alive. But imagine, if you can, Red Death's mask suddenly coming to
life in order to express, with the four black holes of its eyes, its
nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon; AND
NOT A RAY OF LIGHT FROM THE SOCKETS, for, as I learned later, you can
not see his blazing eyes except in the dark.

"I fell back against the wall and he came up to me, grinding his teeth,
and, as I fell upon my knees, he hissed mad, incoherent words and
curses at me. Leaning over me, he cried, 'Look! You want to see! See!
Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's
face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to
hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are
so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a very good-looking
fellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to
me. She loves me for ever. I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!' And,
drawing himself up to his full height, with his hand on his hip,
wagging the hideous thing that was his head on his shoulders, he
roared, 'Look at me! I AM DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!' And, when I turned
away my head and begged for mercy, he drew it to him, brutally,
twisting his dead fingers into my hair."

"Enough! Enough!" cried Raoul. "I will kill him. In Heaven's name,
Christine, tell me where the dining-room on the lake is! I must kill
him!"

"Oh, be quiet, Raoul, if you want to know!"

"Yes, I want to know how and why you went back; I must know! ... But,
in any case, I will kill him!"

"Oh, Raoul, listen, listen! ... He dragged me by my hair and then ...
and then ... Oh, it is too horrible!"

"Well, what? Out with it!" exclaimed Raoul fiercely. "Out with it,
quick!"

"Then he hissed at me. 'Ah, I frighten you, do I? ... I dare say! ...
Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this ... this
... my head is a mask? Well,' he roared, 'tear it off as you did the
other! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Give
me your hands!' And he seized my hands and dug them into his awful
face. He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh
with my nails! ... 'Know,' he shouted, while his throat throbbed and
panted like a furnace, 'know that I am built up of death from head to
foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will
never, never leave you! ... Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying,
crying for you,