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! "Christine! Christine! ..." People pushed him aside, laughing.

They made fun of him.

They thought the poor lover's brain was gone! By what mad road, through what passages of mystery and darkness known to him alone had Erik dragged that pure-souled child to the awful haunt, with the Louis-Philippe room, opening out on the lake?
"Christine! Christine! ...