Some of you were mad at Gustave for calling Erik a monster, but he is not really a brat, he is on the divide between childhood and manhood. Gustave is at that age where he is breaking free of childhood, and trying to find an independent identity, something different than his father. He has not rejected Erik, but he is testing his own feelings and trying to find out whom he is and whom he wants to emulate. Up until this point his father has been an idol for him, a role model. It is disconcerting to him to discover that his father is far from perfect, that he does not have a happy past. He is a very normal kid for his age testing the limits of his relationship with his father; that of itself is a testament to how good of a father that Erik has been to him that he could feel comfortable enough to challenge him. Especially considering that Erik himself had no role models to teach him. But this next paragraph is for you.
I have researched the issues addressed in this chapter to an extent, but did a little extrapolation based on what I found. I have a background in law but not French law or Church canon so there is always a chance that I misunderstood something. I am not Catholic but I know a little bit about the concept of the sanctity of a confession, and about the ancient rule of sanctuary. I believe that I have written this correctly but if anyone knows something that I wrote erroneously feel free to PM me.
Chapter 36.
Gustave looked at his father and explained his words, "You know that I did not mean to call you a monster father? Sometimes things just come out of me before I have had a chance to think. I am sorry that I said that. You have been a good father to Meg and I. But all of this is rather scary for me. Until now, all of my life has been a lie; even our last name is a lie. We are not noble de Chagnys; we are Goethes. We are not even really French, although I guess that our grandmother was. Also there is the fact that you have killed and tortured people, and are a wanted criminal. I understand who you are and how you felt that you had to defend yourself from people. Most people treated you horribly and you had no one in the world that loved you, and cared about what happened to you, except perhaps for the Persian. I will always love you regardless father, but still I will need to sort out what is in my head."
Erik clapped his son on the shoulder, "I understand son. I believe that you get that trait of speaking rashly from me, and acting that way as well. Our past is a lot to consider, particularly mine. My past is dark and bloody, and I regret the mistakes that I made, particularly any that brought harm to the innocent. Until recently, your mother and I were never sure whether or not we should ever tell you and your sister the truth about all of it. We knew that it would change all of our lives if we did. But I cannot hide forever from who and what I was, and you have a right to know everything about me. We lied to you both to protect your innocence and to keep the filth and the darkness from corrupting you for as long as possible. I can tell you that I have never killed again since leaving Paris. Yet, in the beginning, there were a lot of temptations; first on the road to Normandy, and then at the convent, on the ship and even in our early days here."
"In the convent?" Gustave asked.
"Yes there. You remember the frightened priest who I just told you about? His name was Father Luc. I was afraid that he was going to find out who I was and go to the gendarmes, but Mother Jeanne assured me that there was no such danger. She made sure of it?" Erik explained. "But if she had been less careful, I might have had to have done something to stop him from going to the gendarmes."
"How did she stop him?" Gustave asked his curiosity piqued.
Erik smiled, "The nun was very shrewd. Shortly after the priest had fled from me, but before he could discover my identity, she approached the father and asked that he take her confession; and then she told him everything, particularly the fact that she herself could be seen as an accomplice to my crimes, because she was helping me to evade capture. She explained to him that she had known me for my entire life, and believed me to be a good man at heart and thus still salvageable; she also explained that I was protecting a life. The priest granted her a pardon and ordered that she chant five novenas on her rosary to absolve her of her sin."
Erik continued, "When they were done Father Luc gave Mother Jeanne a troubled glance and observed, "Still this troubles me. If this man is truly the Phantom of the Opera then he is one of the most wanted men in all of France. His crimes are inexcusable, and he is hideous, an abomination. How can we protect such a vile creature? Shouldn't we inform the gendarmes of his presence here and let them protect the girl? How do we know that he is not wishing to harm Mademoiselle Daae? I believe that we should not take that chance by helping a murderer evade authorities."
'She looked back at the priest and reminded him sternly, chiding, "He has come to us to provide him and his friends both safety and sanctuary. This convent has answered such calls ever since the Duke William the Bastard founded it in 1063; we have sheltered many in our boughs, without judgment, as has your monastery next door. We are required to do so by Church doctrine, and even by law. Shall we change this long established principle now simply because it would be the popular decision? Or do we continue to follow the traditions laid out by our predecessors and provide them with God's protection? It is not our vocation to judge this man, only God can do so, but it is to follow the rules and precepts laid out by our predecessors. Hideous or not, we have a duty to help these people."
"I am not sure that we are even bound to give sanctuary any longer. Even if we were, we have sheltered mostly kings, nobles and political refugees not murderous monsters like the man lying there. I am not even sure that he is human with a face like that." The priest replied.'
'The sister gave him a stern look, "He is a man, despite his looks. He is just as worthy of redemption as any other. You disappointed me earlier. You fled from him and would have denied him his last rites simply because his face is hideous to look at? Such behavior for a priest is unacceptable. We do not decide whether or not we can give the rites we just perform them without asking ourselves about whether those that we perform them on are worthy. They are a right for every man as long as they are wanted. That man was baptized into the Catholic Church, I was there when it was done, and witnessed it. He is one of our own flock then, even if he has lapsed in his observance of our faith.'
'We are supposed to set an example of goodness and righteousness for our flock, yet you did not. You have failed this man, and the test that you were given, for it was our creator who endowed him with such a face, and we of all people should not frown upon his creation even if he is hideous. I am confident that you will say nothing to anyone about that man's identity and what I have told you while performing the sacrament of confession. You would be endangering your own mortal soul if you did so."
"What do you mean?" asked the priest, "It was not the Phantom who confessed to me, it was you. I am under no obligation to him only you. The sacrament of confession does not protect him, only you."
She disagreed, "My confession protects him as well as me and you will not betray either of us. I have implicated my self in the crime of abetting the escape of a murderer, and possible kidnapper. That would expose me to punishment as well, possibly even exile or execution. Thus you cannot say anything for fear of violating your duty to keep confessions confidential. Both Church canon and the secular French law clearly grants us its protection, for if you turn him in you will not only be violating the sanctuary granted to him and his friends, but you will also be subjecting me to criminal prosecution as his accomplice. You cannot tell the gendarmes anything that I have confessed to you or else you will bring me down along with the man that I am helping here."
The priest gave her an angry look, "You would help that creature escape to commit more crimes? What of his future victims? I can waive my obligations, if he is a continuing danger to the state, and I believe that he is. If he is allowed to remain free he will likely kill again, which could be said to be an act of defiance of the state."
The nun replied sharply, "He is in no danger of bringing down the state and therefore my confession protects both of us. Besides I am of the belief that he will not kill again except in self-defense. I would bet my soul upon the fact that he will change his ways, and that you will never hear of any new crimes committed by him."
The priest looked at her sharply, "You would place your own immortal soul at risk by helping him to escape and possibly commit more criminal acts?"
The nun smiled, "I have done no such thing, I have only bet that he will never commit a crime again. Besides I have already been absolved and forgiven by God through you, for my continuing sin in helping him escape in the past, present and in the future. I am to chant five novenas on my rosary."
"You have obtained such forgiveness by tricking me. You did not confess the extent of your sins." The priest countered.
"Did I? I told you everything, each and every detail of who he was and his crimes. Are you saying that I have fooled God? For if I truly set out to do so could I really be capable of fooling him, or would he see through my efforts immediately and through you punish me further than he did for attempting to do so?" Mother Jeanne asked.
"You overreach yourself Mother Jeanne. I shall appeal this matter to Bishop Hugonin and await his decision, but I warn you that you better not engage in such a deceitful manner again or I shall have you defrocked and excommunicated for your acts that clearly constitute consorting with the devil. I fear for your soul."
"And I shall not waiver in my duty to give sanctuary to this man, unless I am directly ordered by the Holy Father in Rome to do so. I shall not fail this man again. I did so when he was a child, and I will not repeat that mistake."
The nun stared straight into Father Luc's eyes. "Did I ever tell you why my name is Jeanne, Father? My real name is Yvette de Chambeau. I come from a noble family from Orleans. When I was a novice, I almost was expelled, because I defended a fellow novice who had become pregnant. The Mother Superior wanted to throw her out onto the street; she had not bothered to ask why the girl was pregnant, but I knew she had been violated by a man while returning to the convent, and told no one about it but me at the time, she was so ashamed. I helped her out of her torn habit, and consoled her, promising to keep her secret forever, as she wanted. She had wanted to be a nun for her entire life, to her horror, several weeks later; she found that she was pregnant. I fought for her; I fought as hard as I could for her to be allowed to continue. She is now the Abbess of an Abby in Lorraine. She is venerated there for her work with the poor. She is known to be the champion of many women who might otherwise have no champion. Yet all of that might have been lost if I had not intervened," Mother Jeanne told him. "You will not win here Father. This man deserves our help."
"You have received my warning." The priest insisted unmoved by her story.'
'Later on, as I was still recovering, she repeated the conversation. I definitely still did not trust the priest. Neither did she, not completely, as she knew that he was displeased with what he viewed as her trickery. We both knew that it was a matter of time before either he, or someone else, might spill our secret and thus it was not practical for me to make a full recovery before she could send us on our way. Once I was strong enough to travel the Mother Jeanne, brought us each clerical robes to don. Your mother was dressed as a Carmelite nun, while Darius and I wore black Benedictine monk's robes with large hoods. I wore my hood over my head to obscure my masked face. Mother Jeanne rode with us all the way to Cherbourg, where it was explained that we were headed to Quebec to take up places in a Catholic Monastery outside of Montreal in the town of Oka. I will tell you that your mother looked quite beautiful as a nun, she even tempted me, a confirmed agnostic to join the Church just by looking at that beautiful face behind her Wimple. I know that I have told you that it is improper to look at a nun as a woman, but of course my saving grace was that your mother was no nun, merely an angel in human disguise as she always had been. Before we left the convent, I came to her at last. She was already dressed in her nun's habit; she looked more like an avenging angel than the sweet angel that I was accustomed to. She was very angry with me for 'deserting her'."
Christine added, "By then I was sure that he had deserted me, even Mother Jeanne's assurances that he would be back soon did not convince me otherwise. He had made no mention of leaving me here before we arrived, and I was under the impression that it was going to be a quick stop, but more than two weeks had passed since I had last seen him without a word."
Erik admitted, "I did not really pause to think that you might be upset at me. After all you had made it abundantly clear that you wanted nothing to do with me, and that you were coming with us on suffrage and not from your own true free will. I did not ever imagine that you would actually miss me."
Christine reflected, "Nor did I. I did not bother to think about why I was furious only that I was. In reality if you had left me there, just like that, and well, that did not seem right to me. You did not even bother to say goodbye. You just left me there in a convent full of nuns and the Persian was staying in town and would visit me every day. Still I did not know him before we started our journey and I could not believe that you would leave me in the company of strangers when I could have at least been with the Girys."
"I would never have left you like that either then or now. My love for you was always real. From the moment that I first noticed you as a woman and not a girl, I longed to make you want me and love me in the same way that I did you. Even though in my saner reflections I realized that my odds for winning your love were so low, still I had to hope. It was only when I lost hope that my sanity fled from me, ripping us even further apart. I never thought that what we had lost could be salvaged but no matter what I would never have let you down, you were mine to watch over. That very notion is what kept me alive when I almost died." Erik reminded her.
"Yes, I know that now, but back then I did not know you as well. I was afraid that you grew tired of my constant nagging. I had said so many unkind words to you although I did not want to admit that was one of my reasons why I was so sure. I never considered the truth to be even the slightest of possibilities since admittedly I thought of you as almost a supernatural being. Even after everything, even though I had seen you beg me to love you, and I had felt your lips upon mine and they felt more than a little bit real, I had felt your power over me and believed it to be too compelling to be emanating from a mere mortal man. On the surface I knew that you were just a man but my brain did not want to accept what my heart was telling me, that I was devastated by the mere thought that you might leave me, particularly without saying goodbye. I did not want to admit to myself why I felt that way. I suppressed every thought that it might be love before it could be allowed to surface and breach the wall that I had built to keep you out, but of course I now know what my emotions really were; my love for you was fighting to get out and reveal itself to me, but it was not what I thought that I wanted or needed."
"You were so mad at me, when I finally showed myself to you. I was still weak and needed more time to recover, but we had to flee. Mother Jeanne was getting more and more worried that we would be betrayed. I was at least ambulatory, and believed that I could hide my condition from you, as I had done before. I no longer had a fever, and my complexion regained what little color that it could, given my naturally pale skin. We were resolved to flee the next day, but I knew that I needed to talk to you first. Mother Jeanne had made it perfectly clear that you would have questions for me."
Christine nodded her agreement, "I did have many questions. She had told me what she knew about your childhood, and I did feel sorry for you. You had told me a little about yourself that night, but in anger and pain, you made no attempt to explain anything more in all of the time that we had been together, after that night."
Erik admitted, "I did not see the need to do so. As far as I knew you were decided against me anyways. I did not think that you would find anything to mitigate the crimes that you had believed that I committed as well as the crimes that I had actually committed. My impression was that no matter what I said that you would believe the worst of me. I knew in my heart that much of it was my own fault. I had hidden from you and deceived you for so long, and then acted as a madman in your presence and out of it. I suppose also that I did not want to be rejected by you yet again, especially after I told you everything. I did not want to become that madman again and let my bitterness at who I am, and the pain of your continued rejection of me, return me to that state."
"When you came into the room, to my shame, I did not even take the time to look at you. If I had I would have seen how tentative your steps were compared to your normal elegant gait. As always back then, your eyes were filled with a particular sort of wild un-satiated hunger and a look of sadness and hopelessness as well. Yet just for a moment I could see the look of tender adoration in them before you hid it under a mask of apparent indifference. The unmasked portion of your face, almost looked as white as the stark cold porcelain of your masked side. If I had touched it at the time, I am not so sure that I would have felt a difference. You seemed so cold and distant despite the look in your eyes. Of course I did not realize just how tired that you really were, and what vast efforts that you made for you to appear healthy. I was too caught up in my anger that I did not notice anything truly amiss about you," Christine mused.
"I don't remember thinking anything other than how beautiful that you truly were even when angry, and what a fool that I had been to believe that a demon like me could have a chance with an avenging angel. If I could have left you with someone that you preferred to me I would have done so. But I knew that I had to keep you safe, no matter what the cost was to me. I mistook your anger for your continued hostility to me. I sighed and braced myself for the questions that were sure to come." Erik remembered.
"And I had many but at that exact moment not one of them came to the surface. I was struggling to control my emotions. As always I was struck by your majesty. I had almost forgotten just how intimidating that you could be. Even in your weakness you exuded strength and I found myself to be muted by your height and mien. I wondered how I had dared to defy you before, when I was trembling in fear at your full height and powerful intense gaze. My words of anger fled, and I could think of nothing to say, and so I mumbled with much less fluidity than I would have wanted."
"Where did you go and why did you not say anything about leaving?" I remember asking.'
"I had to make some arrangements." You replied evasively. Your words only made me angrier. You were telling me nothing, my courage to defy you returned.'
"I am not a child anymore, yet you are treating me like one. You are telling me nothing. Why should I follow you half way around the world if you are constantly lying to me?" I challenged.'
'You looked at me wearily and responded, "Because I am the only person who can keep you safe. You are stuck with me until I can be assured of your safety?"
"For how long?" I asked, "Why should I trust you when you were the very person who Raoul was trying to protect me from, when you stalked me like prey, intimidated the people at the Opera House, made demands, kidnapped, stole and murdered people? You are asking me to trust you after you have done all of that," I accused.'
Your eyes flashed fire, "Because you have never been in any danger from me. I would do whatever it takes to protect you, make whatever precautions that I must do including murder, if that is what it takes to keep you safe; if that makes me a monster then so be it. I am a monster."
"Why did you kill Joseph Buquet and the others? Was it in self-defense?" I asked suddenly.'
You replied softly, "Would it matter to you if I did? You are convinced that I am a cold-blooded killer. What would it matter if I tried to tell you otherwise? It would not bring your boy back or any of the other dead. It would not bring my friend back either." You added, I could see that that last thought was still haunting you.'
"No it wouldn't, but it would make a great deal of difference to me. There is a vast difference between killing for the sport of it, or just because you did not get your way, and killing in self-defense. I have known you forever, yet in truth while you know everything about me I know next to nothing about you, yet you ask me to trust you?" I glared at you. Your eyes seemed pained but you answered me.
"What is it that you want to know Christine? Did I kill those men in self-defense, particularly Buquet? Yes you could say that. They were seeking to either kill me or bring me to justice for all my so-called crimes. Your fiancé made it extremely profitable for them to do so, should they have the opportunity to catch me."
"What do you mean?" I asked. It was the first that I had really heard of it. Looking back I had heard references to it by others, but I did not truly think about what I had heard. I could not believe that Raoul would go against my express wishes and go after you in such a way. Not after I explicitly told him that I did not want you harmed.
You answered bitterly, "Please Christine do not patronize me. The huge reward that you and your lover offered for me, dead or alive!" You exclaimed. "Don't tell me that you did not know about it. I am sure that your fiancé told you everything. He probably assured you that I would cease to be a problem soon", you added.'
"He did tell me that, but there could not have been such a reward. I did not want to see you harmed. He promised me that he would not do so. I only wanted freedom. I…" I told you.
"Freedom?" you repeated my words interrupting me. "A marriage to the Vicomte, as you desired, would have hardly been freedom. You would have exchanged one cage for another. He would have made you give up everything that you truly loved, music, beauty, art, and your lowborn friends. Your cage would have been beautiful but in the end you would have yearned to breathe free. I was offering you far more freedom than he was. I was yearning to set your magnificent instrument free and help it to soar to the heavens unbound. So who was really offering you freedom Christine? The Vicomte?" You then laughed bitterly.'
'I stared at you, not knowing what to say. I knew even then that you were right. I had already spent some time in Raoul's world and it had been stifling. It was also true that he would not have permitted me to sing anymore, it was, according to him, conduct unbecoming of a Vicomtesse, but I had ignored my trepidations and felt that a marriage to Raoul, and our love would be more than enough to compensate for the loss of those other things. But would it have been? I suddenly possessed doubts. I looked up at you and met your piercing gaze, you could see right into my soul, and I knew that at least in part you were right. I wanted to be more than a beautiful ornament for Raoul's arm. I needed more. I stared up at your commanding form and even with your hungry hawkish gaze, which, until then, I had always feared, you looked so handsome, so alluring. I had thought of you as hideous, I told myself that I had kissed you before out of pity but I could not lie to myself any longer, it was never pity. I suddenly remembered how much I enjoyed the feel of my lips on yours. I think that I would have kissed you had the door not opened and Mother Jeanne and Darius walked in and broke the spell.'
"We must leave tonight. I do not trust Father Luc completely. He has been asking me whether or not you are still here." Mother Jeanne explained to us in alarm.'
"You looked at me, in alarm and exclaimed, "We must go. We can continue this discussion at another time."