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

time? We seemed to have been imprisoned in that hell for days and days⁠ ⁠… for years⁠ ⁠… since the beginning of the world. Perhaps we should be blown up then and there! Ah, a sound! A crack!

“Did you hear that?⁠ ⁠… There, in the corner⁠ ⁠… good heavens!⁠ ⁠… Like a sound of machinery!⁠ ⁠… Again!⁠ ⁠… Oh, for a light!⁠ ⁠… Perhaps it’s the machinery that is to blow everything up!⁠ ⁠… I tell you, a cracking sound: are you deaf?”

M. de Chagny and I began to yell like madmen. Fear spurred us on. We rushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went, anything to escape the dark, to return to the mortal light of the room of mirrors!

We found the trap-door still open, but it was now as dark in the room of mirrors as in the cellar which we had left. We dragged ourselves along the floor of the torture-chamber, the floor that separated us from the powder-magazine. What was the time? We shouted, we called: M. de Chagny to Christine, I to Erik. I reminded him that I had saved his life. But no answer, save that of our despair, of our madness: what was the time? We argued, we tried to calculate the time which we had spent there, but we were incapable of reasoning. If only we could see the face of a watch!⁠ ⁠… Mine had stopped, but M. de Chagny’s was still going.⁠ ⁠… He told me that he had wound it up before dressing for the Opera.⁠ ⁠… We had not a match upon us.⁠ ⁠… And yet we must know.⁠ ⁠… M. de Chagny broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands.⁠ ⁠… He questioned the hands of the watch with his fingertips, going by the position of the ring of the watch.⁠ ⁠… Judging by the space between the hands, he thought it might be just eleven o’clock!

But perhaps it was not the eleven o’clock of which we stood in dread. Perhaps we had still twelve hours before us!

Suddenly, I exclaimed: “Hush!”

I seemed to hear footsteps in the next room. Someone tapped against the wall. Christine Daaé’s voice said:

“Raoul! Raoul!”

We were now all talking at once, on either side of the wall. Christine sobbed; she was not sure that she would find M. de Chagny alive. The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had done nothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the “yes” which she refused. And yet she had promised him that “yes,” if he would take her to the torture-chamber. But he had obstinately declined, and had uttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race! At last, after hours and hours of that hell, he had that moment gone out, leaving her alone to reflect for the last time.

“Hours and hours? What is the time now? What is the time, Christine?”

“It is eleven o’clock! Eleven o’clock, all but five minutes!”

“But which eleven o’clock?”

“The eleven o’clock that is to decide life or death!⁠ ⁠… He told me so just before he went.⁠ ⁠… He is terrible.⁠ ⁠… He is quite mad: he tore off his mask and his yellow eyes shot flames!⁠ ⁠… He did nothing but laugh!⁠ ⁠… He said, ‘I give you five minutes to spare your blushes! Here,’ he said, taking a key from the little bag of life and death, ‘here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on the mantelpiece in the Louis-Philippe room.⁠ ⁠… In one of the caskets, you will find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly imitated in Japanese bronze: they will say yes or no for you. If you turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that you have said yes. The grasshopper will mean no.’ And he laughed like a drunken demon. I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the key of the torture-chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted me that request.⁠ ⁠… But he told me that there was no future need for that key and that he was going to throw it into the lake!⁠ ⁠… And he again laughed like a drunken demon and left me. Oh, his last words were, ‘The grasshopper! Be careful of the grasshopper! A grasshopper does not only turn: it hops! It hops! And it hops jolly high!’ ”

The five minutes had nearly elapsed and the scorpion and the grasshopper were scratching at my brain. Nevertheless, I had sufficient lucidity left to understand that, if the grasshopper were turned, it would hop⁠ ⁠… and with it many members of the human race! There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electric current intended to blow up the powder-magazine!

M. de Chagny, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force from hearing Christine’s voice, explained to her, in a few hurried words, the situation in which we and all the Opera were. He told her to turn the scorpion at once.

There was a pause.

“Christine,” I cried, “where are you?”

“By the scorpion.”

“Don’t touch it!”

The idea had come to me⁠—for I knew my Erik⁠—that the monster had perhaps deceived the girl once more. Perhaps it was the scorpion that would blow everything up. After all, why wasn’t he there? The five minutes were long past⁠ ⁠… and he was not back.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps he had taken shelter and was waiting for the explosion!⁠ ⁠… Why had he not returned?⁠ ⁠… He could not really expect Christine ever to consent to become his voluntary prey!⁠ ⁠… Why had he not returned?

“Don’t touch the scorpion!” I said.

“Here he comes!” cried Christine. “I hear him! Here he is!”

We heard his steps approaching the Louis-Philippe room. He came up to Christine, but did not speak. Then I raised my voice:

“Erik! It is I! Do you know me?”

With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied:

“So you are not dead in there? Well, then, see that you keep quiet.”

I tried to speak, but he said coldly:

“Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up.” And he added, “The honor rests with mademoiselle.⁠ ⁠… Mademoiselle has not touched the scorpion”⁠—how deliberately he spoke!⁠—“mademoiselle