Disclaimer: I don't own Christine either, though if I did I would give her a stern talking-to!
Note: Typos and details corrected and updated on 4/13/2008
No, the woman beneath the opera house was not Christine Daaé at all. The actual Christine Daaé was, as a matter of fact, in a little flat on Rue Notre Dame-des-Victories where she had lived before with Mamma Valerius before she had come to the opera house. She was there with the old woman who had not entirely recovered from her illness and required constant care. Raoul was at the Chagny estate where he had gone to handle the details of his brother's funeral and to probate his brother's last will and testament. Raoul had been left the portion of the estate which had been previously left to him by his father, and which he had turned over to the keeping of his brother. The portion which his father had originally intended for Philippe had been divided equally among Raoul and his two sisters, but his sisters, having already received their own equal portions upon their marriages, and holding such old-fashioned views of the right of agnatic primogeniture as they had, each dutifully turned over her third-share in Philippe's portion to Raoul, trusting him to do as his elder brother had.
Raoul had, of course, begged Christine to come with him, and they had both wept bitterly, but in the end she insisted that she needed to remain chaste—not only in reality but also in the eyes of the public—until their wedding night, and that, while she trusted Raoul implicitly and had no doubt that on an estate so large she could easily be provided her own quarters and no suspicion aroused by those servants who were there to observe that she always closed herself in her own room, she worried about those who would not see and would instead use the imaginations. She pointed out that the people of Paris did not approve of their relationship and would accuse of her of things that she had not done, regardless of her efforts to the contrary. Therefore, she would give them nothing about which to gossip; she would stay with Mamma Valerius, and rightfully so as she was the closest thing she had to family now.
Once Raoul was at his estate, Christine vaguely entertained the thought of returning to the opera house to sing. It was, however, very shortly after Raoul's departure that that the opera house closed down, seemingly for good, and the advertisement appeared in the Epoque stating that the present managers were unable to keep it open and offered it at a bargain to anyone willing to take on such an enterprise. Christine occasionally passed the opera house when she went to the market, and she was occasionally possessed of a sudden urge to enter, though she had not the least concept of why. She remembered Erik. Certainly, she would always remember Erik… His voice, his lessons… but most of all, she would remember his anger. No, she would remember his anger, but more than that she would remember his hideous appearance and how he flaunted it in her face, wagging his head at her and—she shuttered. Why did she dwell on such things? It did not occur to her to remind herself that it was she who first ripped off the mask, destroying the fantasy he had created for them both. In fact, it was she who, after having repaired the damage with kind words and fond glances, had torn it off a second time causing all the greater agony that led to her eventual imprisonment, the torture, the threats made upon the city. Oh, she remembered those things, it is certain, but she managed to avoid thinking of grasping that façade in her fingers and pulling, ripping the mask from the unsuspecting creature…
Question to contemplate: What is Christine's responsibility in this? Am I being too hard on her? Or do you just plain hate her? Click the review button and let me know--because that's far more fun than a survey.