Latest / The Gaston Leroux Library / The Phantom of the Opera Chapter VI - A Visit to Box Five

Transcript

The Phantom of the Opera Chapter VI - A Visit to Box Five · The Gaston Leroux Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter six of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LaRue,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: translated by Alexander Desera Domatos. This LibriVox recording is in
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Chapter six, A visit to Box five.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: We left Monsieur Fiirman Richard and Monsieur armand Moncharmin at
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the moment when they were deciding to look into that
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: little matter of Box five, leaving behind them the broad
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: staircase which leads from the lobby outside the manager's offices
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to the stage and its dependencies. They crossed the stage,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: went out by the subscriber's door, and entered the house
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: through the first little passage on the left. Then they
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: made their way through the front rows of stalls and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: looked at Box five on the grand tier. They could
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: not see it well because it was half in darkness,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and because great covers were flung over the red velvet
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: of the ledges of all the boxes. They were almost
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: alone in the huge, gloomy house, and a great silence
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: surrounded them. It was the time when most of the
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: stage hands go out for a drink. The staff had
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: left the boards for the moment, leaving a scene half set.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: A few rays of light. A wan Sinister light that
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary, fell
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: through some opening or other upon an old tower that
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: raised its pasteboard battlements on the stage. Everything in this
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: deceptive light adopted a fantastic shape. In the orchestra stalls,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the drugget covering them looked like an angry sea whose
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: gloucous waves had been suddenly rendered stationary by a secret
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: order from the storm Phantom, who, as everybody knows, is
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: called at a mistore. Monsieurs Moncharmin and Richard were the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: shipwrecked mariners amid this motionless turmoil of a calico sea.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: They made for the left boxes, plowing their way like
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: sailors who leave their ship and try to struggle to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the shore. The eight great polished columns stood up in
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the dusk like so many huge piles, supporting the threatening, crumbling,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: big bellied cliffs, whose layers were represented by the circular,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: parallel waving lines of the balconies of the grand first
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and second tiers of boxes at the top right on
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: top of the cliff lost in Monsieur lenepp View's copper
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: ceiling figures grinned and grimaced, laughed and jeered at Monsieurs
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Richard and Moncharmin's distress, and yet these figures were usually
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: very serious. Their names isis Amphetride, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphnikleiti, Galatea,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and Arthusia, Yes, Arthusia herself and Pandora, whom we all
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: know by her box looked down upon the two new
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: managers of the opera, who ended by clutching at some
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: piece of wreckage, and from there stared silently at Box
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: five on the Grand tier. I have said that they
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: were distressed, at least I presume so. Monsieur Moncharmin, in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: any case, admits that he was impressed. To quote his
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: own words in his memory. This moonshine about the opera ghost,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: in which, since we first took over the duties of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Monsieurs Pouligni and Debienne, we had been so nicely steeped.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Moncharmin's style is not always irreproachable, had no doubt ended
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: by blinding my imaginative and also my visual faculties. It
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: may be that the exceptional surroundings in which we found
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: ourselves in the midst of an incredible silence impressed us
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to an unusual extent. It may be that we were
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the sport of a kind of hallucination brought about by
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the semi darkness of the theater and the partial gloom
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that filled Box five. At any rate, I saw and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Richard also saw a shape in the box. Richard said nothing,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: nor I either, but we spontaneously seized each other's hand.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: We stood like that for some minutes, without moving, with
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: our eyes fixed on the same point, but the figure
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: had disappeared. Then we went out and in the lobby
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: communicated our impression to each other and talked about the shape.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: The misfortune was that my shape was not in the
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: least like Richard's. I had seen a thing like a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: death's head resting on the ledge of the box, whereas
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Richard saw the shape of an old woman who looked
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: like Madame Gerie. We soon discovered that we had really
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: been the victims of an illusion. Whereupon, without further delay,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and laughing like madmen, we ran to Box five on
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the Grand Tier, went inside and found no shape of
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: any kind. Box five is just like all the other
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Grand Tier boxes. There was nothing to distinguish it from
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: any of the others. Monsieur Moncharmin and Monsieur Richard, ostensibly
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: highly amused and laughing at each other, moved the furniture
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: of the box, lifted the cloths and the chairs, and
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: particularly examined the arm chair in which the man's voice
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: used to set. But they saw that it was a
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: respectable arm chair with no magic about it. Altogether, the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: box was the most ordinary box in the world, with
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: its red hangings, its chairs, its carpet, and its ledge
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: covered in red velvet. After feeling the carpet in the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: most serious manner possible, and discovering nothing more here or
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: anywhere else, they went down to the corresponding box on
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the pit tier below. In Box five, on the pit tier,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: which is just inside the first exit from the stalls
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: on the left, they found nothing worth mentioning either. Those
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: people are all making fools of us. Firmin Richard ended
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: by exclaiming it will be faust on Saturday. Let us
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: both see the performance from Box five on the grand tier.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter six