Twelve

"Why did you follow me, Raoul?"

He panted after her.

In a blind panic, Christine had caught hold of him and pulled him out of the room, not speaking or allowing him to speak until they were out of the Opera House. Suppose Erik should see them together—

No, he must not see.

They walked down the street now, it was late morning, the bustle of the early morn slowly dying. Raoul caught at her hand.

"Three days, Christine— you were gone three days— "

She swung back on him and attempted to detach her hand but he wouldn't let go. She wanted to tell him that time meant nothing, in her mind— had it been three days or three months, it would make no difference. But the words would not come, and Raoul spoke on.

"I knew you must have gone there— to the basements of the Opera Populaire— I thought you must have gone to mourn over Erik's— over his grave. But then you didn't come back— I was out of my mind with worry, Christine, just as I feared— you must be out of your mind with grief. That was the only explanation I could think of."

"Really," she said quietly. "The only one."

The confusion in his eyes made it clear. The thought had never crossed his mind that Erik might still be alive. He thought only that she had gone insane with sorrow— which was not, in itself, so far from the truth.

She did not want to tell him the truth, she wanted nothing more than to run away from him, run back to Erik and lose herself in him, stranding Raoul in the catacombs of Erik's labyrinth. But she— she had loved Raoul—

"Come, Christine," said Raoul, hurt plain in his voice. "We are nearly married. And married people do not keep secrets."

That was it.

She tore Raoul's ring from her finger and flung it at him.

"We are not married, Raoul, we are not engaged, as of this moment we have no understanding whatsoever." The pain welled in his eyes and she wanted to look away from him, she was afraid if she kept looking at him he would convince her—

She tried to explain.

"Raoul, while Erik lives I cannot love you, nor anybody else. He has captured my soul in his fingertips, he holds the entirety of my heart."

His eyes blazed.

"Erik lives," he whispered.

She straightened her back and did her best to look firm and forbidding. "Erik lives," she repeated.

"I should have known," said Raoul. The look on his face was something terrible to see. "I should have known— that God-forsaken carcass of a man could not die! He will outlive us all! He will see us destroyed, Christine— that's all he wants—"

"No!" she cried.

"Christine—"

"No!"

Raoul's eyes were filled with hatred, hatred for Erik. His mouth was twisted into the first cruelness she had ever observed in him— fear of losing her made him cruel, made him rash. He reached out and grabbed her arm, tugging her towards him.

"Christine, you are not in your right mind, and I am taking you home."

"No!" she screamed once more, and fought him, clawed at his hand on her arm. "No!"

"Yes!" he roared back, in a panic, heedless of the looks they were gaining from worried passers-by. He began to pull her back towards his carriage, which he had left a block away.

"No, Raoul, you can't!"

"I can and I will! You are mine, Christine, and I do not share my possessions with anyone, least of all a madman who lives under an opera house and who should by rights be dead."

She screamed, and begged, and cried, but she was weak, and Raoul got her into the carriage without much difficulty. Even there she raged on at the walls, forcing Raoul to enfold her in his arms simply in order to stop her hurting herself.

"To my home," he shouted at the driver. "At once!"

He returned his attention to Christine, who was sobbing now, losing her mad strength. Raoul was genuinely worried.

"He would not be good for you, Christine," he said, he repeated over and over. "I cannot let you go back there, to become the wife of a— a carcass— a cadaver— he is not a man, Christine, he is not real, he could not be good for you or for your sanity—"

He feared, he truly feared, that her sanity was already beyond recall.

"Three days," he murmured, drawing her close to him. She sobbed on his shoulder. "Three days, and finally he lets you free— and already you are mad enough to want to return to him—"

"Erik, Erik, Erik—" she sobbed, pounding on him with weak fists. He soothed her, running a hand over her hair.

Reaching his home, he carried her inside— weakened as she was, she cried still, and spoke Erik's name. He laid her on the bed in one of the guest rooms and barked out an order to a housemaid— "Fetch Doctor Anmes at once." The girl darted off, and he returned to Christine's side, touching her, soothing her—

"What has he done to you?" he enquired gently, not really expecting an answer.

But Christine pulled back from the depths of her darkling mind and replied to him—

"Only loved me," she said. "He only loved me, and I let him— I wanted him to— I still want him— and is he to be punished for that, for loving me?" She moaned and turned on her side, facing away from him. "Oh, Raoul, why not kill me right off, if you are to take my heart from me and so see me die little by little? I never thought you could be so cruel—"

Raoul stood shocked by her words, and deeply disturbed. He pushed their possible meaning away from him and sat by her, taking possession of her hand, waiting for the doctor to come, waiting for sanity to return to his finally-found beloved.


Dr. Anmes took off his glasses and looked gravely at Raoul.

"She is in a very weakened state. I would say she has not eaten in three or four days, and most likely not had much to drink in that time either. She is severely dehydrated, and as you can see is suffering also from lack of sleep. Let her rest— send in a maid and have her washed in bed. I would not advise exposing her entire body to water at once. She may take a chill, and that would be a grave misfortune indeed.

Raoul nodded and shook his hand, thanking him. As he walked him to the door, he managed to get out half of what he wanted to say.

"Dr. Anmes, would you be able to tell—"

The doctor turned and looked at him.

"That is," Raoul faltered, "I fear she has been encaged by a madman, and— I know not what horrors he subjected her to— he fancied himself in love with her, a few months ago, and wished her to become his— his wife." Raoul stopped there, a sense of decency kept him from going on. He blushed shamefully at what he had dared to say.

The doctor stared at him tolerantly. He was a gentle, realistic, older man, with a vast knowledge of the world and human nature. He had no such scruples as the young Vicomte.

"You wish to know if she has been taken advantage of," he said frankly. "Raped."

Raoul swallowed, and nodded.

The doctor sighed and returned his glasses to his face.

"My dear monsieur, the entire time I was in there examining the patient, the young woman spoke incessantly of a man— she called him her angel, her life, her love." He nodded slowly, watching Raoul's face as the young man blushed deeply. "Unless your first name is Erik, rape is not what I would be worried about." So saying, he walked out, having left instructions for Christine's care with a housemaid whom he trusted more to keep a level head than he did the young Vicomte.

All Raoul could think about was that Dr. Anmes had not answered his question.

The question which burned inside him—

Which made him sick— which had literally made him violently ill when he tortured himself by thinking about it, so he ran outside and crumpled to the ground in the middle of the small wooded park that was on the de Chagny estates— rolled over and over, retching, crying, and thinking of Christine lying in the arms of a man whom he had come to hate with such passion—

It could not be true. He would not believe it. Christine loved him, she would never—

If he had forced her—

She had come back to him now. Raoul held that thought to him as a comfort. It had been three days, but she had returned at last—

Except—

It had been two months— and she had returned to Erik—

He left the doorstep and went back inside, walking with a slow and measured tread to the door of Christine's bedroom. She was awake now, staring at the ceiling, but very nearly comatose— she'd been given a large dose of laudanum and should soon, or so the doctor had said, be asleep. Raoul crept in and sat by her.

He bent over her and endeavored to attract her attention.

"Christine—"

She refused to look at him, kept staring dreamily at the ceiling.

"Christine—"

He took her by the chin and forced her to look at him. "I need to know," he said quietly but earnestly. "It will haunt me— it will drive me insane, Christine. I need to know what went on between you and Erik."

She gazed at him coolly with her liquid eyes.

"I told you already," she said. "I told you all that went on all the time I've known him— between me and Erik— he would hold me when I was cold, and we grew warm together. He used to sing me to sleep. When I first knew that he was a man, and not an angel, I was devastated— but then I was glad. And I am more glad now. I could not touch an angel, nor kiss an angel— and Erik belongs to me. He told me so, he wept and swore and told me so. He belongs to me to kiss whenever I please."

Raoul was sobbing now, pent-up breath escaping haphazardly through his parted lips. "Christine, no, tell me you love me— you belong to me, Christine, and I to you— we don't need anyone else, Christine—"

Her eyes looked even more faraway. "That's what he said," she murmured. "Erik said, now that I had come back to him, he didn't need anything or anyone else, and he could lock the world away— oh, Erik!" She suddenly seemed to come back to herself and began to struggle, throwing his hands away from her and attempting to fling the bedcovers off her body. "Erik!" She was weakened by the laudanum, and could not unseat Raoul, who took her arms and pinned them to the bed, afraid she would hurt herself. "Erik! I must go to him, he will crawl in a hole and die if I do not! Erik— Erik!"

Raoul held onto her, still crying, till she quieted and lay back, the laudanum beginning to work its way into her. Even then he held her arms, running his hands up and down them, caressing her skin, his teardrops in silence falling onto the sheets.

"Christine," he said, "what have you done? What have you done?"

"I did nothing," she said, beginning to slip into slumber. "It was Erik's doing— he is— irresistible." She breathed this last word, closing her eyes. Raoul stared at her, slowly letting her go and drawing back.

She was mad, and she was damaged goods, and she was his.

He was engaged to damaged goods.

He would marry damaged goods.

The onus she would bring on him would ruin him, slowly but surely, in the eyes of the society in which he dwelt.

She was no longer his Christine— if she had not lain with Erik in body, she had done so in mind. She had given herself, body and soul, to the man beneath the opera house. She loved Erik and she could love no one else.

Raoul revolted against the thought.

He did not know what to do.

It was only his pride, his sense of decency, and the last vestiges of a ruined love that kept him from sending Christine away that moment. As it was, he found himself suddenly not able to bear her presence, and went away, leaving the room, slamming the door behind him— she would not wake up, drugged as she was, and who cared if she did— and stomping to his own bedroom, kicking the door shut violently behind him in a frenzy of wounded pride.

He offered her everything— his love, his life— and she returned to Erik still—

Finally Raoul sat down and buried his head in his hands, and cried and cried and cried.