‘It’s the Ghost! The Phantom of the Opera!’
Everyone in the jostling crowd laughed and wanted to offer the Phantom of the Opera a well-earned drink, but he had vanished! He had melted into the crowd and could not be found. Meanwhile, two elderly gentlemen tried to calm Jammes down and Meg Giry screeched like a peacock.
La Sorelli was livid: she had not been allowed to finish her speech. M. Debienne and M. Poligny had kissed her, thanked her and disappeared as fast as the Phantom had done. This came as no surprise, since everyone knew that the pair were going to be subjected to a similar ceremony in the Chorus Room, on the next floor up. Only when that ordeal was over could they welcome their inner circle of friends into the antechamber of the Directors’ suite where a decent supper awaited them.
There is where we now catch up with them, along with the new team of Messrs Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard. The outgoing Directors barely knew their successors, but they put on a great show of friendship which was returned with interest. As a result, guests who had feared they were in for a dull evening began to look much happier. The supper livened up considerably and when the time came for toasts, the junior government minister acquitted himself so deftly, linking the great glories of the past with the great successes to come, that a mood of great conviviality settled on the whole gathering. The actual handing over of directorial powers had taken place informally the previous evening and all outstanding matters between the old Directors and the new had been settled by the junior minister with such good will on all sides that no one present on that memorable occasion had any reason to be surprised to find broad smiles on the faces of all four Directors.
Messrs Debienne and Poligny had already given the two tiny keys to Messrs Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard. They were master-keys and they opened all the doors in the National Academy of Music—several thousand in all.* Everyone was curious to see them and they were being handed round when the attention of a number of guests was diverted to something they had just seen. At the end of the table was the same pale, phantasmagorical face with sunken eyes which had appeared in the foyer of the corps de ballet where it had been greeted by Jammes’s cry: ‘The Phantom of the Opera!’
He was sitting there just like any other guest, but with this difference: he ate and drank nothing.
Those who had begun looking and had smiled at what they saw soon turned away, for the sight immediately filled the mind with very disturbing thoughts. No one repeated the banter heard in the foyer, no one said: ‘It’s the Phantom of the Opera!’
He had not uttered a word and those sitting next to him could not have said at what precise moment he had materialized there, but everyone thought that if the dead ever return and sit at the table of the living, none of them would ever have a more macabre face. The friends of Armand Moncharmin and Firmin Richard assumed that the emaciated guest was an acquaintance of Debienne and Poligny, while the friends of Debienne and Poligny thought the corpse must be there at the invitation of Richard and Moncharmin. Thus no one asked questions, there were no unpleasant comments or jokes in poor taste: nothing was said that might ruffle the feathers of the guest from the lower depths. One or two guests who knew the legend of the Phantom of the Opera and had heard the description of the spectre the chief stage-setter had given—they didn’t know that Joseph Buquet was actually dead—were inwardly convinced that the man at the end of the table could easily pass as the living embodiment of the figment, as they thought, of the irredeemably superstitious imaginations of the Opera House staff. According to the legend, the Phantom had no nose; but the mysterious figure most certainly had one, though in his Memoirs M. Moncharmin says the guest’s nose was transparent. ‘His nose’, he says, ‘was long, thin and transparent’—but I myself would say that the nose could have been false. Perhaps what M. Moncharmin thought was transparency was a trick of the light. It is known for a fact nowadays that technology can create very convincing false noses for those who have lost them as a result of an accident or following some medical procedure. Did the Phantom really come that evening and sit at the Directors’ banquet without being invited? And can we be sure that the apparition was really the Phantom of the Opera? Who can say? If I bring up this incident, it is not because I want for a moment to believe or try to persuade the reader to believe that the Phantom was capable of such brass-necked effrontery, but because it is a distinct possibility.
And there appears to be some reason for believing that such in fact was the case. M. Armand Moncharmin also says this in his Memoirs, and I quote Chapter XI: ‘When I think back to that first evening, I can’t separate what we were told in confidence by Messrs Debienne and Poligny in their office and the presence at our supper party of a phantomatic figure that none of us knew.’
This is exactly what happened next:
Messrs Debienne and Poligny were sitting halfway along the table. They did not notice the man with the death’s head until he suddenly began to speak.
‘The girls of the corps de ballet are right,’ he said. ‘The death of poor Buquet was perhaps not as natural as people think.’
Debienne and Poligny gave a start.
‘Buquet dead?’ they cried.
‘Yes,’ answered the man—or the spectre of a man—coolly. ‘He was found hanging earlier this evening, three levels down, between a flat and part of the scenery from Le Roi de Lahore.’
Both Directors, or rather ex-Directors, stood up together and stared at the speaker in a very strange way. They looked unreasonably shaken, by which I mean more shaken than was reasonable for men in their lofty position who had just been told that a minion, a mere stage-setter, had been found hanging by the neck. They looked at each other, their faces whiter than the tablecloth. In the end, Debienne gestured to Moncharmin and Richard, Poligny offered a brief apology to the guests and all four disappeared into the offices of the Director. I shall now let M. Moncharmin take up the story:
‘Messrs Debienne and Poligny became increasingly agitated,’ he recalls in his Memoirs, ‘and we sensed they had something to tell us but did not know where to begin. They began by asking if we knew the man at the end of the table who had announced that Joseph Buquet was dead. When we said no, they looked even more worried. They took the two master-keys from us, stared at them for a moment, nodded and then advised us to have new locks fitted in the greatest secrecy to the doors of all apartments, offices and rooms which we wanted made hermetically secure. They looked so droll as they said this that we started laughing and asked if there were thieves roaming around the Opera. They said there was something worse: the Phantom. We started laughing again, convinced that they were playing some sort of practical joke on us which would be the climax of their little supper party. Then, at their behest, resuming our serious faces, we decided to enter into the spirit of the thing, to humour them. They said they would never have brought up the matter of the ghost if they hadn’t been formally ordered by the Phantom himself to make us promise to respect his wishes and give him whatever he asked for. But only too glad to get out of a building ruled by the master-hand of a tyrannical spectre and thus to be shot of him, they had hesitated until the very last moment to tell us of strange occurrences for which our sceptical minds were unprepared. But the public announcement of the death of Joseph Buquet had been a brutal reminder that whenever they had disobeyed the Phantom’s orders in the past, some curious or fatal event had revealed the extent of their powerlessness.
‘While their unexpected words were being urged on us in the lowest, most secret of confidential whispers, I glanced across at Richard. Now, when Richard was a student, he had a reputation as a hoaxer, that is, he knew every last way of playing practical jokes on people, as the concierges of the Boulevard Saint-Michel knew to their cost. So he seemed to be very much enjoying the dish that that was now in turn being served up for him. He did not miss a morsel even though the seasoning, in view of Buquet’s death, was a touch macabre. He nodded his head sadly, varying the expressions on his face as the
other two spoke, and looked distraught as a man might who bitterly regretted his part taking on the management of an Opera House now that he’d discovered it came with a built-in ghost. I could find no better response than to imitate his despairing reactions slavishly. But, for all our efforts to play the game, in the end we could not help bursting out laughing in the faces of Messrs Debienne and Poligny who, seeing us move from the gloomiest state of mind to the most outrageous good humour, behaved exactly as if they thought we were mad.
‘Feeling the joke was going on rather too long, Richard asked half jokingly: “But what does this Phantom fellow actually want?”
‘M. Poligny crossed to his desk and came back with a paper containing a memorandum of articles and conditions. The document began with these words:
‘“The Management of the Opera shall invest all productions staged by the National Academy of Music with all due magnificence, as befits France’s leading Opera House”
‘—and ended with clause 98, which read as follows:
‘“The present contract of appointment may be rescinded
1. If the Director (or Directors) contravenes the provisions laid down in this statement of conditions.”
‘These conditions were then set out.
‘This copy of the document’, says M. Moncharmin, ‘was written in black ink and was identical to ours.
‘However, we observed that in the document shown us by M. Poligny a supplementary condition had been added at the end, in red ink. The writing was strange and spiky, as if it had been done with the tips of unused matchsticks. It was like that of a child who has difficulty holding its pen and has not learned how to join the letters. This extra paragraph, which so bizarrely extended clause 98, ran as follows:
‘“5. Should the Director (or Directors) fall more than two weeks late with the monthly payment due to the Phantom of the Opera, which is fixed until further notice at 20,000 francs per month, or 240,000 francs per annum.”
‘M. Poligny held out an uncertain finger and pointed to this final clause which we had most certainly not been expecting.
‘“Is that all? He doesn’t require anything else?” asked Richard as cool as could be.
‘“Er, yes he does, actually,” replied Poligny.
‘And he riffled through the memorandum again and read it out:
‘“Clause 63. The grand-tier box numbered ONE, to the right of the stage, shall be reserved at all performancs for the Head of State.
‘“Ground-floor Box 20 on Mondays, and grand-tier Box 30 on Wednesdays and Fridays shall be placed at the disposal of the Prime Minister.
‘“Second-tier Box 27 shall be reserved every day for the exclusive use of the Prefect of the Seine département and the Paris Commissioner of Police.”
‘M. Poligny showed us where another line had been added, again in red ink, at the end of this clause:
‘“Grand-tier Box 5 shall be made available, at all performances, for the exclusive use of the Phantom of the Opera.”
‘At this point all we could do was to rise, shake the hands of our two predecessors warmly and congratulate them on coming up with such a splendid leg-pull. It showed that the traditional French sense of fun was not dead. Richard went so far as to add that he now understood why Messrs Debienne and Poligny were retiring as Directors of the National Academy of Music: it would be impossible to run the place with a house Phantom that made such demands.
‘“Quite,” said M. Poligny without batting an eyelid. “You don’t find two hundred and forty thousand francs that easily. And have you considered the loss incurred in not selling tickets for grandtier Box 5 which has to be reserved at each and every performance for the exclusive use of the Phantom? And that excludes reimbursing the season-ticket holder? It’s appalling! Really, we’re not in this business to keep ghosts in a style to which they become accustomed! So we decided to go!”
‘“Absolutely,” echoed M. Debienne, “we decided to go! So let’s do it!”
‘He got to his feet.
‘Richard said:
‘“I can’t help thinking that you’ve been handling this Phantom with kid gloves. If I had to deal with a Phantom as troublesome as yours, I wouldn’t hesitate to have him arrested…”
‘“And just where and how would you do that?” they said with one voice. “We’ve never seen him!”
‘“Not even when he’s in his box?”
‘“We’ve never seen him in his box!”
‘“Then why don’t you sell tickets for it?”
‘“What? Sell tickets for the Phantom’s box? You just try it, gentlemen!”
‘Whereupon all four of us left the Director’s office. Richard and I had never laughed as much.’
CHAPTER 4
Box 5
ARMAND MONCHARMIN wrote such voluminous memoirs that we are perfectly entitled to ask how, especially during his lengthy term as co-Director of the Opera, he ever found time to do anything towards running the place beyond setting down everything that went on there. He knew nothing about music, but he was on first-name terms with the Minister of Education and Arts, had been a society journalist and enjoyed a large private income. Still, he was a very engaging man and not unintelligent because, having made up his mind to take the reins of the Opera, he knew exactly who he wanted to do the donkey work. Which was why he went straight to Firmin Richard…
Firmin Richard was a distinguished musician and a gentleman. I reproduce the profile of him published by the Revue des théâtres at the time when he took up his duties:
‘M. Firmin Richard, 51, is tall, solidly but not stoutly built. He has presence, an air of distinction, a ruddy face and thick, close-cropped hair growing low on his forehead and a beard to match. There is a slightly melancholy cast to his features but this is promptly tempered by the candid, honest look in his eye and a delightful smile.
‘He is a most distinguished musician. Skilled in harmony, knowledgeable in counterpoint, the hallmark of his compositions is a sense of spacious grandeur. He has published chamber music which is highly thought of by devotees of the genre, a quantity of piano music—sonatas and highly original occasional pieces—plus a set of songs without words. Most notably, The Death of Hercules, performed in concerts given at the Conservatoire,* has an epic quality to it which recalls Gluck, one of Maestro Firmin Richard’s revered masters. However, though he likes Gluck, that does not mean he dislikes Piccini: his tastes are catholic. He is full of admiration for Piccini, he doffs his cap to Meyerbeer, delights in Cimarosa and is second to none in his appreciation of the inimitable genius of Weber. As to Wagner, M. Richard claims that he was the first, and perhaps remains the only person in France to have understood him…’*
I will spare the reader the rest, for it must be pretty clear from it that if M. Richard liked every kind of music and all sorts of musicians, it was the duty of all musicians to like M. Firmin Richard. Let us conclude by saying according to the thumbnail sketch he was what is commonly called an autocrat, which is to say that he was not a very pleasant man.
The first few days the twin Directors spent at the Opera were dominated by the euphoria of being newly installed as masters of a fine, colossal undertaking. They had forgotten all about the strange, outlandish tale of the ghost when an incident occurred which showed them that if there was a hoax, it was far from played out.
One morning M. Richard arrived at his office at eleven o’clock. His secretary, M. Rémy, brought him half-a-dozen letters which he hadn’t opened because they were marked ‘personal’. One of them immediately caught M. Richard’s eye, not only because the address on the envelope was written in red ink but also because he thought he had seen the handwriting before. He did not have to think for long: it was the same red writing which had added a condition to the memorandum of appointment. He recognized the spiky pen-strokes and childish hand. He broke the seal and began to read:
‘Dear Director,
‘I apologize for taking up your valuable time just now when you are busy d
eciding the fate of the Opera’s greatest artists, renewing important contracts and drafting new ones, all with a breadth of vision, an understanding of the theatre, a knowledge of the public and its tastes, and an unquestionable authority which, speaking as one with long experience of these matters, I find quite astonishing. I know what you have decided for La Carlotta, La Sorelli and the Jammes girl, and for one or two others in whom you have seen admirable signs of promise, of talent or genius. (You will surely know who I have in mind when I use those words; obviously not Carlotta who can’t sing to save her life and who should never have left Les Ambassadeurs or the Café Jacques;* nor La Sorelli who owes her success mostly to the way she’s built; nor the Jammes girl who dances like a cow in a field; nor Christine Daaé, who has genius but is assiduously sidelined and denied the chance of creating a role in an important new production.) Still, you are free to manage your little affairs as you think best, are you not?
‘However, before you get round to showing Christine Daaé the door, I would like to hear her sing Siebel, given that she has not been offered the role of Marguerite despite her great success last week. I would be obliged if you did not allow my box to be used today nor the next few days; for I will not end this letter without mentioning how surprised I was the other day when I came to the Opera only to be informed that you had left instructions, at the ticket office, that tickets for my box had been sold.
‘I have not taken the matter further first because I hate scandal, secondly because I imagined your predecessors, Messrs Debienne and Poligny, who always treated me with consideration, had probably forgotten to mention my little eccentricities to you before they left. However, I have just received their answer to my request for an explanation from which it is clear that you knew all about my memorandum of articles and conditions and that consequently you have been treating me with outrageous contempt. If you want relations between us to be cordial, don’t start by evicting me from my box!
The Phantom of the Opera (Oxford World's Classics) Page 7