The Phantom Of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth

Author:Frederick Forsyth
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Frederick Forsyth
ISBN: 9780593045107
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1999-09-22T23:00:00+00:00

10

THE EXULTATION OF ERIK MUHLHEIM

ROOFTOP TERRACE, E.M. TOWER, MANHATTAN, 29 NOVEMBER 1906

I SAW HER. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS I SAW HER AGAIN and my heart made as if to burst inside me. I stood atop the warehouse near the dock and looked down and there she was, on the quay. Until I caught the glitter of light on the lens of a telescope and had to slip away.

So I went down to the crowd below and fortunately there was such a chill in the air that no-one thought anything of a man with his head swathed in a woolly muffler. Thus I was able to approach the brougham, to see her lovely face just a few yards away and to slip my old cloak into the hands of a fool reporter lusting only for his interview.

She was as beautiful as ever: the tiny waist, the tumbling hair tucked up beneath her Cossack hat, the face and smile to break a block of granite clean in two.

Was I right? Was I right to open all the old wounds again, to force myself to bleed again as in that cellar twelve long years ago? Have I been a fool to bring her here when eight score of months had almost cured the pain?

I loved her then, in those fearful hunted years in Paris, more than life itself. The first, and the last, and the only love I shall ever have or know. When she rejected me in that cellar for her young vicomte I almost killed them both. The great rage came over me again, that anger that has always been my only companion, my true friend who has never let me down, that rage against God and all His angels that He could not even give me a human face like others, like Raoul de Chagny. A face to smile and please. Instead He gave me this molten mask of horror, a life sentence of isolation and rejection.

And yet I thought, foolish stupid wretch, that she could even love me just a little, after what had happened between us in that hour of madness while the avenging mob came down to lynch me.

When I knew my fate, I let them live, and glad that I did. But why have I done this now? Surely it can only bring me more pain and rejection, disgust, contempt and repugnance yet again. It is the letter, of course.

Oh, Mme Giry, what am I to think of you now? You were the only person who ever showed me kindness, the only one who did not spit upon me or run screaming from my face. Why did you wait so long? Am I to thank you that in the final hours you sent me the news to change my life again, or to blame you for keeping it from me these past twelve years? I could be dead and gone, and would never have known. But I am not, and now I know. So I take this crazy risk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.