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The first time Gustave plays before an audience, Erik hides in the shadows. Even two years on in this little experiment in fatherhood, he feels as if, were he to step in front of anyone here, he would be summarily thrown from the room for his hubris. How could he think he could be one of them? Masked men do not belong in the light. It’s all the same, he knows. Good for nothing but exposing those who do not deserve to stand in it.
He cannot ignore, though, the way his stomach plummets when he catches sight of the vicomte as he stands to award Gustave an ovation. Erik draws further into the darkness lest he be seen. The drawing room crowd gathers around the piano, but at the center of the cluster of fawning sycophants there is always de Chagny, golden-haired, handsome even as he approaches middle age, eternally Gustave’s true father — if not by blood, then certainly by right.
He pulls his mask down only when he knows there is no chance of someone catching a glimpse. It’s a taste of freedom. There is, Erik thinks, more than one type of light that he does not deserve.