Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1912 — Page 2

The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

by Gaston Leroux

TME • MY9TEQY • OP • ThE • YCLLOW -ROOMand IMF-PERFUME-OF-ThE-LADY- IN-btACK--17/ ci&&rc3 biosis* 2>y Af-Gl/Qtitzjiejr* Copyright ,g// by 7Ae Aobbs Merr/7/ Company

SYNOPSIS. i■■ -' ’ '■' K Consternation Is caused on the last paaght that the Opera Is managed by De|§Menne and Pollgny because of the appearance of a ghost, said to have been s & evidence on several previous occasions. 1 Christine Daae, a member of the opera £ company, is called Upon to fill a very part and scores a great sucE«MS. Count de Chagny and his brother K Raoul are among those who applaud the feringer. Raoul tries to see Christine in I 'the dressing room, but Is unable to do so L and later discovers that some one is maklove to her. She emerges alone, and B Upon entering the room he finds It empty. KWhile the farewell ceremony for the referring managers is going on, the Opera - Ghost appears and informs the new manPsagers that Box No. & is reserved for him. Box No. & is sold with disastrous results, p The managers receive a letter from the P Opera Ghost calling attention to the erB»or. Christine Daae writes Raoul that <<«he had gone to visit the grave of her father. He goes also, and in the night her to the church. Wonderful music is heard. Raoul visits a CHAPTER V—(Continued). t "It’s you, Raoul, who say that? You, old playfellow of my own! A I friend of my father’s! But you have 1 changed since those days. What are >you thinking of? I am an honest girl, ’ M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and 1 don’t t lock myself up in my dressing-room with men’s voices. If you had opened F the door, you would have seen that I there was nobody in the room!” true! I did open the door, | When you were gone, and I found no <me in the room.** "So you see! . . . Well?" The viscount summoned up all his fp'Well, Christine, I think that somebody is making game of you." She-gnve a ciy and ran away. He r»n after her, but, in a tone of tierce anger, she called out: “Leave me! me!" And she disappeared. Raoul returned to the inn feeling very weary, very low-spirited and Every sad. He was told that Christine had gone to her bedroom saying that | - She would not be down to dinner. Raoul dined alone, In a very gloomy g mood. Then he went to hls room and i tried to read, went to bed and tried to sleep. There was no sound in the next room. ’ The hours passed slowly. It was about half-past eleven when he distlnctly heard some one moving, with a light, stealthy step, in the room next to hls. Then Christine had not gone to bed! Without troubling for Pa reason. Raoul dressed, taking tare ■ not to make a sound, and waited. Waited for what? How could he tell? -But his heart thumped in his chest when he heard Christine’s door turn slowly on its hinges. Where could she be going, at this hour, when every , one was fast asleep at Perros? Softly opening the door, he saw Christine’s £ white form in the moonlight, slipping along the passage. She went down the stairs and he leaned over the baluster above her. Suddenly he heard two voices in rapid conversa- . tion. He caught one sentence: “Don’t lose the key." j It was the landlady’s voice. The < door facing the., sea was opened and locked again. Then all was still. ' Raoul ran back to his room and threw back the window. Christine’s white form stood on the deserted I The first floor of the Setting Sun was at no great height and a tree growing against the wall held out its 'brandies to Raoul's Impatient arms and enabled him to climb down un- ■ Ironww to the landlady. Her amazement, therefore, was all the greater when, the next morning, the young K?tnan was brought back to her half more dead than alive, and j&When- she learned that he had been Ffound stretched at full length on the *wteps of the high altar of the little L church. She ran at once to tell [ Christine, who hurried down and, with the help <H the landlady, did her best Ito revive hfm. He soon opened his -eyes and was not long in recovering ‘when he saw hls friend's charming . face leaning over him. • A few weeks later, when the trag■frit the opera compelled the intervention of the public prosecutor, M. BJKlfrold, the commissary of police, examined the Vicomte de Chagny touchKSig the events of the night at Perros. f l quote the questions and answers as ■myen in the official report pp. 150 Q.t.’’Did Mlle. Daae not see you I come down from your room by the I curious road which you selected?” ' "No, monsieur, no, although, fewhen walking behind her, I took no ■pains to deaden the sound of my gßpotsteps. In fact, I was anxious that | she should turn round and see me. 1 Hjjgßirsi* that I had no excuse for folIjjjpag- her. and that this way of spy||j|. pn her was unworthy of me. But I aha seemed not to hear me and acted gutacUy as though I were not there ■K*' quietly left the quay and then -suddenly walked quickly up the road. ■Eh church-clock had struck a quarter to twelve and I thought that this Effiust b-v* made her hurry, for she

began almost to run and continued from the stalls on the left, they found hastening until she came to the church." Q. “Was the gate open?" R. "Yes, monsieur, and this surprised me, but did not seem to surprise Mlle. Daae." Q. “Was there no one in the churchyard?” R. “I did not see any one; and. If there had been, I must have seen him, The moon was shining on the snow and made the night quite light." Q. "Was it possible for any one to hide behind the tombstones X” R. “No, monsieur. They were quite small, poor tombstones, partly hidden under the snow, with their crosses just above the level of the ground. The only shadows were those of the crosses and ourselves. The church stood out quite brightly. I never saw so clear a night It was very fine and very cold and one could see everything." Q. ''Are you at all superstitious?” R. "No, monsieur, I am a practicing Catholic.’* Q. "In what condition of mind were you?” « R. "Very healthy and peaceful, I assure you. Mlle. Daae’s curious action in going out at that hour had worried me at first; but, as soon as I saw her go to the churchyard, 1 thought that she meant to fulfil some pious duty on her father's grave and I considered this so natural that 1 recovered all my calmness. I was only surprised that she had not heard me walklng behind her, for my footsteps were quite audible on the hard snow. But she must have been taken up t£th her intentions and I resolved not to disturb her. She knelt down by her father’s grave, made the sign of the cross and began to pray. At that moment, it struck midnight. At the last stroke, I saw Mlle. Daae lift her eyes to the sky and stretch out. her arms as though in ecstasy. I was wondering what the reason could be, when I myself raised my head and everything within me seemed drawn toward the Invisible, which was playing the most perfect music! Christine and I knew that music; we had heard it as children. But It had never been executed with such divine art, even by M. Daae. I remembered all that Christine had told me of the Angel of Music. The air was The Resurrection of Lazarus, which old M. Daae used to play to us in his hours of melancholy and of faith. If Christine’s Angel had existed, he could not have played better, that night, on the late musician’s violin. When the music stopped, I seemed to hear a noise from the skulls In the heap of bones; it was as though they were chuckling and I could not help shuddering.” Q. "Did it not occur to you that the musician might be biding behind that very heap of bones?" R. “It was the one thought that did occur to me, monsieur, so much so that I omitted to follow Mlle, Daae when she stood up and walked slowly to the gate. She was so much absorbed just then that I am not surprised that she did not see me." Q. “Then what happened that you were found In the morning lying halfdead on the steps of the high altar?” R. "First a skull rolled to my feet. . . . then another ... , then another ... It was as if I were

the mark of that ghastly game of bowls. And I had an idea that a false step must have destroyed the balance of the structure behind tvhich our musician was concealed. This surprise seemed to be confirmed when I saw a shadow suddenly glide along the sacristy wall. I ran up. The shadow had already pushed open the door and entered the church. But I was quicker than the shadow and caught hold of a corner of its cloak. At that moment, we were just in front of the high altar; and the moonbeams fell straight upon us through the stainedglass windows Of the apse. As 1 did not let go of the cloak, the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death’s head, which darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes. 1 felt as if I were face to face with Satan; and, in the presence of this unearthly apparition, my heart gave way, my courage failed me . . - and I remember nothing more until 1 recovered consciousness at the Setting Sun.” CHAPTER VI. A Visit to Box Five. We left M. Firmin Richard and M. Armand Moncharmin at the moment when they were deciding "to look into that little matter of Box Five.” Leaving behind them the broad staircase which leads from the lobby outside the managers’ offices to the stage and its dependencies, they crossed the stage, went out by the subscribers’ door and entered the bouse through the first little passage

on the left. Then they made their way through the front rows of stalls and looked at Box Five on the grand tier. They could not see it well, because it was half in darkness and because great .covers were flung over the red velvet of the ledges of all the boxes.

They were almost alone In the huge, gloomy house; and a great silence surrounded them. It was the time when most of the stage-hands go out for a drink. The staff had left the boards for the moment, leaving a scene half set. A few days of light, a wan, sinister light, that seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary, fell through some opening or other upon an old tower that raised its pasteboard battlements on the stage; everything, in this deceptive light, adopted a fantastic shape. In the orchestra stalls, the drugget covering them looked like an angry sea, whose glaucous waves had been suddenly rendered stationary by a secret order from the storm phantom, who, as everybody knows, is called Adamaston. MM. Moncharmin and Richard were the shipwrecked mariners amid this motionless turmoil of a calico sea. They made for the left boxes, plowing their way like sailors who leave their ship and try to struggle to the shore. The eight great polished columns stood up In the dusk like so many huge piles supporting the threatening, crumbling, big-bellied cliffs whose layers were represented by the circular, parallel, waving lines of the balconies of the grand, first and second tiers of boxes. At the top, right on top of the cliff, lost In M. Lenepveu’s copper ceiling, figures grinned ahd grimaced, laughed and jeered at MM. Richard and Moncharmin’s distress. And yet these figures were usually very serious. Their names were Isis, Amphitrite, Hebe, Pandora, Psyche, Thetis, Pomona, Daphne, Clytle, Galatea and Arethusa. Yes, Arethusa herself and Pandora, whom we all know by her box, looked down upon the two new managers of the opera, who ended by clutching at some piece of wreckage and from there stared silently at Box Five on the grand tier. I have said that they were dis-

“My Heart Gave Way, My Courage Failed Me.”

tressed. At least, I presume so. M. Moncharmln, in any case; admits that he was Impressed. To quote hls own words, in his Memoirs: "This moonshine about the opera ghost in which, since we first took over the duties of MM. Pollgny and Debienne, we had been so nicely steeped”—Moncharmin’s style is not always irreproachable—“had no-doubt ended by blinding my imaginative and also my visual faculties. It may be that the exceptional surroundings in which we found ourselves, in the midst of an incredible silence, impressed us to an unusual extent. It may be that we were the sport of a kind of hallucination brought about by the semi-darkness of the theater and the partial gloom that filled Box Five. At any rate, I saw and Richard also saw a shape in the box. Richard said nothing, nor I either. But we spontaneously seized each other's hand. We stood like that for some minutes, without moving, with our eyes fixed on the same point; but the figure had disappeared. Then we went out and, in the lobby, communicated our impressions to each other and talked about 'the shape.* The misfortune was that my shape .was not in the least like Richard's. I had seen a thing like a death's head resting on the ledge of the box, whereas Richard saw the shape of an old woman who looked like Marne Glry. We soon discovered that we had really been the victims of an illusion, whereupon, without further delay and

laughing like madmen, we ran to Box Five on the grand tier, went inside and found* no shape of any kind." Box Five fa just like all the other grand tier boxes. There Ik nothing to distinguish it from any of the others. M. Moncharmln and M. Richard, ostensibly highly amused and laughing at each other, moved the furniture of the box, lifted the cloths and the chairs and particularly examined the arm-chair in which “the man’s voice" used to sit. But they saw that It was a respectable arm-chair, with no magic about It. Altogether, the box was the most ordinary box in the world, with its red hangings, its chairs, its carpet and its ledge covered in red velvet. After feellng the carpet in the most serious manner possible, and discovering nothing more here or anywhere else, they went down to the corresponding box on the pit tier below. In Box Five on the pit tier, which is just inside the first exit nothing worth mentioning either. “Those people are all making fools of us!” Firmin Richard ended by exclaiming. “It will be Faust on Saturday; let us both see the performance from Box Five on the grand tier!"

CHAPTER VII. Faust and What Followed. On the Saturday morning, on reaching their office, the joint managers found a letter from O. G. worded In these terms: “My Dear Managers: ”7 “So it is to be war between us? “If you still care for peace, here is my ultimatum. It consists of the four following conditions: "1. You must give me back my private box; and I wish It to be at my free disposal from henceforward. “2. The part of Margarita shall be sung this evening by Christine Daae. Never mind about Carlotta; she will be 111. “3. I absolutely insist upon the good and loyal services of Mme. Glry, my box-keeper, whom you will reinstate In her functions forthwith. “4. Let me know by a letter handed to Mme. Glry, who will see that It reaches me, that you accept, as your

predecessors did, the conditions in my memorandum-book relating to my monthly allowance. I will Inform you later how you are to pay it to me. . “If you refuse, you will give Faust tonight in a house with a curse upon it.

“Take my advice and be warned in time. “O. G.”

“Look here, I’m getting sick of nim. sick of him!” shouted Richard, brlng-

Women Students in Berlin

The educational statistics of Berlin show that the number of women students is increasing there. The theological department alone shows a falling off, there being only one woman registered, while there were several last year. Besides the 258 women who attend lectures without, matriculating, there are 12 women in the school of jurisprudence, 172 medical students and 659 in the department of philosophy. There are in all about 1,115 women students, of whom the majority are in the philology and history departments. The record shows that many of the important professors have student daughters and that these do not, as a rule, alm to perfect themselves in the branches taught by their fathers. Among the representatives of the official dasa is the daughter of Dr. Reickes, mayor of Berlin, who j

Ing hls fists down op Me office taMRi Just then, Mercier, the acting-man-ager, entered. "Lachenel would like to see one of you gentlemen," he said. "He says that hls business is urgent and he seems quite upset.** “Who’s Lachenel F* asked Richard. “He’s your stud-groom.” "What do you mean? My studr groom T’ "Yes, sir,” explained Mercier, "there are several grooms at the opera and M. Lachenel is at the head of them." “And what does this groom do?" “He has the chief management of the stable.” "What stable?" “Why, yours, sir, the stable of the opera." "Is there a stable at the opera? Upon my word, I didn’t know. Where is itr “In the cellars, on the Rotunda wide. It’s a very Important department; we have twelve horses." “Twelve horses! And what for, in heaven’s name?’ “Why, we want trained horses tor the processions in the Julve, the Profeta and so on; horses 'used to the boards.’ It is the grooms* business to teach them. M. Lachenel is very clever at it He used to manage Franconl’s stables.” “Very well . . but what does he want?” **l don’t know; I never saw nun in “He can come in." M. Lachenel came in, carrying e riding-whip, with which he struck his right boot in an irritable manner. “Good morning, M. Lachenel," said Richard, somewhat Impressed. “To What do we owe the honor of your visit?” “Mr. Manager, I have coine to ask you to get rid of the whole stable." "What, you want to get rid of our horses?” * “I’m not talking of the horses, bqt of the stablemen.” "How many stablemen have you, M. Lachenel?" “Six." “Six stablemen! That’s at least two too many.” “These are ’places,’ ’’ Mercier interposed, “created and forced upon us by the under-secretary for fine arts. They are filled by proteges of the government and, if I may venture to . . .” “I don’t care a hang for the govern ment!” roared Richard, “We don’l need more than four stablemen for twelve horses.” “Eleven," said the head ridlng-ma» ter, correcting him. "Twelve,” repeated Richard. “Eleven,” repeated LacheneL “Oh, the acting-manager told me that you had twelve horses!" “I did have twelve, but I have only eleven since Cesar was stolen.” And M. Lachenel gave himself a great smack on the boot with hls whip. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Country Girls In German Cities.

Last year over 600,000 girls from German villages and small towns were engaged at work in the large cities to earn their living. The most favorable working conditions werg obtained by some 210,000 girls, who found employment as servants in housework, and of these a large number became more independent by taking over small stores, such as grocery and delicatessen shops. The largest numbers were employed in factories —some 150,000 in cotton mills and 52,000 in tobacco works. About 167,000 or more were employed in hotels, restaurants and bars, but most of them had first spent some time in other • city Industries. In laundries 8,300 women and girls were employed, and many found positions in department stores, at an average salary of $14.28y monthly.

’Phone Faster Than Sound.

An example of the relative rates of speed with which sound waves travel by air and telephone wires comes Manhattanward from Paterson, N. J., via the New York Telephone Review. The manager of a large manufacturing plant in Paterson, while standing at the telephone in bis residence, which is two miles away from hls factory, heard the whistle of the factory blow for one o’clock. The sound came over the wire and continued about five seconds. Several seconds after it had ceased the factory manager heard the same blowing of the whistle carried by air waves through an open window.

Certainly Somewhat Different.

Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton recently mentioned an English spinster lady who said, as she watched a great actress writhing about the floor as Cleopatra, “How different from the home life of our late dear queen!”

has matriculated in the department for the study of German.

Questions and Answers.

A school teacher sends us a few more queer answers from recent examination papers in the graded schools. “What did the Constitution do for our country? It gave the president a head. “Name a useful domestic animal and describe its habits. The cow. He lives In a barn and don’t have to hava any’habits. “What Is yeast? Yeast Is a vegetable flying about in the air and hitching itself onto anything. 7 “If you were traveling across a desert, where would you choose to rest? On a sofa, chair or bed.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer.

God Demands Recognition

By Rev. J. H. Ralston,

Ssovtay cf Coowamfanct DepaitaMßl Moody BMa

TEXT—Psalm 46:M>—"Be still, and know that lam God.” ( While we rarely find a professed deist nowadays, few men recognize

“Be still, and know that I am God.” God is intensely interested that man should recognize him, not only because man thus greatly bless himself, but x God demands this recognition because he in sensitive to the appreciar tion of those'whom he has created in his own likeness and image. We must maintain this, notwithstanding the specious plea that it would be ignoble in God to demand such recognition. This matter can only be settled by an appeal to authority, and multitudes believe that the Bible is such authority. In ExoduA 34:14, we read: “Thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.” Joshua called the attention of Israel to the same characteristic in God when he wished Israel to return to God, to the enjoyment of their divine heritage. - In the text God does not ask man to know him; he simply asks that we recognize him as God, and appeals in the Bth and 9th verses of this chapter for the use of the physical senses: "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolation he has wrought in the earth; he maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth, he breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.” Our attention is also called to what we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us what he has done in the time of old. Were not God’s dealings with the Egyptians to prove that he was God? Was not God back of the blessing of Israel by Balaam, while Balaam’s purpose was to curse? Has God not set up one and put down another? Has be not despoiled the devices of the crafty that their hands cannot perform their enterprise, and has he not takep the wise in their own craftiness, and is not the counsel of the froward carried headlong? And what shall be said of the occurrences of modern history? Had God anything to do with the earthquake in San Francisco; the burning of the General Schofield, and the sinking of the Titanic? Of the latter event it is said that in the last moments of that fated vessel’s remaining afloat, all classes of l>eople prayed, and the band played until the very ,end, “Nearer, My God, to Thee." And what was this but recognition of God, and possibly with many, too late? To say that God has nothing to do with these things on the ground of that it would be violence to the reign of law, dishonoring to him as an infinite being, and entirely- relieve man of moral responsibility, is really not worthy of serious consideration. The consciousness of God’s immanence in all such things would be a deterrent from sin on the part of some, and would be an incentive to good on the part of others. How are men to know God? Simply by being still. By searching, men cannot find out God. As David would Me in the fields at night and look up into the starry heavens, it would not be for the purpose of finding out God, but as he gazed he could not help but exclaim: , “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon And the stars, which thou hastj created, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that' thou visitest him?” As Moses would have Israel to recognize God, he said: “Stand still, and see the salvation of; God.” As Isaiah would have IsraeL see wherein their strength lay, he saidi should sit stilt So the methodof knowing God is to just keep thei eyes and ears open, to stop, look, lic-> ten —God is here, there, everywhere. The result® of this win be a more serious consideration of one’s obligation to God. The life of the Christian will be made richer, and as the dark-; nesß of the hereafter is approached, there will be a preparation to meet! God, with whom, whether he will ori will not, man has much to do. Toi know God, and him whom he has sent,, is everlasting life.

When the dust of business bo fill* your room that it threatens to choke you, sprinkle it with the water of prayer, and then you can dean it out with comfort and expedition—Tam w Stalker. - Only In a world where there is suffering could God prove that he is love. The man who buries Us talent might as well bury himself.

God as he manifests himself. Yet, while men do not recognize God who has revealed himself, they are constantly manufacturing gods to suit themselves, and these are as numerous as those of Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs. In the text there is the call of. God to give attention to himself—