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

by Gaston Leroux

  If he filled Christine’s mind with anything, it was with terror, but her heart belonged entirely to the Viscount de Chagny. While the two of them roamed playfully like some sweet, engaged couple, through the upper levels of the theatre—where they could be free of the monster—they never suspected that someone was watching them. I was prepared to do anything: I would kill the monster if I had to and settle with the law later. But Erik never appeared, though I was not particularly reassured by this.

  I must tell you how I read the situation. I reasoned that if the monster was lured out of his lair by jealousy, it would be my chance to get inside safely through the secret passage on the third level down. It was in my and everybody’s interest to know exactly what went on in there! One day, tired of waiting for an opportunity, I pressed the catch and immediately heard sounds of the most amazing music. The monster was working, with all the doors open, on his Don Juan Triumphant. I knew that he regarded it as his magnum opus. I was very careful not to move and stayed quietly where I was, in my dark corner. At one point, he stopped playing and began marching around his lair like someone demented shouting: ‘It’s got to be finished first, every last note of it!’ I did not find his words very reassuring and when the music started up again I carefully closed the stone. But even when it was fully shut, I could still hear faint, distant strains rising from the depth of the earth just as I had heard the song of the Siren rising from the depths of the lake. I remembered what the stagehands had said when Joseph Buquet had died, though it had raised a condescending smile at the time: they’d claimed to have ‘heard a sound like a death march echoing over the corpse’!

  The evening Christine Daaé was abducted, I did not get to the theatre until quite late, dreading that I might be greeted by bad news. I’d spent a very worrying day. Ever since reading in that morning’s paper the announcement of the forthcoming marriage of Christine Daaé and the Viscount de Chagny, I had been debating if I should not just simply tell the police all I knew about the monster. But on second thoughts I convinced myself that doing so would merely hasten the calamity I wanted to avoid.

  When my carriage dropped me outside the Opera I stared at it for a moment as if I was amazed to see that the place was still standing!

  But like every self-respecting Oriental I am rather fatalistic in outlook and in I went, ready for anything!

  The disappearance of Christine Daaé during the prison act, which was such a shock to everyone, found me ready primed. I was sure that Erik had spirited her off, like the king of conjurors that he really is. And this time, I was afraid it meant the end for Christine and perhaps for many more besides.

  I was so convinced of this that I wondered for a moment if I shouldn’t warn the people who stayed in their seats to get out at once. But I was stopped by the thought that if I denounced Erik people would simply think I was mad. I also knew that if, for example, I shouted ‘Fire!’ to clear the auditorium, I could well cause a disaster—people asphyxiated, trampled underfoot, caught up in a wild stampede—far worse than the catastrophe I dreaded.

  Even so I decided I would have to do something myself, and without further delay. The time seemed right. I could reasonably assume that Erik would not be thinking about anything except his prisoner. I had to make the most of my opportunity to get into his house via the third level and I decided it would be useful to have young de Chagny, who was so desperate, come along with me. He agreed like a shot and showed a faith in me that I found very heartening. I had sent my servant to fetch my pistols. Darius brought the case to Christine’s dressing room. I gave one pistol to the Viscount and told him to be ready to use it, as I was, for Erik might be waiting for us behind the wall. We would travel down the Communards’ tunnel and then drop down onto the third level through the trap in the floor.

  When he saw the pistols, the Viscount had asked if we were off to fight a duel.

  ‘Oh yes!’ I said and added: ‘And some duel it will be!’

  But there wasn’t time to explain. He’s a brave young man, but he knew little or nothing about his opponent! And doubtless it was just as well!

  What is a duel with the most fearsome bully compared with going up against the most brilliant of illusionists? Even I was unnerved by the thought of doing battle with a man who was visible only when he wanted to be but could see everything around him whereas you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face!… a man whose fantastic knowledge of science, subtle mind, imagination and sheer skill enabled him to exploit the forces of nature and combine them in ways that confuse the eyes and ears with deadly trickery!… And where better to do this than in the bowels of the Opera House, that land of dreams and make-believe! Can you imagine it without quaking? Can you have any idea of the effect on the eyes and ears of anyone sallying forth to do battle on the home territory—the Opera, with its five lower levels and twenty-five upper levels—of a kind of diabolical Robert-Houdin with a twisted sense of humour who would joke and hate by turns and steal and kill at will!… Ask yourself this: ‘How would I fight the King of Traps?’ By God! Did he not come to Persia and build inside our palaces astounding swivelling walls and trapdoors which have never been bettered?… How could anyone expect to beat the King of Traps in the Kingdom of Traps?

  I hoped he had not left his house by the lake where he had surely taken a doubtless still unconscious Christine Daaé. But my greatest fear was that he was already hovering somewhere around, waiting to use his Punjab noose.

  No one is more skilled in the art of throwing a Punjab noose. Erik is the Prince of Stranglers just as he is the King of Illusionists. Whenever, back in the days of the Rosy Hours of Mazanderan, he’d made the Sultana laugh enough, she would order him to amuse her with exciting thrills and cruel entertainments.* He found that the best way of doing this was with the Punjab noose. Erik had lived in India and had returned with astonishing expertise as a strangler. He would be shut inside a closed yard where a warrior would be brought to him, usually a criminal awaiting execution. His opponent was given a long pike and a broad sword. Erik was armed only with his noose and it was invariably when the warrior thought he was about to cut Erik down with one mighty stroke that we heard the swish of the noose through the air. With a snap of the wrist, Erik wrapped the thin cord around the neck of his adversary and with it dragged the man to a window where the young Sultana, attended by her women, was watching and clapping her hands. She herself learned to throw the Punjab noose and throttled several of her attendants and even a number of her women friends who had come to call.

  But I would prefer to drop the awful subject of the Rosy Hours of Mazanderan. If I have brought it up, it is only because, having brought the Viscount de Chagny down to the lower levels, I needed to warn him that there was a real danger all around us that we might be strangled. Naturally, once we were in the bowels of the Opera, pistols were useless. Since Erik had made no move against us in the Communards’ Tunnel, I thought it unlikely that he would let us catch even a glimpse of him. But he could easily garrotte us. There wasn’t time to explain all this to the Viscount and even if there had been I’m not sure I would have spent it telling him that somewhere in the dark there was a Punjab noose just waiting to come flying in our direction. There was no point making the situation even more fraught so I merely told the Viscount to keep one hand up, at eye level, with his arm bent like a duellist who, pistol in hand, stands waiting for the command to fire. With the arm held thus, it is impossible for even the most skilful strangler to use a Punjab noose. It wraps itself round not just the neck but around the hand or arm too. It can then be easily removed and is thus neutralized.

  After eluding the police Inspector, several door-boys and the firemen, and made our first acquaintance with the rat-catcher and escaped the notice of the man in the felt hat, the Viscount and I managed, without further alarums, to reach the third level and squeeze between the backcloth and part of the scenery from Le Roi de Lahore. I pressed the spring and we dropped down into the house which Erik had built for himse
lf inside the double skin of the foundations of the Opera House—something which he had managed to do unobserved for he was one of the main contractors used by Philippe Garnier,* the architect of the Paris Opera, and he had gone on working, secretly, alone, when all building work was officially suspended during the war, the Siege of Paris and the Commune.

  I knew Erik too well to imagine that I could ever discover all the devices he had installed in all that time. Which was why I was very wary as I lowered myself into his lair. I knew what he had done with one palace in Mazanderan. He had turned the most innocuous building into a devil’s cauldron where no one could say anything without it being heard and relayed by an echo. How many family crises, how many bloody tragedies had the monster not left in his wake with his infernal traps and devices! Not to mention the fact that in the palaces which he had ‘transmogrified’ people became disorientated and did not know where they were. Some of his creations were truly amazing. But the strangest, the most horrible and the most dangerous by far was the torture chamber. Apart from the exceptional occasion when the Sultana amused herself by tormenting some harmless citizen, it was used only for criminals under sentence of death. I still think it was the vilest of all the creations of the Rosy Hours of Mazanderan. When the victim who had ended up in the torture chamber could stand no more, he was allowed to ‘put an end to it’ with a Punjab noose which had been left for that very purpose at the foot of the iron tree. So imagine the shock I had, the moment I found myself inside the monster’s lair, to realize that the room into which the Viscount and I had dropped was an exact reproduction of the torture chamber from the Rosy Hours of Mazanderan.

  On the floor I found the Punjab noose I had been dreading all night. I was convinced that it had already been used on Joseph Buquet who, like me, must have come upon Erik unawares as he was opening the stone in the wall on the third level. He was curious and probably climbed into the passage before the stone swung back and closed. He had then fallen into the torture chamber and left it sometime later, feet first, after he had hanged himself. I could easily picture Erik, having to dispose of the body, dragging it back up to the third level and hooking it on the flat from Le Roi de Lahore as an example or to stoke the superstitious terror which was so useful in guarding the approaches to his lair by the lake!

  But he’d had second thoughts. He went back to retrieve the Punjab noose which, being unusually made of catgut, might arouse the curiosity of an examining magistrate. That explained the disappearance of the hanged man’s rope.

  And now I found the noose on the floor of the torture chamber!… I am no coward, but I broke out in a cold sweat.

  As I shone the small red circle from the lantern over the walls of the torture chamber, my hand shook.

  The Viscount noticed and asked:

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Frantically I urged him to stay silent, for I clung to my one last hope that we’d landed in the torture chamber without the monster’s knowledge!

  Even so, my hoping did not mean that we were saved, for I could also imagine that the torture chamber, which was entered from the third level, might well be part of the defences of the house by the lake and designed to respond independently.

  Which meant that the torture could well begin automatically.

  Who could say what actions on our part it was waiting for before it could start?

  I told my companion to keep absolutely still.

  A crushing silence weighed down on us.

  And the red beam from my lantern continued to wander all around the torture chamber… which I remembered… remembered it well…

  CHAPTER 23

  Inside the Torture Chamber

  The Persian’s Tale Continued

  WE were standing in the middle of a small room in the shape of a hexagon. All six walls were lined with plate mirrors from floor to ceiling. To every angle was added a section of reflecting glass which turned freely on pivots… oh yes, I remembered them!… and I also remembered the wrought-iron tree in one corner with its accompanying insert, the iron tree with its iron branch… the hanging tree.

  I grabbed the Viscount’s arm for he was shaking with excitement and bursting to call out to Christine that help was on the way… I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

  Suddenly we heard a sound to our left.

  It started like a door opening and shutting in an adjoining room. It was followed by a low moan. I gripped the Viscount’s arm even more tightly and then we distinctly heard a voice speaking:

  ‘Choose you must! The Wedding Mass or the Requiem for the Dead?’

  I recognized the monster’s voice.

  There was another groan.

  Then a long silence.

  I was now convinced that the monster did not know we were there. Otherwise, he would have made sure we could not hear him. He only had to cover the inevitable concealed spyhole through which aficionados of torture watch what goes on inside a chamber of horrors.

  Besides, I knew the torture would have begun already if he had been aware of our presence.

  That gave us one big advantage over Erik: we were very close and he did not know it.

  It was vital that we did nothing to change that. The greatest danger was the Viscount’s impulsiveness. He was itching to hurl himself at the walls to get to Christine Daaé, for we assumed that the intermittent moans we heard must be coming from her.

  ‘The Requiem does not make for pleasant listening!’ Erik’s voice went on, ‘but the Wedding Mass is altogether different! It is magnificent! You must make up your mind and decide which you want! I can’t go on living like this any longer, creeping about under the earth, in a hole in the ground, like a mole! Don Juan Triumphant is finished at last and now I want to live an ordinary life, be like other people. I want a wife like other men; we’ll go for walks together on Sundays. I’ve made a mask which lets me pass unnoticed in a crowd. No one will turn round in the street and stare. You will be the happiest of women. We shall sing together, just the two of us, and it will be bliss. You’re crying! You’re afraid of me! But I’m not a bad man! Love me and you’ll see! To be good and kind, all I ever needed was to be loved! If you loved me, I would be as gentle as a lamb and you could do with me whatever you wanted!’

  The groans which punctuated this litany of love grew louder and louder. I have never heard such a disturbing sound and the Viscount and I quickly realized that this keening jeremiad was the expression of Erik’s despair. As for Christine, she couldn’t be far away, perhaps she was there, on the other side of the wall facing us, dumb with horror, with the monster at her feet, not having the strength to cry out.

  Erik’s lamentation growled, resounded, surged like the plaintive threnody of the sea. Three times he broke off and with the shingle scraping in his throat he howled:

  ‘You do not love me! You do not love me! You do not love me!’

  And then, very softly:

  ‘Why are you crying? You know I hate it when you cry!’

  Then a silence would follow.

  And each silence gave us fresh hope. We wondered: ‘Perhaps he’s gone and Christine is there, by herself, on the other side of this wall!’

  All we could think of was how we might let her know we were there without giving ourselves away.

  We could only get out of the torture chamber if she opened the door for us. Whether or not we could come to her rescue depended entirely on that basic proposition, for we had no idea where in the chamber the door was located.

  Then the silence from the adjoining room was broken by the ringing of an electric bell.

  We heard a startled reaction through the wall and Erik’s voice thundered:

  ‘Ah! Someone at the gate! Pray be so good as to come in!’ he said with a menacing snigger. ‘Who’s this coming bothering us now? Wait, I won’t be long… just going to tell the Siren to open the door.’

  Footsteps faded away and a door closed. I had no time to think of what new horror was about to take pla
ce, I forgot that the monster had probably only left the room to commit another murder. I knew now that Christine was alone behind the wall!

  The Viscount de Chagny was already calling to her.

  ‘Christine! Christine!’

  Since we had been able to hear what was being said in the adjacent room, there was no reason why she should not hear us. And yet the Viscount had to call again, several times.

  Finally, a faint voice reached us: ‘I must be dreaming!’

  ‘Christine! Christine! It’s me, Raoul!’

  Silence.

  ‘Answer me, Christine!… If you are alone, for God’s sake, answer!’

  Then Christine’s voice murmured Raoul’s name.

  ‘Yes, it’s really me! It’s not a dream! Christine, trust me!… We’ve come to rescue you… but be careful!… If you hear the monster coming back, you must warn us!…’

  ‘Raoul! Raoul!’

  She made him repeat several times that she wasn’t dreaming and that Raoul de Chagny had come to rescue her, with the help of a faithful companion who knew a secret way into Erik’s house by the lake.

  But very quickly her sudden elation gave way to the sheerest terror. She wanted Raoul to get away at once. She was afraid Erik would discover where he was hiding. If that happened he would not hesitate to kill him. She told us in a few rushed words that love had unhinged Erik’s mind and that if she did not consent to be married by both mayor and priest*—the curé of the Madeleine—he was determined to kill everybody and himself along with the rest. He had given her until eleven the next evening to consider. It was her last chance. That was the moment when she would have to choose between his Wedding Mass and the Requiem for the Dead.