Fantôme de l'Opéra. English, Page 9

  Chapter VIII The Mysterious Brougham

  That tragic evening was bad for everybody. Carlotta fell ill. As forChristine Daae, she disappeared after the performance. A fortnightelapsed during which she was seen neither at the Opera nor outside.

  Raoul, of course, was the first to be astonished at the prima donna'sabsence. He wrote to her at Mme. Valerius' flat and received no reply.His grief increased and he ended by being seriously alarmed at neverseeing her name on the program. FAUST was played without her.

  One afternoon he went to the managers' office to ask the reason ofChristine's disappearance. He found them both looking extremelyworried. Their own friends did not recognize them: they had lost alltheir gaiety and spirits. They were seen crossing the stage withhanging heads, care-worn brows, pale cheeks, as though pursued by someabominable thought or a prey to some persistent sport of fate.

  The fall of the chandelier had involved them in no littleresponsibility; but it was difficult to make them speak about it. Theinquest had ended in a verdict of accidental death, caused by the wearand tear of the chains by which the chandelier was hung from theceiling; but it was the duty of both the old and the new managers tohave discovered this wear and tear and to have remedied it in time.And I feel bound to say that MM. Richard and Moncharmin at this timeappeared so changed, so absent-minded, so mysterious, soincomprehensible that many of the subscribers thought that some eventeven more horrible than the fall of the chandelier must have affectedtheir state of mind.

  In their daily intercourse, they showed themselves very impatient,except with Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her functions. Andtheir reception of the Vicomte de Chagny, when he came to ask aboutChristine, was anything but cordial. They merely told him that she wastaking a holiday. He asked how long the holiday was for, and theyreplied curtly that it was for an unlimited period, as Mlle. Daae hadrequested leave of absence for reasons of health.

  "Then she is ill!" he cried. "What is the matter with her?"

  "We don't know."

  "Didn't you send the doctor of the Opera to see her?"

  "No, she did not ask for him; and, as we trust her, we took her word."

  Raoul left the building a prey to the gloomiest thoughts. He resolved,come what might, to go and inquire of Mamma Valerius. He rememberedthe strong phrases in Christine's letter, forbidding him to make anyattempt to see her. But what he had seen at Perros, what he had heardbehind the dressing-room door, his conversation with Christine at theedge of the moor made him suspect some machination which, devilishthough it might be, was none the less human. The girl's highly strungimagination, her affectionate and credulous mind, the primitiveeducation which had surrounded her childhood with a circle of legends,the constant brooding over her dead father and, above all, the state ofsublime ecstasy into which music threw her from the moment that thisart was made manifest to her in certain exceptional conditions, as inthe churchyard at Perros; all this seemed to him to constitute a moralground only too favorable for the malevolent designs of some mysteriousand unscrupulous person. Of whom was Christine Daae the victim? Thiswas the very reasonable question which Raoul put to himself as hehurried off to Mamma Valerius.

  He trembled as he rang at a little flat in the RueNotre-Dame-des-Victoires. The door was opened by the maid whom he hadseen coming out of Christine's dressing-room one evening. He asked ifhe could speak to Mme. Valerius. He was told that she was ill in bedand was not receiving visitors.

  "Take in my card, please," he said.

  The maid soon returned and showed him into a small and scantilyfurnished drawing-room, in which portraits of Professor Valerius andold Daae hung on opposite walls.

  "Madame begs Monsieur le Vicomte to excuse her," said the servant."She can only see him in her bedroom, because she can no longer standon her poor legs."

  Five minutes later, Raoul was ushered into an ill-lit room where he atonce recognized the good, kind face of Christine's benefactress in thesemi-darkness of an alcove. Mamma Valerius' hair was now quite white,but her eyes had grown no older; never, on the contrary, had theirexpression been so bright, so pure, so child-like.

  "M. de Chagny!" she cried gaily, putting out both her hands to hervisitor. "Ah, it's Heaven that sends you here! ... We can talk of HER."

  This last sentence sounded very gloomily in the young man's ears. Heat once asked:

  "Madame ... where is Christine?"

  And the old lady replied calmly:

  "She is with her good genius!"

  "What good genius?" exclaimed poor Raoul.

  "Why, the Angel of Music!"

  The viscount dropped into a chair. Really? Christine was with theAngel of Music? And there lay Mamma Valerius in bed, smiling to himand putting her finger to her lips, to warn him to be silent! And sheadded:

  "You must not tell anybody!"

  "You can rely on me," said Raoul.

  He hardly knew what he was saying, for his ideas about Christine,already greatly confused, were becoming more and more entangled; and itseemed as if everything was beginning to turn around him, around theroom, around that extraordinary good lady with the white hair andforget-me-not eyes.

  "I know! I know I can!" she said, with a happy laugh. "But why don'tyou come near me, as you used to do when you were a little boy? Giveme your hands, as when you brought me the story of little Lotte, whichDaddy Daae had told you. I am very fond of you, M. Raoul, you know.And so is Christine too!"

  "She is fond of me!" sighed the young man. He found a difficulty incollecting his thoughts and bringing them to bear on Mamma Valerius'"good genius," on the Angel of Music of whom Christine had spoken tohim so strangely, on the death's head which he had seen in a sort ofnightmare on the high altar at Perros and also on the Opera ghost,whose fame had come to his ears one evening when he was standing behindthe scenes, within hearing of a group of scene-shifters who wererepeating the ghastly description which the hanged man, Joseph Buquet,had given of the ghost before his mysterious death.

  He asked in a low voice: "What makes you think that Christine is fondof me, madame?"

  "She used to speak of you every day."

  "Really? ... And what did she tell you?"

  "She told me that you had made her a proposal!"

  And the good old lady began laughing wholeheartedly. Raoul sprang fromhis chair, flushing to the temples, suffering agonies.

  "What's this? Where are you going? Sit down again at once, will you?... Do you think I will let you go like that? ... If you're angry withme for laughing, I beg your pardon... After all, what has happenedisn't your fault... Didn't you know? ... Did you think that Christinewas free? ..."

  "Is Christine engaged to be married?" the wretched Raoul asked, in achoking voice.

  "Why no! Why no! ... You know as well as I do that Christine couldn'tmarry, even if she wanted to!"

  "But I don't know anything about it! ... And why can't Christine marry?"

  "Because of the Angel of Music, of course! ..."

  "I don't follow ..."

  "Yes, he forbids her to! ..."

  "He forbids her! ... The Angel of Music forbids her to marry!"

  "Oh, he forbids her ... without forbidding her. It's like this: hetells her that, if she got married, she would never hear him again.That's all! ... And that he would go away for ever! ... So, youunderstand, she can't let the Angel of Music go. It's quite natural."

  "Yes, yes," echoed Raoul submissively, "it's quite natural."

  "Besides, I thought Christine had told you all that, when she met youat Perros, where she went with her good genius."

  "Oh, she went to Perros with her good genius, did she?"

  "That is to say, he arranged to meet her down there, in Perroschurchyard, at Daae's grave. He promised to play her The Resurrectionof Lazarus on her father's violin!"

  Raoul de Chagny rose and, with a very authoritative air, pronouncedthese peremptory words:

  "Madame, you will have the goodness to tell me where t
hat genius lives."

  The old lady did not seem surprised at this indiscreet command. Sheraised her eyes and said:

  "In Heaven!"

  Such simplicity baffled him. He did not know what to say in thepresence of this candid and perfect faith in a genius who came downnightly from Heaven to haunt the dressing-rooms at the Opera.

  He now realized the possible state of mind of a girl brought up betweena superstitious fiddler and a visionary old lady and he shuddered whenhe thought of the consequences of it all.

  "Is Christine still a good girl?" he asked suddenly, in spite ofhimself.

  "I swear it, as I hope to be saved!" exclaimed the old woman, who, thistime, seemed to be incensed. "And, if you doubt it, sir, I don't knowwhat you are here for!"

  Raoul tore at his gloves.

  "How long has she known this 'genius?'"

  "About three months ... Yes, it's quite three months since he began togive her lessons."

  The viscount threw up his arms with a gesture of despair.

  "The genius gives her lessons! ... And where, pray?"

  "Now that she has gone away with him, I can't say; but, up to afortnight ago, it was in Christine's dressing-room. It would beimpossible in this little flat. The whole house would hear them.Whereas, at the Opera, at eight o'clock in the morning, there is no oneabout, do you see!"

  "Yes, I see! I see!" cried the viscount.

  And he hurriedly took leave of Mme. Valerius, who asked herself if theyoung nobleman was not a little off his head.

  He walked home to his brother's house in a pitiful state. He couldhave struck himself, banged his head against the walls! To think thathe had believed in her innocence, in her purity! The Angel of Music!He knew him now! He saw him! It was beyond a doubt some unspeakabletenor, a good-looking jackanapes, who mouthed and simpered as he sang!He thought himself as absurd and as wretched as could be. Oh, what amiserable, little, insignificant, silly young man was M. le Vicomte deChagny! thought Raoul, furiously. And she, what a bold and damnablesly creature!

  His brother was waiting for him and Raoul fell into his arms, like achild. The count consoled him, without asking for explanations; andRaoul would certainly have long hesitated before telling him the storyof the Angel of Music. His brother suggested taking him out to dinner.Overcome as he was with despair, Raoul would probably have refused anyinvitation that evening, if the count had not, as an inducement, toldhim that the lady of his thoughts had been seen, the night before, incompany of the other sex in the Bois. At first, the viscount refusedto believe; but he received such exact details that he ceasedprotesting. She had been seen, it appeared, driving in a brougham,with the window down. She seemed to be slowly taking in the icy nightair. There was a glorious moon shining. She was recognized beyond adoubt. As for her companion, only his shadowy outline wasdistinguished leaning back in the dark. The carriage was going at awalking pace in a lonely drive behind the grand stand at Longchamp.

  Raoul dressed in frantic haste, prepared to forget his distress byflinging himself, as people say, into "the vortex of pleasure." Alas,he was a very sorry guest and, leaving his brother early, foundhimself, by ten o'clock in the evening, in a cab, behind the Longchamprace-course.

  It was bitterly cold. The road seemed deserted and very bright underthe moonlight. He told the driver to wait for him patiently at thecorner of a near turning and, hiding himself as well as he could, stoodstamping his feet to keep warm. He had been indulging in this healthyexercise for half an hour or so, when a carriage turned the corner ofthe road and came quietly in his direction, at a walking pace.

  As it approached, he saw that a woman was leaning her head from thewindow. And, suddenly, the moon shed a pale gleam over her features.

  "Christine!"

  The sacred name of his love had sprung from his heart and his lips. Hecould not keep it back... He would have given anything to withdraw it,for that name, proclaimed in the stillness of the night, had acted asthough it were the preconcerted signal for a furious rush on the partof the whole turn-out, which dashed past him before he could put intoexecution his plan of leaping at the horses' heads. The carriagewindow had been closed and the girl's face had disappeared. And thebrougham, behind which he was now running, was no more than a blackspot on the white road.

  He called out again: "Christine!"

  No reply. And he stopped in the midst of the silence.

  With a lack-luster eye, he stared down that cold, desolate road andinto the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder than his heart, nothinghalf so dead: he had loved an angel and now he despised a woman!

  Raoul, how that little fairy of the North has trifled with you! Was itreally, was it really necessary to have so fresh and young a face, aforehead so shy and always ready to cover itself with the pink blush ofmodesty in order to pass in the lonely night, in a carriage and pair,accompanied by a mysterious lover? Surely there should be some limitto hypocrisy and lying! ...

  She had passed without answering his cry ... And he was thinking ofdying; and he was twenty years old! ...

  His valet found him in the morning sitting on his bed. He had notundressed and the servant feared, at the sight of his face, that somedisaster had occurred. Raoul snatched his letters from the man'shands. He had recognized Christine's paper and hand-writing. She said:

  DEAR:

  Go to the masked ball at the Opera on the night after to-morrow. Attwelve o'clock, be in the little room behind the chimney-place of thebig crush-room. Stand near the door that leads to the Rotunda. Don'tmention this appointment to any one on earth. Wear a white domino andbe carefully masked. As you love me, do not let yourself berecognized. CHRISTINE.