I rowed Nadir across the lake.
When I returned, I stood in front of her bedroom door, starring at the doorknob with all the unwillingness to turn it as if it had been made of hot coal. Yes, I was afraid of resolute woman behind this door who instead of running away for Raoul, stayed behind for Erik. I was afraid of the new Christine who dared to make a choice.
I clenched and unclenched my hands. I reached for the door, and then withdrew. Again and again I make the gesture to grasp onto the copper before stopping an inch short of the metal and brushing the air around it. Two magnets repelling, refusing to collide. Finally, it was she who turned the key; the door slowly opened, and she stood before me in her wedding dress, calmly looking up into my face as I stood rigidly without response.
Her hands crept from her stomach to my lapel, and then slowly she traced the line of my bandaged arm with her fingertips. She took a step forward, lifted herself up on her tip toes, and pressed her little lips to my wounded shoulder.
"Poor, unhappy Erik," She said.
I was ready to faint, but my feet held me tenaciously on the ground. Still, I swayed at the pressure of her mouth, and I closed my eyes, allowing the tears which clouded my vision to flow from the corners of my lids down past the wretched wrinkles of my flesh.
To be kissed on the shoulder by Christine Daae—I could not have asked for more blessed happiness.
I turned from her and made my way across the room as steadily as possible. I had to walk very slowly you see, for even as I walked I felt as if my feet might have been carried through thin air!
"You must go, my dear," I said as I crossed my arms beneath my cloak and began twisting the material of my sleeves with my hands. "I shan't keep you here any longer."
I spread my quivering hands across the mantelpiece above the fireplace and sighed as I bowed my head. "You may go as you please. The Vicomte is waiting for you at his house—I don't know what he'll do if you do not return. I daresay the poor young lad might search forever, and the inconsequence will drive him mad!"
My back stiffened as I felt her approaching, her skirts shuffling around her making the most unbearable noise! Then her hands were upon me, and her arms were around my waist, and as she squeezed me tightly in her embrace, she pressed her cheek against my back.
"Do you want me to leave?"
"No," I replied, shortly, with clipped gasps. "I don't want you to go. I never want you to leave me, Christine. You are mine, always, but I shall never have you. I haven't been kind, and I can't keep you here forever in the dark."
Her hands clasped tightly onto my body as if she did not hear me, and then turning around to face her I pulled them forcefully from me, but I could not let go of her arms. I let my skeleton hands slipped down to her wrists and turned her palms up towards me. Pressing my lips into each hand, I prayed that she would understand my plead forgiveness. How terrible had I been to these hands, and these poor poor bandaged little fingers…
At last, still gasping, I pulled away from her with a gesture of surrender—
"Go now. Take the boat…I won't need it, my dear."
"But Erik—"
"Please, do as I say!" When she protested again, I yelled in pain, "Haven't you had enough? Remember the coffin, Christine—I know you do not wish to meet with it again, and if you ever yearn to come back here, think of the coffin. Go, take the boat now, and hurry!"
Just then the electric bell rang and it took me a second to collect that someone was in the torture chamber. Or perhaps it was more than just some one.
"What have we here?" I said, looking up with stunned curiosity as I listened to the voices within. Nadir, at first, and then a younger voice, faintly familiarly valiant voice—why, Raoul!
"What fools," I muttered, and turned to Christine, who I expected to be alarmed and frightened at voices from the torture chamber. But she did not move. In fact, it seemed as though she had heard nothing at all. She simply stared at me if she had been concentrating on an act of conviction for a very long time. She sucked in a small breath of air and walked towards me, one foot melodiously placed before the other until at last she was as a living bride would be, standing before me with her arms extended out to me, like a wife, begging for her husband's embrace.
"Christine," I said with command, as if prying her awake from a dream, but she drew in a breath and lifted her hands to my face.
"I'm here, Erik…" She whispered. "I am ready."
