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There once was a woman with a beautiful voice named Christine. Her mother died when she was a child, and her father died when she was a very young woman, and so she was alone in the world.
She found work as a singer at an opera house, and befriended one of the ballet dancers, and then she was happy, for she could sing every day, and to sing was, for her, the greatest joy in all the world.
Now, the lead soprano of this troupe was named La Carlotta. She was proud, and her voice was not as good as Christine’s, and one day, Christine was given the lead soprano role in the show.
The evening after the performance was done, filled with jealousy, Carlotta found Christine in her dressing room, and cut her throat.
Christine’s great friend, the ballet dancer, found her body. Meg Giry was horrified, but she knew she could go to nobody for help, for the murderer had used the knife Meg kept for her ballet shoes. Anyone Meg called would take her for the culprit.
Instead, Meg waited for full dark, took Christine’s body out of the opera house by secret means, and burned her body in the wilderness. That done, Meg gathered the bones in a red scarf that had belonged to Christine, returned to the city, and, weeping, buried them beneath a juniper tree in a park.
The next morning, though Meg Giry was not there to see it, a mist gathered around the juniper tree and a bird flew out.
The bird took off through the city, flying wherever it wished. It flew to the opera house, and perched on the statue of Apollo on the roof. It saw Carlotta and Meg Giry enter and leave. It flew to the lodgings that had been Christine Daaé’s before she was killed, but it did not try to enter.
Eventually, it took up residence in a garden with high walls.
This garden and the house attached to it belonged to an architect and composer. He was skilled at all he turned his mind to, but he had been born so hideously ugly that he hid himself away from the world. The high walls of the garden were to make certain that no passer-by would ever see his face.
But the bird liked the solitude of the garden, and the trees within the garden provided nuts and berries for the bird to eat.
The garden was safe. The garden was a long way from La Carlotta. The bird would like to stay here.
Soon, the bird heard a beautiful voice emanating from an upper window which had been left open. She flew up to perch on the windowsill.
A man sat at a piano in the room beyond. He sang with a voice so heavenly it was almost beyond the human.
The bird that had been Christine sat and listened for a long time, until she began to sing along with him.
Eventually, the man finished his song and turned, and the bird saw his face, and he looked like a thing three years dead. The bird was too shocked to move, but the man did not know what shock looked like on a bird, and his lipless mouth smiled at her.
“Were you… harmonising with me?” the singer asked. “What a clever bird. But of course, you are not afraid of me. Birds do not know if a human face is ugly or not. Well, my name is Erik, and I am very hideous, though you do not know what that means. You probably only know that you like my song.”
And from that day forward, Erik sang with his window open so that the bird could join him, and he left her a little pile of seeds on a porcelain plate by the table.
One day, Erik decided to take a stroll in his garden at a different time to his usual habit, and he overheard the bird singing in one of the trees:
“My parents, I lost them.
“My rival, she killed me.
“My best friend,
“Gathered all my bones,
“Tied them in a red scarf,
“Laid them beneath the juniper tree.
“Tweet, tweet, what a beautiful bird am I.”
“You can speak human language!” cried Erik, “But this is wonderful. You truly are a magical bird.”
But that time, the bird which had been Christine was used to Erik’s face, and knew not to be afraid of him. So there was conversation as well as music between them, though Christine could not bring herself to tell Erik that she had once been a human woman.
In time, Erik gifted the bird a gold ring, as a token of their companionship, for so many people shunned him that any friend was precious. Christine would carry it in one of her claws.
Three days later, Christine said, “Erik, you have given me this ring, and it is a beautiful ring. If I asked borrow something from you, and promised to return it, would you give it to me?”
“What is it you wish to borrow?” asked Erik.
“I wish to borrow the lasso that you keep hanging on the peg by the door.”
“Very well,” said Erik, “Since you have promised to return it, I will lend it to you.”
And Erik fetched the lasso from the peg by the door, and gave it to the bird. She held it in her beak.
That night, as La Carlotta left the opera house after giving a performance, the bird slipped the lasso around her neck and pulled tight.
When the woman was dead, the bird pulled the lasso away from around Carlotta’s neck, and flew away to return the lasso to Erik. When La Carlotta’s body was found, people were perplexed, for she had been strangled, but there was no sign of a rope.
Three days later, Christine said, “Erik, you gave me the ring, and it is a beautiful ring, and you lent me the lasso, and I got good use from it, but if I asked you to give me one more thing, would you give it to me?”
“Of course I would,” said Erik. “What is it you would like?”
“A lit taper on a windless night.”
So Christine waited three nights and three nights and three nights again, until there was a night with a sliver of moon in the sky and no wind whatsoever, and Erik placed a taper in her claw and lit the end of it.
Christine flew off into the darkness.
Now, Erik had long been curious about the bird which spoke and sung with the beautiful voice of a woman, so he put on the black mask he wore when he went out, and he followed the glowing ember through the city. Normally a bird would fly too fast for a man to keep up, but Christine could not risk flying too quickly, lest her speed blow the taper out.
Erik followed the bird which had been Christine from street to street, until they came to a park.
The bird flew towards a juniper tree. Erik saw a glimmer of gold soar through the air, and realised that it was the gold ring: the bird had dropped the gold ring at the foot of the tree. Then the bird perched on the branches at the crown of the tree, and pressed the taper to the twigs and leaves.
The tree was consumed by smoke and flame.
Erik took a step forward, but knew he would never be able to reach the bird in the burning branches; already its form was obscured by the fire.
The whole tree burned, and when it was over, there was a woman standing there, and Erik saw that her hair was the same colour as the bird’s feathers had been, and understood that they were one and the same. The only thing she wore was a red scarf.
Christine did not see him, and Erik despaired, for as a bird he could have her companionship, but as a woman he would never have her love. So he left his cloak on a nearby tree so she would have something to wear, and slipped away into the night.
Christine found the cloak, and put it on, and returned to her lodgings to dress in her old clothes again, and she returned to Meg Giry, who rejoiced to see her friend alive.
The next day, Erik heard a knocking at his door. He put on his mask to spare the sight of his face from whoever waited for him, and opened the door.
Christine stood there. She held his cloak, neatly folded, and she wore the gold ring he had given her, and Erik knew she had not forgotten him.
Christine gave him his cloak, and he hung it on a peg in the hallway, and he invited her into his home, and she accepted.
He thanked her for keeping the ring, and for coming to visit him, and he asked her if there was anything else she wanted him to give her.
And so Christine asked if he would remove his mask, for she had already seen him without it many times, and she could not see his eyes in the shadow of the mask.
Erik took off the mask, and Christine saw the yellow eyes and the hole of a nose and the lipless mouth, which was downturned and looked afraid, and she kissed Erik very tenderly.
And Christine took up residence with Erik in his house, and they lived together and were happy.