Chapter Thirty-Two

Ardour Troubles the Entire Being, and New Management Weighs On the Mind


"Can you play me something at the piano? And sing?" She only asked because she needed him to stop looking at her with that mixture of hope and awe that was so frightening to her. He had been looking at her that way all through breakfast.

"What shall I play?"

"You don't know the same songs as me." A rueful smile. "Unless you're fond of drinking songs or music-hall tunes."

He pulled a face.

Her little laugh was almost bitter. "I thought not. But I'll like whatever you play."

He went over to the piano and sat a moment, his fingers dancing thoughtfully over the keys. Then, he began to play. His voice joined the piano.

L'amour! L'amour!

Why must he sing of love right now? There was a dreadful weight in the pit of her stomach, even as her heart expanded in her chest, and it was too much.

Oui, son ardeur a troublé tout mon être!

It was troubling indeed, the way that he had been looking at her, which was why she sought to distract him by having him play. He looked at her, and suddenly she had more power than she had ever held in her entire life. But what a terrifying, confusing, awful and sublime power it was. She did not want to end by hurting him somehow. Erik was so desperate for love. His heart was still crying out with the anguished desperation of the newly born, yearning for warmth. A kiss. A touch. It was a very different kind of destitution than that which she had known, and a loneliness that exceeded even her own. She could not fathom it and did not wish to contemplate it. And it put her in a position where she had a power over him that she did not ask for, and did not want to wield, and had no ability to relinquish.

Mais quelle soudaine clarté
Resplendit à cette fenêtre!
C'est là que dans la nuit rayonne sa beauté!

Éponine recognised the song now. It was from the opera they had seen: Roméo et Juliette. She smiled. They did know a few of the same songs now, after all.

And then, after a short interlude of the piano:

Ah! lève-toi, soleil! fais pâlir les étoiles,
Qui, dans l'azur sans voiles,
Brillent aux firmament.
Ah! lève-toi! parais!

And once again, she thought it was such a pity that all of Paris would never hear him sing. The man who had sang Roméo on the stage had sounded very good, but Erik's voice was hardly human. How could it start out so soft and delicate and then swell to such power? On the word, "parais!" he sang in a way that pushed into her stomach like a punch, causing her to suck in her breath as her entire body tensed exquisitely at that voice which enveloped everything.

And then he sang the same word a second time, and this time it was so soft, and she relaxed, and that tightness in her stomach went away, and she felt as though she were lying on that soft feather bed in the other room. How? How could someone's voice evoke such visceral sensations?

Astre pur et charmant!

Erik deserved no less than a pure and charming star, who would be worthy of his genius. And what was she? She was a small, dirty scrap of cloth. Coarsely woven to begin with, now soiled and tattered with use.

He continued to sing. He was so very brilliant, exalted, glorious. He had a heart and a voice and a mind that seemed too much for the world to contain. In fact, probably, the entire world could be contained in him. And yet, here he was. Alone, underground. Because he was also the lost, macerated, desolate infant who needed. He needed so, so much. She would never be enough. She could never be for him what he wanted, what he needed. There was precious little of her to give. He had her love already, whether he knew it or not. She could love him constantly, but that was all.

He finished. The music stopped. Éponine felt profoundly hollow. There were tears in her eyes, which she rubbed quickly away. None of that. It wouldn't do.

In a forcedly-cheerful voice she said, "Oh! What do you know? A song that we both of us know after all!"

"Yes, a very charming little aria," he said dismissively. "I chose it because you would know it, but it is hardly appropriate."

She tilted her head.

"I don't care much for the sun. I always found it rather garish."

It was such an unexpected thing to say, and it made her laugh. And because she was so relieved he was talking about something else other than those overwhelming feelings, and because she also agreed with him, her words started tumbling out like an unstoppable fountain. "I always liked the nighttime best. When everything is quiet and I can just walk by myself, like one of the shadows. No one can bother you or give you any trouble, if they can't see you. And then, Paris is so much prettier at night, don't you think? It can be so ugly during the day. But at night it's almost like it's out of a fairy story sometimes. Especially when it's been raining and the roads are all silvery and shimmering, and the stars are shining as though they've been caught in the trees and are trying to get away! I think...I think the moon is so much kinder than the sun."

She paused for breath and noticed the way Erik was looking at her, and it made her heart sink again.

He stepped nearer to her, reaching out his hand and very lightly brushing some of her hair back from her face. She had gone to bed with it down, and it must be a frightful mess of waves and frizz right now. His hand shook slightly, hardly making contact. Softly: "You are nothing like the sun. Nor the moon, either."

He said it in the tone of a compliment, but she had no idea what he meant. And before he could go on, she cleared her throat and asked him what they were going to do that day.

"Well, you will need to rest, of course. And I have a matter requiring my attention."

He was probably right that she needed rest, but she was beginning to find resting incredibly boring. "What sort of a matter?"

Erik studied her for a moment. Then, seemingly deciding to take her into his confidence, he went and took his chair by the fireplace, indicating that she should take hers as well. "New management. Again." He gave a weary sigh. "One simply cannot find competent management these days. It seems that no sooner have I succeeded in helping them understand their obligations than they suddenly decide to retire! I would give anything to have Poligny back. He understood quite well. I'm really not unreasonable, you know. I make every effort to be civil." He gave a despairing gesture.

Éponine could only smile sympathetically. She didn't know anything about this sort of business, so she couldn't do much but listen.

"It is rather unfortunate—I hear that Richard has suffered some sort of apoplexy. He's partially paralysed now. Well, if it was all of the stress and unpleasantness that did it, it is not as though I did not warn them. Things might have gone much more smoothly had they listened to me. As for Moncharmin, he is apparently no longer himself, and said he wishes to retire to the countryside for a while. You know, in the opinion of the police, they had both gone quite mad." He laughed somewhat grimly.

"I suppose it puts a lot of stress on a person, having to run such a big building."

Erik waved a hand dismissively. "Well, in my opinion, they were mad from the beginning. Firstly, they had absolutely no taste, which wouldn't necessarily be held against the managers of an Opera House if they would take the advice of those who do—myself, for instance. Beyond that, they insisted on trifling with me in an absolutely outrageous manner."

"What did they do?"

"Oh, it seemed a sport for them to disobey the terms of my memorandum book! Selling my box, refusing to pay my salary. Doing the very opposite of express instructions."

"Couldn't you dismiss them at once for something like that?"

Erik merely told her that it was not that simple. All Éponine knew was that back in the good days of the inn, they'd had servants. They had a cook, and there were a series of maids before Maman decided the Lark could do all the work. It was a little unimaginable that anyone would ever have been so insolent as to go contrary to instructions like that, but if they had, surely Maman would have dismissed them on the spot. But, of course, this was a vast Opera House, not a small country inn. She had no idea how a business such as this operated, and it probably was not that simple, after all.

"At any rate, we have the new managers coming in now. A new pair of names I shall have to keep straight, letters to write, all the attending annoyances if they decide to be defiant when it comes to their obligations..." He rubbed his brow wearily as though he had a headache.

Éponine did not like to see him look so careworn and harried. "Is there anything I can do? I can be very useful, you know."

"No cause for you to concern yourself with these matters. You need to rest."

"I'm not used to resting, and I'm growing tired of it," she said with a little laugh. "Are you sure there isn't anything I can do?"

He stood up, patting her on the shoulder as he walked past her. "You've done plenty, listening to me ramble on like this. At any rate, I have a meeting to listen in on this morning, and I won't know any more until then."


A/N: Oh, Erik. I might have an inkling as to why managers can't seem to last long before they decide to quit...