第38章 Apollo's Lyre (2)

I was so glad that I never thought of concealing my delight when Ireached my dressing-room.Unfortunately, the voice was there before me and soon noticed, by my air, that something had happened.

It asked what was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our story secret or concealing the place which you filled in my heart.

Then the voice was silent.I called to it, but it did not reply;I begged and entreated, but in vain.I was terrified lest it had gone for good.I wish to Heaven it had, dear!...That night, I went home in a desperate condition.I told Mamma Valerius, who said, `Why, of course, the voice is jealous!' And that, dear, first revealed to me that I loved you."Christine stopped and laid her head on Raoul's shoulder.They sat like that for a moment, in silence, and they did not see, did not perceive the movement, at a few steps from them, of the creeping shadow of two great black wings, a shadow that came along the roof so near, so near them that it could have stifled them by closing over them.

"The next day," Christine continued, with a sigh, "I went back to my dressing-room in a very pensive frame of mind.The voice was there, spoke to me with great sadness and told me plainly that, if I must bestow my heart on earth, there was nothing for the voice to do but to go back to Heaven.And it said this with such an accent of HUMAN sorrow that I ought then and there to have suspected and begun to believe that I was the victim of my deluded senses.

But my faith in the voice, with which the memory of my father was so closely intermingled, remained undisturbed.I feared nothing so much as that I might never hear it again; I had thought about my love for you and realized all the useless danger of it;and I did not even know if you remembered me.Whatever happened, your position in society forbade me to contemplate the possibility of ever marrying you; and I swore to the voice that you were no more than a brother to me nor ever would be and that my heart was incapable of any earthly love.And that, dear, was why I refused to recognize or see you when I met you on the stage or in the passages.

Meanwhile, the hours during which the voice taught me were spent in a divine frenzy, until, at last, the voice said to me, `You can now, Christine Daae, give to men a little of the music of Heaven.'

I don't know how it was that Carlotta did not come to the theater that night nor why I was called upon to sing in her stead; but Isang with a rapture I had never known before and I felt for a moment as if my soul were leaving my body!""Oh, Christine," said Raoul, "my heart quivered that night at every accent of your voice.I saw the tears stream down your cheeks and Iwept with you.How could you sing, sing like that while crying?""I felt myself fainting," said Christine, "I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, you were by my side.But the voice was there also, Raoul! I was afraid for your sake and again I would not recognize you and began to laugh when you reminded me that you had picked up my scarf in the sea!...Alas, there is no deceiving the voice!...The voice recognized you and the voice was jealous!...It said that, if I did not love you, I would not avoid you, but treat you like any other old friend.It made me scene upon scene.At last, I said to the voice, `That will do!

I am going to Perros to-morrow, to pray on my father's grave, and Ishall ask M.Raoul de Chagny to go with me.' `Do as you please,'

replied the voice, `but I shall be at Perros too, for I am wherever you are, Christine; and, if you are still worthy of me, if you have not lied to me, I will play you The Resurrection of Lazarus, on the stroke of midnight, on your father's tomb and on your father's violin.' That, dear, was how I came to write you the etter that brought you to Perros.How could I have been so beguiled? How was it, when I saw the personal, the selfish point of view of the voice, that I did not suspect some impostor?

Alas, I was no longer mistress of myself: I had become his thing!""But, after all," cried Raoul, "you soon came to know the truth!

Why did you not at once rid yourself of that abominable nightmare?""Know the truth, Raoul? Rid myself of that nightmare? But, my poor boy, I was not caught in the nightmare until the day when I learned the truth!...Pity me, Raoul, pity me!...You remember the terrible evening when Carlotta thought that she had been turned into a toad on the stage and when the house was suddenly plunged in darkness through the chandelier crashing to the floor?

There were killed and wounded that night and the whole theater rang with terrified screams.My first thought was for you and the voice.

I was at once easy, where you were concerned, for I had seen you in your brother's box and I knew that you were not in danger.

But the voice had told me that it would be at the performance and Iwas really afraid for it, just as if it had been an ordinary person who was capable of dying.I thought to myself, `The chandelier may have come down upon the voice.' I was then on the stage and was nearly running into the house, to look for the voice among the killed and wounded, when I thought that, if the voice was safe, it would be sure to be in my dressing-room and I rushed to my room.

The voice was not there.I locked my door and, with tears in my eyes, besought it, if it were still alive, to manifest itself to me.

The voice did not reply, but suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail which I knew well.It is the plaint of Lazarus when, at the sound of the Redeemer's voice, he begins to open his eyes and see the light of day.It was the music which you and I, Raoul, heard at Perros.