http://www.arcamax.com/fiction/b-1858-1
The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
by
Gaston Leroux
Author of "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" and "The Perfume of the
Lady in Black"
Contents
Chapter
PROLOGUE I IS IT A GHOST? II THE NEW MARGARITA III THE MYSTERIOUS
REASON IV BOX FIVE V THE ENCHANTED VIOLIN VI A VISIT TO BOX FIVE
VII FAUST AND WHAT FOLLOWED VIII THE MYSTERIOUS BROUGHAM IX AT THE
MASKED BALL X FORGET THE NAME OF THE MAN'S VOICE XI ABOVE THE
TRAP-DOORS XII APOLLO'S LYRE XIII A MASTER-STROKE OF THE TRAP-DOOR
LOVER XIV THE SINGULAR ATTITUDE OF A SAFETY-PIN XV CHRISTINE!
CHRISTINE! XVI MME. GIRY'S REVELATIONS XVII THE SAFETY-PIN AGAIN
XVIII THE COMMISSARY, THE VISCOUNT AND THE PERSIAN XIX THE VISCOUNT
AND THE PERSIAN XX IN THE CELLARS OF THE OPERA XXI INTERESTING
VICISSITUDES XXII IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER XXIII THE TORTURES BEGIN
XXIV BARRELS! BARRELS! XXV THE SCORPION OR THE GRASSHOPPER: WHICH
XXVI THE END OF THE GHOST'S LOVE STORY EPILOGUE
{plus a "bonus chapter" called "THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE"}
The Phantom of the Opera
Prologue
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THIS SINGULAR WORK INFORMS THE READER HOW HE
ACQUIRED THE CERTAINTY THAT THE OPERA GHOST REALLY EXISTED
The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a
creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the
managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the
young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the
cloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and
blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom;
that is to say, of a spectral shade.
When I began to ransack the archives of the National Academy of Music
I was at once struck by the surprising coincidences between the
phenomena ascribed to the "ghost" and the most extraordinary and
fantastic tragedy that ever excited the Paris upper classes; and I
soon conceived the idea that this tragedy might reasonably be
explained by the phenomena in question. The events do not date more
than thirty years back; and it would not be difficult to find at the
present day, in the foyer of the ballet, old men of the highest
respectability, men upon whose word one could absolutely rely, who
would remember as though they happened yesterday the mysterious and
dramatic conditions that attended the kidnapping of Christine Daae,
the disappearance of the Vicomte de Chagny and the death of his elder
brother, Count Philippe, whose body was found on the bank of the lake
that exists in the lower cellars of the Opera on the Rue-Scribe side.
But none of those witnesses had until that day thought that there was
any reason for connecting the more or less legendary figure of the
Opera ghost with that terrible story.
The truth was slow to enter my mind, puzzled by an inquiry that at
every moment was complicated by events which, at first sight, might be
looked upon as superhuman; and more than once I was within an ace of
abandoning a task in which I was exhausting myself in the hopeless
pursuit of a vain image. At last, I received the proof that my
presentiments had not deceived me, and I was rewarded for all my
efforts on the day when I acquired the certainty that the Opera ghost
was more than a mere shade.
On that day, I had spent long hours over THE MEMOIRS OF A MANAGER, the
light and frivolous work of the too-skeptical Moncharmin, who, during
his term at the Opera, understood nothing of the mysterious behavior
of the ghost and who was making all the fun of it that he could at the
very moment when he became the first victim of the curious financial
operation that went on inside the "magic envelope."
I had just left the library in despair, when I met the delightful
acting-manager of our National Academy, who stood chatting on a
landing with a lively and well-groomed little old man, to whom he
introduced me gaily. The acting-manager knew all about my
investigations and how eagerly and unsuccessfully I had been trying to
discover the whereabouts of the examining magistrate in the famous
Chagny case, M. Faure. Nobody knew what had become of him, alive or
dead; and here he was back from Canada, where he had spent fifteen
years, and the first thing he had done, on his return to Paris, was to
come to the secretarial offices at the Opera and ask for a free seat.
The little old man was M. Faure himself.
We spent a good part of the evening together and he told me the whole
Chagny case as he had understood it at the time. He was bound to
conclude in favor of the madness of the viscount and the accidental
death of the elder brother, for lack of evidence to the contrary; but
he was nevertheless persuaded that a terrible tragedy had taken place
between the two brothers in connection with Christine Daae. He could
not tell me what became of Christine or the viscount. When I
mentioned the ghost, he only laughed. He, too, had been told of the
curious manifestations that seemed to point to the existence of an
abnormal being, residing in one of the most mysterious corners of the
Opera, and he knew the story of the envelope; but he had never seen
anything in it worthy of his attention as magistrate in charge of the
Chagny case, and it was as much as he had done to listen to the
evidence of a witness who appeared of his own accord and declared that
he had often met the ghost. This witness was none other than the man
whom all Paris called the "Persian" and who was well-known to every
subscriber to the Opera. The magistrate took him for a visionary.
I was immensely interested by this story of the Persian. I wanted, if
there were still time, to find this valuable and eccentric witness.
My luck began to improve and I discovered him in his little flat in
the Rue de Rivoli, where he had lived ever since and where he died
five months after my visit. I was at first inclined to be suspicious;
but when the Persian had told me, with child-like candor, all that he
knew about the ghost and had handed me the proofs of the ghost's
existence--including the strange correspondence of Christine Daae--to
do as I pleased with, I was no longer able to doubt. No, the ghost
was not a myth!
I have, I know, been told that this correspondence may have been
forged from first to last by a man whose imagination had certainly
been fed on the most seductive tales; but fortunately I discovered
some of Christine's writing outside the famous bundle of letters and,
on a comparison between the two, all my doubts were removed. I also
went into the past history of the Persian and found that he was an
upright man, incapable of inventing a story that might have defeated
the ends of justice.
This, moreover, was the opinion of the more serious people who, at one
time or other, were mixed up in the Chagny case, who were friends of
the Chagny family, to whom I showed all my documents and set forth all
my inferences. In this connection, I should like to print a few lines
which I received from General D----:
SIR:
I can not urge you too strongly to publish the results of your
inquiry. I remember perfectly that, a few weeks before the
disappearance of that great singer, Christine Daae, and the tragedy
which threw the whole of the Faubourg Saint-Germain into mourning,
there was a great deal of talk, in the foyer of the ballet, on the
subject of the "ghost;" and I believe that it only ceased to be
discussed in consequence of the later affair that excited us all so
greatly. But, if it be possible--as, after hearing you, I believe--to
explain the tragedy through the ghost, then I beg you sir, to talk to
us about the ghost again.
Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be
more easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people
have tried to picture two brothers killing each other who had
worshiped each other all their lives.
Believe me, etc.
Lastly, with my bundle of papers in hand, I once more went over the
ghost's vast domain, the huge building which he had made his kingdom.
All that my eyes saw, all that my mind perceived, corroborated the
Persian's documents precisely; and a wonderful discovery crowned my
labors in a very definite fashion. It will be remembered that, later,
when digging in the substructure of the Opera, before burying the
phonographic records of the artist's voice, the workmen laid bare a
corpse. Well, I was at once able to prove that this corpse was that
of the Opera ghost. I made the acting-manager put this proof to the
test with his own hand; and it is now a matter of supreme indifference
to me if the papers pretend that the body was that of a victim of the
Commune.
The wretches who were massacred, under the Commune, in the cellars of
the Opera, were not buried on this side; I will tell where their
skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt
which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions. I
came upon this track just when I was looking for the remains of the
Opera ghost, which I should never have discovered but for the
unheard-of chance described above.
But we will return to the corpse and what ought to be done with it.
For the present, I must conclude this very necessary introduction by
thanking M. Mifroid (who was the commissary of police called in for
the first investigations after the disappearance of Christine Daae),
M. Remy, the late secretary, M. Mercier, the late acting-manager, M.
Gabriel, the late chorus-master, and more particularly Mme. la Baronne
de Castelot-Barbezac, who was once the "little Meg" of the story (and
who is not ashamed of it), the most charming star of our admirable
corps de ballet, the eldest daughter of the worthy Mme. Giry, now
deceased, who had charge of the ghost's private box. All these were
of the greatest assistance to me; and, thanks to them, I shall be able
to reproduce those hours of sheer love and terror, in their smallest
details, before the reader's eyes.
And I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted, while standing on the
threshold of this dreadful and veracious story, to thank the present
management the Opera, which has so kindly assisted me in all my
inquiries, and M. Messager in particular, together with M. Gabion, the
acting-manager, and that most amiable of men, the architect intrusted
with the preservation of the building, who did not hesitate to lend me
the works of Charles Garnier, although he was almost sure that I would
never return them to him. Lastly, I must pay a public tribute to the
generosity of my friend and former collaborator, M. J. Le Croze, who
allowed me to dip into his splendid theatrical library and to borrow
the rarest editions of books by which he set great store.
GASTON LEROUX.