Chapter I

Is it the Ghost?


It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of
the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their retirement.
Suddenly 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 stage after "dancing" Polyeucte. They rushed in amid
great confusion, some giving vent to forced and unnatural laughter,
others to cries of terror. Sorelli, who wished to be alone for a moment
to "run through" the speech which she was to make to the resigning
managers, looked around angrily at the mad and tumultuous crowd.
It was little Jammes--the girl with the tip-tilted nose,
the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white
neck and shoulders--who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:

"It's the ghost!" And she locked the door.

Sorelli's dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace elegance.
A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two provided
the necessary furniture. On the walls hung a few engravings,
relics 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 lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their
time singing, quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers
and buying one another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum,
until the call-boy's bell rang.

Sorelli was very superstitious. She shuddered when she heard
little Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool"
and then, as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general,
and the Opera ghost in particular, at once asked for details:

"Have you seen him?"

"As plainly as I see you now!" said little Jammes, whose legs were
giving way beneath her, and she dropped with a moan into a chair.

Thereupon little Giry--the girl with eyes black as sloes,
hair black as ink, a swarthy complexion and a poor little skin
stretched over poor little bones--little Giry added:

"If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!"

"Oh, yes!" cried the chorus of ballet-girls.

And they all began to talk together. The ghost had appeared to them
in the shape of a gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood
before them in the passage, without their knowing where he came from.
He seemed to have come straight through the wall.

"Pooh!" said one of them, who had more or less kept her head.
"You see the ghost everywhere!"

And it was true. For several months, there had been nothing discussed
at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about
the building, from top to bottom, like a shadow, who spoke to nobody,
to whom nobody dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen,
no one knowing how or where. As became a real ghost, he made no noise
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 ease. When he did not show himself, he betrayed his presence
or his passing by accident, comic or serious, for which the general
superstition held him responsible. Had any one met with a fall,
or suffered a practical joke at the hands of one of the other girls,
or lost a powderpuff, it was at once the fault of the ghost,
of the Opera ghost.

After all, who had seen him? You meet so many men in dress-clothes
at the Opera who are not ghosts. But this dress-suit had
a peculiarity of its own. It covered a skeleton. At least,
so the ballet-girls said. And, of course, it had a death's head.

Was all this serious? The truth is that the idea of the skeleton
came from the description of the ghost given by Joseph Buquet,
the chief scene-shifter, who had really seen the ghost. He had run
up against the ghost on the little staircase, by the footlights,
which leads to "the cellars." He had seen him for a second--
for the ghost had fled--and to any one who cared to listen to him
he said:

"He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame.
His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils.
You just see two big black holes, as 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 can't see it side-face; and THE ABSENCE
of that nose is a horrible thing TO LOOK AT. All the hair he
has is three or four long dark locks on his forehead and behind
his ears."

This chief scene-shifter was a serious, sober, steady man,
very slow at imagining things. His words were received with interest
and amazement; and soon there were other people to say 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 joke played by one of his assistants.
And then, one after the other, there came a series of incidents
so curious and so inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began
to feel uneasy.

For instance, a fireman is a brave fellow! He fears nothing,
least of all fire! Well, the fireman in question, who had gone
to make a round of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems,
had ventured 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
of little Jammes.[1] And why? Because he had seen coming toward him,
AT THE LEVEL OF HIS HEAD, BUT WITHOUT A BODY ATTACHED TO IT,
A HEAD OF FIRE! And, as I said, a fireman is not afraid of fire.

----

[1] I have the anecdote, which is quite authentic, from M. Pedro
Gailhard himself, the late manager of the Opera.

The fireman's name was Pampin.

The corps de ballet was flung into consternation. At first sight,
this fiery head in no way corresponded with Joseph Buquet's
description of the ghost. But the young ladies soon persuaded
themselves that the ghost had several heads, which he changed about
as he pleased. And, of course, they at once imagined that they
were in the greatest danger. Once a fireman did 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 Opera otherwise than as a spectator must
touch before setting foot on the first tread of the staircase.
This horse-shoe was not invented by me--any more than any other
part of this story, alas!--and may still be seen on the table
in the passage outside the stage-door-keeper's box, when you enter
the Opera through the court known as the Cour de l'Administration.

To return to the evening in question.

"It's the ghost!" little Jammes had cried.

An agonizing silence now reigned in the dressing-room. Nothing
was heard but the hard breathing of the girls. At last, Jammes,
flinging herself upon the farthest corner of the wall, with every
mark of real terror on her face, whispered:

"Listen!"

Everybody seemed to hear a rustling outside the door. There was no
sound of footsteps. It was like light silk sliding over the panel.
Then it stopped.

Sorelli tried to show more pluck than the others. She went up
to the door and, in a quavering voice, asked:

"Who's there?"

But nobody answered. Then feeling all eyes upon her, watching her
last movement, she made an effort to show courage, and said very loudly:

"Is there any one behind the door?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Of course there is!" cried that little dried plum
of a Meg Giry, heroically holding Sorelli back by her gauze skirt.
"Whatever you do, don't open the door! Oh, Lord, don't open
the door!"

But Sorelli, armed with a dagger that never left her, turned the key
and drew back the door, while the ballet-girls retreated to the inner
dressing-room and Meg Giry sighed:

"Mother! Mother!"

Sorelli looked into the passage bravely. It was empty;
a gas-flame, in its glass prison, cast a red and suspicious light
into the surrounding darkness, without succeeding in dispelling it.
And the dancer slammed the door again, with a deep sigh.

"No," she said, "there is no one there."

"Still, we saw him!" Jammes declared, returning with timid little steps
to her place beside Sorelli. "He must be somewhere prowling about.
I shan't go back to dress. We had better all go down to the foyer
together, at once, for the `speech,' and we will come up again together."

And the child reverently touched the little coral finger-ring which
she wore as a charm against bad luck, while Sorelli, stealthily,
with the tip of her pink right thumb-nail, made a St. Andrew's cross
on the wooden ring which adorned the fourth finger of her left hand.
She said to the little ballet-girls:

"Come, children, pull yourselves together! I dare say no one has
ever seen the ghost."

"Yes, yes, we saw him--we saw him just now!" cried the girls.
"He had his death's head and his dress-coat, just as when he appeared
to Joseph Buquet!"

"And Gabriel saw him too!" said Jammes. "Only yesterday!
Yesterday afternoon--in broad day-light----"

"Gabriel, the chorus-master?"

"Why, yes, didn't you know?"

"And he was wearing his dress-clothes, in broad daylight?"

"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, warding off ill-luck by
pointing their forefinger and little finger at the absent Persian, while their
second and third fingers were bent on the palm and held down by the thumb.

"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, so as to touch iron!
In doing so, he tore a whole skirt of his overcoat on a nail.
Hurrying 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 back.
I was just passing with mother. We picked him up. He was covered
with bruises and his face was all over blood. We were frightened out
of our lives, but, all at once, 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!"

Jammes had told her story ever so quickly, as though the ghost
were at her heels, and was quite out of breath at the finish.
A silence followed, while Sorelli polished her nails in great excitement.
It was broken by little Giry, 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 looking all about her as though fearing lest other ears
than those present might overhear.

"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--"

This reticence exasperated the curiosity of the young ladies,
who crowded round little Giry, begging her to explain herself.
They were there, side by side, leaning forward simultaneously
in one movement of entreaty and fear, communicating their terror
to one another, taking a keen pleasure in feeling their blood freeze
in their veins.

"I swore not to tell!" gasped Meg.

But they left her no peace and promised to keep the secret, until Meg,
burning to say all she knew, began, with her eyes fixed on the door:

"Well, it's because of the private box."

"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, next to the stage-box, on the left."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"I tell you it is. Mother has charge of it. 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.
This was what they tried to make Meg understand, but she 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.

"Giry, child, you're getting at us!"

Thereupon little Giry 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 breathless voice cried:

"Cecile! Cecile! Are you there?"

"It's mother's voice," said Jammes. "What's the matter?"

She opened the door. A respectable lady, built on the lines of a
Pomeranian grenadier, burst into the dressing-room and dropped groaning
into a vacant arm-chair. Her eyes rolled madly in her brick-dust colored face.

"How awful!" she said. "How awful!"

"What? What?"

"Joseph Buquet

"What about him?"

"Joseph Buquet is dead!"

The room became filled with exclamations, with astonished outcries,
with scared requests for explanations.

"Yes, he was found hanging in the third-floor cellar!"

"It's the ghost!" little Giry blurted, as though in spite of herself;
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, her panic-stricken companions repeated under
their breaths:

"Yes--it must be the ghost!"

Sorelli was very pale.

"I shall never be able to recite my speech," she said.

Ma Jammes gave her opinion, while she emptied a glass of liqueur
that happened to be standing on a table; the ghost must have
something to do with it.

The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death.
The verdict at the inquest was "natural suicide." In his Memoirs
of Manager, M. Moncharmin, one of the joint managers who succeeded MM.
Debienne and Poligny, describes the incident as follows:

"A grievous accident spoiled the little party which MM.
Debienne and Poligny gave to celebrate their retirement. I was
in the manager's office, when Mercier, the acting-manager, suddenly
came darting in. He seemed half mad and told me that the body
of a scene-shifter had been found hanging in the third cellar under
the stage, between a farm-house and a scene from the Roi de Lahore.
I shouted:

"`Come and cut him down!'

"By the time I had rushed down the staircase and the Jacob's ladder,
the man was no longer hanging from his rope!"

So this is an event which M. Moncharmin thinks natural. A man
hangs at the end of a rope; they go to cut him down; the rope
has disappeared. Oh, M. Moncharmin found a very simple explanation!
Listen to him:

"It was just after the ballet; and leaders and dancing-girls lost
no time in taking their precautions against the evil eye."

There you are! Picture the corps de ballet scuttling down the
Jacob's ladder and dividing the suicide's rope among themselves
in less time than it 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 that SOMEBODY
must have been interested in seeing that the rope disappeared
after it had effected its purpose; and time will show if I am wrong.

The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet
was very popular. The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls,
crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess,
made for the foyer through the ill-lit passages and staircases,
trotting as fast as their little pink legs could carry them.

****

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