I remember that, because when I said it, I felt a twinge, very small, of guilt, like I was lying. I thought, in an instant, that in the middle of my singing to please him, I sang, also, for myself-- My Self, my one, complete self. I think the part of me that was Christian drank up the praise and the applause and the look on that fat Italian strumpet's face! While Christine... Christine, I think, was terribly in love with Erik, the way young girls are with their fathers, and the men or constructs that come to take their father's places. I think that the part of me that would become Christine was well in love with the priests at the chapel, even, and I think it was her that wept when I left them...
It occurs to me that there is more I must add to this tale, that comes before, but I think I must not write it now. Erik waits, he has waited too long. I was very, very good, at keeping him waiting... the poor, poor creature. He thought he knew all, the thought himself a flame, consumed and consuming...
I don't know what I thought I knew. At any rate, he let me go that evening, but it got worse and worse. He demanded I give my love to no earthly thing, lest he return to Heaven. Well, how hard did I have to try to agree to that? I knew well enough that I could not marry, no matter how Raoul begged and scratched and pleaded, nor how I longed to listen. I assured him so violently, but the Angel was implacable. Later we... I suppose we quarreled. I think he heard the note in my voice, for his became very like a man's, jealous, ardent. He whined, which fell strangely on my ears. And then he grew terrible.
"I can see straight through to your heart, Christine," He informed me in a terrible voice, one evening, "I know where you go, what you do. I-- I alone!-- guard you while you sleep, remember that... I could take my protection away. Perhaps you do not need me anymore..."
"No!" I am sure I cried, though in response to which part, I cannot say.
"No." It said, savoring the words so audibly that it made me shiver. "You do need me. You need me to give you your wings. You need me to make you great... There is something I can give you that nothing on earth can. You wait until tonight, Christine! I will be there myself. You wait..."
And then I knew he had gone. I sat shivering for a very long time. And then, when I went on that night, oh! How embarrassed I was, nearly. I was terrible, worse than when I was in the chorus. I think I was frightened, terribly frightened by everything. And then Carlotta came on too, and... well, the incident is well enough documented. I must highlight it with only a comment or two: That beneath my costume, Christian was perfectly delighted, as the voice of the Prima Donna came out in the horrible croaking of a big fat frog. Oh! How perfectly marvelous! Oh! How she deserved it!
Outwardly, I quivered with terror. And when the chandelier came crashing down, surrounding us with murder and screams, well! I knew, without knowing, and I fled to my dressing room. What a terrible power he has, I remember thinking to myself, in the moment before he called to me, beckoning me to believe in him and come, through the mirror... does it seem improbable, that I could walk through solid glass and emerge on the other side, that I would walk, as if in a dream into the centre of the earth where He dwelt in solitude? My Angel in Exile, I thought, as I went down.
I cannot describe the skeleton's hand that gripped me, the creature that appeared, frightening and terrible in it's mask. It guided me on. I thought it Death, come to make me an Angel too, and join me with my tenor half. The hands were just so cold, and the smell I knew from the graveyards at chapels. Oh, I am no stranger to death. Ah, deliverance! I fell into a swoon.
The next I knew, Death had lifted me across the back of a horse-- I knew the horse! I had fed him often enough, he was stolen by the opera ghost... it didn't disturb me so much, to think that the opera ghost was Death Himself. It did not matter. I would soon be in heaven...
I watched demons dance as I lay, still as anything, across Cesar's great back, as I was handed into a little boat and drawn across a lake, which all know lies beneath the Opera. I felt no fear, just a great and terrible peace. I dazed, off and on, coming in and out of the clear as I was taken to a room, a room filled with flowers. I thought of funerals.
"For me?" I said in a small voice, to the Death that stood before me. I think I supposed him still an Agent of the Voice, of my Angel, my Tenor-half.
"All of it, of course." Said Death, and horror dawned, a little, but not fully. "Are you afraid? You oughtn't be. There is nothing can harm you here."
And then I cried out, for his utterance bore a melody that was known to me. I knew it better than my own.
"You!" I said, "You!"
"Even I!" It said, curiously triumphant, and yet, full of misery, of pain, and of woe... it seemed to me that the triumph was written on the mask he wore, and all else seeped out from beneath it, a great pool of black emotions dripping onto the floor and creeping towards my slippers. "I am Erik! I no angel, or ghost, but a man, a poor, pitiful man..." And he knelt at my feet in an attitude of prayer, which I had seen just so many priests and things adopt in my day, and from just such a vantage.
Erik laid his head upon my knees and he wept, but there was immense joy in the weeping. Joy, and great, wonderful melody. I may have been transported by it... I know I sighed in harmony with his tears, and he wept still the harder. I think he was really in love with his misery, his tragedy, and the sheer hopelessness of It All.
I think I knew precisely how he felt. I touched the corner of his mask, and he jerked away. His eyes were red fire in the holes cut for them.
"There is one thing," He amended, and I followed his meaning, "You shall never, never! See the face behind this mask. Do not try! Do not touch..."
Could I refuse? I, who could never be touched? For whom every play at caress was mockery, fake-- yes, play? Why, my parts upon the stage at the opera knew more of the true mysteries of love than I. I knew only sordid things, the worship of priests, and the things a heart can whisper in the darkness, devoid of hands, and yes, of faces.
"I promise." I said, and he cried out! He cried out a note so beautiful, and so startling, that I was carried by it out of the cavern, out into the stars. My body, unable to endure these transports of the soul, why, it fainted dead away.