MOVIE SUMMARY: Hammer Horror's 1962 film "The Phantom of the Opera," starring Herbert Lom. A struggling music professor, Professor L. Petrie (the Phantom), sells his life's work to Lord Ambrose D'Arcy, who passes his opera, 'Joan of Arc,' off as his own. Petrie attempts to destroy the prints in the printing shop where his music is being published under D'Arcy's name but is badly burned in the ensuing fire. He runs screaming from the fire, falls into the Thames, and floats into a cavern beneath the opera house where a murderous mute lives who takes him in and cares for him. When D'Arcy tries to produce 'Joan of Arc,' he casts the unknown chorus singer, Christine Charles, to play the lead, after the Phantom and his mute companion sabotage the production, driving off many of the cast and crew. A dying Petrie has a change of heart when he hears Christine audition and decides to teach her to sing. After Christine's paramour, Harry Hunter, the opera's producer, figures out the Phantom's identity, he goes along with Petrie's desire to train Christine and the opera opens as expected, with Petrie at last confronting and driving off D'Arcy. At the end of the film, after her tour de force on the stage, Petrie throws Christine out of the way of a falling chandelier and dies.

Takes place in the two weeks that Petrie is teaching Christine to sing.

Christine pitied him. The poor, mad soul who once inspired the voices of many a student. From Harry's inquiries, it seems he was once a true genius. Now, he was little more than the ghost he pretended at being. They had spent their fortnight together in one another's constant companionship, and had only a scant four days remaining until the opening show.

For once, it was he who was asleep upon the fainting couch. Throughout the morning, he had been grasping surreptitiously at his breast, wincing whenever his voice rose above a whisper. He had already declared his impending demise, though Christine had never quite been able to make sense of the cause. He seemed strong enough, at least, for a man of his years. He often spoke to voices that were not there, people she could not see, bowing and gesturing to them as if they moved around him in a crowd.

Though it had unnerved her at first, she had become, almost, domestic about the whole arrangement. His mannerisms were eccentric, and unusual but hardly unpredictable. It was usually the past that brought on such episodes. Christine had quickly learned to avoid the subject. She only spoke to him of the opera, and of her singing. These were happier topics. Forward looking ones. Even so, at times, she wished she could ask him other things.

Did he have a family? Had he ever been married? Sometimes, she even wanted to ask more personal questions, questions about his childhood. Or even, a direct inquiry into the nature of his health. The latter was of particular interest to her as she watched his thin sternum rise and fall. The air seemed to whistle in his chest. As if it was never quite able to take a full breath. He had seemed weary the last few days, his movements slower, more careful, his voice rough. If she were honest, she was beginning to worry for him. And if she was beginning to worry for him, that meant she was beginning to care for him.

Indeed, upon reflection, Christine had become downright affectionate toward the strange man.

The mask was surprisingly uninteresting to her. Though Harry had dared to ask her if she had seen his face, she had responded with surprise, even at herself, that the question had never occurred to her. The mask seemed almost a part of him, a component of his being, not a falsehood, but rather, an essential truth. The mask was his face. And it was all the face she needed. As he stirred within his slumber, she found herself rising, gracefully drawing near as he muttered in a fitful doze.

As she drew closer, her foot scraped against the stone and, suddenly, the serenity of slumber vanished as his eye flew open beneath the mask.

The pupil dilated and widened with surprise to see her standing over him, he startled, and then relaxed. "Forgive me, my dear…" He panted, somehow breathless, despite his rest. "I…I must have drifted off…"

"That's quite alright, Professor." She assured with a warm smile.

"No…no…this will not do…we must not waste time on such trivialities…!" He sat up quickly, only to sway unsteadily as his eye squeezed shut with what she could only assume was a wave of vertigo.

"…Professor…" She said uselessly, feeling every bit the naïve young woman she knew herself to be, even as timid concern colored her voice, "…will you not let me fetch you a doctor?"

"No! No doctors…thieving greedy…they'd lock me up…they say they'll help you and then they lock you in a prison…help, indeed!"

"But surely…"

"I'll hear none of it! Now, we sing!"

They spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in song.

~0~

When she arrived the next morning, she found him slumped over the organ's keys. His mute companion fussing and fidgeting with him, but he only waved the man away, groaning about just needing a little rest.

Emboldened by his apparent delirium, Christine locked eyes with the mute and silently entreated him to allow her near his companion. With reluctance, and a furrowed brow, he stepped aside, signaling his acquiescence. Rivulets of sweat were gliding along his jawline, evidence of a fever that burned despite the icy temperature of the intemperate cavern. Guilt welled up in her stomach. He had over-exerted himself on her account.

Oh, he may have pretended it was only for the sake of his opera. But it was clear he cared not only for his own opera, but for the refinement of her voice, the honing of that natural instrument. He swore she would be the toast of England, and, for a poor chorus girl, she could only hope he was right.

As she drew near, his eye found her, roaming over her with an unfocused glaze.

"I am sorry, my dear…how rude of me…I should have greeted you."

Her lips twisted into a pitying smile.

"It is quite alright, Professor…we have already covered the whole of the opera…perhaps you should rest…"

He hummed in the back of his throat, his weight slumping even more heavily over the keys.

"...forgive me, my dear, my breast, it troubles me greatly..." he mumbled into the instrument.

In the silence that followed, she listened to his whistling breaths, punctuated by the dripping of water from the ceiling. It was cold and damp in the cavern. No good for an older man, much less one so clearly ill.

"…maybe you should move to the bed?" She offered gently.

A moment passed, and then he moved almost automatically at her prompting, staggering from his seat at the organ with the stiffness of one whose legs had not moved in hours.

Her eyes followed him. Watching for any sign that he might slip or faint. His pliancy was especially worrisome, and extraordinary, leaving a nettle of anxiety in her mind. Christine should have feared him as she did when he had first appeared and called to her from the stairwell. She should have feared his mute companion, a man who seemed to have no qualms with killing the innocent. But neither so much as prompted a shiver. Perhaps it was because now she felt reasonably sure of their habits, the predictability of their moods. No matter the cause, it was clear she had come to care for her maestro.

He paused as he stood before the bed, the same bed on which she had once laid, and seemed to stop himself, muttering as he often did. She could only capture snatches, but at last, he turned to her stiffly with the odd childlike madness that sometimes seized him.

"I am dressed Christine. You did not tell me I was dressed. I cannot go to bed."

She would chuckle if it were not so frightfully sad.

"Then why don't you take off your coat?" Christine says primly.

"But then I would no longer be dressed…!"

She sighed.

His eccentricities were many, far outnumbering his normalcies. They had lessened, even in their brief time together. But most stubbornly remained.

Without a word, she followed him down the stairs and moved to touch the fabric of his shabby lapel.

"Why don't we take this off?" She suggested, softening her voice as though he were a boy and not a man two decades her senior.

His eye followed her dumbly, still glazed over with fever.

"Here…" and without further discussion, she began to pull the garment from his shoulders, quickly followed by his cravat. As he pliantly obeyed, she herded him toward the bed, and, lifted the covers, coaxed him to lay down.

After a moment, he complied in the same dazed manner in which he had allowed her to undress him.

Ordinarily, she would blush in shame to be alone, seated on a bed beside a man whom she had just defrocked, however, she felt a strange absence of scandal. If the circumstances had been any different, she would have fled, appalled by her own indecency. But he was worn. He was sick. He was mad. And despite it all, he was trying to help her.

"We shall continue…your lessons…from here…" he labored, lucidity breaking through the clouded eye like the sun in a storm.

"I don't think that is wise, Professor."

"You will sing!" He cried, becoming agitated as he sat back up. "Do not think I shall let this mortal body impede our progress...—!" As if on cue, she flinched as he was seized with a sudden coughing fit, each exhalation punctuated by a wincing groan and gasp.

"Are you alright?!"

"The mask…" he rasped, coughing and groaning harder. "…I need to—"

"Oh!" She exclaimed in sudden comprehension. "Of course, please, take it off…!"

"N-no…!" The despair in that one eye, even as he fought to breathe, would have disheartened a thousand souls. Understanding passed over her face as she nodded solemnly and turned her back to him, pointing her face firmly toward the dripping stone wall. She heard the rustle of fabric and listened as his coughs softened, his breath coming back to him as his groans dissipated. After several minutes, the paroxysm subsided and she listened for the sound of the fabric's scape against his brittle thinning white hair.

"You can look now, my dear …" he breathed roughly, his voice ragged and hoarse.

He seemed surprised as his eyes fell on her concerned gaze.

"The mask…does it…hurt you?" She asked falteringly.

He blinked slowly at her.

She blushed, suddenly shy and awkward, fumbling for words.

"…I mean, just now, does it hurt you? Is it painful to wear?"

"Do not trouble yourself about it, Miss Charles…"

Her brow knit in pity. That one sentence was not a denial. It was an affirmation.

"Oh, you poor man!" She exclaimed, her heart suddenly sore. "Of course, I will trouble myself! If the mask hurts you to wear it, then for heaven's sake, whatever it hides cannot be worse than seeing you in pain!"

At her words, his eye seemed to grow damp.

"…beneath this mask, I am afraid I am little more than a bloody pulp…I would not want you to see me like this…"

"I am quite sure I could grow accustomed to it." She assured, even if there was a certain over-confidence to her bravado.

"My dear, I have never grown accustomed to its horror. I would not ask anything better of you. Now, no more of this nonsense, we resume our teaching."

And with that, he made her begin a series of scales, an exercise at which he worked her until the end of their day together.

~0~

He was still abed when she arrived. In fact, he was still unconscious. The mute hovered over him soberly but seemed to brighten when Christine arrived, gesturing for her to come nearer. She approached tremblingly, her delicate feet tip-toing closer to his reposing frame.

There would be no lesson that day, that much was clear. His breaths came shallowly, a thin sheen of sweat gracing his exposed limbs.

If the disease were to claim him, it would surely be sooner rather than later.

For a moment, she considered leaving and fetching Harry for help, the disquiet of the scene leaving her helplessly restless.

Even so, she knew there was no point, Harry could not help him, nor would the Professor accept his help. All he seemed to want was her company. At that thought, revulsion arose within her. And then an accusatory voice bellowed in her mind, demanding to know why she would treat him so callously. Could she not sit with him when there was no gain to herself?

With a nervous swallow, she half-heartedly made up her mind to abide, if only for a little while. Until he awoke and she could be sure he would still be there upon her return.

"May I?" She asked the mute, gesturing toward the edge of the bed. He cocked his head to the side and she wondered for a moment if he understood her, but, after a slight pause, he seemed to nod imperceptibly.

She curtsied to him in a mockery of manners and as she sat, felt her foot trip over something beneath the edge of the bed. When she looked down, there she found a volume of Shakespeare, its pages all dog-eared and bent with his tight red handwriting filling out its pages.

As she picked up its soggy cover, her eyes darted upward, ever wary of the mute, and there she saw a strange look of childlike excitement pass over his features. His brows shot up to his hairline, and his eyes widened as his crooked smile widened into a juvenile grin.

His hands moved wildly, suddenly envigored by the sight of the book in her hands, the fingers dancing left to right as if he were turning a page.

Christine looked upon him with confusion, trying to make sense of it all, when comprehension at last dawned upon her.

"Do you want me to read to you?" She asked, her voice soft and disbelieving.

That prompted a vigorous nod as the man suddenly dropped himself to the floor, looking up at her as if she were his schoolmarm.

"Does he read to you?" She asked, her eyes darting to the resting man beside her.

Another nod.

"Alright…" she said haltingly, the strangeness of the fantastic little world underground made even the absurd into a rationality. And so she opened to where a bookmark remained yet within the battered text: the final act of Titus Andronicus, a less-popular tragedy.

It was a perfect choice.

"Tragedy," she pondered, "tragedy" was the perfect word to describe her maestro. A man who, through no fault of his own, found himself plundered by Ambrose D'Arcy and left to die in a hole in the ground.

Her heart broke for him now, even as she read on, lest she offend his mute companion.

When was the last time he had known kindness? Other than whatever warped intentions had led him to the company of her present companion. Had he ever been touched? Loved?

She continued to ponder him as she progressed onwards. As she reached the part where Titus' false madness consumes him, her heart grew sick, and she found bile rising to her throat. This was not the end she wanted for her dear teacher. He did not wake that day. But, she promised herself, there would be a tomorrow. And that, on that next day, their last day together, she would endeavor to re-write the cruelty of his fate.

~0~

They only had one day before opening night and Christine feared he might not make it till curtain-rise. Upon entering his cavernous world, she had been relieved to see that he had returned to lucidity since the day before, but, even so, he had grown weaker. A toll exacted that she feared could not be repaid.

The pain he suffered seemed to emanate over his full body. It was his heart, she had concluded idly. It weakened everything. The limbs, the flesh, the lungs.

They had only just concluded their final lesson, when he leaned wearily over the organ's keys with a piteous groan and guttural sigh. He had been doing that more and more, as of late. She feared this would be the last time she would ever witness the now-endearing gesture.

"My magnum opus is complete, Miss Charles….you are ready, and your tour de force shall be my swan song."

Christine's heart leapt to her throat and she brought her hand to her mouth in a wave of emotion. She was not ready for this. Not ready to say farewell.

Suddenly, she found herself flinging her arms around his as she embraced him from behind. He stiffened in her arms, his frail frame rigid with surprise as he let out a strangled gasp.

"You dear man!" She exclaimed, pressing her face to his shoulder. "You cannot die, Professor! You just can't! The world will be so much poorer without you!"

"Why, Christine…!" he wheezed in shock, her name lilting on his tongue like a prayer, its use a new intimacy that sounded at once right and wrong.

And suddenly, his cold, mottled hand seized hers with fierce gentleness, clutching it to his heart. Never before had she embraced a man in such a manner, and, despite what even she would have expected of herself, this inaugural touch felt natural and right. In defiance of the scent of the mold and mildew and rot that permeated the cavern, somehow, he smelled of ink, and sheet music, sweetened by what she could only assume was port wine.

"Come back to the surface with me," she begged into the thin white strands of hair that tickled her cheek. "Missus Tucker misses you terribly…she's my landlady, too, I am sure she would be overjoyed to know you're still alive and she would gladly let me give you my room. It's not good for you to be down here."

He took several heavy breaths, his calloused fingers tightening around her hand.

"I…am afraid I do not belong…up there, any longer…I am a ghost, Miss Charles. I have been dead for many years, it is only my flesh that has delayed in coming to that epiphany."

She withdrew, her brow knitting, as her eyes filled with tears and her lip trembled. Of course, she could not see his face, but she could see the unusual softness in the crinkle of his eye, as he turned and regarded her.

"…You have so much left to give the world!" She exclaimed.

"You…" he intoned heavily, pointing a gnarled finger toward her heart, "…you will be my legacy." He then turned the finger dramatically toward himself. "Your voice. Your genius. And that is a better legacy than any opera. Like Joan, you have been given a holy charge, I ask only that, like the Maid, you will heed it. With a talent such as yours, you will grace the finest opera houses in the world."

"But, Professor…!" She interrupted. "…come back with me, I beg of you! I do not have much, that is true, but I have good food and warmth and we could fetch a physician for you—!"

"No!" He snapped suddenly, straightening himself. "There is nothing. And, even if there were, I could not leave my poor mute friend. He is monstrous, that is true, but so am I, now, and I cannot abandon him. I am not fit for your world…"

Her head lowered and hung in aching sorrow. He looked at her with intense scrutiny. His eye as clear and as sane as she had ever seen it.

"I am afraid, when we first met, I treated you terribly. In my desperation, I…I had forgotten what it was to be human, Miss Charles. But you…you reminded me of what it was to be among the living. That is a far greater mercy. Now go, my dear, go and trouble yourself over me no longer. You have a higher calling in this life. You shall not see me again, Miss Charles, but I beg you, do not forget me. Use that wonderful voice that God gave you. That is all that I ask."

His eye was so earnest, and pleading. She could do nothing but nod, her throat suddenly tight and thick with tears.

"I will try, Professor Petrie," she choked, gathering her things. "I will try."

She turned to walk away, but then stopped.

Spinning on her heel, she knelt before him where he remained seated and hunched at the organ. Even as he started in shock, she seized his keloidal hand in hers, and kissed it with all the gallantry of the tragic Joan of Arc.

"Goodbye, fair maestro. And thank you." She whispered, never meeting his gaze as she rose and departed.

She would never know how close he had come to pursuing her. How sweet the earnest words that had drifted from her tongue, how appealing the hope she had offered. As her steps faded into nothingness, retreating from his domain for the last time, he threw off the mask and wept until his tears carved salty tracks in the bloody canvas of his face.

Tragedy, indeed, it was all tragedy.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please review! It takes 15 seconds and makes my day. Guest reviews accepted without registration.

Rowan Williams defined tragedy, a major theme in this piece, in the following way in The Tragic Imagination "risk or danger and disproportionate harm—often a danger created and intensified by agents not knowing how serious the effects of their actions will be." This is based on a single Herbert Lom 1962 Hammer Horror fanfic that was taken down. It was rated M and I don't know when it was deleted but, c'est la vie. Anyway. This is one of my favorite takes on the Phantom because it is one of the few in which he is an unambiguously sympathetic/heroic character.