CHAPTER THREE

(in which our heroine pays a visit to Perros-Guirec)

I arrived in Perros a day before Raoul, determined to make my choice. I knelt on the cold stone floor before the Virgin in the church where my father was buried, and prayed for the courage to dismiss Raoul de Chagny and with him all my childish dreams of romance and love, and instead devote my whole heart to the Angel of Music and the worldly success that would surely follow. Then I prayed, with tears on my face, that if this desire for love could not be wrenched from my heart, that the darker desires that filled me -- for success, for admiration, most of all for the Angel Himself, a desire strong as Eve's -- should be burned from my soul so that I might allow myself to accept love and marriage like any other woman.

Perhaps, had Raoul arrived in time and said the correct things -- reminded me of our childhood together, under the loving eye of the man he mourned, too, and offered me not merely his heart but his name -- he might have swept me off my feet, and I might have succeeded in locking away those half-named desires for something more. But he did not. He came the morning after the Dream.

"Christine."

She opened her eyes to darkness. For a moment she strained to pierce the shadows, then relaxed once more into the undemanding warmth of this midnight world. "Who are you?" she whispered back, allowing her eyes to drift half-closed again.

"An admirer."

The voice tugged at her memory, discordant against the black velvet of those words. She frowned and opened her eyes again, drowning the nagging feeling in the reassuring darkness. "Do I know you?" she asked at last, when the quiet began to wake her.

Soft laughter drifted around her for a moment. "I watched you from afar for longer than you could know." A sound from off to her left, as though the unseen speaker moved slightly. "Oh, Christine…if you knew the truth, you would have fled me long ago."

Why would I flee from you? You're my --

Don't be a fool. Angels can fall, remember the stories the priest used to tell.

Christine licked her lips. "What harm could you do me?" Her voice sounded lower than usual, rough in her throat.

Silence fell for a moment. "All the harm in the world," the other said at last, voice husky. "Do you not know your own power? Have you no idea how much I desired you as I stood and watched?"

Fallen, fallen…even an angel may be tempted. She'd tried to tempt him; surely none could blame him. "I…think I understand," she offered.

She heard a hiss of indrawn breath. "Do you, child?" A whisper of air caressed her shoulder -- dear heaven, she wasn't dressed -- as if someone in the darkness had moved closer. "I am lost before you. I have only to see you, standing in your chemise, and I want you. Your lips lure me until I can scarcely restrain myself from taking your wrists, pulling you to me and kissing you until your lips ache."

Christine looked up, feeling heat rush to her cheeks, hearing again a rustle as though he moved still closer, circling her.

"That would be only the beginning. I would tug your chemise from your shoulders, and follow it as it fell with my mouth…" The voice paused, and Christine could hear a long, shuddering breath. "If you knew how often I dreamed of touching you, of tasting you until you cried out my name…"

She could feel the heat of his body now, just behind her, as he breathed the words into her ear. She closed her eyes, not daring to look back.

"That I wanted more than anything, my love. Did you never think on it? Never imagine me with you, lost in blessed oblivion?"

The voice fell silent for a moment, as if awaiting an answer, but Christine could not find her breath, not even to whisper the yes that sat on her tongue. At last he sighed. "Then it cannot be. Fare thee well, Christine Daae. Dream of me."

My Angel in truth, descended from heaven? Some ghost that haunted the inn? A mortal man who had somehow followed me to Perros and slipped into my room? Or simply a dream, the product of my overwrought imagination? I wanted it to be anything but the last. When I woke in the morning, I remembered that voice of the night with a guilty pleasure which rapidly turned to shame -- and fear. I could not, I must not allow myself to think of such things. It would resolve nothing.

In this frame of mind, I greeted Raoul's arrival the following afternoon with giddy relief, hoping to forget my troubles for a little while.

"Raoul!" Christine swallowed a smile when she recognized the man standing by the fire in the Setting Sun's common room -- he would not understand the reason. "I had a feeling I would find you here when I returned from Mass." She didn't quite swallow her laugh as she remembered the 'feeling' in question, and went over to stand by the fire with him, hoping he hadn't noticed. "Someone told me so, in church."

"Who told you so?" Raoul asked, catching up her right hand in his and looking at her…well, Christine supposed he was trying to look lover-like. His hat had fallen sadly askew, however, making his hair fall into his eyes, such that he looked more like a puppy than ever. She pushed the irreverent thought away, and defiantly left her hand in his.

"My father," she said, as much to the fire as to Raoul. "My poor dead father." Remember that, Monsieur Angel who presumes to visit me in improper dreams, she thought fiercely. My father approved of Raoul de Chagny! Except for the minor matter that her father hadn't told her anything in church. Not unless her father had taken to impersonating the wife of the station-master, with her abysmal taste in gowns and worse taste in bonnets, who'd patted her on the hand and assured her in a voice that carried to whomever cared to listen that the diligence from Lannion would arrive shortly after mid-day, and certainly her young man would be on it.

Raoul leaned forward, thankfully unaware of Christine's thoughts. "Did your father also tell you that I love you, Christine, and that I can't live without you?"

These were strong words, if he truly meant them -- certainly more than she had expected, despite all his courtly behavior back in Paris. "You love me?" Christine blurted, feeling herself blush, then shook her head. "Don't be silly, Monsieur de Chagny." She forced a laugh this time, and turned away from him toward the unfortunately empty room. If only it were a little later: Raoul would never dare force the issue in front of an audience. What was he thinking?

"Don't laugh, Christine. This is serious."

"Raoul, I didn't write…I didn't ask you to come here to swear eternal love." She wanted no one's eternal love, Christine thought crossly. The music came first, at least for now.

"You made me come here." Raoul still hadn't let go of her hand, and his voice, though gentle, was too intense for Christine's liking. "You knew your letter wouldn't let me rest, knew I'd follow you to Perros as quickly as I could. How could you know that without knowing I love you?"

Christine shook her head, trying to find words. "I thought…" She hadn't thought, that was the problem. Of course Raoul would follow, and they would be able to talk as freely as if they were still the children they had once been. "I thought…you'd remember the way things used to be," she said. "Oh, I'm not certain what I thought! I shouldn't have written at all. You reminded me of my childhood, and I wrote you as if I were still a child, who wanted her friend with her when she was sad and lonely."

Raoul met her eyes for a long moment, then let go of her hand abruptly and began pacing around the room. Christine folded her hands behind her and remained still, trying to enjoy the warmth of the fire as well as she might in such disturbance of spirit. Before she could begin to calm herself, Raoul turned on his heel and looked at her, face-on. "Perhaps you should have asked the other man, then, if you wanted a companion?"

"Another man?" As if she had some other suitor? "What are you saying? What other man are you talking about?"

"The man to whom you spoke in your dressing room after the gala," Raoul said sternly, folding his arms over his chest. "The one to whom you said, 'I sing for you alone.' The one to whom you gave your soul, and exhausted yourself!"

Christine's head spun. She felt blindly behind herself for the mantel of the fireplace, and gripped its edge tightly. It felt cool and solid under her hand, biting into her palm when she pressed too firmly. She did not dream, then. "You listened at my door?" she asked, surprised at how even her voice sounded.

"I love you," Raoul said, apropos of nothing. "I heard everything."

For a moment, Christine felt a rush of burning indignation -- what sort of man eavesdropped at a dressing room door? -- but no, there were greater matters at hand than a mere question of impoliteness. She let go of the mantel and stepped forward, closing the distance between herself and Raoul. "What did you hear?"

Raoul frowned at her, brow wrinkled in an odd combination of anger and confusion. He let his arms fall to his sides again. "Mademoiselle Daae -- Christine, are you well? You look --"

"Please, Raoul, tell me what you heard!"

He hesitated for a moment, then said in a rush, "He said 'You must love me.' You told him your soul had been in his keeping since the beginning, and he thanked you, he said 'no emperor has had so rare a gift. The angels wept tonight, Christine.'" His fists clenched, then relaxed again; his eyes stabbed at her. "You left a minute or two later."

No. Oh, no. Christine nodded once, to show that she had heard, but words were beyond her. She turned and fled upstairs to her room.

Of course Raoul did not understand. He believed himself very sensitive, but in the end, he was but a boy, and knew very little of the world. He thought I was upset because he'd discovered my lover. In truth, I was upset he had discovered my Angel.

I had told Mme. Valerius of my Angel, swearing her to secrecy -- but though she believed me implicitly, she never came to the Opera with me, and certainly not to my dressing room. I had always been alone there, except for my dresser, who perhaps noticed my eccentric behavior, but showed no sign of observing anything else out of the common way. There had never been any other listening when I spoke with my Angel.

Nonetheless, Daddy had said the Angel came to one person, and one alone. I had thought this meant no one else could hear those heavenly tones. Yet Raoul had heard my Angel speaking, had repeated the exact words (though he had not, thank God, heard the seductive whisper of warning that had finally sent me on my way -- that would have sealed me in his mind as lost to all goodness, and I shudder to think what rashness he might have attempted).

There was a note wrong somewhere in this song, but I could not yet name it. I dared not ask Raoul's help -- after all, I had gone to Perros to find the courage to send him away. But I nonetheless sought out Raoul that evening to at least tell him the truth of what he had heard.

"Are you waiting for the goblins to come out, as they used to when we were children?"

Raoul rose to his feet instantly at the sound of her voice. He'd been seated on the ground at the edge of the graveyard, staring out over the moorland that extended far out beyond the graves. "Christine --"

She raised one hand, and he stopped short. "Listen to me, Raoul," she said, keeping her voice as steady and quiet as she could. "I must tell you…" The Angel of Music. Oh, but how to tell him? "Do you remember the story of the Angel of Music?"

Raoul laughed, his stance relaxing -- he'd been standing at attention like a soldier on parade. "How could I not! You used to demand it from your father every day." He smiled indulgently down at her. "And then he'd promise a personal visit from the Angel once he was dead."

"Yes, he did," Christine agreed, taking a deep breath to steady herself. Why did she feel as if she were betraying a sacred trust? Surely her old friend deserved this much kindness. "Well, my father is in heaven, and I have been visited by the Angel of Music."

"I'm sure you have," Raoul said promptly.

Christine walked closer, trying to read his expression in the darkening twilight. He'd always laughed gently at her belief in those old stories. "Are you certain you understand me?"

"It's not difficult to understand, Christine." Raoul sounded superior, even patronizing. "Only a miracle could have let you sing as beautifully as you did the other night. You've heard the Angel of Music."

How very unflattering. Had Raoul thought her voice so thin, so unworthy of praise, even when she was young and full of hope? No, stop, she was not here to ask such questions. She had not finished telling him what she had come to say. "In my dressing room," she said. "He comes every day to give me lessons."

That shattered his complacent look. Raoul stared at her as though she'd lost her mind and hunted it among the leaves at her feet. "In your dressing room?" he echoed blankly.

"Yes. I've heard Him there…" another deep breath - only a few more words! "…and I'm not the only one."

Raoul's eyes narrowed. "Who else has heard this Angel?"

"You."

"I?" Raoul laughed, shortly, 'ha-ha.' "Christine --"

"He was the one speaking with me while you eavesdropped," Christine said steadily. "He told me the angels wept. I thought none but I could heard him."

Raoul laughed again, genuine laughter.

It stung worse than his anger. "Why are you laughing?" Christine demanded, losing her hold on her temper. "Didn't you hear a man's voice?"

"Well…yes, I did," Raoul said, his voice faltering. The moon had begun to rise, enough for Christine to see his expression more clearly: unfortunately, he only looked confused. "But…"

"But what? You knew me in childhood, and I have not changed so greatly in the years since we knew each other. I am an honorable woman, Monsieur Vicomte de Chagny, and I don't shut myself up in my dressing room with strange men. If you had opened the door, you'd have seen no one there except for me -- despite your laughter!"

"I know," Raoul said. "I looked after you left."

"And?" Christine could hear the thought waiting.

Raoul looked out at the graveyard for a moment, then back at her. No puzzlement, nor amusement: his face looked perfectly clear and serious. "I think someone is playing a joke on you."

A joke?

Christine did not run this time. She turned on her heel and walked away, without looking back.

The Angel was no joke -- even to Raoul, I believe, the difference in my voice and indeed in my very being was too striking to be the result of some idle game. Yet this much truth pierced my heart as I walked away from Raoul: if he, who did not even believe in the Angel of Music, could hear the Angel, what did that mean? For the first time, the notion that my Angel was not, in fact, an angel, but a mortal man, crossed my mind as more than a momentary yearning. I thrust it away. It could not, must not, be true.

So I went to my midnight appointment, heart heavy with a confusion of guilt and fear. Only be faithful to Me, the Angel had said, and I was far from certain I had lived up to those standards. But nonetheless, I found my father's tomb in the church graveyard, and there hesitated for a moment, feeling terribly unsure of myself and what I should do next.

Then the violin began, and that heavenly music drove out all my lurking doubts and sent me soaring among the clouds to sit on the moon and laugh at the stars. I no longer felt the chill on the night wind through my thin cloak, or the damp cold of the graveyard grass on my bare feet: there was no more sickly-sweet smell of the old flowers lying on the next grave over, or dull clouded darkness of the night sky overhead. There was only the brilliance of music, warming me as nothing else could do.

When at last it ended, I turned and left the graveyard still wrapped in its spell.