Chapter XXVI The End of the Ghost's Love Story
The previous chapter marks the conclusion of the written narrative
which the Persian left behind him.
Notwithstanding the horrors of a situation which seemed definitely
to abandon them to their deaths, M. de Chagny and his companion
were saved by the sublime devotion of Christine Daae. And I
had the rest of the story from the lips of the daroga himself.
When I went to see him, he was still living in his little flat
in the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries. He was very ill,
and it required all my ardor as an historian pledged to the truth to
persuade him to live the incredible tragedy over again for my benefit.
His faithful old servant Darius showed me in to him. The daroga
received me at a window overlooking the garden of the Tuileries.
He still had his magnificent eyes, but his poor face looked very worn.
He had shaved the whole of his head, which was usually covered with
an astrakhan cap; he was dressed in a long, plain coat and amused
himself by unconsciously twisting his thumbs inside the sleeves;
but his mind was quite clear, and he told me his story with
perfect lucidity.
It seems that, when he opened his eyes, the daroga found himself
lying on a bed. M. de Chagny was on a sofa, beside the wardrobe.
An angel and a devil were watching over them.
After the deceptions and illusions of the torture-chamber, the precision
of the details of that quiet little middle-class room seemed to have
been invented for the express purpose of puzzling the mind of the
mortal rash enough to stray into that abode of living nightmare.
The wooden bedstead, the waxed mahogany chairs, the chest of drawers,
those brasses, the little square antimacassars carefully placed
on the backs of the chairs, the clock on the mantelpiece and the
harmless-looking ebony caskets at either end, lastly, the whatnot
filled with shells, with red pin-cushions, with mother-of-pearl boats
and an enormous ostrich-egg, the whole discreetly lighted by a shaded
lamp standing on a small round table: this collection of ugly,
peaceable, reasonable furniture, AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OPERA CELLARS,
bewildered the imagination more than all the late fantastic happenings.
And the figure of the masked man seemed all the more formidable
in this old-fashioned, neat and trim little frame. It bent down
over the Persian and said, in his ear:
"Are you better, daroga?...You are looking at my furniture?...
It is all that I have left of my poor unhappy mother."
Christine Daae did not say a word: she moved about noiselessly,
like a sister of charity, who had taken a vow of silence.
She brought a cup of cordial, or of hot tea, he did not remember which.
The man in the mask took it from her hands and gave it to the Persian.
M. de Chagny was still sleeping.
Erik poured a drop of rum into the daroga's cup and, pointing to
the viscount, said:
"He came to himself long before we knew if you were still alive,
daroga. He is quite well. He is asleep. We must not wake him."
Erik left the room for a moment, and the Persian raised himself
on his elbow, looked around him and saw Christine Daae sitting
by the fireside. He spoke to her, called her, but he was
still very weak and fell back on his pillow. Christine came
to him, laid her hand on his forehead and went away again.
And the Persian remembered that, as she went, she did not give
a glance at M. de Chagny, who, it is true, was sleeping peacefully;
and she sat down again in her chair by the chimney-corner,
silent as a sister of charity who had taken a vow of silence.
Erik returned with some little bottles which he placed on
the mantelpiece. And, again in a whisper, so as not to wake M. de
Chagny, he said to the Persian, after sitting down and feeling his pulse:
"You are now saved, both of you. And soon I shall take you up
to the surface of the earth, TO PLEASE MY WIFE."
Thereupon he rose, without any further explanation, and disappeared
once more.
The Persian now looked at Christine's quiet profile under the lamp.
She was reading a tiny book, with gilt edges, like a religious book.
There are editions of THE IMITATION that look like that. The Persian
still had in his ears the natural tone in which the other had said,
"to please my wife." Very gently, he called her again; but Christine
was wrapped up in her book and did not hear him.
Erik returned, mixed the daroga a draft and advised him not to speak to
"his wife" again nor to any one, BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE VERY DANGEROUS