Author's Note: Hello. Fair warning--this chapter is not QUITE as amusing as the one that comes before it, though I did try. Worry not. This is just a brief history. I promise it will all come together later. Also, this is just the next 1500 words or so. I'd much prefer to post more, but my time is far more limited than it was during this time of year last year. I should also warn you that while I previously had expected to have my summer off, I now may not. However it turns out, though, I'll finish this piece anyway, because I started it. I always finish what I start.
Disclaimer: All I own is my overactive imagination, but that's enough.
Several years before our Opera exploit, Erik had acquired a small inheritance from the childless brother of his mother, but as it was not a large enough sum on which to live as he wished for the remainder of his life, he had also taken a job at the Opera. After hours, mind you. Though he was never actually as reclusive as I previously suggested when interviewed by that strange young journalist, as we got older Erik became somewhat more conscious of the peculiarity of his features and sought to modify or hide them in one way or another. Autumn of 1875 found us spending most of Erik's salary each month on extravagant hats and cloaks. In the end, though, such items don't truly cover one's face, so in a mixture of desperation and depravity, near the end of that year we turned to papier mậché.
I imagine one might expect that such an endeavor would fail miserably, but the truth is one can sculpt rather a nicely shaped nose from such a substance for a cost of almost nothing. We made quite a variety. Long noses, delicate noses, narrow noses, wide noses, and once in a fit of drunkenness, an extraordinarily long nose that would left Cyrano feeling small and insecure by comparison. Morning brought sobriety, however, and when we recovered from the headache and nausea that was our punishment for such debauchery, Erik called the thing ridiculous and threw it at me in mock anger vowing he would "never wear such a preposterous contraption while living and breathing." I expected him to be as good as his word, but apparently there truly is a time and a place for everything, including enhancing the nose and apparently the tastes of women are as varied as the women themselves (and some actually find a long misshapen nose... well... arousing).
Whatever the case, Erik had quite a collection of noses and by varying them and the type of moustache he wore beneath them (and fashioning eyebrows to match said moustache) he created such a vast number of identities that I was oddly jealous that my own nose was permanently fixed to my face offering me no real means of disguise.
I seem to remember that when we first started the papier mậché project Erik planned to find his preferred size and shape and then have a proper prosthetic nose fashioned. Why he hadn't done so by the time of Christine Daaé I can only speculate, but I suspect that like a woman with too many pairs of shoes, he simply couldn't make a permanent commitment to one style. Whatever the case, one of our lovely creations combined with a moustache he fashioned of trimmings from his own natural hair and worn daily eventually allowed him to work openly at the Opera—with the scene-shifters. It was in this way that we made the acquaintance of the now late Joseph Buquet. Rather, I should say it is in this way that Erik made his acquaintance. I met him some time later when Erik invited him to our flat for drinks.
While Erik was working at the Opera, I myself was unemployed and, without the inheritance of a childless uncle, struggling. It was during those lean years that I came to realize what I had hoped all along—that Erik truly was my friend, for he frequently offered me a job assisting him in one thing or another and occasionally lent me a few francs and subsequently forgot the debt.
By the time of Christine Daaé, Erik and I, together with my brother Darius, had rented a small flat on Rue de Rivoli across from the Tulieres. It was far from elegant, quite a bit beneath Erik's means (yet still above mine). Together, however, we found it worked for the three of us. Darius and I benefited from Erik's generous nature while Erik, who plainly stated that a nicer place would have left him far less spending money, seemed to enjoy our company. It left us within walking distance from Erik's greatest love, the Paris Opera.
That's not to say he didn't love the ladies. Surely, he loved each and every one of them. It is not my intention merely to defend a friend; I do believe Erik loved each of the ladies so much that he could not possibly abandon any of them to commit to any other. A commitment to one would have meant forsaking all the others. There were other men in Paris, yes, but once a woman has had Erik....
Suffice to say that the little Daaé girl was not the first to fall prey to Erik's charms by any means. Nor was she the prettiest, the most well-known, or the wealthiest. She was young, yes—a mere eighteen—but she was not the youngest. She was not the most talented, the most naive, the most eager, or the most lonesome. As much as it may surprise you to hear it, Christine Daaé was merely one of the ladies Erik happened to encounter along the way.
That is not to say that she was not special; she most certainly was. She was quite a lovely girl, and an honest girl. She retains a special place in my own heart for she somehow overcame her loathing of Erik's appearance before he taught her true pleasure rather than after (unless he deceived me). But I do not deny that she was special to Erik. Of course she was special. Just like every other girl.
Would that I could chronicle them all for you here and tell you the singular splendor of each in the order in which they came! But such a task is daunting, if even possible, and do not delude myself to believing that I was present for all of Erik's many exploits.
Erik and I grew up together and I recall his regaling the assets of women far before I knew the names of those parts or their purpose. When Erik first described to me the wonder of the unclothed female form, I was more than certain it would be a decade before I might behold such a sight with my own two eyes, and so I lived vicariously through Erik's tales. We were around sixteen years of age at that time, and Erik was as debonair then as he is today. I was clumsy as well as shy, but I watched him, admired him, studied him for I was certain that if I ever I was going to persuade one of them to lie with me, it would be by following Erik's example.
I was not an unattractive young man by any means. My mother always said that all I needed was a little confidence, and surely it is true. All it takes to confirm this is a glance at Erik. Even as a boy he was skinny as a pike, emaciated with protruding ribs, lanky legs and arms like cooked pasta. His face was as distorted as his body was scrawny. Aside from the gaping hole in the center of his face, his teeth were crooked, his cheeks hollow, his skin a strange shade of transparent yellow, his hair thin and patchy and his straddling eyebrows thick and bushy by comparison. If poise were related to comeliness, Erik should have had none at all; instead, his were inversely proportionate.
He walked with a swagger, stood with his shoulders thrown back, dressed impeccably. The grace with which he withdrew his gloves or wrapped his cloak about his shoulders lured the eyes of the ladies to him. Though they often grimaced—shuddered even—at a first glance at his face, his refined air drew them back again in curiosity. At a second glance he had them captivated with a crooked smile. He might speak a word to them then in a soft melodious tone he reserved for this alone, but only a word. With a tip of his hat he would be gone, sauntering away to leave them burning with a strange interest in his seeming disinterest of them, infatuated. Erik worked months in advance; a seed of attraction might be planted in the spring to be harvested in the fall, watered with indifference and apathy, fertilized by pride.
By the time I had begun to formally study Erik I had looked at his anomalous face for so long that it was commonplace to me. When my mother commented that she found it peculiar to hear the name of my unfortunate friend on the lips of all the young ladies, I wondered who she meant, for I could not begin to imagine that anyone would consider Erik unfortunate or conceive that anyone might be surprised that the ladies found him appealing. In the meantime, I worked up the courage to ask Erik to teach me some of what he knew, and as a good friend does, he obliged.
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