The Phantom of the Opera
himself without the pale of humanity, he was restrained by no scruples
and he employed his extraordinary gifts of dexterity and imagination,
which he had received by way of compensation for his extraordinary
uglinesss, to prey upon his fellow-men. His reason for restoring the
forty-thousand francs, of his own accord, was that he no longer wanted
it. He had relinquished his marriage with Christine Daae. He had
relinquished everything above the surface of the earth."
According to the Persian's account, Erik was born in a small town not
far from Rouen. He was the son of a master-mason. He ran away at an
early age from his father's house, where his ugliness was a subject of
horror and terror to his parents. For a time, he frequented the fairs,
where a showman exhibited him as the "living corpse." He seems to have
crossed the whole of Europe, from fair to fair, and to have completed
his strange education as an artist and magician at the very
fountain-head of art and magic, among the Gipsies. A period of Erik's
life remained quite obscure. He was seen at the fair of
Nijni-Novgorod, where he displayed himself in all his hideous glory.
He already sang as nobody on this earth had ever sung before; he
practised ventriloquism and gave displays of legerdemain so
extraordinary that the caravans returning to Asia talked about it
during the whole length of their journey. In this way, his reputation
penetrated the walls of the palace at Mazenderan, where the little
sultana, the favorite of the Shah-in-Shah, was boring herself to death.
A dealer in furs, returning to Samarkand from Nijni-Novgorod, told of
the marvels which he had seen performed in Erik's tent. The trader was
summoned to the palace and the daroga of Mazenderan was told to
question him. Next the daroga was instructed to go and find Erik. He
brought him to Persia, where for some months Erik's will was law. He
was guilty of not a few horrors, for he seemed not to know the
difference between good and evil. He took part calmly in a number of
political assassinations; and he turned his diabolical inventive powers
against the Emir of Afghanistan, who was at war with the Persian
empire. The Shah took a liking to him.
This was the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan, of which the
daroga's narrative has given us a glimpse. Erik had very original
ideas on the subject of architecture and thought out a palace much as a
conjuror contrives a trick-casket. The Shah ordered him to construct an
edifice of this kind. Erik did so; and the building appears to have
been so ingenious that His Majesty was able to move about in it unseen
and to disappear without a possibility of the trick's being discovered.
When the Shah-in-Shah found himself the possessor of this gem, he
ordered Erik's yellow eyes to be put out. But he reflected that, even
when blind, Erik would still be able to build so remarkable a house for
another sovereign; and also that, as long as Erik was alive, some one
would know the secret of the wonderful palace. Erik's death was
decided upon, together with that of all the laborers who had worked
under his orders. The execution of this abominable decree devolved
upon the daroga of Mazenderan. Erik had shown him some slight services
and procured him many a hearty laugh. He saved Erik by providing him
with the means of escape, but nearly paid with his head for his
generous indulgence.
Fortunately for the daroga, a corpse, half-eaten by the birds of prey,
was found on the shore of the Caspian Sea, and was taken for Erik's
body, because the daroga's friends had dressed the remains in clothing
that belonged to Erik. The daroga was let off with the loss of the
imperial favor, the confiscation of his property and an order of
perpetual banishment. As a member of the Royal House, however, he
continued to receive a monthly pension of a few hundred francs from the
Persian treasury; and on this he came to live in Paris.
As for Erik, he went to Asia Minor and thence to Constantinople, where
he entered the Sultan's employment. In explanation of the services
which he was able to render a monarch haunted by perpetual terrors, I
need only say that it was Erik who constructed all the famous
trap-doors and secret chambers and mysterious strong-boxes which were
found at Yildiz-Kiosk after the last Turkish revolution. He also
invented those automata, dressed like the Sultan and resembling the
Sultan in all respects,[2] which made people believe that the
Commander of the Faithful was awake at one place, when, in reality, he
was asleep elsewhere.
Of course, he had to leave the Sultan's service for the same reasons
that made him fly from Persia: he knew too much. Then, tired of his
adventurous, formidable and monstrous life, he longed to be some one
"like everybody else." And he became a contractor, like any ordinary
contractor, building ordinary houses with ordinary bricks. He tendered
for part of the foundations in the Opera. His estimate was accepted.
When he found himself in the cellars of the enormous playhouse, his
artistic, fantastic, wizard nature resumed the upper hand. Besides,
was he not as ugly as ever? He dreamed of creating for his own use a
dwelling unknown to the rest of the earth, where he could hide from
men's eyes for all time.
The reader knows and guesses the rest. It is all in keeping with this
incredible and yet veracious story. Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity
him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be "some one," like
everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius OR
USE IT TO PLAY TRICKS WITH, when, with an ordinary face, he would have
been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that
could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to
content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must needs pity the Opera
ghost.
I have prayed over his mortal remains, that God might show him mercy
notwithstanding his crimes. Yes, I am sure, quite sure that I prayed
beside his body, the other day, when they took it from the spot where
they were burying the phonographic records. It was his skeleton. I
did not recognize it by the ugliness of the head, for all men are ugly
when they have been dead as long as that, but by the plain gold ring
which he wore and which Christine Daae had certainly slipped on his
finger, when she came to bury him in accordance with her promise.
The skeleton was lying near the little well, in the place where the
Angel of Music first held Christine Daae fainting in his trembling
arms, on the night when he carried her down to the cellars of the
opera-house.
And, now, what do they mean to do with that skeleton? Surely they will
not bury it in the common grave! ... I say that the place of the
skeleton of the Opera ghost is in the archives of the National Academy
of Music. It is no ordinary skeleton.
[1] Even so, I am convinced that it would be easy to reach it by
draining the lake, as I have repeatedly requested the Ministry of Fine
Arts to do. I was speaking about it to M. Dujardin-Beaumetz, the
under-secretary for fine arts, only forty-eight hours before the
publication of this book. Who knows but that the score of DON JUAN
TRIUMPHANT might yet be discovered in the house on the lake?
[2] See the interview of the special correspondent of the MATIN, with
Mohammed-Ali Bey, on the day after the entry of the Salonika troops
into Constantinople.
THE END
The Paris Opera House
THE SCENE OF GASTON LEROUX'S NOVEL, "THE 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 the kind in the world and in
many respects the most beautiful. 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 built 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 done, 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
splendor the great structure. No picture can do justice to the rich
colors 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,