Chapter Three
No Patience for Poetry, but Sympathy for Pain
A/N: Content warning for slight mentions of suicidal themes
"Underneath the Opera House?" She knew of people who lurked in sewers and slept under bridges, but she hadn't heard anything about the Opera House, really. "There's a lake underneath the Opera House? Underground? Can I see the lake?"
She could feel the darkness of his frown. "You must never see the exterior of Erik's house on the lake. You must know as little as possible of it, for soon you will recover, and then you must leave and never return. You must forget poor Erik."
Éponine shrugged her shoulders, then winced, because the motion caused her pain. She felt at her bandages again, and blushed as it dawned on her that this man had undressed her, bandaged her wounds, and dressed her in this nightgown. She didn't like that, especially since he was comfortably hiding his very face behind a mask. But she didn't want to think about that anymore.
He had spoken of her recovery, and she did not feel dead, but the strangeness of all this made it worth asking. "I...I am alive, aren't I, Monsieur?"
"Yes, alive. Wounded to the edge of death and yet more alive than anything else in my house on the lake. That is why you must leave it and never return. This is a place for death, Éponine. Live beings cannot stay here."
She knew these dramatic types. Like Monsieur Marius, or those passionate young gentlemen at the barricade. She found it charming then, but something about nearly dying caused her to lose her patience for poetry. "You aren't dead. I don't believe in ghosts."
"I have lived the life of a ghost despite being flesh and blood. Never mind, I am dying and will soon be dead."
"Are you ill?"
"I am dying...of love."
"Oh." She had no patience for poetry, but she had never been able to harden herself sufficiently to ignore someone who was sad. It was something that made her vulnerable, but she could not change it. She weakly held out her hand, and after a moment's hesitation, he took it.
"I wanted to die, you know. Lots of times. But the water was always too cold. I don't like cold water. We used to live under the arches of bridges and the water was so sad. Still, I thought I might get over that one day, since I wanted to die so much, so I'd go and stand at the edge of the Seine very often and imagine what it would be like to never hurt or be hungry or frightened again. Not eating does strange things to your head, though. Sometimes I go out at night and wander around, and the stars start to look too bright to me—do you know? And then the wind comes up and snuffs them right out. It's the clouds, they look like smoke. And all of a sudden it makes me shiver—you know, like a horse breathing in my ears. And, oh, I don't know. It sounds a bit mad, but I think I hear Barbary organs and the mills going, 'cept it's night time. Everything just starts spinning and whirling, and it feels like I can't take it anymore. I stand on the edge of the Seine and I feel like I might just fall off even if I don't mean to, because everything is spinning so much. But...then sometimes I find something to eat, and I feel a little better. When you don't eat, you feel funny, you know?"
She paused for breath, and looked up to see him staring at her with an expression she could not read. She blushed. He must think she was mad. She laughed it off and shook her head. "What I mean is, have you eaten lately, Monsieur?"
He seemed taken aback. "No."
Éponine struggled to sit up further. "Not eating? When you have the money to do it? You should go and eat, Monsieur. You don't look well. You look very thin."
"Are you hungry?"
She nodded.
"Wait here. I'll go and get you something to eat."
"And yourself, Monsieur? If you don't, I won't eat either." She thought that probably wasn't true. She was so hungry she would not be able to resist the food only to help a sad, dramatic man in a mask. But he seemed to believe her.
"Yes, we will eat together."
—●—●—●—●—
When he returned, they shared a simple meal, during which they talked very little. Much as she thought she was hungry, Éponine found she was not able to eat much. She was still too weak.
As soon as a few minutes had passed during which Éponine took no more food, Erik stood from the chair he had pulled to her bedside and started to clear away the tray.
"Did you eat enough, Monsieur?" She did not want him to stop on her account.
"Yes," he said, somewhat impatiently, taking up the tray and turning to leave.
"And do you feel better now?"
He turned back toward her and hesitated for a long moment, contemplating her from behind his mask. Then he sighed deeply. "My wounds cannot be healed with food, Mademoiselle Éponine."
She rolled her eyes. "Of course not, but if you ain't hungry anymore, things must be a little better, right?"
He let out his breath in a way Éponine would have sworn was a sort of laugh. "Goodnight. I shall return to check on you in the morning."
Éponine frowned. She had a lot of questions she still wanted to ask, but she supposed she was tired, and her questions weren't anything that couldn't wait. "See you in the morning, Monsieur Erik."
—●—●—●—●—
Éponine was awakened from a sound sleep by the sound of an organ playing. It was mournful tune that sounded like one unbroken sob. It brought tears to her eyes, and she wasn't able to stop them. The sound brought her back to that afternoon when she had come to give Marius the news of where he could find his beautiful young lady. Well, she was hoping she wouldn't have to give it to him. She was hoping somehow he would be so happy to see her, and her alone, and he would have forgotten the daughter of the rich old man. She had been looking for him for six weeks, ever since she got out of jail, and she'd finally found him, sitting there and looking sad. She had tried, first, to be chatty with him, but he barely responded to anything she said. Then she'd offered to mend his shirt, and he continued to all but ignore her.
And finally, she opened her mouth and let him confirm her worst fear: "You don't seem happy to see me?" And he had said nothing, not one word. In that moment it was clear to her that there was only one way that she—poor, wretched, recently-jailed little Éponine—would ever make him happy. And that would be by showing him where he could find his beautiful young lady.
That pain, that love, that jealousy, that grief of what could never be. To be loathsome and unloved and unwanted by the very one you so worshipped and loved and wanted! To be regarded with a thin layer of pity that did nothing to mask the underlying revulsion. All of that was in the sobbing notes of the organ, and Éponine pulled the quilt over her head in an attempt to shut it out. And yet, even if the sound had not been all-penetrating, it was too late. The music which spoke to her soul was echoing between her ears, and she cried until she must have eventually drifted back off into sleep.
