“Yes, yes, we saw him—we saw him just now!” cried the girls. “He had his death’s head and his dress-coat[17], just as when he appeared to Joseph Buquet!”
“And Gabriel saw him too!” said Jammes. “Only yesterday! Yesterday afternoon!”
“Gabriel, the chorus-master?”
“Why, yes, didn’t you know?”
“And he was wearing his dress-clothes, in broad daylight[18]?”
“Who? Gabriel?”
“Why, no, the ghost!”
“Certainly! Gabriel told me so himself. That’s what he knew him by. Gabriel was in the stage-manager’s office. Suddenly the door opened and the Persian entered. You know the Persian has the evil eye.”
“Oh, yes!” answered the little ballet-girls in chorus.
“And you know how superstitious Gabriel is,” continued Jammes. “However, he is always polite. When he meets the Persian, he just puts his hand in his pocket and touches his keys. Well, the moment the Persian appeared in the doorway, Gabriel gave one jump from his chair to the lock of the cupboard. He rushed out of the office like a madman, slipped on the staircase and came down on his back. I was just passing with mother. We picked him up. He was covered with bruises and his face was all over blood. And he began to thank Providence that he had got off so cheaply. Then he told us what had frightened him. He had seen the ghost behind the Persian, the ghost with the death’s head just like Joseph Buquet’s description!”
A silence followed, while Sorelli polished her nails in great excitement. It was broken by Meg, who said:
“Joseph Buquet would do better to hold his tongue.”
“Why should he hold his tongue?” asked somebody.
“That’s mother’s opinion,” replied Meg, lowering her voice.
“And why is it your mother’s opinion?”
“Hush! Mother says the ghost doesn’t like being talked about.”
“And why does your mother say so?”
“Because—because—nothing.”
The young ladies crowded round little Meg.
“I swore not to tell!” gasped Meg.
But they promised to keep the secret, until Meg, wanting to say all she knew, began, with her eyes fixed on the door:
“Well, it’s because of the private box[19].”
“What private box?”
“The ghost’s box!”
“Has the ghost a box? Oh, do tell us, do tell us!”
“Not so loud!” said Meg. “It’s Box Five, you know, the box on the grand tier[20], next to the stage-box, on the left.”
“Oh, nonsense!”
“I tell you it is. But you swear you won’t say a word?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Well, that’s the ghost’s box. No one has had it for over a month, except the ghost, and orders have been given at the box-office that it must never be sold.”
“And does the ghost really come there?”
“Yes.”
“Then somebody does come?”
“Why, no! The ghost comes, but there is nobody there.”
The little ballet-girls exchanged glances. If the ghost came to the box, he must be seen, because he wore a dress-coat and a death’s head. But Meg replied:
“That’s just it! The ghost is not seen. And he has no dress-coat and no head! All that talk about his death’s head and his head of fire is nonsense! There’s nothing in it. You only hear him when he is in the box. Mother has never seen him, but she has heard him. Mother knows, because she gives him his program.”
Sorelli interfered.
“My dear, you’re laughing at us!”
Meg began to cry.
“I ought to have held my tongue—if mother ever came to know! But I was quite right, Joseph Buquet had no business to talk of things that don’t concern him—it will bring him bad luck—mother was saying so last night.”
There was a sound of hurried and heavy footsteps in the passage and a voice cried:
“My dear! Are you there?”
“It’s mother’s voice,” said Jammes. “What’s the matter?”
She opened the door. A respectable lady burst into the dressing-room and dropped into an arm-chair. Her eyes rolled madly.
“How awful!” she said. “How awful!”
“What? What?”
“Joseph Buquet!”
“What about him?”
“Joseph Buquet is dead!”
The room became filled with exclamations.
“Yes, he was found hanging in the third-floor cellar!”
“It’s the ghost!” little Meg blurted; but she at once corrected herself, with her hands pressed to her mouth:
“No, no! I didn’t say it! I didn’t say it!”
All around her repeated:
“Yes—it must be the ghost!”
Sorelli was very pale.
The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death. The verdict was “natural suicide.”
The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet was very popular. The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls were crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess.
Chapter II
On the first landing[21], Sorelli met the Comte de Chagny, who was coming upstairs. The count, who was generally so calm, seemed greatly excited.
“I was just going to you,” he said, taking off his hat. “Oh, Sorelli, what an evening! And Christine Daae: what a triumph!”
“Impossible!” said Meg. “Six months ago, she used to sing awfully! But, my dear count, we are going to inquire after a poor man who was found hanging by the neck.”
They all went on to the foyer of the ballet[22], which was already full of people. The Comte de Chagny was right. The real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had begun by singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet. No one had ever heard or seen anything like it.
Everybody went mad, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine sobbed and fainted in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be carried to her dressing-room.
The Comte de Chagny was loudly applauding. Philippe de Chagny was just forty-one years old. He was a great aristocrat and a good-looking man, with attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold eyes. He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society. On the death of old Count Philibert[23], he became the head of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in France.
The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and, when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was