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

furnaces.⁠ ⁠… Well, while César 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. The shape was still holding me up and César walked on, unled and surefooted. 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. Even then, it may be that my head was turning, but I don’t think so: no, my mind was quite clear. At last, César raised his nostrils, sniffed the air and quickened his pace a little. I felt a moistness in the air and César stopped. The darkness had lifted. A sort of bluey 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 fastened to an iron ring on the wharf!”

“A boat!”

“Yes, but I knew that all that existed and that there was nothing supernatural about that underground lake and boat. But think of the exceptional conditions in which I arrived upon that shore! I don’t know whether the effects of the cordial had worn off when the man’s shape lifted me into the boat, but my terror began all over again. My gruesome escort must have noticed it, for he sent César 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. He rowed with a quick, powerful stroke; and his eyes, under the mask, never left me. We slipped across the noiseless water in the bluey 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. And then, suddenly, I was silent, dazed by the light.⁠ ⁠… Yes, a dazzling light in the midst of which 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, flowers both magnificent and stupid, because of the silk ribbons that tied them to baskets, like those which they sell in the shops on the boulevards. They were much too civilized flowers, like those which I used to find in my dressing-room after a first night. 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!

“My anger equaled my amazement. 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 to the realities of life. However extraordinary the adventure might be, I was now surrounded by mortal, visible, tangible things. The furniture, the hangings, the candles, the vases and the very flowers in their baskets, of which I could almost have told whence they came and what they cost, were bound to confine my imagination to the limits of a drawing-room quite as commonplace as any that, at least, had the excuse of not being in the cellars of the Opera. I had, no doubt, to do with a terrible, eccentric person, who, in some mysterious fashion, had succeeded in taking 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! And 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 as though to rise, 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 except the trap-doors, dear, 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, “But then it counts both ways⁠ ⁠… for 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. One can go in search of him. 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