While Christine sleeps, I journey to Chagny. It is as simple to steal into his bedroom this time as it was when I came to rescue Christine from him. Boiling with hatred, I stride to his sleeping form. Withdrawing my knife from my sleeve, I insert it neatly into his left nostril. When he snorts and sputters, I snatch it away, leaving him howling and pouring blood. I have only a moment before the household staff is summoned by his alarm.
"Come, your beauty is scarcely marred! It cannot be half a centimeter–nothing at all, compared to what I long to do to you," I hiss, slipping over the windowsill and down to the road. I steal into the woods and make my way out the Paris road, leaving his idiot servants stumbling in the dark.
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I brood when I should be composing; I sulk when I should be sleeping. I can neither concentrate nor rest, I am so unspeakably angry. Imagine Christine accusing me! If I used that girl unkindly, whose fault is that but hers? If she'd been a proper wife, not refusing her husband's privilege, I would have never had any cause to look elsewhere! And if I did, wasn't that, too, out of my slavish desire to please her, to spare her everything that she found objectionable in our life together?
After hours of endless ratiocination, it becomes clear to me: I have been too good to her and she has abused my generous nature. I cannot bear to admit to myself that I have given my very soul to a heartless child, and in truth I cannot blame Christine entirely. I am a new husband, and inclined to spoil and indulge her, I confess. She needs the firm, gentle guidance of her loving husband to show her where her wifely limits lie.
And yet, beyond her willful disobedience, her brazen dalliance with that hateful man, a more painful question remains. Indeed, if there's been treachery here, it's been Christine's. I've trusted her, done everything to please her, and how has she repaid my devotion? By believing the lies of my rival immediately, and without question! Did she say 'No, you must be wrong; I know my husband's gentility and devotion'? There is the heart of the matter, the question I must have an answer to. Why is she so quick to believe the worst of me? Why is it so simple for her to believe a man who obviously wishes her loving husband ill?
Once again, these thoughts enrage me. I burst into the room, startling Christine from sleep.
"What do you mean, believing his accusations? Don't you realize what he's about, you stupid girl?"
She hangs her head and my resolve wavers. I long to bundle her into my arms and comfort her, to tell her that all is forgiven and that I adore her as much as ever. But I must remain strong; to waver is to do us both a disservice.
"Christine, all he wants is to drive a wedge between us. You should run from him as you would run from the devil himself." I insist, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Raoul would never hurt me!" she snaps.
"Oh, is that so? You're afraid of your adoring little husband, but not that fiend? And yet, I tell you that he would never be so tender and considerate a husband as I have been, Christine. He would never tolerate your refusal of his rights. That's not how a young comte exercises his privilege, I can assure you!"
Christine claps her hands over her ears. "Please don't scold me anymore," she moans.
"Then please, Christine, please explain to me why you are so ready to believe the worst about your little husband. Why do you rush to accept what that boy says about me? Why can there be no other explanation for the disappearance of one little girl but that the Opera Ghost got her? Where is the precedent? Have I ever harmed a child?"
"I…don't think so," she admits.
"There; you see?" I stroke her hair and kiss her cheek. "You little husband doesn't harm young girls."
"Except for me…" she murmurs.