Her voice was more beautiful than he’d ever heard it, her soul poured out in every note. He’d come to resent that once, Raoul remembered from a dim and distant past; from that arrogant time when he’d been so certain of her...
That time before. His world would always hold that divide, now: After and Before.
He’d let himself believe her soul was his, and grudged her the lavishing of it to spend as she pleased; believed that the more she gave away, the less there could remain. He’d been wrong on both counts, he knew that now — so terribly, fatally wrong. Her whole soul was in her singing tonight, fulfilled and complete as he’d never known it. Her heart was in her eyes. And she had never been his to keep; would never be his again.
He should have gone already. Should have gone at once, when the curtain rose and she stood there on stage, and he knew — knew that he had got to her at last and all was lost, with that dark voice whispering in her ears.
He should have gone then, as he’d told himself he would in those last agonising moments; turned out his empty pockets upon the table and quietly laid down his losing hand and what little pride he still possessed. And if it had been mere money at stake, if he’d wagered his whole fortune on some foolish throw — again — he might have done it, to leave unseen and with dignity intact.
But it was Christine, Christine, and he loved her...
So he had clung on, held helplessly in the wings by those first delicate notes that all unknowing sealed his fate. Worse, he’d come forward as she swept downstage, forward out of the shadows to the very side of the arch. The white glimmer of that mask mocked at him there from across the stage, poised in triumph while his own face was bare for all to read; but he’d thought he’d gone beyond caring, then. He’d been drawn like a moth to the flame for one last sight of her — and this final torment had begun.
For she’d turned, and seen him, and smiled; and he’d understood hopelessly and all too well what her choice had been, and what she had meant to say. How could he leave here now when she was pouring out her heart, with every word in that damnable song a promise for them both of a future they’d never see? And... how could he bear to stay?
He watched her head sink; watched those glorious eyes turn a moment to his rival, with an agony he’d never dreamed mere music could bring —oh God, Christine, who is it that you love? Do you know even now?— and then that gaze of hers encompassed him once more, as if it could answer his pain.
“Love endures — hearts may get broken—”
Love might endure, but Raoul de Chagny found, abruptly, that he could do so no longer. He turned away from that shining promise in an almost brutal haste and plunged blindly into the dark. At the last moment he looked back, as he had sworn to himself he would not. Saw the uncomprehending dawn of hurt on her face, as the song behind him faltered.
Hearts may get broken... and am I breaking your heart, Christine? For I think that you have broken mine. For a moment, stumbling through the shadows, that thought was a savage consolation of sorts; then he thrust it away. Better that she should turn to her lover for comfort — better that she should learn to despise the husband who had spurned that gift and flung her choice back in her face. He had hurt her too often already. He did not want her hurt again for his sake now.
Perhaps he can make you happy, Christine. It seems so long since I knew how...
What fools they had been, those two children at the Opera who’d believed in happy-ever-after. What romantic ideals they’d had, of sacrifice and chivalry and love everlasting. To die for Christine then would have been easy. To live for her... had been a task he was not man enough to fulfil; and in that failure he’d wrecked all their lives.
A gantry loomed up; Raoul side-stepped, ducked beneath a rope, and found himself at last on the bare boards backstage.
He hesitated, looking for the exit.
Gustave. The memory of the boy’s face seemed very distant now — everything was distant — but with an effort he dragged himself back. He’d promised the child...
One more broken promise. What more did he think Gustave would even expect?
But the idea caught at him in the guise of that small trusting face. He could — should stay with Gustave. Not leave... yet. Take him back to his mother: to see — to hold — Christine again...
No. He could picture all too clearly that leavetaking under sufferance, with stiff embraces beneath his rival’s magnanimous mask. No, not that.
Better by far to keep the memory of those last kisses intact and unsullied. To go now, at once, and set her free; leave this place behind.
Raoul took a deep breath, blinking back blurred vision, and found his bearings at last. Great double-doors in the wall beside him must lead out onto the yard. Which meant that... yes, somewhere behind that catwalk was the flat glimmer that had led to the dressing-rooms. And beyond that, half-glimpsed yesterday in Gustave’s wake, was the barren little room — office, glory-hole, store, he neither knew nor cared — whose desk would furnish him with the final service the Vicomte de Chagny would ever require from Phantasma: an inkwell — he felt for his pocketbook — and a pen.
In front of the footlights and under the great spotlit flood from above, with backdrops, tabs and curtains all between, music played and Christine Daaé sang on, most radiant diva of the age. Moving quickly and quietly across chalk-smeared boards, Raoul gave no sign that he could still hear it; but when he glanced back for the last time before slipping into the dark beyond the wings, his face might as well have worn a mask of its own.
The letter was quickly written. Haste drove him now; if he was not to see her again, then he would not be caught here behind the scenes, like some red-faced bumpkin in a lady’s chamber.
“My dearest wife—”
He read through the few scant lines he had written, and thought, for a moment, to add another. But it was too late, and some things were better left unsaid.
“My dearest wife... yours, in regret—”
The future, ahead of him, was a swirling blank that left him dizzy and a little sick. He caught up the pen again, and almost splashed a full signature across the sheet without thinking... as if it were one more promissory note to sign, the generosity of the sprawling C and the long-tailed y given the lie by the debts that stood above them.
Instead, carefully, he set his name at the bottom of the page: “Raoul.”
He turned the page and folded it, slowly, staring down at the letter in his hand.
And I made choices, too...
There was a vase of red roses on the corner of the desk, soft and overblown. He’d given her a rose — twice, perhaps three times. But she’d remembered...
Strange, to think that he would never kiss his wife again. All those mornings... all the mornings of their lives, wasted.
He pulled the last half-opened bud from out of the bunch in a flurry of heavy, blood-red petals that dropped, each an accusation, about his hand, and stood up.
Three strides to the door. Perhaps twenty, to his wife’s dressing-room. And then — then there would be nothing.
No future. No Christine. No Gustave... but Christine would have her music, more music than he could ever have given her, and Gustave — Gustave would have his Coney Island, all the freaks and mechanical marvels his heart could crave after, for ever and ever...
He came to the empty dressing-room; turned in.
The image of the son he’d longed for, the bright-eyed boy on the pony, seemed very far away. That dark fascination... Christine had not — had she?
Doubt your wife... doubt your son.... Oh, God. Raoul sat down, abruptly, in front of Christine’s mirror, and dropped his head into his hands. In the distance, the tides of applause crashed to the shore; ebbed.
Time to go... The last notes had been played. Christine needed him no longer. And Gustave was with Meg Giry: fair, sad-eyed Meg, who would stay by him until the last. Meg would take care of him.
A wide-shouldered, grotesque figure in the hallway spared Raoul a few words as he passed; the Vicomte was moving like a sleepwalker or a drunk, and gave no sign that he had even heard. Two doors beyond, beneath a naked bulb, Meg Giry’s room lay wide open and silent. Shards of mirror like knives of ice lay splintered across the floor.
And the street door, when Raoul reached it, stood ajar already, banging fitfully in the wind.
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