Chapter 3
Haec aliis, ut, dum dicis, audias ipse.
(Tell this to others, so that you hear it while you are speaking)
Seneca
"So you think it is necessary to allocate a nanny for me so that I don't make any stupid things?"she asked angrily. Her dark eyes sparkled furiously. Raoul was frightened about her once more intense reaction to his well meant carefulness. What had he made wrong again now? He had thought to be able giving her a pleasure if he invited Meg during his absence. There were difficulties at the transfer of the gas pipes in the hunting lodge and he had to take care urgently of it since Phillipes tasks fell back on him now. The chateau lay on the edge of Paris and Raoul promissed himself not only a small diversion of the happenings of the last weeks but also a new home to which he and Christine wanted to move as soon as only they were married.
"No, my angel" he gave in, "for I only simply worry whether you can manage without me. Surely you don't need help, but after everything what had happened within the last weeks, I dislike it to see you alone. If you don't want me to help you, I thought, Meg would be good for you ." he hesitated and then completely broke off. She had turned the look to the outside again. She sat almost motionlessly in her armchair. Only from time to time, her chest hardly lifted and sank noticeably. He bit himself on the lower lip. How very much he had hoped Meg would take her off her lethargy to which she could entrust herself fully and completely... the best friend, anyway. He had apparently done the wrong thing once again.
He watched her for a moment and then sighed deeply, hoping she would notice it and look at him finally again. Nothing happened. Anyway she suddenly then addressed him. A deep determination was in her eyes.
"You should go now, Raoul. As fast as possible. It doesn't make a good impression, if you are late ... . and, if Meg already is here anyway, she can also come and talk with me just as well " she didn't talk further and so he kissed her briefly on the forehead, turned away and opened the door. She didn't even call him back to say goodbye to him now. No word passed her pale lips. How he wished to scream and shout with despair just in that moment. His look fell on Meg who had stood in front of the door. She looked expectingly at him and he nodded. Perhaps Christine would be more open to her, if she couldn't talk with him about the things that haunted her mind. With a helpless shaking head he turned away and shuffled the stairs to below. Christine hadn't even reacted to his kiss.
The coach which he had let prepare stood on the gravel way of the yard. If they couldn't be happy at this place, then why not in the smaller hunting lodge? Far away of the opera and the memories of the past. A small castle where she could forget.
His look strayed from her window. He hoped to see her hand waving there farewell at least only as a small sign that he wasn't completely unimportant for her. Nothing happened. He waited some seconds and then got into the coach, where he, for the first time, unseen from public employees or her, could spill bitter tears about her cool restraint. A move really would be the best for them both.
Meg watched Raoul unsurely, watched how he made his way down the stairs and apparent were completely lost in thought. After everything he had told her, she was afraid of the moment, meeting Christine again. It was days ago, when she had seen the friend last and she couldn't deny that she had needed this time to calm down again. Too much had happened.
When Meg hesitantly entered and closed the door closed behind herself, Christine turned round, for the first time away of the window, and smiled. Surprised she noticed that Meg looked pale as if she would have not slept the nights any more for a long time. Under her gray-blue eyes rings had appeared which almost were black. Her honey fair hair was tied as usual to a narrow knot. Christine didn't wonder for the first time if Meg wouldn't look even nicer if she doesn't wear her hair like this. Of course this was very impractical for a ballerina.
"Has Raoul let you come out of the opera?"
Frightened Meg looked at her and nodded slowly. Christine's voice sounded toneless and cool as if any feeling moved from her. What only had one done to her?
Christine sighed. "So he has actually dared to interrupt your private lesson! He must know, what this means for a chance for you. How important it is!"
Meg took her friend into the arms and pulled her to herself.
"Isn't tragic. Really!"she whispered and carressed lovingly the dark curls of the friend.
Christine closed the eyes. How very much she had longed for the friend. This was something, would which she would never admit before Raoul, she still had been irritated because of this visit a few minutes ago.
Meg who had always stuck on her, already from the first day on. Perhaps she simply had had only the feeling, Christine was too weak and must be protected by somebody. But it felt unbelievably good that Meg was there for her again, like three years agao when her father died. These were terrible memories. Pictures of the evening on which she wanted to show her father her contract as a member of the choir appeared before her eyes. For his whole life he had dreamt of seeing his only daughter standing on the stage of the Paris opera house. He should never see it. Father Daaé died that day on which Christine became member of the opera. From this day she seemed to have lost any feeling. Her voice, which was in the past so clear almost sounded lifelessly - yes nearly cold. One would have been able to think, that all her sorrow would lie like a chain around her vocal chords. That time Meg had already been there for her and she had completely forgotten almost how important the friend had always been for her. An ally, a protectress.
She pushed Meg gently a bit away of herself and looked searchingly.
"What's up, Christine... no don't tell me, what you tell Raoul or the other ones. You can pretend nothing for me!"
Christine came loose of Meg and got up. Her body was heavy and she felt empty and feeble. She laughed softly.
"No I probably cannot. Perhaps you know me better than any other."
Megs look got serious and she shook her head so intensely that some fair-haired strands fell from the knot and fall into her face. With a gesture that seemed mechanicaly, she draw them behind the ear. "Don't avoid me. I know what has happened that night. What really happened. Christine, I was there below!"
Christine looked at her attentively. She hadn't known this. She had known actually nothing at all of what had happened after she and Raoul had left the catacombs. She touched Megs hands, which were icy-cold and she looked at her with shiny eyes.
"You were there? Please Meg, you have to tell me what has happened there below. Everything what has happened there below!"she pleaded.
Meg hesitated as if she has fear to continue talking. Only when she caught Christine's look, she seemed to decide to go into her entreaty.
"I saw how you rowed away with Raoul. I was the first one, who entered the lair of the phantom in the vaulted cellar vaults. And I have met the Persian who asked me to hold back the people. Christine, I don't know why I did it, however I have helped this phantom to get the flight that night. I know it is irresponsible, after everything he has done to you, but mother has taught me that no man has earned the death if God doesn't determine it. Please forgive me!"
Christine couldn't do any other than take the friend, who had tears in the eyes stood, into the arms. Meg probably had talked to somebody about these experiences for the first time.
"Oh Meg! No, I don't have to forgive you. I must thank you that you have saved Erik the death. The time I had to think they killed him, I thought I couldn't survive either." Suddenly she let herself fall back into the armchair with a peculiarly content smile, and her eyes shone happily. "I also would like to tell you something now. But promise me, that you tell nobody something ... even not Raoul! Primarily not him!" She serviced only a second fraction before she continued: "Perhaps it was a week after we had returned out of the catacombs. I stood there as I did every evening" -- she indicated with her narrow forefinger the parapet of the balcony -- " and looked into the garden. And I suddenly recognized his shadow. I knew, at the same moment I saw his shadow that he had hadn't been killed by them. He simply stood at the old oak tree, into which Raoul as a little boy has carved his name, and looked up to me. My heart rejoiced and it got simultaneous consciously to me how dangerously it must have been for him to come to me in these times. I feared to show his presence to someone and went back to my room to switch off the light which fell into the garden. When I stepped back on the balcony, he had disappeared and I thought I only would have imagined it. But he stood under my balcony in the next evening again and looked up to me. He was there from that day on every evening without saying something. I didn't know what should I do. How I liked to go with him, leave everything behind me only to be with him. But there was Raoul, who worried about me... he has done so much for me. I simply couldn't go to Erik. What I would identically have done, I would have betrayed one of them, and so I even didn't talk with Erik. I would best of all have died. I have longed for him so and then when I could be sure that he still was alive, I was not able to go to him and to show him my feelings. Suddenly he suddenly didn't appear anymore but I found a message of him on my balcony. God knows how he has reached it. The message only was that he must see me at father's grave. I hid the letter before Raoul and the employees and burned it the next morning when the maid lit the fire in the fireplace. And he actually waited for me at the grave of my father. He has saved my life. If he hadn't appeared any more, I surely would have been out of my mind."
Meg who was shocked by this confession tried not to let Chrsitine realize. Now she thought to understand why Christine sat at the window day by day and looked outside. She only hoped apparently to see Erik. She nervously bit on her lower lip.
"This is it what Raoul fears. He has to see everey single day how you slip away from him. He worries about you. I don't assume that you have told him that this Erik has appeared again?"
Christine shook the head.
"I know, that he makes thoughts to himself of me. But now when Erik is near, I don't know wheter I still can be together with Raoul any more. Perhaps I should decide for Erik now."
Meg cracked and looked at Christine horrified. She put a hand on the shoulder and said very quietly and insistently: "This would be his death. You would betray him if you decide against Raoul now. Christine, the police have completed the examinations. Joseph Buquet is officially responsible for everything... the extortions and fall of the chandelier. He then has hung himself in his despair. Don't look at me like this! It is better if the police think something like that. They then don't continue to examine. Everything has a conclusive explanation at the moment. The whole extortions, accidents and murders...if you go with Erik and leave Raoul because of him, they will surely look for him again ... No matter whether you tell Raoul that Erik still lives or not. What has Erik told you? Surely not to come back to him, after it was him, who has sent you away with Raoul! And you want to oppose him now?"
"What murders, Meg?"
"Carolus Fonta, Joseph Buquet and Raouls brother." Christine's facial expression told Meg that she had apparently had no idea. The paralyzing feeling of guilty conscience immediately spread. "Hasn't Raoul talked about it? Oh -- me and my loose mouth! Mother would wring my neck ".
"What is up with Phillipe?" Christine interrupted her brusquely. Every kindness had disappeared from her face again and it had become again to a rigid white mask which frightened Meg.
"They have found a male corpse on the shore of the underground lake, a day after the occurrences in the cellar. He wore the signet ring of the de Chagny. Raoul has identified him and wanted to bury him on the family cemetery. Haven't you read from it in the newspaper?"
"I read no more newspaper. I was afraid, one would report of Erik." Christine got up and went with slow steps to the wardrobe, laid out her black cape and gave Meg a signal to follow her. Meg didn't like the friend that way. The last time she had been dressed black, had been when her father had died dressed so black. After this Christine had worn black almost three years. Till the angel of the music had suddenly appeared to her one day.
Christine had entrusted Meg that her father had told her a fairytale once. It was all about a girl to whom appeared one of God's angels at night and taught her the singing. Because of the Angel of music this girl became one of the greatest singers of the country. Father Daaé had promised his daughter, if he should die, he would send her this angel from heaven. When she had heard the voice of this angel in her wardrobe, she had radiated a luck which Meg had never seen at her before. At the same time, Christine's friend of youth Raoul whom she had lost years ago from the eyes appeared again, and Meg thought that the downward spiral of the friend was ended. Now she was looking almost like at that time now.
They passed through the garden and reached the family cemetery when it already dawned. Soon, Raoul would be back.
Members of the Chagny family had been buried on the cemetery since generations and there was especially a gardener who was responsible only for the care of these graves. Raoul had told this to Christine once fully of pride. She, however, found this a little strange, since she cared about the grave of her father personally.
They stopped in front of a very fresh grave which one could easily recognize by the grounding hill - only a few days old.
"Therefore he has sent me away with the coach . I didn't even know Phillipe at this. He was always so strict and inaccessible. This has frightened me. Perhaps I would have liked him, if I had known him better..." Christine stammered.
Meg cleared her throat and looked at the friend seriously.
"May I ask you something? Raoul told me that you can bear no more mirrors. What does it have on itself with that?"
Christine twitched helplessly with the shoulders and turned the look on the almost dry flowers on the grave.
"I didn't bear the thought, that Erik through none of these mirrors to me would come back . and, every time if I saw myself in them, I seemed to me like a wretched liar who keeps her true feelings secret in front of everyone."
Meg wanted to put an arm around her when she noticed a shape behind the bushes. She pushed Christine's hand a little more tightly than intended. Christine also had noticed the shadow for herself, that approached with slow, almost unresolved steps. Meg turned pale.
"This is him?"
Christine nodded. What only did Erik induce to appear on Raouls estate again? It was more than dangerous. She had thought he wouldn't be so reckless to take the risk once again to be discovered. She averted the look and gripped both hands of the friend.
"Please, Meg, would you go? And promise me to tell Raoul nothing about it. He may learn nothing from Erik! Under no circumstances !" Her swearing intonation surprised Meg because she wouldn't have considered in the dream circumventing her friend.
"I swear it at my life!"She kissed Christine's cheek briefly and then disappeared in the half-dark.
A muffled laughter resounded behind the bushes. A tall shape soon afterwards appeared. Erik.
"The little Giry. I would have had to thank her. I'm glad that she still worries about you!"
Christine looked at him. He seemed really happy. His words sounded, as if every single of them would be music. She actually was astonished by his manner, which she was not used of him.
"You have killed Phillipe de Chagny!"she said, without beating about the bush. She let her voice sound a little harder and sharper than necessary, only to show him how he had hurt her with that. He made not even the attempt to contradict and nodded. No 'Forgive me' not any word of regret, only a nod. No 'I didn't want to break my promise to you.' If only he would try to defend himself Everything would be better than this silence.
"Erik why? Hadn't you promised me never to kill again? Hadn't you promised it to the Daroga either?" Her voice was quiet and full reproaches.
It gave him a sting to have her disappointed.
"It necessaried protect me. And my lair. That night too many people have come behind my secret, too many entered my lair. They destroyed it. Phillipe de Chagny would have never given up as fast as his brother ".
Christine twisted the face. At least he spoke with her now. His silence was almost as terrible as the power of his voice. Simply only seeing and not being able to hear him. His words inspired the rage which she had had under control at Megs presence. Why only had Raoul circumvented her? She furiously bit on her lips and then told him, what she couldn't hold back any longer.
"Raoul hasn't told me about it! He sent me with a coach through Parsi instead, to hold a secret burial." She indicated the fresh grave with the forefinger.
"I assume, he wanted to spare you . " Ot semmed starnge to hear these words from Erik's mouth. He looked at her disapprovingly. "Please stop biting your lips, you make me quite nervous!You know quite exactly that I don't bear it if you do this!"
She ashamedly looked to the ground, moistened her brittle lips with the tongue and then looked at him stubbornly.
"He ought to have told it to me. How can I marry him if he has secrets like this from me already now?"
He luaghed this strangely melodic laughter, like the ringing like numerous little metal bells and a bass simultaneously.
"Oh Christine, don't you conceal something very important from him either?"
She wanted to reply him something, then broke off, and looked at him a while. He spoke to her again as if he was her father. Why did he defend Raoul who he should hate? Why was he right? She hated, if he was right with things that annoyed her. She decided that an answer would be little meaningful.
"Where do you live?"
He smiled under his mask. So she changed the topic again. In principle, she did this since he knew her. And it amused him. He would usually have insisted on the old topic now, to see her struggle to find the right counter-arguments which he then let burst like soap-bubbles. Oh, how he loved these games. No, he left it at this today. He didn't know how much time they would have left. It already had started to grow dark, perhaps he must begin the retreat soon.
"I will be very near you soon. Be able to be there for you day and night if you need me ".
"The hunting lodge?" It slipped her out.
He nodded. The catacombs were no longer for safe, anyway he knew he would have to return there in no too long time again. But this was not allowed to know her. She didn't learn, that her proximity wasn't the only thing any more of what he was hopelessly obessed now.
"I have designed my lair below the opera and architects are very bribable. This hunting lodge is rebuilt after my outlines and I have found a new home in the little house next-door ", he explained so quietly to her without letting her from the eyes. The servant house, simply ridiculous.
"You are crazy!"
"No! Don't you understand? If we cannot be together in any other way, this is the safest possibility. No torture chamber, no traps. You will always be able to see me any time if you wish."
Christine who didn't know whether she should be happy now, really came to conclusion that Erik had been out of his mind about her loss and the loss of the only home which he had had ever now.
Raouls voice got her out of her numbness. He seemed to have called her name already repeatedly and his voice got louder the more he called for her.
"You must go quickly, you mustn't be found!"
But Erik already had disappeared, when she pronounced the words, and few seconds later Raoul stood at her side.
"I have looked for you. So you know it . " he indicated the grave of his brother.
She nodded stiffly. Now that she really knew that Erik was still whole in her proximity, she was capably of no tendernesses and made way for Raouls arms. He interpreted her rejection wrongly and suspected she behaves only in such a way because she is angry with him.
"You are furious... I understand you. Believe me, the doctor thought you might not get irritated and I have told you nothing about it, only therefore. I could have not keeped it away from you any longer. Please forgive."
"You simply have sent me away," she ejected and looked at him reproachfully, " you probably didn't want either that your sisters meet me. They surely were there anyway, isn't that right?"
Raoul blushed up to his hair and extended his hand toward her helplessly. But she didn't react to it, only watched him with a strict look. He finally nodded.
" Forgive me. I really thought... "
"Are you ashamed of me?"she interrupted him quietly.
He looked at her doubtingly.
"What?"
"Are you ashamed of me? That I am only a simple singer whom you cannot show your family?"
He shook the head horrifiedly and seized her hand without allowing that she could withdraw it from him this time.
" Of course not" he whisperded, while the word shreds of his sisters haunted his mind. "I don'T mind what the others might think - I don't want to lose you once again!"
She forced herself to a smile which Raoul induced to take into his arms and kiss her happily. She couldn't make way for him and she somehow owed it to him after all the rejection. She heard a familiarly sighing behind one of the bushes.
"Have you heard this also?" Raoul turned up. This noise. It was far too familiar . Familiar from those nights of fear. Those nights in which they both like two anxious children had clasped on the opera roof, ready to flee.
She hardened and gave him an only forced smile now.
"You must imagine this. It will have been an owl."
He shook the head and looked at her inquiringly. Was it possible that his intellect played him a trick now? After what he had experienced, this shouldn't surprise him... he had lived in fear for months that one snatched Christine from him again, he had been finally almost killed? He dreamt of this strange mirrored chamber, its one knotty tree with the lasso, every night. He couldn't simply forget what happend, though he tried it every day for her. His thoughts were filled with Erik and the fear that he wasn't dead, that he would stand in front of him one day again and would try once more to set his life an end. He shuddered and sought her look. She simply also had to have heard it.
She frantically tried to withstand his look. He wasn't allowed to realize something. His fear that was written to him so clearly into the face escaped her completely. Too much she pretended the smile which should calm him.
He shook the head and moved a bit closer to her, like a child who frightend chooses the proximity of the mother.
"No owl, Christine. I know this noise. And, my God, how afraid am I, of the moment the horror will catch us up once again. I'm fear the moment he return and take you finally away from me" He coverd his eyes by the thought and turned away.
An icy shower broke in Christine. She had never also made only thoughts on herself what it really could mean for Raoul to lose her to Erik. She had to make himself temptedly that Raoul regarded her as a kind of trophy, one is not glad to have it for the opponent. She gently touched his arms. First for long time she felt something from the feelings for this boy which she had already with fourteen had on the beach of Perros Guirec again. Or was it pity? Pity, because she treated him so coldly? Because she circumvented him while he only tried to read her every wish of the eyes?
"Don't be afraid, my dearest. How could I leave you for a dead man?"
Again a quietly sighing. Why only couldn't Erik simply go or be silent at least? He would reveal himself.
"Oh how I hate cemeteries. Since that night in which he came and attacked us. You were surrendered almost completely to him. What shall I do if he comes back and fetches you now?"
"Erik is dead, Raoul. He will never strike you again, only in your dreams. First he still will frequently and soon you will have already forgotten him."
He pulled her to himself and breathed in her smell. Warm and sweet.
"And what is with you? Will you ever forget him?"
She couldn't lie to him, pulled him only more tightly to herself and shook the head gently.
"He will always be there in me. I will never forget his voice and his music will be always in my head."
They slowly started to leave the cemetery. It was a starry night. Twined narrowly they approached the castle, let the shades and Erik behind themselves. But Raouls fear had remained.
"Is there nevertheless the possibility that you will marry me?" His voice sounded exceptionally hoarse and deep. What should he do, if she left him? Could he bear the thought that Hélène could have been right with her assumption Christine would only love him because of the money? If she left him alon with the fear of what had happend? Without his family, without real friends, without her? What would be left for him?
She sighed when she noticed his serious look.
"Raoul, I have given you my promise".
"It isn't about any promise, Christine. I only would like to know, if one day you will be able to love me more than the memory of this man..." 'Or if you love will for myself' he added in thought to know. Oh, he knew that it was so, he had never been so sure . But would a violated count be enough for her, one without a family, without actual music intellect? After she had lost the perfect man... a genius on so many fields, musician, magician, architect.. he never also master only one of these things half as perfect.
Tears came to her eyes. Why did he ask her something like that? Couldn't he simply live with the promise that she would marry him? Why did he confront her with this decision now once again?
"Raoul"
"No, I wouldn't like to have a woman who shall represent me. I then also could have married all other noblewomen Phillipe suggested to me at that time. If you become my wife I would like you to become it completely, Christine ."
She forced herself to a smile. Her hands clasped into each other looked unnaturally small in the moonlight.
"I love you, Raoul. And I trust you. Isn't this enough for you as an answer?"
He stopped and contained her both hands.
"I would like to have children with you one day. I don't want that they must suffer from the feelings of her parents. You are the only woman, that I have loved ever, but I couldn't bear it if I force you to a marriage if you loved me only like a brother ..."
Christine thought by herself, that he also could just as little bear to lose her to Erik. She didn't want to hurt Raoul, and she also had Megs words in her ear. But she had never made thoughts on children to herself until this moment. She was only twenty-one anyway. And Raoul was just as old.
"I will marry you, Raoul, if you don't force me to something. I would like to be able to sing, when I wish to and I would like to be able to decide whether I enter a stage once again. I know, that it doesn't fit for a noblewoman... ", she then heard herself suddenly saying. But these weren't her words. It appeared to her as if it was Erik who had put these words in her mouth. He wanted that she married Raoul because he couldn't offer her a safe future, but he wouldn't want that she neglected her gift because of this marriage either.
She shook the thought on Erik off and turned to Raoul which inquiringly looked at her instead.
"If you like to, you shall be able sing. We could engage a song teacher so that your voice remains practiced. And I will have a piano room fitted out only for you. There is a lovely room, a story under yours. One has a wonderful look to the lake!" That enthusiastic lights, that she knew already from youths appeared in his eyes. How bad she felt just at this that moment! What kind of woman was she to lie to this man, who so obviously adored her? But the fear to reaveal Erik was much bigger than the fear of a marriage of which she wasn't even sure that she wanted to lead her. So she wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed for the first time that he overwhelmed her face with stormy kisses.
