Fantôme – Chapter 9, Part 4

In the shadows of the opera, an astrakhan cap. A fluttering cape. The shiver of the shoulders as a cold porcelain mask touches cheek and nose and forehead. Dark eyes, full of sorrow, gaze deep into a mirror. Then music starts to play, perhaps from nowhere: a single piano key is pressed repeatedly, the note rings out arrhythmically, as something is called from the shadows. The darkness itself begins to play, resonant and rich and resplendent, a full two-handed morceau with the hideous, unstructured, one-note pendulum, dolorous, grotesque, tolling alongside it.