The footnotes have been incrementally numbered in [ ] marks, and placed
after the paragraph in which they appear
The Phantom of the Opera
by
Gaston Leroux
Author of "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" and "The Perfume of the Lady
in Black"
Contents
Chapter
PROLOGUE
I IS IT A GHOST?
II THE NEW MARGARITA
III THE MYSTERIOUS REASON
IV BOX FIVE
V THE ENCHANTED VIOLIN
VI A VISIT TO BOX FIVE
VII FAUST AND WHAT FOLLOWED
VIII THE MYSTERIOUS BROUGHAM
IX AT THE MASKED BALL
X FORGET THE NAME OF THE MAN'S VOICE
XI ABOVE THE TRAP-DOORS
XII APOLLO'S LYRE
XIII A MASTER-STROKE OF THE TRAP-DOOR LOVER
XIV THE SINGULAR ATTITUDE OF A SAFETY-PIN
XV CHRISTINE! CHRISTINE!
XVI MME. GIRY'S REVELATIONS
XVII THE SAFETY-PIN AGAIN
XVIII THE COMMISSARY, THE VISCOUNT AND THE PERSIAN
XIX THE VISCOUNT AND THE PERSIAN
XX IN THE CELLARS OF THE OPERA
XXI INTERESTING VICISSITUDES
XXII IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER
XXIII THE TORTURES BEGIN
XXIV BARRELS! BARRELS!
XXV THE SCORPION OR THE GRASSHOPPER: WHICH
XXVI THE END OF THE GHOST'S LOVE STORY
EPILOGUE
{plus a "bonus chapter" called "THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE"}
The Phantom of the Opera
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.