登陆注册
15312000000080

第80章 The Scorpion or the Grasshopper: Which?(1)

THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONCLUDED

The discovery flung us into a state of alarm that made us forget all our past and present sufferings.We now knew all that the monster meant to convey when he said to Christine Daae:

"Yes or no! If your answer is no, everybody will be dead AND BURIED!"Yes, buried under the ruins of the Paris Grand Opera IThe monster had given her until eleven o'clock in the evening.

He had chosen his time well.There would be many people, many "members of the human race," up there, in the resplendent theater.

What finer retinue could be expected for his funeral? He would go down to the tomb escorted by the whitest shoulders in the world, decked with the richest jewels.

Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!

We were all to be blown up in the middle of the performance...

if Christine Daae said no!

Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!...

And what else could Christine say but no? Would she not prefer to espouse death itself rather than that living corpse? She did not know that on her acceptance or refusal depended the awful fate of many members of the human race!

Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!

And we dragged ourselves through the darkness, feeling our way to the stone steps, for the light in the trap-door overhead that led to the room of mirrors was now extinguished; and we repeated to ourselves:

"Eleven o'clock to-morrow evening!"

At last, I found the staircase.But, suddenly I drew myself up on the first step, for a terrible thought had come to my mind:

"What is the time?"

Ah, what was the time?...For, after all, eleven o'clock to-morrow evening might be now, might be this very moment! Who could tell us the time? We seemed to have been imprisoned in that hell for days and days...for years...since the beginning of the world.

Perhaps we should be blown up then and there! Ah, a sound! A crack!

"Did you hear that?...There, in the corner...good heavens!...

Like a sound of machinery!...Again!...Oh, for a light!...

Perhaps it's the machinery that is to blow everything up!...

I tell you, a cracking sound: are you deaf?"M.de Chagny and I began to yell like madmen.Fear spurred us on.

We rushed up the treads of the staircase, stumbling as we went, anything to escape the dark, to return to the mortal light of the room of mirrors!

We found the trap-door still open, but it was now as dark in the room of mirrors as in the cellar which we had left.

We dragged ourselves along the floor of the torture-chamber, the floor that separated us from the powder-magazine.What was the time?

We shouted, we called: M.de Chagny to Christine, I to Erik.

I reminded him that I had saved his life.But no answer, save that of our despair, of our madness:what was the time? We argued, we tried to calculate the time which we had spent there, but we were incapable of reasoning.If only we could see the face of a watch!...

Mine had stopped, but M.de Chagny's was still going...

He told me that he had wound it up before dressing for the Opera....

We had not a match upon us....And yet we must know....

M.de Chagny broke the glass of his watch and felt the two hands.

...He questioned the hands of the watch with his finger-tips, going by the position of the ring of the watch....Judging by the space between the hands, he thought it might be just eleven o'clock!

But perhaps it was not the eleven o'clock of which we stood in dread.

Perhaps we had still twelve hours before us!

Suddenly, I exclaimed: "Hush!"

I seemed to hear footsteps in the next room.Some one tapped against the wall.Christine Daae's voice said:

"Raoul! Raoul!" We were now all talking at once, on either side of the wall.Christine sobbed; she was not sure that she would find M.de Chagny alive.The monster had been terrible, it seemed, had done nothing but rave, waiting for her to give him the "yes"which she refused.And yet she had promised him that "yes," if he would take her to the torture-chamber.But he had obstinately declined, and had uttered hideous threats against all the members of the human race! At last, after hours and hours of that hell, he had that moment gone out, leaving her alone to reflect for the last time.

"Hours and hours? What is the time now? What is the time, Christine?""It is eleven o'clock! Eleven o'clock, all but five minutes!""But which eleven o'clock?"

"The eleven o'clock that is to decide life or death!...He told me so just before he went....He is terrible....He is quite mad:

he tore off his mask and his yellow eyes shot flames!...He did nothing but laugh!...He said, `I give you five minutes to spare your blushes! Here,' he said, taking a key from the little bag of life and death, `here is the little bronze key that opens the two ebony caskets on the mantelpiece in the Louis-Philippe room.

...In one of the caskets, you will find a scorpion, in the other, a grasshopper, both very cleverly imitated in Japanese bronze:

they will say yes or no for you.If you turn the scorpion round, that will mean to me, when I return, that you have said yes.

The grasshopper will mean no.' And he laughed like a drunken demon.

I did nothing but beg and entreat him to give me the key of the torture-chamber, promising to be his wife if he granted me that request....But he told me that there was no future need for that key and that he was going to throw it into the lake!...

And he again laughed like a drunken demon and left me.Oh, his last words were, `The grasshopper! Be careful of the grasshopper!

A grasshopper does not only turn: it hops! It hops! And it hops jolly high!'"The five minutes had nearly elapsed and the scorpion and the grasshopper were scratching at my brain.Nevertheless, I had sufficient lucidity left to understand that, if the grasshopper were turned, it would hop...and with it many members of the human race!

There was no doubt but that the grasshopper controlled an electric current intended to blow up the powder-magazine!

M.de Chagny, who seemed to have recovered all his moral force from hearing Christine's voice, explained to her, in a few hurried words, the situation in which we and all the Opera were.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 让你轻松带团队的管理心理学

    让你轻松带团队的管理心理学

    牧之编著的这本《让你轻松带团队的管理心理学》剖析了管理心理学在管理各个环节中的应用之道,针对在执行过程中管理者可能遇到的各类心理问题提出了有效的解决方案。全书内容充实,观点科学,操作性、指导性、实用性强,是管理者提高自身能力、轻松带出一流团队的最佳指南。
  • 英灵传

    英灵传

    历史英雄无数,每一个英雄都有着自己的传奇。古老的中国,辉煌的希腊,战火纷纭的日本战国。传奇大盗罗宾逊,精忠报国的岳鹏举,神机妙算的诸葛亮,疆域横贯亚欧非的亚历山大......历史的英豪永垂不朽,他们受到千万人的颂咏。不屈的执念,万人的敬仰终有一天会让他们唤醒。那就让我们扬起手中的武器,让他们再次安息!!!
  • 青枣

    青枣

    5个大学校园的青涩少男少女,复杂的爱情。从5个人各自的角度,来描述一段感情。爱情不是对错来判断的,而是有每个人各自的标准去判断。真实的生活,笔者亲身经历,从生活开始,记录点滴。本书献给王超。
  • 神武混沌

    神武混沌

    “十年生死两茫茫,不思量,自难忘;相顾无言,唯有泪千行……”他是个废材,但他不服,这个世界没有废材,只有甘心做废材的人,他将重新书写历史,他将在这个以武为尊的大陆称霸天下,成为混沌之王!
  • 就这样,梦一场

    就这样,梦一场

    一首歌,一行人,一生债,一世情。世界已经荒芜,毫无生机可言,伴随着世界上最后一片枯叶落下,断绝了生命的可能。花语端坐在树枝顶端,遥望着远方,心里,除了绝望再无其他,虽然它只是一只眼圈带着花纹,身上彩色缤纷,身体略庞大的-------鸟………
  • 美人三嫁:妃上云宵

    美人三嫁:妃上云宵

    她的一生是一个传奇。出生时是不详人,一道圣旨却令她麻雀变凤凰成为和亲公主。又因着她的绝世容貌,被太后钦册为美人,成为对付受宠昭仪的棋子。她生性单纯率真,如何能圆滑的在宫中生存?她一点也不想侍伴君侧,可谁来救她出苦海?俊逸太子斗胆向老爹请呈:父皇,赏她给儿臣做太子妃。倾刻间,她从他的女儿变成他的女人,又变成他的儿媳。可为何,高贵的天子,在见到她的那一刻心肝惊痛一下......以为能躲过尔虞我诈的宫斗,却不料皆是命中注定宠绝后宫。一步步血腥谨慎,她能否到达荣极的云宵?
  • 异世绝帝

    异世绝帝

    万古苍穹,破殇成军;阡陌红尘,繁花似锦!域玄大陆,强者于王势的争锋!看似废材三少爷崛起称霸,实则是一个来自异世的“少年”,狂拽酷炫吊炸天,女扮男装,独傲江湖。南氏家族直系“废材三少爷”,因为这个异世杀手的到来彻底改变!看世间万事,品人情冷暖;少年的落寞,乃前世杀手生涯所赐;少年的天赋,乃前世艰苦历练所得!一场强者与强者之间的竞争,一代圣帝天才的成长,现在展开……
  • 太上真诀

    太上真诀

    在这样安静的时光里,你会想起些什么?那一抹柔情,就像湖底静默的水草,疯狂生长,却悄然消逝在岁月里。人最痛,莫不是,回不去也忘不了……这书不是首发,估计是点错了,请问怎么改?
  • 小不点,你好甜

    小不点,你好甜

    因为爸妈的一次意外,使糖糖与恶魔慕凌风相遇,后来得知自己与恶魔有娃娃亲,从此被恶魔缠上身,“小不点,过来给本少爷抱一抱,”“小不点,过来亲本少爷一口。”“慕凌风,你有完没完?”
  • 深爱不能醒

    深爱不能醒

    他放手,放她自由,自作主张以为成全了她,给了她想要的生活方式,可是结果,真是可笑的结果。四年前,最后一次见她,在他的书房,她干净的脸依就平静的表情。他说,圣斯的事,他会按承诺来处理。她说,谢谢。那一刻的感觉还那么清淅的浮现于他的心口,看着她转身离开,那个傍晚,有些灰暗,呼进的空气那么稀薄,心口闷闷的。