Chapter 1
Always, everywhere, one dream alone,
one constant longing,
one insistent sadness!
-Eugene Onegin, Act I
Music for this chapter: Violin Concerto No 1 by Edgar Meyer; Adagio in G minor, Remo Giazotto/Tomaso Albinoni
I must speak to you without delay, the note from Madame Giry had said. Come to my appartement at the earliest possible opportunity.
It was the night of the gala, the night of Christine's triumph. Erik was not in the habit of letting people summon him at will - especially not on a night like this, and especially not when it would cost him a chance to see Christine, who would be waiting for him after her performance - but this summons piqued his curiosity, as Madame must have intended it to.
When he knocked at her door forty-five minutes later that evening, she answered immediately.
"What have you called me here for?" he said without preamble.
She hurried him inside and shut the door. Her cat, Opale, trotted up and regarded him with a look of fascinated delight. The two had never met before, but Madame had never seen an animal that did not fall in love with Erik directly upon meeting him. It was almost amusing.
"There is something I must speak with you about," Madame said.
"So I gathered."
"Well-" Madame Giry looked uncomfortable, as though an awkward conversation lay ahead of them.
Erik's curiosity grew.
"Sit down," she said at last.
"No," Erik said.
"Why not?"
"I cannot stay long-"
"-I am afraid you may have to. This will, I think, be a lengthy conversation."
"But-"
"-Make yourself comfortable," she said in a steely voice.
Erik, annoyed at being ordered about, draped himself across the best armchair with all the defiance he could muster. Opale rubbed her chin against his ankles and then leapt up and settled into his lap, rather spoiling the impression. "I really must insist on knowing why you have summoned me here," he said, helping himself to her sherry.
She lowered herself into the chair across from him. "I must speak to you about Christine."
"Christine?" Erik's face assumed a hunted expression. It looked as impenetrable - and as frightened - as a fortress on the alert, with a dropped portcullis and a hundred archers standing at the ready. Then, realizing his mistake, he rearranged his features into a reasonable impression of nonchalance. "Christine Daae?" he said in as level a voice as he could manage.
"What other Christine do you suppose I would be speaking of?"
"Well, what about her?" he said, trying to sound as though it were of no importance to him. "She, er, she is well, I trust?"
"Yes," Madame Giry said, "But-"
He relaxed slightly. "-Has that snake Buquet been bothering her again? I was under the impression that I had successfully... persuaded him to leave her and Meg alone." He smiled connivingly and looked down at Opale, scratching her under the chin. She responded with a blissful smile and curled up in his lap, purring.
Madame Giry almost smiled. "No. You were very effective, thank you."
"Good. Still, it would never hurt to scare him again." He grinned.
"With my blessing," she said. "Men like that can never suffer enough, as far as I am concerned. But that isn't what I have called you here for. My concern for Christine comes from another quarter."
"Oh?"
"You see, Erik, I understand that her angel of music has told her he will have to leave her if she ever marries. He said that if she bestows her heart on earth, there will be nothing left to do but for him to go back to Heaven."
"Did he?" Erik said. "Well, I suppose she had better do as he says, then. One ought not to trifle with heavenly beings."
"You should not trifle with me!" she cried, her voice so loud he flinched. "Particularly where Christine is concerned!"
"With you, Madame? I wouldn't dare!"
Her eyes could have shot flames. "Did you think I would not guess your role in this? I have known for over a decade. Do you take me for a fool? Next I suppose you'll try to tell me there is another man with a fine tenor voice and an uncanny knack for music who is intimately familiar with the secret passages of the Opéra."
"Baritone," Erik said.
"What?"
"I am a baritone with a high upper extension - not a tenor," he said. "Surely after working at the Opéra for twenty years, you ought to be able to tell the difference-"
She silenced him with a look. "-Do not mistake my deliberate oversight in this matter for blindness!" she went on. "Until now I have chosen to let it go on- I even encouraged Christine not to tell anyone else about it- because I regarded it as relatively harmless. In other words, I trusted you."
For once, Erik was without words. He was acutely conscious of how deeply he was in Madame's debt - the fact that she had never once alluded to it only made him feel it even more strongly. When he felt he'd failed her, it cut him deeply.
"You must explain to me," she said. "Why did you tell her that?"
There was a long silence.
"Young men these days cannot be trusted," he said, suddenly sounding much older than his thirty-one years. "They are all unscrupulous rakes."
She chuckled. "Young men have always been unscrupulous rakes, for the most part. But there are always a few decent, respectable ones to be found. Christine can certainly find a young man with honorable intentions."
"Then you would have her give up her art just as she is on the brink of a brilliant musical career," he sneered.
She thought about pointing out that there was not a high likelihood of a 'brilliant career' for a foreign girl with no money and no connections, no matter how talented she may be. But it would be pointless to say anything on the subject. He would refuse to admit it. He was determined to make her into the most celebrated soprano in the world; nothing would dissuade him from the idea. "There is no need for her to sacrifice her art for the sake of companionship," she said instead. "Not with the right man. There are a number of great sopranos who are married. You know that."
"Yes, but..."
"Don't you want her happiness?"
"Of course I do!" he cried.
"But then what...?" she said.
She watched as he glanced away, laced his fingers nervously together, cast about for a reply. "Madame, she is... much too young to be married," he said at last, sounding absurdly pompous. "No good can come of rushing into matrimony at her age."
Madame Giry found she had to hide a smile. "Then would you have her wait until she's forty-seven?"
Yes! Erik thought irritably, but he could not say that. "Ah... no, but..."
"Christine is much too sensible to rush into matrimony," Mère pointed out. "And twenty is a very appropriate age for a young woman to be married at. Many of the girls her age in the corps de ballet are soon to be wed. I can only assume you are aware of that, as you are aware to an unsettling extent of everything else that goes on at the Opéra."
Erik squirmed. "Well, perhaps, but... I- I-"
"Ah," Madame Giry said, smiling as her statements at last found their target. "We now come to the point, don't we?"
"I do not like what you are insinuating," Erik blurted out, with the look of a cornered animal. "What you are suggesting is... is in every way vile, and... and disgusting... It is unjust of you to assume such a thing! I never said-"
"-What do you imagine that I am 'insinuating'?" Madame was pleased to at last be getting him to the point.
"You are trying to make out that…" Erik opened and closed his mouth several times before he managed to say it. "That... that I am... in love with Christine!" he at last managed to gasp out, the shameful words crashing up against one another so they were almost unintelligible.
Madame Giry lifted her eyebrows. "Well, are you, perhaps?"
"Of course not!" he snarled. "How I could be? Christine does not know I exist! She has never heard of Erik! We have never even spoken face-to-face... never... she does not know I am a man, a mortal, of flesh and blood..." He trailed off miserably.
"...But you know her. You talk every day," Madame pointed out. "You confide in one another. You know her, I daresay, better than almost anyone."
"I also know that it would be a travesty for her to marry-"
"-But hearing her sing every day... that voice... any man would fall in love with her-"
"-But I am not 'any man'-"
"-It is only natural," she said gently. "She is a lovely creature. Who could blame you?"
Erik couldn't stand it any longer. The shame was eating away at him. Besides, openly denying what he felt for Christine Daae, the center of his whole life, his very reason for breathing... that would be blasphemy. "Very well!" he roared, leaping up so violently that both his chair and the table beside it fell over. "You have me! Yes, I dared to raise my eyes to her! Me, of all the lowliest, most despicable creatures on earth! I have tried to make myself stop loving her, as God is my witness I have, and I cannot! You helped me all these years ago, and this is how I repay you! There!- You have found out my filthy secret! Well done! My shame is complete. Are you satisfied?"
"No," Madame Giry said gently and solemnly, her grey eyes fixed on him.
"Then... do you mean to tell her?" he asked in horror. "That I am the angel? That the angel is not real?"
"No." This was the only possible reply, but it was not entirely true. She may have to tell Christine...
"Then what do you want from me?" Erik cried. "What would you have me do now? Why did you drag it out of me? Do you mean to humiliate me as much as possible?"
"I do not want to see you humiliated." Madame Giry looked wounded. "Surely you know me better than that."
"Yes," Erik admitted slowly. He sank to the floor, burying his face in his hands. "But... I do not understand."
She knelt on the floor beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. He shrank away from the touch, and she felt a twinge of sadness.
"You have told me nothing you need be ashamed of," she said.
"What?" he snarled.
"Of course you love Christine," she said. "And it does you credit, that you fell in love with a woman as good and kind and intelligent as she. It is a mark of your discernment."
"Others would not see it that way, as you may perhaps not be surprised to hear," Erik said bitterly. He had dared to love someone once before, in a childish way, when he was about seven. One of the little girls in the gypsy camp. To his endless astonishment, she had said she liked him back. But then, in her innocent happiness, she had told her father of their affection. He had beaten Erik almost senseless, and then he had beaten her far worse, in front of Erik. And that was only over a stupid childish crush. God in Heaven, what would people do to him if they knew of the grand operatic passion he felt for Christine, as far greater than that childish inclination as the sun was greater than the moon? Worse, what might they do to her?
"But I do," she said gently.
"It is not because she is beautiful," he said at length. "I wish she were plain... then at least this would not be quite so... absurd! So idiotic... It is because of her voice... her spirit..."
"I know it," she acknowledged.
"And you will not... tell her?" he said. "That I... that I..."
"Never," she promised.
There was a long silence.
"But you must release her," Madame said at length.
He froze. "But..."
"...I know your reasons for forbidding her to marry were not entirely selfish," Madame said at last. "But be that as it may, you ought never to have done it. You have wronged her, Erik."
"What?" he said furiously.
"It was wrong of you to use your influence over her this way."
"I did not intend to!" he protested, and she noticed that at least he was no longer denying it. "I only... I only meant that if she... gave her heart to another... that it would be too painful for me to remain," he confessed at last. "I did not know the Angel had such a hold on her!"
This annoyed her. "Didn't you?" she said, trying to keep her voice gentle. "Do you mean to tell me you did not at least suspect it? A man as clever as you?"
He simply glared at her.
"Be that as it may - you cannot keep hold of her like this," Madame Giry said. "Either you tell her she is free to marry, or you give up this deception. In fact, I think eventually you must give it up either way."
End of Chapter 1
Note: I hope the songs I suggest can introduce you to some gorgeous new music and enhance your experience of the story, if you wish. I strongly support streaming/buying music legally (most of the songs are readily available on iTunes, Amazon, Apple Music, etc). That's how we support artists, ensuring more gorgeous new music can be created in the future.
Some French words:
Madame = Mrs., ma'am
Vicomte = viscount