The next morning I got up and wrote down a list of things to do. The list included items such as finding a larger bathtub, seeking a tailor, and most importantly, talking to Madame Giry about Elise.
When I went downstairs to leave, I peeked into the kitchen to see Elise in the middle of a staff meeting where Pauline was glaring at her. Elise really didn't fit in with the other girls; she would fit in much better with the bubbly girls in the corps de ballet. In fact, she reminded me a lot of Meg Giry, they would most certainly become fast friends.
I didn't have any luck finding a new bathtub, but I did find an excellent new tailor. He said he'd have several new outfits ready for me by the end of the week. My next stop was the opera, and I was somewhat nervous. I didn't want Erik to see me and think I was trying to find Christine again. Boldly, I marched through the main entrance and went straight to Madame Giry's office.
"Monsieur de Chagny, how good to see you," Madame Giry said when she opened her office door.
"The pleasure is all mine, Madame," I replied, brining her hand to my lips and kissing it softly.
"What can I do for you?" she asked as she sat down in her leather chair behind her desk.
The desk was cluttered with sketches of costumes, fabric samples, choreography notes, sheets of music, and other miscellaneous papers. I noticed a letter with familiar handwriting in red ink. It was from Erik. I wondered if he had mentioned anything about my little visit. I put all thoughts of trying to read the letter out of my head, and focused on why I was here.
"I actually came here to ask you a small favor," I began as I sat down across from her.
"Yes?" she said, narrowing her dark brown eyes at me.
"Oh, no, this has absolutely nothing to do with Christine," I said quickly. Her expression softened a bit, so I continued. "I am actually here to see if you would be willing to audition my friend, Elise Verlinden. She had not danced in two years, but she is quite certain that she would be able to pick up where she left off."
"How is it that you know this young lady?"
"She is a maid in my home, Madame. She has a wonderful spirit. We have become great friends – I feel as though she is the sister I never had. I would really appreciate if you would be kind enough to give her a chance."
"Monsieur de Chagny, I am not the type of woman that will hire a young lady simply because our generous patron has asked me to. I require dancers with real talent."
"I assure you, Madame, I would not be asking you to audition her if I did not believe she had real talent."
All right, I admit it. How was I supposed to know if Elise had real talent? I had never actually seen her dance, but she was petite and moved gracefully enough in every day activities. I hoped that if Madame Giry did indeed allow Elise to audition that she would not make a fool out of me.
"Please, Madame Giry," I pleaded. "Just give her a chance. At the very least perhaps she could become an assistant to you. It does look as though you could use an extra hand," I said, gesturing to the messy desk.
Madame Giry appeared to be studying me. She twisted the end of her long, thick braid between her skinny fingers and looked over the clutter on her desk.
"I suppose it would not hurt to give her an audition. Please tell Mademoiselle Verlinden to attend practice tomorrow at noon. I can provide her with the necessary shoes and attire if need be. Besides," she said after a long sigh, "perhaps you are right. If she does not have what it takes to be a dancer here I could use an assistant. Although I'm not sure I would be able to find anything if it wasn't scattered about on my desk somewhere."
"You have always done a splendid job here, Madame Giry," I reassured her.
"Thank you, Monsieur de Chagny. Be sure to have the young lady arrive early tomorrow to get changed and find a suitable pair of shoes."
"Absolutely Madame," I said, standing up. "Thank you again; I know Elise will greatly appreciate such a wonderful opportunity."
As I left the opera, I couldn't help but feel as though I was being watched. I would not at all have been surprised if Erik had listened in on my conversation with Madame Giry. In fact, I almost hoped that he did hear us. Perhaps it would assure him that I was starting a new path in life.
I paced back and forth in the barn as I waited for Elise to meet me. When I got home I told her I needed to speak with her as soon as she was off duty. She told me to meet her in the barn at 8:30 so we could talk.
At 8:35 I heard the barn door creak open. Elise peeked her head in and as soon as she saw me she closed the door and gleefully walked in my direction.
"Hi, Raoul!" she exclaimed, giving me a hug. "I wanted to thank you again for dinner last night, I had a wonderful time. And of course thank you for helping me get rid of Matthew."
"Absolutely," I said, giving her a peck on the cheek. "I had a wonderful time, also. It was nice to be able to talk to someone so openly."
"I know what you mean," she replied. She had quickly changed out of her maid uniform and was wearing a drab gray dress. Even the dull color could not keep her from looking friendly, however. Her greenish-hazel eyes sparkled and her loosely braided hair gave her boring, old lady outfit a look of youth and cheer. She sat down on a bale of hay, and smoothed out her skirt. "I don't mean to sound too over-anxious, but did you get a chance to talk to your friend at the opera?"
"I did," I said nonchalantly, and walked away from her. I turned around and leaned against an empty horse stall. "She said for you to come to practice tomorrow at noon for an audition."
"She said what?!" Elise exclaimed, her eyes grew wide and a large smile spread across her face. "She's willing to audition me?! I can't believe it!"
"Believe it," I said happily. "This is your chance to really find yourself."
"I am a little overwhelmed," she said, standing up. "I mean, I'm so out of shape! How can I go on an audition tomorrow when I haven't danced in two years? I begged my mother to let me dance again, but –"
"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "When we first met, didn't you tell me your mother died giving birth to you?" I didn't mean to sound so suspicious of her, but I was sure that is what she had told me and I wanted to know why she had lied.
"Yes, I did say that, and it's true," she said, sitting back down on the hay bale. "My father re-married when I was right. Ana, my father's new wife, became very much like a mother to me, so I grew up referring to her as my mother. The only thing I didn't like about Ana is that she never encouraged me to dance. Father always let me dance because he knew I loved it. I had a promising career with my old ballet company and sometimes I think she moved us away from Belgium just so I couldn't dance anymore."
"Why do you say that?" I asked, sitting on a hay bale adjacent to her.
"Her sister was a dancer. She danced with a company for a few years, but then got swayed into a life of prostitution. I suppose she feared the same thing would happen to me. I started dating a lot in my later teen years and I think she figured that my attraction to men would get me in trouble and lead me toward that kind of life. I guess you could say she didn't have much faith in me," she said, shifting her eyes downward.
"That's a shameful thing to think," I said gently. "I can see why she would be protective of you, but she still should have trusted your judgment. You and her sister are two different people. Just because you love dance doesn't mean you'll end up in a brothel."
"I know, but I could never convince her of that. That's why she got me started on being a maid."
"What will she say when she finds out that you are auditioning for the Paris Opera?" I asked.
"By the time she finds out there will be nothing she can do about it," Elise said confidently. "She and my father moved to America the day after I was hired here. Father got a wonderful job opportunity and couldn't pass it up. He is a traveling salesman and they said he could bring mother along, but at my age they couldn't very well expect me to travel all over the country with them. I am sure mother will be quite upset about it, but I doubt she's going to come all of the way back to Paris over it."
"Hopefully you are right."
"I hope so…besides, we don't even know if I will be accepted," she said, folding her hands in her lap. "Perhaps I should practice a bit right now."
She kicked off her low black heels and walked over to the empty horse stall I had leaned on several moments ago. She placed one hand on the door and extended the other up above her head and began doing the warm up exercises I had seen the ballet girls at the opera do.
"I hope I don't make a complete fool of myself tomorrow," she said as she melted gracefully into a grande plié in first position. "I remember Matthew used to ask me to dance for him," she mused as she did a relevé and balanced for a moment before pivoting to face the other direction. "I used to enjoy dancing in front of crowds, or anyone, really. Especially my old lov-, excuse me, beaus," she giggled.
"How many beaus have you had?" I blurted. I did not intend to ask such an inappropriate question; it just kind of slipped out.
"More than is considered to be proper for a lady," she replied with a smirt. "That's why mother used to worry about me, but I always took every precaution."
Precaution against what? I wondered to myself.
Elise noticed my bewildered expression and stopped what she was doing. She cocked her head to one side and gave me a look that answered my question.
"Oh…" I whispered to myself.
"Don't look at me as though I'm a whore," she said, resuming her exercises. "I like to have a good time and there's nothing wrong with that."
"Oh no, I wouldn't think that about you," I said awkwardly.
"Hey Raoul, can I ask you something?" she said, as she painfully extended her right leg into a beautiful développé en'lair.
"Sure," I replied, hoping that she was going to change the subject.
"Did you and Christine ever consummate your relationship?"
"No," I said quietly. "It only would have complicated things further between us."
"Please, please, please do not get angry at me for suggesting this, but were you really in love with her or did you just really lust her?"
"I lusted her," I stated simply. "Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if I lusted Christine specifically, or if any woman in general would have sufficed."
"Well, do you still feel that lust?" she asked. She had moved into the middle of the barn, and was balancing into a beautiful attitude.
"Sometimes, but definitely not toward Christine anymore."
"Then I think it's safe to say that you're just experiencing the feelings of a typical man of your age. There's no harm in that."
"No…I suppose not."
"You're still a virgin, aren't you?"
"Why is that of any importance?" I said with a hostile tone.
"Relax, I was just curious. I know it's really not any of my business, but if you ever needed any advice on being with a woman I might be able to help seeing as I have had some experience in the area." The words flowed from her lips as though we were talking about an impersonal subject like the weather.
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind," I said as I got up and removed the small silver flask I kept in my jacket pocket. I took a long swig of the sweet brandy and enjoyed the burning sensation as it trickled down my throat. If this conversation was going to keep going in this direction I was going to need a little libation to get through it.
"I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I could kind of tell by the way you kissed me last night that you haven't had much experience."
"Excuse me, I didn't know I was supposed to kiss you with all the passion in my body," I said sarcastically.
"Oh come on, I know there's no spark between us but you could have put a little more effort into it. Have you kissed anyone else aside from Christine?"
"Yes," I said defiantly.
"Sorry, I mean have you kissed anyone aside from Christine and me?"
"Oh, well, no…" I said sheepishly.
"Well there you go! All you need is some practice. Here, try this." She walked over to me and pulled my right hand out of my pocket. "I want you to try kissing your hand softly. Just barely graze your lips against the skin."
I looked at her as though she was mad. She wanted me to kiss my own hand, for crying out loud!
"Oh come on, just do it. I promise I won't tell anyone about this. If you're ever going to get a woman into your bed you're going to have to know how to kiss her properly. If you can't kiss her and make her feel butterflies she sure as hell won't be interested in making love to you."
"Fine," I muttered as I raised my hand toward my mouth.
"Okay, now as I said, just barely graze your lips against the skin."
I felt unbelievably foolish as I did what she said. How was this going to help me?
"No, no, no…do it like you mean it. Do I have to kiss you to show you how it's done?" she threatened, putting her hands on her hips.
I glared at her for a moment and tried it again.
"Don't tense your lips so much…there, that's better," she said. Her face was uncomfortably close to the hand I was kissing so she could observe what I was doing. After a minute of watching me, she started giggling. "Oh Raoul, you have a lot to learn about women. Don't worry, I'll help you."
She skipped back to the center of the barn and resumed her dancing.