Erik and Christine have officially been a couple for many months, and now he's trying to work up the nerve for the next step.
How to ask her. That's the dilemma. Not how he feels for her or how she feels for him or what anyone thinks of them. What does what people think about them matter? Farhad approves. Madame Valerius (who insists he call her Mamma, but it's profoundly strange to call someone only slightly older than he is Mamma so for now he sticks to Madame) approves. She approves perhaps the most of anyone, always greets him with a smile and a nod even though she knows he wishes to take Christine for his own.
He could never take Christine away from her though. Neither of them could abide that, and neither could he if he is being honest.
Farhad and Madame both approve, and nobody else matters. Except for Christine's father, of course, the late Monsieur Daaé to whom he owes so much, and he is certain that he approves also. He can feel it.
So that only leaves the lady herself. But how to ask her? He can hardly swan in to her dressing room before a performance and ask. And if he got down on one knee he is not certain that he would be able to get up again without help, and it is undignified to ask the woman of his affections to help him up when he is in the process of trying to propose to her. To take her out to dinner and present her with a bundle of roses and a ring just doesn't feel right. And nor does it feel right to make a production out of it, to ask for her hand in front of a theatre full of people. That would be mortifying for them both.
And what to say. Marry me, Christine?
Christine, would you consent to be my wife?
Christine, I wish to marry you. What do you think?
Read to her, perhaps, from Shelley. Love's Philosophy, and they fit together like two parts of a whole.
Compose something for her, with the question at the end and somehow trick her into asking him.
In another world he might do just that, but not in this world. And in this world the words all weigh wrong on his tongue, catch in his throat, and his heart aches to ask her, but how? How?