Here, shall I show you some card-tricks? That will help us to pass a few minutes, while waiting for eleven o’clock tomorrow evening. … My dear little Christine! … Are you listening to me? … Tell me you love me! … No, you don’t love me … but no matter, you will! … Once, you could not look at my mask because you knew what was behind. … And now you don’t mind looking at it and you forget what is behind! … One can get used to everything … if one wishes. … Plenty of young people who did not care for each other before marriage have adored each other since! Oh, I don’t know what I am talking about! But you would have lots of fun with me. For instance, I am the greatest ventriloquist that ever lived, I am the first ventriloquist in the world! … You’re laughing. … Perhaps you don’t believe me? Listen.”
The wretch, who really was the first ventriloquist in the world, was only trying to divert the child’s attention from the torture-chamber; but it was a stupid scheme, for Christine thought of nothing but us! She repeatedly besought him, in the gentlest tones which she could assume:
“Put out the light in the little window! … Erik, do put out the light in the little window!”
For she saw that this light, which appeared so suddenly and of which the monster had spoken in so threatening a voice, must mean something terrible. One thing must have pacified her for a moment; and that was seeing the two of us, behind the wall, in the midst of that resplendent light, alive and well. But she would certainly have felt