Phantom of the Opera (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (10 page)

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

Thereupon, as M. Richard was on the point of bursting out, M. Moncharmin interfered and conducted the interrogatory, whence it appeared that Mame 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, except by the intervention of the ghost. 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?”

Mame Giry opened her eyes with astonishment at such ignorance. However, she consented to enlighten those two poor innocents. The thing had happened in M. Debienne and M. Poligny’s time, also in Box Five and also during a performance of
Faust.
Mame Giry coughed, cleared her throat—it sounded as though she were preparing to sing the whole of Gounod’s score—and began:

“It was like this, sir. That night, M. Maniera and his lady, the jewellers in the Rue Mogador,
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were sitting in the front of the box, with their great friend, M. Isidore Saack, sitting behind Mme. Maniera. Mephistopheles was singing”—Mame Giry here burst into song herself—“‘Catarina, while you play at sleeping,’ and then M. Maniera heard a voice in his right ear (his wife was on his left) saying, ‘Ha, ha! Julie’s not playing at sleeping!’ His wife happened to be called Julie. So. M. Maniera turns to the right to see who was talking to him like that. Nobody there! He rubs his ear and asks himself if he’s dreaming. Then Mephistopheles went on with his serenade ... But, perhaps I’m boring you gentlemen?”

“No, no, go on.”

“You are too good, gentlemen,” with a smirk. “Well, then, Mephistopheles went on with his serenade”—Mame Giry, burst into song again—“‘Saint, unclose thy portals holy and accord the bliss, to a mortal bending lowly, of a pardon-kiss.’ And then M. Maniera again hears the voice in his right ear, saying, this time, ‘Ha, ha! Julie wouldn’t mind according a kiss to Isidore!’ Then he turns around again, but, this time, to the left; 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—like this, gentlemen”—rapturously kissing the bit of palm left bare in the middle of her thread gloves. “Then they had a lively time between them! 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, saving his presence. 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 Mame Giry.

“He did break it for him, sir,” replied Mame Giry haughtily. “He broke it for him on the grand staircase, which he ran down too fast, sir, and it will be long before the poor gentleman will be able to go up it again!”

“Did the ghost tell you what he said in M. Maniera’s right ear?” asked M. Moncharmin, with a gravity which he thought exceedingly humorous.

“No, sir, it was M. Maniera himself. So—”

“But you have spoken to the ghost, my good lady?”

“As I’m speaking to you now, my good sir!” Mame 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 Rémy, the secretary. Only the inspector, warned by experience, was careful not to laugh, while Mame Giry ventured to adopt an attitude that was positively threatening.

“Instead of laughing,” she 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.
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M. Poligny thought he would watch the performance from the ghost’s box ... Well, when Leopold cries, ‘Let us fly!’—you know—and Eléazer stops them and says, ‘Whither go ye?’ ... Well, 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, ‘Whither go ye?’ like Eléazer, he was down the staircase, but without breaking his leg ...”

“Still, that doesn’t let us know how the Opera ghost came to ask you for a footstool,” insisted M. Moncharmin.

“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.”

“Tut, tut! 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, ‘Mame Jules’—my poor husband’s name was Jules—‘a footstool, please.’ Saving your presence, gentlemen, it made me feel all-overish like. But the voice went on, ‘Don’t be frightened, Mame Jules, I’m the Opera ghost!’ And the voice was so soft and kind that I hardly felt frightened.
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 travelled from Mame 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 convey his opinion that the widow Jules Giry was most certainly mad, a piece of pantomime which confirmed M. Richard in his determination to get rid of an inspector who kept a lunatic in his service. Meanwhile, the worthy lady went on about her ghost, now painting his generosity:

“At the end of the performance, he always gives me two francs, sometimes five, sometimes even ten, when he has been many days without coming. Only, since people have begun to annoy him again, he gives me nothing at all ...”

“Excuse me, my good woman,” said Moncharmin, while Mame Giry tossed the feathers in her dingy hat at this persistent familiarity. “Excuse me, how does the ghost manage to give you two francs?”

“Why, he leaves them on the little shelf in the box, of course. I find them with the programme, which I always give him. Some evenings, I find flowers in the box, a rose that must have dropped from his lady’s bodice ... for he brings a lady with him sometimes; one day, they left a fan behind them.”

“Oh, the ghost left a fan, did he? And what did you do with it?”

“Well, I brought it back to the box next night.”

Here the inspector’s voice was raised.

“You’ve broken the rules; I shall have to fine you, Mame Giry.”

“Hold your tongue, you fool,” muttered M. Firmin Richard.

“You brought back the fan. And then?”

“Well, then, they took it away with them, sir; it was not there at the end of the performance; and in its place they left me a box of English sweets, which I’m very fond of. That’s one of the ghost’s pretty thoughts.”

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

When Mame Giry had bowed herself out, with the dignity that never deserted her, the manager told the inspector that they had decided to dispense with that old madwoman’s services ; and, when he had gone in his turn, they instructed the acting-manager to make up the inspector’s accounts. Left alone, the managers told each other of the idea which they both had in mind, which was that they should look into that lit tle matter of Box Five themselves.

C
hristine Daaé, owing to intrigues to which I will return later, did not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera. After the famous gala night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich’s; but this was the last occasion on which she was heard in private. She refused, without plausible excuse, to appear at a charity concert to which she had promised her assistance. She acted throughout as though she were no longer the mistress of her own destiny and as though she feared a fresh triumph.

She knew that the Comte de Chagny, to please his brother, had done his best on her behalf with M. Richard; and she wrote to thank him and also to ask him to cease speaking in her favour. Her reason for this curious attitude was never known. Some pretended that it was due to overweening pride; others spoke of her heavenly modesty. But people on the stage are not so modest as all that; and I think that I shall not be far from the truth if I ascribe her action simply to fear. Yes, I believe that Christine Daaé was frightened by what had happened to her. I have a letter of Christine’s (it forms part of the Persian’s collection), relating to this period, which suggests a feeling of absolute dismay:

“I don’t know myself when I sing,” writes the poor child.

She showed herself nowhere; and the Vicomte de Chagny tried in vain to meet her. He wrote to her, asking to call upon her, but despaired of receiving a reply when, one morning, she sent him the following note:

Monsieur:

The Vicomte de Chagny hurriedly consulted a railway guide, dressed as quickly as he could, wrote a few lines for his valet to take to his brother and jumped into a cab which brought him to the Gare Montparnasse just in time to miss the morning train. He spent a dismal day in town and did not recover his spirits until the evening, when he was seated in his compartment in the Brittany express. He read Christine’s note over and over again, smelling its perfume, recalling the sweet pictures of his childhood, and spent the rest of that tedious night journey in feverish dreams that began and ended with Christine Daaé. Day was breaking when he alighted at Lannion. He hurried to the diligence for Perros-Guirec. He was the only passenger. He questioned the driver and learned that, on the evening of the previous day, a young lady who looked like a Parisian had gone to Perros and put up at the inn known as the Setting Sun.

The nearer he drew to her, the more fondly he remembered the story of the little Swedish singer. Most of the details are still unknown to the public.

There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala,
^e
a peasant who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week and singing in the choir on Sundays. This peasant had a little daughter to whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read. Daaé’s father was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it. Not a fiddler throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia played as he did. His reputation was wide-spread and he was always invited to set the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals. His wife died when Christine was entering upon her sixth year. Then the father, who cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his patch of ground and went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune. He found nothing but poverty.

He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair, strumming his Scandinavian melodies, while his child, who never left his side, listened to him in ecstasy or sang to his playing. One day, at Ljimby Fair, Professor Valérius heard them and took them to Gothenburg. He maintained that the father was the first violinist in the world and that the daughter had the making of a great artist. Her education and instruction were provided for. She made rapid progress and charmed everybody with her prettiness, her grace of manner and her genuine eagerness to please.

When Valérius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daaé and Christine with them. “Mamma” Valérius treated Christine as her daughter. As for Daaé, he began to pine away with homesickness. He never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream which he kept up with his violin. For hours at a time, he remained locked up in his bedroom with his daughter, fiddling and singing, very, very softly. Sometimes Mamma Valérius would come and listen behind the door, wipe away a tear and go downstairs again on tiptoe, sighing for her Scandinavian skies.

Daaé seemed not to recover his strength until the summer, when the whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away corner of Brittany, where the sea was of the same colour as in his own country. Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach and pretend that the sea stopped its roaring to listen to them. And then he induced Mamma Valérius to indulge a queer whim of his. At the time of the “pardons,” or Breton pilgrimages, the village festival and dances, he went off with his fiddle, as in the old days, and was allowed to take his daughter with him for a week. They gave the smallest hamlets music to last them for a year and slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at the inn, lying close together on the straw, as when they were so poor in Sweden. At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, made no collection, refused the halfpence offered them; and the people around could not understand the conduct of this rustic fiddler, who tramped the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven. They followed them from village to village.