The ghouls

by Haining, Peter, comp

  Christine walked towards her image in the glass and the image came towards her. The two Christines—the real one and the reflection-touched and Raoul put out his arms to clasp the two in one embrace. But all of a sudden in a dazzle of light that sent him staggering, Raoul was suddenly flung back, an icy blast swept across his face and 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.

  The day after Christine had vanished before his eyes Raoul called to see Madame Valerius. He came upon a charming picture. Christine herself was seated by the old lady's bedside, and the latter was sitting up against her pillows, knitting. The pink and white had returned to the young girl's cheeks. The dark rings round her eyes had disappeared. If a veil of melancholy had not lingered over those adorable features, the last trace of the weird drama in whose toils that mysterious child was struggling, he could have believed that Christine was not its heroine at all.

  She rose, without showing any emotion, and offered him her hand. But Raoul's stupefaction was so great that he stood there dumbfounded, without saying a word.

  "Well, Monsieur de Chagny," exclaimed Madame Valerius, "don't you know our Christine? Her good fairy has sent her back to us!"

  "Mama!" the girl broke in promptly, "you know there is no such thing as the Angel of Music! I promised to explain everything to you one of these days and I hope to do so, but you promised me, until that day, to be silent and to ask me no more questions ever!"

  "Provided that you promised never to leave me again. But have you promised that, Christine?"

  "Mama, all this cannot interest Monsieur de Chagny."

  "On the contrary, Mademoiselle," said the young man, in a voice which he tried to make firm and brave, but which still trembled. "Anything that concerns you interests me to an extent which perhaps

  you will one day understand. I do not deny that my surprise equals my pleasure at finding you with your mother and that, after what happened between us yesterday, I hardly expected to see you here so soon. And I have been your friend too long not to be alarmed, with Madame Valerius, at a disastrous adventure which will remain dangerous until we have unravelled its threads and which will certainly end by making you its victim, Christine."

  'What does this mean?" cried Madame Valerius. "Is Christine in danger?"

  "Yes, Madame," said Raoul, "there is a terrible mystery around us, which concerns you and Christine."

  "Don't believe him, Mama, don't believe him," Christine implored.

  "Then tell me that you will never leave me again," begged her mother.

  Christine was silent and Raoul said, "That is what you must promise, Christine."

  "That is a promise which I refuse to make!" said the young girl, haughtily. "I am mistress of my own actions, Monsieur de Chagny, you have no right to control them and I will beg you to desist henceforth. As to what I have done during the last fortnight, there is only one man in the world who has the right to demand an account of me— my husband! Well, I have no husband and I mean never to marry!"

  She threw out her hands to emphasize her words and Raoul turned pale, not only because of the words which he had heard, but because he had caught sight of a plain gold ring on Christine's finger.

  "You have no husband and yet you wear a wedding ring!"

  He tried to seize her hand, but she swiftly drew it back.

  "That's a present!" she said, blushing once more and vainly striving to hide her embarrassment.

  "Christine! As you have no husband, that ring can only have been given by one who hopes to make you his wife! Why deceive us further? That ring is a promise and that promise has been accepted!"

  "That's what I said!" exclaimed the old lady.

  "And what did she answer, Madame?"

  "What I chose," said Christine, driven to exasperation. "Don't you think, Monsieur, that this cross-examination has lasted long enough? As far as I am concerned . . ."

  Raoul was afraid to let her finish her speech. He interrupted her.

  "I beg your pardon for speaking as I did, Mademoiselle. But allow me to tell you what I have seen or what I thought I saw, for, to tell you

  the truth, I have sometimes been inclined to doubt the evidence of my eyes."

  "Well, what did you see, sir, or think you saw?"

  "I saw your ecstasy at the sound of the voice, Christine, the voice that came through the wall and that is what makes me so afraid for you. I believe you are under a very dangerous spell."

  Raoul spoke with so much love and despair in his voice that Christine could not keep back a sob. She took his hands and looked at him with all the pure affection of which she was capable.

  "Raoul," she pleaded urgently, "forget that voice. You must never try to fathom the mystery,"

  "Is it so very terrible?"

  "There is no more awful mystery on this earth. Swear to me that you will make no attempt to find out," she insisted. "Swear to me that you will never come to my dressing-room again, unless I send for you."

  "Then you promise to send for me sometimes, Christine?"

  "I promise."

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "Then I swear to do as you ask."

  He kissed her hands and went away, cursing Erik and resolving to be patient.

  The next day he saw her at the Opera. She was still wearing the plain gold ring. She was gentle and kind to him. She talked to him of the plans which he was forming, of his future, of his career.

  He told her that the date of his next voyage had been put forward and that he would leave France in three weeks, or a month at latest. She suggested, almost gaily, that he must look upon the voyage with delight, as a stage towards his coming fame. And when he replied that fame without love was no attraction in his eyes, she treated him as a child whose sorrows were but short-lived.

  She no longer smiled or jested. She seemed to be thinking of some new thing that had entered her mind for the first time. Her eyes were all aglow with it.

  "What are you thinking of, Christine?"

  "I am thinking that we shall not see each other again."

  "And does that make you so radiant?"

  "And that, in a month, we shall have to say goodbye for ever."

  "Unless, Christine, we pledge our faith and wait for each other for ever."

  She put her hand on his mouth.

  "Hush, Raoul! You know there is no question of that. And we shall never be married, that is understood. But, if we cannot be married, we can be engaged! No one will know but ourselves, Raoul. We can be engaged, dear, for a month. In a month, you will go away and I can be happy at the thought of that month all my life long!"

  She was enchanted with her inspiration and Raoul jumped at the idea. He bowed to Christine and said:

  "Mademoiselle, I have the honour to ask for your hand."

  "Why, you have both of them already, my dear betrothed! Oh, Raoul, how happy we shall be! We must play at being engaged from morning till night."

  It was the most wonderful game in the world and they enjoyed it like the children they were. They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very careful to catch them, each time, without hurting them.

  Christine returned to the Opera in triumph. She renewed her extraordinary success of the gala performance. Since the "toad" incident Carlotta had not been able to appear on the stage. The terror of a fresh "co-ack" filled her heart and deprived her of all her power of singing and the theatre that had witnessed her incomprehensible disgrace had become odious to her. She contrived to cancel her contract. Christine was offered the vacant place for the time being.

  The viscount, who was of course present, was the only one to suffer on hearing the thousand echoes of this fresh triumph, for Christine still wore her plain gold ring. A dista
nt voice whispered in his ear, "She is wearing the ring again tonight and you did not give it to her. She gave her soul again tonight and did not give it to you. If she will not tell you what she has been doing these last two days, you must go and ask Erik!"

  He ran behind the scenes and placed himself in her way.

  "I will remove you from his power, Christine, I swear it. And you shall not think of him any more."

  "Is it possible?"

  She allowed herself the doubt—the encouragement—and she drew

  the young man up to the topmost floor of the theatre; far, far from the trapdoors.

  "I shall hide you in some unknown corner of the world, where he cannot come to look for you. You will be safe, and then I shall go away, as you have sworn never to marry."

  Christine seized Raoul's hands and squeezed them rapturously. But, suddenly alarmed, she turned away her head:

  "Higher!" was all she said. "Higher still!"

  And she dragged him up towards the topmost floor of the building.

  He had difficulty in following her. They were soon under the roof, in the maze of timberwork. They slipped through the buttresses and the rafters; they ran from beam to beam as they might have run from tree to tree in a forest.

  And, despite the care which she took to look behind her at every moment, she failed to see a shadow which followed her like her own shadow, which stopped when she stopped, which started again when she did and made no more noise than a well-conducted shadow should. They reached the roof and the shadow had followed behind them, clinging to every step. They little suspected its presence when they at last sat down, trustingly, under the mighty protection of Apollo, who, with a sweep of his bronze arm, lifted his huge lyre to the heart of a crimson sky.

  Christine said, "Soon we shall go farther and faster than the clouds, to the end of the world and then you will leave me, Raoul. But if, when the moment comes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you, you must carry me off by force!"

  "Are you afraid that you will change your mind, Christine?"

  "I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "He is a demon!" And she shivered and nestled in Raoul's arms with a moan. "I am afraid now of going back to live with him ... in the ground!"

  "But what compels you to go back, Christine?" he asked frantically.

  "If I do not go back to him, terrible misfortunes may happen! But I can't do it, I know one ought to be sorry for people who live underground but he is too horrible! I have only a day left and, if I do not go, he will drag me down with him, and go on his knees before me. He will tell me that he loves me! And he will cry! Oh, those tears, Raoul, I cannot bear to see those tears flow again!"

  She wrung her hands in anguish, while Raoul pressed her to his heart.

  "No, no, you shall never again hear him tell you that he loves you, or see his tears! We must leave at once, Christine! ,,

  And he tried to drag her away then and there. But she stopped him.

  "No, no," she said, shaking her head sadly. "Not now! It would be too cruel. Let him hear me sing tomorrow evening, and then we will go away. You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room at midnight exactly. He will be waiting for me by the lake. You must take me away, Raoul, even if I refuse, for I feel that, if I go back this time, I shall perhaps never return . . *

  And she gave a sigh which seemed to be echoed by another sigh behind her.

  "Did you hear that?"

  "No," said Raoul, "I heard nothing . . ."

  "It is too terrible," she said, "to be always trembling like this! And yet we run no danger here. We are at home, in the sky, in the open air, in the light. The sun is flaming and night-birds cannot bear to look at the sun. I have never seen him by daylight. It must be awful! Oh, the first time I saw him I thought I would die.

  "I heard his voice for three months without seeing him. The first time, I thought as you did that the angelic voice was singing in another room. I went out and looked everywhere, but I could not find the voice outside my room, though it went on steadily inside. And it not only sang, but it spoke to me and answered my questions, like a real man's voice. I had never forgotten the Angel of Music whom my poor father had promised to send to me as soon as he was dead. I really think that Mama was a little bit to blame. I told her about it, and she at once said, It must be the Angel; at any rate you can do no harm by ask ing him/ I did so, and the man's voice replied that yes, it was the Angel's voice, the voice which I was expecting and which my father had promised me.

  "From that time onward, the voice and I became great friends. It asked if it could give me lessons every day. You have no idea, though you have heard the voice, of what those lessons were like.

  'We were accompanied by a music which I had never heard before. It was behind the wall and wonderfully accurate. The voice seemed to understand mine exactly.

  "One day it said, Wait and see; we shall conquer Paris!* And I waited and lived on in a sort of ecstatic dream. It was then that I saw you for the first time, one evening, in the audience. I was so glad to see you again that I never thought of concealing my delight when I

  reached my dressing-room. Unfortunately the voice was there before me and soon noticed that something had happened. It asked what was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our story secret or concealing the place which you filled in my heart. Then the voice was silent. I called to it, but it did not reply; I begged and entreated, but in vain. I was terrified lest it had gone for good. I wish to heaven it had, dearest! That night, I went home feeling desperate. I told Mama who said, Why, of course, the voice is jealous!'"

  Christine stopped and laid her head on Raoul's shoulder. They sat like that for a moment, in silence, and they did not see a few steps away from them, the creeping shadow of two great black wings, a shadow that came along the roof, so near that it could have stifled them with one gesture.

  "The next day," continued Christine with a sigh, "I went back to my dressing-room and the voice was there. It told me plainly that if I must bestow my heart on earth, there was nothing for it to do but to go back to Heaven. And it said this with such an accent of human sorrow that I ought then and there to have suspected and begun to believe that I was the victim of my deluded senses. But my faith in the voice, with which the memory of my father was so closely mingled, remained undisturbed. I feared nothing so much as that I might never hear it again. I had thought about my love for you and realized how useless it was. Whatever happened, your position in society forbade me to contemplate the possibility of ever marrying you, and I swore to the voice that you were no more to me than a brother, nor ever would be, and that my heart was incapable of any earthly love. And that, dear, was why I refused to recognize or see you, when I met you on the stage or in the passages.

  "I don't know how it was that Carlotta did not come to the theatre that night nor why I was called upon to sing in her stead, but I sang with a rapture I had never felt before and I felt for a moment as if my soul were leaving my body. Then I felt myself fainting. I closed my eyes and when I opened them you were by my side. But the voice was there also, Raoul! It said that, if I did not love you, I would not avoid you, but treat you like any other friend. At last I said to the voice, 'That will do! I am going to Perros tomorrow, to pray on my father's grave, and I shall ask Monsieur Raoul de Chagny to go with me.' 'Do as you please,' replied the voice, 'but I shall be at Perros too, for I am wherever you are, Christine.'"

  "But why did you not get rid of the nightmare, once you knew the truth about him?" Raoul begged her.

  "Know the truth, Raoul? But I was not caught in the nightmare until the day when I learned the truth! Do you remember the terrible evening when the chandelier crashed to the floor of the opera house? The voice had told me that it would be at the performance and I was really afraid for it, just as if it had been an ordinary person. I thought that if it was safe it would be sure to be in my dressing-room, so I went there immediately. Suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail and recognized it to be the music w
hich you and I heard at Perros. Then the voice began to sing, 'Come! And believe me! Who so believes in me shall never die!' I cannot tell you the effect which that music had upon me. It seemed to command me, personally, to come to it and I followed. There was a mirror in front of me and suddenly I was outside the room without knowing how!

  "I was in a dark passage and I saw a faint red glimmer in a distant angle of the wall. I cried out. My voice was the only sound, for the singing and the violin had stopped. And then I felt a hand on mine—or rather a stone-cold, bony thing that seized my wrist and did not let go. I struggled for a little while and then gave up. I was dragged towards the little red light and then I saw that I was in the hands of a man wrapped in a large cloak and wearing a mask that hid his whole face. I made one last effort; I opened my mouth to scream but a hand closed it, a hand that smelt of death. Then I fainted. When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness. We were on the edge of a lake whose leaden waters stretched into the darkness. The red light lit up the bank and I saw a little boat fastened to an iron ring on the wharf. The man lifted me into the boat, jumped in 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 red light. Then we were in the dark again as we touched the shore. And I was once more taken up in the man's arms. I cried aloud. Then there was a dazzling light and I found myself in the middle of a drawing-room which seemed to be decorated with nothing but flowers, cut flowers, magnificent and stupid at the same time, because of the silk ribbons that tied them into baskets. They were much too elegant, 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, who said, 'Don't be afraid, Christine, you are in no danger/ It was the voice! I rushed at the mask and tried to snatch it away, so as to see the face of