Rose rouge attaché avec un ruban noir
Red Rose Tied With A Black Ribbon
AUTHOR'S NOTE: 2009 London cast, with Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom, Gina Beck as Christine, and Simon Bailey as Raoul.
Viscountess Christine de Chagny outlived them all; her parents, her children, her friends. Only Raoul was left. As she saw each passing, she grew more weary with life. When she died, there were only her husband and a masked man to mourn for Christine.
Christine outlived them all.
As a fourteen-year-old, the Swedish peasant girl wept as they buried her father. She clutched the violin, her tears falling on the wood.
As a twenty-two-year-old, the viscount's wife watched as they laid her one-year-old daughter in the ground. Raoul stood beside her, and she leaned into him, crying. Mothers should not bury their children.
As a thirty-year-old, the opera star stood by Meg at Madame Giry's funeral, offering condolences to a young woman too consumed with grief to hear a word she said.
As a forty-year-old, the former diva read the tombstone of Meg, who had died of the plague at too young an age.
As a seventy-nine-year-old, the once-young woman, her hair gray instead of brown, watched as her last remaining friend was put to rest.
Christine de Chagny was tired of living. She wanted the pain to stop. The viscountess did not want to see Death rear its ugly head and steal life from the lips of her loved ones, one by one. Only Raoul was left.
Sometimes she wondered if the Phantom was still alive. She doubted it, because it had been fifty-nine years since she had crossed the lake for the last time with Raoul, haunted by the wail of the Phantom of the opera.
Christine de Chagny was ready to let go all of the memories.
Raoul walked passed the row of graves, searching for a name. He stopped when he found the grave.
He had just come from the Opéra Populaire's auction, after buying the poster of Hannibal and a music box, a monkey in Persian robes on its lid. Seeing all those memories had given him strength, and he had convinced his aide that he did not need the wheelchair. Now, he regretted his decision, but could not turn back now. He carried the music box as he stood before the grave.
Christine de Chagny, devoted wife and dedicated opera singer was inscribed on the stone. It was cold and unfeeling, not like the beautiful woman that Raoul had fell in love with all those years ago.
But Raoul saw something on the hard marble before the gravestone.
A red rose tied with a black ribbon.
Raoul laid the music box on the marble, and, following some strange impulse, turned the handle. A quiet melody emitted from the box as the monkey played the cymbals.
Raoul left. Whenever he came to the grave again, he never saw another rose. But he knew that it was from the Phantom, the deformed man from all those years ago.
As the years passed, Viscount Raoul de Chagny was buried beside his wife. There were no children to mourn them and see the monkey in Persian robes. But a young groundskeeper turned the handle of the music box every morning, listening to the strange tune.