The Phantom of the Opera (Oxford World's Classics)

by Gaston Leroux

  Finally, I can say to the reader without fear of contradiction: Visit the Opera one of these days, ask to be allowed to wander around alone, without some ignorant guide, go into Box 5 and tap the enormous column which separates it from the proscenium arch. Tap it with cane or fist and listen at head height: it will sound hollow! You won’t be surprised to learn that it was once the channel for the voice of the Phantom. Inside that column, there is room enough for two men, let alone one. If you are astonished that during all those mysterious occurrences in Box 5 no one ever took a moment to examine the column, remember that it looks like solid marble and that the voice which emerged from it seemed to come from the opposite wall (naturally, Erik being a ventriloquist, could make his voice come from whatever direction he chose). The column is ornately carved, having been worked and reworked by the sculptor’s chisel, and I have yet to locate the specific feature which was designed to be raised or lowered and thus facilitate the Phantom’s mysterious conversations and dealings with Mme Giry.* But everything I have managed to see, feel and touch represents just one small part of what a being as colossal and phenomenal as Erik must have secretly built inside an edifice as monumental as the Paris Opera House. Still, I would exchange all its remaining hidden mysteries for the one particular discovery I was privileged to make, in the Director’s office, in his presence. Only centimetres from his desk chair, I found a panel, no longer than a wooden floor block or a man’s forearm… a flap which closes like the lid of a chest, through which I could imagine a hand appear and skilfully rummage through the dangling tails of a man’s evening-dress coat…

  And that was how the 40,000 francs had been purloined!… It was also, with some adroit arm-work, how the money had been returned…

  When, understandably elated, I told the Persian about what I had found, I asked:

  ‘Since the forty thousand francs were returned, was Erik just playing around, simply having a joke with his “memorandum of terms and conditions”?’

  He replied:

  ‘Don’t believe it for one moment!… Erik needed the money. Considering himself to be beyond the human pale, he was not constrained by moral scruples and used the immense gifts of dexterity and imagination which he had received from nature to compensate for the appalling disfigurement with which he had been afflicted: he used his talents to exploit people. His schemes, though sometimes devised and executed with the flair of an artist, usually made him a profit. If he returned the forty thousand francs to Messrs Richard and Moncharmin of his own accord, it was because he no longer needed the money! He had given up all thought of marrying Christine Daaé. He wanted nothing more to do with what life at ground level could offer.’

  According to the Persian, Erik was born in a small town near Rouen, the son of a builder. He had run away from home at an early age, for his ugliness filled his parents with horror and disgust. For a period he had been exhibited as a freak in fairground shows where he was billed as ‘The Living Corpse’. He seems to have travelled from fair to fair throughout Europe with a group of gypsies* with whom he completed his education as artist and magician. Then follows a blank phase of his life. He next surfaces at the Great Fair of Nizhnii Novgorod.* where, in all his majestic ugliness, he made a huge impression. By now, he had already learned to sing like no one else had ever sung before; he also demonstrated his skills as a ventriloquist and a magician of extraordinary dexterity. Caravans returning to Asia spread word of him and it was in this way that his fame travelled as far as the walls of the palace of Mazanderan where the young Sultana, the favourite wife of the Shah, was bored. A passing furmerchant, on his way to Samarkand from Nizhnii Novgorod, told stories of the wonders he had seen Erik perform. The merchant was summoned to the Palace and the Daroga of Mazanderan was charged with questioning him. The Daroga was ordered to find Erik. He brought him back to Persia where, for several months, as we say in Europe, he ‘ruled the roost’. He used his power to commit a number of atrocities, for he seemed to have forgotten the difference between good and evil. He participated in several elegantly planned political assassinations with the same cool calculation he brought to turning diabolical inventions of his own creation against the Emir of Afghanistan who was then at war with Persia.* The Shah took to him. It was now that we can place the Rosy Hours of Mazanderan of which the Persian’s narrative has given us some idea. Knowing that Erik had very particular ideas about architecture and thought of palaces the way magicians think of trick cabinets with false bottoms, the Shah commanded him to design and construct a building along just those lines. Erik obliged and the result was apparently so ingenious that His Highness could walk through every part of it without being seen and disappear without anyone knowing how. Now master of this gem, the Shah then behaved towards Erik the way a tsar had once treated the brilliant architect of a church in Red Square in Moscow: he ordered his yellow eyes to be put out. But, he thought, even if Erik were blind, he could still build a palace no less amazing for another monarch. At the very least, as long as Erik was alive, someone would know the secrets of his fabulous palace of tricks. So he decided that he and all the labourers who had worked under Erik’s orders would have to be put to death. The Daroga of Mazanderan was ordered to carry out this odious diktat. Erik had done him a few good turns in the past and often provided him with excellent entertainment. He saved Erik’s life by helping him to escape but his generous gesture almost cost him his own life. Fortunately for him, a body was washed up on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It had been half-eaten by seabirds but was identified as Erik’s because the Daroga’s friends had dressed the remains in clothes which had belonged to him. The Daroga escaped death but lost the Shah’s favour, his property was seized and he was banished. However, since he was of royal blood, the Persian exchequer continued to pay him a small pension worth a few hundred francs a month. It was then that he sought asylum in Paris.

  Meanwhile, Erik had fled to Asia Minor and ended up in Constantinople where he entered the service of the Sultan. You will understand how great a service he rendered a ruler who lived in constant fear of assassination if I say that it was Erik who built all the famous trapdoors, secret chambers and mysterious strongrooms which were discovered in the Yilditz-Kiosk after the recent Turkish revolution.1 It was also Erik who came up with the idea of creating robots dressed like the Monarch and looking exactly like the Monarch, which made it seem as though the Commander of the Faithful was awake in one place when in reality he was sleeping in another.*

  It goes without saying that he was eventually forced to leave the Sultan’s service for the same reason that had obliged him to flee Persia: he knew too much. And so, weary of the dangerous, precarious, odious life he led, he longed to become ordinary, like everyone else. So he set up as a builder, the sort of builder who builds ordinary houses with ordinary bricks for ordinary people. He was one of the subcontractors who laid the foundations for the new Paris Opera House. But when he saw the vast area under the huge theatre, his natural leanings to the artistic and the imaginative, to wizardry, regained the upper hand. Anyway, wasn’t he just as hideous to look at as ever? So he dreamed of building a home unknown to the rest of the world, where he could live hidden from the eyes of men.

  You know or can guess the rest, for the answer is contained in this unlikely yet utterly true story. Poor, unhappy Erik! Should we feel sorry for him? Should we damn him? All he ever wanted was to be like everyone else! But he was just too ugly. He was forced to choose between hiding his genius or wasting it performing tricks, whereas, with an ordinary face, he might have been as noble a man who ever lived! He had a heart big enough to hold the whole world but in the end he had to make do with a hole in the ground! Surely, the Phantom of the Opera deserves all our sympathy!

  I stood over his remains and, despite all his crimes, I prayed that God would have mercy on his soul! Why did God allow any man to be so ugly as Erik?

  Oh yes, I am sure, quite sure, that it was his body I prayed over that day when it was dug out of the ground a
t the very spot where the phonographic records of living voices were being buried. It was his skeleton. It wasn’t the ugliness of the skull that told me it was him, for when people have been dead for as long as that, they’re all ugly. It was the plain gold ring he was wearing. Christine Daaé must have slipped it on his finger when, as promised, she had come to put him in his last resting place.

  The skeleton was found not far from the spring where, when he first dragged her down into the darkness below the stage, the Angel of Music had held the unconscious Christine Daaé in his trembling arms.

  And now, what is to be done with the skeleton? Will it be thrown into the common grave?… This is my view: the proper place of the Phantom of the Opera is in the archives of the National Academy of Music.

  It is no ordinary skeleton.

  APPENDIX

  THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE

  [The first edition of the American translation of The Phantom of the Opera (Bobbs-Merrill, 1910) included as a supplement (pp. 349–57) an article ‘which appeared in Scribner’s Magazine in 1879’. There appears to be no trace of it in Scribner’s Monthly (which became Scribner’s Magazine only in 1882) for that or any other year. But whatever its source, it casts useful light on Leroux’s habit of setting what seem like impenetrable mysteries in a solidly documented background.]

  THE PARIS OPERA HOUSE

  The scene of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera

  That Mr Leroux has used, for the scene of his story, the Paris Opera House as it really is and has not created a building out of his imagination, is shown by this interesting description of it taken from an article which appeared in Scribner’s Magazine in 1879, a short time after the building was completed:

  ‘The New Opera House, commenced under the Empire and finished under the Republic, is the most complete building of its kind in the world and in many respects the most beautiful in Europe. No European capital possesses an Opera House so comprehensive in plan and execution, and none can boast an edifice equally vast and splendid.

  ‘The site of the Opera House was chosen in 1861. It was determined to lay the foundation exceptionally deep and strong. It was well known that water would be met with, but it was impossible to foresee at what depth or in what quantity it would be found. Exceptional depth also was necessary, as the stage arrangements were to be such as to admit a scene fifty feet high to be lowered on its frame. It was therefore necessary to lay a foundation in a soil soaked with water which should be sufficiently solid to sustain a weight of 22,000,000 pounds, and at the same time to be perfectly dry, as the cellars were intended for the storage of scenery and properties. While the work was in progress, the excavation was kept free from water by means of eight pumps, worked by steam power, and in operation, without interruption, day and night from March second to October thirteenth. The floor of the cellar was covered with a layer of concrete, then with two coats of cement, another layer of concrete and a coat of bitumen. The wall includes an outer wall as a coffer dam, a brick wall, a coat of cement, and a wall proper, a little over a yard thick. After all this was done the whole was filled with water, in order that the fluid, by penetrating into the most minute interstices, might deposit a sediment which would close them more surely and perfectly than it would be possible to do by hand. Twelve years elapsed before the completion of the building, and during that time it was demonstrated that the precautions taken secured absolute impermeability and solidity.

  ‘The events of 1870 interrupted work just as it was about to be prosecuted most vigorously, and the new Opera House was put to new and unexpected uses. During the siege, it was converted into a vast military storehouse and filled with a heterogeneous mass of goods. After the siege the building fell into the hands of the Commune and the roof was turned into a balloon station. The damage, however, was slight.

  ‘The fine stone employed in the construction was brought from quarries in Sweden, Scotland, Italy, Algeria, Finland, Spain, Belgium and France. While work on the exterior was in progress, the building was covered in by a wooden shell, rendered transparent by thousands of small panes of glass. In 1867, a swarm of men, supplied with hammers and axes, stripped the house of its habit, and showed in all its splendour the great structure. No picture can do justice to the rich colours of the edifice or to the harmonious tone resulting from the skilful use of many diverse materials. The effect of the frontage is completed by the cupola of the auditorium, topped with a cap of bronze sparingly adorned with gilding. Farther on, on a level with the towers of Notre Dame, is the gable end of the roof of the stage, a “Pegasus”, by M. Lequesne, rising at either end of the roof, and a bronze group by M. Millet,* representing “Apollo lifting his golden lyre”, commanding the apex. Apollo, it may here be mentioned, is useful as well as ornamental, for his lyre is tipped with a metal point which does duty as a lightning rod, and conducts the fluid to the body and down the nether limbs of the god.

  ‘The spectator, having climbed ten steps and left behind him a gateway, reaches a vestibule in which are statues of Lully, Rameau, Gluck and Handel. Ten steps of green Swedish marble lead to a second vestibule for ticket-sellers. Visitors who enter by the pavilion reserved for carriages pass through a hallway where ticket offices are situated. The larger number of the audience, before entering the auditorium, traverse a circular vestibule located exactly beneath it. The ceiling of this portion of the building is upheld by sixteen fluted columns of Jura stone, with white marble capitals, forming a portico. Here servants are to await their masters, and spectators may remain until their carriages are summoned. The third entrance, which is quite distinct from the others, is reserved for the Executive. The section of the building set aside for the Emperor Napoleon* was to have included an antechamber for the bodyguards; a salon for the aides-de-camp; a large salon and a smaller one for the Empress; hat and cloak rooms, etc. Moreover, there were to be in close proximity to the entrance, stables for three coaches, for the outriders’ horses, and for the twenty-one horsemen acting as an escort; a station for a squad of infantry of thirty-one men and ten centgardes,* and a stable for the horses of the latter; and, besides, a salon for fifteen or twenty domestics. Thus arrangements had to be made to accommodate in this part of the building about one hundred persons, fifty horses, and half-a-dozen carriages. The fall of the Empire suggested some changes, but ample provision still exists for emergencies.

  ‘Its novel conception, perfect fitness, and rare splendour of material, make the grand stairway unquestionably one of the most remarkable features of the building. It presents to the spectator, who has just passed through the subscribers’ pavilion, a gorgeous picture. From this point he beholds the ceiling formed by the central landing; this and the columns sustaining it, built of Echaillon stone, are honey-combed with arabesques and heavy with ornaments; the steps are of white marble, and antique red marble balusters rest on green marble sockets and support a balustrade of onyx. To the right and to the left of this landing are stairways to the floor, on a plane with the first row of boxes. On this floor stand thirty monolith columns of Sarrancolin marble, with white marble bases and capitals. Plasters of peach-blossom and violet stone are against the corresponding walls. More than fifty blocks had to be extracted from the quarry to find thirty perfect monoliths.

  ‘The foyer de la danse has particular interest for habitués of the Opera. It is a place of reunion to which subscribers to three performances a week are permitted between the acts in accordance with a usage established in 1870. Three immense looking glasses cover the back wall of the foyer, and a chandelier with one hundred and seven burners supplies it with light. The paintings include twenty oval medallions in which are portrayed twenty danseuses of most celebrity since the opera has existed in France, and four panels by M. Boulanger, typifying “The War Dance”, “The Rustic Dance”, “The Dance of Love” and “The Bacchic Dance”. While the ladies of the ballet receive their admirers in this foyer, they can practise their steps. Velvet-cushioned bars have to this end been secured at convenient p
oints, and the floor has been given the same slope as that of the stage, so that the labour expended may be thoroughly profitable to the performance. The singers’ foyer, on the same floor, is a much less lively resort than the foyer de la danse, as vocalists rarely leave their dressing-rooms before they are summoned to the stage. Thirty panels with portraits of the artists of repute in the annals of the Opera are shown in this foyer.

  ‘Some estimate … may be arrived at by sitting before the concierge an hour or so before the representation commences. First appear the stage carpenters, who are always seventy, and sometimes, when L’Africaine, for example, with its ship scene, is the opera, one hundred and ten strong. Then come stage upholsterers, whose sole duty is to lay carpets, hang curtains, etc; gas-men, and a squad of firemen. Claqueurs, call-boys, property-men, dressers, coiffeurs, supernumeraries, and artists, follow. The supernumeraries number about one hundred: some are hired by the year, but the “masses” are generally recruited at the last minute and are generally working-men who seek to add to their meagre earnings. There are about a hundred choristers, and about eighty musicians.

  ‘Next we behold equerries, whose horses are hoisted on the stage by means of an elevator, electricians who manage the light-producing batteries, hydrauliciens to take charge of the water-works in ballets like La Source; artificers who prepare the conflagration in Le Profeta; florists who make ready Marguerita’s garden, and a host of minor employees. This personnel is provided for as follows. Eighty dressing-rooms are reserved for the artists, each including a small antechamber, the dressing-room proper, and a little closet. Besides these apartments, the Opera has a dressing-room for sixty male, and another for fifty female choristers; a third for thirty-four male dancers; four dressing-rooms for twenty female dancers of different grades; a dressing-room for one hundred and ninety supernumeraries, etc.’