Chapter: Prologue


IN WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THIS SINGULAR WORK INFORMS THE READER HOW HE
ACQUIRED THE CERTAINTY THAT THE OPERA GHOST REALLY EXISTED

The Opera ghost really existed.  He was not, as was long believed, a
creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the
managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the
young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the
cloak-room attendants or the concierge.  Yes, he existed in flesh and
blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom;
that is to say, of a spectral shade.

When I began to ransack the archives of the National Academy of Music I
was at once struck by the surprising coincidences between the phenomena
ascribed to the "ghost" and the most extraordinary and fantastic
tragedy that ever excited the Paris upper classes; and I soon conceived
the idea that this tragedy might reasonably be explained by the
phenomena in question.  The events do not date more than thirty years
back; and it would not be difficult to find at the present day, in the
foyer of the ballet, old men of the highest respectability, men upon
whose word one could absolutely rely, who would remember as though they
happened yesterday the mysterious and dramatic conditions that attended
the kidnapping of Christine Daae, the disappearance of the Vicomte de
Chagny and the death of his elder brother, Count Philippe, whose body
was found on the bank of the lake that exists in the lower cellars of
the Opera on the Rue-Scribe side.  But none of those witnesses had
until that day thought that there was any reason for connecting the
more or less legendary figure of the Opera ghost with that terrible
story.

The truth was slow to enter my mind, puzzled by an inquiry that at
every moment was complicated by events which, at first sight, might be
looked upon as superhuman; and more than once I was within an ace of
abandoning a task in which I was exhausting myself in the hopeless
pursuit of a vain image.  At last, I received the proof that my
presentiments had not deceived me, and I was rewarded for all my
efforts on the day when I acquired the certainty that the Opera ghost
was more than a mere shade.

On that day, I had spent long hours over THE MEMOIRS OF A MANAGER, the
light and frivolous work of the too-skeptical Moncharmin, who, during
his term at the Opera, understood nothing of the mysterious behavior of
the ghost and who was making all the fun of it that he could at the
very moment when he became the first victim of the curious financial
operation that went on inside the "magic envelope."

I had just left the library in despair, when I met the delightful
acting-manager of our National Academy, who stood chatting on a landing
with a lively and well-groomed little old man, to whom he introduced me
gaily.  The acting-manager knew all about my investigations and how
eagerly and unsuccessfully I had been trying to discover the
whereabouts of the examining magistrate in the famous Chagny case, M.
Faure.  Nobody knew what had become of him, alive or dead; and here he
was back from Canada, where he had spent fifteen years, and the first
thing he had done, on his return to Paris, was to come to the
secretarial offices at the Opera and ask for a free seat.  The little
old man was M. Faure himself.

We spent a good part of the evening together and he told me the whole
Chagny case as he had understood it at the time.  He was bound to
conclude in favor of the madness of the viscount and the accidental
death of the elder brother, for lack of evidence to the contrary; but
he was nevertheless persuaded that a terrible tragedy had taken place
between the two brothers in connection with Christine Daae.  He could
not tell me what became of Christine or the viscount.  When I mentioned
the ghost, he only laughed.  He, too, had been told of the curious
manifestations that seemed to point to the existence of an abnormal
being, residing in one of the most mysterious corners of the Opera, and
he knew the story of the envelope; but he had never seen anything in it
worthy of his attention as magistrate in charge of the Chagny case, and
it was as much as he had done to listen to the evidence of a witness
who appeared of his own accord and declared that he had often met the
ghost.  This witness was none other than the man whom all Paris called
the "Persian" and who was well-known to every subscriber to the Opera.
The magistrate took him for a visionary.

I was immensely interested by this story of the Persian.  I wanted, if
there were still time, to find this valuable and eccentric witness.  My
luck began to improve and I discovered him in his little flat in the
Rue de Rivoli, where he had lived ever since and where he died five
months after my visit.  I was at first inclined to be suspicious; but
when the Persian had told me, with child-like candor, all that he knew
about the ghost and had handed me the proofs of the ghost's
existence--including the strange correspondence of Christine Daae--to
do as I pleased with, I was no longer able to doubt.  No, the ghost was
not a myth!

I have, I know, been told that this correspondence may have been forged
from first to last by a man whose imagination had certainly been fed on
the most seductive tales; but fortunately I discovered some of
Christine's writing outside the famous bundle of letters and, on a
comparison between the two, all my doubts were removed.  I also went
into the past history of the Persian and found that he was an upright
man, incapable of inventing a story that might have defeated the ends
of justice.

This, moreover, was the opinion of the more serious people who, at one
time or other, were mixed up in the Chagny case, who were friends of
the Chagny family, to whom I showed all my documents and set forth all
my inferences.  In this connection, I should like to print a few lines
which I received from General D----:

SIR:

I can not urge you too strongly to publish the results of your inquiry.
I remember perfectly that, a few weeks before the disappearance of that
great singer, Christine Daae, and the tragedy which threw the whole of
the Faubourg Saint-Germain into mourning, there was a great deal of
talk, in the foyer of the ballet, on the subject of the "ghost;" and I
believe that it only ceased to be discussed in consequence of the later
affair that excited us all so greatly.  But, if it be possible--as,
after hearing you, I believe--to explain the tragedy through the ghost,
then I beg you sir, to talk to us about the ghost again.

Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be more
easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people have
tried to picture two brothers killing each other who had worshiped each
other all their lives.

Believe me, etc.

Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over the
ghost's vast domain, the huge building which he had made his kingdom.
All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived, corroborated the
Persian's documents precisely; and a wonderful discovery crowned my
labors in a very definite fashion.  It will be remembered that, later,
when digging in the substructure of the Opera, before burying the
phonographic records of the artist's voice, the workmen laid bare a
corpse.  Well, I was at once able to prove that this corpse was that of
the Opera ghost.  I made the acting-manager put this proof to the test
with his own hand; and it is now a matter of supreme indifference to me
if the papers pretend that the body was that of a victim of the Commune.

The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars of
the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their
skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt
which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions.  I
came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains of the
Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for the
unheard-of chance described above.

But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it.
For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction by
thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for the
first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daae), M.
Remy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late acting-manager, M.
Gabriel, the late chorus-master, and more particularly Mme. la Baronne
de Castelot-Barbezac, who was once the "little Meg" of the story (and
who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star of our admirable
corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy Mme. Giry, now
deceased, who had charge of the ghost's private box.  All these were of
the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them, I shall be able to
reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror, in their smallest
details, before the reader's eyes.

And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing on the
threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank the present
management the Opera, which has so kindly assisted me in all my
inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together with M. Gabion, the
acting-manager, and that most amiable of men, the architect intrusted
with the preservation of the building, who did not hesitate to lend me
the works of Charles Garnier, although he was almost sure that I would
never return them to him.  Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the
generosity of my friend and former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who
allowed me to dip into his splendid theatrical library and to borrow
the rarest editions of books by which he set great store.

GASTON LEROUX.




Chapter I  Is it the Ghost?


It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of
the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their
retirement.  Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the
principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the
ballet, who had come up from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte.  They
rushed in amid great confusion, some giving vent to forced and
unnatural laughter, others to cries of terror.  Sorelli, who wished to
be alone for a moment to "run through" the speech which she was to make
to the resigning managers, looked around angrily at the mad and
tumultuous crowd.  It was little Jammes--the girl with the tip-tilted
nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white
neck and shoulders--who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:

"It's the ghost!"  And she locked the door.

Sorelli's dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace
elegance.  A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two
provided the necessary furniture.  On the walls hung a few engravings,
relics of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in the
Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini.  But
the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet, who were
lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their time singing,
quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers and buying one
another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum, until the call-boy's
bell rang.

Sorelli was very superstitious.  She shuddered when she heard little
Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool" and then,
as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general, and the Opera
ghost in particular, at once asked for details:

"Have you seen him?"

"As plainly as I see you now!" said little Jammes, whose legs were
giving way beneath her, and she dropped with a moan into a chair.

Thereupon little Giry--the girl with eyes black as sloes, hair black as
ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin stretched over poor
little bones--little Giry added:

"If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!"

"Oh, yes!" cried the chorus of ballet-girls.

And they all began to talk together.  The ghost had appeared to them in
the shape of a gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood
before them in the passage, without their knowing where he came from.
He seemed to have come straight through the wall.

"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head.  "You see
the ghost everywhere!"

And it was true.  For several months, there had been nothing discussed
at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about the
building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody, to
whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen, no one
knowing how or where.  As became a real ghost, he made no noise in
walking.  People began by laughing and making fun of this specter
dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend
soon swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet.  All
the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more or less
often.  And those who laughed the loudest were not the most at ease.
When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence or his passing
by accident, comic or serious, for which the general superstition held
him responsible.  Had any one met with a fall, or suffered a practical
joke at the hands of one of the other girls, or lost a powderpuff, it
was at once the fault of the ghost, of the Opera ghost.

After all, who had seen him?  You meet so many men in dress-clothes at
the Opera who are not ghosts.  But this dress-suit had a peculiarity of
its own.  It covered a skeleton.  At least, so the ballet-girls said.
And, of course, it had a death's head.

Was all this serious?  The truth is that the idea of the skeleton came
from the description of the ghost given by Joseph Buquet, the chief
scene-shifter, who had really seen the ghost.  He had run up against
the ghost on the little staircase, by the footlights, which leads to
"the cellars."  He had seen him for a second--for the ghost had
fled--and to any one who cared to listen to him he said:

"He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton
frame.  His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils.
You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man's skull.  His skin,
which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but
a nasty yellow.  His nose is so little worth talking about that you
can't see it side-face; and THE ABSENCE of that nose is a horrible
thing TO LOOK AT.  All the hair he has is three or four long dark locks
on his forehead and behind his ears."

This chief scene-shifter was a serious, sober, steady man, very slow at
imagining things.  His words were received with interest and amazement;
and soon there were other people to say that they too had met a man in
dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders.  Sensible men who
had wind of the story began by saying that Joseph Buquet had been the
victim of a joke played by one of his assistants.  And then, one after
the other, there came a series of incidents so curious and so
inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began to feel uneasy.

For instance, a fireman is a brave fellow!  He fears nothing, least of
all fire!  Well, the fireman in question, who had gone to make a round
of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little
farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale, scared,
trembling, with his eyes starting out of his head, and practically
fainted in the arms of the proud mother of little Jammes.[1]  And why?
Because he had seen coming toward him, AT THE LEVEL OF HIS HEAD, BUT
WITHOUT A BODY ATTACHED TO IT, A HEAD OF FIRE!  And, as I said, a
fireman is not afraid of fire.

The fireman's name was Pampin.

The corps de ballet was flung into consternation.  At first sight, this
fiery head in no way corresponded with Joseph Buquet's description of
the ghost.  But the young ladies soon persuaded themselves that the
ghost had several heads, which he changed about as he pleased.  And, of
course, they at once imagined that they were in the greatest danger.
Once a fireman did not hesitate to faint, leaders and front-row and
back-row girls alike had plenty of excuses for the fright that made
them quicken their pace when passing some dark corner or ill-lighted
corridor.  Sorelli herself, on the day after the adventure of the
fireman, placed a horseshoe on the table in front of the
stage-door-keeper's box, which every one who entered the Opera
otherwise than as a spectator must touch before setting foot on the
first tread of the staircase.  This horse-shoe was not invented by
me--any more than any other part of this story, alas!--and may still be
seen on the table in the passage outside the stage-door-keeper's box,
when you enter the Opera through the court known as the Cour de
l'Administration.

To return to the evening in question.

"It's the ghost!" little Jammes had cried.

An agonizing silence now reigned in the dressing-room. Nothing was
heard but the hard breathing of the girls.  At last, Jammes, flinging
herself upon the farthest corner of the wall, with every mark of real
terror on her face, whispered:

"Listen!"

Everybody seemed to hear a rustling outside the door.  There was no
sound of footsteps.  It was like light silk sliding over the panel.
Then it stopped.

Sorelli tried to show more pluck than the others.  She went up to the
door and, in a quavering voice, asked:

"Who's there?"

But nobody answered.  Then feeling all eyes upon her, watching her last
movement, she made an effort to show courage, and said very loudly:

"Is there any one behind the door?"

"Oh, yes, yes!  Of course there is!" cried that little dried plum of a
Meg Giry, heroically holding Sorelli back by her gauze skirt.
"Whatever you do, don't open the door!  Oh, Lord, don't open the door!"

But Sorelli, armed with a dagger that never left her, turned the key
and drew back the door, while the ballet-girls retreated to the inner
dressing-room and Meg Giry sighed:

"Mother!  Mother!"

Sorelli looked into the passage bravely.  It was empty; a gas-flame, in
its glass prison, cast a red and suspicious light into the surrounding
darkness, without succeeding in dispelling it.  And the dancer slammed
the door again, with a deep sigh.

"No," she said, "there is no one there."

"Still, we saw him!"  Jammes declared, returning with timid little
steps to her place beside Sorelli.  "He must be somewhere prowling
about.  I shan't go back to dress.  We had better all go down to the
foyer together, at once, for the 'speech,' and we will come up again
together."

And the child reverently touched the little coral finger-ring which she
wore as a charm against bad luck, while Sorelli, stealthily, with the
tip of her pink right thumb-nail, made a St. Andrew's cross on the
wooden ring which adorned the fourth finger of her left hand.  She said
to the little ballet-girls:

"Come, children, pull yourselves together!  I dare say no one has ever
seen the ghost."

"Yes, yes, we saw him--we saw him just now!" cried the girls.  "He had
his death's head and his dress-coat, just as when he appeared to Joseph
Buquet!"

"And Gabriel saw him too!" said Jammes.  "Only yesterday!  Yesterday
afternoon--in broad day-light----"

"Gabriel, the chorus-master?"

"Why, yes, didn't you know?"

"And he was wearing his dress-clothes, in broad daylight?"

"Who?  Gabriel?"

"Why, no, the ghost!"

"Certainly!  Gabriel told me so himself.  That's what he knew him by.
Gabriel was in the stage-manager's office.  Suddenly the door opened
and the Persian entered.  You know the Persian has the evil eye----"

"Oh, yes!" answered the little ballet-girls in chorus, warding off
ill-luck by pointing their forefinger and little finger at the absent
Persian, while their second and third fingers were bent on the palm and
held down by the thumb.

"And you know how superstitious Gabriel is," continued Jammes.
"However, he is always polite.  When he meets the Persian, he just puts
his hand in his pocket and touches his keys.  Well, the moment the
Persian appeared in the doorway, Gabriel gave one jump from his chair
to the lock of the cupboard, so as to touch iron!  In doing so, he tore
a whole skirt of his overcoat on a nail.  Hurrying to get out of the
room, he banged his forehead against a hat-peg and gave himself a huge
bump; then, suddenly stepping back, he skinned his arm on the screen,
near the piano; he tried to lean on the piano, but the lid fell on his
hands and crushed his fingers; he rushed out of the office like a
madman, slipped on the staircase and came down the whole of the first
flight on his back.  I was just passing with mother.  We picked him up.
He was covered with bruises and his face was all over blood.  We were
frightened out of our lives, but, all at once, he began to thank
Providence that he had got off so cheaply.  Then he told us what had
frightened him.  He had seen the ghost behind the Persian, THE GHOST
WITH THE DEATH'S HEAD just like Joseph Buquet's description!"

Jammes had told her story ever so quickly, as though the ghost were at
her heels, and was quite out of breath at the finish.  A silence
followed, while Sorelli polished her nails in great excitement.  It was
broken by little Giry, who said:

"Joseph Buquet would do better to hold his tongue."

"Why should he hold his tongue?" asked somebody.

"That's mother's opinion," replied Meg, lowering her voice and looking
all about her as though fearing lest other ears than those present
might overhear.

"And why is it your mother's opinion?"

"Hush!  Mother says the ghost doesn't like being talked about."

"And why does your mother say so?"

"Because--because--nothing--"

This reticence exasperated the curiosity of the young ladies, who
crowded round little Giry, begging her to explain herself.  They were
there, side by side, leaning forward simultaneously in one movement of
entreaty and fear, communicating their terror to one another, taking a
keen pleasure in feeling their blood freeze in their veins.

"I swore not to tell!" gasped Meg.

But they left her no peace and promised to keep the secret, until Meg,
burning to say all she knew, began, with her eyes fixed on the door:

"Well, it's because of the private box."

"What private box?"

"The ghost's box!"

"Has the ghost a box?  Oh, do tell us, do tell us!"

"Not so loud!" said Meg.  "It's Box Five, you know, the box on the
grand tier, next to the stage-box, on the left."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"I tell you it is.  Mother has charge of it.  But you swear you won't
say a word?"

"Of course, of course."

"Well, that's the ghost's box.  No one has had it for over a month,
except the ghost, and orders have been given at the box-office that it
must never be sold."

"And does the ghost really come there?"

"Yes."

"Then somebody does come?"

"Why, no!  The ghost comes, but there is nobody there."

The little ballet-girls exchanged glances.  If the ghost came to the
box, he must be seen, because he wore a dress-coat and a death's head.
This was what they tried to make Meg understand, but she replied:

"That's just it!  The ghost is not seen.  And he has no dress-coat and
no head!  All that talk about his death's head and his head of fire is
nonsense!  There's nothing in it.  You only hear him when he is in the
box.  Mother has never seen him, but she has heard him.  Mother knows,
because she gives him his program."

Sorelli interfered.

"Giry, child, you're getting at us!"

Thereupon little Giry began to cry.

"I ought to have held my tongue--if mother ever came to know!  But I
was quite right, Joseph Buquet had no business to talk of things that
don't concern him--it will bring him bad luck--mother was saying so
last night----"

There was a sound of hurried and heavy footsteps in the passage and a
breathless voice cried:

"Cecile!  Cecile!  Are you there?"

"It's mother's voice," said Jammes.  "What's the matter?"

She opened the door.  A respectable lady, built on the lines of a
Pomeranian grenadier, burst into the dressing-room and dropped groaning
into a vacant arm-chair. Her eyes rolled madly in her brick-dust
colored face.

"How awful!" she said.  "How awful!"

"What?  What?"

"Joseph Buquet!"

"What about him?"

"Joseph Buquet is dead!"

The room became filled with exclamations, with astonished outcries,
with scared requests for explanations.

"Yes, he was found hanging in the third-floor cellar!"

"It's the ghost!" little Giry blurted, as though in spite of herself;
but she at once corrected herself, with her hands pressed to her mouth:
"No, no!--I, didn't say it!--I didn't say it!----"

All around her, her panic-stricken companions repeated under their
breaths:

"Yes--it must be the ghost!"

Sorelli was very pale.

"I shall never be able to recite my speech," she said.

Ma Jammes gave her opinion, while she emptied a glass of liqueur that
happened to be standing on a table; the ghost must have something to do
with it.

The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death.
The verdict at the inquest was "natural suicide."  In his Memoirs of
Manager, M. Moncharmin, one of the joint managers who succeeded MM.
Debienne and Poligny, describes the incident as follows:

"A grievous accident spoiled the little party which MM.  Debienne and
Poligny gave to celebrate their retirement.  I was in the manager's
office, when Mercier, the acting-manager, suddenly came darting in.  He
seemed half mad and told me that the body of a scene-shifter had been
found hanging in the third cellar under the stage, between a farm-house
and a scene from the Roi de Lahore.  I shouted:

"'Come and cut him down!'

"By the time I had rushed down the staircase and the Jacob's ladder,
the man was no longer hanging from his rope!"

So this is an event which M. Moncharmin thinks natural.  A man hangs at
the end of a rope; they go to cut him down; the rope has disappeared.
Oh, M. Moncharmin found a very simple explanation!  Listen to him:

"It was just after the ballet; and leaders and dancing-girls lost no
time in taking their precautions against the evil eye."

There you are!  Picture the corps de ballet scuttling down the Jacob's
ladder and dividing the suicide's rope among themselves in less time
than it takes to write!  When, on the other hand, I think of the exact
spot where the body was discovered--the third cellar underneath the
stage!--imagine that SOMEBODY must have been interested in seeing that
the rope disappeared after it had effected its purpose; and time will
show if I am wrong.

The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet was
very popular.  The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls,
crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess, made
for the foyer through the ill-lit passages and staircases, trotting as
fast as their little pink legs could carry them.


[1] I have the anecdote, which is quite authentic, from M. Pedro
Gailhard himself, the late manager of the Opera.





Chapter II  The New Margarita


On the first landing, Sorelli ran against the Comte de Chagny, who was
coming up-stairs. The count, who was generally so calm, seemed greatly
excited.

"I was just going to you," he said, taking off his hat.  "Oh, Sorelli,
what an evening!  And Christine Daae:  what a triumph!"

"Impossible!" said Meg Giry.  "Six months ago, she used to sing like a
CROCK!  But do let us get by, my dear count," continues the brat, with
a saucy curtsey.  "We are going to inquire after a poor man who was
found hanging by the neck."

Just then the acting-manager came fussing past and stopped when he
heard this remark.

"What!" he exclaimed roughly.  "Have you girls heard already?  Well,
please forget about it for tonight--and above all don't let M. Debienne
and M. Poligny hear; it would upset them too much on their last day."

They all went on to the foyer of the ballet, which was already full of
people.  The Comte de Chagny was right; no gala performance ever
equalled this one.  All the great composers of the day had conducted
their own works in turns.  Faure and Krauss had sung; and, on that
evening, Christine Daae had revealed her true self, for the first time,
to the astonished and enthusiastic audience.  Gounod had conducted the
Funeral March of a Marionnette; Reyer, his beautiful overture to
Siguar; Saint Saens, the Danse Macabre and a Reverie Orientale;
Massenet, an unpublished Hungarian march; Guiraud, his Carnaval;
Delibes, the Valse Lente from Sylvia and the Pizzicati from Coppelia.
Mlle. Krauss had sung the bolero in the Vespri Siciliani; and Mlle.
Denise Bloch the drinking song in Lucrezia Borgia.

But the real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had begun by
singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet.  It was the first time
that the young artist sang in this work of Gounod, which had not been
transferred to the Opera and which was revived at the Opera Comique
after it had been produced at the old Theatre Lyrique by Mme. Carvalho.
Those who heard her say that her voice, in these passages, was
seraphic; but this was nothing to the superhuman notes that she gave
forth in the prison scene and the final trio in FAUST, which she sang
in the place of La Carlotta, who was ill.  No one had ever heard or
seen anything like it.

Daae revealed a new Margarita that night, a Margarita of a splendor, a
radiance hitherto unsuspected.  The whole house went mad, rising to its
feet, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine sobbed and fainted
in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be carried to her
dressing-room. A few subscribers, however, protested.  Why had so great
a treasure been kept from them all that time?  Till then, Christine
Daae had played a good Siebel to Carlotta's rather too splendidly
material Margarita.  And it had needed Carlotta's incomprehensible and
inexcusable absence from this gala night for the little Daae, at a
moment's warning, to show all that she could do in a part of the
program reserved for the Spanish diva!  Well, what the subscribers
wanted to know was, why had Debienne and Poligny applied to Daae, when
Carlotta was taken ill?  Did they know of her hidden genius?  And, if
they knew of it, why had they kept it hidden?  And why had she kept it
hidden?  Oddly enough, she was not known to have a professor of singing
at that moment.  She had often said she meant to practise alone for the
future.  The whole thing was a mystery.

The Comte de Chagny, standing up in his box, listened to all this
frenzy and took part in it by loudly applauding.  Philippe Georges
Marie Comte de Chagny was just forty-one years of age.  He was a great
aristocrat and a good-looking man, above middle height and with
attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold
eyes.  He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to
the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society.
He had an excellent heart and an irreproachable conscience.  On the
death of old Count Philibert, he became the head of one of the oldest
and most distinguished families in France, whose arms dated back to the
fourteenth century.  The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and,
when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for
Philippe to accept the management of so large an estate.  His two
sisters and his brother, Raoul, would not hear of a division and waived
their claim to their shares, leaving themselves entirely in Philippe's
hands, as though the right of primogeniture had never ceased to exist.
When the two sisters married, on the same day, they received their
portion from their brother, not as a thing rightfully belonging to
them, but as a dowry for which they thanked him.

The Comtesse de Chagny, nee de Moerogis de La Martyniere, had died in
giving birth to Raoul, who was born twenty years after his elder
brother.  At the time of the old count's death, Raoul was twelve years
of age.  Philippe busied himself actively with the youngster's
education.  He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters
and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived
at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea.  The lad entered the
Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made
his trip round the world.  Thanks to powerful influence, he had just
been appointed a member of the official expedition on board the Requin,
which was to be sent to the Arctic Circle in search of the survivors of
the D'Artoi's expedition, of whom nothing had been heard for three
years.  Meanwhile, he was enjoying a long furlough which would not be
over for six months; and already the dowagers of the Faubourg
Saint-Germain were pitying the handsome and apparently delicate
stripling for the hard work in store for him.

The shyness of the sailor-lad--I was almost saying his innocence--was
remarkable.  He seemed to have but just left the women's apron-strings.
As a matter of fact, petted as he was by his two sisters and his old
aunt, he had retained from this purely feminine education manners that
were almost candid and stamped with a charm that nothing had yet been
able to sully.  He was a little over twenty-one years of age and looked
eighteen.  He had a small, fair mustache, beautiful blue eyes and a
complexion like a girl's.

Philippe spoiled Raoul.  To begin with, he was very proud of him and
pleased to foresee a glorious career for his junior in the navy in
which one of their ancestors, the famous Chagny de La Roche, had held
the rank of admiral.  He took advantage of the young man's leave of
absence to show him Paris, with all its luxurious and artistic
delights.  The count considered that, at Raoul's age, it is not good to
be too good.  Philippe himself had a character that was very
well-balanced in work and pleasure alike; his demeanor was always
faultless; and he was incapable of setting his brother a bad example.
He took him with him wherever he went.  He even introduced him to the
foyer of the ballet.  I know that the count was said to be "on terms"
with Sorelli.  But it could hardly be reckoned as a crime for this
nobleman, a bachelor, with plenty of leisure, especially since his
sisters were settled, to come and spend an hour or two after dinner in
the company of a dancer, who, though not so very, very witty, had the
finest eyes that ever were seen!  And, besides, there are places where
a true Parisian, when he has the rank of the Comte de Chagny, is bound
to show himself; and at that time the foyer of the ballet at the Opera
was one of those places.

Lastly, Philippe would perhaps not have taken his brother behind the
scenes of the Opera if Raoul had not been the first to ask him,
repeatedly renewing his request with a gentle obstinacy which the count
remembered at a later date.

On that evening, Philippe, after applauding the Daae, turned to Raoul
and saw that he was quite pale.

"Don't you see," said Raoul, "that the woman's fainting?"

"You look like fainting yourself," said the count.  "What's the matter?"

But Raoul had recovered himself and was standing up.

"Let's go and see," he said, "she never sang like that before."

The count gave his brother a curious smiling glance and seemed quite
pleased. They were soon at the door leading from the house to the
stage.  Numbers of subscribers were slowly making their way through.
Raoul tore his gloves without knowing what he was doing and Philippe
had much too kind a heart to laugh at him for his impatience.  But he
now understood why Raoul was absent-minded when spoken to and why he
always tried to turn every conversation to the subject of the Opera.

They reached the stage and pushed through the crowd of gentlemen,
scene-shifters, supers and chorus-girls, Raoul leading the way, feeling
that his heart no longer belonged to him, his face set with passion,
while Count Philippe followed him with difficulty and continued to
smile.  At the back of the stage, Raoul had to stop before the inrush
of the little troop of ballet-girls who blocked the passage which he
was trying to enter.  More than one chaffing phrase darted from little
made-up lips, to which he did not reply; and at last he was able to
pass, and dived into the semi-darkness of a corridor ringing with the
name of "Daae!  Daae!"  The count was surprised to find that Raoul knew
the way.  He had never taken him to Christine's himself and came to the
conclusion that Raoul must have gone there alone while the count stayed
talking in the foyer with Sorelli, who often asked him to wait until it
was her time to "go on" and sometimes handed him the little gaiters in
which she ran down from her dressing-room to preserve the spotlessness
of her satin dancing-shoes and her flesh-colored tights.  Sorelli had
an excuse; she had lost her mother.

Postponing his usual visit to Sorelli for a few minutes, the count
followed his brother down the passage that led to Daae's dressing-room
and saw that it had never been so crammed as on that evening, when the
whole house seemed excited by her success and also by her fainting fit.
For the girl had not yet come to; and the doctor of the theater had
just arrived at the moment when Raoul entered at his heels.  Christine,
therefore, received the first aid of the one, while opening her eyes in
the arms of the other.  The count and many more remained crowding in
the doorway.

"Don't you think, Doctor, that those gentlemen had better clear the
room?" asked Raoul coolly.  "There's no breathing here."

"You're quite right," said the doctor.

And he sent every one away, except Raoul and the maid, who looked at
Raoul with eyes of the most undisguised astonishment.  She had never
seen him before and yet dared not question him; and the doctor imagined
that the young man was only acting as he did because he had the right
to.  The viscount, therefore, remained in the room watching Christine
as she slowly returned to life, while even the joint managers, Debienne
and Poligny, who had come to offer their sympathy and congratulations,
found themselves thrust into the passage among the crowd of dandies.
The Comte de Chagny, who was one of those standing outside, laughed:

"Oh, the rogue, the rogue!"  And he added, under his breath: "Those
youngsters with their school-girl airs!  So he's a Chagny after all!"

He turned to go to Sorelli's dressing-room, but met her on the way,
with her little troop of trembling ballet-girls, as we have seen.

Meanwhile, Christine Daae uttered a deep sigh, which was answered by a
groan.  She turned her head, saw Raoul and started.  She looked at the
doctor, on whom she bestowed a smile, then at her maid, then at Raoul
again.

"Monsieur," she said, in a voice not much above a whisper, "who are
you?"

"Mademoiselle," replied the young man, kneeling on one knee and
pressing a fervent kiss on the diva's hand, "I AM THE LITTLE BOY WHO
WENT INTO THE SEA TO RESCUE YOUR SCARF."

Christine again looked at the doctor and the maid; and all three began
to laugh.

Raoul turned very red and stood up.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "since you are pleased not to recognize me, I
should like to say something to you in private, something very
important."

"When I am better, do you mind?"  And her voice shook.  "You have been
very good."

"Yes, you must go," said the doctor, with his pleasantest smile.
"Leave me to attend to mademoiselle."

"I am not ill now," said Christine suddenly, with strange and
unexpected energy.

She rose and passed her hand over her eyelids.

"Thank you, Doctor.  I should like to be alone.  Please go away, all of
you.  Leave me.  I feel very restless this evening."

The doctor tried to make a short protest, but, perceiving the girl's
evident agitation, he thought the best remedy was not to thwart her.
And he went away, saying to Raoul, outside:

"She is not herself to-night. She is usually so gentle."

Then he said good night and Raoul was left alone.  The whole of this
part of the theater was now deserted.  The farewell ceremony was no
doubt taking place in the foyer of the ballet.  Raoul thought that Daae
might go to it and he waited in the silent solitude, even hiding in the
favoring shadow of a doorway.  He felt a terrible pain at his heart and
it was of this that he wanted to speak to Daae without delay.

Suddenly the dressing-room door opened and the maid came out by
herself, carrying bundles.  He stopped her and asked how her mistress
was.  The woman laughed and said that she was quite well, but that he
must not disturb her, for she wished to be left alone.  And she passed
on.  One idea alone filled Raoul's burning brain:  of course, Daae
wished to be left alone FOR HIM!  Had he not told her that he wanted to
speak to her privately?

Hardly breathing, he went up to the dressing-room and, with his ear to
the door to catch her reply, prepared to knock.  But his hand dropped.
He had heard A MAN'S VOICE in the dressing-room, saying, in a curiously
masterful tone:

"Christine, you must love me!"

And Christine's voice, infinitely sad and trembling, as though
accompanied by tears, replied:

"How can you talk like that?  WHEN I SING ONLY FOR YOU!"

Raoul leaned against the panel to ease his pain.  His heart, which had
seemed gone for ever, returned to his breast and was throbbing loudly.
The whole passage echoed with its beating and Raoul's ears were
deafened.  Surely, if his heart continued to make such a noise, they
would hear it inside, they would open the door and the young man would
be turned away in disgrace.  What a position for a Chagny!  To be
caught listening behind a door!  He took his heart in his two hands to
make it stop.

The man's voice spoke again:  "Are you very tired?"

"Oh, to-night I gave you my soul and I am dead!"  Christine replied.

"Your soul is a beautiful thing, child," replied the grave man's voice,
"and I thank you.  No emperor ever received so fair a gift.  THE ANGELS
WEPT TONIGHT."

Raoul heard nothing after that.  Nevertheless, he did not go away, but,
as though he feared lest he should be caught, he returned to his dark
corner, determined to wait for the man to leave the room.  At one and
the same time, he had learned what love meant, and hatred.  He knew
that he loved.  He wanted to know whom he hated.  To his great
astonishment, the door opened and Christine Daae appeared, wrapped in
furs, with her face hidden in a lace veil, alone.  She closed the door
behind her, but Raoul observed that she did not lock it.  She passed
him.  He did not even follow her with his eyes, for his eyes were fixed
on the door, which did not open again.

When the passage was once more deserted, he crossed it, opened the door
of the dressing-room, went in and shut the door.  He found himself in
absolute darkness.  The gas had been turned out.

"There is some one here!" said Raoul, with his back against the closed
door, in a quivering voice.  "What are you hiding for?"

All was darkness and silence.  Raoul heard only the sound of his own
breathing.  He quite failed to see that the indiscretion of his conduct
was exceeding all bounds.

"You shan't leave this until I let you!" he exclaimed.  "If you don't
answer, you are a coward!  But I'll expose you!"

And he struck a match.  The blaze lit up the room.  There was no one in
the room!  Raoul, first turning the key in the door, lit the gas-jets.
He went into the dressing-closet, opened the cupboards, hunted about,
felt the walls with his moist hands.  Nothing!

"Look here!" he said, aloud.  "Am I going mad?"

He stood for ten minutes listening to the gas flaring in the silence of
the empty room; lover though he was, he did not even think of stealing
a ribbon that would have given him the perfume of the woman he loved.
He went out, not knowing what he was doing nor where he was going.  At
a given moment in his wayward progress, an icy draft struck him in the
face.  He found himself at the bottom of a staircase, down which,
behind him, a procession of workmen were carrying a sort of stretcher,
covered with a white sheet.

"Which is the way out, please?" he asked of one of the men.

"Straight in front of you, the door is open.  But let us pass."

Pointing to the stretcher, he asked mechanically:  "What's that?"

The workmen answered:

"'That' is Joseph Buquet, who was found in the third cellar, hanging
between a farm-house and a scene from the ROI DE LAHORE."

He took off his hat, fell back to make room for the procession and went
out.




Chapter III The Mysterious Reason


During this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place.  I have
already said that this magnificent function was being given on the
occasion of the retirement of M. Debienne and M. Poligny, who had
determined to "die game," as we say nowadays.  They had been assisted
in the realization of their ideal, though melancholy, program by all
that counted in the social and artistic world of Paris.  All these
people met, after the performance, in the foyer of the ballet, where
Sorelli waited for the arrival of the retiring managers with a glass of
champagne in her hand and a little prepared speech at the tip of her
tongue.  Behind her, the members of the Corps de Ballet, young and old,
discussed the events of the day in whispers or exchanged discreet
signals with their friends, a noisy crowd of whom surrounded the
supper-tables arranged along the slanting floor.

A few of the dancers had already changed into ordinary dress; but most
of them wore their skirts of gossamer gauze; and all had thought it the
right thing to put on a special face for the occasion:  all, that is,
except little Jammes, whose fifteen summers--happy age!--seemed already
to have forgotten the ghost and the death of Joseph Buquet.  She never
ceased to laugh and chatter, to hop about and play practical jokes,
until Mm. Debienne and Poligny appeared on the steps of the foyer, when
she was severely called to order by the impatient Sorelli.

Everybody remarked that the retiring managers looked cheerful, as is
the Paris way.  None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned
to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom
or indifference over his inward joy.  You know that one of your friends
is in trouble; do not try to console him: he will tell you that he is
already comforted; but, should he have met with good fortune, be
careful how you congratulate him:  he thinks it so natural that he is
surprised that you should speak of it.  In Paris, our lives are one
masked ball; and the foyer of the ballet is the last place in which two
men so "knowing" as M. Debienne and M. Poligny would have made the
mistake of betraying their grief, however genuine it might be.  And
they were already smiling rather too broadly upon Sorelli, who had
begun to recite her speech, when an exclamation from that little madcap
of a Jammes broke the smile of the managers so brutally that the
expression of distress and dismay that lay beneath it became apparent
to all eyes:

"The Opera ghost!"

Jammes yelled these words in a tone of unspeakable terror; and her
finger pointed, among the crowd of dandies, to a face so pallid, so
lugubrious and so ugly, with two such deep black cavities under the
straddling eyebrows, that the death's head in question immediately
scored a huge success.

"The Opera ghost!  The Opera ghost!"  Everybody laughed and pushed his
neighbor and wanted to offer the Opera ghost a drink, but he was gone.
He had slipped through the crowd; and the others vainly hunted for him,
while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes and while little
Giry stood screaming like a peacock.

Sorelli was furious; she had not been able to finish her speech; the
managers, had kissed her, thanked her and run away as fast as the ghost
himself.  No one was surprised at this, for it was known that they were
to go through the same ceremony on the floor above, in the foyer of the
singers, and that finally they were themselves to receive their
personal friends, for the last time, in the great lobby outside the
managers' office, where a regular supper would be served.

Here they found the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and M. Firmin
Richard, whom they hardly knew; nevertheless, they were lavish in
protestations of friendship and received a thousand flattering
compliments in reply, so that those of the guests who had feared that
they had a rather tedious evening in store for them at once put on
brighter faces.  The supper was almost gay and a particularly clever
speech of the representative of the government, mingling the glories of
the past with the successes of the future, caused the greatest
cordiality to prevail.

The retiring managers had already handed over to their successors the
two tiny master-keys which opened all the doors--thousands of doors--of
the Opera house.  And those little keys, the object of general
curiosity, were being passed from hand to hand, when the attention of
some of the guests was diverted by their discovery, at the end of the
table, of that strange, wan and fantastic face, with the hollow eyes,
which had already appeared in the foyer of the ballet and been greeted
by little Jammes' exclamation:

"The Opera ghost!"

There sat the ghost, as natural as could be, except that he neither ate
nor drank.  Those who began by looking at him with a smile ended by
turning away their heads, for the sight of him at once provoked the
most funereal thoughts.  No one repeated the joke of the foyer, no one
exclaimed:

"There's the Opera ghost!"

He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not have
stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them; but every
one felt that if the dead did ever come and sit at the table of the
living, they could not cut a more ghastly figure.  The friends of
Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin thought that this lean and skinny
guest was an acquaintance of Debienne's or Poligny's, while Debienne's
and Poligny's friends believed that the cadaverous individual belonged
to Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin's party.

The result was that no request was made for an explanation; no
unpleasant remark; no joke in bad taste, which might have offended this
visitor from the tomb.  A few of those present who knew the story of
the ghost and the description of him given by the chief
scene-shifter--they did not know of Joseph Buquet's death--thought, in
their own minds, that the man at the end of the table might easily have
passed for him; and yet, according to the story, the ghost had no nose
and the person in question had.  But M. Moncharmin declares, in his
Memoirs, that the guest's nose was transparent:  "long, thin and
transparent" are his exact words.  I, for my part, will add that this
might very well apply to a false nose.  M. Moncharmin may have taken
for transparency what was only shininess.  Everybody knows that
orthopaedic science provides beautiful false noses for those who have
lost their noses naturally or as the result of an operation.

Did the ghost really take a seat at the managers' supper-table that
night, uninvited?  And can we be sure that the figure was that of the
Opera ghost himself?  Who would venture to assert as much?  I mention
the incident, not because I wish for a second to make the reader
believe--or even to try to make him believe--that the ghost was capable
of such a sublime piece of impudence; but because, after all, the thing
is impossible.

M. Armand Moncharmin, in chapter eleven of his Memoirs, says:

"When I think of this first evening, I can not separate the secret
confided to us by MM. Debienne and Poligny in their office from the
presence at our supper of that GHOSTLY person whom none of us knew."

What happened was this:  Mm. Debienne and Poligny, sitting at the
center of the table, had not seen the man with the death's head.
Suddenly he began to speak.

"The ballet-girls are right," he said.  "The death of that poor Buquet
is perhaps not so natural as people think."

Debienne and Poligny gave a start.

"Is Buquet dead?" they cried.

"Yes," replied the man, or the shadow of a man, quietly.  "He was
found, this evening, hanging in the third cellar, between a farm-house
and a scene from the Roi de Lahore."

The two managers, or rather ex-managers, at once rose and stared
strangely at the speaker.  They were more excited than they need have
been, that is to say, more excited than any one need be by the
announcement of the suicide of a chief scene-shifter. They looked at
each other.  They, had both turned whiter than the table-cloth.  At
last, Debienne made a sign to Mm. Richard and Moncharmin; Poligny
muttered a few words of excuse to the guests; and all four went into
the managers' office.  I leave M. Moncharmin to complete the story.  In
his Memoirs, he says:

"Mm. Debienne and Poligny seemed to grow more and more excited, and
they appeared to have something very difficult to tell us.  First, they
asked us if we knew the man, sitting at the end of the table, who had
told them of the death of Joseph Buquet; and, when we answered in the
negative, they looked still more concerned.  They took the master-keys
from our hands, stared at them for a moment and advised us to have new
locks made, with the greatest secrecy, for the rooms, closets and
presses that we might wish to have hermetically closed.  They said this
so funnily that we began to laugh and to ask if there were thieves at
the Opera.  They replied that there was something worse, which was the
GHOST.  We began to laugh again, feeling sure that they were indulging
in some joke that was intended to crown our little entertainment.
Then, at their request, we became 'serious,' resolving to humor them
and to enter into the spirit of the game.  They told us that they never
would have spoken to us of the ghost, if they had not received formal
orders from the ghost himself to ask us to be pleasant to him and to
grant any request that he might make.  However, in their relief at
leaving a domain where that tyrannical shade held sway, they had
hesitated until the last moment to tell us this curious story, which
our skeptical minds were certainly not prepared to entertain.  But the
announcement of the death of Joseph Buquet had served them as a brutal
reminder that, whenever they had disregarded the ghost's wishes, some
fantastic or disastrous event had brought them to a sense of their
dependence.

"During these unexpected utterances made in a tone of the most secret
and important confidence, I looked at Richard.  Richard, in his student
days, had acquired a great reputation for practical joking, and he
seemed to relish the dish which was being served up to him in his turn.
He did not miss a morsel of it, though the seasoning was a little
gruesome because of the death of Buquet.  He nodded his head sadly,
while the others spoke, and his features assumed the air of a man who
bitterly regretted having taken over the Opera, now that he knew that
there was a ghost mixed up in the business.  I could think of nothing
better than to give him a servile imitation of this attitude of
despair.  However, in spite of all our efforts, we could not, at the
finish, help bursting out laughing in the faces of MM. Debienne and
Poligny, who, seeing us pass straight from the gloomiest state of mind
to one of the most insolent merriment, acted as though they thought
that we had gone mad.

"The joke became a little tedious; and Richard asked half-seriously and
half in jest:

"'But, after all, what does this ghost of yours want?'

"M. Poligny went to his desk and returned with a copy of the
memorandum-book. The memorandum-book begins with the well-known words
saying that 'the management of the Opera shall give to the performance
of the National Academy of Music the splendor that becomes the first
lyric stage in France' and ends with Clause 98, which says that the
privilege can be withdrawn if the manager infringes the conditions
stipulated in the memorandum-book.  This is followed by the conditions,
which are four in number.

"The copy produced by M. Poligny was written in black ink and exactly
similar to that in our possession, except that, at the end, it
contained a paragraph in red ink and in a queer, labored handwriting,
as though it had been produced by dipping the heads of matches into the
ink, the writing of a child that has never got beyond the down-strokes
and has not learned to join its letters.  This paragraph ran, word for
word, as follows:

"'5. Or if the manager, in any month, delay for more than a fortnight
the payment of the allowance which he shall make to the Opera ghost, an
allowance of twenty thousand francs a month, say two hundred and forty
thousand francs a year.'

"M. Poligny pointed with a hesitating finger to this last clause, which
we certainly did not expect.

"'Is this all?  Does he not want anything else?' asked Richard, with
the greatest coolness.

"'Yes, he does,' replied Poligny.

"And he turned over the pages of the memorandum-book until he came to
the clause specifying the days on which certain private boxes were to
be reserved for the free use of the president of the republic, the
ministers and so on.  At the end of this clause, a line had been added,
also in red ink:

"'Box Five on the grand tier shall be placed at the disposal of the
Opera ghost for every performance.'

"When we saw this, there was nothing else for us to do but to rise from
our chairs, shake our two predecessors warmly by the hand and
congratulate them on thinking of this charming little joke, which
proved that the old French sense of humor was never likely to become
extinct.  Richard added that he now understood why MM.  Debienne and
Poligny were retiring from the management of the National Academy of
Music.  Business was impossible with so unreasonable a ghost.

"'Certainly, two hundred and forty thousand francs are not be picked up
for the asking,' said M. Poligny, without moving a muscle of his face.
'And have you considered what the loss over Box Five meant to us?  We
did not sell it once; and not only that, but we had to return the
subscription:  why, it's awful!  We really can't work to keep ghosts!
We prefer to go away!'

"'Yes,' echoed M. Debienne, 'we prefer to go away.  Let us go.'"

"And he stood up.  Richard said:  'But, after all all, it seems to me
that you were much too kind to the ghost.  If I had such a troublesome
ghost as that, I should not hesitate to have him arrested.'

"'But how?  Where?' they cried, in chorus.  'We have never seen him!'

"'But when he comes to his box?'

"'WE HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM IN HIS BOX.'

"'Then sell it.'

"'Sell the Opera ghost's box!  Well, gentlemen, try it.'

"Thereupon we all four left the office.  Richard and I had 'never
laughed so much in our lives.'"




Chapter IV  Box Five


Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous Memoirs during the fairly long
period of his co-management that we may well ask if he ever found time
to attend to the affairs of the Opera otherwise than by telling what
went on there.  M. Moncharmin did not know a note of music, but he
called the minister of education and fine arts by his Christian name,
had dabbled a little in society journalism and enjoyed a considerable
private income.  Lastly, he was a charming fellow and showed that he
was not lacking in intelligence, for, as soon as he made up his mind to
be a sleeping partner in the Opera, he selected the best possible
active manager and went straight to Firmin Richard.

Firmin Richard was a very distinguished composer, who had published a
number of successful pieces of all kinds and who liked nearly every
form of music and every sort of musician.  Clearly, therefore, it was
the duty of every sort of musician to like M. Firmin Richard.  The only
things to be said against him were that he was rather masterful in his
ways and endowed with a very hasty temper.

The first few days which the partners spent at the Opera were given
over to the delight of finding themselves the head of so magnificent an
enterprise; and they had forgotten all about that curious, fantastic
story of the ghost, when an incident occurred that proved to them that
the joke--if joke it were--was not over.  M. Firmin Richard reached his
office that morning at eleven o'clock. His secretary, M. Remy, showed
him half a dozen letters which he had not opened because they were
marked "private." One of the letters had at once attracted Richard's
attention not only because the envelope was addressed in red ink, but
because he seemed to have seen the writing before.  He soon remembered
that it was the red handwriting in which the memorandum-book had been
so curiously completed.  He recognized the clumsy childish hand.  He
opened the letter and read:

DEAR MR.  MANAGER:

I am sorry to have to trouble you at a time when you must be so very
busy, renewing important engagements, signing fresh ones and generally
displaying your excellent taste.  I know what you have done for
Carlotta, Sorelli and little Jammes and for a few others whose
admirable qualities of talent or genius you have suspected.

Of course, when I use these words, I do not mean to apply them to La
Carlotta, who sings like a squirt and who ought never to have been
allowed to leave the Ambassadeurs and the Cafe Jacquin; nor to La
Sorelli, who owes her success mainly to the coach-builders; nor to
little Jammes, who dances like a calf in a field.  And I am not
speaking of Christine Daae either, though her genius is certain,
whereas your jealousy prevents her from creating any important part.
When all is said, you are free to conduct your little business as you
think best, are you not?

All the same, I should like to take advantage of the fact that you have
not yet turned Christine Daae out of doors by hearing her this evening
in the part of Siebel, as that of Margarita has been forbidden her
since her triumph of the other evening; and I will ask you not to
dispose of my box to-day nor on the FOLLOWING DAYS, for I can not end
this letter without telling you how disagreeably surprised I have been
once or twice, to hear, on arriving at the Opera, that my box had been
sold, at the box-office, by your orders.

I did not protest, first, because I dislike scandal, and, second,
because I thought that your predecessors, MM. Debienne and Poligny, who
were always charming to me, had neglected, before leaving, to mention
my little fads to you.  I have now received a reply from those
gentlemen to my letter asking for an explanation, and this reply proves
that you know all about my Memorandum-Book and, consequently, that you
are treating me with outrageous contempt.  IF YOU WISH TO LIVE IN
PEACE, YOU MUST NOT BEGIN BY TAKING AWAY MY PRIVATE BOX.

Believe me to be, dear Mr. Manager, without prejudice to these little
observations,

        Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant,
                                OPERA GHOST.

The letter was accompanied by a cutting from the agony-column of the
Revue Theatrale, which ran:

O. G.--There is no excuse for R. and M.  We told them and left your
memorandum-book in their hands.  Kind regards.

M. Firmin Richard had hardly finished reading this letter when M.
Armand Moncharmin entered, carrying one exactly similar.  They looked
at each other and burst out laughing.

"They are keeping up the joke," said M. Richard, "but I don't call it
funny."

"What does it all mean?" asked M. Moncharmin.  "Do they imagine that,
because they have been managers of the Opera, we are going to let them
have a box for an indefinite period?"

"I am not in the mood to let myself be laughed at long," said Firmin
Richard.

"It's harmless enough," observed Armand Moncharmin.  "What is it they
really want?  A box for to-night?"

M. Firmin Richard told his secretary to send Box Five on the grand tier
to Mm. Debienne and Poligny, if it was not sold.  It was not.  It was
sent off to them.  Debienne lived at the corner of the Rue Scribe and
the Boulevard des Capucines; Poligny, in the Rue Auber.  O. Ghost's two
letters had been posted at the Boulevard des Capucines post-office, as
Moncharmin remarked after examining the envelopes.

"You see!" said Richard.

They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that two men of that age
should amuse themselves with such childish tricks.

"They might have been civil, for all that!" said Moncharmin.  "Did you
notice how they treat us with regard to Carlotta, Sorelli and Little
Jammes?"

"Why, my dear fellow, these two are mad with jealousy!  To think that
they went to the expense of, an advertisement in the Revue Theatrale!
Have they nothing better to do?"

"By the way," said Moncharmin, "they seem to be greatly interested in
that little Christine Daae!"

"You know as well as I do that she has the reputation of being quite
good," said Richard.

"Reputations are easily obtained," replied Moncharmin.  "Haven't I a
reputation for knowing all about music?  And I don't know one key from
another."

"Don't be afraid:  you never had that reputation," Richard declared.

Thereupon he ordered the artists to be shown in, who, for the last two
hours, had been walking up and down outside the door behind which fame
and fortune--or dismissal--awaited them.

The whole day was spent in discussing, negotiating, signing or
cancelling contracts; and the two overworked managers went to bed
early, without so much as casting a glance at Box Five to see whether
M. Debienne and M. Poligny were enjoying the performance.

Next morning, the managers received a card of thanks from the ghost:

DEAR, MR.  MANAGER:

Thanks.  Charming evening.  Daae exquisite.  Choruses want waking up.
Carlotta a splendid commonplace instrument.  Will write you soon for
the 240,000 francs, or 233,424 fr. 70 c., to be correct.  Mm. Debienne
and Poligny have sent me the 6,575 fr. 30 c. representing the first ten
days of my allowance for the current year; their privileges finished on
the evening of the tenth inst.

Kind regards.  O. G.

On the other hand, there was a letter from Mm. Debienne and Poligny:

GENTLEMEN:

We are much obliged for your kind thought of us, but you will easily
understand that the prospect of again hearing Faust, pleasant though it
is to ex-managers of the Opera, can not make us forget that we have no
right to occupy Box Five on the grand tier, which is the exclusive
property of HIM of whom we spoke to you when we went through the
memorandum-book with you for the last time.  See Clause 98, final
paragraph.

Accept, gentlemen, etc.

"Oh, those fellows are beginning to annoy me!" shouted Firmin Richard,
snatching up the letter.

And that evening Box Five was sold.

The next morning, Mm. Richard and Moncharmin, on reaching their office,
found an inspector's report relating to an incident that had happened,
the night before, in Box Five.  I give the essential part of the report:

I was obliged to call in a municipal guard twice, this evening, to
clear Box Five on the grand tier, once at the beginning and once in the
middle of the second act.  The occupants, who arrived as the curtain
rose on the second act, created a regular scandal by their laughter and
their ridiculous observations.  There were cries of "Hush!" all around
them and the whole house was beginning to protest, when the box-keeper
came to fetch me.  I entered the box and said what I thought necessary.
The people did not seem to me to be in their right mind; and they made
stupid remarks.  I said that, if the noise was repeated, I should be
compelled to clear the box.  The moment I left, I heard the laughing
again, with fresh protests from the house.  I returned with a municipal
guard, who turned them out.  They protested, still laughing, saying
they would not go unless they had their money back.  At last, they
became quiet and I allowed them to enter the box again.  The laughter
at once recommenced; and, this time, I had them turned out definitely.

"Send for the inspector," said Richard to his secretary, who had
already read the report and marked it with blue pencil.

M. Remy, the secretary, had foreseen the order and called the inspector
at once.

"Tell us what happened," said Richard bluntly.

The inspector began to splutter and referred to the report.

"Well, but what were those people laughing at?" asked Moncharmin.

"They must have been dining, sir, and seemed more inclined to lark
about than to listen to good music.  The moment they entered the box,
they came out again and called the box-keeper, who asked them what they
wanted.  They said, 'Look in the box:  there's no one there, is there?'
'No,' said the woman.  'Well,' said they, 'when we went in, we heard a
voice saying THAT THE BOX WAS TAKEN!'"

M. Moncharmin could not help smiling as he looked at M. Richard; but M.
Richard did not smile.  He himself had done too much in that way in his
time not to recognize, in the inspector's story, all the marks of one
of those practical jokes which begin by amusing and end by enraging the
victims.  The inspector, to curry favor with M. Moncharmin, who was
smiling, thought it best to give a smile too.  A most unfortunate
smile!  M. Richard glared at his subordinate, who thenceforth made it
his business to display a face of utter consternation.

"However, when the people arrived," roared Richard, "there was no one
in the box, was there?"

"Not a soul, sir, not a soul!  Nor in the box on the right, nor in the
box on the left: not a soul, sir, I swear!  The box-keeper told it me
often enough, which proves that it was all a joke."

"Oh, you agree, do you?" said Richard.  "You agree!  It's a joke!  And
you think it funny, no doubt?"

"I think it in very bad taste, sir."

"And what did the box-keeper say?"

"Oh, she just said that it was the Opera ghost.  That's all she said!"

And the inspector grinned.  But he soon found that he had made a
mistake in grinning, for the words had no sooner left his mouth than M.
Richard, from gloomy, became furious.

"Send for the box-keeper!" he shouted.  "Send for her!  This minute!
This minute!  And bring her in to me here!  And turn all those people
out!"

The inspector tried to protest, but Richard closed his mouth with an
angry order to hold his tongue.  Then, when the wretched man's lips
seemed shut for ever, the manager commanded him to open them once more.

"Who is this 'Opera ghost?'" he snarled.

But the inspector was by this time incapable of speaking a word.  He
managed to convey, by a despairing gesture, that he knew nothing about
it, or rather that he did not wish to know.

"Have you ever seen him, have you seen the Opera ghost?"

The inspector, by means of a vigorous shake of the head, denied ever
having seen the ghost in question.

"Very well!" said M. Richard coldly.

The inspector's eyes started out of his head, as though to ask why the
manager had uttered that ominous "Very well!"

"Because I'm going to settle the account of any one who has not seen
him!" explained the manager.  "As he seems to be everywhere, I can't
have people telling me that they see him nowhere.  I like people to
work for me when I employ them!"

Having said this, M. Richard paid no attention to the inspector and
discussed various matters of business with his acting-manager, who had
entered the room meanwhile.  The inspector thought he could go and was
gently--oh, so gently!--sidling toward the door, when M. Richard nailed
the man to the floor with a thundering:

"Stay where you are!"

M. Remy had sent for the box-keeper to the Rue de Provence, close to
the Opera, where she was engaged as a porteress.  She soon made her
appearance.

"What's your name?"

"Mme. Giry.  You know me well enough, sir; I'm the mother of little
Giry, little Meg, what!"

This was said in so rough and solemn a tone that, for a moment, M.
Richard was impressed.  He looked at Mme. Giry, in her faded shawl, her
worn shoes, her old taffeta dress and dingy bonnet.  It was quite
evident from the manager's attitude, that he either did not know or
could not remember having met Mme. Giry, nor even little Giry, nor even
"little Meg!"  But Mme. Giry's pride was so great that the celebrated
box-keeper imagined that everybody knew her.

"Never heard of her!" the manager declared.  "But that's no reason,
Mme. Giry, why I shouldn't ask you what happened last night to make you
and the inspector call in a municipal guard."

"I was just wanting to see you, sir, and talk to you about it, so that
you mightn't have the same unpleasantness as M. Debienne and M.
Poligny.  They wouldn't listen to me either, at first."

"I'm not asking you about all that.  I'm asking what happened last
night."

Mme. Giry turned purple with indignation.  Never had she been spoken to
like that.  She rose as though to go, gathering up the folds of her
skirt and waving the feathers of her dingy bonnet with dignity, but,
changing her mind, she sat down again and said, in a haughty voice:

"I'll tell you what happened.  The ghost was annoyed again!"

Thereupon, as M. Richard was on the point of bursting out, M.
Moncharmin interfered and conducted the interrogatory, whence it
appeared that Mme. Giry thought it quite natural that a voice should be
heard to say that a box was taken, when there was nobody in the box.
She was unable to explain this phenomenon, which was not new to her,
except by the intervention of the ghost.  Nobody could see the ghost in
his box, but everybody could hear him.  She had often heard him; and
they could believe her, for she always spoke the truth.  They could ask
M. Debienne and M. Poligny, and anybody who knew her; and also M.
Isidore Saack, who had had a leg broken by the ghost!

"Indeed!" said Moncharmin, interrupting her.  "Did the ghost break poor
Isidore Saack's leg?"

Mme. Giry opened her eyes with astonishment at such ignorance.
However, she consented to enlighten those two poor innocents.  The
thing had happened in M. Debienne and M. Poligny's time, also in Box
Five and also during a performance of FAUST.  Mme. Giry coughed,
cleared her throat--it sounded as though she were preparing to sing the
whole of Gounod's score--and began:

"It was like this, sir.  That night, M. Maniera and his lady, the
jewelers in the Rue Mogador, were sitting in the front of the box, with
their great friend, M. Isidore Saack, sitting behind Mme. Maniera.
Mephistopheles was singing"--Mme. Giry here burst into song
herself--"'Catarina, while you play at sleeping,' and then M. Maniera
heard a voice in his right ear (his wife was on his left) saying, 'Ha,
ha!  Julie's not playing at sleeping!'  His wife happened to be called
Julie.  So.  M. Maniera turns to the right to see who was talking to
him like that.  Nobody there!  He rubs his ear and asks himself, if
he's dreaming.  Then Mephistopheles went on with his serenade...  But,
perhaps I'm boring you gentlemen?"

"No, no, go on."

"You are too good, gentlemen," with a smirk.  "Well, then,
Mephistopheles went on with his serenade"--Mme. Giry, burst into song
again--"'Saint, unclose thy portals holy and accord the bliss, to a
mortal bending lowly, of a pardon-kiss.' And then M. Maniera again
hears the voice in his right ear, saying, this time, 'Ha, ha!  Julie
wouldn't mind according a kiss to Isidore!'  Then he turns round again,
but, this time, to the left; and what do you think he sees?  Isidore,
who had taken his lady's hand and was covering it with kisses through
the little round place in the glove--like this, gentlemen"--rapturously
kissing the bit of palm left bare in the middle of her thread gloves.
"Then they had a lively time between them!  Bang!  Bang!  M. Maniera,
who was big and strong, like you, M. Richard, gave two blows to M.
Isidore Saack, who was small and weak like M. Moncharmin, saving his
presence.  There was a great uproar.  People in the house shouted,
'That will do!  Stop them!  He'll kill him!'  Then, at last, M. Isidore
Saack managed to run away."

"Then the ghost had not broken his leg?" asked M. Moncharmin, a little
vexed that his figure had made so little impression on Mme. Giry.

"He did break it for him, sir," replied Mme. Giry haughtily.  "He broke
it for him on the grand staircase, which he ran down too fast, sir, and
it will be long before the poor gentleman will be able to go up it
again!"

"Did the ghost tell you what he said in M. Maniera's right ear?" asked
M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous.

"No, sir, it was M. Maniera himself.  So----"

"But you have spoken to the ghost, my good lady?"

"As I'm speaking to you now, my good sir!"  Mme. Giry replied.

"And, when the ghost speaks to you, what does he say?"

"Well, he tells me to bring him a footstool!"

This time, Richard burst out laughing, as did Moncharmin and Remy, the
secretary.  Only the inspector, warned by experience, was careful not
to laugh, while Mme. Giry ventured to adopt an attitude that was
positively threatening.

"Instead of laughing," she cried indignantly, "you'd do better to do as
M. Poligny did, who found out for himself."

"Found out about what?" asked Moncharmin, who had never been so much
amused in his life.

"About the ghost, of course! ... Look here ..."

She suddenly calmed herself, feeling that this was a solemn moment in
her life:

"LOOK HERE," she repeated.  "They were playing La Juive.  M. Poligny
thought he would watch the performance from the ghost's box... Well,
when Leopold cries, 'Let us fly!'--you know--and Eleazer stops them and
says, 'Whither go ye?' ... well, M. Poligny--I was watching him from
the back of the next box, which was empty--M. Poligny got up and walked
out quite stiffly, like a statue, and before I had time to ask him,
'Whither go ye?' like Eleazer, he was down the staircase, but without
breaking his leg.

"Still, that doesn't let us know how the Opera ghost came to ask you
for a footstool," insisted M. Moncharmin.

"Well, from that evening, no one tried to take the ghost's private box
from him.  The manager gave orders that he was to have it at each
performance.  And, whenever he came, he asked me for a footstool."

"Tut, tut!  A ghost asking for a footstool!  Then this ghost of yours
is a woman?"

"No, the ghost is a man."

"How do you know?"

"He has a man's voice, oh, such a lovely man's voice!  This is what
happens:  When he comes to the opera, it's usually in the middle of the
first act.  He gives three little taps on the door of Box Five.  The
first time I heard those three taps, when I knew there was no one in
the box, you can think how puzzled I was!  I opened the door, listened,
looked; nobody!  And then I heard a voice say, 'Mme. Jules' my poor
husband's name was Jules--'a footstool, please.' Saving your presence,
gentlemen, it made me feel all-overish like.  But the voice went on,
'Don't be frightened, Mme. Jules, I'm the Opera ghost!'  And the voice
was so soft and kind that I hardly felt frightened.  THE VOICE WAS
SITTING IN THE CORNER CHAIR, ON THE RIGHT, IN THE FRONT ROW."

"Was there any one in the box on the right of Box Five?" asked
Moncharmin.

"No; Box Seven, and Box Three, the one on the left, were both empty.
The curtain had only just gone up."

"And what did you do?"

"Well, I brought the footstool.  Of course, it wasn't for himself he
wanted it, but for his lady!  But I never heard her nor saw her."

"Eh?  What?  So now the ghost is married!"  The eyes of the two
managers traveled from Mme. Giry to the inspector, who, standing behind
the box-keeper, was waving his arms to attract their attention.  He
tapped his forehead with a distressful forefinger, to convey his
opinion that the widow Jules Giry was most certainly mad, a piece of
pantomime which confirmed M. Richard in his determination to get rid of
an inspector who kept a lunatic in his service.  Meanwhile, the worthy
lady went on about her ghost, now painting his generosity:

"At the end of the performance, he always gives me two francs,
sometimes five, sometimes even ten, when he has been many days without
coming.  Only, since people have begun to annoy him again, he gives me
nothing at all.

"Excuse me, my good woman," said Moncharmin, while Mme. Giry tossed the
feathers in her dingy hat at this persistent familiarity, "excuse me,
how does the ghost manage to give you your two francs?"

"Why, he leaves them on the little shelf in the box, of course.  I find
them with the program, which I always give him.  Some evenings, I find
flowers in the box, a rose that must have dropped from his lady's
bodice ... for he brings a lady with him sometimes; one day, they left
a fan behind them."

"Oh, the ghost left a fan, did he?  And what did you do with it?"

"Well, I brought it back to the box next night."

Here the inspector's voice was raised.

"You've broken the rules; I shall have to fine you, Mme. Giry."

"Hold your tongue, you fool!" muttered M. Firmin Richard.

"You brought back the fan.  And then?"

"Well, then, they took it away with them, sir; it was not there at the
end of the performance; and in its place they left me a box of English
sweets, which I'm very fond of.  That's one of the ghost's pretty
thoughts."

"That will do, Mme. Giry.  You can go."

When Mme. Giry had bowed herself out, with the dignity that never
deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided to
dispense with that old madwoman's services; and, when he had gone in
his turn, they instructed the acting-manager to make up the inspector's
accounts.  Left alone, the managers told each other of the idea which
they both had in mind, which was that they should look into that little
matter of Box Five themselves.

 The first chapter begins on the evening that the managers of the Opera House, MM. Debienne and Poligny, are giving a last gala performance to mark their retirement. Six young ladies of the ballet, who were apparently running away from "the ghost," flood the dressing room of one of the main dancers, La Sorelli. Sorelli herself is very superstitious and asks for details. For several months, there had been nothing discussed at the Opera but the ghost in dress-clothes who went about the entire building, who spoke to no one, to whom no one spoke, and who vanished as soon as he was seen. There is a hubbub among the corps de ballet. Soon other people also begin to state that they, too, had met a man in dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders. As the young ladies of the corps de ballet discuss the appearance of the ghost, Meg Giry, a young performer, says that Joseph Buquet would do best to stay quiet. This is because Meg's mother, Madame Giry, says so. This elicits the curiosity of the others, and they ask why her mother believes so. Meg says that she swore not to say anything. Meg eventually reveals that the secret of the ghost revolves around the ghost's private box in the Opera, box number five. The mother of Jammes, another performer, comes bursting into the room, revealing that Joseph Buquet is dead and was found hanging in the third-floor cellar. The news spreads around the Opera, and everyone makes for the foyer. As she makes her way to the foyer, Sorelli runs into the Comte de Chagny, who was coming upstairs. The acting-manager says not to inform the managers of the news, as it would ruin their last day. Some people protest that the managers had kept the talent of Daee hidden for no reason - she was performing that night because she was the understudy of Carlotta, who was absent that day. The Comte de Chagny - 'Philippe Georges Marie Comte de Chagny' is his complete title - takes part in this frenzy and claps loudly. He is a great aristocrat and a good-looking man, and after the death of his father he became the head of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in France, whose arms date back to the fourteenth century. The Comte de Cagny has two sisters and a brother, Raoul. Their mother had died whilst giving birth to Raoul, who is about twenty years younger than his brother. Philippe is prone to spoil Raoul, pleased to foresee a glorious career in the navy for him. He shows Raoul around Paris, even taking him behind the scenes of the Opera at Raoul's request. That evening, Raoul takes the Comte de Chagny behind the scenes, and, postponing his usual visit to Sorelli for a few minutes, the count follows his brother down the passage that leads to Daee's dressing-room, which is quite crowded. Christine has not yet come to, and the doctor of the theater has just arrived at the moment when Raoul enters. Raoul coolly asks the doctor to request that the other gentlemen clear the room, to which the doctor acquiesces. The doctor sends everyone but Raoul and the maid away. Christine Daee utters a deep sigh, looks at Raoul, and asks him who he is. Raoul replies that he is the little boy who went into the sea to rescue her scarf. The doctor, maid, and Christine laugh in response. Raoul turns red and stands up. Raoul requests to speak with Christine in private, but she tells everyone--including Raoul--to leave. Raoul goes up to Christine's dressing-room and, with his ear to the door to catch Christine's voice, prepares to knock . However, at that moment he hears a man's voice in the dressing-room: the man declares that Christine must love him. Christine responds in a sad and trembling voice, and says that she only sings for him. Raoul, out of fear of being caught listening behind the door, steps back. Nonetheless he does not go away, retreating to a dark corner. He loves Christine, and so he has all the more reason to find out who the man in the room is. Christine leaves, but she does not see Raoul. He enters her room and finds only darkness and silence. He lights a match, but leaves, not knowing what he is doing or where he is going. During this time, the farewell ceremony of the managers is taking place. All the people of the social and artistic world of Paris meet after the performance in the foyer of the ballet, where Sorelli waits for the arrival of the retiring managers with a glass of champagne in her hand. The members of the Crops de Ballet, young and old, discuss the events of the day. Everyone remarks that the retiring managers look cheerful. However, in the midst of the gaiety, Jammes breaks the smile of the managers and screams about the Opera ghost, in a tone of unspeakable terror. She points to a pallid face, with two deep black cavities under the eyebrows. Everybody laughs and pushes his neighbor and wants to offer the Opera ghost a drink, but he is gone. He slips through the crowd, and others hunt for him in vain. Sorelli is furious, as she is not able to finish her speech. The managers kiss and thank her, and run as fast they can away from the ghost. They find the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and M. Firmin Richard, whom they hardly know, outside the managers' office. It is through Moncharmin's memoir that the reader learns of the intensity and graveness with which the old managers attempt to convince their successors of the ghost's presence - and of the importance of keeping the ghost happy. The new managers initially take this as a joke and laugh it off. The old managers show the new ones a copy of the Opera memorandum-book. At the end of the book, there is a paragraph written in red ink that states one extra stipulation for the managers: the manager, in any month, must not delay for more than a fortnight the payment of 20,000 francs to the Opera ghost. Another condition is that Box Five on the grand tier must be placed at the disposal of the Opera ghost for every performance. Upon hearing this, the new managers thank their predecessors for their service and congratulate them on thinking of this joke. Moncharmin and Richard ask them if they have ever seen the ghost; the two respond that they have not ever seen him in his box. Moncharmin and Richard resolve to sell the box, and the four exit the office. The chapter offers some background information on Moncharmin and Richard. Moncharmin does not know a note of music, but enjoys considerable private income and dabbles in Paris's high society. He is a charming fellow and shows himself to be quite intelligent. Richard, on the other hand, is a very distinguished composer, having published a number of successful pieces of all kinds. However, he has a very hasty temper. During the first few days, they find themselves so busy and delighted to be at the helm of an enterprise such as the Opera House that they forget about story of the ghost. They soon receive a letter - written in the same red ink they saw in the memorandum-book - from the ghost himself. He requests that they not sell his private box, and issues a warning of sorts. They think it to be a continuation of Debienne and Poligny's joke and dismiss it, spending the rest of the day discussing, negotiating, signing, or canceling contracts. They go to bed early, without so much as a glance at Box Five. The next morning, the managers receive a card of thanks from the ghost for last night's performance; the card compliments Carlotta and Christine's performances. They also receive a letter from their predecessors, who remind them of the stipulation regarding Box Five. That evening, Box Five is sold. The next morning, the managers find an inspector's report relating to an incident that had happened the night before in Box Five, in which the occupants heard a strange, disturbing laughter. Richard sends for the inspector, and the inspector notes that the people in the box were told by a voice that the box was taken already. Moncharmin finds this humorous, but Richard is not amused. Richard sends for the box-keeper, Mme. Giry, the mother of little Meg. Richard asks Mme. Giry why she called the inspector last night, and she tells them that she did it because they might not want to have the same unpleasant experience as their predecessors. She tells a story of a time when the ghost had fooled some of Box Five's occupants into quarreling with one another, leading to one of the occupants breaking a leg as he was running down the grand staircase. Giry also notes that the ghost is a man, and says that she once returned a fan of the ghost's to Box Five, which he retrieved shortly thereafter. The managers think Giry to be a madwoman, and after she leaves, the managers tell the inspector that they will dispense with her services. They decide to look into the matter of Box Five themselves. Christine doesn't show herself nowhere, and Vicomte de Chagny tries in vain to meet her. He writes to her, asking to call upon her. He receives a note from her one morning in which she says that she has not forgotten the little boy who went into the sea to rescue her scarf. She informs Raoul that she is going to Perros, to pay respects to her dead father. Raoul hurries to Perros. Christine's father himself was a great musician, whose reputation was widespread. His wife died when Christine was just six years old; the father sold his patch of ground and went to the city of Upsala in search of fame and fortune, but he found nothing but poverty. He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair, and, one day, one Professor Valerius heard them and took them to Gothenburg. He thought the father to be the world's finest violinist, and was fond of to Christine's voice as well. He provided for her education and instruction. She made rapid progress and became quite charming. When Valerius and his wife settled in France, they took Daee and Christine with them. "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as her daughter. One day, a little boy made her take a longer walk than usual; as the boy was following the little girl, her pure, sweet voice seemed to bind him to her. They came to the shore of an inlet, and there was also a high wind, which blew Christine's scarf out to sea. Raoul went to retrieve it, and during the season, they saw each other and played together almost every day. Daee consented to give Raoul violin lessons at the request of his aunt. Daee would also tell Christine and Raoul stories, and one of the more memorable ones was the story of the Angel of Music. Daee said that no one ever sees the Angel, but he is heard by those who are meant to hear him. According to the stories, the Angel comes when he is least expected, at times of sorrow and despair, but his voice is beautiful. Daee tells Christine that one day she will hear the Angel: when he is in heaven, he will send for the Angel. Three years later, Raoul and Christine met again at Perros. The Professor had died, but his widow remained with Daee and Christine. Raoul and Christine realize they have feelings for each other, but Raoul, knowing that Christine could not be his wife because of his social status as the Vicomte de Chagny, leaves soon thereafter. Christine tries not to think of him, and makes immense progress as a singer. Meanwhile, her father dies, and she is devasted. The first time Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed by her beauty and reminded of the time that he spent with her. Her behavior was quite indifferent this time, however, and then there was matter of the man's voice behind the door. Raoul wonders why she laughed at him, and why she did not recognize him. Raoul reaches Parros, and walks into the sitting-room of the Inn at which Christine is staying. Raoul angrily questions Christine, and the tone of his questions is so rough that Christine simply stares at Raoul without replying. He then answers his questions for her, and reveals that he knew about what went on in her dressing room the other night. Christine reacts with horror, and she asks Raoul to tell her all that he heard. She flees in great disorder and locks herself in her room. Raoul walks to the graveyard in which the church stood. He is alone reading the inscriptions when Christine shows up. She asks Raoul if he remembers the legend of the Angel of Music. He does, and she reveals that it was the Angel of Music who was in her dressing room. Raoul laughs at this and is skeptical of Christine's story. Christine replies in anger and disbelief, storming off. Raoul turns to the inn, feeling very sad and low-spirited. Raoul dines alone, and late at night Raoul hears Christine leave her room for the graveyard church. Raoul climbs down his window to follow her. Despite Raoul's loud footsteps, Christine does not hear him. She kneels at her father's grave and prays. At midnight, a musical note that Raoul and Christine had heard in their childhood begins playing; it is plaed played with incredible, divine skill, and art. When the music stops, Raoul hears a noise from the skulls in the heap of bones in the graveyard, and then he makes contact with what he describes as 'death's head', which has a pair of scorching eyes. In the presence of this apparition, his courage fails him, and he remembers nothing more until he recovers consciousness the next day. He is brought back to the inn's landlady; apparently, he was found stretched at full length on the steps of the high altar of the church. The landlady called for Christine in order to revive Raoul; it takes him some time to recover from these events.

