—A/N—
Okay, I lied—this chapter is 0 from Erik's point of view. However, you will see why in a moment: there are very interesting circumstances, surrounding this chapter. There was a note added into Erik's memoirs, by Henri, who seems to believe that Erik has no recollection of the event that nearly shattered their lives—but, I will let Henri talk for Henri, and will not try to add my own words to the mixture.
The Breaking Point
I suppose it is unwise, to do what I now do. But I am an old man, and my mind is fading, and it is only right that I should shed light upon the dark gap in my master's memoirs—for, after all, who else is there but I?
After penning in the epilogue that Madame de Chagny had requested in her will—recounting, in short, the events after her return to him, and the tale of his death and burial—I found myself driven to read the rest of his memoirs. I discovered a great many things there—the full truth of the relationship between the Phantom and Christine Daaé; the full and unblemished history of his days before Paris: the fairs, the "rosy hours of Mazenderan", his escape from Persia with the aid of his friend "Daroga", his days in Constantinople, and even detailed architectural plans of the Opéra Populaire; and, of course, his days with me, stretching from the exodus from the opera-house and Paris, up to his final chapter, which ended in the arrival of Madame de Chagny at our (marked through)his estate.
In all occasions but this one, he was both detailed and honest, regardless of whether he had been in the right or the wrong. Personally, I believe he was too kind to Madame de Chagny in his retelling of the events of his life, and she has said as much as would lead me to believe that she is of a similar mind.
Regardless, I would not dream of changing his own words—I fear, even, adding to them. I think, however, that in the interest of making later decisions more easily understood, he would not be too upset with me. For, truly, I question whether he even recalls the incident...
Mr. Henri Goodings.
"Henri! Oh, Henri! Thank Heavens I found you!"
Weary eyes lifted to find Elizabeth hurrying into the kitchens, reaching out towards him. When she came close to him, she clasped his arm, and her head fell forward onto his shoulder. "Oh, Henri, Henri," she moaned. "You must come and see Erik!"
Henri shook his head, and leaned away from her. "The Master and I are not currently on good terms," he managed, around the constant swelling sensation in his throat. He had wanted to chase it away with Cook's brandy; she had refused him that small pleasure, and instead poured some vile native remedy down his throat, claiming that it would ease his pains. So far, it had merely made him want to shove a hand down his throat and pull out his stomach manually.
"Oh, Henri, if but only you could understand!" She tugged on his arm, nearly dragging him from his perch. He had assumed she had strength; he had not assumed she was actually strong. "I think I have killed him!"
He scoffed, and jerked his arm from her grasp. "He does not want my aid, Madam!"
"But he must have it!" She had made the shift from despair to anger easily, and he could see her squaring off for a fight. "Whether he may desire it or not, he is in need of his friend, sir!"
Henri slammed his hand down on the counter. "I am his friend no longer!"
Elizabeth stiffened, and anger wielded to numb shock. "But..."
"Yes," he growled, "I have said it. I am not his friend. I am only a servant now."
A hand raised to press against his cheek, forcing his head to turn in her direction. "I know not what passed between the two of you, and I truly don't care, either. All I know is that, as either servant or friend, you must go to him!"
With a longsuffering sigh, Henri rose, and followed her back to the third floor. She had left his door hanging open; two maids stood nearby, gawking up the stairs at the horrifying wails coming from it. Henri cleared his throat; they scattered, murmuring apologies. Henri and Elizabeth both took a deep breath, and moved up the stairs, Henri shutting and locking the door to the stairs behind them.
She led him to the bedroom suite, though she need not have; he could hear the noises coming from there, could have located Erik even if blind. The door was locked; Elizabeth gave him a degrading look for even trying the knob. He withdrew his key, and had only half-unlocked the door when the wails ceased. Henri froze; he and Elizabeth both stopped breathing. It seemed the Phantom of the Opera had decided never again to be taken by surprise. Minutes passed, before slowly the wails began again, increasing in volume with every moment that they continued.
"How did you think you'd killed him, with all that racket?" Henri whispered.
Elizabeth shrugged, and replied in equally soft tones, "I suppose I thought more that he was in the act of dying, rather than already dead."
Something was humorous about the conversation, and Henri found himself fighting back a grin as he eased the door open. There was nothing but darkness to be seen within; the tiny hallway led to a thickly-curtained window, with a door branching off of it that opened into Erik's room. Henri cursed himself; the light from the library was flooding into the hall, leaving no doubt as to his and Elizabeth's presence.
A shard of glass shattered against the wall next to his head; he and Elizabeth both ducked, hands coming to rest atop their heads to shield them from the resulting shower of glass pieces.
"Get out!" Erik roared from the bedroom. "Out, out, out!" There was desperation, hidden within the command.
Henri continued forward, crouched close to the ground like an animal. It was not long before his fingers encountered broken glass. "Erik, what have you done?" he breathed.
As he rounded the corner into his bedroom, he found Erik prostrate, and naked. It took all of his bravery, all of his lingering affection for the man—for the monster—not to flinch at the sight of Erik's unmasked face. He awaited the scream from Elizabeth, but none came; her only acknowledgement of the vision of horror was a simple, "That is the mark of no lion I have ever seen."
Henri ignored her, and crept slowly towards Erik, the glass crunching beneath his shoes. As he came closer, he could see the gashes, the slices, the abrasions on Erik's skin. He had apparently been rolling in the pile of glass for quite some time. His hands were the worst; they were barely discernable as human. Henri assumed he had used them to break the glass. A flicker of a gaze was granted to the now-bare spot on Erik's wall; it did not come as a surprise, to find an empty mirror frame hanging there.
"Erik," Henri said softly, "we've got to get you out of this."
The man lunged at him, snarling like an animal, and clawing frenziedly with one hand. Henri avoided him easily, and Erik collapsed again amongst the glass, sobbing.
"Elizabeth," Henri warned as she drew nigh, "he is not clothed—and apparently not sane, either," he added in quieter tones.
"Oh, Henri, dash propriety. He needs our help." With the sure hands of a woman, she took Erik's face, one hand on either cheek, and looked down into his blood-and-tears-streaked face. "Erik, we're going to put you on the bed." Henri noticed that, unlike Christine, Elizabeth did not flinch or shudder upon coming into contact with Erik's right half. A new burst of esteem for the girl budded inside his chest.
Erik groaned in response, but did not struggle against her. Henri moved alongside him, and struggled to get his arms beneath the man—struggled even more to lift him. Elizabeth helped as best she could, though Erik was a trial even with their strength combined. He was a large man, and had only grown more muscular, more weighty, with his increased activity. They did, however, manage to get him over to the bed; Elizabeth's quick right hand was the only thing that rescued Erik's mask from certain death beneath the man's bulk.
Henri situated him as best he could, before turning and lighting the lamp beside the bed. "Elizabeth, go downstairs, and get a basin of warm water, and strips of linen. Fetch some tweezers; it looks as if he's got glass in some of these deeper cuts." Henri looked down at that ravaged body with pity, before continuing. "And, ask Cook if she knows of any treatments for cuts—and have her make a lot of it." He considered for a moment, and then handed her his key, and added, "Lock the doors behind you—going and coming." His gaze was returned to Erik. "We don't want any prying eyes, do we?"
A moan escaped those bloody lips, and the man replied, "No, no—misery such as mine has no pride! I care not who knows that I am wretched. The triumph of seeing me so may be open to the world!" And then his words drifted away into unintelligible sobs.
Elizabeth nodded without question, and danced her way across the plethora of glass bits on the floor. It was a dangerous trip; Erik had bled much, and it made the wood floor slick. Her innate grace carried her across safely, however, and Henri turned his attention back to the man who was now steadily leaking blood onto the finest bed in the house.
"Oh, Erik... What were you thinking?"
Pleading yellow eyes turned on him, and a trembling mass of flesh—previously, a hand—raised to grasp Henri's arm. "My friend," he whispered. "Please forgive me..."
Henri nodded, and patted an uninjured swath of flesh on the older man's shoulder. "Of course, Erik... Of course." And how could he not? Pity alone supplied him with the means of forgiving his Master.
Erik relaxed visibly, and allowed his eyes to shut. He rested for only a brief moment, before his eyes shot open again. He groped wildly for Henri, and focused his gaze on the younger man's intently. "Oh, I did not mean what I said... I do not care for all to know of my wretchedness... Don't.. tell Christine," he said. "Swear to me you will not, swear to me you will reserve me that one dignity!"
Henri shook his head. "No, Erik, of course. Not a word shall pass my lips."
The Opera Ghost, to the relief of his butler, fell into exhausted sleep before he could see the young man's tears.
With Elizabeth's help, Henri was able to patch up Erik with relative ease. His front side was attended to first, and then he was rolled over so that they could attend to his back side. Elizabeth was caught blushing a few times, but overall handled herself well. She divulged to Henri that it was not a new sight for her; her birth parents had died of a sickness contracted in the African jungles, where they had held hospitals for the natives, and she had, she told Henri, helped them regularly in the hospitals when she was old enough to do so.
Erik's face was difficult. For all appearances, he had attempted to grind glass into the right side, and they could not quite decide how to deal with the skin. Its papery consistency was such to suggest that an attempt at sewing up the particularly large gashes would be wasted effort. Still, Henri cleared it of all the granules of glass that he could find, and Elizabeth mounded on Cook's salve liberally, and did what she could do bandage it. Henri could hardly bear to aid her in healing the thing; it was not a disgust with the skin itself that stayed his hand, but rather a disgust with what had been done to it, with knowing that he had contributed to what had made the man do such a thing to his own body.
When Erik's body had been sufficiently seen to, they moved on to his hands. These they had saved for last, for they promised to require more effort and more attention than any of the rest of him. Seemingly hundreds of bits of glass were captured within the skin there; it was tedious work, made more so by having to work around one another. As soon as Henri would remove a few bits of glass, the blood flow would start anew, and Elizabeth would be forced to move in, soak it up, and immediately tie up the skin. They wrapped his hands in bandages that were practically soaked in the salve, and then Henri went to fetch two chairs from the library. He refused to leave Erik's side, and Elizabeth insisted upon keeping him company.
When he returned with the second chair, he found Elizabeth crouched on the floor, trying her best to pick up the glass in the dim light. Henri moved to her side and urged her to stand. "Please," he said, "you have done enough for one evening. Sit, and I will see to it."
She complied much more easily than Henri had expected, and quickly sat down near the bed. Henri fell upon the task that she had abandoned, removing his coat and placing the lifted glass on top of it. The blood on the floor had dried, and was sticky; he had nearly to sacrifice blood of his own, merely to lift the glass.
"I feel so terrible," she said suddenly, as she looked upon Erik's sleeping form. "It's all my doing. I... I tried to make him—"
"Elizabeth, hush," Henri interrupted, his voice more filled with impatience than he had intended. "This is my own fault; you merely placed the icing on the cake."
She shook her head, and covered her eyes with her hands. "You do not know what I said to him!" she cried. "Awful things! Horrid things! Things I would not say to an animal, and I said them to him!"
Henri forced down his irritation with her. "What I said was worse," he argued gently. "It is quite impossible that you said anything more cruel than I." He hesitated in his work, to fix her with a steady glare.
"I suppose," she said after a moment, "but I could have healed those wounds." Her hands fell away, and she looked again at the sleeping man. "And I didn't. Instead, I deepened them."
He could not argue with her, and so they both fell into an awkward silence. Henri began picking up glass again, wondering if the floor would ever be properly clean again, and Elizabeth drifted deep into thought. Many minutes passed in that fashion, enough to allow Henri to have nearly halfway cleaned the glass from the floor.
She spoke again. "He was born that way."
It was not a question, but Henri grunted in the affirmative anyway.
One hand rose to press its fingers against her lips. "Oh, that poor creature," she whispered around them. And then, a little louder, "And... I suppose Chris—?"
"Sh!"
She looked at him in a mix of shock and insult, at being so rudely cut off.
"Her name will wake him," he offered in explanation. She nodded, and then continued.
"I suppose.. she.. was a love? A woman who.. could not look past.. his face?" Her words were delicately chosen, and even more delicately spoken, as if she feared insult should be implied.
Henri nodded, and stood with his bundled coat, to dump it of its load. "Among other things, yes," he answered, migrating to the window and thrusting it open. Beneath them stretched one of the side yards; no one was in sight. He released one end of the jacket, and bloody, glittering bits fell from it to scatter on the ground far below. As he shut the window and turned back to the room, he could just barely make out her shape in the chair, but spoke in her general direction, and knew that she would not mistake who his words were intended for.
"You must never mention her in front of him."
A nod was all she gave—but, from her, a nod was all he needed.
After that night, Erik became reclusive once more. He refused to see even Elizabeth or I, though we persevered in going to see him every chance we got. He insisted he take his meals in his rooms—often, he did not even eat them—and he would not come out for all the world. He even returned to his former habits of sleeping during the day, and arising only well after sunset. We would not have known he was awake, but for the music coming from his organ. The entire household shook beneath that infernal music; it was impossible to escape, unless one was willing to walk nearly a mile away from the house. And that music followed you everywhere; even if you could no longer hear it with your ears, you could still hear it with your soul. I believe he was writing in an attempt to replace, in his heart, the space that once 'Don Juan Triumphant' had filled.
In a desperate attempt to jar him into action, I threatened to have César sold; he ignored me, and when I went to the stables the next week, was informed by Jim that César had, indeed, been sold, to one of the local gentlemen. It was, luckily, well within our expense that I was able to buy back the stallion, and Erik and I never spoke of the incident, though I am of the opinion that he knew full well that I would buy back the horse.
It was many months of restless sleep before, one night, there was no music. Elizabeth and I both met in the corridor—her room was near to mine—and rushed up the stairs to his floor together. Dawn was just peeking over the horizon, and Erik stood in front of his drawing room windows, the curtains flung wide, his hands and face pressed against the glass. He was quoting a French poem that once he had shown to me—or at least, he was quoting one piece of it, over and over again.
"Le front aux vitres comme font les veilleurs de chagrinJe te cherche par-delà l'attentePar-delà moi-même.
Et je ne sais plus tant je t'aime
Lequel de nous deux est absent."
It was a poem by Paul Eluard—or, as I have said, a part of one. What he was saying meant,
'With my forehead pressed against the pane as a vigil of sorrowI search for you beyond expectation
Beyond myself.
I love you so much that I no longer know
Which one of us is absent.'
Elizabeth and I clung to one another, shivering, her own cheeks glistening with tears. We watched him for a very long time, as the light slowly flooded the room, and listened as he repeated that stanza over and over again, until it had burned into our memory as surely as it was burned into his.
When he turned around, he was not crying, as I had expected. His mask was back in place, and he looked like the confident, cold man that I had met years ago in a stable, in a town I no longer remembered the name of. The only difference was the growing amount of grey in his hair, for even his weight was back to as it had been then. He had not been eating his meals at all, I would later discover—what I had thought was an occasional refusal of food was actually a total avoidance of it, for he told me he threw his food out the window, when he could remember to, to avoid worrying me. He claimed that he lived solely on music, and that he had neither ate nor slept, and I could believe it. He looked like nothing more than a skeleton.
Erik returned to life as he had known it prior to Elizabeth's arrival, acting for all appearances like a normal person once more—or, as normal as he could ever act. He took his breakfasts in the kitchen with Cook, talking companionably to her; he ate his lunches and dinners in the dining room, with Mrs. Lyle, her daughter, Elizabeth, and myself. He even came and took tea with us on occasion, which was a totally new event—Erik had never cared for tea, and thus had never cared for taking tea. He began riding César again, and Elizabeth gladly joined him. The only real difference in his schedule was that, while he still tutored her in other things, he never again indulged in voice lessons with Elizabeth—and even went so far as to forbid that she could sing in his presence. However, in all other social situations, he endeavored to please me, even going so far as to sit in on a few of my business meetings, though he did little more than sit in the corner and listen attentively.
Still, Elizabeth and I both knew that the façade was as fragile as was the porcelain one on his face.