The Phantom of the Opera
end of the performance; and in its place they left me a box of English
sweets, which I'm very fond of. That's one of the ghost's pretty
thoughts."
"That will do, Mme. Giry. You can go."
When Mme. Giry had bowed herself out, with the dignity that never
deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided to
dispense with that old madwoman's services; and, when he had gone in
his turn, they instructed the acting-manager to make up the inspector's
accounts. Left alone, the managers told each other of the idea which
they both had in mind, which was that they should look into that little
matter of Box Five themselves.
Chapter V The Enchanted Violin
Christine Daae, owing to intrigues to which I will return later, did
not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera. After the famous
gala night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich's; but this was the
last occasion on which she was heard in private. She refused, without
plausible excuse, to appear at a charity concert to which she had
promised her assistance. She acted throughout as though she were no
longer the mistress of her own destiny and as though she feared a fresh
triumph.
She knew that the Comte de Chagny, to please his brother, had done his
best on her behalf with M. Richard; and she wrote to thank him and also
to ask him to cease speaking in her favor. Her reason for this curious
attitude was never known. Some pretended that it was due to
overweening pride; others spoke of her heavenly modesty. But people on
the stage are not so modest as all that; and I think that I shall not
be far from the truth if I ascribe her action simply to fear. Yes, I
believe that Christine Daae was frightened by what had happened to her.
I have a letter of Christine's (it forms part of the Persian's
collection), relating to this period, which suggests a feeling of
absolute dismay:
"I don't know myself when I sing," writes the poor child.
She showed herself nowhere; and the Vicomte de Chagny tried in vain to
meet her. He wrote to her, asking to call upon her, but despaired of
receiving a reply when, one morning, she sent him the following note:
MONSIEUR:
I have not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea to rescue my
scarf. I feel that I must write to you to-day, when I am going to
Perros, in fulfilment of a sacred duty. To-morrow is the anniversary
of the death of my poor father, whom you knew and who was very fond of
you. He is buried there, with his violin, in the graveyard of the
little church, at the bottom of the slope where we used to play as
children, beside the road where, when we were a little bigger, we said
good-by for the last time.
The Vicomte de Chagny hurriedly consulted a railway guide, dressed as
quickly as he could, wrote a few lines for his valet to take to his
brother and jumped into a cab which brought him to the Gare
Montparnasse just in time to miss the morning train. He spent a dismal
day in town and did not recover his spirits until the evening, when he
was seated in his compartment in the Brittany express. He read
Christine's note over and over again, smelling its perfume, recalling
the sweet pictures of his childhood, and spent the rest of that tedious
night journey in feverish dreams that began and ended with Christine
Daae. Day was breaking when he alighted at Lannion. He hurried to the
diligence for Perros-Guirec. He was the only passenger. He questioned
the driver and learned that, on the evening of the previous day, a
young lady who looked like a Parisian had gone to Perros and put up at
the inn known as the Setting Sun.
The nearer he drew to her, the more fondly he remembered the story of
the little Swedish singer. Most of the details are still unknown to
the public.
There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala, a peasant
who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week and
singing in the choir on Sundays. This peasant had a little daughter to
whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read.
Daae's father was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it. Not a
fiddler throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia played as he
did. His reputation was widespread and he was always invited to set
the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals. His wife died
when Christine was entering upon her sixth year. Then the father, who
cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his patch of ground and
went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune. He found nothing but
poverty.
He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair, strumming his
Scandinavian melodies, while his child, who never left his side,
listened to him in ecstasy or sang to his playing. One day, at Ljimby
Fair, Professor Valerius heard them and took them to Gothenburg. He
maintained that the father was the first violinist in the world and
that the daughter had the making of a great artist. Her education and
instruction were provided for. She made rapid progress and charmed
everybody with her prettiness, her grace of manner and her genuine
eagerness to please.
When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae and
Christine with them. "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as her
daughter. As for Daae, he began to pine away with homesickness. He
never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream which he
kept up with his violin. For hours at a time, he remained locked up in
his bedroom with his daughter, fiddling and singing, very, very softly.
Sometimes Mamma Valerius would come and listen behind the door, wipe
away a tear and go down-stairs again on tiptoe, sighing for her
Scandinavian skies.
Daae seemed not to recover his strength until the summer, when the
whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away corner of
Brittany, where the sea was of the same color as in his own country.
Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach and pretend that the
sea stopped its roaring to listen to them. And then he induced Mamma
Valerius to indulge a queer whim of his. At the time of the "pardons,"
or Breton pilgrimages, the village festival and dances, he went off
with his fiddle, as in the old days, and was allowed to take his
daughter with him for a week. They gave the smallest hamlets music to
last them for a year and slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at
the inn, lying close together on the straw, as when they were so poor
in Sweden. At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, made no
collection, refused the halfpence offered them; and the people around
could not understand the conduct of this rustic fiddler, who tramped
the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven.
They followed them from village to village.
One day, a little boy, who was out with his governess, made her take a
longer walk than he intended, for he could not tear himself from the
little girl whose pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her. They
came to the shore of an inlet which is still called Trestraou, but
which now, I believe, harbors a casino or something of the sort. At
that time, there was nothing but sky and sea and a stretch of golden
beach. Only, there was also a high wind, which blew Christine's scarf
out to sea. Christine gave a cry and put out her arms, but the scarf
was already far on the waves. Then she heard a voice say:
"It's all right, I'll go and fetch your scarf out of the sea."
And she saw a little boy running fast, in spite of the outcries and the
indignant protests of a worthy lady in black. The little boy ran into
the sea, dressed as he was, and brought her back her scarf. Boy and
scarf were both soaked through. The lady in black made a great fuss,
but Christine laughed merrily and kissed the little boy, who was none
other than the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, staying at Lannion with his
aunt.
During the season, they saw each other and played together almost every
day. At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valerius, Daae
consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons. In this way,
Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's
childhood. They also both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of
mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends; and their
favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like
beggars:
"Ma'am ..." or, "Kind gentleman ... have you a little story to tell us,
please?"
And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for
nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen
the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.
But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence of the
evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daae came and sat down
by them on the roadside and, in a low voice, as though fearing lest he
should frighten the ghosts whom he evoked, told them the legends of the
land of the North. And, the moment he stopped, the children would ask
for more.
There was one story that began:
"A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep, still lakes that
open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains ..."
And another:
"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden
as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She
wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock
and her little red shoes and her fiddle, but most of all loved, when
she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music."
While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's blue
eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was very lucky
to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep. The Angel of Music
played a part in all Daddy Daae's tales; and he maintained that every
great musician, every great artist received a visit from the Angel at
least once in his life. Sometimes the Angel leans over their cradle,
as happened to Lotte, and that is how there are little prodigies who
play the fiddle at six better than men at fifty, which, you must admit,
is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the
children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practise their
scales. And, sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children
have a bad heart or a bad conscience.
No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant to
hear him. He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad
and disheartened. Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial
harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives.
Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown to
the rest of mankind. And they can not touch an instrument, or open
their mouths to sing, without producing sounds that put all other human
sounds to shame. Then people who do not know that the Angel has
visited those persons say that they have genius.
Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel of Music.
But Daddy Daae shook his head sadly; and then his eyes lit up, as he
said:
"You will hear him one day, my child! When I am in Heaven, I will send
him to you!"
Daddy was beginning to cough at that time.
Three years later, Raoul and Christine met again at Perros. Professor
Valerius was dead, but his widow remained in France with Daddy Daae and
his daughter, who continued to play the violin and sing, wrapping in
their dream of harmony their kind patroness, who seemed henceforth to
live on music alone. The young man, as he now was, had come to Perros
on the chance of finding them and went straight to the house in which
they used to stay. He first saw the old man; and then Christine
entered, carrying the tea-tray. She flushed at the sight of Raoul, who