The Phantom of the Opera (9 page)

Q. “Did it not occur to you that the musician might be hiding behind that very heap of bones?”

R. “It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur, so much so that I omitted to follow Mlle. Daae, when she stood up and walked slowly to the gate. She was so much absorbed just then that I am not surprised that she did not see me.”

Q. “Then what happened that you were found in the morning lying half-dead on the steps of the high altar?”

R. “First a skull rolled to my feet … then another … then another … It was as if I were the mark of that ghastly game of bowls. And I had an idea that false step must have destroyed the balance of the structure behind which our musician was concealed. This surmise seemed to be confirmed when I saw a shadow suddenly glide along the sacristy wall. I ran up. The shadow had already pushed open the door and entered the church. But I was quicker than the shadow and caught hold of a corner of its cloak. At that moment, we were just in front of the high altar; and the moonbeams fell straight upon us through the stained-glass windows of the apse. As I did not let go of the cloak, the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death’s head, which darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes. I felt as if I were face to face with Satan; and, in the presence of this unearthly apparition, my heart gave way, my courage failed me … and I remember nothing more until I recovered consciousness at the Setting Sun.”

Chapter VI

A Visit to Box Five

WE LEFT M. FIRMIN RICHARD
and M. Armand Moncharmin at the moment when they were deciding “to look into that little matter of Box Five.”

Leaving behind them the broad staircase which leads from the lobby outside the managers’ offices to the stage and its dependencies, they crossed the stage, went out by the subscribers’ door and entered the house through the first little passage on the left. Then they made their way through the front rows of stalls and looked at Box Five on the grand tier, They could not see it well, because it was half in darkness and because great covers were flung over the red velvet of the ledges of all the boxes.

They were almost alone in the huge, gloomy house; and a great silence surrounded them. It was the time when most of the stage-hands go out for a drink. The staff had left the boards for the moment, leaving a scene half set. A few rays of light, a wan, sinister light, that seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary, fell through some opening or other upon an old tower that raised its pasteboard battlements on the stage; everything, in this deceptive light, adopted a fantastic shape. In the orchestra stalls, the drugget covering them looked like an angry sea, whose glaucous waves had been suddenly rendered stationary by a secret order from the storm phantom, who, as everybody knows, is called Adamastor. MM. Moncharmin and Richard were the shipwrecked mariners amid this motionless turmoil of a calico sea. They made for the left boxes, plowing their way like sailors who leave their ship and try to struggle to the shore. The eight great polished columns stood up in the dusk like so many huge piles supporting the threatening, crumbling, big-bellied cliffs whose layers were represented by the circular, parallel, waving lines of the balconies of the grand, first and second tiers of boxes. At the top, right on top of the cliff, lost in M. Lenepveu’s copper ceiling, figures grinned and grimaced, laughed and jeered at MM. Richard and Moncharmin’s distress. And yet these figures were usually very serious. Their names were Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphne, Clytie, Galatea and Arethusa. Yes, Arethusa herself and Pandora, whom we all know by her box, looked down upon the two new managers of the Opera, who ended by clutching at some piece of wreckage and from there stared silently at Box Five on the grand tier.

I have said that they were distressed. At least, I presume so. M. Moncharmin, in any case, admits that he was impressed. To quote his own words, in his Memoirs:

“This moonshine about the Opera ghost in which, since we first took over the duties of MM. Poligny and Debienne, we had been so nicely steeped”—Moncharmin’s style is not always irreproachable—“had no doubt ended by blinding my imaginative and also my visual faculties. It may be that the exceptional surroundings in which we found ourselves, in the midst of an incredible silence, impressed us to an unusual extent. It may be that we were the sport of a kind of hallucination brought about by the semi-darkness of the theater and the partial gloom that filled Box Five. At any rate, I saw and Richard also saw a shape in the box. Richard said nothing, nor I either. But we spontaneously seized each other’s hand. We stood like that for some minutes, without moving, with our eyes fixed on the same point; but the figure had disappeared. Then we went out and, in the lobby, communicated our impressions to each other and talked about ‘the shape.’ The misfortune was that my shape was not in the least like Richard’s. I had seen a thing like a death’s head resting on the ledge of the box, whereas Richard saw the shape of an old woman who looked like Mme. Giry. We soon discovered that we had really been the victims of an illusion, whereupon, without further delay and laughing like madmen, we ran to Box Five on the grand tier, went inside and found no shape of any kind.”

Box Five is just like all the other grand tier boxes. There is nothing to distinguish it from any of the others. M. Moncharmin and M. Richard, ostensibly highly amused and laughing at each other, moved the furniture of the box, lifted the cloths and the chairs and particularly examined the arm-chair in which “the man’s voice” used to sit. But they saw that it was a respectable arm-chair, with no magic about it. Altogether, the box was the most ordinary box in the world, with its red hangings, its chairs, its carpet and its ledge covered in red velvet. After, feeling the carpet in the most serious manner possible, and discovering nothing more here or anywhere else, they went down to the corresponding box on the pit tier below. In Box Five on the pit tier, which is just inside the first exit from the stalls on the left, they found nothing worth mentioning either.

“Those people are all making fools of us!” Firmin Richard ended by exclaiming. “It will be
Faust
on Saturday: let us both see the performance from Box Five on the grand tier!”

Chapter VII

Faust and What Followed

ON THE SATURDAY MORNING
, on reaching their office, the joint managers found a letter from O. G. worded in these terms:

MY DEAR MANAGERS:

So it is to be war between us?

If you still care for peace, here is my ultimatum. It consists of the four following conditions:

1. You must give me back my private box; and I wish it to be at my free disposal from henceforward.

2. The part of Margarita shall be sung this evening by Christine Daae. Never mind about Carlotta; she will be ill.

3. I absolutely insist upon the good and loyal services of Mme. Giry, my box-keeper, whom you will reinstate in her functions forthwith.

4. Let me know by a letter handed to Mme. Giry, who will see that it reaches me, that you accept, as your predecessors did, the conditions in my memorandum-book relating to my monthly allowance. I will inform you later how you are to pay it to me.

If you refuse, you will give
Faust
to-night in a house with a curse upon it.

Take my advice and be warned in time.
O. G.

“Look here, I’m getting sick of him, sick of him!” shouted Richard, bringing his fists down on his office-table.

Just then, Mercier, the acting-manager, entered.

“Lachenel would like to see one of you gentlemen,” he said. “He says that his business is urgent and he seems quite upset.”

“Who’s Lachenel?” asked Richard.

“He’s your stud-groom.”

“What do you mean? My stud-groom?”

“Yes, sir,” explained Mercier, “there are several grooms at the Opera and M. Lachenel is at the head of them.”

“And what does this groom do?”

“He has the chief management of the stable.”

“What stable?”

“Why, yours, sir, the stable of the Opera.”

“Is there a stable at the Opera? Upon my word, I didn’t know. Where is it?”

“In the cellars, on the Rotunda side. It’s a very important department; we have twelve horses.”

“Twelve horses! And what for, in Heaven’s name?”

“Why, we want trained horses for the processions in the Juive, The Profeta and so on; horses ‘used to the boards.’ It is the grooms’ business to teach them. M. Lachenel is very clever at it. He used to manage Franconi’s stables.”

“Very well … but what does he want?”

“I don’t know; I never saw him in such a state.”

“He can come in.”

M. Lachenel came in, carrying a riding-whip, with which he struck his right boot in an irritable manner.

“Good morning, M. Lachenel,” said Richard, somewhat impressed. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

“Mr. Manager, I have come to ask you to get rid of the whole stable.”

“What, you want to get rid of our horses?”

“I’m not talking of the horses, but of the stablemen.”

“How many stablemen have you, M. Lachenel?”

“Six stablemen! That’s at least two too many.”

“These are ‘places,’” Mercier interposed, “created and forced upon us by the under-secretary for fine arts. They are filled by protegees of the government and, if I may venture to …”

“I don’t care a hang for the government!” roared Richard. “We don’t need more than four stablemen for twelve horses.”

“Eleven,” said the head riding-master, correcting him.

“Twelve,” repeated Richard.

“Eleven,” repeated Lachenel.

“Oh, the acting-manager told me that you had twelve horses!”

“I did have twelve, but I have only eleven since Cesar was stolen.”

And M. Lachenel gave himself a great smack on the boot with his whip.

“Has Cesar been stolen?” cried the acting-manager. “Cesar, the white horse in the Profeta?”

“There are not two Cesars,” said the stud-groom dryly. “I was ten years at Franconi’s and I have seen plenty of horses in my time. Well, there are not two Cesars. And he’s been stolen.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows. That’s why I have come to ask you to sack the whole stable.”

“What do your stablemen say?”

“All sorts of nonsense. Some of them accuse the supers. Others pretend that it’s the acting-manager’s doorkeeper …”

“My doorkeeper? I’ll answer for him as I would for myself!” protested Mercier.

“But, after all, M. Lachenel,” cried Richard, “you must have some idea.”

“Yes, I have,” M. Lachenel declared. “I have an idea and I’ll tell you what it is. There’s no doubt about it in my mind.” He walked up to the two managers and whispered. “It’s the ghost who did the trick!”

Richard gave a jump.

“What, you too! You too!”

“How do you mean, I too? Isn’t it natural, after what I saw?”

“What did you see?”

“I saw, as clearly as I now see you, a black shadow riding a white horse that was as like Cesar as two peas!”

“And did you run after them?”

“I did and I shouted, but they were too fast for me and disappeared in the darkness of the underground gallery.”

M. Richard rose. “That will do, M. Lachenel. You can go … We will lodge a complaint against
the ghost
.”

“And sack my stable?”

“Oh, of course! Good morning.”

M. Lachenel bowed and withdrew. Richard foamed at the mouth.

“Settle that idiot’s account at once, please.”

“He is a friend of the government representative’s!” Mercier ventured to say.

“And he takes his vermouth at Tortoni’s with Lagrene, Scholl and Pertuiset, the lion-hunter,” added Moncharmin. “We shall have the whole press against us! He’ll tell the story of the ghost; and everybody will be laughing at our expense! We may as well be dead as ridiculous!”

“All right, say no more about it.”

At that moment the door opened. It must have been deserted by its usual Cerberus, for Mme. Giry entered without ceremony, holding a letter in her hand, and said hurriedly:

“I beg your pardon, excuse me, gentlemen, but I had a letter this morning from the Opera ghost. He told me to come to you, that you had something to …”

She did not complete the sentence. She saw Firmin Richard’s face; and it was a terrible sight. He seemed ready to burst. He said nothing, he could not speak. But suddenly he acted. First, his left arm seized upon the quaint person of Mme. Giry and made her describe so unexpected a semicircle that she uttered a despairing cry. Next, his right foot imprinted its sole on the black taffeta of a skirt which certainly had never before undergone a similar outrage in a similar place. The thing happened so quickly that Mme. Giry, when in the passage, was still quite bewildered and seemed not to understand. But, suddenly, she understood; and the Opera rang with her indignant yells, her violent protests and threats.

About the same time, Carlotta, who had a small house of her own in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, rang for her maid, who brought her letters to her bed. Among them was an anonymous missive, written in red ink, in a hesitating, clumsy hand, which ran:

If you appear to-night, you must be prepared for a great misfortune at the moment when you open your mouth to sing … a misfortune worse than death.

The letter took away Carlotta’s appetite for breakfast. She pushed back her chocolate, sat up in bed and thought hard. It was not the first letter of the kind which she had received, but she never had one couched in such threatening terms.

She thought herself, at that time, the victim of a thousand jealous attempts and went about saying that she had a secret enemy who had sworn to ruin her. She pretended that a wicked plot was being hatched against her, a cabal which would come to a head one of those days; but she added that she was not the woman to be intimidated.

The truth is that, if there was a cabal, it was led by Carlotta herself against poor Christine, who had no suspicion of it. Carlotta had never forgiven Christine for the triumph which she had achieved when taking her place at a moment’s notice. When Carlotta heard of the astounding reception bestowed upon her understudy, she was at once cured of an incipient attack of bronchitis and a bad fit of sulking against the management and lost the slightest inclination to shirk her duties. From that time, she worked with all her might to “smother” her rival, enlisting the services of influential friends to persuade the managers not to give Christine an opportunity for a fresh triumph. Certain newspapers which had begun to extol the talent of Christine now interested themselves only in the fame of Carlotta. Lastly, in the theater itself, the celebrated, but heartless and soulless diva made the most scandalous remarks about Christine and tried to cause her endless minor unpleasantnesses.