A simple story of unrequited love, loneliness, and music.

"I'd been the Angel of Doom for the khanum. There was no reason in the world why I could not be the Angel of Music for Christine."

"Such quiet, controlled, and yet infinitely destructive sadness made me ache to comfort her even as my eyes devoured her."

"You're always watching. What a pity you never quite manage to see."

"The mirror showed me my demented reflection as I began to beat my hands frenziedly on the thick glass. "Christine!" His voice took hold of me like two mighty hands, no longer cold and remote, but gentle and strangely sad."

"Beyond the lake lies a hidden world of magic, a temple of dreams which I explore with ever deepening wonder."

"Sometimes I wonder if he's ever known a single moment of true happiness here on this earth . . ."

"Oh, Christine! If there were indeed a loving God in heaven it should be my arm around your waist now, my shoulder upon which you lean in your utter exhaustion."

"I couldn't hope to be a man to her, I couldn't ever be a real, breathing, living man waking at her side and reaching out for her... But I could be her angel."

"She belonged to the upper world of daylight and applause. I had to accept that there would always be young men to admire her. I had to condition myself to her absence, learn to hold a loose reign, when all my instincts were to clutch and hold and smother."

"You're not opposed to deception of the senses, then?...You could perhaps, under certain circumstances, find some illusions . . . acceptable?"

"Don’t touch me! I am Red Death stalking abroad!”

"I was almost smiling at this splendid animation, governing an absurd impulse to cheer, when Christine suddenly put her head down and began to cry like a lost child."

"Again and again I toss her to the sky like a young gyrfalcon and each time she soars with greater confidence and strength before returning to the safety of her master's gloved hand."

"His Don Juan Triumphant seemed to me at first one long, awful, magnificent sob. But, little by little, it expressed every emotion, every suffering of which mankind is capable. It intoxicated me."

" I felt her tears on my forehead... on mine, mine!... They were soft... they were sweet!... They trickled down under my mask... they mingled with my tears in my eyes... they floated between my lips... I tore off my mask so as to not lose one of her tears... and she did not run away!... And she did not die!...She remained alive, weeping over me, with me. We cried together! I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer!"

"I love you, Erik. I love you in so many ways... but my love is the love of a child afraid to grow up."

"None of us can choose where we will love... All I ever wanted, was to be loved for myself."

Oh, wait...