she said, resuming her mask; and she
went away, forbidding him, with a gesture, to follow her. He tried to disobey her; but she turned round and repeated her gesture
of farewell with such authority that he dared not move a step. He watched her till she was out of sight. Then he also went down among
the crowd, hardly knowing what he was doing, with throbbing temples and
an aching heart; and, as he crossed the dancing-floor, he asked if
anybody had seen Red Death. Yes, every one had seen Red Death; but
Raoul could not find him; and, at two o'clock in the morning, he turned
down the passage, behind the scenes, that led to Christine Daae's
dressing-room. His footsteps took him to that room where he had first known suffering. He tapped at the door. There was no answer. He entered, as he had
entered when he looked everywhere for "the man's voice." The room was
empty. A gas-jet was burning, turned down low. He saw some
writing-paper on a little desk. He thought of writing to Christine,
but he heard steps in the passage. He had only time to hide in the
inner room, which was separated from the dressing-room by a curtain. Christine entered, took off her mask with a weary movement and flung it
on the table. She sighed and let her pretty head fall into her two
hands. What was she thinking of? Of Raoul? No, for Raoul heard her
murmur:  "Poor Erik!" At first, he thought he must be mistaken. To begin with, he was
persuaded that, if any one was to be pitied, it was he, Raoul. It
would have been quite natural if she had said, "Poor Raoul," after what
had happened between them. But, shaking her head, she repeated:  "Poor
Erik!" What had this Erik to do with Christine's sighs and why was she pitying
Erik when Raoul was so unhappy? Christine began to write, deliberately, calmly and so placidly that
Raoul, who was still trembling from the effects of the tragedy that
separated them, was painfully impressed. "What coolness!" he said to himself. She wrote on, filling two, three, four sheets. Suddenly, she raised
her head and hid the sheets in her bodice ... She seemed to be
listening ...  Raoul also listened ...  Whence came that strange sound,
that distant rhythm? ... A faint singing seemed to issue from the walls
... yes, it was as though the walls themselves were singing! ... The
song became plainer ... the words were now distinguishable ... he heard
a voice, a very beautiful, very soft, very captivating voice ... but,
for all its softness, it remained a male voice ... The voice came
nearer and nearer ... it came through the wall ... it approached ...
and now the voice was IN THE ROOM, in front of Christine. Christine
rose and addressed the voice, as though speaking to some one:

"Here I am, Erik," she said. "I am ready. But you are late." Raoul, peeping from behind the curtain, could not believe his eyes,
which showed him nothing. Christine's face lit up. A smile of
happiness appeared upon her bloodless lips, a smile like that of sick
people when they receive the first hope of recovery. The voice without a body went on singing; and certainly Raoul had never
in his life heard anything more absolutely and heroically sweet, more
gloriously insidious, more delicate, more powerful, in short, more
irresistibly triumphant. He listened to it in a fever and he now began
to understand how Christine Daae was able to appear one evening, before
the stupefied audience, with accents of a beauty hitherto unknown, of a
superhuman exaltation, while doubtless still under the influence of the
mysterious and invisible master. The voice was singing the Wedding-night Song from Romeo and Juliet. Raoul saw Christine stretch out her arms to the voice as she had done,
in Perros churchyard, to the invisible violin playing The Resurrection
of Lazarus. And nothing could describe the passion with which the
voice sang:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!" The strains went through Raoul's heart. Struggling against the charm
that seemed to deprive him of all his will and all his energy and of
almost all his lucidity at the moment when he needed them most, he
succeeded in drawing back the curtain that hid him and he walked to
where Christine stood. She herself was moving to the back of the room,
the whole wall of which was occupied by a great mirror that reflected
her image, but not his, for he was just behind her and entirely covered
by her. "Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!" Christine walked toward her image in the glass and the image came
toward her. The two Christines--the real one and the reflection--ended
by touching; and Raoul put out his arms to clasp the two in one
embrace. But, by a sort of dazzling miracle that sent him staggering,
Raoul was suddenly flung back, while an icy blast swept over his face;
he saw, not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines spinning round him,
laughing at him and fleeing so swiftly that he could not touch one of
them. At last, everything stood still again; and he saw himself in the
glass. But Christine had disappeared. He rushed up to the glass. He struck at the walls. Nobody! And
meanwhile the room still echoed with a distant passionate singing:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!" Which way, which way had Christine gone? ... Which way would she
return? ...

Would she return? Alas, had she not declared to him that everything
was finished? And was the voice not repeating:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!" To me? To whom? Then, worn out, beaten, empty-brained, he sat down on the chair which
Christine had just left. Like her, he let his head fall into his
hands. When he raised it, the tears were streaming down his young
cheeks, real, heavy tears like those which jealous children shed, tears
that wept for a sorrow which was in no way fanciful, but which is
common to all the lovers on earth and which he expressed aloud:

"Who is this Erik?" he said. Chapter X  Forget the Name of the Man's Voice


The day after Christine had vanished before his eyes in a sort of
dazzlement that still made him doubt the evidence of his senses, M. le
Vicomte de Chagny called to inquire at Mamma Valerius'. He came upon a
charming picture. Christine herself was seated by the bedside of the
old lady, who was sitting up against the pillows, knitting. The pink
and white had returned to the young girl's cheeks. The dark rings
round her eyes had disappeared. Raoul no longer recognized the tragic
face of the day before. If the veil of melancholy over those adorable
features had not still appeared to the young man as the last trace of
the weird drama in whose toils that mysterious child was struggling, he
could have believed that Christine was not its heroine at all. She rose, without showing any emotion, and offered him her hand. But
Raoul's stupefaction was so great that he stood there dumfounded,
without a gesture, without a word. "Well, M. de Chagny," exclaimed Mamma Valerius, "don't you know our
Christine? Her good genius has sent her back to us!" "Mamma!"