He bent forward, he listened,
...he wandered over the stage like a madman. Ah, to descend,
to descend into that pit of darkness every entrance to which was
closed to him,...for the stairs that led below the stage were
forbidden to one and all that night!
"Christine! Christine!..."
People pushed him aside, laughing. They made fun of him.
They thought the poor lover's brain was gone!
By what mad road, through what passages of mystery and darkness
known to him alone had Erik dragged that pure-souled child to the
awful haunt, with the Louis-Philippe room, opening out on the lake?
"Christine! Christine!...Why don't you answer?...Are you
alive?..."
Hideous thoughts flashed through Raoul's congested brain.
Of course, Erik must have discovered their secret, must have known
that Christine had played him false. What a vengeance would be his!
And Raoul thought again of the yellow stars that had come,
the night before, and roamed over his balcony. Why had he not put
them out for good? There were some men's eyes that dilated in the
darkness and shone like stars or like cats' eyes. Certainly Albinos,
who seemed to have rabbits' eyes by day, had cats' eyes at night:
everybody knew that!.
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