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The Phantom of the Opera Chapter III - The Mysterious Reason · The Gaston Leroux Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux,
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  Speaker 1: translated by Alexander Tzira Domatos. This LibriVox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. Chapter three. The mysterious reason. During this
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  Speaker 1: time the farewell ceremony was taking place. I have already
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  Speaker 1: said that this magnificent function was being given on the
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  Speaker 1: occasion of the retirement of Monsieur Debienne and Monsieur Poligni,
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  Speaker 1: who had determined to die game. As we say nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: they had been assisted in the realization of their ideal,
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  Speaker 1: though melancholy program by all that counted in the social
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  Speaker 1: and artistic world of parrots. All these people met after
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  Speaker 1: the performance in the foyer of the Ballet, where Sorelli
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  Speaker 1: waited for the arrival of the retiring managers, with a
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  Speaker 1: glass of champagne in her hand, had a little prepared
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  Speaker 1: speech at the tip of her townue. Behind her, the
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  Speaker 1: members of the Corps de Ballet, young and old, discussed
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  Speaker 1: the events of the day in whispers or exchange discreet
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  Speaker 1: signals with their friends, a noisy crowd of whom surrounded
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  Speaker 1: the supper tables arranged along the slanting floor. A few
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  Speaker 1: of the dancers had already changed into ordinary dress, but
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  Speaker 1: most of them wore their skirts of gossamer gauze, and
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  Speaker 1: all had thought it the right thing to put on
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  Speaker 1: a special face for the occasion. All that is, except
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  Speaker 1: little Jama, whose fifteen summers happy age seemed already to
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  Speaker 1: have forgotten the ghost and the death of Joseph Bouquet.
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  Speaker 1: She never ceased to laugh and chatter, to hop about
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  Speaker 1: and play practical jokes until Monsieur's Debihan and Pouligni appeared
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  Speaker 1: on the steps of the foyer. When she was severely
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  Speaker 1: called to order by the impatience Sorelli. Everybody remarked that
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  Speaker 1: the retiring managers looked cheerful, as is the Paris way.
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  Speaker 1: None will ever be a true Parisian who has not
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  Speaker 1: learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows,
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  Speaker 1: and one of sadness, boredom or indifference over his inward joy.
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  Speaker 1: You know that one of your friends is in trouble.
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  Speaker 1: Do not try to console him. He will tell you
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  Speaker 1: that he is already comforted. But should he have met
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  Speaker 1: with good fortune, be careful how you congratulate him. He
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  Speaker 1: thinks it so natural that he is surprised that you
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  Speaker 1: should speak of it in Paris. Our lives are one
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  Speaker 1: masked ball, and the foyer of the ballet is the
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  Speaker 1: last place in which two men so knowing as Monsieurs
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  Speaker 1: Debienne and Monsieur Pouligni would have made the mistake of
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  Speaker 1: betraying their grief, however genuine it might be. And they
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  Speaker 1: were already smiling rather too broadly upon Sorelli, who had
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  Speaker 1: begun to recite her speech, when an exclamation from that
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  Speaker 1: little madcap of a Jama broke the smile of the
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  Speaker 1: manager so brutally that the expression of distress and dismay
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  Speaker 1: that lay beneath it became apparent to all eyes. The
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  Speaker 1: opera ghost. Jama yelled these words in a tone of
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  Speaker 1: unspeakable terror, and her finger pointed among the crowd of
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  Speaker 1: day to a face so pallid, so lugubrious, and so ugly,
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  Speaker 1: with two such deep black cavities under the straddling eyebrows
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  Speaker 1: that the deaths had in question immediately scored a huge success,
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  Speaker 1: the opera ghost, the opera ghost. Everyone laughed and pushed
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  Speaker 1: his neighbor, and wanted to offer the opera ghost a drink,
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  Speaker 1: but he was gone. He had slipped through the crowd
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  Speaker 1: and the others vainly hunted for him, while two old
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  Speaker 1: gentlemen tried to calm little Jama, and while little Jerie
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  Speaker 1: stood screaming like a peacock. So Rellie was furious she
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  Speaker 1: had not been able to finish her speech. The managers
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  Speaker 1: had kissed her, thanked her, and run away as fast
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  Speaker 1: as the ghost himself. No one was surprised of this,
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  Speaker 1: for it was known that they were to go through
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  Speaker 1: the same ceremony on the floor above in the foyer
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  Speaker 1: of the Singers, and that finally they were themselves to
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  Speaker 1: receive their personal friends for the last time, in the
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  Speaker 1: great lobby outside the manager's office, were a regular supper
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  Speaker 1: would be served. Here they found the new managers, Monsieur
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  Speaker 1: armand Moncharmin and Monsieur Firmin Richard, whom they hardly knew. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: they were lavish in protestations of friendship, and received a
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  Speaker 1: thousand flattering compliments in reply, so that those of the
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  Speaker 1: guests who had feared that they had a rather tedious
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  Speaker 1: evening in store for them, at once put on brighter faces.
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  Speaker 1: The supper was almost gay, and a particularly clever speech
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  Speaker 1: of the representative of the government, mingling the glories of
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  Speaker 1: the past with the successes of the future caused the
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  Speaker 1: greatest cordiality to prevail. The retiring managers had already handed
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  Speaker 1: over to their successors the two tiny master keys which
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  Speaker 1: opened all the doors thousands of doors of the opera house,
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  Speaker 1: and those little keys, the object of general curiosity, were
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  Speaker 1: being passed from hand to hand, when the attention of
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  Speaker 1: some of the guests was diverted by their discovery at
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  Speaker 1: the end the table of that strange wan and fantastic
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  Speaker 1: face with the hollow eyes, which had already appeared in
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  Speaker 1: the foyer of the Ballet, and been greeted by little
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  Speaker 1: Jahma's exclamation the opera ghost. There sat the ghost, as
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  Speaker 1: natural as could be, except that he neither ate nor drank.
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  Speaker 1: Those who began by looking at him with a smile
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  Speaker 1: ended by turning away their heads, for the sight of
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  Speaker 1: him at once provoked the most funereal thoughts. No one
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  Speaker 1: repeated the joke of the foyer. No one exclaimed, there's
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  Speaker 1: the opera ghost. He himself did not speak a word,
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  Speaker 1: and his very neighbors could not have stated at what
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  Speaker 1: precise moment he had sat down between them. But everyone
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  Speaker 1: felt that if the dead did ever come and sit
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  Speaker 1: at the table of the living. They could not cut
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  Speaker 1: a more ghastly figure. The friends of Firmin, Richard and
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  Speaker 1: armand Moncharmin thought that this lean and skinny guest was
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  Speaker 1: an acquaintance of Debienne's or Pouligny, while Debienne's and Poulini's
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  Speaker 1: friends believed that the cadaverous individual belonged to Fermn, Richard
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  Speaker 1: and armand Moncharmin's party. The result was that no request
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  Speaker 1: was made for an explanation, no unpleasant remark, no joke
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  Speaker 1: in bad taste, which might have offended this visitor from
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  Speaker 1: the tomb. A few of those present, who knew the
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  Speaker 1: story of the ghost and the description of him given
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  Speaker 1: by the chief scene shifter, they did not know of
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  Speaker 1: Joseph Bouquet's death, thought in their own minds that the
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  Speaker 1: man at the end of the table might easily have
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  Speaker 1: passed for him. And yet, according to the story, the
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  Speaker 1: ghost had no nose and the person in question had.
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  Speaker 1: But Monsieur Moncharmin declares in his memoirs that the guest
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  Speaker 1: knows was transparent, long, thin and transparent are his exact words. I,
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  Speaker 1: for my part, will add that this might very well
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  Speaker 1: apply to a false nose, Monsieur Moncharmin may have taken
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  Speaker 1: for transparency what was only shininess. Everybody knows that orthopedic
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  Speaker 1: science provides beautiful false noses for those who have lost
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  Speaker 1: their noses naturally or as the result of an operation.
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  Speaker 1: Did the ghost really take a seat at the manager's
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  Speaker 1: supper table that night uninvited? And can we be sure
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  Speaker 1: that the figure was that of the upper ghost himself?
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  Speaker 1: Who would venture to assert as much? I mention the incident,
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  Speaker 1: not because I wish for a second to make the
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  Speaker 1: reader believe, or even to try to make him believe,
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  Speaker 1: that the ghost was capable of such a sublime piece
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  Speaker 1: of impudence, but because, after all, the thing is impossible.
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur armand Moncharmin, in chapter eleven of his memoir says,
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  Speaker 1: when I think of this first evening, I cannot separate
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  Speaker 1: the secret confided to us by Monsieurs de Bien and
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  Speaker 1: Pouligny in their office from the presence at our supper
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  Speaker 1: of that ghostly person whom none of us knew what happened?
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  Speaker 1: Was this Monsieurs Debienne and polignyiate, sitting at the center
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  Speaker 1: of the table, had not seen the man with the
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  Speaker 1: death's head. Suddenly he began to speak. The ballet girls
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  Speaker 1: are right, he said, the death of that poor Bouquet
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  Speaker 1: is perhaps not so natural as people think. Debienne and
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  Speaker 1: Poligni gave a start. Is Bouquet dead? They cried? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: replied the man, or the shadow of a man. Quietly,
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  Speaker 1: he was found this evening hanging in the third cellar,
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  Speaker 1: between a farm house and a scene from the Roy
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  Speaker 1: de Lahore. The two managers, or rather ex managers, at
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  Speaker 1: once rose and stared strangely at the speaker. They were
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  Speaker 1: more excited than they need have been, that is to say,
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  Speaker 1: more excited than any one need be by the announcement
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  Speaker 1: of the suicide of a chief scene shifter. They looked
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  Speaker 1: at each other. They had both turned whiter than the tablecloth.
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  Speaker 1: At last, Debion made a sign to mensieurs Richard and Moncharmin.
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  Speaker 1: Poligni muttered a few words of excuse to the guests,
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  Speaker 1: and all four went into the manager's office. I leave
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur Moncharmin to complete the story. In his memoirs, he says,
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  Speaker 1: Monsieurs Debian and Poligni seemed to grow more and more excited,
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  Speaker 1: and they appeared to have something very difficult to tell us. First,
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  Speaker 1: they asked us if we knew the man sitting at
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  Speaker 1: the end of the table who had told them of
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  Speaker 1: the death of Joseph Bouquet, and when we answered in
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  Speaker 1: the negative, they looked still more concerned. They took the
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  Speaker 1: master keys from our hands, stared at them for a moment,
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  Speaker 1: and advised us to have new locks made with the
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  Speaker 1: greatest secrecy for the rooms, closets, and presses that we
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  Speaker 1: might wish to have hermetically closed. They said this so
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  Speaker 1: finally that we began to laugh and to ask if
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  Speaker 1: there were thieves at the opera. They replied that there
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  Speaker 1: was something worse, which was the ghost. We began to
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  Speaker 1: life again, feeling sure that they were indulging in some
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  Speaker 1: joke that was intended to crown our little entertainment. Then,
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  Speaker 1: at their request, we became serious, resolving to humor them
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  Speaker 1: and to enter into the spirit of the game. They
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  Speaker 1: told us that they never would have spoken to us
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  Speaker 1: of the ghost if they had not received formal orders
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  Speaker 1: from the ghost himself to ask us to be pleasant
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  Speaker 1: to him and to grant any request that he might make. However,
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  Speaker 1: in their relief at leaving a domain where that tyrannical
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  Speaker 1: shade held sway. They had hesitated until the last moment
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  Speaker 1: to tell us this curious story, which our skeptical minds
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  Speaker 1: were certainly not prepared to entertain. But the announcement of
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  Speaker 1: the death of Joseph Bouquet had served them as a
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  Speaker 1: brutal reminder that, whenever they had disregarded the ghost wishes,
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  Speaker 1: some fantastic or disastrous event had brought them to a
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  Speaker 1: sense of their dependence. During those unexpected utterances made in
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  Speaker 1: it the most secret and important confidence. I looked at Richard. Richard,
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  Speaker 1: in his student days, had acquired a great reputation for
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  Speaker 1: practical joking, and he seemed to relish the dish which
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  Speaker 1: was being served up to him. In his turn. He
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  Speaker 1: did not miss a morsel of it, though the seasoning
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  Speaker 1: was a little gruesome because of the death of Bouquet.
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  Speaker 1: He nodded his head sadly while the other spoke, and
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  Speaker 1: his features assumed the air of a man who bitterly
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  Speaker 1: regretted having taken over the opera. Now that he knew
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  Speaker 1: that there was a ghost mixed up in the business,
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  Speaker 1: I could think of nothing better than to give him
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  Speaker 1: a servile imitation of this attitude of despair. However, in
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  Speaker 1: spite of all our efforts, we could not at the
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  Speaker 1: finish help bursting out laughing in the faces of messieurs
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  Speaker 1: de Bian and Poligne, who, seeing us pass straight from
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  Speaker 1: the gloomiest state of mind to one of the most
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  Speaker 1: insolent merriment, acted as though they thought that we had
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  Speaker 1: gone mad. The joke became a little tedious, and Richard asked,
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  Speaker 1: half seriously and half in jest. But, after all, what
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  Speaker 1: does this ghost of yours want? Monsieur Peligni went to
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  Speaker 1: his desk and returned with a copy of the memorandum book.
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  Speaker 1: The memorandum book begins with the well known words saying
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  Speaker 1: that the management of the opera shall give to the
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  Speaker 1: performance of the National Academy of Music the splendor that
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  Speaker 1: becomes the first lyric stage in France, and ends with
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  Speaker 1: clause ninety eight, which says that the privilege can be
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  Speaker 1: withdrawn if the manager infringes the conditions stipulated in the
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  Speaker 1: memorandum book. This is followed by the conditions, which are
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  Speaker 1: four in number. The copy produced by Monsieur Peligni was
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  Speaker 1: written in black ink and exactly similar to that in
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  Speaker 1: our possession, except that at the end it contained a
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  Speaker 1: paragraph in read ink and in a queer labored handwriting,
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  Speaker 1: as though it had been produced by dipping the heads
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  Speaker 1: of matches into the ink, the writing of a child
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  Speaker 1: that has never got beyond the down strokes and has
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  Speaker 1: not learned to join its letters. This paragraph ran word
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  Speaker 1: for word as follows. Five. Or if the manager, in
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  Speaker 1: any month, delay for more than a fortnight the payment
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  Speaker 1: of the allowance which he shall make to the opera ghost,
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  Speaker 1: an allowance of twenty thousand francs a month, say two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and forty thousand francs a year. Mister Poulini pointed
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  Speaker 1: with a hesitating finger to this last clause, which we
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  Speaker 1: certainly did not expect. Is this all? Does he not
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  Speaker 1: want anything else? Asked Richard, with the greatest coolness. Yes
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  Speaker 1: he does, replied Poligni, and he turned over the pages
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  Speaker 1: of the memorand book until he came to the clause
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  Speaker 1: specifying the days on which certain private boxes were to
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  Speaker 1: be reserved for the free use of the President of
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  Speaker 1: the Republic, the ministers, and so on. At the end
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  Speaker 1: of this clause a line had been added, also in
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  Speaker 1: read ink box five on the grand tier shall be
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  Speaker 1: placed at the disposal of the opera ghost for every performance.
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  Speaker 1: When we saw this, there was nothing else for us
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  Speaker 1: to do but to rise from our chairs, shake our
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  Speaker 1: two predecessors warmly by the hand, and could congratulate them
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  Speaker 1: on thinking of this charming little joke, which proved that
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  Speaker 1: the old French sense of humor was never likely to
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  Speaker 1: become extinct. Richard added that he now understood why monsieurs
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  Speaker 1: de Bienne and Pouligni were retiring from the management of
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  Speaker 1: the National Academy of Music. Business. Was impossible with so
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  Speaker 1: unreasonable a ghost. Certainly two hundred and forty thousand francs
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  Speaker 1: are not to be picked up for the asking, said
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur Paulini, without moving a muscle of his face. And
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  Speaker 1: have you considered what the loss over box five meant
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  Speaker 1: to us? We did not sell at once, and not
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  Speaker 1: only that, but we had to return the subscription. Why
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  Speaker 1: it's awful, Why we really can't work to keep ghosts.
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  Speaker 1: We prefer to go away, yes, echoed Monsieur de Biyanne.
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  Speaker 1: We prefer to go away. Let us go, and he
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  Speaker 1: stood up. Richard said, but after all, it seems to
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  Speaker 1: me that you were much too kind to the ghost.
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  Speaker 1: If I had such a troublesome ghost as that, I
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  Speaker 1: should not hesitate to have him arrested. But how where
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  Speaker 1: they cried in chorus, we have never seen him. But
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  Speaker 1: when he comes to his box, we have never seen
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  Speaker 1: him in his box. Then sell it, Sell the opera
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  Speaker 1: ghost box, Well, gentlemen, try it. Thereupon all four left
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  Speaker 1: the office. Richard and I had never left so much
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  Speaker 1: in our lives. End of Chapter three