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

by Gaston Leroux

  ‘And I listened… and I stayed!

  ‘That evening we did not say one word to each other… He took up a harp and began to sing Desdemona’s Willow Song* in his manangel’s voice. The memory of it, which I had from having sung it myself, made me ashamed. Raoul, there is a power in music which makes you forget everything outside those sounds which go straight to the heart. My appalling predicament was forgotten. There was only the Voice which lived once more. Entranced, I followed its harmonies wherever they led and became one of the flock of Orpheus!* He took me through pain and pleasure, martyrdom, despair and joy to death and ecstatic, star-blessed love… I listened… He went on singing… He sang melodies unknown to me… He introduced me to a new kind of music which left me with strange feelings of calm, stillness and peace… music which raised up my soul, gently let it down and drew it into the land of dreams.

  ‘I must have fallen asleep. When I woke I was alone on an ottoman in a small, simply appointed room. There was a plain mahogany bed, the walls were hung with Jouy toile* and an oil lamp burned on the marble top of an old Louis-Philippe chest of drawers. What were these new surroundings?… I rubbed my eyes hoping to chase away a bad dream… But I soon discovered that this was no dream! I was a prisoner and the only door led to a well-equipped bathroom with abundant hot and cold running water. Returning to the bedroom, I saw a note on the chest of drawers. It was written in red ink. It explained my predicament fully and, though it was hardly necessary, removed any lingering doubts about the reality of what had happened. It said:

  ‘“My dear Christine,

  ‘“You have no need to be alarmed about your situation. You have no better or more respectful friend in the world than myself. At present you are alone in this place which you should regard as your own. I am going out to the shops to buy whatever clothes you might need.”

  ‘“Oh my God!” I exclaimed aloud, “I’ve fallen into the clutches of a madman! What’s going to happen to me? How long does this maniac think he can keep me locked up here in his underground prison?”

  ‘I ran round my little apartment like a mad thing but failed to find the way out I was looking for. I reproached myself bitterly for being so stupid and gullible and took grim pleasure in scolding myself for being so foolish as to believe that what I heard coming through a wall was actually the voice of the Angel of Music!… When you’re that naive, you can expect the worst and deserve all you get! I wanted to kick myself and started laughing and crying at the same time for being a fool. It was in that state that Erik found me when he returned.

  ‘He knocked quietly three times on the wall, then entered coolly through a door I had failed to find. He left it open behind him. He was loaded with boxes and packages which he put down unhurriedly on my bed while I told him a few home truths and ordered him to remove his mask if it really did, as he said, conceal the face of a gentleman.

  ‘Unruffled, he said:

  ‘“You will never see Erik’s face!”

  ‘He spoke to me sharply saying that I was not presentable, though it was late: two in the afternoon as he pointed out tartly. He gave me half an hour to finish dressing and, as he spoke, he carefully wound up my pocket watch and set the correct time. He then said I was to join him in the dining room where he promised that an excellent lunch would be waiting for us. I was ravenous. I slammed the door in his face and went into the bathroom. Before taking my bath, I found a magnificent pair of scissors and kept it within arm’s reach, for I had made up my mind I would kill myself if Erik, now that he’d stopped acting like a lunatic, also stopped behaving like a gentleman. The cool water was refreshing and when I rejoined Erik I had taken the wise decision not to antagonize or cross him in any way but, if it came to it, to flatter him if it meant being released sooner. It was he who spoke first, about the plans he had for me. He set them out in detail, to put my mind at rest, he said. He enjoyed my company too much to be separated from me, as he had agreed the previous night when I had made my feelings clear. But now I must understand that I had no reason to be frightened of seeing him at such close quarters. He loved me, but he would never say so without my consent and the rest of the time would be devoted to music.

  ‘“What do you mean by the rest of the time?” I asked.

  ‘He answered decisively:

  ‘“Five days.”

  ‘“And afterwards, I will be free to go?”

  ‘“Absolutely free, Christine, for once these five days have passed, you will have learned not to be afraid of me ever again. And then, from time to time, you’ll come back to see poor Erik!…”

  ‘The way he said these last words affected me greatly. I felt I was in the presence of despair so real, so heartbreaking that as I looked at the mask I felt truly sorry for him. I couldn’t see his eyes behind it and this did nothing to reduce the peculiar feeling which came from having a conversation with a mysterious square of black silk. But under the fabric, along the hem, two, three, four tears formed.

  ‘Wordlessly he motioned me to sit down opposite him at the small table in the middle of the room where he had played the harp for me the evening before. I sat down, feeling very uneasy. Still, my appetite was good and I managed a few prawns, a chicken wing and a glass of Tokai wine which he said he had brought back personally from the cellars at Königsberg where Falstaffused to drink.* Erik himself did not eat anything and drank nothing. I asked what nationality he was and if the name Erik had a Scandinavian connection. He said he had neither name nor country and that he’d chosen the name Erik at random.* I asked why, since he loved me, he had found no other way of letting me know than dragging me down and shutting me away deep under the ground!

  ‘“It’s not easy”, I said, “to make someone love you in a tomb.”

  ‘“We must seize”, he said in a strange voice, “our opportunities whenever they arise.”

  ‘Then he stood up saying he wanted to do the honours by showing me round his home. He offered me, not his whole hand, just the tips of his fingers. But I quickly pulled mine away from his and as I did so I screamed, for what I had touched was at once cold, damp and bony and I remembered that his hands smelled of death.

  ‘“I’m so sorry,” he said with a moan.

  ‘Then he opened a door for me.

  ‘“This is my bedroom,” he said. “It’s not without interest… Would you like to see it?”

  ‘I did not hesitate. His manner, his words, his general attitude told me I could trust him… and besides I felt that there was nothing to be afraid of.

  ‘So I went in. I thought I had stepped into a funeral parlour. The walls were hung with black but instead of the white motifs which complete the usual effect I saw a huge musical stave and the repeated notes of the Dies Irae.* In the centre of the room was a raised canopy from which hung curtains of coarse red brocade. Beneath this canopy was an open coffin.

  ‘When I saw it, I recoiled.

  ‘“This is where I sleep,” said Erik. “We must get used to everything in this life, even eternity.”

  ‘I found the sight so macabre that I looked away. My eye fell on the keyboard of an organ which filled one entire wall. On the music stand was a manuscript book full of notations in red. I asked if I might look at it and read on page one: Don Juan Triumphant.

  ‘“Yes,” he said, “I do a little composing. I started on that particular work twenty years ago. When it’s finished, I will get into the coffin there with it and never wake again.”

  ‘“Then you must work on it as little as possible,” I said.

  ‘“Sometimes I work at it day and night for two weeks without stopping. For all that time I am sustained by nothing except music; and then I may rest for years on end.”

  ‘“Would you play me something from your Don Juan Triumphant?” I asked, thinking he would like that despite my reluctance to linger in his hall of death.

  ‘“You must never ask that,” he answered soberly. “My Don Juan does not use a Lorenzo Da Ponte libretto, nor is it marred by drink, carnal l
ove and vice in order to show them ultimately punished by God.* I will play Mozart’s Don Juan for you if that is what you wish. Oh, it will make you cry and give you respectable, God-fearing thoughts. But my Don is never licked by the flames of heavenly wrath, yet he burns, Christine, he burns!”

  ‘With that, we returned to the drawing room which we’d left a few moments before. It was then I realized that there were no mirrors anywhere in these rooms. I was about to comment on this when Erik sat down at the piano and said:

  ‘“You see, Christine, there is a kind of music so terrible that it consumes whoever approaches it. You have not yet discovered that sort of music, fortunately for you, for it would wipe the bloom from your cheek and no one would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something from the repertoire, Christine Daaé.”

  ‘He repeated: “We shall sing something from the repertoire, Christine Daaé,” as if it were an insult.

  ‘But there was no time to linger over what meaning I should attach to the way he pronounced the word. We went straight into the duet from Otello, when the tragedy is—and was—about to be enacted. This time, he left the role of Desdemona to me. I sang with such fear and desperation as I had never attained before because my feelings were only too real. Singing so close to such a partner did not overwhelm me but raised me to exalted new heights of despair. The events of which I was the victim brought me peculiarly close to the mind of the composer and I found notes which would have astounded him. As for Erik, his voice was explosive. All his pent-up malignant bitterness crept into every sound it made and increased its awesome power. Love, jealousy, hate erupted around us in heart-stopping salvoes. Erik’s black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice: he became Otello. I thought he would strike me down, that I would die by his dagger… yet I made no attempt to run away, to avoid his fury as the timid Desdemona does. On the contrary, I moved closer to him, drawn, fascinated, discovering the attractions death can have in the midst of true passion… But before I died, I wanted the last thing I ever saw to be the sublime image of those unknown features which must surely now be transfigured by the fires of eternal art. I wanted to see the face of the Voice and instinctively, with a movement of my hand over which I had no control, for I was no longer mistress of my actions, my darting fingers snatched the mask away.

  ‘Oh! Horror!… Horror!… Horror!…’

  Christine paused, remembering the sight. She raised both her trembling hands and seemed to be fending off the memory while all around the echoes of the night which had repeated the name of Erik now thrice reiterated her cry: ‘Horror! Horror! Horror!’ Raoul and Christine, brought even closer to each other by the sheer terror of her story, looked up at the stars which shone down out of a still, clear sky.

  Raoul said:

  ‘It’s strange, Christine, but this quiet, balmy night seems full of the sound of sorrow. It’s almost as if it’s sighing with us!’

  She answered: ‘You’ll soon know the rest of the mystery and then your ears, like mine, will overflow with the sound of sorrow!’

  She clasped Raoul’s protective hands in hers and only after a long fit of shaking was she able to continue:

  ‘If I live to be a hundred, I shall never forget the inhuman scream he uttered, his howl of hellish pain and fury, while my eyes, round with horror, remained fixed on that ghastly… thing… and my mouth stayed open but no words came out of it!

  ‘Oh Raoul! That thing! I could not stop looking at it! My ears are permanently full of his howling and my eyes will always be haunted by his face! Such a sight! How can I forget it? How can I describe it for you?… Raoul, you have seen dead men’s skulls desiccated by the passage of time. And even if you’ve never had a truly terrifying nightmare in your life, you saw his death’s head mask that night at Perros. You also saw the Red Death prowling through the masked ball at the Opera! But none of those death’s heads moved and their dumb monstrousness was still and fixed: they were not alive! So imagine if you can the mask of Death itself suddenly coming to life and with its four black holes of eyes, nose and mouth expressing boundless rage, the implacable fury of a demon, but all with no expression in its black eye sockets, for, as I later discovered, you can only see his smouldering eyes in the deepest darkness… Imagine the scene: me pressed back against the wall, the picture of terror, and he, the personification of all that is foul!

  ‘He came up close and I heard his teeth grind for his mouth had no lips! I sank on to my knees while, in a voice full of hate, he hissed deranged words and incoherent phrases, he cursed and raved wildly… and what else besides?

  ‘He leaned over me. “Look at me,” he cried. “You wanted to see! Go on! Feast your eyes! Gorge your soul on my cursed ugliness! Behold the face of Erik! Now you have seen the face of the Voice. Wasn’t hearing me enough for you? Oh no, you wanted to know what I looked like. You women are so inquisitive!”

  ‘He began to laugh and kept repeating: “You women are too curious by half!” with a snarling, raw, raging, fearsome glee… He went on talking wildly:

  ‘“Are you satisfied? I make a handsome specimen, don’t I?… Once a woman has seen me, as you have, she is mine! She loves me for ever! Oh, I’m definitely the Don Juan type!”

  ‘And drawing himself up to his full height, he stood hands on hips, rolling the hideous object that was his head on his shoulders, and cried:

  ‘“Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant!”

  ‘I turned my head away, begging for mercy, but he roughly twisted it back to him by my hair in which his dead man’s fingers were entwined.’

  ‘Enough, enough!’ broke in Raoul. ‘I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him! For God’s sake, Christine, tell me: where is his secret house by the lake? I must kill him!’

  ‘Hush, Raoul! If you want to know, let me speak!’

  ‘Oh, I want to know all right, but I also want to know how and why you went back! That’s the real puzzle, Christine! Have a care, for it’s the only mystery! But whatever happens now, I’ll kill him!’

  ‘Raoul! Listen to me! If you want to know, listen! He dragged me by the hair and then… next… Oh what happened next was even more horrible!’

  ‘Tell me, tell me now!’ cried Raoul wildly. ‘Out with it!’

  ‘Well, he hissed: “Frighten you, do I? Maybe I do!… Maybe you think I’m still wearing a mask, eh? That this… my… my head is a mask? Well, then,” and he began to shout, “pull it off like you did the other one. Come on! Do it again! I insist! Use your hands! Both of them!… Give me your hands… if they’re not up to it, you can borrow mine… and we’ll pull it off together!” I rolled up into a ball at his feet but he grabbed both my hands, Raoul… and dug them into the horror that was his face… and raked his flesh with my nails, his loathsome dead flesh!

  ‘“Listen and learn!” he cried from deep in his chest which heaved like a blacksmith’s bellows. ‘“Learn that I am made entirely of Death!… from head to foot!… that you are loved by a corpse who adores you and will never leave you again! Ever!… I shall make a bigger coffin, Christine, for later, when we have come to the end of loving!… Ah! See? I’m not laughing now, I’m crying… weeping for you, Christine, who pulled off my mask and can therefore never leave me again!… As long as you could think I was handsome, Christine, you might have come back… I knew you would come back… But now that you’ve seen me in all my ugliness, you’ll go and never return!… So I intend to keep you here!!!… Oh why did you want to see me? Foolish, unthinking Christine who was so determined to see me when my father never saw me nor ever wanted to!… even my own mother, to avoid seeing me, wept as she presented me with my first mask!”

  ‘By now he’d let go of me and, racked by fits of sobbing, was dragging himself across the floor. Like some disgusting reptile, he squirmed and crawled away, went into his bedroom, closed the door and I was left alone with my horror and my thoughts, but at least freed of the sight of the thing. Utter silence, the silence of the grave, followed the storm and I ha
d time to ponder the dire consequences of my action in tearing off his mask. The monster’s parting words were crystal clear. I had closed a prison door on myself for ever and the sole reason for my predicament was my own curiosity. He had given me plenty of warning… He’d told me repeatedly that I was in no danger as long as I did not touch his mask and I had touched it! I cursed my folly but admitted with a sinking heart that what the monster had said was absolutely right. Yes, I would certainly have returned if I hadn’t seen his face… He had made me feel sad, concerned for him, even sorry for the tears he shed behind his mask and I was not deaf to what he’d asked. Nor was I ungrateful. Even in the impossible situation in which he’d now put me, I could not forget that he was the Voice who had awakened mine. I would have returned. But now, if I ever escaped from these catacombs, I would never come back! No one willingly goes back to be shut up in a tomb with a corpse who loves you!

  ‘By certain crazed things he had done during that terrible scene, his way of looking at me or rather of bringing those two dark, eyeless eye sockets so very close, I had got some idea of the wildness of his feelings. He had not touched me, though I was in no position to resist, and this I took to mean that the monster was also part angel and perhaps he really was, to some degree, an angel, the Angel of Music—and might have been all angel if God had clothed him in beauty instead of putrescence!

  ‘By now, tormented by thoughts of the fate that awaited me, terrified that the door of the coffin room would open and I would see the bare face of the monster, I had gone quietly back to my own room to get the scissors which could put an end to my unspeakable fate… when I heard the sound of the organ.

  ‘It was then, Raoul, that I began to understand what Erik had called, with a depth of contempt which had shocked me: “the repertoire”. What I was hearing now bore no relationship to the opera music which had delighted me until then. To begin with, his Don Juan Triumphant (for I was in no doubt that he had gone to his masterpiece to escape the sheer horror of that moment), his Don Juan sounded to me like a long, wrenching, magnificent cry of distress into which Erik had poured all his doomed unhappiness.