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The acting-manager knew all about my investigations and how eagerly and unsuccessfully I had been trying to discover the whereabouts of the examining magistrate in the famous Chagny case, M. Faure.
Mamma Valerius' hair was now quite white, but her eyes had grown no older; never, on the contrary, had their expression been so bright, so pure, so child-like. "M. de Chagny!" she cried gaily, putting out both her hands to her visitor. "Ah, it's Heaven that sends you here! ... We can talk of HER." This last sentence sounded very gloomily in the young man's ears.
Christine Daae, the opera-singer, and M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. If the gossips are to be credited, Count Philippe has sworn that, for the first time on record, the Chagnys shall not keep their promise.
"At our wedding, ingenuous child! ... The scorpion opens the ball... But that will do! ... You won't have the scorpion? Then I turn the grasshopper!" "Erik!" "Enough!" I was crying out in concert with Christine. M. de Chagny was still on his knees, praying. "Erik! I have turned the scorpion!" Oh, the second through which we passed! Waiting!
The day after Christine had vanished before his eyes in a sort of dazzlement that still made him doubt the evidence of his senses, M. le Vicomte de Chagny called to inquire at Mamma Valerius'. He came upon a charming picture. Christine herself was seated by the bedside of the old lady, who was sitting up against the pillows, knitting. The pink and white had returned to the young girl's cheeks.
My brother Charles, despite his being the only son of a widow and soutien de famille, had been enlisted, and his letters did not always reach their destination, though his regiment was at Chagny, not far from Autun, and for a while Mr. Hamerton had lost all traces of his mother-in-law.
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.
To begin with, he was very proud of him and pleased to foresee a glorious career for his junior in the navy in which one of their ancestors, the famous Chagny de La Roche, had held the rank of admiral. He took advantage of the young man's leave of absence to show him Paris, with all its luxurious and artistic delights. The count considered that, at Raoul's age, it is not good to be too good.
I seized my companion's arm: the Vicomte de Chagny was all a-quiver, eager to shout to his betrothed that he was bringing her help. I feared that he would not be able to contain himself. Suddenly, we heard a noise on our left. It sounded at first like a door opening and shutting in the next room; and then there was a dull moan.
The scene represented Margarita's garden: "Gentle flow'rs in the dew, Be message from me ..." As she sang these first two lines, with her bunch of roses and lilacs in her hand, Christine, raising her head, saw the Vicomte de Chagny in his box; and, from that moment, her voice seemed less sure, less crystal-clear than usual. Something seemed to deaden and dull her singing...
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