"I hear him! Here he is!"
We heard his steps approaching the Louis-Philippe room. He came
up to Christine, but did not speak. Then I raised my voice:
"Erik! It is I! Do you know me?"
With extraordinary calmness, he at once replied:
"So you are not dead in there? Well, then, see that you keep quiet."
I tried to speak, but he said coldly:
"Not a word, daroga, or I shall blow everything up." And he added,
"The honor rests with mademoiselle....Mademoiselle has not
touched the scorpion"--how deliberately he spoke!--"mademoiselle
has not touched the grasshopper"--with that composure!--"but it
is not too late to do the right thing. There, I open the caskets
without a key, for I am a trap-door lover and I open and shut
what I please and as I please. I open the little ebony caskets:
mademoiselle, look at the little dears inside. Aren't they pretty?
If you turn the grasshopper, mademoiselle, we shall all be blown up.
There is enough gun-powder under our feet to blow up a whole quarter
of Paris. If you turn the scorpion, mademoiselle, all that powder
will be soaked and drowned. Mademoiselle, to celebrate our wedding,
you shall make a very handsome present to a few hundred Parisians
who are at this moment applauding a poor masterpiece of Meyerbeer's
.
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