christine and i will go and have a look round.then you can hide in the lumber-room and you shall see christine, who will have gone to her dressing-room, delighted to come back by the communists' road.
...and, now, be off, for i must go and do some shopping!"to my intense astonishment, things happened as he had announced.
christine daae left the house on the lake and returned to it several times, without, apparently, being forced to do so.it was very difficult for me to clear my mind of erik.however, i resolved to be extremely prudent, and did not make the mistake of returning to the shore of the lake, or of going by the communists' road.
but the idea of the secret entrance in the third cellar haunted me, and i repeatedly went and waited for hours behind a scene from the roi de lahore, which had been left there for some reason or other.
at last my patience was rewarded.one day, i saw the monster come toward me, on his knees.i was certain that he could not see me.
he passed between the scene behind which i stood and a set piece, went to the wall and pressed on a spring that moved a stone and afforded him an ingress.he passed through this, and the stone closed behind him.
i waited for at least thirty minutes and then pressed the spring in my turn.everything happened as with erik.but i was careful not to go through the hole myself, for i knew that erik was inside.
on the other hand, the idea that i might be caught by erik suddenly made me think of the death of joseph buquet.i did not wish to jeopardize the advantages of so great a discovery which might be useful to many people, "to a goodly number of the human race,"in erik's words; and i left the cellars of the opera after carefully replacing the stone.
i continued to be greatly interested in the relations between erik and christine daae, not from any morbid curiosity, but because of the terrible thought which obsessed my mind that erik was capable of anything, if he once discovered that he was not loved for his own sake, as he imagined.i continued to wander, very cautiously, about the opera and soon learned the truth about the monster's dreary love-affair.