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

learn, once and for all⁠—once and for all, I say⁠—to take a hint! I tell you that, with your recklessness⁠—for you have already been twice arrested by the shade in the felt hat, who did not know what you were doing in the cellars and took you to the managers, who looked upon you as an eccentric Persian interested in stage mechanism and life behind the scenes: I know all about it, I was there, in the office; you know I am everywhere⁠—well, I tell you that, with your recklessness, they will end by wondering what you are after here⁠ ⁠… and they will end by knowing that you are after Erik⁠ ⁠… and then they will be after Erik themselves and they will discover the house on the lake.⁠ ⁠… If they do, it will be a bad lookout for you, old chap, a bad lookout!⁠ ⁠… I won’t answer for anything.”

Again he puffed and blew like a walrus.

“I won’t answer for anything!⁠ ⁠… If Erik’s secrets cease to be Erik’s secrets, it will be a bad lookout for a goodly number of the human race! That’s all I have to tell you, and unless you are a great booby, it ought to be enough for you⁠ ⁠… except that you don’t know how to take a hint.”

He had sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer. I simply said:

“It’s not Erik that I’m after here!”

“Who then?”

“You know as well as I do: it’s Christine Daaé,” I answered.

He retorted: “I have every right to see her in my own house. I am loved for my own sake.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “You have carried her off and are keeping her locked up.”

“Listen,” he said. “Will you promise never to meddle with my affairs again, if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake?”

“Yes, I promise you,” I replied, without hesitation, for I felt convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.

“Well, then, it’s quite simple.⁠ ⁠… Christine Daaé shall leave this as she pleases and come back again!⁠ ⁠… Yes, come back again, because she wishes⁠ ⁠… come back of herself, because she loves me for myself!⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, I doubt if she will come back!⁠ ⁠… But it is your duty to let her go.”

“My duty, you great booby!⁠ ⁠… It is my wish⁠ ⁠… my wish to let her go; and she will come back again⁠ ⁠… for she loves me!⁠ ⁠… All this will end in a marriage⁠ ⁠… a marriage at the Madeleine, you great booby! Do you believe me now? When I tell you that my nuptial mass is written⁠ ⁠… wait till you hear the ‘Kyrie’.⁠ ⁠…”

He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang:

“Kyrie!⁠ ⁠… Kyrie!⁠ ⁠… Kyrie eleison!⁠ ⁠… Wait till you hear, wait till you hear that mass.”

“Look here,” I said. “I shall believe you if I see Christine Daaé come out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord.”

“And you won’t meddle any more in my affairs?”

“No.”

“Very well, you shall see that tonight. Come to the masked ball. Christine and I will go and have a look round. Then you can hide in the lumber-room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone to her dressing-room, delighted to come back by the Communists’ road.⁠ ⁠… And, now, be off, for I must go and do some shopping!”

To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced. Christine Daaé left the house on the lake and returned to it several times, without, apparently, being forced to do so. It was very difficult for me to clear my mind of Erik. However, I resolved to be extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the shore of the lake, or of going by the Communists’ road. But the idea of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me, and I repeatedly went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roi de Lahore, which had been left there for some reason or other. At last my patience was rewarded. One day, I saw the monster come toward me, on his knees. I was certain that he could not see me. He passed between the scene behind which I stood and a set piece, went to the wall and pressed on a spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress. He passed through this, and the stone closed behind him.

I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my turn. Everything happened as with Erik. But I was careful not to go through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside. On the other hand, the idea that I might be caught by Erik suddenly made me think of the death of Joseph Buquet. I did not wish to jeopardize the advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many people, “to a goodly number of the human race,” in Erik’s words; and I left the cellars of the Opera after carefully replacing the stone.

I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik and Christine Daaé, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Erik was capable of anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake, as he imagined. I continued to wander, very cautiously, about the Opera and soon learned the truth about the monster’s dreary love-affair.

He filled Christine’s mind, through the terror with which he inspired her, but the dear child’s heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. While they played about, like an innocent engaged couple, on the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster, they little suspected that someone was watching over them. I was prepared to do anything: to kill the monster, if necessary, and explain to the police afterward. But Erik did not show himself; and I