must have been flung out in the hope that a passerby would pick up the note and deliver it, which was what happened. The note had been picked up on the pavement of the Place de l’Opera.

Raoul read it over again with fevered eyes. No more was needed to revive his hope. The somber picture which he had for a moment imagined of a Christine forgetting her duty to herself made way for his original conception of an unfortunate, innocent