Chapter 1
I am with you, also you are so distant
You are close to me!
The sun sinks, the stars shine for me soon.
O if only you were there!
Goethe
Two days passed peacefully after their flight out of the catacombs of the opera house. Christine didn't return to the opera any more and Raoul sent a servant who vacated her wardrobe. The managers were about to look for a substitute. Nobody who had learned or even were part of the events was still able to remain longer at this opera. In the reason Erik had made his threat true. He had ruined the opera after one hadn't been willing to obey his demands.
Raoul finally learned from his servant, that the mob had penetrated into Erik's empire and destroyed all his belongings. Erik had, however, never been found. Raoul moved into an alert presently. Sooner or later, if Erik wasn't dead, he would appear again. What had Christine said at that time?
"If he finds me, it won't never end. He will always be there and sing for me."
She was right, but at that time, he hadn't this wanted to admit actual.
Since Raoul worried about Christine's health, he sent after his family doctor who should examine the young woman. Although he knew that it wouldn't have suited his brother fine at all, he got a room ready for Christine in the Chateau de Chagny. Phillipe already had been no more in the chateau for some days and Raoul feared that he had succumbed to the charms of a ballerina.
The doctor ordered Christine to rest but she sank into a strange condition already after three days:
When Raoul entered her romm one morning, he caught her by covering all mirrors with dark cloths. He watched her confusedly a while without saying something. She didn't seem to notice him at all either. Like a mechanical apparatus she moved through the room, stopped in front of the great mirrorand hung one of the cloths over it.. She then kept to a moment as if she looks at her work or as if she would think intensive. Did she want to turn the spirits of the past off so? Raoul twitched helplessly with the shoulders and cleared its throat quietly. She hastily turned to him and looked with empty eyes at him so that he had to wonder whether she recognized him at all.
"What do you do there?" he asked her quietly without being able to completely hide his fright from her.
She looked at him only silently, however she didn't give him any answer. A strange feeling spread in his stomach region. He nervously started to play with his hands. "Can't you bear it, all these mirrors? Are you afraid he could appear in one of them and fetch you to his empire again?" He shuddered at the bare thought on it. Once had Erik carried her off by the mirror in her wardrobe which had been a kind of gate for him to the outside world. But what she did now, was absurd. Erik would never dare to appear at this place he had released them both after she had kissed him. They were free!
Gottenly he didn't let her from the eyes, let her complete her work, without stepping in. Perhaps it was actually better to send after the doctor once again. She had experienced terrible things and perhaps she needed help of a specialist to be able to process all the worse things.
When she had covered all mirrors, she turned away and dumbly took a seat on the armchair she had to stand in front of the big window. He followed her, however not daring to touch her. She seemed so far away as if she is caught in another world in which he didn't have place. And he felt too helpless too free her from it.
It smelled strangely musty in the room; a smell which he couldn't take to connection with Christine at all. She had apparently opened no more window for days already. All this somehow suddenly reminded him with a weird intensity of the catacombs of the opera... of Erik's empire. He had been there only one single time first a few days ago, Christine had spent many weeks there. There it had been dark too, the only mirror which there has been was coverd and it had smelled of mustiness. He shuddered and stepped briefly determinedly to the door which led to the little balcony. With a firm jerk he opened it. The similarity to the cellar vaults was fading at the same moment. He felt the bright daylight floating the room and a moment he was blinded. The fresh air of a winter's day streamed into the room and Raoul sucked her hungrily. The nightmare was past and he wouldn't allow that Christine lost herself in her anxious memories of what they both had experienced.
"If you would like to talk, I'll always be there for you." he said quietly and turned to her. She didn't react but stared past him through the window as if she would be not aware of his presence at all. He closed the eyes for a short moment, called himself to be quiet, forced himself to be patient with her. "I will now go into the salon and carry out the correspondence there. You don't know where my brother is by chance?"
She switched her head on slowly to him and looked at him with dull, uninterested eyes. A cold shower chased him over the back. He didn't know her like this... his Christine woul never look so insensitive.
"Isn't Phillipe back? He probably amuses himself with the Sorelli now. Hasn't he often used to go to her? Perhaps you should send Jean-Paul to the opera and let ask about him."Her voice didn't sound really worried. It was the politeness which pressed her to ask for his disappeared brother. This didn't astonish Raoul further, Christine had never really met his brother. Phillipe had declared itself strictly that his brother got engaged to a simple singer who didn't correspond to Raouls social stand at all. He also had refused to spend more time with her as necessary. Perhaps this would just have been good for their cool relationship.
What considerably more frightened him was her exceptionally soft and brittle voice, almost as that of an old woman. He knew she could sing like an angel -- who could it be that she suddenly croaked? He only hardly resisted the impulse to extend his hand and to feel her forehead. Perhaps she had illy . she would have been able to fetch the death in the damp cellars. He noticed her defiant look which stopped him to come closer to her in any way. It hurt him. Hadn't she assured him that she loved him, that she wanted to marry only him? Now she gave him the feeling to be not part of her.
Disappointed Raoul twitched with the shoulders and turned for going.
"Well, I should better send somebody to the opera and ask for Phillipe."He didn't mention that he had already done this three days ago and that nobody had been able to say something about the whereabouts Phillipes. Not even the Sorelli, at whom he had suspected his brother first of course.
"Please, leave me a little alone now, I would like to think!" she finally asked him and her sight made him so soft, that he left her room. Raoul didn't ask her about what she wanted to think, he didn't even allow himself this question. He also refused to think about what had happened for days, as he had only just come from it with the life. Only few moments had separated him before the sure death. If Christine wouldn't have been so selfless...
He thoughtfully strolled down the stairs of her room to the salon. To the photographs and paintings of his past ancestors. Since he had been a little boy, innumerable portraits decorated the walls next to the stairs, portraoist of people of whom he mostly didn't even know the half with names, although his private tutor had pressed him to learn them all by heart Some pictures still had arrived in the meantime. As far as he could remember his father and Philipe later provided that such a gallery could be found in every Chateaus of them. Perhaps his children also would look at the people on the portraits astonished one day, and Christine and he then would be immortalized also there. An almost cheering thought.
With some difficulties he imposed two photographs his parents. Count Phillibert, the tall man with the bright, blue eyes and the dimple in the chin, which he has inherited as the only one of the two Chagny sons. He had no memories of this man, who had raised him the first three years of his life. The count cared, like his oldest son later, lovingly about the latecomer of the family. Phillipe was at Raouls birth already twenty years, his two sisters Amélie and Héléne already were, "out of the worst" as Philibert used to say. When he died, the brother and sisters cared themselves for Raoul and when both sisters got married, Phillipe sent him into the care of a sister of his mother who lived by the sea.
Raoul closed the eyes and tried to remember that time in Brittany. There it had been where he had met Christine for the first time with fourteen years. She had lost her red scarf and he was the one, who had absolutely fearlessly jumped into the icy-cold sea to save the young girls garment.
Smiling he opened the door to the salon. Papers his brother would have for ordinary cared himself for stacked on the big heavy oak table and now during Phllipes absence this duty fell on him.
He looked at the stack with a wrinkled forehead a while. The absence of his brother somehow provided him with a strange feeling in the stomach region.
He sat down to have a look through the letters and answer. He had hardly started, it knocked at the salon door. He looked up. Jean-Paul, one of the oldest employee in the estate, who had already served in times of his father, entered in embarrassment. Something at his serious facial expression had Raoul strengthened. Normally Jean-Paul was the good mood in person.
"Pardon, Monsieur Le Vicomte.There is an employee of the Sûreté outside, who would like to talk to you. He says, it is urgent .", he added. Raoul put the papers aside. His stomach started presently to become cramped. Nervously he reached for his fountain-pen and let him glide by the fingers. The Sûreté... Theycertainly came to ask questions. Pictures appeared before of his inner eye. The phantom had never been found . . . the Punjablasso on the one knotty tree... the mirror chamber... Sweat appeared on his forehead and his fingers imploringly pinched himself around the fountain-pen as if he can protect him from the memories.
"Monsieur?"the manservant asked with a worried look and teared Raoul off his thoughts.
He shook the head and forced himself to a polite smile.
"Ask him in!"
Raoul thoughtfully put his forehead in folds. Perhaps there were other reasons which moved the Sûreté for coming. There had to be other reasons. He wanted to banish the name Erik from his house as fast as possible. He had to protect himself and Christine to live this nightmare of once again, if only to tell it to the security man. He had to protect her!
After a few minutes which the old Jean-Paul needed to cross the room, he finally entered with a man of middle age, unmistakable an employee of the Sûreté with the usual suit and mustache.
"Good morning, Monsieur Le Vicomte. I sorry heartily that I must annoy you and stop from your work at that time ".
Raoul twisted annoyedly the face. The usual set phrases. How often had this man already unreeled the sentences on this day? In addition, he burst almost with impatience. He wanted to end this meeting, or what it might be, as fast as possible. How he hated waiting: In addition, he feared to forget the words he had learned for this case, if the inspector takes too much longer, to tell him his reason to come.
"Indeed, you do, Monsieur l' inspecteur. I would be very obliged if you would come to the point fast."
The man nodded and Jean-Paul disappeared on a sign of Raoul without offering every visitor a tea as usual. It was an everywhere known peculiarity that the de Chagny, drunk and offered only tea in heir house. One had to obey and even as a guest a glass of water or port got served in the evening.
"Of course..." Nervously he minced from a leg on the other one and looked expectantly at the chair which was at the table in front of him . Raoul wrinkled the forehead. This behavior was absolutely outrageous.
"Sit down!" he finally invited him a little more brusquely than intended.
The man took hastily a seat. His look remained on the fountain-pen in Raouls hand for a moment. He smiled unsafely, immediately got serious again when Raoul cleared its throat and set the pin aside.
"I am really tense now, Monsieur. Is it all about my business or has the management of the opera himself complained because my fiancee hasn't handed in as stipulated in the contract? This would be though no reason for the Sûreté come to me, isn't it? Whatever, listen, the doctor has ordered my fiancee to rest. She really shouldn't be irritated."
The man shook the head.
"No, it isn't about your fiancee. But it is strange that you come to speak on the opera so fast. It is actually about it. My men have searched the catacombs of the opera until today around the existence of this man, calling himself the Phantom of the opera. He shall blackmailed the opera management a considerable sum of money and be responsible for the death of at least one employee of the opera staff."
Raoul clasped so tightly the armrests of his chair that his knuckles changed their color to white. Strainedly he bit himself on the teeth and not tried to show, how he disliked the mention of Erik. He tried to fend off the pictures which tried to come up inevitably, wanted to paralyze his thoughts and his behavior completely.
"In addition, one reproaches him for the kidnapping of a singer, your fiancee." the official continued while he was drawing his mustache with the forefinger, " we couldn't find the lowest trace of a living being apart from rats there below... But... "
"And how do you explain the whole occurrences yourself?" Raoul interrupted him annoyed, "I really would be interested in this, Monsieur!" He didn't have any desire for this kind of conversation now. Over their heads, there was a woman,the living proof of the existence of this crazy man, but he couldn't expect of her, that she faced these questions, again and again, which came to it at once anyway: Christine had not coped with the sudden success at the opera and got delusions. Perhaps this employee of the Sûréte expressed it this time a little differently.
The man watched his fingers and started to clean his glasses nervously. Apparently the time which Raoul had reckoned had come.
"We're talking here of an opera house. There are rivals, jealous people.. maybe this Buquet wanted to make money and has extorted the management. He was the one, who told this legend from the phantom first. When his extortion wanted to run no longer properly under the new management, he hung himself. --and what concerns your fiancees... forgive me, that I mention it now, but ...well she was properly always a little naive, if one may believe the stories of various employees. And the last time was well quite exhausting for her. It wasn't sudden easily to become the prima donna of the simple choir girl. This costs strength. Doesn't one have to have carried her of the stage once either because she was half unconscious?"
Raoul cracked and sparkled the man raging. How only could this man dare to say something like that? That was enough!
"What do you permit yourself! You want to tell me that my fiancee is crazy and everything happened only imaginarily? If this is everything, what you wanted to tell me, it is better you go presently before I forget myself and have you cast out!"
The man raised appeasing his arms.
"Monsieur, please. I haven't come actually therefore at all."He gripped into his coat bag and pulled a golden signet ring which he put out on the table. Just there, where Raoul had just moved his correspondence.
"I would like you to look at it. Do you know this ring?"
Raoul took the golden ring trembling into his hand. Of course he knew it. It was a heirloom and was bequeathed to the Comte de Chagny by generation to generation in his family. He turned pale.
"Where do you have the ring from?"
"So you know it?"the official would take carefully, after.
"He belonged to my brother. Where do you have it from?" Fear slowly spread in him. Cold sweat appeared on his forehead. Did this nightmare never end? In his head a muffled tapping started, which got louder and louder. He wouldn't be able to bear the presence of this man for a long time any more. He couldn't show any weakness, nobody would then believe him the story, he told everybody so frequently within the last few days. He strainedly stared at the man while his hands still were looking for something, that gave him hold.
"As mentioned already, we looked in the catacombs for the existence of this phantom. This morning a corpse was found on the shor of the underground lake." The man removed his uniform cap and looked Raoul into the eyes seriously. "I sorry have to inform you about it's obviously your brother, who, has drowned Monsieur le Vicomte. Can you perhaps explain to me what he had to look for there below? Nobody had access apart from the staff there."
That tapping in his head had reached an unbearable intensity now. Phillipe . dead?
"I don't know... he has looked for us... my family promotes this opera ... .. he has everywhere access.. . Christine and I were at the stables. We are to run there as the chandelier fell down... You know . she was so afread and I wanted to calm her. Phillipe has looked for us for certain ... perhaps he has frightened himself in front of the rat-catcher and gone ... ", Raoul stammered and could be fallen on the chair. He urgently hoped that this man believed him his lies. He hated lieing, but however, the truth probably would make everything only worse. So he told him the story which he told on recommendation of Christine and the Persian to everybody who asked where they had been at the chandelier accident. He buried the face in his hands. He could tell by no means that a lunatic had kidnapped his wife and he had followed him only around there to fall into the trap. Christine was not allowed to know that Erik still lived. If she tought that he was dead, she could forget perhaps with the time and everything would be as usually.
"Monsieur if you don't have any further questions, I then would ask you to go now."
The man got up and cast a pitying look at Raoul.
"Of course Monsieur. We will release you the corpse for the burial as soon as possible. I assume you wish to bury him here on the family cemetery?"
Raoul nodded intensely and suppressed sobs. The farewell set phrases of the inspector became blurred, the door which fell into the lock mixed inseparably with the blow for a muffled roaring in his head. He didn't look up once again. His brother was dead. Died in the empire of the phantom during Christine and he fought for thier lifes in the house at the lake. And more... nobody seemed to believe in the existence of the phantom any longer. Buquet should have been the phantom . simply ridiculous, drawing the memory to this lovable old stagehand through dirt.
"Monsieur le Vicomte? Aren't you well?"
Jean-Paul had unnoticedly entered again and saw gottenly now on his sir who spilled bitter tears on his correspondence.
"Bring me a Cognac, Jean-Paul! And don't be stingy!"
Jean-Paul opened the bar and poured the brownish liquid in a glass. He threw Raoul confused looks. It wasn't ususal that the young man took such strong alcoholic drinks particularly at this in the daytime.
"Shall I fetch Mademoiselle Daaé?"
Raoul cracked frightened. With fright the old servant dropped almost the glass for it, he had his sir just wanted to suffice.
"No!" exclaimed Raoul, " no, Jean-Paul, Mademoiselle Daaé may hear nothing from it. Listen, my brother had had an accident. He has drowned, therefore the Sûreté was there. But Mademoiselle Daaé may know nothing about it! She is still too ill and it would weakly irritate her too much. Take care that she learns nothing and let all necessary people for a burial come to me. But Christine may know nothing!"
Jean-Paul who looked just as horrified as Raoul felt - because he had accompanied the Chagny sons of child legs on - nodded, as deadened and disappeared.
He actually managed to conceal the events from Christine. But when Jean-Paul knocked only a day after the visit of the inspector and entered with a pale face to Raoul into the salon, he knew that his decision had been right.
"What do are you concerned about, Jean-Paul? Have you met a ghost?" A smile froze on Raouls present and he got up again to go to Jean-Paul.
" Monsieur Le Vi ., ". he broke off when his fault got conscious to him. The Comte de Chagny was dead now, there Phillipe, which didn't have any children, to which he could pass his title on, Raoul was it as of now which would bear the title of the Comte de Chagny. "Monsieur le Comte, we worry about Mademoiselle Daaé. She just called Louise and asked her to let all mirrors in her room remove. I thought we should tell you about it." The old man looked nervously and walked up an down.
Raoul inheriting easy. He ought to have reckoned that something like that would happen. He had Christine's wish given way and left her alone and this was the price which he had to pay now. He nodded.
"I will immediately look afer her. Many thanks, Jean-Paul!"
He left the salon and climbed the innumerable stairs up past until he arrived at the floor where the private rooms of his family were. He had had his room got ready for Christine and had moved to the bedroom of his parents which stood emptily since their death.
It was strange, to knock on the door of his own room and he didn't wait her to answer and entered at once. Christine sat at the window. A small stooped shape who unseeingly saw to outside. Had she noticed his coming at all?
"Christine?"
She was frightened and turned round. Her sight gave Raoul an icy-cold shower down his spine. Her dark hair was without gleam and fell strangely lifelessly on her shoulders. Dark rings had appeared under her eyes. As otherwise they shone, they were swelled up and reddened now as if she would have cried.
Raoul sighed and took her into the arms. She didn't reply his embrace, however.
"My angel, I am worried about you." he confessed her quietly.
She escaped from his arms and turned to the window again. Helplessly he stood besides her and looked around this room now. There where once had been the mirrors, were dark edges now. One would already have painted this room white again. Next to the desk opposite the window a hand mirror lay, the glass was shattered. It looked as if one would have flung him with very big strength against the wall. The bed on the right besides her hadn't apparently been made already for some time any more. And how? She declined any contact to him or the servants.
"There is nothing, Raoul. I am only tired!" Her voice sounded soft and weak. For the first time he recog that days had to have passed since she had sung last. He couldn't remember that this had been the case ever before. Christine had sung on every day of her life. When he got to know her on the beach of Perros, she had sung old Swedish folk songs, accompanied by her father on the violin. He had immediately fallen in love with her. She had been the woman with the biggest and most beautiful green eyes and with the most fascinating voice. He had never before and also not after her death met a woman who was just like her.
Annoyedly about the way to treat him, he turned round, went with quick steps to the door next to which the frame of the hand mirror lay and reached for him. Almost as fast he was again to Christine's side and held him to her in front of the face.
"Nothing, Christine? This is nothing? You are not well and I would like to help you. Why don't you say what I can do for you?"
Like on every day since the flight out of the catacombs, she wore black. The dark colore let her seem even more paler and more fragile.
"Please Raoul," she interrupted him and Raoul could discover the trace of a smile at her for the first time for days. "I don't need a doctor and I don't need company." She hesitated, turned her look to outside again. He was afraid that she would sink into this apathetic condition and react to none of his words now again. But she suddenly then turned to him again and a gleam which he had already almost forgotten lay in her eyes. It reminded him of the time in which there hadn't been a phantom separating them With these shining eyes she looked at him.
"Perhaps fresh air would do to me well. Yes, Raoul. Would you have a coach judged for me? I would like somuch to go to the cemetery. So long, I wasn't there and my father ... " She broke off and didn't speak further. A strange feeling came over Raoul to have her driven to the cemetery. For days she hadn't left this room any more and now she wanted to go to the place at which Erik had lain in wait for her only a couple of weeks ago.
"Christine, I don't know whether this would be really good in your condition . ". he threw in weakly. This lights in her eyes got weaker again and completely seemed to turn off. Perhaps she lost every feeling if he didn't give in to this single request. She only wanted to go to the grave of her father, so what? 'He has been there the last time', the spiteful voice repeated in him. He didn't succeed in taking the doubts to the silence.
"Well, but I will accompany you."For a short while he looked at her desperately, because now when everything was over, when they didn't have to live in fear anymore, she refsued him. Couldn't she simply smile, if only a litte bit, tell him how grateful she was that everything was over? Telling him how very much she loved him? Nothing, not even a smile since that night in the catacombs. He turned away and stepped from her room. He adhered the first maid that past his way roughly to the arm, so that she winced with frights. She had well reckoned with one of the other servants and so she forced herself to a relieved smile when she recognized her master.
"Monsieur Le Comte?"
He loosened his grip and forced himself to stay calm. This poor girl finally wasn't responsible for the fact that his fiancee refused him.
"Please forgive, I didn't want to frighten you. Please could you pass on to my coachman, that Mademoiselle Daaé and I like to make a small.. . excursion?" Everything in him refused. His inner voice advised him to haven't her driven. She better remained in this room, could be helped of a doctor and him, but to drive to a place which confronted her with the death and memories which could already bear her by no means. Perhaps evem he couldn't. But he had already expressed his order and the fear of refusing Christine her request was just as deep as the fear of having her gone .
The girl nodded and disappeared hastily.
Raoul watched her leaving and wrinkled the forehead. Possibly he was it, who didn't want to drive to the cemetery. There he surely would become victim of his gloomy thoughts again and he had to be strong for Christine. What should she think of him if he didn't cope with what he had experienced? How could he help her if he couldn't even help himself to forget? He shook the head and entered, this time without knocking, in Christine's room. She still sat on her place unchangedly and stared outside the window. With a sigh he stepped next to her.
"The coach will wait at once. Perhaps you should get dressed . ", he suggested. He started to play with his hands, only to do something.
Like into trance, she rose and passed by him without finding him worthy of only one look. Very slowly she opened the cupboard and gripped after a black cape and her black scarf. When she had dressed on both, she appeared to him like a ghost.
"Do you really have to accompany me?" she asked quietly. Her words gave him a sting in the chest. He had suspected that it didn't suit her fine that he accompanied her but he had hoped at least she wouldn't say it. He dreaded this place very much, but he wouldn't allow that she drove alone there.
He forcefully nodded and noticed for the first time, that she also had to have lost weight within the few days .
When they finally stopped in front of the gates of the cemetery, Christine asked Raoul to wait in the coach and to have her gone alone. Her pleading look made him softer than he wanted to be. He contradicted only timidly.
"Christine, I don't regard this as any good idea. I don't think that you are already well".
She got off the coach without seizing Raouls helping hand and looked at him. The pleading in her look had given way to a strangely hard, almost already cruel expression. Was this really the woman whom he loved since children's days?
"And I don't think that you are in the position, Raoul, making decisions for me! I am old enough to know when I do what alone!"
He sucked sharply the air and looked at Christine sadly . She had never spoken with him so. He looked at her forehead wrinkling, decided not to let her go to the cemetery alone as much as she might beseech him.
" But the last time you were here..." he ceased. He better didn't say what buzzed in his head
"Erik is dead!" she pushed out and sparkled angry at him.
Shaking the head he lowered the look. He hadn't hoped to hear the name Erik any more, after everything what had happened. He hatet it, when she mentioned him at the name and he hatet himself for this discussion, that he had given in, that he couldn't be harder and simply force her to take him along.
"He would have kidnapped you!" he reminded her despaired, " If I wouldn't have been ..."
"He then wouldn't have tried a second time to kill you. Buquet then would never have died, I then would be..." she broke off furiously and was annoyed that she had tried to explain what proceeded in her. But it was too late.
"Do you blame me for Buquets death? I would have found the underground empire anyway. Only that night Madame Giry and ..."
"The traitress" Christine threw in , "After everything Erik had done for her and Meg she would have better hold her tongue instead of telling Erik's secret. She didn't have the right to betray him to you or somebody otherwise. And you didn't have the right to interfere!"
Raoul had never experienced her so. She had said something like that to him never before. She was sudden like another person. Raoul didn't recognize her. It made him furious that she treated him so. After all what he had done to free her from her burden, she made him feel like he is the guilty person.
"If I wouldn't have interfered" he hissed quietly, in the hope of the coatchmen wouldn't hear everything because the public employees then would start to gossip undoubtedly behind his back, " he then surely would have hurt you. Then you weren't either free yet."
She shook the head. Your features changed. It almost seemed as if she must fight with herself to not burst into tears.
"I am sorry, Raoul." she finally said abashedly, " Forgive me... I.."
Raoul breathed a sigh of relief . Of course he knew that she was still shocked after all what had happened. Otherwise she would never have reacted so intensely and it was a good sign that she was apologizing now for that she hadn't processed the experiences yet . He would talk with her family doctor about it just afterward. He had had to promise him, that one took care of Christine all time, that he was called for any small change. This was obviously a matter which he had to discuss with him.
"I thought you would have understood. I am not free now either yet. I will be never freed from him. And nobody will be able to change this. Not you, not Madame Giry and also not any Persian who pretends to be our friend. It never ends!"
With these words she turned away and went by the gates of the cemetery. Alone.
Raoul stared undecided afterwards, then became conscious of the looks of his coachman and kicked furiously the gatepost of the cemetery. A quiet curse slipped from his mouth, not exactly something which would have been measured to his stand, and he finally sat down shaking the head on his place in the coach. He impatiently looked at the pocket watch which he had inherited from his grandfather. He gave her ten minutes, he then would follow her whether it was right or not.
The cemetery was left befor her eyes. Not a human soul had gone astray here. It seemed to extend far, framed by heavy iron bars, guarded by the eyes of stone angels. Christine pulled the heavy entrance which separated the graveyard from the street, shivering and entered the cemetery. With steps which are slow and almost shuffling she went on and looked around anxiously again and again. By the few light which fell by the surrounding trees on the cemetery this place seemed even much ghostlier to her. She eavesdropped into the twilight in: Calm! Raoul couldn't be seen, what she stated with a certain satisfaction. This should calm her. But nevertheless she winced with any small noise. Although it was still, she froze so strongly that she pulled her coat more tightly when she continued her way.
She knew the way. Not too long time ago she almost had gone him daily. On the grave of her father she had asked for the angel of the music, he had promised her before his death. He should train her voice. Suddenly there had been Erik's voice in her dressing-room and she had thought her prayers have been heard. At that time, how only would she have been supposed to know that this heavenly voice didn't belong to any heavenly nature?
The grave of her father lay hiddenly behind big trees. The stone was covered of ivy. Christine hoped the whole way, Raoul wouldn't follow her and he didn't do it. He was to much frightened about the things she said. She lit the candle on the grave and knelt down as if she would pray. But she didn't do this. She waited. And actually she heard the familiar sound of his voice after short time.
"You have actually come back!"
Her heart made a joyful hop but she didn't allow herself any smile. Slowly she turned and tried to agree on the direction his voice came from.
"You wrote you must see me."she said, into the emptiness. Her look finally got stuck on the trees not far from the grave. They were thick and dark enough to hide there. The shadow of these trees slowly took shape. It was Erik. In the poor light which fell by the crowns his shape seemed even darker and greater. His mask shone so unnaturally as if it wants to compete with the moon which appeared in the sky slowly. She looked at him with an open fascination. It wasn't only his voice for this one she moved to her spell again, his whole appearance let shudder her by its deep, familiar timbre. But she knew his secret. She knew which frights he hid behind his mask, to which this voice could deeds if he wanted it to. And these hands with the exceptionally long skinny fingers which had already rather used to remind her of the hand of a body, these hands were stucked with blood. Erik hadn't murdered only once. She trusted and hoped for that he didn't break his promise which he had given her once and that these atrocities had an end.
His voice had pulled her under a spell and it was also his voice which dismissed her from it roughly again and pushed her back into the reality of the cemetery.
"I don't have reckoned that you come."
She stepped hesitantly towards him.
"And what would I have been supposed to do in your opinion? It is too dangerous if you creep around the house at night. The servants could see you. Raoul would know it!"She beat her hands in front of the face at the thought on it. The idea, Raoul could discover that Erik still lay in wait for her, shook her deeply .
"Raoul...Is he good to you?"Erik felt the impulse to take her into the arm but he didn't dare to touch her. He leant against a tree and watched her furtively instead.
She nodded intensely.
"He loves me. He permanently tries to give me a joy with any things. I wouldn't like to disappoint him. And I have the feeling I cheat him."
Erik sighed. When she looked up, she discovered the golden ring which she had given him back that night on his little finger .
"You will get married . But you must be quite sure, my child. I wouldn't want that he makes you sad!"
She shook the head.
"He doesn't do this. He is so good to me. If I am sad then it's not because of him" She looked around anxiously as if she expects that Raoul has followed her or otherwise somebody watched her. "My God, it is simply ridiculous that we must meet here. Between all the graves, only because I feel safe here. I will marry Raoul and already now I have secrets like this here before him!"
"Why isn't he with you? He has promised to look after you!"Erik stepped towards her. The need to close her into his arms and to enjoy her proximity got stronger and stronger. Although she stood near to him, she seemed to be removed unattainably for him. Almost as she had at that time, when he had been the angel of the music for her.
Just when he wanted to raise his hand, Christine suddenly turned round hastily for the cemetery gate. Her eyes searched after a movement in the shade. When she discovered nothing, she turned to Erik again. The moment at which he would have had the courage to touch her had vanished and she seemed far away to him again.
"He waited in the coach. We must hurry, he will get restless if I am away too long. Why should I come? You watch me every night of outside therefore you see me. Why did you want to talk to me?"
Erik hesitated. He scratched his head while Christine looked restlessly around once more.
"I wouldn't want that they find you!"she whispered.
"Your voice, Christine. I must hear her. It is the only thing which still holds me alive. Do you want that I leave you alone? I then will go. But I die without your proximity, without your voice. I would like to see that you are well and watch over you. You want me to go? To disappeare from your life now?"
She didn't answer at once but when she did, a determination which astonished her, was in her voice..
"No, I don't want this . However... Where will I find you if I'll be looking for you? In the catacombs?"
Erik shook the head.
"No, it is no longer safe there below. Not within the next weeks after all events. I have found something fitting. I will come to you. Don't worry my child!"
"Please be careful! I ... I couldn't bear it, if something happens to you ... "With these words she turned away and disappeared in the darkness, during Erik looked afterwards her doubtingly. Had she actually just said this? Or had it been wishful thinking only once again, had he only wanted to hear that she said it? His hand closed in his cape and he looked after her, untill the darkness was swallowing her dainty shape completely.
If only she would know what had happened with him after she had gone and he had thought that it was for ever. She no shouldn't know it, should never learn which new precipices he had discovered, that the needle which once had soothed his pains from time to time had now become an inevitable thing to deaden his hate for the human race. Hate on these, who froced him to live life in underground, those who robbed him cruely, who had taken Christine away from him The doses had grown quickly within the last weeks and he knew he wouldn't be able control himself despite his promise one day any more. Then her proximity and her confidence cannot stop him once again to spill blood. Sighing he turned for going.
She had never thought that she would say these words to Erik sometime. When she came back to the coach, she was deathly pale. Raoul had just decided to follow her even if he risked another quarrel with that, suddenly she stood in front of him again. He was frightened, when he saw her and was annoyed at the same moment that he had gone alone and hadn't followed her.
"My angel, is everything all right?"
She nodded weakly and could be helped of Raoul to get in now.
"I am him missing so much!"she said quietly as they drove off.
Raoul smiled sympathetically and seized her hand because he thought at that time that she talked about her father.
