Phantom Thoughts pt. 43
Dec. 13th, 2020 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zellephantom{In spite of the seriousness of the circumstances, the absurdity of the question would have made them roar with laughter, if they had not caught sight of a face so sorrow-stricken that they were at once seized with pity. It was the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny.}
Poor Raoul. He just can't catch a break. First a fight with his brother, then his plan to get Christine far away from there is preempted before it can even begin, despite all his planning.
{Raoul's first thought, after Christine Daae's fantastic disappearance, was to accuse Erik. He no longer doubted the almost supernatural powers of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera in which he had set up his empire. And Raoul rushed on the stage, in a mad fit of love and despair.}
At this point, I almost think Raoul would somehow blame Erik if he stubbed his toe in the Opera house... Not that his conclusion here was wrong, of course.
{"Christine! Christine!" he moaned, calling to her as he felt that she must be calling to him from the depths of that dark pit to which the monster had carried her. "Christine! Christine!"
However, the phrasing just makes me think of "Brain and brain! What is brain!?" from the episode Spock's Brain of the original series of Star Trek. (A short video to enlighten and entertain those unaware can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgqbW83slXU ) "Someone stole Raoul's brain!" And just picture the Persian piloting Raoul's body via remote control when they go down to find Erik...
{Hideous thoughts flashed through Raoul's congested brain. Of course, Erik must have discovered their secret, must have known that Christine had played him false. What a vengeance would be his!}
I really feel the whole 'congested brain' thing, being mildly sick with a cold at the moment.
{And Raoul thought again of the yellow stars that had come, the night before, and roamed over his balcony. Why had he not put them out for good? There were some men's eyes that dilated in the darkness and shone like stars or like cats' eyes. Certainly Albinos, who seemed to have rabbits' eyes by day, had cats' eyes at night: everybody knew that! ... Yes, yes, he had undoubtedly fired at Erik. Why had he not killed him? The monster had fled up the gutter-spout like a cat or a convict who—everybody knew that also—would scale the very skies, with the help of a gutter-spout ... No doubt Erik was at that time contemplating some decisive step against Raoul, but he had been wounded and had escaped to turn against poor Christine instead.}
Who says it has to be like a cat or a convict? Why not a convict cat, like Macavity, who's "broken every human law" and must face justice for numerous crimes, including tax fraud?
And you might be thinking of him, Raoul, but I doubt he's considered you a significant enough threat to be thinking about you.
{Bitter tears scorched the boy's eyelids as he saw scattered over the furniture the clothes which his beautiful bride was to have worn at the hour of their flight. Oh, why had she refused to leave earlier?}
Had she actually said she was going to marry him at this point, or was this just based on the engagement game?
{He pushed, pressed, groped about, but the glass apparently obeyed no one but Erik ... Perhaps actions were not enough with a glass of the kind? Perhaps he was expected to utter certain words? When he was a little boy, he had heard that there were things that obeyed the spoken word!}
I don't think the password is 'Open Sesame', Raoul.
{Suddenly, Raoul remembered something about a gate opening into the Rue Scribe, an underground passage running straight to the Rue Scribe from the lake ... Yes, Christine had told him about that... And, when he found that the key was no longer in the box, he nevertheless ran to the Rue Scribe. Outside, in the street, he passed his trembling hands over the huge stones, felt for outlets ... met with iron bars ... were those they? ... Or these? ... Or could it be that air-hole? ... He plunged his useless eyes through the bars ... How dark it was in there! ... He listened ... All was silence! ... He went round the building ... and came to bigger bars, immense gates! ... It was the entrance to the Cour de l'Administration.}
I think Leroux needs the equivalent of a swear jar for every time he uses ellipses in this book.
Poor Raoul. He just can't catch a break. First a fight with his brother, then his plan to get Christine far away from there is preempted before it can even begin, despite all his planning.
{Raoul's first thought, after Christine Daae's fantastic disappearance, was to accuse Erik. He no longer doubted the almost supernatural powers of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera in which he had set up his empire. And Raoul rushed on the stage, in a mad fit of love and despair.}
At this point, I almost think Raoul would somehow blame Erik if he stubbed his toe in the Opera house... Not that his conclusion here was wrong, of course.
{"Christine! Christine!" he moaned, calling to her as he felt that she must be calling to him from the depths of that dark pit to which the monster had carried her. "Christine! Christine!"
And he seemed to hear the girl's screams through the frail boards that separated him from her. He bent forward, he listened, ... he wandered over the stage like a madman. Ah, to descend, to descend into that pit of darkness every entrance to which was closed to him, ... for the stairs that led below the stage were forbidden to one and all that night!}
I'm getting some Orpheus and Euridyce vibes here. Of course, we all know that singing "I love her! Does that mean nothing? I love her!" is utterly ineffective against Erik. (And if he hadn't followed it up with "Show some compassion!", Erik's retort would have probably been along the lines of "Well, that makes two of us!".)
{People pushed him aside, laughing. They made fun of him. They thought the poor lover's brain was gone!}
Not cool, people.
I'm getting some Orpheus and Euridyce vibes here. Of course, we all know that singing "I love her! Does that mean nothing? I love her!" is utterly ineffective against Erik. (And if he hadn't followed it up with "Show some compassion!", Erik's retort would have probably been along the lines of "Well, that makes two of us!".)
{People pushed him aside, laughing. They made fun of him. They thought the poor lover's brain was gone!}
Not cool, people.
However, the phrasing just makes me think of "Brain and brain! What is brain!?" from the episode Spock's Brain of the original series of Star Trek. (A short video to enlighten and entertain those unaware can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgqbW83slXU ) "Someone stole Raoul's brain!" And just picture the Persian piloting Raoul's body via remote control when they go down to find Erik...
I really feel the whole 'congested brain' thing, being mildly sick with a cold at the moment.
{And Raoul thought again of the yellow stars that had come, the night before, and roamed over his balcony. Why had he not put them out for good? There were some men's eyes that dilated in the darkness and shone like stars or like cats' eyes. Certainly Albinos, who seemed to have rabbits' eyes by day, had cats' eyes at night: everybody knew that! ... Yes, yes, he had undoubtedly fired at Erik. Why had he not killed him? The monster had fled up the gutter-spout like a cat or a convict who—everybody knew that also—would scale the very skies, with the help of a gutter-spout ... No doubt Erik was at that time contemplating some decisive step against Raoul, but he had been wounded and had escaped to turn against poor Christine instead.}
Who says it has to be like a cat or a convict? Why not a convict cat, like Macavity, who's "broken every human law" and must face justice for numerous crimes, including tax fraud?
And you might be thinking of him, Raoul, but I doubt he's considered you a significant enough threat to be thinking about you.
{Bitter tears scorched the boy's eyelids as he saw scattered over the furniture the clothes which his beautiful bride was to have worn at the hour of their flight. Oh, why had she refused to leave earlier?}
Had she actually said she was going to marry him at this point, or was this just based on the engagement game?
{He pushed, pressed, groped about, but the glass apparently obeyed no one but Erik ... Perhaps actions were not enough with a glass of the kind? Perhaps he was expected to utter certain words? When he was a little boy, he had heard that there were things that obeyed the spoken word!}
I don't think the password is 'Open Sesame', Raoul.
{Suddenly, Raoul remembered something about a gate opening into the Rue Scribe, an underground passage running straight to the Rue Scribe from the lake ... Yes, Christine had told him about that... And, when he found that the key was no longer in the box, he nevertheless ran to the Rue Scribe. Outside, in the street, he passed his trembling hands over the huge stones, felt for outlets ... met with iron bars ... were those they? ... Or these? ... Or could it be that air-hole? ... He plunged his useless eyes through the bars ... How dark it was in there! ... He listened ... All was silence! ... He went round the building ... and came to bigger bars, immense gates! ... It was the entrance to the Cour de l'Administration.}
I think Leroux needs the equivalent of a swear jar for every time he uses ellipses in this book.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-18 11:56 pm (UTC)Poor Raoul has yet again put his (verbal) foot in it by saying something that comes out sounding ridiculous... and will continue to do so in this scene...
Why not? Everybody else attributes that sort of accident to the Phantom, after all ;-p
Giry: "There have been too many accidents"
I should probably point out that what Leroux actually *wrote* was On croit qu’il a la cervelle dérangée, le pauvre fiancé !… -- "They thought his brain had become disordered, the poor fiancé"
congestion cérébrale ("brain congestion") is actually the French term for a stroke. So one might refer to Raoul's mental state unflatteringly as 'apoplectic' ;-D
And... now that we're back in Raoul's point of view, de Mattos has started randomly leaving out chunks again. Possibly for reasons of censorship, since Raoul is busy picturing Christine breathing her last beneath the scorching breath of the monster 'in a moment of insurmountable horror', e.g. implied rape, and referring to her as perdue in the all-powerful grasp of those arms -- by which I think he consciously means literally helpless or without recourse, but a femme perdue is the French term for a 'fallen woman', so there are more sexual overtones; the phrase could be held to imply that she has been 'ruined' by the Phantom forcing himself upon her :-(
Well, he did, for no known reason, pay a nocturnal visit to Raoul's bedroom, so Raoul had apparently moved up his scale of threats since the 'let him be as unhappy as I am' dismissal...
Perhaps he actually did consider frustrating Christine's plans of escape by suppressing her sole ally, and only after being driven off from the Chagny residence did he fall back on a scheme to snatch her from the stage itself before she could leave the building. But I'm pretty sure that the poetic effect of causing Marguerite to disappear from the stage at the precise moment when she appeals for the angels to carry her away was too much for him to resist, especially given the suggestion that his grand explosion is planned to coincide with the finale of Le Prophète on the following evening.
(Interesting tid-bit; performances at the Paris Opera took place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so there were presumably not in fact any occasions when two operas were performed on consecutive nights. Also, who sang the heroine's role in Le Prophète in the absence of the leading lady? Did Carlotta star?)
I was a bit puzzled by the 'fiancé' bit earlier on, although that can be interpreted as being a description from the perspective of the crowd, who had been reading the gossip-columns and thought they knew all about it. And Erik does tell Christine that she cannot be the fiancée of two men at the same time when she is pleading desperately for Raoul's life as the torture-chamber floods... but I think Raoul referring to the clothes of 'his fiancée' (not 'bride', although it's a reasonable enough translation in English usage) here probably is still based on the engagement game (as is Erik's subsequent sarcasm).
I'm pretty sure that's what he has in mind :-D
If the key was not in the box, where was it, and why? Who took it? Did Christine have it in her possession on stage (which seems most unlikely) or in amongst her street clothes, and if so, why?
Had Erik come in and abstracted it from the box after he overheard Christine tell Raoul about it, in order to ensure that -- since Christine was not planning to fulfil her promised rendezvous by means of that key -- no-one else would be able to spring any nasty surprises upon him via the rue Scribe entrance? This seems the most likely explanation... and in fact it proved a wise precaution, since the first thing Raoul does on discovering Christine's dressing-room deserted is to attempt to force an entrance to the lair by the side-gate.
Well, the first thing after failing to discover the secret of the mirror. (Which is presumably why, from a story-telling point of view, the author does not allow them to explore the workings of the mirror at leisure the evening before.)