The Phantom of the Opera

nly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the ballet, who had come up from the

, looked around angrily at the mad and tumultuous crowd. It was little Jammes-the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the for

t!" And she lo

s of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in the Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini. But the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet, who were lod

the ghost, called her a "silly little fool" and then, as she was the first to believ

you se

ammes, whose legs were giving way beneath he

hair black as ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little

he ghost, he

ed the chorus

gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood before them in the passage, witho

ad more or less kept her head.

e in walking. People began by laughing and making fun of this specter dressed like a man of fashion or an undertaker; but the ghost legend soon swelled to enormous proportions among the corps de ballet. All the girls pretended to have met this supernatural being more or less often. And those who laughed the loudest were not the most at e

o are not ghosts. But this dress-suit had a peculiarity of its own. It covered a s

e chief scene-shifter, who had really seen the ghost. He had run up against the ghost on the little staircase, by the footlights,

in a dead man's skull. His skin, which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little worth talking about that you c

that they too had met a man in dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders. Sensible men who had wind of the story began by saying that Joseph Buquet had been the victim of a j

entured a little farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale, scared, trembling, with his eyes starting out of his head, and practically fainted in the arms of the proud mother o

n's name w

id not hesitate to faint, leaders and front-row and back-row girls alike had plenty of excuses for the fright that made them quicken their pace when passing some dark corner or ill-lighted corridor. Sorelli herself, on the day after the adventure of the fireman, placed a horseshoe on the table in front of the stage-door-keeper's box, which every one who entered

the evening

t!" little Jam

he hard breathing of the girls. At last, Jammes, flinging herself upon the far

ste

or. There was no sound of footsteps. It was like l

an the others. She went up to the d

's t

n her, watching her last movement, she made an

ny one behi

a Meg Giry, heroically holding Sorelli back by her gauze skirt. "W

ned the key and drew back the door, while the ballet-girl

er! M

prison, cast a red and suspicious light into the surrounding darkness, without su

d, "there is

Sorelli. "He must be somewhere prowling about. I shan't go back to dress. We had better all

ck, while Sorelli, stealthily, with the tip of her pink right thumb-nail, made a St. Andrew's cross on

lves together! I dare say no

the girls. "He had his death's head and his dres

Jammes. "Only yesterday! Yesterd

the chor

, didn't

his dress-clothes,

Gabr

o, the

Gabriel was in the stage-manager's office. Suddenly the door opene

y pointing their forefinger and little finger at the absent Persian, while th

ying to get out of the room, he banged his forehead against a hat-peg and gave himself a huge bump; then, suddenly stepping back, he skinned his arm on the screen, near the piano; he tried to lean on the piano, but the lid fell on his hands and crushed his fingers; he rushed out of the office like a madman, slipped on the staircase and came down the whole of the first flight on his b

s, and was quite out of breath at the finish. A silence followed, while Sorelli

uld do better to

old his tongue?"

r voice and looking all about her as though fearing

it your moth

he ghost doesn't lik

es your mot

-because

ain herself. They were there, side by side, leaning forward simultaneously in one movement of entreaty and fear,

t to tell!"

p the secret, until Meg, burning to say all sh

ecause of the

privat

host's

box? Oh, do tel

e, you know, the box on the grand tier

nonse

has charge of it. But you

rse, of

over a month, except the ghost, and orders have bee

ghost really

es

mebody d

t comes, but there

box, he must be seen, because he wore a dress-coat and a death's hea

ath's head and his head of fire is nonsense! There's nothing in it. You only hear him when he is in the

i inte

, you're get

ittle Giry

uite right, Joseph Buquet had no business to talk of things that don't c

d heavy footsteps in the passag

ecile! Are

ce," said Jammes.

nian grenadier, burst into the dressing-room and dropped groaning into

" she said.

t? W

ph Bu

abou

Buquet i

tions, with astonished outcries, wi

hanging in the th

erself; but she at once corrected herself, with her hands pres

-stricken companions repe

ust be th

was ve

able to recite my

ass of liqueur that happened to be standing on a t

inquest was "natural suicide." In his Memoirs of Manager, M. Moncharmin, one of the j

er's office, when Mercier, the acting-manager, suddenly came darting in. He seemed half mad and told me that the body of a scene-sh

nd cut h

ircase and the Jacob's ladder, the man

at the end of a rope; they go to cut him down; the rope has disappea

s and dancing-girls lost no time in takin

t takes to write! When, on the other hand, I think of the exact spot where the body was discovered-the third cellar underneath the stage!-imagine

tied and the ballet-girls, crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess, made for the f

te authentic, from M. Pedro Gailhard