Chapter Eleven
I Find it Hard to Believe You Don't Know the Beauty You Are
"Erik? When I was sick, when Monsieur the Daroga was here, he said something strange."
Erik turned a frightful gaze upon her, his amber-flecked greenish eyes throwing dangerous sparks in the firelight.
Éponine steeled herself. She was hard to scare, and yet her heart pounded. "He said something about you keeping young girls here against their will?"
"You were very ill. You don't know what you heard."
"I know exactly what I heard."
"Ah, so you are inquisitive, are you? Oh, you're just like every other woman, always insisting on knowing everything."
"That's not fair." Éponine met his eyes with a dangerously wild expression of her own, her deep brown eyes absorbing all of the fire emanating from his. "I've never asked you any questions except when it concerns me. I mind my own business, don't I? But this worries me a lot. I don't know if I can trust you."
"Have I ever given you reason not to?"
"Why won't you just answer my question?"
"What question? I didn't hear a question." His voice was taunting, but his eyes were still frightful. "You just repeated what that booby said—or what you thought he said, in your delirium."
It really was amazing how childish he could be. Éponine frowned, and with her strong hand on the arm of her chair, pulled herself to her swaying feet. "Here are my questions: is it true? Do you bring lots of girls here? Do you keep them from leaving if they wish to? Are you dangerous? Can I trust you?"
Erik crossed his arms and glowered into the fire. "That booby doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Maybe not. Doesn't answer any of my questions, though."
"He was referring to a single incident which he persists in misunderstanding. Yes, Erik is exceedingly dangerous—but you're quite safe here, Éponine. I've been as gentle as a lamb to you, have I not?" He hurled these words at her in a way that was not entirely gentle, once again turning his frightful gaze on her.
Éponine took a step closer to him. "What single incident? An incident where you dragged some girl here and wouldn't let her leave?"
"No. No, it wasn't like that at all. It is an immense and tragic love story, Éponine." He looked somewhere past her, through her. "As tragic as your own, I think, so you ought to understand. Never mind, it's all over and done with, now."
Éponine took another step closer. "I told you mine. Can't you tell me?"
"Do you read the papers?"
Taken aback by this seemingly unrelated remark, Éponine shook her head. "Not really. I can read, but I don't bother with papers, mostly. Get my news from other sources."
"If you read the papers, you might have seen all of the to-do about the disappearance of Christine Daaé."
Éponine's posture and face softened. He said that name, Christine Daaé, in the same reverent tones with which she might once have said Marius Pontmercy. It restored some of her trust. He wouldn't hurt someone he spoke of like that—not on purpose. The Daroga must have been mistaken.
"The papers got it as wrong as the Daroga did. No one but Christine and myself understands the truth of those events."
"I'm listening." She sat back down in her chair.
"It began with her voice. She had such a pure, beautiful voice, enough to get her through the Conservatoire and begin her career here. But once here, she only ever found herself in small parts. And that is all she would have ever done, because she did not distinguish herself. Her heart was just not in it—she mourned her father, that was why. I was the one who moulded her voice into the triumph that it became. She needed my guidance in order to fully realise her potential. I began to give her lessons through the wall in her dressing room."
Éponine blinked. "Do I have this right—you were inside the wall of her room? She didn't see you?"
"Yes. I was afraid if I appeared to her in my mask and offered to teach her, she might reject me."
"But a voice from the walls? A man's voice? She didn't think that was strange?"
"No. In fact, when she first heard it, she seemed almost to be expecting it. The next day, she asked me whether I was the Angel of Music, which, she said, her father promised to send her. She was so overcome by emotion and this fragile delight over the idea that I—well, what could I do but go along with it? Was I to crush a cherished dream? So, I became the Angel of Music, and I taught her every day for some three months."
Trying not to sound too harsh in her disbelief, Éponine nonetheless said, "Are we talking about a child? How old was she?"
"What? No. Twenty. You must understand that Christine is a good, honest girl. Her heart wanted to believe."
"Maybe it's because I'm not a 'good, honest girl,' myself, but that doesn't make any sense to me." Besides that, she thought it was a bit sinister of Erik to take advantage of the girl's fanciful and silly ideas. But she didn't say so, because she knew it would make him angry, and then he might not finish his story.
Rather than respond to that comment, Erik went on. "During that time, she continued to sing her small parts and attracted no notice. We saved her debut for a gala performance which was to welcome the new management. I made sure that the prima donna, La Carlotta, was not available to sing, allowing Christine to sing in her place. And Christine sang to make the angels weep! She was the most magnificent Marguerite, surely, to ever grace any stage. Oh, Éponine, as you say you love music, I pity you that you did not hear it. She gave her very soul that night. She was a triumph." He closed his eyes briefly, as though listening to a music that only he could hear.
He continued: "No one could believe this magnificent treasure which had been hidden from them. Least of all could she comprehend it herself! Our lessons helped her release the beauty of her soul into her singing. It was I who helped her to do that. Do you know what one of the critics said, in the papers? That she must have finally fallen in love, in order to sing like that." He trembled. "Oh, I must have a glass of wine—will you have wine with me?"
Although a bit jarred by the abrupt shift, Éponine did want a glass of wine. He went over to a mahogany wine cabinet and opened it. He examined the bottles, humming a little, finally selecting one and bringing it out. He opened it with a corkscrew, poured two glasses, and handed one to Éponine. Éponine only had a brief moment to admire the heavy, ornate cut glass vessel which held her wine, before he had resumed his seat and his story, and her full attention was once again commanded, lest she miss a word.
"So you see? She must have loved me. She told me that she sang only for me. And as for myself, it was no longer enough to merely sing with her through the walls of her dressing room. I needed her here, with me. But when she came to me through the mirror of her dressing room, she was devastated. I had not realised—I didn't think how she would react. Finding that there was no angel, no 'Voice.' Only a man. Only Erik." He sighed.
"I don't see why that should be disappointing. You're not so bad." She smiled, only slightly teasing.
Erik sipped his wine from trembling hands. "I brought her here—to this very room—and I knelt at her feet and confessed my love for her. I begged her forgiveness for the deception. I know she would have gotten over her initial feelings as we spent more time with one another. I think that we might have been very happy—very happy indeed. Yes, we could have married and she would have had lots of fun with me. I would have amused her endlessly. I would have taken her out on Sundays. We would have lived on our music—such beautiful music as we would have made! She would have fallen so deeply in love with my voice that, in time, she wouldn't have cared what was behind my mask. Never mind." He gave a melancholy sigh.
Éponine studied his mask again, wondering what it could conceal. Not his identity, surely. So, then what?
Erik continued: "That booby was very concerned that I was keeping her here against her will. Well, I proved that he was wrong! I let her come and go as she pleased, and she left and returned to me more than once. He saw it with his own eyes. She came back to her poor Erik, her teacher, her angel. She must have loved me, just a little. I know she did. Yes. We could have been very happy together. But there was someone in our way."
Éponine felt a twinge, for she knew exactly how that felt. She downed the rest of her wine.
"That is extremely nice wine, not for gulping and guzzling!" Erik pouted, snatching her empty glass from her unworthy hands. "As I was saying, there was someone in our way. A little milksop of a vicomte, with a ridiculous little moustache."
Éponine could not hold back a laugh.
"He looked like a proper baby, who ought never to be left alone to roam the Opera and fall in love with sopranos. He ought to have had a nurse trailing behind him. In any case, she loved that little chap with her whole heart. They planned to run away together, and leave poor Erik behind to die of his loneliness."
She felt that tangible current of understanding between them again. She knew the love, the jealousy, the obsession, the self-loathing soothed and masked by hating the object of that one's affection. She knew all of these emotions. For such a long time, they had been her most intimate friends.
"Begging your pardon," Erik continued, "I should like to skip to the end of the story. I did the right thing. I let them go. I told her that I knew she loved the boy very much, and they were free to go and be happy together. I released them, and made them a wedding present of a gold ring. They have gone away, now, to some lonely spot where they can hide their happiness from the world. Someplace where the press cannot speculate on the Opera singer who managed to ensnare a vicomte into matrimony—for that is how they would have seen it. Though, in truth, there is no one on this earth who can be worthy of Christine, least of all myself, this poor dog who lay at her feet, ready to die for her. But, as she loved that little chap of hers, I hope he will do his best. And I think they are very happy together. And before she left, she let me kiss her, and she kissed me! She kissed Erik's unhappy forehead, which had never felt a kiss before. She let her tears flow and mingle with mine. You cannot know, Éponine, how good it felt... No, never mind—of all the people, perhaps you can know."
She nodded, thinking of how good it had felt to be cradled in Marius's arms. And he promised he would kiss her on the forehead when she died. She didn't know if he kept that promise, but the knowledge that it would happen had given her a moment of sublime happiness just before death, which had somewhat soothed the agonising pain, and even assuaged the agony that had been her life. Bathing the end of her life—at least, what she thought was to be the end—with a tinge of sweetness.
She did not fail to note that Erik had skipped to the end of the story, where, as he said, he had done the right thing. Éponine knew that meant he must have done the wrong thing in the middle, perhaps in a jealous attempt to keep Christine from her beloved vicomte. Éponine did not ask him to elaborate on that, as that was another thing she understood. After all, when she had told her own immense and tragic love story, had she not left out the part where it was all her doing that Marius was at the barricade in the first place? Didn't everyone do bad things sometimes, when they were in love? And wasn't the ending of the story all that mattered? Éponine, taking a musket ball meant for Marius and pressing Cosette's letter into his hand. Erik, letting Christine go free to marry the 'little chap' she loved so much.
Erik continued: "No one had ever kissed me before, nor let me kiss them. Not even my poor unhappy mother."
"Why not?" Éponine could not restrain the question. It wasn't her business, really, but it made little sense to her. That a parent should have no affection for their offspring—that made perfect sense to a Thénardier girl. Any affection she got from her parents—especially as the years wore on—was sporadic and contingent. And her mother had certainly had no love to spare for her poor little brothers. She had always hated boys. Even still, other people did. The two little ones were well-looked-after by Magnon, as far as Éponine knew. And Gavroche had many friends who were fonder of him than family could have been. The idea that nobody would ever have showed an ounce of affection toward Erik was hard for her to understand.
"Remember that I told you never to speak of ugliness, Éponine? You are a very beautiful girl—no, you are, and you ought to know it and believe it. I do not say that to be kind. You are beautiful, Éponine. You cannot possibly understand ugliness. Such ugliness that makes a child repulsive to his own mother. Ugliness that made me impossible for anyone to love. Ugliness has denied me all love, all joy, the very light of day. It has condemned me to an existence of wallowing in darkness and blood. You have not asked why I wear a mask, but I tell you now: the face it conceals is too horrible and hideous for human eyes to contemplate. My poor unhappy mother made me a present of my first mask so that she wouldn't have to look at me. And when Christine insisted upon sneaking up behind me like a viper and tearing my mask away, she ruined everything. We would never be happy after that. She could never learn to forget my face and the horror it inspired in her. The softest emotion she could feel toward me after that was only pity. She pitied her poor Erik, but she could never love him."
Perhaps Éponine was simply emboldened by the wine, or by the fact that he had once again called her beautiful. At any rate, she staggered to her feet. "It can't be as bad as all that. Let me see."
