Chapter 6 Christine's point of view
We concluded our ride in silence, finally arriving at the gloomy mansion. The sight of the Bois across the street, reminded me, with a pang, of the Phantom. He used to confide in me about his dream of walking through the Bois hand and hand with his 'living' wife. I used to think of it as an odd phrase, but now I understand him better. At the time I was a naive young woman. I had not understood how an angel could have a wife, but I had said nothing. The pleasant cadence of his voice was enough to make me imagine that it was me with whom he would stroll along the various paths with him, hand in hand. Then we would lay down a blanket on the grass and I would listen to his beautiful voice and together we would sing, like songbirds, under a dark starry sky enjoying the solitude of his beloved night. What a fantasy that was and so horribly impossible.
I had pictured him to be a completely different person, a very handsome man, a very kind person with a heart of gold; a man worthy of such a magnificent voice. If my dreams had been true then perhaps I could have loved him. Who would have ever imagine that such a hideous person could have such an amazing voice? I know that I couldn't have believed such. I wouldn't have been able to imagine anyone possessing such an ugly visage. Still, in hindsight I believe that his voice created much of the misunderstandings that eventually arose between us. Because I had pictured a handsome face to go along with the voice; my shock was amplified by the revelation of his true face. To my dying day I will regret what I did on that day. My childish dreams of an angel from heaven had been shattered; but that did not mean that it had been all his fault that I had behaved so poorly.
At the time I did not view it as I do now. His explosive temper had matched his face. He used terrible language that I was not accustomed to hearing, far from the words and actions of an angel; more like a demon. Unlike in my fantasy he was neither handsome or kind. He was a charlatan who had set out from the beginning to fool me. Worse of all he was a cold blooded murderer. He had frightened me so much.
Still, when I looked into those sad pleading eyes there was beauty inside of them. His soul spoke directly to mine begging for absolution. A part of me still held on to that old dream even now. I yearned for my innocence to return; for my angel to comfort me. The sight of the park brought it back all to me. I felt a tear of regret in my eye. At that moment I felt pity for him, and for me, for our broken dreams.
I also felt the rise of another strange emotion, a pull of forbidden desire which continuously fought its way into my consciousness. It clawed at my mind, just like his voice. For a moment I felt his presence in my mind, begging me to return to him but and then it was gone. It was replaced by a sense of regret and dread of what was soon to come. I did not really want to go into the mansion at all. I felt an urge to ask Raoul to turn around. To take me back home. I wanted to run back all the way to my real home, in Sweden. I could barely remember it now, and yet I wanted to see it again.
I glanced over at Raoul whose face was still marked with a troubled angry expression. I had hurt him deeply and I knew it. I pitied him as well. Would that be my life from now on? Would I always be wracked with pity and regret? Yet there it was. Raoul had been caught in the middle of something more than he should have. Poor Raoul, needed someone of his own kind, not me, not the Phantom's prey.
Perhaps, our whole relationship had been built on a myth, just like mine with the Phantom. Actually the same fantasy, just with distinct aspects. Raoul DeChagny had looked exactly what I would have pictured would accompany the Phantom's voice. Perhaps, seeing Raoul right as I had to cope with the revelation of that shockingly hideous face to me was the reason that I fell in love with Raoul so quickly and easily. I think that his mild innocent handsomeness helped me to try to forget the horror that I had been subjected to. Unfortunately I could never truly forget what I had seen so far below the opera house. As the Phantom had said, I could never be free. He was right, I was chained to the events that had taken place there forever.
We arrived at the horrid de Chagny house and it looked even more oppressive than ever. I could not picture anyone truly being happy living there. It was gloomier even than the Phantom's underground lair, at least he lit the darkness with candles and beautiful objects and artwork, lending it an unexpected air of elegance and beauty that one could never imagine without seeing it.
The De Chagny residence looked like something that a vampire might reside in, too dark and garish, all types of gilded gold, turrets and towers. Earlier, Raoul had bragged that it had only been completed two years before and was in the 'newest' most modern style, with something called a 'water closet' and a telephone, and even water that comes out of a pipe. The previous family home had been destroyed by the Prussians during the late war. Apparently that had been really old, dating back hundreds of years but only the basement had survived. Rumor has it that one drunk Prussian General had deliberately set fire to it when he overheard the Comte calling him a fat savage 'albosche' bastard; whatever that meant. I had heard that it was some sort of pejorative name that had recently entered the French vernacular. The General didn't even know what it meant but the cutting tone of voice had perhaps clued him in.
My knowledge of the de Chagny family showed me that they did not need insulting phrases to make one feel inferior. Even Raoul could be very hurtful when he disapproved of someone or something. At the moment he disapproved of me. His scowl marred his usually handsome face. He looked as if he wanted to kill someone, and indeed I knew that he did. If the Phantom were in front of him he would most definitely have tried to fight him to the death.
Raoul was proud of the fact that the mansion the most expensive home to be built in Paris in the past decade but I thought it to be wasted money. Perhaps it was because of my simple Swedish Country upbringing. We Swedes like our homes to be bright and colorful and not too elaborate. The French are much more flamboyant, even the nobility, perhaps especially so. If one liked turrets and false battlements then I suppose that the Home would be considered quite splendid. I still preferred my simple plain childhood cottage, especially now that I had no real home left. The reality had hit me that my life had drastically changed and not for the better, or at least that is what I feared. If I were to become one of them would I too turn into a snob? I wondered.
We pulled into the circular driveway where we were greeted by an elaborately dressed groomsman. The servant looked at me and my torn wet clothes disapprovingly; As if he wondered whether or not to admit me into the sanctity of his employer's realm. I wondered how a boy who was as affable as Raoul, usually was, could have been raised in such a stiff and formal household. I am not sure that I could have emerged from such an environment as pleasant as he was. Gratefully Raoul had specifically mentioned that we would have a home of our own to live. He would be spending most of the time away at sea, and did not want me to live in the city 'unchaperoned.' He has told me that his elderly spinster cousin would be happy to live with us and supervise my transformation into a member of 'high society.'
At first I was angry that he felt me to be so untrustworthy as to require a duenna. I was not used to having to be watched, but with the recent situation, I had begun to see it as for the best. The Phantom would no longer be able to either stalk me, or exert any power over me, not if he could not gain access to me. Still after the events of this evening I had begun to doubt everything in my life including that.
We walked into the house where we were immediately summoned to the drawing room. Raoul's parents had just returned, just that evening, from a protracted sojourn abroad. Later I would discover that Phillippe, Raoul's older brother had cabled them urging their swift return home upon his receipt of the news that Raoul and I had become engaged. Raoul had been fool enough to confide of it to his brother, rather than wait for their return to do so. He had not understood why any of us should want to keep such a happy event secret, but I could have told him why. In his families eye I was far from an acceptable bride for a Vicomte, perhaps a candidate for a Courtesan, but never a bride.
To understand this attitude, I needed to look no further back at my own family history. But Raoul insisted that his own parents would not be like that, that France was now a republic and he was a second son. He could understand why Phillippe would be under such pressure but as a second son that he would be under no such obligation. I believe now that he wanted it to be the case so badly that he dismissed any such trepidation, and I wanted him to be right. But as time would show he was very much mistaken, tragically so.
Years before, back in Perros, where we had met, his parents had felt assured that I would be removed from his life as a somewhat unsuitable companion; time had not softened their attitude towards me. While, that evening they greeted me in a somewhat paternal manner, it was all an elaborate show put on in front of their son, for they did not reveal their true face to them. Behind their mask of apparent civility was a malice towards me that was every bit as twisted and ugly as the Phantom's hideous face. But of course that night I was not privy to that knowledge instead the Comtesse Sylvie de Chagny had the servants hustle me up to a private accommodation, 'one of their best' and promised to provide me with one of Raoul's sisters sets of night clothes and a suitable dress while my own would be cleaned and repaired. She looked me over and told me that a nice warm bath would be drawn for me, with fine lavender soap made especially for them from their estate in Provence.
She had called me 'daughter' and gave me what appeared to be a warm and sympathetic smile but the truth was that she had daggers in her claws ready to draw my blood as soon as her son's back was turned. Raoul was her baby and her favorite child and they had spent a lifetime giving him whatever he wanted. But this time what he wanted was beyond what they were willing to allow to him. They could not have my tainted foreign, Protestant, performer's blood, pollute their pure lineage in any way; Particularly since Phillippe had had no children of his own and he was already in his mid thirties.
I believe that it was that very reason that Phillippe betrayed his brother's confidentiality. He could not allow us to marry because the pressure upon him to do so would have become unbearable. Despite his so-called 'relationship' with La Sorelli, rumor had it that he was attracted to men and not women. I knew for a fact that he and La Sorelli had an arrangement designed to reassure the world of his 'manliness'. La Sorelli actually had a relationship of her own with one of the ballerinas that she also had reason to hide.
It would not have enhanced her reputation to be known to have a preference for women either, and Phillippe de Chagny paid her well to be his 'courtesan'. They could double date with their respective partners and to the world it would appear to be perfectly innocent. Four very attractive people, two noble men and two courtesans of the theatre going out together. They would even hold hands for effect and have a nightcap in a house that Phillippe had set up near the opera house for his 'mistress' to reside in.
Who would know or care which bed, one or the other would wake up in? This being France many did not care. Most people at the opera house merely shrugged at the sophisticated relationship of the four and those who were of a more prudish nature were not let in on their little secret, including of course the Comte and Comtesse and their circle. The Phantom of course somehow knew, just as he knew everything and tried to warn me about that as well as some other so-called skeletons in the de Chagny closet. At the time that he spoke to of them, I did not believe him. I felt that he had invented them because, from the first he had been extremely jealous of Raoul, but in time I had come to see that, at least that rumor was indeed true. In time I would discover that all of it was but back then I had no way of knowing that.