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

he ring? Do I ask people who pass to tell me the time? He will never ask anybody the time again! It is the siren’s fault.”

Another sigh, deeper, more tremendous still, came from the abysmal depths of a soul.

“Why did you cry out, Christine?”

“Because I am in pain, Erik.”

“I thought I had frightened you.”

“Erik, unloose my bonds.⁠ ⁠… Am I not your prisoner?”

“You will try to kill yourself again.”

“You have given me till eleven o’clock tomorrow evening, Erik.”

The footsteps dragged along the floor again.

“After all, as we are to die together⁠ ⁠… and I am just as eager as you⁠ ⁠… yes, I have had enough of this life, you know.⁠ ⁠… Wait, don’t move, I will release you.⁠ ⁠… You have only one word to say: ‘No!’ And it will at once be over with everybody!⁠ ⁠… You are right, you are right; why wait till eleven o’clock tomorrow evening? True, it would have been grander, finer.⁠ ⁠… But that is childish nonsense.⁠ ⁠… We should only think of ourselves in this life, of our own death⁠ ⁠… the rest doesn’t matter.⁠ ⁠… You’re looking at me because I am all wet?⁠ ⁠… Oh, my dear, it’s raining cats and dogs outside!⁠ ⁠… Apart from that, Christine, I think I am subject to hallucinations.⁠ ⁠… You know, the man who rang at the siren’s door just now⁠—go and look if he’s ringing at the bottom of the lake-well, he was rather like.⁠ ⁠… There, turn round⁠ ⁠… are you glad? You’re free now.⁠ ⁠… Oh, my poor Christine, look at your wrists: tell me, have I hurt them?⁠ ⁠… That alone deserves death.⁠ ⁠… Talking of death, I must sing his requiem!”

Hearing these terrible remarks, I received an awful presentiment⁠ ⁠… I too had once rung at the monster’s door⁠ ⁠… and, without knowing it, must have set some warning current in motion.⁠ ⁠… And I remembered the two arms that had emerged from the inky waters.⁠ ⁠… What poor wretch had strayed to that shore this time? Who was “the other one,” the one whose requiem we now heard sung?

Erik sang like the god of thunder, sang a Dies Irae that enveloped us as in a storm. The elements seemed to rage around us. Suddenly, the organ and the voice ceased so suddenly that M. de Chagny sprang back, on the other side of the wall, with emotion. And the voice, changed and transformed, distinctly grated out these metallic syllables:

“What have you done with my bag?”

XXIII The Tortures Begin

The Persian’s Narrative Continued

The voice repeated angrily: “What have you done with my bag? So it was to take my bag that you asked me to release you!”

We heard hurried steps, Christine running back to the Louis-Philippe room, as though to seek shelter on the other side of our wall.

“What are you running away for?” asked the furious voice, which had followed her. “Give me back my bag, will you? Don’t you know that it is the bag of life and death?”

“Listen to me, Erik,” sighed the girl. “As it is settled that we are to live together⁠ ⁠… what difference can it make to you?”

“You know there are only two keys in it,” said the monster. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to look at this room which I have never seen and which you have always kept from me.⁠ ⁠… It’s woman’s curiosity!” she said, in a tone which she tried to render playful.

But the trick was too childish for Erik to be taken in by it.

“I don’t like curious women,” he retorted, “and you had better remember the story of Bluebeard and be careful.⁠ ⁠… Come, give me back my bag!⁠ ⁠… Give me back my bag!⁠ ⁠… Leave the key alone, will you, you inquisitive little thing?”

And he chuckled, while Christine gave a cry of pain. Erik had evidently recovered the bag from her.

At that moment, the viscount could not help uttering an exclamation of impotent rage.

“Why, what’s that?” said the monster. “Did you hear, Christine?”

“No, no,” replied the poor girl. “I heard nothing.”

“I thought I heard a cry.”

“A cry! Are you going mad, Erik? Whom do you expect to give a cry, in this house?⁠ ⁠… I cried out, because you hurt me! I heard nothing.”

“I don’t like the way you said that!⁠ ⁠… You’re trembling.⁠ ⁠… You’re quite excited.⁠ ⁠… You’re lying!⁠ ⁠… That was a cry, there was a cry!⁠ ⁠… There is someone in the torture-chamber!⁠ ⁠… Ah, I understand now!”

“There is no one there, Erik!”

“I understand!”

“No one!”

“The man you want to marry, perhaps!”

“I don’t want to marry anybody, you know I don’t.”

Another nasty chuckle.

“Well, it won’t take long to find out. Christine, my love, we need not open the door to see what is happening in the torture-chamber. Would you like to see? Would you like to see? Look here! If there is someone, if there is really someone there, you will see the invisible window light up at the top, near the ceiling. We need only draw the black curtain and put out the light in here. There, that’s it.⁠ ⁠… Let’s put out the light! You’re not afraid of the dark, when you’re with your little husband!”

Then we heard Christine’s voice of anguish:

“No!⁠ ⁠… I’m frightened!⁠ ⁠… I tell you, I’m afraid of the dark!⁠ ⁠… I don’t care about that room now.⁠ ⁠… You’re always frightening me, like a child, with your torture-chamber!⁠ ⁠… And so I became inquisitive.⁠ ⁠… But I don’t care about it now⁠ ⁠… not a bit⁠ ⁠… not a bit!”

And that which I feared above all things began, automatically. We were suddenly flooded with light! Yes, on our side of the wall, everything seemed aglow. The Vicomte de Chagny was so much taken aback that he staggered. And the angry voice roared:

“I told you there was someone! Do you see the window now? The lighted window, right up there? The man behind the wall can’t see it! But you shall go up the folding steps: that is what they are there for!⁠ ⁠… You have often asked me to tell you; and now you know!⁠ ⁠… They are there to give a peep into the torture-chamber⁠ ⁠… you inquisitive little