Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-first chapter of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Le Ro chapter 21 Interesting and instructive vicissitudes of a Persian in the cellars of the Opera the Persians Narrative it was the first time that I entered the house on the lake.

I had often begged the trapdoor lover, as we used to call Eric in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me.

He always refused.

I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance.

Watch him as I might after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent abode at the Opera.

The darkness was always too thick to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake.

One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rode toward that part of the wall through which I had seen Eric disappear.

It was then that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.

I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that hovered all around me.

It was half breath, half music.

It rose softly from the waters of the lake and I was surrounded by it.

Through I knew not what artifice, it followed me, moved with me, and was so soft that it did not alarm me.

On the contrary, in my longing to approach the source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing came from the water itself.

By this time I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake.

The voice for it was now distinctly a voice, was beside me on the water.

I leaned over, leaned still farther.

The lake was perfectly calm, and a moon beam that passed through the air hole in the Ruse scribe showed me absolutely nothing on its surface, which was smooth and black as ink.

I shook my ears to get rid of a possible humming, but I soon had to accept the fact that there was no humming in the ears so harmonious as the singing whisper that followed and now attracted me.

Had I been inclined to superstition, I should have certainly thought that I had to do with some siren whose business it was to confound the traveler who should venture on the waters of the house on the lake.

Fortunately, I had come from a country where we are too fond of fantastic things not to know them through and through, and I had no doubt but that I was face to face with some new invention of Eric's.

But this invention was so perfect that as I leaned out of the boat I was impelled less by a desire to discover its trick than to enjoy its charm.

And I leaned out, leaned out, until I almost overturned the boat.

Suddenly two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible force.

I should certainly have been lost if I had not had time to give a cry by which Erik knew me, for it was he.

And instead of drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and laid me gently on the bank.

How imprudent you are, he said as he stood before me, dripping with water.

Why try to enter my house?

I never invited you.

I don't want you there, nor anybody.

Did you save my life only to make it unbearable to me?

However great the service you rendered him, eric may end by forgetting it.

And you know nothing that can restrain Eric, not even Eric himself.

He spoke, but I had now no other wish than to know what I already called the trick of the siren.

He satisfied my curiosity for Eric, who was a real monster.

I've seen him at work in Persia.

Alas is also in certain respects a regular child, vain and self conceited, and there's nothing he loves so much after astonishing people as to prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind.

He laughed and showed me a long read.

It's the silliest trick you ever saw, he said, but it's very useful for breathing and singing in the water.

I learned it from the Tonkin pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the rivers.

I spoke to him severely.

It's a trick that nearly killed me, I said, and it may have been fatal to others you know what you promised me, Eric?

No more murders.

Have I really committed murders?

He asked, putting on his most amiable air.

Wretched man.

I cried.

Have you forgotten the rosy hours of mazendarin?

Yes, he replied in a sadder tone.

I prefer to forget them.

I used to make the little sultana laugh.

Though.

All that belongs to the past, I declared, but there is the present, and you are responsible to me for the present.

Because if I had wished, there would have been none at all for you.

Remember that, Eric.

I saved your life.

And I took advantage of the turn of conversation to speak to him of something that had long been on my mind.

Eric?

I asked.

Eric swear that what?

He retorted.

You know I never keep my oaths.

Oaths are made to catch goals with.

Tell me.

You can tell me, at any rate.

Well?

Well, the chandelier.

The chandelier, Eric?

What about the chandelier?

You know what I mean.

Oh, he snickered.

I don't mind telling you about the chandelier.

It wasn't I.

The chandelier was very old and worn.

When Eric laughed, he was more terrible than ever.

He jumped into the boat, chuckling so horribly that I could not help trembling.

Very old and worn, my dear doroga.

Very old and worn.

The chandelier.

It fell of itself.

It came down with a smash.

And now, Duroga, take my advice and go and dry yourself, or you'll catch a cold in the head and never get into my boat again.

And whatever you do, don't try to enter my house.

I'm not always there, the roga.

And I should be sorry to have to dedicate my requiem mass to you.

So sang.

Swinging to and fro like a monkey, and still chuckling, he pushed off and soon disappeared in the darkness of the lake.

From that day I gave up all thought of penetrating into his house by the lake.

That entrance was obviously too well guarded, especially since he had learned that I knew about it.

But I felt that there must be another entrance, for I had often seen Eric disappear in the third cellar when I was watching him, though I could not imagine how.

Ever since I had discovered Eric installed in the opera, I lived in a perpetual terror of his horrible fancies.

Not insofar as I was concerned, but I dreaded everything for others, and whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always thought to myself I should not be surprised if that were Eric.

Even as others used to say it's a ghost.

How often have I not heard people utter that phrase with a smile.

Poor devils.

If they had known that the ghost existed in the flesh, I swear they would not have laughed.

Although Eric announced to me very solemnly that he had changed and that he had become the most virtuous of men since he was loved for himself a sentence that at first perplexed me most terribly.

I could not help shuddering when I thought of the monster.

His horrible, unparalleled and repulsive ugliness put him without the pail of humanity, and it often seemed to me that for this reason he no longer believed that he had any duty toward the human race.

The way in which he spoke of his love affairs only increased my alarm, for I foresaw the cause of fresh and more hideous tragedies in this event to which he eluded so boastfully.

On the other hand, I soon discovered the curious moral traffic established between the monster and Christine Dale.

Hiding in the lumber room next to the young Primadana's dressing room, I listened to wonderful musical displays that evidently flung Christine into marvelous ecstasy.

But all the same, I would never have thought that Eric's voice, which was loud as thunder or softest angel's voices at will, could have made her forget his ugliness.

I understood all when I learned that Christine had not yet seen him.

I had occasion to go to the dressing room and remembering the lessons he had once given me, I had no difficulty in discovering the trick that made the wall with the mirror swing round and I ascertained the means of hollow bricks and so on, by which he made his voice carry to Christine as though she heard it close beside her.

In this way also, I discovered the road that led to the well and the dungeon, the communist's dungeon and also the trap door that enabled Eric to go straight to the cellars below the stage.

A few days later, what was not my amazement to learn by my own eyes and ears that Erik and Christine Dale saw each other and to catch the monster stooping over the little well in the communists rode and sprinkling the forehead of Christine Dale, who had fainted a white horse.

The horse out of the perfeta which had disappeared from the stables under the opera, was standing quietly beside them.

I showed myself.

It was terrible.

I saw sparks fly from those yellow eyes, and before I had time to say a word, I received a blow on the head that stunned me.

When I came to myself, eric, Christine and the white horse had disappeared.

I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the house on the lake.

Without hesitation I resolved to return to the bank, notwithstanding the attendant danger.

For 24 hours I lay in wait for the monster to appear, for I felt that he must go out, driven by the need of obtaining provisions.

And in this connection I may say that when he went out in the streets or ventured to show himself in public, he wore a pasteboard nose with a mustache attached to it, instead of his own horrible hole of a nose.

This did not quite take away his corpse like air, but it made him almost I say almost endurable to look at.

I therefore watched on the bank of the lake and weary of long waiting, was beginning to think that he had gone through the other door, the door in the third cellar, when I heard a slight splashing in the dark.

I saw the two yellow eyes shining like candles, and soon the boat touched shore.

Eric jumped out and walked up to me.

You've been here for 24 hours, he said, and you're annoying me.

I tell you, all this will end very badly, and you will have brought it upon yourself, for I have been extraordinarily patient with you.

You think you are following me, you great booby, whereas it's I who am following you.

And I know all that you know about me here.

I spared you yesterday in my communist road.

But I warn you seriously, don't let me catch you here again.

Upon my word, you don't seem able to take a hint.

He was so furious that I did not think for the moment of interrupting him.

After puffing and blowing like a walrus, he put his horrible thought into words.

Yes, you must learn once and for all.

Once and for all, I say, to take a hint.

I tell you that with your recklessness, for you have already been twice arrested by the shade in the felt hat, who did not know what you were doing in the cellars and took you to the managers who looked upon you as an eccentric Persian interested in stage mechanism and life behind the scenes.

I know all about it.

I was there in the office.

You know I am everywhere.

Well, I tell you that with your recklessness they will end by wondering what you are after here, and they will end by knowing that you are after Eric, and they will be after Eric themselves, and they will discover the house on the lake.

If they do, it will be a bad lookout for you, old chap.

A bad lookout.

I won't answer for anything again.

He puffed in blue like a walrus.

I won't answer for anything.

If Eric's secrets cease to be Eric's secrets, it will be a bad lookout for a goodly number of the human race.

That's all I have to tell you.

And unless you are a great booby, it ought to be enough for you.

Except that you don't know how to take a hint.

He sat down on the stern of his boat and was kicking his heels against the planks, waiting to hear what I had to answer.

I simply said, it's not Eric that I'm after here.

Who, then?

You know as well as I do.

It's christine daie?

I answered.

He retorted, I have every right to see her in my own house.

I am loved for my own sake.

That's not true, I said.

You have carried her off and are keeping her locked up.

Listen, he said, will you promise never to meddle in my affairs again if I prove to you that I am loved for my own sake.

Yes, I promise you, I replied without hesitation, for I felt convinced that for such a monster the proof was impossible.

Well, then, it's quite simple.

Christine Dae shall leave this as she pleases and come back again.

Yes, come back again because she wishes.

Come back of herself because she loves me for myself.

Oh, I doubt if she will come back.

But it is your duty to let her go.

My duty, you great boobie.

It is my wish, my wish to let her go and she will come back again, for she loves me.

All this will end in a marriage.

A marriage at the Madeline.

You great booby.

Do you believe me now when I tell you that my nuptial mass is written?

Wait till you hear the kyrie.

He beat time with his heels on the planks of the boat and sang kyrie, kyrie, kyrie.

Wait till you hear wait till you hear that mass.

Look here, I said, I shall believe you if I see Christine Dale come out of the house on the lake and go back to it of her own accord.

And you won't meddle anymore in my affairs?

No.

Very well.

You shall see that tonight come to the masked ball.

Christine and I will go and have a look round.

Then you can hide in the lumber room and you shall see Christine, who will have gone to her dressing room, delighted to come back by the Communist's road.

And now be off, for I must go and do some shopping.

To my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced.

Christine Daier left the house on the lake and returned to it several times without apparently being forced to do so.

It was very difficult for me to clear my mind of Eric.

However, I resolved to be extremely prudent and did not make the mistake of returning to the shore of the lake or of going by the Communist's road.

But the idea of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me and I repeatedly went and waited for hours behind a scene from the Roy de Lahor which had been left there for some reason or other.

At last my patience was rewarded.

One day I saw the monster come toward me on his knees.

I was certain that he could not see me.

He passed between the scene behind which I stood and a set piece went to the wall and pressed on a spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress.

He passed through this, and the stone closed behind him.

I waited for at least 30 minutes and then pressed the spring in my turn.

Everything happened as with Eric, but I was careful not to go through the hole myself, for I knew that Eric was inside.

On the other hand, the idea that I might be caught by Eric suddenly made me think of the death of Joseph Buuquette.

I did not wish to jeopardize the advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many people to a goodly number of the human race, in Eric's words.

And I left the cellars of the opera after carefully replacing the stone.

I continued to be greatly interested in the relations between Eric and Christine Dyet, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the terrible thought which obsessed my mind that Eric was capable of anything if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake, as he imagined.

I continued to wander very cautiously about the opera and soon learned the truth about the monster's dreary love affair.

He filled Christine's mind through the terror with which he inspired her, but the dear child's heart belonged wholly to the vaikount Raul de Shegni.

While they played about like an innocent, engaged couple on the upper floors of the opera to avoid the monster, they little suspected that someone was watching over them.

I was prepared to do anything to kill the monster if necessary and explain to the police afterward.

But Eric did not show himself, and I felt none the more comfortable for that.

I must explain my whole plan, though that the monster being driven from his house by jealousy would thus enable me to enter it without danger through the passage in the third cellar.

It was important for everybody's sake that I should know exactly what was inside.

One day, tired of waiting for an opportunity, I moved to the stone and at once heard an astounding music.

The monster was working at his Don Juan Triumphant with every door in his house wide open.

I knew that this was the work of his life.

I was careful not to stir and remained prudently in my dark hole.

He stopped playing for a moment and began walking about his place like a madman, and he said aloud at the top of his voice it must be finished first, quite finished.

This speech was not calculated to reassure me, and when the music recommenced I closed the stone very softly.

On the day of the Abduction of Christine Dale I did not come to the theater until rather late in the evening, trembling lest I should hear bad news.

I had spent a horrible day, for after reading in a morning paper the announcement of a forthcoming marriage between Christine and the VIKANT Deshagni, I wondered whether, after all, I should not do better to denounce the monster.

But reason returned to me and I was persuaded that this action could only precipitate a possible catastrophe.

When my cab sat me down before the opera, I was really almost astonished to see it still standing.

But I am something of a fatalist, like all good Orientals, and I entered, ready for anything.

Christine Dale's abduction in the prison act, which naturally surprised everybody, found me prepared.

I was quite certain that she had been juggled away by Eric, that prince of conjurers, and I thought positively that this was the end of Christine and perhaps of everybody.

So much so that I thought of advising all these people who were staying on at the theater to make good their escape.

I felt, however, that they would be sure to look upon me as mad, and I refrained.

On the other hand, I resolved to act without further delay.

As far as I was concerned, the chances were in my favor that Eric at that moment was thinking only of his captive.

This was the moment to enter his house through the third cellar and I resolved to take with me that poor little desperate VI count who, at the first suggestion, accepted with an amount of confidence in myself that touched me profoundly.

I had sent my servant for my pistols.

I gave one to the VI count and advised him to hold himself ready to fire for, after all, Eric might be waiting for us behind the wall.

We were to go by the communists road and through the trap door.

Seeing my pistols, the little VI count asked me if we were going to fight a duel.

I said yes, and what a duel.

But of course I had no time to explain anything to him.

The little VI count is a brave fellow but he knew hardly anything about his adversary and it was so much the better.

My great fear was that he was already somewhere near us preparing the Punjab laso.

No one knows better than he how to throw the Punjab laso for he is the king of stranglers even as he is the prince of conjurers.

When he had finished making the little sultana laugh at the time of the rosy hours of menzarendaran she herself used to ask him to amuse her by giving her a thrill.

It was then that he introduced the sport of the Punjab lasso.

He had lived in India and inquired an incredible skill in the art of strangulation.

He would make them lock him into a courtyard to which they brought a warrior, usually a man condemned to death armed with a long pike and broadsword.

Eric had only his lasso.

And it was also just when the warrior thought that he was going to fell Eric with a tremendous blow that we heard the lasso whistling through the air was a turn of the wrist.

Eric tightened the noose around his adversary's neck and in this fashion dragged him before the little sultana and her women who sat looking from a window and applauding.

The little sultana herself learned to wield the Punjab lasso and killed several of her women and even of the friends who visited her.

But I prefer to drop this terrible subject of the rosy hours of masendaran I have mentioned it only to explain why, unarriving with the VIKANT deshagni and the cellars of the opera I was bound to protect my companion against the ever threatening danger of death by strangling my pistols.

Could serve no purpose, for Eric was not likely to show himself.

But Eric could always strangle us.

I had no time to explain all this to the vai Count.

Besides, there was nothing to be gained by complicating the position.

I simply told Montredshagni to keep his hand at the level of his eyes, with the arm bent, as though waiting for the command to fire with his victim.

In this attitude, it is impossible, even for the most expert strangler, to throw the lasso with advantage.

It catches you not only round the neck, but also round the arm or hand.

This enables you to easily unloose the lasso, which then becomes harmless after avoiding the commissary of police, a number of door shutters and the firemen.

After meeting the ratcatcher and passing the man in the felt hat unperceived, the VI Count and I arrived without obstacle in the third cellar, between the set piece and the scene from the Royde Lahore.

I worked the stone and we jumped into the house which Eric had built himself in the double case of the foundation walls of the opera.

And this was the easiest thing in the world for him to do, because Eric was one of the chief contractors under Philippe Gardner, the architect of the Opera, and continued to work by himself when the works were officially suspended during the war, the siege of Paris and the Commune.

I knew my Erik too well to feel it all comfortable.

On jumping into his house, I knew what he had made of a certain palace at Maznderen.

From being the most honest building conceivable, he soon turned it into a house of the very devil, where you could not utter a word, but it was overheard or repeated by an echo with his trapdoors.

The monster was responsible for endless tragedies of all kinds.

He hit upon astonishing inventions.

Of these, the most curious, horrible and dangerous was the so called torture chamber.

Except in special cases, when the little sultana amused herself by inflicting suffering upon some unoffending citizen, no one was let into it, but wretches condemned to death.

And even then, when these had had enough, they were always at liberty to put an end to themselves with a Punjab lasso or bolstering left for their use at the foot of an iron tree.

My alarm, therefore, was great when I saw that the room into which Monsieur Lecant de Xiangie and I had dropped with an exact copy of the torture chamber of the rosy hours of Mazadoran at our feet, I found the Punjab lasso, which I had been dreading all the evening.

I was convinced that this rope had already done duty for Joseph Buuquette, who, like myself, must have caught Eric one evening working the stone in the third cellar.

He probably tried it in his turn, fell into the torture chamber and only left it hanged.

I can well imagine Eric dragging the body in order to get rid of it to the scene from the Roy de Lahore and hanging it there as an example, or to increase the superstitious terror that was to help him in guarding the approaches to his lair.

Then, upon reflection, Eric went back to fetch the Punjab lasso, which is very curiously made out of cat gut and which might have set an examining magistrate thinking.

This explains the disappearance of the robe.

And now I discovered the lasso at our feet in the torture chamber.

I am no coward, but a cold sweat covered my forehead as I moved the little red disk of my lantern over the walls.

Monster Deshagnee noticed it and asked, what is the matter, sir?

I made him a violent sign to be silent.

Thank you for joining Byte at a Time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

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