XVI. «CHRISTINE! CHRISTINE!»

XVI

"CHRISTINE! CHRISTINE!"

Raoul's first thought, after the fantastic disappearance of Christine Daaé, had been to accuse Erik. He no longer doubted the quasi-supernatural power of the Angel of Music, in that domain of the Opera where he had diabolically established his empire.

And Raoul had rushed onto the stage, in a frenzy of despair and love. "Christine! Christine!" he moaned, distraught, calling to her as she must be calling from the depths of that dark abyss into which the monster had borne her like a prey, still trembling with her divine exaltation, clad all in the white shroud in which she was already offering herself to the angels of paradise!

--"Christine! Christine!" Raoul repeated... and it seemed to him that he heard the young girl's cries through those fragile boards that separated him from her! He leaned over, he listened!... he wandered across the stage like a madman. Ah! to descend! descend! descend! into that pit of darkness whose every exit is closed to him!

Ah! that fragile obstacle which usually slides so easily upon itself to reveal the gulf toward which all his desire reaches... those boards which his step makes creak and which, under his weight, sound the prodigious void of the "underside"... those boards are more than immobile this evening: they seem immutable... They put on an air of solidity, as though they had never moved... and behold, the stairways that allow one to descend beneath the stage are forbidden to all!

"Christine! Christine!..." He is pushed back with laughter... They mock him... They think the poor fiancé's brain is unhinged!

In what frenzied flight, through the corridors of night and mystery known to him alone, has Erik dragged the pure child to that dreadful lair of the Louis-Philippe room, whose door opens onto that lake of Hell?... "Christine! Christine!" You do not answer! Are you even still alive, Christine! Have you not exhaled your last breath in a minute of superhuman horror, beneath the fiery breath of the monster!

Terrible thoughts cross the congested brain of Raoul like thunderbolts.

Evidently, Erik must have surprised their secret, must have learned that he was betrayed by Christine! What vengeance will be his!

What would the Angel of Music not dare, hurled from the height of his pride? Christine in the all-powerful arms of the monster is lost!

And Raoul thinks again of the golden stars that came last night to wander upon his balcony—why did he not blast them with his powerless weapon!

Surely! there are extraordinary human eyes that dilate in the darkness and shine like stars or like the eyes of cats. (Certain albino men, who appear to have the eyes of rabbits by day, have the eyes of cats by night; everyone knows that!)

Yes, yes, it was indeed at Erik that Raoul had fired! Why did he not kill him? The monster had fled by the gutter like cats or convicts—who, as everyone also knows—would scale the very sky, with the aid of a gutter.

No doubt Erik was then meditating some decisive enterprise against the young man, but he had been wounded, and he had fled to turn upon poor Christine.

Thus thinks the poor Raoul cruelly, as he runs to the singer's dressing room...

"Christine!... Christine!..." Bitter tears burn the eyelids of the young man, who perceives, scattered upon the furniture, the garments meant to clothe his beautiful fiancée at the hour of their flight!... Ah! why did she not wish to leave earlier! Why delay so long?... Why play with the threatening catastrophe?... with the heart of the monster?... Why, in supreme pity! have wished to cast, as last fodder to that demon soul, that celestial song:

Pure angels! Radiant angels! Bear my soul to the bosom of the two!...

Raoul, whose throat rolls sobs, oaths, and insults, feels with his clumsy palms the great mirror which had opened one evening before him to let Christine descend to the tenebrous dwelling. He pushes, he presses, he gropes... but the mirror, it seems, obeys only Erik... Perhaps gestures are useless with such a mirror?... Perhaps it would suffice to pronounce certain words?... When he was a tiny child, he had been told that there were objects which thus obeyed speech!

Suddenly Raoul remembers... "a grating giving onto the rue Scribe... A subterranean passage rising directly from the Lake to the rue Scribe..." Yes, Christine had spoken to him of that!... And after ascertaining, alas! that the heavy key is no longer in the casket, he nonetheless runs to the rue Scribe.

There he is outside, he passes his trembling hands over the cyclopean stones, he seeks exits... he encounters bars... are those the ones?... or those?... or is it not this vent?... He plunges impotent glances between the bars... what profound night within!... He listens!... What silence!... He circles the building!... Ah! here are vast bars! prodigious grilles!... It is the door of the administration courtyard!

... Raoul runs to the concierge: "Pardon, madame, could you not indicate to me a grated door, yes a door made of bars, of bars... of iron... which gives onto the rue Scribe... and which leads to the Lake! You know well, the Lake? Yes, the Lake, what! The lake that is under the earth... under the earth of the Opera."

--"Monsieur, I know well that there is a lake under the Opera, but I do not know which door leads there... I have never been there!..."

--"And the rue Scribe, madame? The rue Scribe? Have you ever been to the rue Scribe?"

She laughs! She bursts out laughing! Raoul flees roaring, he leaps, climbs stairways, descends others, crosses the whole administration, finds himself again in the light of the "stage."

He stops, his heart beats to breaking in his panting chest: what if Christine Daaé had been found? Here is a group: he questions them:

--"Pardon, gentlemen, have you not seen Christine Daaé?"

And they laugh.

At that same minute, the stage rumbles with a new murmur, and, amid a crowd of black coats that surround him with forceful explanatory arm-movements, appears a man who, he, seems quite calm and shows an amiable face, all rosy and plump, framed by curled hair, lit by two blue eyes of marvelous serenity. The administrator Mercier points out the newcomer to the Vicomte de Chagny, saying to him:

--"Here is the man, monsieur, of whom you must henceforth ask your question. I present to you Monsieur the Police Commissioner Mifroid."

--"Ah! Monsieur le Vicomte de Chagny! Delighted to see you, monsieur," says the commissioner. "If you would do me the honor of following me... And now where are the directors?... where are the directors?..."

As the administrator falls silent, the secretary Rémy takes it upon himself to inform M. the Commissioner that the Messieurs Directors are locked in their office and as yet know nothing of the event.

--"Is it possible!... Let us go to their office!"

And M. Mifroid, followed by an ever-swelling cortège, makes his way toward the administration. Mercier takes advantage of the crush to slip a key into Gabriel's hand:

--"All this is turning bad," he murmurs to him... "Go then and give some air to Mother Giry..."

And Gabriel moves away.

Soon they arrive before the directorial door. In vain does Mercier utter his entreaties, the door does not open.

--"Open in the name of the law!" commands the clear and somewhat anxious voice of M. Mifroid.

At last the door opens. They rush into the offices, on the heels of the commissioner.

Raoul is the last to enter. As he prepares to follow the group into the apartment, a hand rests upon his shoulder and he hears these words pronounced at his ear:

--_Erik's secrets are no one's concern!_

He turns around stifling a cry. The hand that had rested on his shoulder is now upon the lips of a figure with ebony complexion, jade eyes, and capped in an astrakhan bonnet... The Persian!

The stranger prolongs the gesture, which counsels discretion, and at the moment when the astonished vicomte is about to ask him the reason for his mysterious intervention, he bows and disappears.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”