riumphant. He listened to it in a fever and he now began
to understand how Christine Daae was able to appear one evening, before
the stupefied audience, with accents of a beauty hitherto unknown, of a
superhuman exaltation, while doubtless still under the influence of the
mysterious and invisible master.

The voice was singing the Wedding-night Song from Romeo and Juliet.
Raoul saw Christine stretch out her arms to the voice as she had done,
in Perros churchyard, to the invisible violin playing The Resurrection
of Lazarus. And nothing could describe the passion with which the
voice sang:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

The strains went through Raoul's heart. Struggling against the charm
that seemed to deprive him of all his will and all his energy and of
almost all his lucidity at the moment when he needed them most, he
succeeded in drawing back the curtain that hid him and he walked to
where Christine stood. She herself was moving to the back of the room,
the whole wall of which was occupied by a great mirror that reflected
her image, but not his, for he was just behind her and entirely covered
by her.

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

Christine walked toward her image in the glass and the image came
toward her. The two Christines--the real one and the reflection--ended
by touching; and Raoul put out his arms to clasp the two in one
embrace. But, by a sort of dazzling miracle that sent him staggering,
Raoul was suddenly flung back, while an icy blast swept over his face;
he saw, not two, but four, eight, twenty Christines spinning round him,
laughing at him and fleeing so swiftly that he could not touch one of
them. At last, everything stood still again; and he saw himself in the
glass. But Christine had disappeared.

He rushed up to the glass. He struck at the walls. Nobody! And
meanwhile the room still echoed with a distant passionate singing:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

Which way, which way had Christine gone? ... Which way would she
return? ...

Would she return? Alas, had she not declared to him that everything
was finished? And was the voice not repeating:

"Fate links thee to me for ever and a day!"

To me? To whom?

Then, worn out, beaten, empty-brained, he sat down on the chair which
Christine had just left. Like her, he let his head fall into his
hands. When he raised it, the tears were streaming down his young
cheeks, real, heavy tea