Fantôme – Chapter 9, Part 1

Raoul barely remembered leaving the theatre. Somehow, gendarme had arrived, and Raoul had a vague memory of being shepherded out by force, face turned back to the site of the catastrophe, dumbstruck. He had seen dead men in the army, of course, and even run a few people through with his bayonet, but they had been adversaries, ready to kill him. Young men who had volunteered to die, not old women trying to enjoy a quiet night at the Opera – and, crucially, he left them on the field, still livid and flowing and moaning and almost alive. He couldn’t wrench his eyes away from the corpse, its one cheek bloated and puffy and its blood blackening, congealing, waiting for the priest and the sanitation crew. He remembered the cold night air against his cheeks and neck, Élise dropping his hand and going back inside to the coat-check, manned now by a policeman, the girl who’d given their ticket in tears on a stool in the corner. He remembered the officer who’d tried to stop him leaving, tried to get him in a carriage like the rest of the aristocracy, and shaking his head. All those actions felt like they had been performed by a different man, one he had observed rather than been. The only thing that felt real was the chill, and so he chose to stay out. He walked home. 

He was home before Élise – there was a long wait for carriages at the Opera at the best of times, and now every groundling who could walk at all needed a lift home to avoid their jelly legs failing. He knocked on his brother’s door, sent him to wait by the door for his wife in his smoking-jacket and slippers. He asked the servants to make a pan of beef tea and when the under-maid came up with his cup she was surprised to see him sat at his desk, writing. 

Raoul had been an unstudious boy, and in the army friendships were kept by carousing rather than by correspondence so he had never had much call for letters. Such missives were the remit of wives. At this time, however, all he could think of was Christine, and knowing that he would not get past the barricade around the Opera until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest he settled down to make a mess of his desk in pursuit of her. Raoul wrote fervently of his wish that she was well, then his feelings poured from him in a jereboam. He wrote of his fear, his disgust, his sadness. He told her of his honest surprise that one with military service could yet be shocked by violence and human mortality, of his distaste with his brother for not asking a jot about la Sorelli with nary a worry Christine may not be politic about their affair. Raoul wrote that he wished to hold her, that he prayed he could protect her, admitted that he would have been comforted by her. His hand was scratchy and he got India ink on his nightshirt but the emotion found a home on the page, the page that represented Christine. 

At two in the morning he heard his distraught sister-in-law come home, heard voices for another hour as she poured her troubles out to his brother. 

At four in the morning, with daylight beginning to seep through the window, Raoul walked over to his bed and collapsed on top of the sheets, sleeping fitfully for a mere few hours. 

At seven-thirty or eight in the morning he made some attempt at toilette, staring at his sunken eyes in the mirror before slapping himself awake and reminding himself that he took pride in his appearance. 

By the time he walked downstairs, sealed envelope in hand, Raoul looked tired but composed, his neatness a testament to the army discipline that he had found comfort in when he had gone into service as a mere lad. He took coffee, but refused breakfast even upon insistence, claiming his stomach was too fragile even for simple toast or fruit. Though he affected a certain nonchalance as he sat in the breakfast parlour it must be remembered that many of the de Chagny servants had been with the family since he was a youth and understood their master’s behaviours, and love of breakfast. Thus, when he pulled out a fat envelope and urged the under-maid who filled the chafing dishes to take it to the Opera, and pass it only into the hands of the singer Christine Daaé, and that he himself would answer to the butler and see to it that a shiny gold twenty made it into her own hands for her sewing-box savings or her day off, this small errand given to little Joséphine became the talk of the under-stairs, earning several maids and a kitchen boy a light clip on the ear for gossiping. The elder servants thought the young were giving undue importance to a young man’s wooing practices, though privately they thought it was impolitik for the young Raoul to seek a mistress in the same place as his brother. 

The servants’ gossip was harder to supress later, when Joséphine returned back empty-handed after several hours, causing the Vicomte to pace in the front hall, put his coat on and rip it off again several times. 

She had given him a proper debrief: “It seemed important to you, sir, so I wanted to be sure to do a good job. I went straight to the dressing room, like you said, and then when she wasn’t there I asked the ostler, and the coat-check girls, and the char-girls, and the little ballerinas, who told me that nobody had seen her at all. I then asked the acting coach – he seemed quite astir and not fully focussed on my question if you don’t mind me saying so, sir – and the ostlers again, in case she’d come in since I got there, but there was no sign, so I have your letter here I’m afraid, sir. I hope I did the right thing by you, like you wanted!” 

Raoul then fished in his pocket for the coin he’d promised her, and looked her in the eyes as he told her she was a smart girl, she’d go far to be so perceptive of a mood like that, and thanked her profusely. He’d been pacing ever since – putting his glove on the handle, taking it off, throwing his coat onto the chair. It was a surprise when the door finally slammed, Vicomte Raoul de Chagny on the outside of it. 

He got to the Opera in double-quick time, walking with purpose. He politely nodded to the ostlers and the coat-check girls but proceeded straight to Christine’s dressing room. He, too, was greeted by a whistling, oppressive silence – but he would not be cowed. Nor, however, would he be driven to ungentlemanly behaviour, and where his brother might have barged in and thrown himself at the carved feet of the dressing-table Raoul, desperation in his eyes, walked the corridor, tipping his hat to the working men he passed, until he came across a char-lady. She disapproved of rich gentlemen in dressing-rooms, especially the dressing room of the pure young women like Christine, but Raoul’s incessant begging and lack of an expensive gift to buy back a waning affection impressed upon her sufficiently that she walked with him and opened the dressing-room door. 

“Please, Madame, I could not impose on her, I simply wish to know that Christine, after the excitement of last night, is all well.” 

The door swung open at a heavy push. A hum of nothing pervaded the air. Raoul wasn’t sure if it was the lack of Christine’s excitable, loving demeanour or an almighty quiet pushing down on them, emanating outwards, pressuring them to hang only in the doorway and leave the room untouched. Raoul thought that he could hear this cold, electric hum for real, but it was impossible – his ears only ever heard such a sound in the telegraph office. The pair closed the door behind them and the woman gave a small shrug – “It is what it is.” she seemed to say, and Raoul felt, for a moment, alone and unmoored, for who else cared about this girl and the danger she may be in?