第69章 Interesting and Instructive (3)

won't answer for anything."

Again he puffed and blew like a walrus.

"I won't answer for anything!...If Erik's secrets cease to be Erik's secrets, IT WILL BE A BAD LOOKOUT FOR A GOODLY NUMBEROF THE HUMAN RACE! That's all I have to tell you, and unless you are a great booby, it ought to be enough for you...except that you don't know how to take a hint."He had sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer.

I simply said:

"It's not Erik that I'm after here!"

"Who then?"

"You know as well as I do: it's Christine Daae," I answered.

He retorted: "I have every right to see her in my own house.

I am loved for my own sake."

"That's not true," I said."You have carried her off and are keeping her locked up.""Listen," he said."Will you promise never to meddle with my affairs again, if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake?""Yes, I promise you," I replied, without hesitation, for I felt convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.

"Well, then, it's quite simple....Christine Daae shall leave this as she pleases and come back again!...Yes, come back again, because she wishes...come back of herself, because she loves me for myself!...""Oh, I doubt if she will come back!...But it is your duty to let her go." "My duty, you great booby!...It is my wish...

my wish to let her go; and she will come back again...for she loves me!...All this will end in a marriage...a marriage at the Madeleine, you great booby! Do you believe me now?

When I tell you that my nuptial mass is written...wait till you hear the KYRIE...."He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang:

"KYRIE!...KYRIE!...KYRIE ELEISON!...Wait till you hear, wait till you hear that mass.""Look here," I said."I shall believe you if I see Christine Daae come out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord.""And you won't meddle any more in my affairs?""No."

"Very well, you shall see that to-night.Come to the masked ball.

Christine and I will go and have a look round.Then you can hide in the lumber-room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone to her dressing-room, delighted to come back by the Communists' road.

...And, now, be off, for I must go and do some shopping!"To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced.

Christine Daae left the house on the lake and returned to it several times, without, apparently, being forced to do so.It was very difficult for me to clear my mind of Erik.However, I resolved to be extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the shore of the lake, or of going by the Communists' road.

But the idea of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me, and I repeatedly went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roi de Lahore, which had been left there for some reason or other.

At last my patience was rewarded.One day, I saw the monster come toward me, on his knees.I was certain that he could not see me.

He passed between the scene behind which I stood and a set piece, went to the wall and pressed on a spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress.He passed through this, and the stone closed behind him.

I waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my turn.Everything happened as with Erik.But I was careful not to go through the hole myself, for I knew that Erik was inside.

On the other hand, the idea that I might be caught by Erik suddenly made me think of the death of Joseph Buquet.I did not wish to jeopardize the advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many people, "to a goodly number of the human race,"in Erik's words; and I left the cellars of the Opera after carefully replacing the stone.

I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Erik and Christine Daae, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Erik was capable of anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake, as he imagined.I continued to wander, very cautiously, about the Opera and soon learned the truth about the monster's dreary love-affair.

He filled Christine's mind, through the terror with which he inspired her, but the dear child's heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny.While they played about, like an innocent engaged couple, on the upper floors of the Opera, to avoid the monster, they little suspected that some one was watching over them.

I was prepared to do anything: to kill the monster, if necessary, and explain to the police afterward.But Erik did not show himself;and I felt none the more comfortable for that.

I must explain my whole plan.I thought that the monster, being driven from his house by jealousy, would thus enable me to enter it, without danger, through the passage in the third cellar.

It was important, for everybody's sake, that I should know exactly what was inside.One day, tired of waiting for an opportunity, I moved the stone and at once heard an astounding music:

the monster was working at his Don Juan Triumphant, with every door in his house wide open.I knew that this was the work of his life.

I was careful not to stir and remained prudently in my dark hole.

He stopped playing, for a moment, and began walking about his place, like a madman.And he said aloud, at the top of his voice:

"It must be finished FIRST! Quite finished!"This speech was not calculated to reassure me and, when the music recommenced, I closed the stone very softly.

On the day of the abduction of Christine Daae, I did not come to the theater until rather late in the evening, trembling lest Ishould hear bad news.I had spent a horrible day, for, after reading in a morning paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage between Christine and the Vicomte de Chagny, I wondered whether, after all, I should not do better to denounce the monster.

But reason returned to me, and I was persuaded that this action could only precipitate a possible catastrophe.