D aae, owing to intrigues to which I will return later, did not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera. After the famous concert night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich's; but this was the last occasion on which she was heard in private. She refused, without plausible excuse, to appear at a charity concert to which she had promised her assistance. She acted throughout as though she were no longer the mistress of her own destiny and as though she feared a fresh triumph.

Indeed, I believe that Christine Daae was frightened by what had happened to her. I have a letter of Christine's (it forms part of the Persian's collection), relating to this period,which suggests a feeling of absolute dismay, “I don't know myself when I sing,” writes the poor child.

She showed herself nowhere; and the Viscount de Chagny tried in vain to meet her. He wrote to her, asking to call upon her, but despaired of receiving a reply when, one morning, she sent him the following note:

Monsieur,

I have not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea to rescue my scarf. I feel that I must write to you today, when I am going to Perros in fulfillment of a sacred duty. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the death of my poor father, whom you knew and who was very fond of you. He is buried there, with his violin, in the graveyard of the little church, at the bottom of the slope where we used to play as children, beside the road where, when we were a little bigger, we said goodbye for the last time.”

The Viscount de Chagny hurried for a carriage to Perros Guirec. He was the only passenger. He questioned the driver and learned that, on the evening of the previous day, a young lady who looked like a Parisian had gone to Perros and put up at the inn known as the Setting Sun.

After he set out, the nearer he drew to her, the more fondly he remembered the story of the little Swedish singer:

Daae was from a market town not far from Upsala . Her father was a great musician. Not a violinist throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia played as he did. His wife died when Christine was entering upon her sixth year. Then the father, who cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his patch of ground and went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune .

He taught his Christine music and they began to perform little songs together. While performing at a fair, a Professor Valerius heard them and took them to Gothenburg .He maintained that the father was the first violinist in the world and that the daughter had the makings of a great artist. Her education and instruction were then provided for.

When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae and Christine with them. “ Mamma ” Valerius treated Christine as her daughter. As for Daae, he began to pine away with homesickness. Daae seemed not to recover until the summer, when the whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec,in a faraway corner of Brittany , where the sea was of the same color as that in his own country. There he and his daughter would play and sing songs of their homeland.

One day, a little boy, who was out with his governess , made her take a longer walk than she intended, for he could not tear himself from the little girl whose pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her. There was a high wind, which blew Christine's scarf out to sea.

She saw a little boy run into the sea, fully dressed, and bring back her scarf. Boy and scarf were both soaked through.Christine laughed merrily and kissed the little boy, who was none other than the Viscount Raoul de Chagny, staying at Lannion with his aunt.

During the season, they saw each other and played together almost every day. At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valerius, Daae consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons. In this way, Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's childhood.

Every evening they would listen to Daae tell stories of Northern Europe. One story they liked in particular was of Angel of Music who would come and visit certain people,endowing them with great musical powers.

“No one ever sees the angel,” Daae would say, “but he is heard by those who are meant to hear him. He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad and disheartened.”

Little Christine asked her father if he had heard the Angel of Music. But Daddy Daae shook his head sadly; and then his eyes lit up, as he said, “You will hear him one day, my child! When I am in Heaven, I will send him to you!” Daddy was beginning to cough at that time.

As the two children grew older, so did their affection for one another. But then Raoul began to understand that someone of his class could never marry someone like Christine. They soon had to separate themselves from one another.

As for Christine, she tried not to think of him and devoted herself wholly to her art. She made wonderful progress and those who heard her said that she would be the greatest singer in the world. Meanwhile, the father died; and, suddenly, she seemed to have lost, with him, her voice, her soul and her genius.

The first time that Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed by the girl's beauty and by the sweet images of the past which it evoked , but was rather surprised at her infatuation with art. He returned to listen to her. He followed her in the wings . He tried to attract her attention. More than once, he walked after her to the door of her box, but she did not see him. She seemed to see nobody. She was all indifference.Raoul suffered, for she was very beautiful and he was shy and dared not confess his love, even to himself. And then came the lightning-flash of that famous performance.

Perros was reached at last. Raoul walked into the smoky sitting room of the Setting Sun and at once saw Christine standing before him, smiling and showing no astonishment.

“So you have come,” she said. “I felt that I should find you here, when I came back from Mass. Someone told me so, at the church.”

“Who?” asked Raoul, taking her little hand in his.

“Why, my poor father, who is dead.”

There was a silence; and then Raoul asked, “Did your father tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I cannot live without you?”

Christine blushed to the eyes and turned away her head. In a trembling voice, she replied gravely, “I did not make you come to tell me such things as that. Perhaps I was wrong to write to you. This anniversary and your sudden appearance in my room at the Opera, the other evening, reminded me of the time long past and made me write to you as the little girl that I then was.”

There was something in Christine's attitude that seemed to Raoul not natural. He did not feel any hostility in her; far from it: the distressed affection shining in her eyes told him that. But why was this affection distressed?

“Why, when you saw me in your room, reminding you that I had rescued your scarf from the sea, did you answer as though you did not know me, and also why did you laugh?”

The tone of these questions was so rough that Christine stared at Raoul without replying.

“You don't answer!” he said angrily and unhappily. “Well,I will answer for you. It was because there was someone in the room who was in your way, Christine, someone that you did not wish to know when you've been interested in anyone else!”

“What are you saying, monsieur?” asked the girl excitedly.“To what person do you refer?”

“To the man who said, ‘Christine, you must love me!’”

At these words, a deathly white spread over Christine's face. She carried her hand to her heart, a prey to indescribable emotion. Her eyes stared before her like a madwoman's. Raoul was horrified. But suddenly two great tears trickled , like two pearls, down her cheeks.

“Listen, Raoul. I have something serious, very serious,to tell you. Do you remember the legend of the Angel of Music?”

“I do indeed,” he said. “I believe it was here that your father first told us that story.”

“And it was here that he said, ‘When I am in Heaven, my child, I will send him to you.’ Well, Raoul, my father is in Heaven,and I have been visited by the Angel of Music.”

“I have no doubt of it,” replied the young man gravely, “for no human being can sing as you sang the other evening without the intervention of some miracle.”

“Yes,” she said solemnly. “In my dressing room. That is where he comes to give me my lessons daily. It was he who was talking when you were listening behind the door. It was he who said, ‘You must love me.’ But I then thought that I was the only one to hear his voice.”

Raoul burst out laughing and Christine turned on him with a hostile air. Her eyes, usually so gentle, flashed fire.

“What are you laughing at? If you had opened the door,you would have seen that there was no one in the room!”

“Well, Christine, I think that someone is making game of you .”

She gave a cry and ran away. He ran after her, but, in a tone of fierce anger, she called out, “Leave me! Leave me!” And she disappeared.

Raoul suddenly felt very weary , low-spirited and sad. Later in the day he was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom saying that she would not be down to dinner. Raoul dined alone,in a very gloomy mood. Then he went to his room and tried to read, then went to bed and tried to sleep. There was no sound in the next room.

The hours passed slowly. It was about half-past eleven when he distinctly heard Christine's door turn slowly on its hinges . Where could she be going, at this hour, when every one was fast asleep at Perros? Softly opening the door, he saw Christine's white form, in the moonlight, slipping along the passage. She went down the stairs and out the door of the inn.Then all was still. Raoul immediately followed her.

The next morning he was brought back to the inn half frozen and more dead than alive. The man who helped him to return told the landlady that he had been found stretched at full length on the steps of the little church. She ran at once to tell Christine, who hurried down and, with the help of the landlady,did her best to revive him. He soon opened his eyes and was not long in recovering when he saw his friend's charming face leaning over him.

A few weeks later, when the tragedy at the Opera compelled the intervention of the police, Inspector Mifroid, questioned the Viscount de Chagny touching the events of the night at Perros. I quote the questions and answers as given in the official report:

Q. “Did Miss Daae not see you following her?”

R. “No, monsieur. Although, when walking behind her, I to ok no pains to deaden the sound of my footsteps. She seemed not to hear me and kept walking until she came to the church.”

Q. “Was there no one in the churchyard?”

R. “I did not see anyone; and, if there had been, I must have seen him. The moon was shining on the snow and made the night quite light.”

Q. “In what condition of mind were you?”

R. “Very healthy and peaceful, I assure you. I watched as she knelt down by her father's grave, made the sign of the cross and began to pray. At that moment, it struck midnight. At the last stroke, I saw her raise her eyes to the sky and stretch out her arms. I was wondering what the reason could be, when I myself raised my head and everything within me seemed drawn toward the invisible, which was playing the most perfect music! Christine and I knew that music; we had heard it as children. But it had never been executed with such divine art, even by Mr. Daae. I remembered all that Christine had told me of the Angel of Music.”

Q. “Did it not occur to you that the musician might be hiding somewhere?”

R. “It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur; so much so thatI omitted to follow Ms. Daae, when she left.”

Q. “Then what happened as you were found in the morning lying half-dead on the steps of the church?”

R. “Well, there was a pile of skulls stacked at the door of the church, which is quite common in that region. First a skull rolled to my feet... then another... then another... Suddenly, I saw a shadow glide along the wall. I ran up. The shadow had already pushed open the door and entered the church. But I was quicker than the shadow and caught hold of a corner of its cloak . At that moment, moonlight fell straight upon us. As I did not let go of the cloak, the shadow turned round and I saw a terrible death's head, which darted a look at me from a pair of fiery eyes. I felt as if I were face to face with the Devil; and, in the presence of this unearthly apparition , my heart gave way, my courage failed me... and I remember nothing more until I recovered consciousness at the Setting Sun.”

enchanted /ɪnˈtʃɑ:ntɪd/ adj. 中魔法的；着了魔的

intrigue /ɪnˈtri:ɡ/ n. 秘密

Duchess /ˈdʌtʃɪs/ n. 公爵夫人

sacred /ˈseɪkrɪd/ adj. 神圣的

graveyard /ˈɡreɪvjɑ:d/ n. 墓地，坟场，公墓，多设在教堂庭院一角

Perros-Guirec 佩罗斯-吉雷克，法国临海旅游城市

Upsala 厄普萨拉城，瑞典城市

Scandinavia 斯堪的纳维亚半岛

fame and fortune 名与利

Gothenburg 哥德堡，北欧第一大港，瑞典第二大城市

have the making of 拥有成为……的条件、素质

Mamma 对老年慈祥妇女的亲昵敬称

pine away with sth. （因悲哀等）憔悴、消瘦（而死亡）

Brittany 布列塔尼，法国西北部一地区

governess /ˈɡʌvənɪs/ n. 家庭女教师

Lannion 拉尼翁，法国西北部一城市

second /ˈsekənd/ vt. 支持，赞成

Angel of Music 音乐天使。北欧古代传说。

be meant to 有意做……，打算做……

evoke /ɪˈvəʊk/ vt. 引起，唤起（感情、记忆等）

wing /wɪŋ/ n. 指歌剧院舞台的侧厅、耳房等

blush /blʌʃ/ vi. 脸红

prey /preɪ/ n. 猎物；受害者，牺牲品

trickle /ˈtrɪkl/ vi. 使……小股流动

intervention /ˌɪntəˈvenʃən/ n. 干涉，介入，指有音乐天使暗中相助

make game (fun) of sb. 拿某人开玩笑，耍某人玩（通常含恶意）

weary /ˈwɪərɪ/ adj. 疲倦的（因费力或持久所致），精疲力竭的

hinge /hɪndʒ/ n. （门的）铰链，合页

fast asleep 熟睡

landlady 女房东，女店主

revive /rɪˈvaɪv/ vt. （使某人、某物）恢复健康、力量或知觉

touching /ˈtʌtʃɪŋ/ prep. 关于……

Q Questioner的缩写形式

R Raoul的缩写形式

take no pains to do sth. 毫不费力地做某事

make the sign of the cross 天主教徒祈祷前手指空画十字的动作

stroke /strəʊk/ n. 击，打，指一次次的钟声

divine /dɪˈvaɪn/ adj. 上帝或神的，如同神灵的；这里指音乐如同天籁

omit to... 忽视……，忽略……

skull /skʌl/ n. 脑壳，头颅骨

cloak /kləʊk/ n. 斗篷，披风

apparition /ˌæpəˈrɪʃən/ n. 鬼魂，幽灵 zEdhJX4EkWzrWdAt7cPs8iFhwMfHtwoDIC3FFAqNCUuw1POuISuRUCWnIntdo+vk