That tragic evening was a bad one for everyone. La Carlotta had fallen ill. As for Christine Daaé, she had vanished after the performance. A fortnight had gone by without her being seen at the theatre, without her having shown herself outside the theatre.
This first disappearance, which passed without scandal, must not be confused with the famous abduction which, some time later, was to occur under circumstances so inexplicable and so tragic.
Raoul, naturally, was the first not to understand the diva's absence. He had written to her at Mme Valérius's address and had received no reply. At first he had not been otherwise astonished, knowing her state of mind and her resolve to break off all relation with him, without, moreover, his yet being able to guess the reason for it.
His sorrow had only deepened, and he ended by growing uneasy at not seeing the singer on any programme. Faust was given without her. One afternoon, towards five o'clock, he went to inquire of the management as to the causes of this disappearance of Christine Daaé. He found the managers much preoccupied. Their friends themselves no longer recognised them: they had lost all joy and all spirit. They were seen crossing the theatre, heads bowed, brows anxious, and cheeks pale as if pursued by some abominable thought, or in the grip of some malice of fate which seizes a man and will not let him go.
The fall of the chandelier had entailed much responsibility, but it was difficult to get the managers to explain themselves on the subject.
The inquiry had concluded that it was an accident, occurring by reason of the wear of the means of suspension, but it would still have been the duty of the former managers as well as the new to verify this wear and remedy it before it brought about the catastrophe.
And I must say that at this time MM. Richard and Moncharmin appeared so changed, so distant... so mysterious... so incomprehensible, that many subscribers imagined that some event yet more dreadful than the fall of the chandelier had altered the state of soul of the managers.
In their daily relations, they showed themselves very impatient, except however with Mme Giry, who had been reinstated in her functions. One may guess how they received the Vicomte de Chagny when he came to ask them for news of Christine. They confined themselves to answering him that she was on leave. He asked how long this leave was to last; he was replied to rather sharply that it was unlimited, Christine Daaé having asked for it on grounds of health.
"She is ill then!" he cried. "What is the matter with her?"
"We know nothing of it!"
"You did not then send her the theatre doctor?"
"No! She did not ask for him and, as we have confidence in her, we took her word for it."
The matter did not seem natural to Raoul, who left the Opera prey to the darkest thoughts. He resolved, whatever might happen, to go and seek news at Mama Valérius's. No doubt he remembered the energetic terms of Christine's letter, which forbade him to attempt anything whatsoever to see her. But what he had seen at Perros, what he had heard behind the door of the dressing-room, the conversation he had had with Christine on the edge of the moor, made him suspect some plot which, however somewhat diabolical, was none the less human. The exalted imagination of the young girl, her tender and credulous soul, the primitive upbringing which had surrounded her early years with a circle of legends, the continual thought of her dead father, and above all the state of sublime ecstasy into which music plunged her as soon as that art manifested itself to her in certain exceptional conditions—had he not been in a position to judge thus at the time of the cemetery scene?—all this appeared to him as bound to constitute a moral terrain favourable to the evil enterprises of some mysterious and unscrupulous person. Of whom was Christine Daaé the victim? That is the very sensible question Raoul asked himself as he hastened to Mama Valérius's.
For the viscount had a most sound mind. No doubt, he was a poet and loved music in its most winged aspect, and he was a great admirer of the old Breton tales where the korrigans dance, and above all he was in love with that little fay of the North who was Christine Daaé; nevertheless, he did not believe in the supernatural except in matters of religion, and the most fantastic story in the world was not capable of making him forget that two and two make four.
What was he going to learn at Mama Valérius's? He trembled as he rang at the door of a small apartment in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires.
The maid who, one evening, had come out ahead of him from Christine's dressing-room, came to open to him. He asked if Mme Valérius was visible. He was answered that she was unwell, in bed, and incapable of "receiving".
"Have my card taken in," he said.
He did not wait long. The maid returned and showed him into a rather dark and plainly furnished little salon where the two portraits of Professor Valérius and of Father Daaé faced each other.
"Madame begs the vicomte's pardon," said the servant. "She will only be able to receive him in her bedroom, for her poor legs can no longer support her."
Five minutes later, Raoul was shown into a nearly dark room, where he at once made out, in the half-light of an alcove, the good face of Christine's benefactress. Now, Mama Valérius's hair was quite white, but her eyes had not aged: never, on the contrary, had her gaze been so clear, nor so pure, nor so childlike.
"M. de Chagny!" she said joyfully, holding out both hands to the visitor... "Ah! Heaven sends you!... we shall be able to talk of _her_."
This last phrase rang most gloomily in the young man's ears. He asked at once:
"Madame... where is Christine?"
And the old lady answered him tranquilly:
"Why, she is with her 'good genius'!"
What good genius? cried poor Raoul.
"Why, _the angel of music!_"
The Vicomte de Chagny, dismayed, fell onto a seat. Truly, Christine was with _the angel of music!_ And Mama Valérius, in her bed, smiled at him, putting a finger to her lips, to enjoin silence on him. She added:
"You must repeat it to no one!"
"You may count on me!" replied Raoul without quite knowing what he said, for his ideas about Christine, already much troubled, grew more and more muddled and it seemed that everything began to turn about him, about the room, about that extraordinary good lady with white hair, with pale sky-blue eyes, with empty-sky eyes... "You may count on me..."
"I know! I know!" she said with a happy, kindly laugh. "But come closer to me, as when you were quite little. Give me your hands as when you brought me back the tale of little Lotte that Father Daaé had told you. I love you well, you know, M. Raoul. And Christine loves you well too!"
"... She loves me well..." sighed the young man, who with difficulty gathered his thought around Mama Valérius's _genius_, the _angel_ of whom Christine had spoken to him so strangely, the _death's head_ he had glimpsed in a sort of nightmare upon the steps of the high altar at Perros and also the _phantom of the Opera_, whose fame had come to his ear one evening when he had lingered on the stage, a few steps from a group of stagehands who recalled the cadaverous description given before his mysterious end by the hanged Joseph Buquet...
He asked in a low voice:
"What makes you believe, madame, that Christine loves me well?"
"She spoke to me of you every day!"
"Truly?... And what did she tell you?..."
"She told me you had made her a declaration?..."
And the good old lady burst out laughing loudly, showing all her teeth, which she had jealously kept. Raoul rose, red in the forehead, suffering atrociously.
"Well! where are you going?... Will you sit down?... Do you think you are going to leave me like that?... You are angry because I laughed, I beg your pardon... After all, it is not your fault, what has happened... You did not know... You are young... and you believed Christine was free..."
"Is Christine betrothed?" asked the unhappy Raoul in a strangled voice.
"Why no! Why no!... You know well that Christine—would she wish it—cannot marry!..."
"What! but I know nothing!... And why can Christine not marry?"
"Why, because of _the genius of music!_..."
"Again..."
"Yes, he forbids her!..."
"He forbids her!... The genius of music forbids her to marry!..."
Raoul leaned over Mama Valérius, his jaw thrust forward, as if to bite her. He would not have looked at her with fiercer eyes had he wished to devour her. There are moments when too great an innocence of mind appears so monstrous as to become hateful. Raoul found Mme Valérius all too innocent.
She did not suspect the dreadful look weighing upon her. She resumed, in the most natural tone:
"Oh! he forbids her... without forbidding her... He simply tells her that if she married, she would hear him no more! That is all!... and that he would depart forever!... So, you understand, she does not wish to let _the Genius of music_ go. It is quite natural."
"Yes, yes," assented Raoul in a breath, "it is quite natural."
"Besides, I thought Christine had told you all that, when she found you at Perros where she had gone with her 'good genius'."
"Ah! ah! she had gone to Perros with the 'good genius'?"
"That is to say, he had given her a rendezvous there in the cemetery of Perros upon Daaé's tomb! He had promised to play the _Resurrection of Lazarus_ upon her father's violin!"
Raoul de Chagny rose and pronounced these decisive words with great authority:
"Madame, you are going to tell me where this genius lives!"
The old lady did not seem otherwise surprised at this indiscreet question. She raised her eyes and answered:
"In heaven!"
So much candour disconcerted him. So simple and perfect a faith in a genius who, every evening, descended from heaven to frequent the dressing-rooms of artists at the Opera, left him stupid.
He now realised the state of mind in which a young girl might find herself, raised between a superstitious fiddler and a "illuminated" good lady, and he shuddered thinking of the consequences of all that.
"Is Christine still an honest girl?" he could not help suddenly asking.
"On my share of paradise, I swear it!" exclaimed the old woman who, this time, appeared outraged... "and if you doubt it, monsieur, I do not know what you came here for!..."
Raoul tore at his gloves.
"How long has she known this 'genius'?"
"About three months!... Yes, it is a good three months since he began to give her lessons!"
The viscount stretched out his arms in a vast and desperate gesture and let them fall back in dejection.
"The genius gives her lessons!... And where?"
"Now that she has gone away with him, I could not tell you, but a fortnight ago, it took place in Christine's dressing-room. Here, it would be impossible in this little apartment. The whole house would hear them. Whereas at the Opera, at eight in the morning, there is no one. They are not disturbed!... You understand?..."
"I understand! I understand!" cried the viscount, and he took leave precipitately of the old mama who wondered _apart_ if the viscount were not a little touched.
Crossing the salon, Raoul found himself face to face with the maid and, for an instant, he had the intention of questioning her, but he thought he caught on her lips a slight smile. He thought she was mocking him. He fled. Did he not know enough?... He had wished to be informed; what more could he desire?... He walked home to his brother's, in a state to inspire pity...
He would have liked to punish himself, to dash his forehead against the walls! To have believed in so much innocence, in so much purity! To have tried, for an instant, to explain everything by naïveté, by simplicity of mind, by immaculate candour! The genius of music! He knew him now! He saw him! He was beyond doubt some awful tenor, a pretty fellow, who sang with his mouth pursed! He found himself ridiculous and unhappy to his heart's content! Ah! the wretched, little, insignificant and foolish young man that M. le Vicomte de Chagny was! thought Raoul furiously. And she, what an audacious and satanically cunning creature!
Still, this run through the streets had done him good, refreshed a little the flame of his brain. When he entered his room, he thought only of throwing himself on his bed to stifle his sobs there. But his brother was there and Raoul let himself fall into his arms, like a baby. The count, paternally, consoled him, without asking explanations; besides, Raoul would have hesitated to relate to him the story of the _genius of music_. If there are things one does not boast of, there are others for which there is too much humiliation in being pitied.
The count took his brother to dine at a cabaret. With such fresh despair, it is likely Raoul would have declined, that evening, any invitation had not the count, the previous evening, in an alley of the Bois, told him that the lady of his thoughts had been met in gallant company. At first, the viscount would not believe it and then such precise details were given him that he protested no more. After all, was this not the most banal of adventures? She had been seen in a coupé with the window lowered. She seemed to be breathing in long draughts the frozen air of the night. There was a superb moonlight. She had been perfectly recognised. As for her companion, only a vague silhouette had been made out, in the shadow. The carriage was going "at a walk", in a deserted alley, behind the grandstands of Longchamp.
Raoul dressed with frenzy, already ready, to forget his distress, to throw himself, as they say, into the "whirlwind of pleasure". Alas! he was a sad guest and, having left the count early, he found himself, towards ten in the evening, in a hackney carriage, behind the grandstands of Longchamp.
It was bitterly cold. The road appeared deserted and brightly lit under the moon. He ordered the coachman to wait patiently for him at the corner of a small adjacent alley and, hiding as much as possible, he began to beat his feet.
He had not been at this hygienic exercise half an hour when a carriage, coming from Paris, turned the corner of the road and, tranquilly, at its horse's pace, directed itself his way.
He thought at once: it is she! And his heart began to beat with great muffled strokes, like those he had already heard in his breast when he listened to the man's voice behind the dressing-room door... My God! how he loved her!
The carriage still advanced. As for him, he had not moved. He waited!... If it were she, he was quite resolved to leap at the horses' heads!... Cost what it might, he wished to have an explanation with the angel of music!...
A few steps more and the coupé would be abreast of him. He did not doubt it was she... A woman, indeed, was leaning her head at the door.
And, suddenly, the moon lit her with a pale halo.
"Christine!"
The sacred name of his love sprang from his lips and his heart. He could not hold it back!... He bounded to catch her, for this name thrown in the face of the night had been like the awaited signal for a furious rush of the whole equipage, which passed before him without his having taken time to put his plan into execution. The window of the door had risen. The young woman's face had disappeared. And the coupé, behind which he ran, was already no more than a black point on the white road.
He called again: Christine!... Nothing answered him. He stopped, in the midst of silence.
He cast a desperate glance at the sky, at the stars; he struck his burning chest with his fist; he loved and he was not loved!
With a mournful eye, he considered that desolate and cold road, the pale and dead night. Nothing was colder, nothing was deader than his heart: he had loved an angel and he despised a woman!
Raoul, how she has toyed with you, the little fay of the North! Is it not, is it not true that it is useless to have so fresh a cheek, so shy a brow ever ready to be covered with the pink veil of modesty, to pass in the solitary night, in the depths of a luxury coupé, in the company of a mysterious lover? Is it not true that there should be sacred limits to hypocrisy and falsehood?... And that one should not have the clear eyes of childhood when one has the soul of courtesans?
... She had passed without answering his call...
Also, why had he come across her path?
By what right did he suddenly raise before her, who asks only to be forgotten by him, the reproach of his presence?...
"Go!... vanish!... You count for nothing!..."
He thought of dying and he was twenty years old!... His servant surprised him, in the morning, seated on his bed. He had not undressed and the valet feared some misfortune on seeing him, so disastrous did he look. Raoul snatched from his hands the mail he brought him. He had recognised a letter, a paper, a writing. Christine wrote him:
"My friend, be, the day after tomorrow, at the masked ball of the Opera, at midnight, in the little salon which is behind the chimney of the grand foyer; stand near the door which leads to the Rotonde. Speak of this rendezvous to no one in the world. Put on a white domino, well masked. On my life, let no one recognise you. Christine."
