The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains o...

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 prin...

On the first landing, Sorelli ran against 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...

During this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place. I have already said that this magnificent function was being given on the occasion of the retirement of M. Debienne and M. Poligny, who had de...

Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous Memoirs during the fairly long period of his co-management that we may well ask if he ever found time to attend to the affairs of the Opera otherwise than by te...

Christine Daaé, owing to intrigues to which I will return later, did not immediately continue her triumph at the Opera. After the famous gala night, she sang once at the Duchess de Zurich’s; but this ...

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 lob...

On the Saturday morning, on reaching their office, the joint managers found a letter from O. G. worded in these terms: My Dear Managers: So it is to be war between us? If you still care for peace, her...

That tragic evening was bad for everybody. Carlotta fell ill. As for Christine Daaé, she disappeared after the performance. A fortnight elapsed during which she was seen neither at the Opera nor outsi...

The envelope was covered with mud and unstamped. It bore the words “To be handed to M. le Vicomte Raoul de Chagny,” with the address in pencil. It must have been flung out in the hope that a passerby ...

The day after Christine had vanished before his eyes in a sort of dazzlement that still made him doubt the evidence of his senses, M. le Vicomte de Chagny called to inquire at Mamma Valérius’. He came...

The next day, he saw her at the Opera. She was still wearing the plain gold ring. She was gentle and kind to him. She talked to him of the plans which he was forming, of his future, of his career. He ...

In this way, they reached the roof. Christine tripped over it as lightly as a swallow. Their eyes swept the empty space between the three domes and the triangular pediment. She breathed freely over Pa...

Raoul and Christine ran, eager to escape from the roof and the blazing eyes that showed only in the dark; and they did not stop before they came to the eighth floor on the way down. There was no perfo...

Behind the curtain, there was an indescribable crowd. Artists, scene-shifters, dancers, supers, choristers, subscribers were all asking questions, shouting and hustling one another. “What became of he...

Raoul’s first thought, after Christine Daaé’s fantastic disappearance, was to accuse Erik. He no longer doubted the almost supernatural powers of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera in whi...

Before following the commissary into the manager’s office I must describe certain extraordinary occurrences that took place in that office which Rémy and Mercier had vainly tried to enter and into whi...

Moncharmin’s last phrase so clearly expressed the suspicion in which he now held his partner that it was bound to cause a stormy explanation, at the end of which it was agreed that Richard should yiel...

The first words of the commissary of police, on entering the managers’ office, were to ask after the missing prima donna. “Is Christine Daaé here?” “Christine Daaé here?” echoed Richard. “No. Why?” As...

Raoul now remembered that his brother had once shown him that mysterious person, of whom nothing was known except that he was a Persian and that he lived in a little old-fashioned flat in the Rue de R...

“Your hand high, ready to fire!” repeated Raoul’s companion quickly. The wall, behind them, having completed the circle which it described upon itself, closed again; and the two men stood motionless f...

It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake. I had often begged the “trapdoor lover,” as we used to call Erik in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I mad...

We were in the middle of a little six-cornered room, the sides of which were covered with mirrors from top to bottom. In the corners, we could clearly see the “joins” in the glasses, the segments inte...

The voice repeated angrily: “What have you done with my bag? So it was to take my bag that you asked me to release you!” We heard hurried steps, Christine running back to the Louis-Philippe room, as t...

I have said that the room in which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I were imprisoned was a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors. Plenty of these rooms have been seen since, mainly at exhibitions: ...

The discovery flung us into a state of alarm that made us forget all our past and present sufferings. We now knew all that the monster meant to convey when he said to Christine Daaé: “Yes or no! If yo...

The previous chapter marks the conclusion of the written narrative which the Persian left behind him. Notwithstanding the horrors of a situation which seemed definitely to abandon them to their deaths...

I have now told the singular, but veracious story of the Opera ghost. As I declared on the first page of this work, it is no longer possible to deny that Erik really lived. There are today so many pro...

I have the anecdote, which is quite authentic, from M. Pedro Gailhard himself, the late manager of the Opera. ↩ Flash notes drawn on the “Bank of St. Farce” in France correspond with those drawn on th...