Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1912 — The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

by Gaston Leroux

W • MY9TERY •OF • THE • YELLOW ROOM- «,/»</ THE-PERFUME Of THE LADT- IN-bLACK-Illustratjonf by MG-Kcttnei' Gopyr/oht /a// by 77>e Sobbs-Merr/// Comp&ny

«r synopsis. ________ Consternation is caused on the last night that the Opera is managed by Debienne and Pollgny because of the appearance of a ghost, said to have been in evidence on several previous occasions. Christine Daae, a member of the opera company, is called upon to fill a very important part and scores a great sucs . cess. Count de Chagny and his brother Raoul are among those who applaud the singer. Raoul tries to see Christine in the dressing room, but is unable to do so ; and later discovers that some one is making love to her. She emerges alone, and upon entering the room he finds it empty. K while the farewell ceremony for the retiring managers is going on, the Opera J Ghost appears and informs the new managers that Box No. 5 is reserved for him. Box No. 6 is sold with disastrous results. The managers receive a letter from the Opera Ghost calling attention to the error. Christine Daae writes Raoul that she had gone to visit the grave Of her father. He goes also, and in the night follows her to the church. Wonderful violin music is heard. Raoul visits a graveyard. Raoul is found next morning almost frozen. Moncharmln and Richard investigate Box No. i 5 and decide to see ■, the performance of “Faust from front L-gSvKlßirts of that box. CHAPTER Vll—(Continued). “Has Cesar been stolen?” cried the V acting-manager. “Cesar, the white •> horse in the Profeta?” K “There are not two Cesars,” said the stud-groom dryly. “I was ten years at Franconl’s and I have seen plenty ot horses In my time. Well, there, are not two Cesars. And he’s been stolen.” “How?” K?, “I don’t know. Nobody knows. That’s why I have come to ask you to sack the whole stable.” “What do your stablemen say?” L “All sorts of nonsense. Some of them accuse the supers. Others pretend that it’s the acting-manager’s doorkeeper .r. .” “My doorkeeper? Til answer for h him as I would for myself!” protested Mercier. “But, after all, M. Lachenel,” cried li Richard, “you must have some idea.” “Yes, I have,” M. Lachenel declared. , . “I have an idea and I’ll tell you what it is. There’s no doubt about it in my mind.” He walked up to the two ■ ‘ managers and whispered. “It’s the ghost who did the trick!” g Richard gave a jump. “What, you too! You too!” “How do you mean, I too? Isn’t it natural, after what’ I saw?” i “What did you see?”

"He is a friend of the government representative’s!”' Mercier ventured to say. “And he takes his vermouth at Tortoni’s with Lagrene, Scholl and Pertuiset, the lion-hunter," added Moncharmin. “We shall have the whole press against us! He’ll tell the story of the shost; and everybody will be laughing at our expense! We may as well be dead as ridiculous!” “All right, say no more about it.” At that moment the door opened. It must have been deserted by its usual Cerberus, for Marne Glry entered without ceremony, holding a letter in her hand, and said hurriedly: “I beg your pardon, excuse me, gentlemen, but I had a letter this morning from the opera ghost. He told me to come to you, that you had something to . . .” She did. not complete the sentence. She saw Firmin Richard’s face; and it was a terrible sight. He seemed ready to burst He said nothing, he could not speak. But suddenly he acted. First, his left arm seized upon the quaint person of Marne Glry and made her describe so unexpected a semicircle that she uttered a despairing gry. Next, his right foot imprinted its sole on the black taffeta of a skirt which certainly had never before undergone a similar outrage in a similar place. The thing happened so quickly that Marne Glry, when in the passage, was still quite bewildered and seemed not to understand. But, suddenly, she understood; and the opera rang with her indignant yells, her violent protests and threats. Aboqt the same time Carlotta, who had a small house ot her own in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, rang for her maid, who brought her letters to her beet. Among them was an anonymous missive, written in red ink, in a hesitating, clumsy hand, which ran: “If you appear tonight, you must be prepared for a great misfortun'e at the moment when you open your mouth to sing ... a misfortune worse than death.” The letter took away Carlotta’s appetite for breakfast. She pushed back her chocolate, sat up in bed and thought bard. It was not the first letter of ttie kind which she had re-

M I saw, as clearly as I now see you, a black shadow riding a white horse that was as like Cesar as two peas!" “And did you run after them?" “I did and I shouted, but they were too fast for me and disappeared in the darkness of the underground gallery.*' M. Richard rose. ""That will do, M. Lacbenel. You can go. . . . We will lodge a complaint against the , “And sack my stable?” “Oh, of course! Good morning." M. Lachenel bowed and withdrew. Richard foamed at the mouth. “Settle that idiot’s account at once, please." ■

ceivpd, but she never had one couched in such threatening terms. She thought herself, at that time, the victim of a thousand jealous attempts and went, about saying that she had a secret enemy who had sworn to ruin her. She pretended that a wicked plot was being hatched against her, a cabal which would come to a head one of those days; but she added that she was not the woman to be Intimidated. ■ The truth is that, If there was a cabal, it was led by Carlotta herself against poor Christine, who had no suspicion of it. Carlotta had never, forgiven Christine for the triumph which she had achieved when tawna ... _ . . .. . • .

her place at a moment’s notice. When Carlotta heard of the astounding reception bestowed upon her understudy, she was at once cured of an incipient attack of bronchitis and a bad fit of sulking against the management, and lost the slightest inclination to shirk her duties. From that time, she worked with all her might to “smother” her rival, enlisting the services of Influential friends to persuade the managers not to give Christine an opportunity for a fresh triumph. Certain newspapers which had begun to extol the talent of Christine now interested themselves only in the fame of Carlotta. Lastly, in the theater itself, the celebrated, but heartless and soulless diva made the most scandalous remarks about Christine and tried to cause her endless minor unpleasantnesses. When Carlotta had finished thinking over the threat contained in the strange letter, she got up. “We shall see,” she said, adding a few oaths in her native Spanish with a very determined air. The first thing she saw, when looking out of her window, was a hearse. She was very superstitious; and the hearse and the letter convinced her that she was running the most serious dangers that evening. She collected all her supporters, told them that she was threatened at that evening’s per-, formance with a plot organized by Christine Daae and declared. must play a trick upon that chit by filling the house with her, Carlotta’s, admirers. She had no lack of them, had she?' She relied upon them to hold themselves prepared for any eventuality and to silence the adversaries, if, as she feared, they created a disturbance. M. Richard’s private secretary called to ask after the diva’s health and returned with the assurance that she was perfectly well and that, “were she dying,” she would sing ‘the part of Margarita that evening. The secretary . urged her, in his chief’s name, to commit no imprudence, to stay at home all day and to be careful of drafts: and Carlotta could not help, after he had gone, comparing this unusual and unexpected advice with the threats contained in the letter.

It was five o’clock when the post brought a second anonymous letter In the same hand as the first. It was short and said simply: “You have a bad cold. If you are wise, you will see that it is madness to try to sing tonight." Carlotta sneered, shrugged her handsome shoulders and sang two or three notes to reassure herself. Her friends were faithful to their promise. They were all at the opera that night, but looked round in vain for the fierce conspirators whom they were Instructed to suppress. The only unusual thing was the presence of M. Richard and M. Moncharmln in Box Five. Carlotta’s friends thought that, perhaps, the managers had wind, on their side, of the proposed disturbance and that they had determined to be in the house, so as to stop it then and there: but this was unjustifiable supposition, aa the reader knows. M. Richard and M. Moncharmln were thinking of nothing but their ghost. “Vain! In vain do I call, through my vigil ’ weary, ■ ■ On creation and-Its Lord! Never reply will break the silence dreary! No sign! Nosingleword!” The famous baritone, Carolus Fonta, had hardly finished Doctor Faust’s first appeal to the powers of darkness, when M. Firmin Richard, who was sitting in the ghost’s own chair, the front chair on the right, leaned over to his partner and asked him chaffingiy; "Well, has the ghost whispered a word in your ear yet?” “Walt, don’t be in such a hurry,” replied M. Armand Moncharmln, in the same gay tone. “The performance has only begun and you know that the ghost does not usually come until the middle of the first act.” The first act passed without incident, which did not surprise Carlotta’s friends, because Margarita does not sing in this act. As for the managers, they looked at each other, when the curtain fell. “That’s one!” said Moncharmln. “Yes, the ghost is late,” said Firmin Richard. “It’s not a bad house,” said Moncharmin, “for ’a house with a curse on it.’ ” M. Richard smiled and pointed to a fat, rather vulgar woman, dressed in black, sitting in a stall in the middle of the auditorium with a man in a broadcloth frock-coat on either side of her. “Who on earth are ’those?*" asked Moncharmln. “ ‘Those,’ my dear fellow, are my concierge, her husband and, her brother.” “Did you give them their tickets?” “I did. . . My concierge had never been to the opera—this is the first time —and, as she is now going to come every night, I wanted her to have a good seat, before spending her time showing other people to theirs." Moncharmln. asked what he meant and Richard answered that be had persuaded his concierge, in whom he had the greatest confidence, to come and take Marne Glry’s place. “By the way,” said Moncharmln, “you know that Mother Glry is going to lodge a complaint against you." “With whom? The ghost?” The ghost! Moncharmln had almost forgotten him. However, that mysterious person did nothing to bring himself to the memory of the managers ;and they were just saying so to each other for the second time, when the door of the box suddenly opened to admit the startled stagemanager. "What’s the matter?" they both asked, amazed at seeing him there at such a time.

“it seems there’s a plot got up by Christine Daae’s friends against Carlotta. Carlotta’s furious.” “What on earth . . .?” said Richard, knitting his brows. But the curtain rose on the kermess scene and Richard made a sign to the stage-manager to go away. When the two were alone again, Moncharmin leaned over to Richard: “Then Daae has friends?” he asked. “Yes, she has.” “Whom?” Richard glanced across at a box on the grand tier containing no one but two men. "The Comte de Chagny ?%. “Yes, he spoke to me in her favor with such warmth that, if I had not known him to be Sorelli’s friend . .'* “Really? Really?” said Moncharmln. "And who Is that pale young man beside him?” “That’s bls brother, the viscount" “He ought to be in his bed. He looks ill.” The stage rang with gay song: “Red or white liquor, Coarse or fine! What can It matter, So we have wine?" Students, citizens, soldiers, girls and matrons whirled light-heartedly

before the inn with the figure of Bacchus for a sign. Slebel made her entrance. Christine Daae looked charming in her boy’s clothes; and Carlotta’s partisans expected to hear her greeted with an ovation which would have enlightened them as to the intentions of her friends. But nothing happened. On the other hand, when Margarita crossed the stage and sang the only two lines allotted her in this second act: "No, my lord, not a lady am I, nor yet a beauty. And do not need an arm to help me on my way,”

Carlotta was received with enthusiastic applause. It was so unexpected and so uncalled for that those who knew nothing about the rumors looked at one another and asked what was happening. And this act also was finished without incident. Then everybody said: “Of course, It will be during the next act.” Some, who seemed to be better informed than the rest, declared that the “row” would begin with the ballad of the King of Thule and rushed to the subscribers’ entrance to warn Carlotta. The managers left the box during the entr’acte to find out more about the cabal of which the stage-manager had spoken; but they soon returned to their seats, shrugging their shoulders and treating the whole affair as silly. The first thing they saw, on entering the box, was a box of English sweets on the little shelf of the ledge. Who had put It there? They asked the box-keepers, but none of them knew. Then they went back to the shelf and next to the box of sweets, found an opera glass. They looked at each other. They had no inclination to laugh. All that Mme. Glry had told them returned to their memory . . and then ... and then . . they seemed to feel a curious sort or draft around them. . . .They sat down in silence. The scene represented Margarita's garden: . „ “Gentle flow’rs In the dew. Be message from me. . . As she 'sang these first Two lines, with her bunch of roses and lilacs in her hand, Christine, raising her head, saw the Vicomte de Chagny In his box; and, from that moment, her voice seemed less sure, less crystalclear than usual. Something seemed to deaden and dull her singing. . . "What a Queer girl she is!” said one of Carlotta's friends in the stalls, almost aloud. “The other day she was divine; and tonight she’s simply t? • *

bleating. She has no experience, no training.” _ “Gentle flow’n, lie ye there And tell her from me ...” , The viscount put bls head under his; hands and wept The count, behind : him, viciously gnawed his mustache, shrugged his shoulders and frowned.’ For him, usually so cold and correct,, to betray his inner feelings like that by outward signs, the count must be very angry. He was. He had seen, his brother return from a rapid andi mysterious journey in an alarming: state of health. The explanation that I followed was unsatisfactory and the| count asked Christine Daae for an ap-j pointment She had the audacity to; reply that she could not see either, him or his brother. . . . “Would she but deign to hear me And with one smile to cheer me." “The little baggage!” growled the count. And he wondered what she wanted. What she was hoping for. . . She was a virtuous girl, she was said to have no friend, no protector of any sort That angel from the north must be very artful! Raoul, behind the curtain of his

hands that veiled his boyish tears, thought only of the letter which he received on his return to Paris, where Christine, fleeing from Perros like a thief in the night, had arrived before him: “My Dear Little Playfellow: “You must have the courage not to see me again, not to speak of me again. If you love me just a little,-do £his for me, for me who will never forget you, my dear Raoul. My life depends upon it. Your life depends upon it. “YOUR LITTLE CHRISTINE." Thunders of applause. Carlotta made her entrance.

"I wish I could but know who was he That addressed me, - If he was noble, or at least, what his name is . .

When Margarita had finished singing the ballad of the King of Thule, she was loudly cheered and again when she came to the end of the jewel song: "Ah, the joy of past compare These jewels bright to wear!” Thenceforth, certain of herself, certain of her friends in the house, certain of her voice and her success, fearing nothing, Carlotta flung herself into her part without restraint of modesty, .. ? . She was no longer Margarita, she was Carmen. She was applauded all the more; and her debut with Faust seemed about to bring her a new success, when suddenly . . . a terrible thing happened. Faust had knelt on one knee:

“Let me gaze on the form below me. While from yonder ether blue Look how the star of eve, bright and tender, lingers o’er me. To love thy beauty too!” And Margarita replied:

“Oh, how strange t- • Like a spell does the evening bind me! And a deep languid charm I feel without alarm With its melody enwind me And all my heart subdue." At that moment, at that Identical moment, the terrible thing happened. . . . Carlotta croaked like a toad: ; “Co-ack!” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“I Saw. as Clearly as I Now See Yea, a Black Shadow Riding a White Horse."

Who Had Put It There?