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The Phantom of the Opera Prologue · The Gaston Leroux Library

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  Speaker 1: Prologue of The Phantom of the Opera. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Ralph Snelson. The Phantom of the Opera by
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  Speaker 1: Gaston Leroux, translated by Alexander TIZERA domatos prologue in which
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  Speaker 1: the author of this singular work informs the reader how
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  Speaker 1: he acquired the certainty that the opera ghost really existed.
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  Speaker 1: The opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was
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  Speaker 1: long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists,
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  Speaker 1: the superstition of the managers, or a product of the
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  Speaker 1: absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet,
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  Speaker 1: their mothers, the box keepers, the cloak room attenants, or
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  Speaker 1: the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although
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  Speaker 1: he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom, that
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  Speaker 1: is to say, of a spectral shade. When I began
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  Speaker 1: to ransack the archives of the National Academy of Music,
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  Speaker 1: I was at once struck by the surprising coincidences between
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  Speaker 1: the phenomena ascribed to the ghost and the most extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: and fantastic tragedy that ever excited the Paris upper classes,
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  Speaker 1: and I soon conceived the idea that this tragedy might
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  Speaker 1: reasonably be explained by the phenomena in question. The events
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  Speaker 1: do not date more than thirty years back, and it
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  Speaker 1: would not be difficult to find, at the present day
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  Speaker 1: in the foyer of the Ballet old men of the
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  Speaker 1: highest respectability, men upon whose word one could absolutely rely,
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  Speaker 1: who would remember as though they happened yesterday, the mysterious
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  Speaker 1: and dramatic conditions that attended the kidnapping of Christine Day,
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  Speaker 1: the disappearance of the Vicomte de Chagne, and the death
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  Speaker 1: of his elder brother, Count Philippe, whose body was found
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  Speaker 1: on the bank of the lake that exists in the
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  Speaker 1: lower cellars of the Opera on the rue Scribe side.
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  Speaker 1: But none of those witnesses had until that day thought
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  Speaker 1: that there was any reason for connecting the more or
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  Speaker 1: less legendary figure of the opera ghost with that terrible story.
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  Speaker 1: The truth was slow to enter my mind, puzzled by
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  Speaker 1: an inquiry that at every moment was complicated by events
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  Speaker 1: which at first sight might be looked upon as superhuman
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  Speaker 1: and more than once I was within an ace of
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  Speaker 1: abandoning a task in which I was exhausting myself in
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  Speaker 1: the hopeless pursuit of a vain image. At last I
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  Speaker 1: received the proof that my presentiments had not deceived me,
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  Speaker 1: and I was rewarded for all my efforts. On the
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  Speaker 1: day when I acquired the certainty that the opera ghost
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  Speaker 1: was more than a mere shade. On that day, I
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  Speaker 1: had spent long hours over the memoirs of a manager
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  Speaker 1: light and frivolous work of the two skeptical mischarmin who,
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  Speaker 1: during his term at the opera, understood nothing of the
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  Speaker 1: mysterious behavior of the ghost, and who was making all
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  Speaker 1: the fun of it that he could at the very
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  Speaker 1: moment when he became the first victim of the curious
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  Speaker 1: financial operation that went on inside the magic envelope. I
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  Speaker 1: had just left the library in despair when I met
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  Speaker 1: the delightful acting manager of our national Academy, who stood
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  Speaker 1: chatting on a landing with a lively and well groomed
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  Speaker 1: little old man to whom he introduced me gaily. The
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  Speaker 1: acting manager knew all about my investigations, and how eagerly
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  Speaker 1: and unsuccessfully I had been trying to discover the whereabouts
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  Speaker 1: of the examining magistrate in the famous Agny case Monsieur Fort.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody knew what had become of him, alive or dead.
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  Speaker 1: And here he was back from Canada, where he had
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  Speaker 1: spent fifteen years, and the first thing he had done
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  Speaker 1: on his return to Paris was to come to the
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  Speaker 1: secretary offices at the Opera and asked for a free seat.
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  Speaker 1: The little old man was Monsieur Fort himself. We spent
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  Speaker 1: a good part of the evening together, and he told
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  Speaker 1: me the whole Shagny case as he understood it at
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  Speaker 1: the time. He was bound to conclude in favor of
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  Speaker 1: the madness of the Viscount and the accidental death of
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  Speaker 1: the elder brother, for lack of evidence to the contrary,
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  Speaker 1: but he was nevertheless persuaded that a terrible tragedy had
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  Speaker 1: taken place between the two brothers in connection with Christine Day.
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  Speaker 1: He could not tell me what became of Christine or
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  Speaker 1: the Viscount. When I mentioned the ghost, he only laughed.
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  Speaker 1: He too, had been told of the curious manifestations that
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  Speaker 1: seemed to point to the existence of an abnormal being
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  Speaker 1: residing in one of the most mysterious corners of the opera,
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  Speaker 1: and he knew the story of the Envelope, but he
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  Speaker 1: had never seen anything in it worthy of his attention
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  Speaker 1: as magistrate in charge of the Chagny case. And it
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  Speaker 1: was as much as he had done to listen to
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  Speaker 1: the evidence of a witness who appeared of his own
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  Speaker 1: accord and declared that he had often met the ghost.
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  Speaker 1: This witness was none other than the man whom all
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  Speaker 1: Paris called the Persian, and who was well known to
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  Speaker 1: every subscriber to the opera. The magistrate took him for
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  Speaker 1: a visionary. I was immensely interested by this story of
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  Speaker 1: the Persian. I wanted if there were still time to
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  Speaker 1: find this valuable and eccentric witness. My luck began to improve,
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  Speaker 1: and I discovered him in his little flat in the
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  Speaker 1: Rue des Rivaldi, where he had lived ever since, and
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  Speaker 1: where he died five months after my visit. I was
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  Speaker 1: at first inclined to be suspicious, But when the Persian
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  Speaker 1: had told me with childlike candor all that he knew
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  Speaker 1: about the ghost, and had handed me the proofs of
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  Speaker 1: the ghost's existence, including the strange correspondence of Christine Day
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  Speaker 1: to do as I pleased with, I was no longer
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  Speaker 1: able to doubt. No, the ghost was not a myth.
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  Speaker 1: I have I know been told that this correspondence may
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  Speaker 1: have been forged from first to last by a man
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  Speaker 1: whose imagination had certainly been fed on the most seductive tales.
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  Speaker 1: But fortunately I discovered some of Christine's writing outside the
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  Speaker 1: famous Bundle of letters, and on a comparison between the two,
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  Speaker 1: all my doubts were removed. I also went into the
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  Speaker 1: past history of the Persian and found that he was
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  Speaker 1: an upright man, incapable of inventing a story that might
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  Speaker 1: have defeated the ends of justice. This, moreover, was the
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  Speaker 1: opinion of the more serious people who at one time
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  Speaker 1: or other were mixed up in the Shagny case, who
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  Speaker 1: were friends of the Shagny family, to whom I showed
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  Speaker 1: all my documents and set forth all my inferences in
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  Speaker 1: this connection. I should like to print a few lines
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  Speaker 1: which I received from General d Sir, I cannot urge
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  Speaker 1: you too strongly to publish the results of your inquiry.
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  Speaker 1: I remember perfectly that a few weeks before the disappearance
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  Speaker 1: of that great singer Christine Day and the tragedy which
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  Speaker 1: through the whole of the Fubar, Saint Germain into mourning.
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  Speaker 1: There was a great deal of talk in the foyer
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  Speaker 1: of the ballet on the subject of the ghost, and
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  Speaker 1: I believe that it only ceased to be discussed in
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  Speaker 1: consequence of the later affair that excited us all so greatly.
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  Speaker 1: But if it be possible, as after hearing you I believe,
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  Speaker 1: to explain the tragedy through the ghost, then I beg you, sir,
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  Speaker 1: to talk to us about the ghost again. Mysterious though
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  Speaker 1: the ghost may at first appear, he will always be
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  Speaker 1: more easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent
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  Speaker 1: people have tried to picture two brothers killing each other,
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  Speaker 1: who had worshiped each other all their lives. Believe me,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. Lastly, with my bundle of papers
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  Speaker 1: in hand, I once more went over the ghosts vast
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  Speaker 1: the huge building which he had made his kingdom. All
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  Speaker 1: that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived, corroborated
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  Speaker 1: the Persian's documents precisely, and a wonderful discovery crowned my
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  Speaker 1: labors in a very definite fashion. It will be remembered
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  Speaker 1: that later, when digging in the substructure of the opera
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  Speaker 1: before burying the phonographic records of the artist's voice. The
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  Speaker 1: workmen laid bare a corpse. While I was at once
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  Speaker 1: able to prove that this corpse was that of the
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  Speaker 1: opera ghost, I made the acting manager put this proof
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  Speaker 1: to the test with his own hand. And it is
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  Speaker 1: now a matter of supreme indifference to me if the
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  Speaker 1: papers pretend that the body was that of a victim
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  Speaker 1: of the commune. The wretches who were massacred under the
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  Speaker 1: commune in the cellars of the opera were not buried
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  Speaker 1: on this side. I will tell where their skeletons can
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  Speaker 1: be found, in a spot not very far from that
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  Speaker 1: immense crypt which was stocked during the siege with all
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  Speaker 1: sorts of provisions. I came upon this track just when
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  Speaker 1: I was looking for the remains of the Opre ghost,
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  Speaker 1: which I should never have discovered but for the unheard
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  Speaker 1: of chance described above. But we will return to the
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  Speaker 1: corpse and what ought to be done with it. For
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  Speaker 1: the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction by
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  Speaker 1: thanking Monsieur mi Freud, who was the Commissary of Police
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  Speaker 1: called in for the first investigations after the disappearance of
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  Speaker 1: Christine Day. Monsieur Remy, the late secretary, Monsieur Mercier, the
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  Speaker 1: late acting manager, Monsieur Gabrielle, the late chorus master, and
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  Speaker 1: more particularly Madame le Baron de Castello Barbijacques, who was
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  Speaker 1: once the little meg of the story and who is
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  Speaker 1: not ashamed of it, the most charming star of our
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  Speaker 1: admirable Corps de Ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy
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  Speaker 1: Madame Jerry, now deceased, who had charge of the ghost's
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  Speaker 1: private box. All these were of the greatest assistance to me,
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  Speaker 1: and thanks to them I shall be able to reproduce
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  Speaker 1: those hours of sheer love and terror in their smallest
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  Speaker 1: details before the reader's eyes. And I should be ungrateful, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: if I omitted while standing on the threshold of this
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  Speaker 1: dreadful and voracious story, to thank the present management of
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  Speaker 1: the opera, which has so kindly assisted me in all
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  Speaker 1: my inquiries, and Monsieur Mussager in particular, together with Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: A Gabion, the acting manager, and that most amiable of men,
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  Speaker 1: the architect intrusted with the preservation of the building, who
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  Speaker 1: did not hesitate to lend me the works of Charles Garnier,
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  Speaker 1: although he was almost sure that I would never return
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  Speaker 1: them to him. Lastly, I must pay a public tribute
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  Speaker 1: to the generosity of my friend and former collaborator, Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: j Lecroz, who allowed me to dip into his splendid
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  Speaker 1: theatrical library and to borrow the rarest editions of books
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  Speaker 1: by which he set greats door signed Gaston LaRue and
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  Speaker 1: the Prologue