Page 80 - Phantom of the Opera

"Can you open the door?" I asked her, because we could not And that was when it began — the thing I feared most. We
see a door between the torture room and the sitting room she were suddenly flooded with light.
was in. But she was tied to her chair and could not move. Erik The angry voice shouted, "I told you there was someone! Do
had tied her up after she had tried to kill herself; she had banged you see the window now? The lighted window, right up there?"
her head against the floor several times. I asked her where the key The devil told Christine to go up the steps and look through the
was and she told me it was in a leather bag that Erik called the window, down into the torture room. I do not know if the
bag of life and death. Suddenly, she told us that he was coming. viscount heard her trembling voice because his full attention was
"Ask him to untie you. Tell him it hurts. Remember, he loves taken by the unbelievable world he found himself in. I had seen
you, Christine." this sight too often, through the little window in the palace in
And when Erik entered, she begged him to untie her, which Mazenderan.
he did. He sat down and began to play some slow, sad music and I heard Christine ask, "Why do you call that room the torture
his voice poured out the funeral song. Suddenly, he stopped and room?"
the voice, totally changed, demanded angrily, "What have you "What did you see through the window?"
done with my bag? You wanted me to untie you so that you "I saw a forest," she answered. "But there was no one there —
could take my bag!" She had managed to take it while he was only trees."
playing. As he took the bag back from her, Christine made a cry "You see? It's all a joke! But I am very tired of it! I am tired of
of pain. Hearing this, Raoul could not hold back his anger, or his having a forest and a torture room in my house. I want to live
own bitter cry. like other people. I want a nice, quiet apartment with ordinary
"What's that? Did you hear something, Christine?" said the doors and windows and a wife inside it! My dear little Christine!
terrible creature. Are you listening to me? Tell me you love me! No, you don't
"No, I heard nothing," replied the poor girl. love me, but you will! You will get used to me. You would have
"I thought I heard a cry." lots of fun with me. I am the greatest ventriloquist that ever lived.
"A cry! Are you going mad, Erik? I cried out because you I am the first ventriloquist in the world! You're laughing ...
hurt me! I heard nothing." Maybe you don't believe me? Listen."
"I don't like the way you said that! You're trembling. You're The devil, who really was the first ventriloquist in the world,
lying! There was a cry! There is someone in the torture room! I was only trying to take the girl's attention away from the torture
understand now!" room. But it was a stupid plan because she thought of nothing
"There is no one there, Erik!" except us.
"The man you want to marry, maybe!" "Put out the light in the little window, Erik," she said.
"I don't want to marry anybody! You know I don't!" She knew that this light must mean something terrible. One
"It won't take long to find out. If there is someone in there, thing that calmed her fears a little was the sight of us in that light,
you will see a window light up near the ceiling. If we pull back alive and well. But she wanted the light put out.
.
the black curtain and put out the light in here .."

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