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

her gesture of farewell with such authority that he dared not move a step.

He watched her till she was out of sight. Then he also went down among the crowd, hardly knowing what he was doing, with throbbing temples and an aching heart; and, as he crossed the dancing-floor, he asked if anybody had seen Red Death. Yes, everyone had seen Red Death; but Raoul could not find him; and, at two o’clock in the morning, he turned down the passage, behind the scenes, that led to Christine Daaé’s dressing-room.

His footsteps took him to that room where he had first known suffering. He tapped at the door. There was no answer. He entered, as he had entered when he looked everywhere for “the man’s voice.” The room was empty. A gas-jet was burning, turned down low. He saw some writing-paper on a little desk. He thought of writing to Christine, but he heard steps in the passage. He had only time to hide in the inner room, which was separated from the dressing-room by a curtain.

Christine entered, took off her mask with a weary movement and flung it on the table. She sighed and let her pretty head fall into her two hands. What was she thinking of? Of Raoul? No, for Raoul heard her murmur: “Poor Erik!”

At first, he thought he must be mistaken. To begin with, he was persuaded that, if anyone was to be pitied, it was he, Raoul. It would have been quite natural if she had said, “Poor Raoul,” after what had happened between them. But, shaking her head, she repeated: “Poor Erik!”

What had this Erik to do with Christine’s sighs and why was she pitying Erik when Raoul was so unhappy?

Christine began to write, deliberately, calmly and so placidly that Raoul, who was still trembling from the effects of the tragedy that separated them, was painfully impressed.

“What coolness!” he said to himself.

She wrote on, filling two, three, four sheets. Suddenly, she raised her head and hid the sheets in her bodice.⁠ ⁠… She seemed to be listening.⁠ ⁠… Raoul also listened.⁠ ⁠… Whence came that strange sound, that distant rhythm?⁠ ⁠… A faint singing seemed to issue from the walls⁠ ⁠… yes, it was as though the walls themselves were singing!⁠ ⁠… The song became plainer⁠ ⁠… the words were now distinguishable⁠ ⁠… he heard a voice, a very beautiful, very soft, very captivating voice⁠ ⁠… but, for all its softness, it remained a male voice.⁠ ⁠… The voice came nearer and nearer⁠ ⁠… it came through the wall⁠ ⁠… it approached⁠ ⁠… and now the voice was in the room, in front of Christine. Christine rose and addressed the voice, as though speaking to someone:

“Here I am, Erik,” she said. “I am ready. But you are late.”

Raoul, peeping from behind the curtain, could not believe his eyes, which showed him nothing. Christine’s face lit up. A smile of happiness appeared upon her bloodless lips, a smile like that of sick people when they receive the first hope of recovery.

The voice without a body went on singing; and certainly Raoul had never in his life heard anything more absolutely and heroically sweet, more gloriously insidious, more delicate, more powerful, in short, more irresistibly triumphant. He listened to it in a fever and he now began to understand how Christine Daaé was able to appear one evening, before the stupefied audience, with accents of a beauty hitherto unknown, of a superhuman exaltation, while doubtless still under the influence of the mysterious and invisible master.

The voice was singing the Wedding-night Song from Romeo and Juliet. Raoul saw Christine stretch out her arms to the voice as she had done, in Perros churchyard, to the invisible violin playing “The Resurrection of Lazarus.” And nothing could describe the passion with which the voice sang:

“Fate links thee to me forever and a day!”

The strains went through Raoul’s heart. Struggling against the charm that seemed to deprive him of all his will and all his energy and of almost all his lucidity at the moment when he needed them most, he succeeded in drawing back the curtain that hid him and he walked to where Christine stood. She herself was moving to the back of the room, the whole wall of which was occupied by a great mirror that reflected her image, but not his, for he was just behind her and entirely covered by her.

“Fate links thee to me forever and a day!”

Christine walked toward her image in the glass and the image came toward her. The two Christines⁠—the real one and the reflection⁠—ended by touching; and Raoul put out his arms to clasp the two in one embrace. But, by a sort of dazzling miracle that sent him staggering, Raoul was suddenly flung back, while an icy blast swept over his face; he saw, not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines spinning round him, laughing at him and fleeing so swiftly that he could not touch one of them. At last, everything stood still again; and he saw himself in the glass. But Christine had disappeared.

He rushed up to the glass. He struck at the walls. Nobody! And meanwhile the room still echoed with a distant passionate singing:

“Fate links thee to me forever and a day!”

Which way, which way had Christine gone?⁠ ⁠… Which way would she return?⁠ ⁠…

Would she return? Alas, had she not declared to him that everything was finished? And was the voice not repeating:

“Fate links thee to me forever and a day!”

To me? To whom?

Then, worn out, beaten, empty-brained, he sat down on the chair which Christine had just left. Like her, he let his head fall into his hands. When he raised it, the tears were streaming down his young cheeks, real, heavy tears like those which jealous children shed, tears that wept for a sorrow which was in no way fanciful, but which is common to all the lovers on earth and which he expressed aloud:

“Who is this Erik?” he said.

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