"What?" he retorted. "You know I never keep my oaths. Oaths are made
to catch gulls with."
"Tell me ... you can tell me, at any rate..."
"Well?"
"Well, the chandelier ... the chandelier, Erik? ..."
"What about the chandelier?"
"You know what I mean."
"Oh," he sniggered, "I don't mind telling you about the chandelier!
... IT WASN'T I! ... The chandelier was very old and worn."
When Erik 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 daroga![2] Very old and worn, the
chandelier! ... It fell of itself! ... It came down with a smash! ...
And now, daroga, 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 ... daroga! And I should be sorry to have to dedicate my Requiem
Mass to you!"
So saying, 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 Erik disappear in the third
cellar, when I was watching him, though I could not imagine how.
Ever since I had discovered Erik installed in the Opera, I lived in a
perpetual terror of his horrible fancies, not in so far as I was
concerned, but I dreaded everything for others.[3] And whenever some accident, some fatal event happened, I always thought
to myself, "I should not be surprised if that were Erik," even as
others used to say, "It's the 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 Erik 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 pale 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
alluded so boastfully.