The Phantom of the Opera (Oxford World's Classics)

by Gaston Leroux

  ‘He must have gone up to the blind patrons’ box, it’s directly above this one!’

  Suddenly she cried: ‘He’s coming back down!’

  She was about to close the door but Raoul prevented her. On the topmost step of the stairs leading to the floor above, he had just caught sight of a scarlet boot, then of another… and they were followed slowly, regally, by the rest of the Red Death’s scarlet costume. And again he saw the skull head he had seen at Perros-Guirec.

  ‘It’s him!’ Raoul exclaimed. ‘He won’t get away from me this time!’

  But Christine had shut the door just as he was about to dash out. He tried to push her out of his way…

  ‘What do you mean, “him”?’ she asked in an altered voice. ‘Who’s not going to get away this time?’

  Roughly Raoul tried to brush her aside. But she pushed him away with a strength which startled him… He understood—or thought he understood—and lost control.

  ‘Who do I mean?’ he cried furiously, ‘It’s him! The man hiding under that horrible, morbid get-up!… the evil spirit in the cemetery at Perros!… the Red Death!… That, Mademoiselle, is your friend… your Angel of Music!… I’ll tear the mask off him, I’ll remove mine, and we shall look at each other, this time face to face, with no disguise, no play-acting to come between us, and I shall find out who you love and who loves you!’

  He uttered a half-crazed laugh while from beneath her velvet mask Christine gave a cry of anguish.

  With a tragic gesture she flung out both arms, making a barrier of white flesh which stood out against the dark door.

  ‘In the name of our love, Raoul, you shall not pass!’

  He stopped. What had she said?… In the name of their love? She had never ever said that she loved him, though she’d had plenty of opportunities! She’d seen him very unhappy, begging with tears in his eyes for one kind word of hope which had not been forthcoming!… She had seen him sick, half dead with fear and cold after that night in Perros cemetery! But had she stayed with him when he needed her most? No, she had run away!… And now she was telling him that she loved him! She was saying ‘in the name of our love’! Who did she think she was fooling? All she wanted was to delay him for a few seconds… to give the Red Death time to get away!… Their love, indeed! She was lying!

  In a voice oozing with adolescent hate, he snarled:

  ‘You’re lying! You don’t love me. You’ve never loved me. It takes a silly, miserable, inexperienced youth like me to let himself be played for a fool, to allow himself to be deceived as I have been! When we met again for the first time at Perros, why did you let the way you behaved, the happiness in your eyes, even your silence, encourage me to have hopes?—decent hopes, for I am a decent man and I believed you were decent too, while all you wanted was to string me along!… But you’ve duped us all! You have shamefully abused the kindness of Madame Valerius who has been so good to you, for she still believes in you even as you flaunt yourself at the Opera Ball, with the Red Death!… I despise you!!…’

  He wept hot tears. She allowed herself to be insulted. There was only one thing in her mind: to keep him there!

  ‘One day, Raoul, you’ll ask me to forgive you for saying all those horrible things, and I will!’

  But he shook his head:

  ‘No, no! You have driven me mad!… And to think that all I ever wanted from life was to give my name to a tart from the Opera!…’

  ‘Raoul!… How can you!…’

  ‘The shame will kill me!’

  ‘No, you must live,’ came the grave, broken voice of Christine. ‘But for now, goodbye!’

  ‘Goodbye, Christine!’

  ‘Goodbye, Raoul!’

  He came towards her, none too steady on his feet, and allowed himself another sarcastic comment:

  ‘Surely you won’t mind if I come from time to time and applaud you?’

  ‘I shall never sing again, Raoul!’

  ‘Really?’ he went on even more ironically. ‘Congratulations! How nice if you can afford not to!… Still, we may bump into each other in the Bois, one of these nights!’

  ‘Not in the Bois or anywhere else, Raoul. You’ll never see me again.’

  ‘Might I at least know, my dear, which part of the underworld you’re going back to?… Which level of Hell will you head for, mysterious lady?… or which corner of Paradise?’

  ‘That’s what I came here to tell you, dear Raoul, but now I can’t… You wouldn’t believe me!… You’ve lost faith in me… Raoul, it’s over!…’

  She said ‘It’s over!’ in such despairing tones that he flinched. Remorse for his cruelty began to gnaw at him.

  ‘But at least,’ he cried, ‘won’t you tell me what it all means?… You are free, you have no ties… You drive around town in a coach… you wear a domino to the Ball… Why don’t you go home?… What have you been doing for the last two weeks?… What’s all this about an Angel of Music you’ve been telling poor Madame Valerius? Somebody has been pulling the wool over your eyes, taking advantage of your innocence… I saw it for myself at Perros… but now you know where you stand!… You’re a person with a mind of your own, Christine… you know what you’re doing… and yet Madame Valerius goes on expecting you back and passes the time waiting for you by sending up prayers to your “friendly spirit”!… Tell me what it’s all about, Christine. Anybody would have been taken in just as I was!… what is this farce all about?’

  Christine simply took off her mask and said:

  ‘Not a farce, Raoul: a tragedy!’

  When he saw her face, he could not suppress an exclamation of shocked surprise. The freshness had gone from her cheeks. A deathly pallor had claimed her features which he remembered as sweet and lovely, the outer reflection of her candid nature and clear conscience. But how ravaged was that face now! Sorrow had ploughed deep, cruel furrows there and those bright eyes which once had been as blue and clear as the lakes which had described little Lotte’s gaze, tonight were bottomless, dark, mysterious, unfathomable and ringed with shadows of unutterable sadness.

  ‘Christine! Oh, Christine!’ he murmured holding out his arms to her. ‘You said you would forgive me…’

  ‘Perhaps!… Maybe one day…’, she said as she replaced her mask. Then she walked away, forbidding him to follow her with a dismissive wave of her hand…

  He attempted to run after her, but she turned and repeated the gesture with such imperious authority that he dared not take another step.

  He watched her go. Then, with his head throbbing and his heart in pieces, he too went back down to rejoin the crowd not knowing exactly what he was doing. He asked everyone in the rooms he walked through if they had seen the Red Death. They answered: ‘Who do you mean, the Red Death?’ And he replied ‘He’s a man in a costume, with a skull for a head and a long red cloak.’ Whoever he asked said the Red Death had been there moments before, trailing his royal cloak behind him, but Raoul could not see him anywhere. Around two in the morning, he went backstage to the corridor that led to Christine Daaé’s dressing room.

  His steps led him to the place where his sufferings had begun. He beat on the door. There was no answer. He went in as he had on the night he had tried to trace the man’s voice. The dressing room was empty. A gaslight burned low. There was a small table and, on it, writing paper. He thought of writing to Christine, but suddenly he heard footsteps in the corridor outside. He just had time to hide in the alcove which was separated from the main dressing room by a single curtain. A hand pushed the door open. It was Christine!

  He held his breath. He wanted to see! He wanted to know! Something told him he was about to witness part of the mystery unfold and that he would begin to understand…

  Christine came in, removed her mask wearily and tossed it on to the table. She sighed, let her lovely head fall into her hands… What was she thinking about?… About Raoul?… No, because Raoul heard her murmur:

  ‘Poor Erik!’

  At first he thought he hadn’t heard a
right. He was convinced that if anyone deserved sympathy, it was him. What would have been more natural after what had happened between them than for her to say, with a sigh: ‘Poor Raoul!’? But she shook her head and repeated: ‘Poor Erik!’ Who was this Erik that he should make Christine sigh and why was the nightingale of the north feeling so sorry for Erik when Raoul was so unhappy?

  Christine began writing calmly, unhurriedly and so serenely that the sight of her made Raoul, still shaken by the scene which had driven them apart, begin to feel hurt and cross. ‘How can she behave so coolly?’ he thought… She went on writing, covering two, three, four sheets. All at once, she looked up and hid what she had written in her bodice… She seemed to be listening… Raoul listened too… Where was that strange noise, like a distant rhythm, coming from?… A muffled humming seemed to emerge from the walls… It was as if the walls were singing!… The sound grew stronger, he could make out the words now… he distinctly heard a voice… a very beautiful, gentle, captivating voice… but despite its lyric sweetness it was a male voice, definitely not a woman’s… It came nearer, nearer… it passed through the wall… it entered… and then the voice was in the room, singing for Christine!

  She got to her feet and spoke to the voice as if she was speaking to a person standing next to her.

  ‘Here I am, Erik,’ she said. ‘I’m ready. It’s you who are late, not I.’

  Raoul, who was watching carefully from behind the curtain, could not believe his eyes which told him that there was no one else there.

  Christine’s face lit up. A happy smile settled on her bloodless lips, a smile such as ill patients smile when they begin to hope that the sickness that struck them down will not carry them off.

  The disembodied voice began to sing again and Raoul knew instantly that never had he heard any human sound which in the same breath spanned the range of all extremes, never listened to a voice more generously, heroically smooth, more decisively insidious, more silky in its power, more robust in its silkiness, in a word, more overwhelmingly irresistible. In it were tones of absolute perfection which soared masterfully and must, simply by being heard, strike sublime responses from mortals who feel, love and make music. It was a pure, tranquil fount of harmony at which the faithful could safely and devoutly drink, sure in the knowledge that by doing so they were partaking of the true blessings of music. And being brushed by the sleeve of the Divine, their art was transfigured. Raoul listened to the voice in a state of feverish agitation and began to understand how Christine Daaé had managed to appear on stage one night in front of a stunned audience and find accents of startling beauty and unprecedented, jubilant power! She had obviously sung under the influence of this mysterious, unseen master’s voice! He also gained a better understanding of that outstanding performance by listening to this exceptional voice which was not singing music of any quality: it was the voice itself which turned dross into gold! The ordinariness of the words and the almost coarse vulgarity of the melody were transmuted into great beauty by the life force which raised them and sent them flying heavenwards on the wings of passion. For though it sang ‘the Wedding-Night Song’ from Roméo et Juliette,* that angelic voice was really singing the praises of pagan love.

  Raoul saw Christine reach out her hands to the voice, just as she had done in the cemetery at Perros when the unseen violinist had played The Resurrection of Lazarus…

  There are no words to describe the passion with which the voice sang:

  ‘To thee my destiny is bound for ever!’

  The line was a knife in Raoul’s heart. As he struggled against the spell which sapped his will, his energy and dimmed his mind just when he needed all his wits, he managed to draw back the curtain which concealed his presence and approached Christine. She was now walking towards the back of the room where the wall was completely filled by a large mirror. It reflected her image but not his. He was exactly behind her, completely masked by her body, and she did not see him.

  ‘To thee my destiny is bound for ever!’

  Christine kept on walking towards her reflection and her reflection came to meet her. Then the two Christines, the real and the reflected, touched, fused and Raoul stretched out one hand to grasp both of them in one embrace.

  Suddenly there was a kind of brilliant, magical starburst, Raoul staggered and was thrown violently backwards while an icy wind blew across his face. He saw not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines who whirled around effortlessly, mocking him and fleeing away too swiftly for him to hold any of them in his hand. And then everything went still again and he saw himself in the mirror. But Christine had vanished.

  He lunged at the mirror. He leaped at the walls. Nobody! And yet the room still echoed with a distant, passionate rhythm:

  ‘To thee my destiny is bound for ever!’

  He put both hands to his damp forehead, flexed his muscles now released from their trance, stumbled through the semi-darkness to the gaslight and turned it full on. He was adamant that he was not dreaming. He had been drawn into some dangerous physical and psychological game which he did not understand and which might well grind him into the dust. He felt rather like a daring Prince in a fairy story who crosses into a forbidden land where he must expect to face the supernatural forces which he has challenged and provoked in the name of love…

  Which way had Christine gone?

  Which way would she come back?

  But would she come back?… Hadn’t she told him that it was all over between them?… and was not the wall still echoing with To thee my destiny is bound for ever?

  To thee! To whom?

  At the end of his tether, beaten, his brain spinning, he sat down on the chair vacated only moments before by Christine. Like her, he let his head sink into his hands. When eventually he raised his head again, tears were streaming down his young cheeks, the real, heavy tears of a thwarted boy, tears which were shed for a hurt that was not imaginary but one familiar to all lovers on this earth and it made him ask:

  ‘Who is Erik?’

  CHAPTER 11

  Forget the Name of the Man with the Voice

  THE day after Christine vanished before Raoul’s very eyes in a sort of blinding flash which made him doubt the evidence of his senses, he called on Mme Valerius to see if there was any news. He walked into a charming domestic scene.

  By the side of the bed in which Mme Valerius was sitting up knitting, Christine was busy with her lacework. Never did a lovelier face, a brow more pure or eyes more doe-like ever bend more modestly over a chastely plied needle. The freshness was back in her cheeks. The shadows circling her bright eyes had gone. Raoul did not recognize the tragic face of the night before. If the veil of melancholy which hung over those lovely features had not seemed like a lingering trace of the strange web in which she was entangled, he would never have thought that Christine could possibly be that struggling victim.

  She stood up as he came in. Showing no sign of emotion, she offered him her hand. Raoul was so taken aback that he was rooted to the spot, dumbfounded, incapable of moving or saying a word.

  ‘Ah, M. de Chagny,’ cried Mme Valerius. ‘Don’t you recognize our Christine? Her “friendly spirit” has let her come back to us!’

  ‘Dear Mama,’ the young woman broke in quickly, blushing bright red, ‘I thought we’d agreed never to speak of him again!… You know as well as I do that there is no Angel of Music!’

  ‘But, dear child, he has been giving you singing lessons for the last three months!’

  ‘Mama, I promised I’d tell you all about it some day. I hope I shall… but until then you said you wouldn’t mention the subject or ask me any more questions!…’

  ‘Only if you promise not to go away again! But, Christine, you haven’t promised that, have you?’

  ‘Not now, dear, it’s not a subject that could be of the remotest interest to M. de Chagny.’

  ‘There you’re wrong, Mademoiselle,’ said Raoul in a voice which he hoped was firm and bold but trembled. ‘Anything that
concerns you interests me to a degree which perhaps you will understand one day. I won’t try to hide the fact that my astonishment matches my joy in finding you here with your adoptive mother. Given what happened between us yesterday, what you said to me, what I read between the lines, I did not expect to see you back so soon. No one would be more delighted at your return than I if you weren’t so set on keeping a secret which could well have fatal consequences for you… I have been your friend for too long not to be worried, as is Madame Valerius, about a highly fraught situation which will go on being dangerous until we get to the bottom of it, Christine, for you will certainly end up by being its victim.’

  At these words, Mme Valerius stirred in her bed.

  ‘What does that mean?’ she cried. ‘Is Christine is danger?’

  ‘Indeed she is,’ said Raoul boldly, ignoring the signs which Christine made to him.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ gasped the kindly, trusting old lady. ‘You must tell me everything, Christine! Why did you say everything was all right? What sort of danger, Monsieur?’ she said, turning to Raoul.

  ‘A fraud, a trickster, is taking advantage of Christine’s good nature.’

  ‘Then the Angel of Music is an impostor?’

  ‘She told you herself that there is no Angel of Music!’

  ‘Then for heaven’s sake what is the matter? Oh, you will be the death of me!’

  The matter, Madame, is that a very earthbound mystery hangs over you, over Christine, over all of us, a mystery much more terrifying than any number of ghosts and evil spirits!’