Dear readers, I wish you all a very happy new year 2019! Here's the 7th chapter of A World of Magic and Truth, that I finally managed to translate entirely. I hope the next one won't take me so much time, but I really don't know when I'll publish it... Anyway, as always, enjoy, and maybe leave me a comment? Thank you!
Pauvre sens et pauvre mémoire
M'a donné Dieu, le roi de gloire…
(Rutebeuf)
Poor understanding and poor memory
God gave me, King of Glory...
(Rutebeuf)
Freely… allowed… No! Freely allowed… and accepted… taken, and given back…
How many times did the fatal moment prowl in their confused heads, like the shadow of an immense wyvern? How long did they wonder about the cause, the extent, and the consequences of their shared action, both by themselves, avoiding as much as possible the other, barely talking to each other, only when necessary? Did they even realise the other felt the same way, the same feeling of vague terror, remorse, and resignation? That they both feared each other more than anything else, whatever be their motives to "abandon" themselves like they did this awful night, when...? That they feared each other, but feared themselves even more, because they now seemed to understand how powerful the other was? How long? Hours? Days? Oh, time was flying so slowly, deep in the Lake House, in the heart of silence, in the late Opera House... They both fit so well in the ruins, now, both silent, both ravaged, both still proud, bearing on their faces the traces of the explosion and those of the fire, extinguished with Inferno's waters.
It took a letter to draw them out of their afflicted drowsiness. It was written in a foreign language, which allowed Evelina to easily identify its author: so, the Persian wrote to him! to Erik! And, obviously, a confidential message... written in such a way she couldn't understand it. She shivered, feeling betrayed. How could she have been silly enough to think, even for a moment, that this man she didn't even know could help her? He was Erik's friend! He won't betray him to help an unknown girl, even if she was an aristocrat, even if she was her parents' daughter! However... If the story he told her was true, and it very much could be, the Persian – what was his name? Canne... something like that... – took her parents' side against Erik, a long time ago. He could do it again, now. But why did he wrote this letter, then?...
She didn't wonder for too long: Erik answered her silent questions. For the first time since their unwitting kiss, he looked at her in the eyes, and Evelina noticed – with relief? – that he spoke to her with the Phantom of the Opera's cold, haughty voice, the one she could only hate since that awful night when, on their way back from the Eden Theatre... Oh! Thinking about it, again, again and again, so the hatred could remain forever in her chest, her only cure, her only way out... The voice of horror, the voice of this man who hurt her in so many ways... And despite all of this, how close it was to his inflexions that other night... Wasn't she cursed twice, first for playing his games, then for having been caught in magic's and truth's nets? Humbugs! There never was magic, neither truth, and all they lived since those slanderous summer nights was only a lie. A simple, stupid, cruel lie. An illusion.
Like the one she was telling herself, she suddenly realised. She lied as often, as much as him. Did she really think she could fool herself so easily, so stupidly? As if the feelings she felt in the carriage suddenly sank in the deep waters of her memories? That's a likely story! She wasn't better than him... And him, at this juncture, suggested her to get dressed elegantly, dwelling in his victorious delight like a vulture... because they will soon have visitors! That tone of his voice! She'd wanted to push it back down his throat, along with all the hatred in his words, despite the mask, despite everything! Did she immediately understand he was talking about her parents? And if she did, could she try hard enough to hide... her satisfaction, or her despair? The Persian's help was a trap! He was in league with Erik, he came in the Opera House because he told him so, he caught her crying, and then he told her his little cobblers, in that theatrical way... Oh, Erik surely had a good laugh in his lair, the "dear unhappy Erik", when he saw her take that helpful hand without a second thought! And she believed him! And now, she was caught; she was only a bait, and her parents would be sentenced because of her silliness. And the Persian brought Erik that damned letter without even thinking about hiding it, wrote it in his exotic language, only to signify her how cursed she was... They are friends!... He's the one who brings his dear Erik his prey!... First, the scared daughter, then her crying mother, then his angry father. The foe, the former lover and the fruit of their love, ripe for revenge...
But she couldn't cry, nor scream... in front of him or in her room, she tried but couldn't. Deeply defeated, Evelina de Chagny considered herself a traitor for having kissed (of accepted the kiss of) her torturer, and even worse! She accepted it freely, and freely gave it back. He didn't force her. He never asked for anything. Not so long before, he drawled back when she touched him. Has he even been sincere, he who fed her so many lies? He couldn't be sincere, not towards her, not in this way, she remembered. He couldn't afford to, except for a feeling: the desire for revenge. Better than nothing.
"Fine," she heard herself reply, "I'll do as you please."
She didn't even bother to give him a cutting answer. As for him, he was so overjoyed with the news he got to even notice her unusual kindness: twenty years of patience finally rewarded, with Christine the Ungrateful and her fop of a husband, subdued and broken at his feet, crushed under the combined weights of Fate and of their own thoughtlessness... just like before! Twenty years later... All those memories came back to him, those moments of fake innocence in front of him, when those two faked to be lovers under his nose, with his bitter approval... their little game of fiancé and fiancée, when, only to hurt the vicomte, he accepted to endure the saddest of tortures: being assured of not being the one she loved, never to be that one, even by molesting Christine. He suffered, yes, even more than one could imagine based on his actions. Revenge would not ease his pain, he knew. It was a makeshift solution, one that couldn't last, but his last one... before putting everything to an end. The Opera House tragedy, Christine's abduction, Evelina's abduction, Erik's existence... Sixty years of a lengthy, bitter show. Time for a curtain to fall.
Erik considered, with pretty good reasons (according to him, at least), that this evening would be the last of a kind, the one of the final confrontations... Every part of the scenery, every character, every pose, seemed to strengthen his conviction. He adopted the Phantom's voice; Evelina played the dismayed martyr; Christine would be the poor, weeping victim, unable to face her fate; and her husband, the hero, powerless against the odds. Only the scorpion and the grasshopper were missing to the party! But those animals weren't up to date: drama wasn't necessary anymore. Only truth would be left, as cold and naked as a mask, in the middle of the ruins.
Why couldn't she come, twenty years ago! Her coming would have put her suffering to an end, she then would have led a happy life: all in all, didn't he decide to die quite honestly? Why defer, when there was nothing to be expected in life, except that farewell? She didn't believe him, the dear Christine, she fled with all the might in her frail, quaking legs, without glancing back even once. It all seemed like the myth of Orpheus, badly rewritten in a half-decadentist, half-Faustian style. Ridiculous! And he, too, was once ridiculous, petrified on the shore, tense behind his mask, looking at those two vaudevillian lovers flying away from all the horrors, when he could've so easily annihilated them! But then he chose Death, and welcomed it, embraced it like a long-lost friend, a glass of amber wine in his hand instead of tears, and with a smile instead of remorse. After all this time looking at Death, for so little worth… So many useless risks… Vanity! But soon enough this mistake will be fixed. Every little breeze in the Lake House was still shivering from Christine's tears, every wave in the lake still held memory of Raoul's fury. Plunge the pole into the waters, ô gondoliere, and plunge it right to the bottom of the lake, for you might be caught by the siren! Or is it the ceiling that you fear, maybe? Careful, as it might drop right on your sweet little aristocratic face! And you, Christine, what are you afraid of? Scorpion, or Grasshopper? Chandeliers and candles? Silence, maybe… The unbearable silence… That one silence that a mask screams when it's ripped off the face of this unfortunate person who, in an instant of trust…
If you only knew, Christine! There's no more illusion left in those ruined sceneries, but everything is yet to fear, more than ever. The despair that moved you Angel of Music? It was nothing compared to the one that now was tearing his bowels apart, and yet that one old despair was enough to drive him to murder. Or maybe you know it, but pretend not to, when your feet graze the dusty floor of the underground passages, when your hand feverishly try to find a wall to guide you, when you feel the lake water swiping under your little boat? And what about you, Raoul, do you feel it, the despair, when you follow the light at the end of the tunnel? Daroga… You know it, the despair, or at least you think you do, better than anyone else, and you're wrong. You're always wrong. You're bringing your poor, unhappy Erik both Life and Death, you feel it, you know it, and you keep going: you know you're not taking any chances, or at least you think so. And, foolishly, you bring in the Lake House the very ones you helped to flee twenty years ago. Your hand firmly holds the lantern. No, you're not shaking. You don't fear Erik, the dark protagonist of those Rosy Hours of Mazenderan, anymore, even if you know he abducted Evelina de Chagny, you know how he treated her! You know he regrets it, at least a little, don't you? How right are you… Erik regrets everything he did, and, even more, everything he's about to do.
Ah! Couldn't they come faster? Hurry, hurry! They've got to see how spectacular and how desperate his triumph was, yes, both at the same time! They've got to enjoy seeing the ravishing Evelina's sweet face: eaten away at dread, tired features, eyes empty for crying too many times, ashen skin! How beautiful was his wife! Persephone herself would envy her mournful, desperate beauty! Christine herself newer was so delightful, even at the darkest times of their love story, no: she never managed to reach such resignation, even her deepest silence still held a slight, frail, delicate light of hope, floors beneath the Opera House… He never read on her pallid face such a serene despair, right after crying… The woman standing next to him was everything he was not. She didn't shiver nor flinch. She didn't enjoy victory nor defeat. She was facing her judges, wrapped in her blue and white, almost foggy, dress. Oh, that exasperating stillness! He adored her, she hated herself, and that very same hatred made her even more beautiful.
And they wait, and they wait…
They were waiting, too, and with the same eagerness, those sitting in the boat, who were shivering out of apprehension and rage, as they felt water running under their feet, but couldn't see the shore! They were waiting with impatience this return into their old nightmare, as they planned to defeat once and for all their old bogeyman. They wait, they wait, a heavy heartbeat echoing every lapping of the water, or a faint cry, an unsuppressed shiver. Keeping a hand at the level of their eyes, they wait, and they fear, and their cradled anguish wouldn't fall asleep. How every wheeze reminded them of the Punjab lasso! Even if the Persian, holding the pole, already told them that there's nothing to fear… The hand at the level of the eyes itself didn't make sense anymore… No one hears the siren sing… And you don't even tremble, Daroga…
Christine, as for her, did. Every limb of her body was shivering, and she was curled up next to her husband. So, Erik wasn't dead, as she thought he was, as they both thought he was, when they cautiously came back to Paris, seven years after the tragic events at the Opera… Erik waited for them hidden in the shadows, and he learned about their return… And yet they had been cautious! They avoided every gossip, they avoided the surroundings of the old Opera House, as much as they could… And then, their mistrust slowly faded away… When she dared to look at the Opéra Garnier's ruins, Christine only saw stillness and silence… Did she regret not having kept her word? Yes. Ten times, a hundred times, yes. Christine Daaé never forgot her poor, unhappy Erik. Yes, she had dreaded him. For a long time, he inspired her terror and revulsion, feelings close to hate, and then she only felt a sorry softness… no, a true sorrow, because every time she reminded of his tears when they parted, something broke in her. She cried when she fled, she cried there, in the North of the World, for her Angel of Music… When she read he was dead, in the L'Époque newspapers, she cried even more… She didn't come… She was pregnant… Raoul had set sail days before… She waited for him to come back holding in her poor little hand Erik's ring, that she was still wearing as a necklace… Oh sweet irony! This necklace? Her rope.
When Raoul came back, she showed him the obituary, released two months before. Did she really want to come back to Paris, poor Christine? Yes, or at least she felt she had to. Raoul spent a long time trying to dissuade her, telling her she wouldn't endure the travel. So many risks, with so little at stake! Christine insisted. Only a doctor made her change her mind. After all, the obituary was released months ago, Erik was dead… And yet she refused to accept that idea. She had to wrap her mind around the idea of staying in Sweden, for her unborn child's wellbeing. After all the physical and moral pain she endured for the last months, those of the tragedy, she wasn't in really good shape: thinner and weakened, never at peace since she fled (and now newly tormented by this obituary), Christine, quite young and soon to be a mother, wouldn't endure the travel's difficulties, nor the summer heat in Paris. Autumn and Winter passed by, and, at the beginning of January 1882, Christine Daaé gave birth to a little girl named Evelina, after Christine's mother. It took the young mother many months to recover. Then came the issues of travelling with an infant child, then two other children: Philippe de Chagny, born in 1884, and Charles, born one year later… Little by little, Christine forgot her duty, and sung only for her children…
In 1888, seven years after the tragic events at the Opera House, the de Chagny family was called back in France by the Navy authorities. How she dreaded this moment! No one knew how much anguish she went through. With every single step she took, she felt Erik's heavy shadow leaning over her, following her in the streets, hiding in the curtains, looking at her through the windows… She was dreaming, wasn't she? She was avoiding mirrors as much as she could, refused to go to the opera, even to the Eden-Théâtre. She hid at home as often as she could, holding in her arm her youngest child, little Charles, aged 3… She forbade her children to go out too often… Raoul was cautious, too: he saw enough of Erik's machineries not to be worried. But nothing happened. Paris opened its arms wide to them, as bubbling and busy, as forgetful and frivolous as before. The city caught them in its social storm. Raoul, now an Admiral, was still sometimes away from home. In the end, his lonely wife felt society more comforting than solitude in their house. She became more of a socialite. The little Daaé girl was no more, only the Countess Christine de Chagny was left… And as years passed by, bringing along the fogs of oblivion, her memories of the Phantom of the Opera slowly vanished. Erik was dead, after all! If he was not, she should know it by now. After all, it wasn't her fault. She quite honestly accepted her duty, she would've accomplished it, if it wasn't for her pregnancy. She didn't deserve this revenge.
Because if she only knew, she would have come!
Nested in Raoul's arms, Christine tries her best to hide her feelings.
As they wait…
A light, at the end. Hades and Persephone on the shore: him, tall and gloomy, diabolical, triumphant, with his heavy cape, and on his face a white comedy mask; her, small and frail, but frighteningly dignified, with a martyred face and hollow eyes. Two ghosts in the Opera House. Charon the Persian, pushing the boat with his old, tired arms, still looking powerful. And Orpheus and Eurydice…
"You!"
The accuser wasn't Raoul. It was Christine. Christine, who, without any help, jumped off the boat and went straight to her old mentor, her face stiff with rage. He welcomed her without flinching, then greeted – with a tad of irony – the aristocratic duo, along with their guide.
"Good evening, Christine. Or, should I say, Mrs de Chagny. Vicomte… Daroga…"
"Erik! How… How dare you?" screamed Christine, furious. Only a diabolical laughter answered the countess' question.
The vicomte, as for him, was pallid and wretched, but kept quiet as he jumped off the boat, and his first reaction was to hug Evelina, looking at her spectral face, then to look with clear contempt, accusingly, at her abductor. In his arms, Evelina lost the stillness she fought so hard to gain: she was shaking, hiding her face in her father's suit, trying her best to hold back tears. Meanwhile, Christine was fighting to regain composure.
"Why did you do this? Give me my daughter back."
He laughed again, enjoying every second of his victory. Ah! Christine! How ugly you are, now, Christine, now that your poor Erik sees you truly, now that his eyes are not blinded by love or by tears anymore! How ugly! Common! Bourgeoise! You haven't become anything, Christine, anything else than an ordinary woman, irascible, moody. How he despises you, now, your Angel of Music, and how does he understand his mistake. You're looking at your husband and at your daughter, your eyes are blinded with rage and tears, and you don't see you won't obtain anything from him anymore, traitress!
"It's me you want. Let her go, and I will stay."
He burst out laughing, so hard and so loud Evelina raised her eyes at his anger.
"Naive, naive Christine! Do you really hope to move me, you scatterbrain? It's been twenty years that your voice doesn't touch my heart anymore! You think, with your little bird-brain, that you'd find a way to flee, as you did last time! And you even hope to count on that other one, right there, to bring you back to the ground safely. Or you could even wait! After all, you're still young, Christine, and I'm quite old, am I not? What are a few years of patience worth, if you manage to protect your family? Did you really think it's that simple? Where have your memories gone?"
Then, to the Persian:
"And you, Daroga, you even forgot the Rosy Hours of Mazenderan! Ashes and mist, all of you! Even the Opera House, it's all made of ash and mist! Did you really think you'd bring me that sweet little family and leave untouched with their daughter? Cobblers! Nonsenses! You'll leave alone, you and those two. You're the past! You're my past! That one, she's mine! She's my present, my wife, forever!"
Evelina was almost hiding in her father's arms, trying to swiftly understand what was happening. That Persian guy Erik called Daroga was not on his side but told him they would come. He was double-dealing. Her mother was trying to move her old persecutor by sacrificing herself to pay for her mistakes. Her father was remaining silent, but she felt he was also guilty. And she…
"Mother…" she pitifully moaned.
At last, Christine faced her daughter, and her face turned pale, free from any trace of rage. The Persian, after a quick glance to the family, looked at Erik with fire in his dark eyes, trying to remind him all that was due, all he did for him.
"Erik…" sighed Christine, "Erik, it's absurd…"
"Would you like to know, dear Christine, what's absurd? Everything."
He grabbed her by the wrist, just as he did to Evelina when she accomplished her ordeal, then dragged her to the room and showed her the dressing table, where a few of Evelina's possessions were still laying; the bed where they slept a long time ago; the open wardrobe, where she could see all the dresses she wore back in the 1880's. He almost threw her on the bed.
"Look at it! Look at it all! Do you remember, Christine Daaé, the Lake House? The hidden passage to your dressing room? Remember! I taught you how to sing! I made the New Marguerite out of you! How ridiculous was I, don't you think? The monster who fell in love, that infamous plotline in every bad romance! But at least I had your voice when you were singing. And, then! Another absurdity: your voice doen't sing anymore, for anyone! Ah, ah! Marguerite and Rose, two quickly decayed flowers, aren't they? And your little fop of a fiancé, that vicomte, chivalrously came to your rescue! Absurd, too! And the Persian, that idiot, always trying to be the deus ex machina! Ridiculous! Ridiculous! Risible! Old-fashioned! Cliché! Absurd!"
"Erik!"
"I haven't finished yet, my dear Christine. Come on, let's take a look at your dressing room, the dressing room of a prima donna! Let's see what's left of it!"
He dragged her back on her feet, the poor lady, then dragged her in the staircase, went through the mirror… and then entered Christine Daaé's old dressing room. Feeling nauseous, the Countess hid her lips behind her hand.
"That… that dress… It's Elvira's… Don Juan Triumphant!"
The dressing room was identical to the one she left twenty years ago, when he abducted her in the middle of a performance. Elvira's costume, the one she should've been wearing for the final act, was left untouched on the mannequin, waiting for someone to wear it. Nothing had change. Even her jewellery was still in a little box on the dressing table, even a few of her clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe. Everything was right where it should be…. No sign of fire whatsoever, and not even dust. That place left intact in the middle of a devastated Opera House, with its lilac wallpapers, its worn-out rugs, everything seemed to have burst right out of the past. She was almost able to hear the dancers laugh and run in the halls, the ushers gossiping, the workers' catcalls… The musicians tuning their instruments right before entering the orchestra pit…
"Oh! The dress, indeed. You see, my dear little Elvira, your Don Juan kept that very dress she should've been wearing at their wedding, should it be deep in the Inferno or at the Madeleine Church! He wanted to keep memories of her, because she left without a farewell… He kneeled right here and hoped she'd came back, because he hoped, he hoped for so long! So long! He trusted his little Elvira! He thought she was honest and nice, the woman who, for the first time in his entire life, kissed him, called him her poor, unhappy Erik! She didn't come! She never came! And when he saw her in Paris, because he'd learn about her comeback – poor child, did she really think she could hide away from the Phantom of the Opera? –, when he saw her walking by the Opera House without even looking at it… living her happy life… with her loved ones… within society… within the salons… And forget even the efforts the one who loved her most did for her! Ah! Then, he understood who you were, Christine de Chagny. He learned his lesson! Did you think he was so stupid? Come on! Look at the dress, look at it, lookt at it, look at it! Look at it! Come on! Look at every detail! Do you still see the scorpion and the grasshopper? Alas! They can neither hop nor turn, embroidered as they are… It's too late! And I'm glad for it! Who could he have married, the poor, unhappy Erik? A perjury! A traitress! A tart! Ah! Christine, why?... It only needed… a moment… an unique, brief, little instant!... I was waiting for you… I waited for so long… And you came here only to ask your daughter back…"
"Erik…"
"Yes, Christine? Ah! I know! What's your excuse, my dear little naïve Christine? I never received the obituary, maybe? No, too common… I couldn't come back? I was ill? I was pregnant, here we are! That's a good reason… Better: I was pregnant with the young lady you're holding captive, Erik. What a beautiful, sublime, marvellous excuse! And then? I believed you were dead? Better! I was afraid you'd never let me go?"
"Erik…"
"WHO DO YOU THINK I AM?"
The countess tried to get a grip on herself and to calm down the one who loved her a long time ago.
"Erik… if only…"
"If only you came here, Christine, how many misfortunes could you have avoided!"
"If only… I had…"
"If only you had what? Ah! Don't make excuses, I told you so! As if I were going to believe you! If only you could've come? Oh, yes, Christine. It's so easy to talk… But it's too late now! What do you want to do, bury me right on the spot, as if nothing happened? Or maybe hope that I'd give you back Evelina? You can't fix the mistakes you made twenty years ago, don't you understand?"
Christine collapsed on the floor, crying, her face buried in her hands. Erik pulled her up, grabbing her by the wrist once again, and forced her to look right into his eyes. Her make-up was dripping, her hair and her dress were messy… And he laughed.
"How beautiful you are, Christine… The most desperate songs are the most beautiful, and I know immortal ones that are pure sobs… Yes… You don't sing anymore, Christine, what a pity! Your triumph would've been wonderful, even more than that time when you sang in Faust… Alas! Christine, nowadays, you're only able to shriek…. to moan… You still hope to move me! You think I didn't learn my lesson! And you're wrong, Christine de Chagny! I learned it, I was a good pupil. Never hope to win anyone's heart, when you don't have a face! Never trust a woman. And, most of all, never spare anyone!"
She blemished ever further, if possible.
"N… No… No… Erik… Erik… D… don't…"
"Neither the scorpion, nor the grasshopper, will move for Evelina de Chagny's and Erik's wedding! Twenty years ago, I saw my living wife in you… But my living wife faded away like a ghost…"
An abrupt move, with unsuspected strength for such a frail woman, countess Christine de Chagny freed herself from her torturer and fled right into the passage, the monster's laughter running behind her, hoping that somehow, Raoul had fled with Evelina, leaving that awful place behind without a farewell, even if it meant leaving her with the Phantom. Alas! When she reached the lake shore, Raoul, Evelina and the Persian were all standing there… In an unbearable scream of agony, Christine fainted into her husband's arms, right when Erik, still laughing maniacally, reached them all.
Why didn't they flee?
Evelina ran straight into her room and grabbed a bottle of perfume, hoping it would help her mother regain her senses. Miserably, Christine woke up.
"Come on, vicomte! Your wife needs some medicine. Bring her back up there."
"And leaving my daugther here?"
"Precisely."
Christine shivered.
"Never", answered the vicomte firmly.
To their surprise, Evelina shook her head.
"No, Father. I shall stay."
Erik's laughter had lost every sign of humanity.
"Ah! What a beautiful, heroic, young lady! Be proud of her, vicomte! She stays here willingly! She won't go above the ground anymore, she won't see the surface of the Earth, now that she knows about magic and truth! She stays! She stays here! With me! Forever!"
And he calmly, but firmly, grabbed the young woman and dragged her by his side. Suddenly, he stopped laughing.
"Now go, vicomte. Go away with your wife. You too, Daroga. Leave, for I won't change my mind."
The Persian jumped into the boat first, encouraging the vicomte to do the same. With a heavy heart, he did, carrying a crying and moaning Christine in his arms.
