X. AU BAL MASQUÉ
X
AT THE MASKED BALL
The envelope, entirely smeared with mud, bore no stamp. “To be delivered to M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny” and the address in pencil. This had certainly been thrown down in the hope that some passerby would pick up the note and bring it home; which is what had happened. The note had been found on a sidewalk of the Place de l’Opéra. Raoul read it again with feverish haste.
He needed no more than this to be reborn to hope. The dark image he had for a moment formed of a Christine forgetful of her duties toward herself gave way to the first notion he had had of an innocent, unhappy child, victim of an imprudence and of her too great sensitivity. To what point, at this hour, was she truly a victim? By whom was she held prisoner? Into what abyss had she been dragged? He asked himself with cruelly anxious dread; but this very pain seemed bearable to him beside the delirium into which the idea of a hypocritical and lying Christine threw him! What had happened? What influence had she undergone? What monster had carried her off, and with what weapons?...
... With what weapons, if not those of music? Yes, yes, the more he thought of it, the more he persuaded himself that it was on this side that he would discover the truth. Had he forgotten the tone in which, at Perros, she had told him that she had received the visit of the celestial envoy? And was not the very story of Christine, of late, bound to help him illuminate the darkness in which he struggled? Had he been ignorant of the despair that had seized her after the death of her father and the disgust she had then conceived for all the things of life, even for her art? At the Conservatoire, she had passed like a poor singing machine, devoid of soul. And suddenly she had awakened, as if under the breath of a divine intervention. The Angel of Music had come! She sings Marguerite in Faust and triumphs!... The Angel of Music!... Who then, who then passes himself off in her eyes for that marvelous genius?... Who then, informed of the legend dear to old Daaé, makes such use of it that the young girl is no longer in his hands but a defenseless instrument which he causes to vibrate at his will?
And Raoul reflected that such an adventure was not exceptional. He recalled what had happened to Princess Belmonte, who had just lost her husband and whose despair had turned to stupor... For a month, the princess could neither speak nor weep. This physical and moral inertia grew daily, and the weakening of her reason gradually brought on the annihilation of life. Every evening the invalid was carried into her gardens; but she seemed not even to understand where she was. Raff, the greatest singer in Germany, passing through Naples, wished to visit these gardens, renowned for their beauty. One of the princess’s women begged the great artist to sing, without showing himself, near the thicket where she lay stretched out. Raff consented and sang a simple air that the princess had heard from her husband’s lips in the first days of their marriage. This air was expressive and touching. The melody, the words, the admirable voice of the artist, all united to move the princess’s soul profoundly. Tears sprang from her eyes... she wept, was saved, and remained persuaded that her spouse, that very evening, had descended from heaven to sing her the song of old!
“Yes... that evening!... One evening,” thought Raoul now, “one single evening... But that fair illusion would not have held before repeated experience...
“She would surely have ended by discovering Raff, behind his thicket, the ideal and sorrowful Princess of Belmonte, had she returned there every evening, for three months...
“The Angel of Music, for three months, had given lessons to Christine... Ah! he was a punctual master!... And now, he takes her walking in the Bois!...
With his clenched fingers, slipped over his breast where his jealous heart beat, Raoul tore at his flesh. Inexperienced, he now asked himself with terror to what game the young lady invited him for an approaching masquerade? And to what point a daughter of the Opera may mock a good young man quite new to love? What misery!...
Thus Raoul’s thought ran to extremes. He no longer knew whether he should pity Christine or curse her, and by turns he pitied and cursed her. At all events, however, he provided himself with a white domino.
At last, the hour of the rendezvous arrived. His face covered by a half-mask trimmed with long and thick lace, all stiffened in white, the viscount proved to himself how ridiculous it was to have donned this costume of romantic masquerades. A man of the world did not disguise himself to go to the Opera ball. He would have raised a smile. One thought consoled the viscount: that he would certainly not be recognized! And then, this costume and this mask had another advantage: Raoul would be able to walk about inside it “as in his own home,” alone, with the dismay of his soul and the sadness of his heart. He would have no need to pretend; it would be superfluous for him to compose a mask for his face: he had one!
This ball was an exceptional fête, given before the fat days, in honor of the anniversary of the birth of an illustrious designer of former revels, an emulator of Gavarni, whose pencil had immortalized the “chicards” and the descent of the Courtille. Thus it was bound to have a much gayer, noisier, more Bohemian aspect than the ordinary of masked balls. Numerous artists had given themselves a rendezvous there, followed by a whole clientele of models and art students who, toward midnight, began to make a great uproar.
Raoul mounted the great staircase at five minutes to midnight, lingering in no way to consider around him the spectacle of multicolored costumes displayed along the marble steps, in one of the most sumptuous decors in the world, allowed himself to be accosted by no facetious mask, answered no jest, and shook off the enterprising familiarity of several couples already too gay. Having crossed the grand foyer and escaped a farandole which, for a moment, had imprisoned him, he finally entered the salon which Christine’s note had indicated to him. There, in that small space, there was a tremendous crowd; for it was the crossroads where all met who were going to sup at the Rotonde or who were returning from taking a cup of champagne. The tumult there was ardent and joyous. Raoul thought that Christine, for their mysterious rendezvous, had preferred this throng to some isolated corner: there, under the mask, one was more hidden.
He leaned against the door and waited. He did not wait long. A black domino passed, which rapidly pressed the tips of his fingers. He understood that it was she.
He followed.
“Is it you, Christine?” he asked between his teeth.
The domino turned quickly and raised a finger to the height of her lips, doubtless to recommend him not to repeat her name.
Raoul continued to follow in silence.
He was afraid of losing her, after having so strangely found her again. He felt no more hatred against her. He no longer even doubted that she must “have nothing with which to reproach herself,” however bizarre and inexplicable her conduct appeared. He was ready for all mildness, for all pardons, for all cowardices. He loved. And certainly, they were about to explain to him very naturally, in a moment, the reason for so singular an absence...
The black domino, from time to time, turned to see whether he was still followed by the white domino.
As Raoul thus retraversed, behind his guide, the grand public foyer, he could not but remark, among all the crowds, a crowd... among all the groups attempting the maddest extravagances, a group pressing around a personage whose disguise, original bearing, and macabre aspect were creating a sensation...
This personage was clothed all in scarlet with an immense plumed hat upon a death’s head. Ah! what a fine imitation of a death’s head it was! The art students around him gave him a great success, congratulated him... asked him at what master’s, in what studio, frequented by Pluto, such a fine death’s head had been made, drawn, painted for him! Death herself must have posed.
The man with the death’s head, the plumed hat, and the scarlet garment trailed behind him an immense cloak of red velvet whose flame lengthened royally upon the parquet; and upon this cloak there had been embroidered in letters of gold a phrase that each read and repeated aloud: “Do not touch me! I am the Red Death who passes!...”
And someone wished to touch him... but a skeleton hand, issuing from a sleeve of purple, brutally seized the wrist of the rash one, and he, having felt the grip of the small bones, the frantic clasp of Death which seemed never to release him again, uttered a cry of pain and terror. The Red Death having at last restored him his freedom, he fled, like a madman, amid hoots. It was at this moment that Raoul crossed the funereal personage who, just then, had turned in his direction. And he was on the point of letting escape a cry: “The death’s head of Perros-Guirec!” He had recognized it!... He wished to rush forward, forgetting Christine; but the black domino, who seemed likewise seized by a strange emotion, had taken his arm and was drawing him away... drawing him far from the foyer, out of that demonic crowd where the Red Death passed...
At every instant, the black domino turned, and it seemed to him, twice, to perceive something that terrified him, for he hastened still more his pace and that of Raoul as if they were pursued.
Thus they mounted two flights. There, the staircases, the corridors were almost deserted. The black domino pushed open the door of a box and signed to the white domino to enter behind him. Christine (for it was indeed she, he was able yet to recognize her by her voice), Christine immediately closed the box door upon him, recommending him in a low voice to remain in the rear of the box and not to show himself. Raoul removed his mask. Christine kept hers. And as the young man was about to beg the singer to remove hers, he was quite astonished to see her lean against the partition and listen attentively to what was happening next door. Then she opened the door a crack and looked into the corridor, saying in a low voice: “He must have gone up above, into the ‘Box of the Blind’!”... Suddenly she cried: “He is coming down again!”
She wished to close the door but Raoul opposed it, for he had seen upon the highest step of the stair mounting to the upper floor settle a red foot, and then another... and slowly, majestically, all the scarlet garment of the Red Death descended. And he saw again the death’s head of Perros-Guirec.
“It is he!” he cried... “This time, he shall not escape me!...
But Christine had closed the door, at the moment Raoul sprang forward. He wished to thrust her from his path...
“Who then,” he said, “him?...” she asked in a wholly changed voice... “who then shall not escape you?...
Brutally, Raoul tried to overcome the resistance of the young girl, but she repulsed him with unexpected strength... He understood or thought he understood and became furious at once.
“Who then?” he said with rage... “But him? the man who hides beneath that hideous mortuary image!... the evil genius of the cemetery of Perros!... the Red Death!... In short, your friend, madame... Your Angel of Music! But I shall tear the mask from his face, as I shall tear off mine, and we shall look at each other, this time face to face, without veil and without falsehood, and I shall know who loves you and who you love!
He burst into senseless laughter, while Christine, behind her mask, uttered a dolorous moan.
She extended with a tragic gesture her two arms, which made a barrier of white flesh upon the door.
“In the name of our love, Raoul, you shall not pass!...
He stopped. What had she said?... In the name of their love?... But never, never yet had she told him that she loved him. And yet, the occasions had not been lacking!... She had already seen him unhappy enough, in tears before her, imploring a good word of hope which had not come!... She had seen him ill, half dead with terror and cold after the night of the cemetery of Perros? Had she even remained at his side in the moment he most needed her care? No! She had fled!... And she said that she loved him! She spoke “in the name of their love.” Come now! She had no other aim than to delay him a few seconds... Time must be given the Red Death to escape... Their love? She lied!...
And he told her so, with an accent of childish hatred.
“You lie, madame! for you do not love me, and you have never loved me! One must be a poor unhappy little young man like me to let oneself be played, to let oneself be fooled as I have been! Why, by your attitude, by the joy of your glance, by your very silence, at our first meeting at Perros, permit me all hopes?—all honest hopes, madame, for I am an honest man and I believed you an honest woman, when you had only the intention of mocking me! Alas! you have mocked everyone! You have shamefully abused the candid heart of your benefactress herself, who nevertheless continues to believe in your sincerity when you walk at the Opera ball, with the Red Death!... I despise you!...
And he wept. She let him insult her. She thought but of one thing: to hold him back.
“You will ask my pardon one day for all these ugly words, Raoul, and I shall forgive you!...
He shook his head.
“No! no! you had driven me mad!... when I think that I, I had no longer but one aim in life: to give my name to a daughter of the Opera!...
“Raoul!... unhappy one!...
“I shall die of shame!
“Live, my friend,” said the grave and altered voice of Christine... “and farewell!
“Farewell, Raoul!...
The young man advanced, with faltering step. He dared yet a sarcasm:
“Oh! you will at least permit me to come applaud you from time to time.
“I shall sing no more, Raoul!...
“Truly,” he added with yet more irony... “They create leisure for you: my compliments!... But we shall meet again in the Bois one of these evenings!
“Neither in the Bois, nor elsewhere, Raoul, shall you see me again...
“Might one at least know to what shadows you return?... For what hell do you set out again, mysterious madame?... or for what paradise?...
“I had come to tell you, my friend... but I can tell you nothing more...
... You would not believe me! You have lost faith in me, Raoul, it is finished!...
She said this “It is finished!” in so despairing a tone that the young man trembled at it and that remorse for his cruelty began to trouble his soul...
“But in short,” he cried... “Will you tell us what all this signifies!... You are free, unhindered... You walk about the city... you don a domino to run to the ball... Why do you not return home?... What have you done these fifteen days?... What is this story of the Angel of Music that you told Mama Valérius? someone may have deceived you, abused your credulity... I myself was the witness at Perros... but, now you know where you stand!... You appear to me quite sensible, Christine... You know what you are doing!... and yet Mama Valérius continues to await you, invoking your ‘good genius’!... Explain yourself, Christine, I beg you!... Others would be deceived thereby!... what is this comedy?...
Christine, simply, removed her mask and said:
“It is a tragedy! my friend...
Raoul then saw her face and could not restrain an exclamation of surprise and fright. The fresh colors of former times had disappeared. A deathly pallor spread over those features he had known so charming and so gentle, reflections of peaceful grace and of conscience without strife. How tormented they were now! The furrow of sorrow had pitilessly hollowed them, and the beautiful clear eyes of Christine, formerly limpid as the lakes which served for eyes to little Lotte, appeared this evening of an obscure, mysterious, and unfathomable depth, and all circled by a frightfully sad shadow.
“My friend! my friend!” he groaned, extending his arms... “you promised to forgive me...
“Perhaps!... perhaps one day...” she said, replacing her mask, and she went away, forbidding him to follow her with a gesture that dismissed him...
He wished to spring after her, but she turned and repeated with such sovereign authority her gesture of farewell that he dared no longer take a step.
He watched her withdraw... And then he descended in his turn into the crowd, not precisely knowing what he did, his temples throbbing, his heart torn, and he asked, in the hall he was crossing, whether one had not seen the Red Death pass. They said to him: “Who is this Red Death?” He answered: “It is a gentleman disguised with a death’s head and in a great red cloak.” He was told everywhere that she had just passed, the Red Death, trailing her royal cloak, but he met her nowhere, and he returned, toward two in the morning, into the corridor which, behind the stage, led to the box of Christine Daaé.
His steps had brought him to this place where he had begun to suffer. He knocked at the door. No one answered. He entered as he had entered then when he sought everywhere the man’s voice. The box was deserted. A gas jet burned, turned low. Upon a small desk, there was letter paper. He thought to write to Christine, but steps were heard in the corridor... He had only time to hide in the boudoir which was separated from the box by a simple curtain. A hand pushed the box door. It was Christine!
He held his breath. He wished to see! He wished to know!... Something told him that he was about to witness a part of the mystery and that he was perhaps about to begin to understand...
Christine entered, removed her mask with a weary gesture and threw it upon the table. She sighed, let her beautiful head fall between her hands... What was she thinking?... Of Raoul?... No! for Raoul heard her murmur: “Poor Erik!”
At first he believed he had heard amiss. At first, he was persuaded that if anyone was to be pitied, it was he, Raoul. What more natural, after what had just passed between them, than that she should say in a sigh: “Poor Raoul!” But she repeated, shaking her head: “Poor Erik?” What was this Erik doing in Christine’s sighs, and why did the little fairy of the North pity, Erik when Raoul was so unhappy?
Christine began to write, calmly, tranquilly, so peacefully, that Raoul, who still trembled from the drama that separated them, was singularly and unpleasantly impressed by it. “What composure!” he said to himself... She wrote thus, filling two, three, four sheets. Suddenly, she raised her head and hid the sheets in her bodice... She seemed to listen... Raoul listened too... Whence came this strange noise, this distant rhythm?... A muffled song seemed to issue from the walls... Yes, one would have said that the walls were singing!... The song became clearer... the words intelligible... a voice was distinguished... a very beautiful and very sweet and very captivating voice... but so much sweetness remained nevertheless masculine, and thus one could judge that this voice belonged not to a woman... The voice drew ever nearer... it passed the wall... it arrived... and the voice now was in the room, before Christine. Christine rose and spoke to the voice as if she had spoken to someone who stood at her side.
“Here I am, Erik,” she said, “I am ready. It is you who are late, my friend.”
Raoul, who looked prudently from behind his curtain, could not believe his eyes, which showed him nothing.
The countenance of Christine brightened. A sweet smile came to rest upon her bloodless lips, a smile such as convalescents have when they begin to hope that the ill which struck them will not carry them off.
The bodiless voice took up its singing again, and certainly Raoul had never yet heard in the world—as a voice uniting, in the same instant, with the same breath, the extremes—anything more largely and heroically suave, more victoriously insidious, more delicate in strength, stronger in delicacy, in short more irresistibly triumphant. There were there definitive accents which sang as masters and which must certainly, by the sole virtue of their hearing, give rise to elevated accents in mortals who feel, love, and translate music. There was there a tranquil and pure source of harmony at which the faithful could in all safety devoutly drink, certain that they drank there the musician’s grace. And their art, thereupon, having touched the divine, was transfigured. Raoul listened to this voice with fever, and he began to understand how Christine Daaé had been able to appear one evening before the stupefied public, with accents of unknown beauty, of superhuman exaltation, doubtless still under the influence of the mysterious and invisible master! And he understood all the more such a considerable event in listening to the exceptional voice in that it sang nothing indeed exceptional: with clay, it had made azure. The banality of the verse and the easiness and the almost popular vulgarity of the melody appeared only the more transformed into beauty by a breath which lifted them and bore them into full sky upon the wings of passion. For this angelic voice glorified a pagan hymn.
This voice sang “the hymeneal night” from Romeo and Juliet.
Raoul saw Christine extend her arms toward the voice, as she had done in the cemetery of Perros, toward the invisible violin which played The Resurrection of Lazarus...
Nothing could render the passion with which the voice said:
Fate binds you to me without return!...
Raoul had his heart pierced by it, and, struggling against the charm which seemed to take from him all will and all energy, and almost all lucidity at the moment he most needed it, he managed to draw the curtain which hid him and he walked toward Christine. She, who advanced toward the back of the box of which the whole panel was occupied by a great mirror which sent back her image, could not see him, for he was quite behind her and entirely masked by her.
Fate binds you to me without return!...
Christine walked always toward her image and her image descended toward her. The two Christines—the body, and the image—ended by touching, by mingling, and Raoul extended his arm to seize them both at a stroke.
But by a sort of dazzling miracle which made him stagger, Raoul was suddenly thrown backward, while an icy wind swept his face; he saw no longer two, but four, eight, twenty Christines, who turned around him with such lightness, who mocked him and who fled so rapidly that his hand could touch none. At last, all became still again and he saw himself, him, in the mirror. But Christine had disappeared.
He threw himself upon the mirror. He ran against the walls. No one! And yet the box still rang with a distant, passionate rhythm:
Fate binds you to me without return!...
His hands pressed his sweating brow, felt his awakened flesh, groped the half-shadow, restored to the flame of the gas jet all its force. He was sure he was not dreaming. He found himself at the center of a formidable play, physical and moral, whose key he lacked and which perhaps was about to crush him. He vaguely had the effect of an adventurous prince who has crossed the forbidden limit of a fairy tale and who must no longer be astonished to be the prey of the magic phenomena which he has inconsiderately braved and unchained by love...
By where? By where had Christine gone?
By where would she return?
Would she return?... Alas! had she not affirmed to him that all was finished!... and did not the wall repeat: Fate binds you to me without return? To me? To whom?
Then, exhausted, vanquished, his brain vague, he sat in the very place Christine had occupied but now. Like her, he let his head fall into his hands. When he raised it, abundant tears coursed down his young face, true and heavy tears, such as jealous children have, tears which wept over a misfortune in no way fantastic, but common to all lovers on earth and which he stated aloud:
“Who is this Erik?” said he.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”