Erik poured a drop of rum into the daroga’s cup and, pointing to the viscount, said:
“He came to himself long before we knew if you were still alive, daroga. He is quite well. He is asleep. We must not wake him.”
Erik left the room for a moment, and the Persian raised himself on his elbow, looked around him and saw Christine Daaé sitting by the fireside. He spoke to her, called her, but he was still very weak and fell back on his pillow.
Christine came to him, laid her hand on his forehead and went away again. And the Persian remembered that, as she went, she did not give a glance at M. de Chagny, who, it is true, was sleeping peacefully; and she sat down again in her chair by the chimney-corner, silent as a sister of charity who had taken a vow of silence.
Erik returned with some little bottles which he placed on the mantelpiece. And, again in a whisper, so as not to wake M. de Chagny, he said to the Persian, after sitting down and feeling his pulse:
“You are now saved, both of you. And soon I shall take you up to the surface of the earth, to please my wife .”
Thereupon he rose, without any further explanation, and disappeared once more.
The Persian now looked at Christine’s quiet profile under the lamp. She was reading a tiny book, with gilt edges, like a religious book. There are editions of The Imitation that look like that. The Persian still had in his ears the natural tone in which the other had said, “to please my wife.”
Very gently, he called her again; but Christine was wrapped up in her book and did not hear him.