Chapter Two
Embers
Also ten years later.
Erik walked the banks of the lake as he opened Christine's latest letter. They had kept correspondence after she had left and, ironically, had become closer friends now than they had been during all the time when he had taught her and kept her with him beneath the opera house. She understood him now in a way that she had not been able to before. She understood why he had acted as he had and, miraculously, she had forgiven him. In her letters, she had spared him most of the details of her happiness with Raoul and he appreciated her tact. But he had insisted upon knowing enough to be assured that his sacrifice had been worth it. He had let her go because he had accepted at last that she did not love him. He had accepted at last that she loved Raoul and that she would not be happy with him under the opera. And he wanted her to be happy. Knowing from her letters that she was happy, that he had, for one of the few times in his life, done the right thing, had been Erik's one source of consolation during some of his darkest hours after they had parted.
It had taken years for the pain to die down, for him not to feel as though his heart were being wrent in two every time he thought of her. It had taken years to be able to look back upon their brief time together, if such it could be called, without agony. But eventually, he had been able to manage it. He had not thought it possible. But slowly, with time, it had come to pass. Their mutual understanding and forgiveness, and the fact that they had been able to salvage a friendship out of the disaster of their acquaintance, had helped. It had helped Erik come to peace with how things had happened. But there was still the ever-present void of loneliness. Having known human companionship once, briefly, he felt its absence far more acutely now than he had before he'd ever known it. Of course he tried not to dwell upon the fact. But he felt it nonetheless, like a constant heavy void in his heart, and he was certain now that love from a woman was something he would never know. His deformity was too much of an obstacle; even for he himself to bear, let alone for a woman.
He took Christine's letter out of its envelope and began to read it. It told him that she had at last found a good governess for her son after an enormous amount of trial and error. She had told him , in previous letters, about her erstwhile efforts to obtain a proper educator for Joseph-Phillip. Apparently, however, this one was working out very well. She was a good teacher and she and Christine had become good friends. "Good." Erik thought. Christine needed a good friend. Her husband was wonderful, but Erik knew she needed another woman to confide in who would understand the things important to women. Apparently, this new governess, Jane, was also a very gifted musician who had, by in large, taught herself.
Her letter ended by saying that she and her family would soon be moving back to Paris. Other than surprise that Raoul had consented to such a relocation knowing that he, Erik, was still alive, Erik was surprised at how the news did not affect him. Years ago, such news would have sent his heart into wild agonies of passion and desperate hope. Now, he was simply glad that they had rebuilt sufficient trust over the years of their correspondence for Christine to feel safe in letting him know such information. The conclusion of her letter also said that Jane had been persuaded to audition for the Paris Conservatoire.