Christine
After those horrible events beneath the opera house, Raoul had me quietly settled at one of his family's estates outside Paris, where his mother often resided.
Staying at this bright sanctuary did wonders to calm me down, especially since the Countess and I got along surprisingly well. She immediately took me under her wing as a daughter-to-be. In a way, she took Madame Giry's place in my life, and I welcomed it. After the fire, Madame and Meg moved to Brussels to work at La Monnaie, and while I missed them, I was happy to receive Meg's letters and read of her blossoming dancing career.
As for me, Raoul's mother was a great connoisseur of arts, and she was often encouraging me to sing to the visiting family and other favorite guests.
Unsurprisingly, the day arrived when the newspapers found out where I was. Soon the invitations began to arrive: I was being offered new roles. The starring roles, even! I think that at first they wanted me as a sensation of a soprano who partook in that tragic premiere, but I took few of the opportunities anyway, and with each performance my fame grew.
My dream was coming true, and I was even to marry my beloved. What else could I have wished for? I did my best to focus on the present, even if adapting to my new life sometimes took effort.
Apart from being with Raoul, my happiest moments were the rehearsals, when, surrounded by the people who lived and breathed theater, I felt like I belonged.
In the society, I still felt uncomfortable at times. Not having been raised into it, I was unused to the nature of their gossips and conversations. I felt alone in those crowds.
"Relax, Little Lotte," Raoul would say and smile, "you have enchanted us all with your voice. You have us eating from your hand."
And he would twirl me to another dance, and another ball, and another gathering.
And I felt that I am dancing through my life as if through a dream itself. Wonderful as it was, sometimes it seemed unreal, as if my life lacked something tangible but undefined.
So, I took every decent offer to sing. I was searching for a perfect opera, yearning for an aria that would entice my soul to echo through my voice. I traveled and sang for months, until in the middle of the summer Raoul suggested that I take a break, and so we decided to stay on a vacation in Venice with our small but respectable entourage.
It was our second summer together, and perhaps the last carefree summer of my life. In autumn we would marry, Raoul would become more busy taking over the care of his share of family's estates, and I... Would I still sing as I do now? Would the audiences tire of me, or would I be confined by my role of Vicomtess and, possibly, mother?
One step away from so many responsibilities, one step away from the rest of my life... For me, this was a summer full of sunshine and shadowy reflections.