Chapter III

During this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place. This ceremony was being given on the occasion of the retirement of M. Debienne and M. Poligny. 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.

Little Jammes 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 jokes.

Everybody remarked that the retiring managers looked cheerful. All were already smiling broadly upon Sorelli, who had begun to recite her speech, when an exclamation from that little Jammes broke the smile of the managers brutally:

“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 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.

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 in the great lobby a regular supper would be served.

Here they found the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and M. Firmin Richard, whom they hardly knew. The retiring managers 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. He neither ate nor drank. He did not speak a word.

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.”

“Is Buquet dead?” Debienne and Poligny cried.

“Yes,” replied the man, or the shadow of a man, quietly. “He was found, this evening, hanging in the third cellar.”

The two managers, or rather ex-managers, at once rose and stared strangely at the speaker. They were 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 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 we answered in the negative. They took the master-keys from our hands, stared at them for a moment and advised us to have new locks made. 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. 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. The announcement of the death of Joseph Buquet had served them as a brutal reminder that some fantastic or disastrous event had brought them to a sense of their dependence.

“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 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 handwriting. This paragraph ran, word for word, as follows:

“‘5. If the manager, in any month, delays 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:

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

‘So you see, two hundred and forty thousand francs are not nothing,’ said M. Poligny. ‘And have you considered what the loss over Box Five meant to us? 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, 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

Armand Moncharmin wrote voluminous Memoirs during the long period of his co-management. He was a charming fellow and showed that he was not lacking in intelligence, for he selected the best possible active manager and went straight to Firmin Richard.

Firmin Richard was a famous 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.

They had forgotten all about that curious, fantastic story of the ghost, when an incident occurred that proved to them that the joke 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, the envelope was addressed in red ink. 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. 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; 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.

I should like to ask you to hear Christine Daae this evening in the part of Siebel; and I will ask you not to dispose of my box today nor on the following days. I was disagreeably surprised 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.

Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant,

Opera Ghost.

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 tonight?”

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.

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

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

The whole day was spent in discussing, negotiating, signing or cancelling contracts; and the two overworked managers went to bed early, without 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 is wonderful. Choruses want waking up. Carlotta is a splendid commonplace instrument. I 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.; their privileges finished.

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 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.

“Oh, those fellows are beginning to annoy me!” shouted Firmin Richard.

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 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 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 seemed more inclined to laugh, sir, 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.

“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. M. Richard 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, the manager commanded him to open them once more.

“Who is this ‘Opera ghost?’” he snarled.

But the inspector conveyed, 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.

“Very well!” said M. Richard coldly.

The inspector thought he could go and was gently sidling toward the door, when M. Richard ordered:

“Stay where you are!”

M. Remy had sent for the box-keeper. 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!”

M. Richard was impressed. He looked at Mme. Giry, in her faded shawl, her worn shoes, her old dress and dingy bonnet. M. Richard 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. “Mme. Giry, I want to 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 sat down and said, in a haughty voice:

“I’ll tell you what happened. The ghost was annoyed again!”

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. 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. 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 and began:

“It was like this, sir. That night, M. Maniera and his lady were sitting in the front of the box, with their great friend, M. Isidore Saack, sitting behind Mme. Maniera. Mephistopheles was singing… But, perhaps I’m boring you gentlemen?”

“No, no, go on.”

“You are too good, gentlemen. Well, then, Mephistopheles went on with his serenade, and then M. Maniera hears the voice in his right ear, saying, ‘Ha, ha! Julie—M Maniera’s lady—wouldn’t mind according a kiss to Isidore!’ Then he turns round, 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! 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. 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, sir,” replied Mme. Giry haughtily. “He broke it on the grand staircase, which he ran down too fast, sir!”

“Did the ghost tell you what he said in M. Maniera’s right ear?” asked M. Moncharmin.

“No, sir, it was M. Maniera himself”.

“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 was careful not to laugh.

“Instead of laughing,” Mme. Giry 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, suddenly 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, ‘Where do you go?’, he was down the staircase, but without breaking his leg. 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.”

“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, ‘A footstool, please.’ Then the voice went on, ‘Don’t be frightened, Mme., I’m the Opera ghost!’ And the voice was very soft and kind. 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 show that the poor widow was certainly mad. Meanwhile, the lady went on about her ghost:

“At the end of the performance, he always gives me two francs, sometimes five, sometimes even ten. Only, since people have begun to annoy him again, he gives me nothing at all.

“Excuse me, my good woman,” said Moncharmin, “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.”

“That will do, Mme. Giry. You can go.”

When Mme. Giry had left, with the dignity that never deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided to dispense with that old madwoman’s services. Then the managers decided to visit that Box Five themselves.