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

by Gaston Leroux

  I had got no distance from the shore when the silence through which I moved over the water was imperceptibly overlaid by a hushed, melodious whisper. It seemed to be everywhere, and it felt like breathing and sounded like singing. It rose soothingly from the depths of the lake and enveloped me by some cunning process which I could not explain. It followed me, went where I went, and it was so silky-smooth on the ear that I felt no fear. The very opposite. I felt such an urge to get close to the source of such sweet, captivating harmony that I leaned over the side of the boat, until I was almost touching the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing was coming from there. I was now in the middle of the lake and alone in the boat. The voice—for it was now distinctly and undeniably a voice—was by my side, on the water. I leaned further… and further… The lake was perfectly still and the shaft of moonlight which came through the airvent in the Rue Scribe revealed nothing on its surface which was glossy and black as ink. I pummelled my ears in case I was hearing things but quickly bowed to the overwhelming fact that no buzzing in the ears could ever be as sweet as the melodious whisper which pursued me and now began to lead me on.

  If I had a superstitious mind or were easily taken in by tales of the supernatural, I would surely have thought I was dealing with some siren whose mission was to lure any traveller bold enough to venture across the water surrounding the house by the lake. But, praise be! I hail from a nation too infatuated with fantasy not to recognize it when I see it. I had studied the subject in depth when I was younger and knew that, even with basic skills, anyone with half an idea of what he’s about can easily wreak havoc with the defenceless imaginations of men and women.

  I had no doubt that I was being tested by one of Erik’s new inventions. But I repeat: the illusion was so perfect that as I leaned over the side of my small boat I was less intent on my wish to discover how I was being fooled than on my urge to surrender to its charm.

  I leaned further… and further… until I almost capsized the boat.

  Suddenly two powerful arms rose from the water, grabbed me by the neck and began to drag me under the surface with unstoppable force. I would certainly have been done for if I hadn’t had just enough time to cry out. Erik heard and recognized my voice.

  For the arms were his and instead of drowning me as he had intended, he swam with me back to the shore.

  ‘Do you realize how rash that was?’ he asked as he stood over me, streaming with water from that diabolical pool. ‘Why were you trying to get into my home? I didn’t invite you. I don’t want you there, I don’t want anybody there! Why did you save my life if it was to make it unbearable? It is true that you once did me a great service. Yet some day maybe Erik will forget it, and you know that there is no power on earth that can limit Erik’s desires, not even Erik himself!’

  He continued to speak but all I wanted was to know how exactly he worked what I already called the Siren Trap. He was prepared to satisfy my curiosity, for Erik, who is an authentic monster—that’s what I reckon he is and I had plenty of opportunity, unfortunately, to see him at work in Persia—still in some ways has the mind of a precocious, conceited adolescent. When he has amazed the crowd, he has to show what a miraculously inventive mind he has.

  He laughed and held up the long stem of a reed.

  ‘It’s such an old trick!’ he said, ‘but it’s just the thing for breathing and humming under water! It’s something I taught to pirates when I was in Tonkin. They can stay concealed for hours on end at the bottom of rivers!’1

  I rounded on him:

  ‘And your trick damned well nearly killed me… and may have killed others before me!’

  He did not reply but stood there with that look of childish defiance which I know only too well.

  I refused to be intimidated and told him plainly:

  ‘Have you forgotten what you promised me, Erik? No more killing!’

  ‘Who am I supposed to have killed?’ he said amiably.

  ‘You’re a villain!…’ I cried. ‘Have you forgotten the Rosy Hours of Mazanderan?’

  ‘I have,’ he replied, suddenly sobered. ‘But I prefer to forget all that. Still, I did make the sultana laugh.’

  ‘All that is over,’ I said, ‘it belongs to the past… and this is the present… and you are answerable to me for what you do in the present. If I’d wanted, you wouldn’t have lived to see it!… so don’t you forget, Erik: I saved your neck!’

  And I took advantage of the turn the conversation had taken to raise a matter which had been on my mind for some time.

  ‘Erik,’ I said, ‘swear that you…’

  ‘Swear?’ he said. ‘But you know I never keep my word! I only swear when I want to fool stupid people.’

  ‘Tell me… Come on, you surely can tell me!’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘About the chandelier!’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about!’

  ‘Oh!’ he sniggered, ‘the chandelier!… All right, I’ll tell you!… That was none of my doing!… It was just old and worn!’

  Erik was even more terrifying when he laughed. He jumped into the boat leering in a sinister way which sent shivers up my spine.

  ‘Very worn, Daroga! It was dangerously worn… It fell of its own accord… It made a great big bang!… And now, a word or two of advice, Daroga: dry yourself or you’ll catch cold!… never get into my boat again!… and above all never try to get into my house… I’m not always there as I was tonight… It would grieve me to have to dedicate my Requiem Mass to you, Daroga!’

  With these words, and a final sneer, he stood up in the back of the boat and, agile as a monkey, he swung on the oars. He loomed with the menace of a wrecking rock, except that rocks don’t have yellow eyes. Soon, all I could see were those eyes and finally even they disappeared into the gloom which settled back over the lake.

  It was on that day that I gave up any idea of breaking into his house from the lake! The entrance on that side was clearly far too well guarded, especially now that he’d seen that I knew about it. But I suspected that there was another way in. More than once I’d followed Erik down to the third level where he would suddenly vanish, though I had been watching him closely, and I could never work out how he managed it. I cannot say too often that since I had found Erik ensconced in the Opera I had been living in a state of permanent fear of his murderous impulses, not because I was afraid for myself but because of what he might do to others.1 Whenever there was an accident in which someone was killed, I never failed to wonder: ‘Could it be Erik?…’ just as others would say: ‘The Phantom did it!’ How many times have I heard those words from people who spoke them with a smile on their lips! The fools! If they’d known that the Phantom was a creature of flesh and blood and far more dangerous than their inane ideas about ghosts, believe me, they’d have smiled on the other side of their faces!… If they’d only known what Erik was capable of, especially on a battleground like the Opera!… and if they’d only known how full of forebodings my real thoughts were…’

  My life was no longer my own!… Erik had given me his solemn assurance that he had changed and that he had become a really good man ever since he had been loved for himself, words which left me totally baffled. But I could not repress a shudder whenever I thought of the monster. His horrifying, unique, repulsive ugliness placed him outside human society, and I had good reason to think that, as a direct consequence, he no longer felt he owed the human race anything. The way he had spoken of being in love merely increased my fears, for I saw in this new development which he spoke of in that boastful way he had, the seed of new horrors more vile than anything than had gone before. I knew to what sublime heights Erik’s sufferings could rise but also to what abysmal depths they could sink. What he had said to me—vague hints threatening the most appalling disasters—continued to dominate my worst thoughts.

  On the other hand, I had discovered that a strange spiritual bond had sprung up between him
and Christine Daaé. Concealed in the lumber room next to the diva’s dressing room, I had been present at a number of amazing musical sessions which clearly left Christine in a state of ecstasy, though I had never suspected that Erik’s voice—which he could roll like thunder or modulate into the sweet tones of angels—could make anyone forget how stupendously repulsive he was. I only realized my mistake when I discovered that Christine had never seen him!

  I found an opportunity to slip into her dressing room and, recalling the different kind of lessons he had once given me, I had no trouble discovering the secret spring which made the wall with the mirror swivel. I saw how, by means of hollow bricks and vents which served as speaking tubes, he had made sure Christine could hear him as clearly as if he were standing by her side. On that occasion, I also discovered the secret tunnel which led to the spring which trickled out of the wall, the cell dug out by the Communards and the trap which acted as Erik’s short cut down to the third level.

  A few days later, I was amazed to learn with my own eyes and ears that Erik and Christine Daaé had met. I found the monster with Christine Daaé by the spring in the Communards’ tunnel (it bubbles out of the wall at the far end). He was bathing her temples, for she had fainted. A white horse, the one used in Le Prophète, which had disappeared from the Opera’s underground stables, was standing patiently next to them. I revealed myself. The effect was terrifying. I saw sparks fly out from those yellow eyes and before I could say a word I was hit on the head and was left dazed. When I came to, Erik, Christine and the horse had gone. The situation was unambiguous: the poor girl was now a prisoner in the house by the lake. I did not hesitate and, despite the very real danger to myself, resolved to return to the lake. I hid on the bank and stayed there for twenty-four hours, waiting for the monster to emerge, for I was pretty sure that he would come out sooner or later to fetch fresh supplies. I should add, in this context, that whenever he went out on to the streets of Paris or dared appear in public, he would cover the horrible hole where his nose should have been with a false one made of papier-mâché to which a moustache was attached. Of course it did not hide his macabre disfigurement entirely, for as he passed by people would whisper behind his back: ‘Look, it’s Death warmed up!’ But at least it made him almost—I repeat, almost—bearable to look at.

  And so I watched from the side of the lake—Lake Avernus, as he’d ironically called it several times within my hearing—and, finding the wait tedious, I got to thinking: ‘He’s gone out by another door, the one on the third level.’ I’d got this far when I heard a low splashing in the dark, saw a pair of yellow eyes blazing like burning brands, and then the boat ran on to the shore. Erik stepped out of it and walked straight towards me.

  ‘You’ve been here for twenty-four hours,’ he said, ‘and I don’t like it! I’m warning you: all this will end in tears! And it will be your fault! I have been enormously patient with you… You thought you were following me, you stupid, stupid man (his words) whereas I have been following you! I know everything you know about me. Yesterday in the Communards’ tunnel, which is my territory, I let you live. But I’ll say this just once: never let me see you here again! You have behaved recklessly, by God! I’m beginning to wonder if you can take telling!’

  He was so furious that for the moment I was careful not to interrupt. When he’d stopped blowing like a grampus, he spoke explicitly of the havoc he could cause, thereby confirming my blackest thoughts.

  ‘You must learn once and for all!… you hear?… once and for all!… to take me at my word! Given your carelessness—you’ve already been arrested twice by the man in the soft felt hat who didn’t know what you were doing down here and hauled you up before the Directors who assumed you were some weird Persian fascinated by magic and stage effects (I was there… yes, in the office; you should know by now that I am everywhere)—given your sheer recklessness, I say, people will wonder what you’re up to in this place… then they’ll find out that you’re looking for Erik… and then they’ll all want to look for him too… and they’ll discover the house by the lake… and then it will be Armageddon!… I shan’t answer for the consequences!…’

  Again he snorted like a grampus.

  ‘I won’t be held responsible! Unless Erik’s secrets remain inviolable, then the outlook is bleak for many of the human race! That’s all I wanted to say to you and unless you are even more stupid than you look (his words again) once should be enough! Unless, that is, you just won’t listen!’

  He had sat down in the stern of his small boat and drummed one heel on the wood while he waited for my answer. I simply said:

  ‘I didn’t come here looking for Erik!…’

  ‘For who, then?’

  ‘You know very well! For Christine Daaé!’

  He replied:

  ‘I’m perfectly entitled to invite her to my own house. She loves me for myself.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘You kidnapped her and are holding her against her will!’

  ‘Listen!’ he said, ‘will you promise you’ll stay out of my business if I can prove that she loves me for what I am?’

  ‘I promise,’ I said without hesitating, for I believed that it was something no monster like him could ever prove.

  ‘It’s a bargain! It’s straightforward. Christine Daaé will walk out of here whenever she likes and will then come back to me… Yes, she’ll return because she wants to… return of her own accord because she loves me for myself!…’

  ‘I doubt that very much… But you are duty-bound to let her go.’

  ‘Bound by duty, you oaf? (his word) I am bound only by my will!… It is my wish that she shall leave!… and she will come back… she loves me!… And we shall marry, this I swear… we’ll be married in the Madeleine,* you imbecile!… Do you believe me now?… My Wedding Mass is already written… You’ll see… such a Kyrie!…’

  With a change of rhythm, he began beating time on the bottom of the boat with one heel and over it he sang softly: Kyrie! Kyrie! Kyrie Eleison!… You’ll see!… Wait till you hear it!’

  ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’ll believe you if I see Christine Daaé walk out of your house and return of her own free will.’

  ‘And you’ll stop meddling in my life?’

  ‘Agreed,’ I said.

  ‘Very well. You shall have your wish tonight… Come to the masked ball. Christine and I will both put in an appearance… Then conceal yourself in the lumber room next to Christine’s dressing room. She will be there by then and won’t be happy until she’s on her way back through the Communards’ tunnel.’

  ‘Agreed!’

  If I witnessed such a thing with my own eyes, I’d have no choice but to back down. Beauty is entitled to fall in love with the Beast, especially if he seduces her with music and she is one of the finest singers of the day.

  ‘But now, get out of here! I have to go outside. There are things I need to buy!…’

  I went, still fearing for Christine but chiefly worried by a very alarming thought prompted by what he had said about my ‘recklessness’.

  I kept wondering: ‘How will all this end?’ And although I am temperamentally inclined to be fatalistic, I could not help feeling vaguely but genuinely apprehensive when I thought of the incredible responsibility I had accepted the day I saved the neck of a monster who now posed a very real threat to many members of the human race.

  To my huge amazement, everything turned out exactly as he had said. Christine Daaé walked out of the house by the lake several times and returned without any obvious sign of coercion. I tried to stop dwelling on what was one of love’s great mysteries. But I found it extremely difficult—given the nature of his threats—to stop thinking about Erik. But I resigned myself to a policy of extreme prudence and did not make the mistake of going back to the lake nor of using the Communards’ tunnel. But the thought of that secret entrance on the third level down obsessed me. I went back there several times during the day, when I knew it was usually deserted. I put in l
ong hours of watching and waiting, twiddling my thumbs behind part of the set of Le Roi de Lahore which had been left there for some obscure reason, for Le Roi de Lahore was not performed very often. Such patience had in the long run to be rewarded. One day I saw the monster coming my way. He was crawling on all fours. I was sure he couldn’t see me. He squeezed between the set and the painted backcloth, made straight for the wall and pressed on a spot, the exact location of which I saw from my distance. It released a spring which made one stone block swing open to reveal a narrow passage. He disappeared into the passage and the stone closed behind him. I had discovered the monster’s secret. With it, I would now be able to enter the house by the lake when the time came.

  Just to make sure, I waited at least half an hour and then tried releasing the catch. It worked just as it had done for Erik. But knowing that he was inside, I made no attempt to crawl along the passage after him. Besides, the thought that I might be found there by Erik suddenly reminded me of what had happened to Joseph Buquet and, not wishing to risk compromising my discovery which might be the salvation of many members of the human race, I hurriedly left the lower levels after carefully putting the stone back in place. The mechanism was exactly the same as those I had known back in Persia.

  As you can imagine, I was still very intrigued by Erik’s relationship with Christine Daaé, not out of any unhealthy curiosity but because of the one awful thought which was never far from my mind: ‘If’, I mused, ‘Erik finds out that she does not love him for himself, there’s no knowing what he might do.’ I never stopped patrolling the Opera House, taking every precaution, and soon discovered the truth about the monster’s doomed love.