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

went up to her and kissed her. She asked him a few questions,

performed her duties as hostess prettily, took up the tray again and

left the room. Then she ran into the garden and took refuge on a

bench, a prey to feelings that stirred her young heart for the first

time. Raoul followed her and they talked till the evening, very shyly.

They were quite changed, cautious as two diplomatists, and told each

other things that had nothing to do with their budding sentiments.

When they took leave of each other by the roadside, Raoul, pressing a

kiss on Christine's trembling hand, said:

"Mademoiselle, I shall never forget you!"

And he went away regretting his words, for he knew that Christine could

not be the wife of the Vicomte de Chagny.

As for Christine, she tried not to think of him and devoted herself

wholly to her art. She made wonderful progress and those who heard her

prophesied that she would be the greatest singer in the world.

Meanwhile, the father died; and, suddenly, she seemed to have lost,

with him, her voice, her soul and her genius. She retained just, but

only just, enough of this to enter the CONSERVATOIRE, where she did not

distinguish herself at all, attending the classes without enthusiasm

and taking a prize only to please old Mamma Valerius, with whom she

continued to live.

The first time that Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed by

the girl's beauty and by the sweet images of the past which it evoked,

but was rather surprised at the negative side of her art. He returned

to listen to her. He followed her in the wings. He waited for her

behind a Jacob's ladder. He tried to attract her attention. More than

once, he walked after her to the door of her box, but she did not see

him. She seemed, for that matter, to see nobody. She was all

indifference. Raoul suffered, for she was very beautiful and he was

shy and dared not confess his love, even to himself. And then came the

lightning-flash of the gala performance: the heavens torn asunder and

an angel's voice heard upon earth for the delight of mankind and the

utter capture of his heart.

And then ... and then there was that man's voice behind the door--"You

must love me!"--and no one in the room...

Why did she laugh when he reminded her of the incident of the scarf?

Why did she not recognize him? And why had she written to him? ...

Perros was reached at last. Raoul walked into the smoky sitting-room

of the Setting Sun and at once saw Christine standing before him,

smiling and showing no astonishment.

"So you have come," she said. "I felt that I should find you here,

when I came back from mass. Some one told me so, at the church."

"Who?" asked Raoul, taking her little hand in his.

"Why, my poor father, who is dead."

There was a silence; and then Raoul asked:

"Did your father tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I can

not live without you?"

Christine blushed to the eyes and turned away her head. In a trembling

voice, she said:

"Me? You are dreaming, my friend!"

And she burst out laughing, to put herself in countenance.

"Don't laugh, Christine; I am quite serious," Raoul answered.

And she replied gravely: "I did not make you come to tell me such

things as that."

"You 'made me come,' Christine; you knew that your letter would not

leave me indignant and that I should hasten to Perros. How can you

have thought that, if you did not think I loved you?"

"I thought you would remember our games here, as children, in which my

father so often joined. I really don't know what I thought... Perhaps

I was wrong to write to you ... This anniversary and your sudden

appearance in my room at the Opera, the other evening, reminded me of

the time long past and made me write to you as the little girl that I

then was..."

There was something in Christine's attitude that seemed to Raoul not

natural. He did not feel any hostility in her; far from it: the

distressed affection shining in her eyes told him that. But why was

this affection distressed? That was what he wished to know and what

was irritating him.

"When you saw me in your dressing-room, was that the first time you

noticed me, Christine?"

She was incapable of lying.

"No," she said, "I had seen you several times in your brother's box.

And also on the stage."

"I thought so!" said Raoul, compressing his lips. "But then why, when

you saw me in your room, at your feet, reminding you that I had rescued

your scarf from the sea, why did you answer as though you did not know

me and also why did you laugh?"

The tone of these questions was so rough that Christine stared at Raoul

without replying. The young man himself was aghast at the sudden

quarrel which he had dared to raise at the very moment when he had

resolved to speak words of gentleness, love and submission to

Christine. A husband, a lover with all rights, would talk no

differently to a wife, a mistress who had offended him. But he had

gone too far and saw no other way out of the ridiculous position than

to behave odiously.

"You don't answer!" he said angrily and unhappily. "Well, I will

answer for you. It was because there was some one in the room who was

in your way, Christine, some one that you did not wish to know that you

could be interested in any one else!"

"If any one was in my way, my friend," Christine broke in coldly, "if

any one was in my way, that evening, it was yourself, since I told you

to leave the room!"

"Yes, so that you might remain with the other!"

"What are you saying, monsieur?" asked the girl excitedly. "And to

what other do you refer?"

"To the man to whom you said, 'I sing only for you! ... to-night I gave

you my soul and I am dead!'"

Christine seized Raoul's arm and clutched it with a strength which no

one would have suspected in so frail a creature.

"Then you were listening behind the door?"

"Yes, because I love you everything ... And I heard everything ..."

"You heard what?"

And the young girl, becoming strangely calm, released Raoul's arm.

"He said to you, 'Christine, you must love me!'"

At these words, a deathly pallor spread over Christine's face, dark

rings formed round her eyes, she staggered and seemed on the point of

swooning. Raoul darted forward, with arms outstretched, but Christine

had overcome her passing faintness and said, in a low voice:

"Go on! Go on! Tell me all you heard!"

At an utter loss to understand, Raoul answered: "I heard him reply,

when you said you had given him your soul, 'Your soul is a beautiful

thing, child, and I thank you. No emperor ever received so fair a

gift. The angels wept tonight.'"

Christine carried her hand to her heart, a prey to indescribable

emotion. Her eyes stared before her like a madwoman's. Raoul was

terror-stricken. But suddenly Christine's eyes moistened and two great

tears trickled, like two pearls, down her ivory cheeks.

"Christine!"

"Raoul!"

The young man tried to take her in his arms, but she escaped and fled

in great disorder.

While Christine remained locked in her room, Raoul was at his wit's end

what to do. He refused to breakfast. He was terribly concerned and

bitterly grieved to see the hours, which he had hoped to find so sweet,

slip past without the presence of the young Swedish girl. Why did she

not come to roam with him through the country where they had so many

memories in common? He heard that she had had a mass said, that

morning, for the repose of her father's soul and spent a long time

praying in the little church and on the fiddler's tomb. Then, as she

seemed to have nothing more to do at Perros and, in fact, was doing

nothing there, why did she not go back to Paris at once?

Raoul walked away, dejectedly, to the graveyard in which the church

stood and was indeed alone among the tombs, reading the inscriptions;

but, when he turned behind the apse, he was suddenly struck by the

dazzling note of the flowers that straggled over the white ground.

They were marvelous red roses that had blossomed in the morning, in the

snow, giving a glimpse of life among the dead, for death was all around

him. It also, like the flowers, issued from the ground, which had

flung back a number of its corpses. Skeletons and skulls by the

hundred were heaped against the wall of the church, held in position by

a wire that left the whole gruesome stack visible. Dead men's bones,

arranged in rows, like bricks, to form the first course upon which the

walls of the sacristy had been built. The door of the sacristy opened

in the middle of that bony structure, as is often seen in old Breton

churches.

Raoul said a prayer for Daae and then, painfully impressed by all those

eternal smiles on the mouths of skulls, he climbed the slope and sat

down on the edge of the heath overlooking the sea. The wind fell with

the evening. Raoul was surrounded by icy darkness, but he did not feel

the cold. It was here, he remembered, that he used to come with little

Christine to see the Korrigans dance at the rising of the moon. He had

never seen any, though his eyes were good, whereas Christine, who was a

little shortsighted, pretended that she had seen many. He smiled at

the thought and then suddenly gave a start. A voice behind him said:

"Do you think the Korrigans will come this evening?"

It was Christine. He tried to speak. She put her gloved hand on his

mouth.

"Listen, Raoul. I have decided to tell you something serious, very

serious ... Do you remember the legend of the Angel of Music?"

"I do indeed," he said. "I believe it was here that your father first

told it to us."

"And it was here that he said, 'When I am in Heaven, my child, I will

send him to you.' Well, Raoul, my father is in Heaven, and I have been

visited by the Angel of Music."

"I have no doubt of it," replied the young man gravely, for it seemed

to him that his friend, in obedience to a pious thought, was connecting

the memory of her father with the brilliancy of her last triumph.

Christine appeared astonished at the Vicomte de Chagny's coolness:

"How do you understand it?" she asked, bringing her pale face so close

to his that he might have thought that Christine was going to give him

a kiss; but she only wanted to read his eyes in spite of the dark.

"I understand," he said, "that no human being can sing as you sang the

other evening without the intervention of some miracle. No professor

on earth can teach you such accents as those. You have heard the Angel

of Music, Christine."

"Yes," she said solemnly, "IN MY DRESSING-ROOM. That is where he comes

to give me my lessons daily."

"In your dressing-room?" he echoed stupidly.

"Yes, that is where I have heard him; and I have not been the only one

to hear him."

"Who else heard him, Christine?"

"You, my friend."

"I? I heard the Angel of Music?"

"Yes, the other evening, it was he who was talking when you were

listening behind the door. It was he who said, 'You must love me.' But

I then thought that I was the only one to hear his voice. Imagine my

astonishment when you told me, this morning, that you could hear him

too."

Raoul burst out laughing. The first rays of the moon came and shrouded

the two young people in their light. Christine turned on Raoul with a

hostile air. Her eyes, usually so gentle, flashed fire.

"What are you laughing at? YOU think you heard a man's voice, I

suppose?"

"Well! ..." replied the young man, whose ideas began to grow confused

in the face of Christine's determined attitude.

"It's you, Raoul, who say that? You, an old playfellow of my own! A

friend of my father's! But you have changed since those days. What are

you thinking of? I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and I

don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices. If you had

opened the door, you would have seen that there was nobody in the room!"

"That's true! I did open the door, when you were gone, and I found no

one in the room."

"So you see! ... Well?"

The viscount summoned up all his courage.

"Well, Christine, I think that somebody is making game of you."

She gave a cry and ran away. He ran after her, but, in a tone of

fierce anger, she called out: "Leave me! Leave me!" And she

disappeared.

Raoul returned to the inn feeling very weary, very low-spirited and

very sad. He was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom saying

that she would not be down to dinner. Raoul dined alone, in a very

gloomy mood. Then he went to his room and tried to read, went to bed

and tried to sleep. There was no sound in the next room.

The hours passed slowly. It was about half-past eleven when he

distinctly heard some one moving, with a light, stealthy step, in the

room next to his. Then Christine had not gone to bed! Without

troubling for a reason, Raoul dressed, taking care not to make a sound,

and waited. Waited for what? How could he tell? But his heart

thumped in his chest when he heard Christine's door turn slowly on its

hinges. Where could she be going, at this hour, when every one was

fast asleep at Perros? Softly opening the door, he saw Christine's

white form, in the moonlight, slipping along the passage. She went

down the stairs and he leaned over the baluster above her. Suddenly he

heard two voices in rapid conversation. He caught one sentence: "Don't

lose the key."

It was the landlady's voice. The door facing the sea was opened and

locked again. Then all was still.

Raoul ran back to his room and threw back the window. Christine's

white form stood on the deserted quay.

The first floor of the Setting Sun was at no great height and a tree

growing against the wall held out its branches to Raoul's impatient

arms and enabled him to climb down unknown to the landlady. Her

amazement, therefore, was all the greater when, the next morning, the

young man was brought back to her half frozen, more dead than alive,

and when she learned that he had been found stretched at full length on

the steps of the high altar of the little church. She ran at once to

tell Christine, who hurried down and, with the help of the landlady,

did her best to revive him. He soon opened his eyes and was not long

in recovering when he saw his friend's charming face leaning over him.

A few weeks later, when the tragedy at the Opera compelled the

intervention of the public prosecutor, M. Mifroid, the commissary of

police, examined the Vicomte de Chagny touching the events of the night

at Perros. I quote the questions and answers as given in the official

report pp. 150 et seq.:

Q. "Did Mlle. Daae not see you come down from your room by the curious

road which you selected?"

R. "No, monsieur, no, although, when walking behind her, I took no

pains to deaden the sound of my footsteps. In fact, I was anxious that

she should turn round and see me. I realized that I had no excuse for

following her and that this way of spying on her was unworthy of me.

But she seemed not to hear me and acted exactly as though I were not

there. She quietly left the quay and then suddenly walked quickly up

the road. The church-clock had struck a quarter to twelve and I

thought that this must have made her hurry, for she began almost to run

and continued hastening until she came to the church."

Q. "Was the gate open?"

R. "Yes, monsieur, and this surprised me, but did not seem to surprise

Mlle. Daae."

Q. "Was there no one in the churchyard?"

R. "I did not see any one; and, if there had been, I must have seen

him. The moon was shining on the snow and made the night quite light."

Q. "Was it possible for any one to hide behind the tombstones?"

R. "No, monsieur. They were quite small, poor tombstones, partly

hidden under the snow, with their crosses just above the level of the

ground. The only shadows were those of the crosses and ourselves. The

church stood out quite brightly. I never saw so clear a night. It was

very fine and very cold and one could see everything."

Q. "Are you at all superstitious?"

R. "No, monsieur, I am a practising Catholic,"

Q. "In what condition of mind were you?"

R. "Very healthy and peaceful, I assure you. Mlle. Daae's curious

action in going out at that hour had worried me at first; but, as soon

as I saw her go to the churchyard, I thought that she meant to fulfil

some pious duty on her father's grave and I considered this so natural

that I recovered all my calmness. I was only surprised that she had

not heard me walking behind her, for my footsteps were quite audible on

the hard snow. But she must have been taken up with her intentions and

I resolved not to disturb her. She knelt down by her father's grave,

made the sign of the cross and began to pray. At that moment, it

struck midnight. At the last stroke, I saw Mlle. Daae life{sic} her

eyes to the sky and stretch out her arms as though in ecstasy. I was

wondering what the reason could be, when I myself raised my head and

everything within me seemed drawn toward the invisible, WHICH WAS

PLAYING THE MOST PERFECT MUSIC! Christine and I knew that music; we

had heard it as children. But it had never been executed with such

divine art, even by M. Daae. I remembered all that Christine had told

me of the Angel of Music. The air was The Resurrection of Lazarus,

which old M. Daae used to play to us in his hours of melancholy and of

faith. If Christine's Angel had existed, he could not have played

better, that night, on the late musician's violin. When the music

stopped, I seemed to hear a noise from the skulls in the heap of bones;

it was as though they were chuckling and I could not help shuddering."

Q. "Did it not occur to you that the musician might be hiding behind

that very heap of bones?"

R. "It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur, so much so

that I omitted to follow Mlle. Daae, when she stood up and walked

slowly to the gate. She was so much absorbed just then that I am not

surprised that she did not see me."

Q. "Then what happened that you were found in the morning lying

half-dead on the steps of the high altar?"

R. "First a skull rolled to my feet ... then another ... then another

... It was as if I were the mark of that ghastly game of bowls. And I

had an idea that false step must have destroyed the balance of the

structure behind which our musician was concealed. This surmise seemed

to be confirmed when I saw a shadow suddenly glide along the sacristy

wall. I ran up. The shadow had already pushed open the door and

entered the church. But I was quicker than the shadow and caught hold

of a corner of its cloak. At that moment, we were just in front of the

high altar; and the moonbeams fell straight upon us through the

stained-glass windows of the apse. As I did not let go of the cloak,

the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death's head, which

darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes. I felt as if I were

face to face with Satan; and, in the presence of this unearthly

apparition, my heart gave way, my courage failed me ... and I remember

nothing more until I recovered consciousness at the Setting Sun."