IV. LA LOGE N°5

IV

BOX NO. 5

Armand Moncharmin wrote such voluminous memoirs that, regarding in particular the rather long period of his co-directorship, one is entitled to wonder whether he ever found the time to concern himself with the Opera otherwise than by recounting what went on there. Mr. Moncharmin did not know a single note of music, but he was on familiar terms with the Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, had done a little journalism on the boulevard, and enjoyed a fairly substantial fortune. In short, he was a charming fellow and not lacking in intelligence, since, having decided to back the Opera, he had known how to choose the man who would be its useful director and had gone straight to Firmin Richard.

Firmin Richard was a distinguished musician and a man of honor. Here is the portrait drawn of him at the moment of his taking office by the *Revue des théâtres*: "Mr. Firmin Richard is about fifty years of age, of tall stature, robust neck, without corpulence. He has presence and distinction, high-colored, hair growing thick, rather low and cut brush-like, beard to match the hair, the aspect of his countenance has something rather sad which is at once softened by a frank and direct gaze joined to a charming smile.

"Mr. Firmin Richard is a very distinguished musician. A skillful harmonist, a learned contrapuntist, grandeur is the principal character of his composition. He has published chamber music much appreciated by amateurs, music for piano, sonatas or fleeting pieces full of originality, a collection of songs. Finally, *The Death of Hercules*, performed at the Conservatoire concerts, breathes an epic spirit that calls to mind Gluck, one of the venerated masters of Mr. Firmin Richard. However, if he adores Gluck, he is no less fond of Piccini; Mr. Richard takes his pleasure where he finds it. Full of admiration for Piccini, he bows before Meyerbeer, delights in Cimarosa, and no one appreciates better than he the inimitable genius of Weber. Finally, regarding Wagner. Mr. Richard is not far from claiming that he, Richard, is the first in France and perhaps the only one to have understood him."

I stop my quotation here, from which it seems to me to result clearly enough that if Mr. Firmin Richard loved almost all music and all musicians, it was the duty of all musicians to love Mr. Firmin Richard. Let us say in concluding this rapid portrait that Mr. Richard was what is agreed to be called an authoritarian, that is to say, he had a very bad temper.

The first days the two associates spent at the Opera were given over entirely to the joy of feeling themselves masters of so vast and beautiful an enterprise, and they had certainly forgotten that curious and bizarre story of the phantom, when an incident occurred which proved to them that—if there was a jest—the jest was not yet ended.

Mr. Firmin Richard arrived that morning at eleven o'clock at his office. His secretary, Mr. Rémy, showed him half a dozen letters which he had not opened because they bore the marking "personal." One of these letters at once attracted Richard's attention, not only because the address on the envelope was in red ink, but also because it seemed to him he had already seen that handwriting somewhere. He did not search long: it was the red handwriting with which the specifications had been so strangely completed. He recognized its stick-like and childish manner. He opened it and read:

"My dear director, I beg your pardon for coming to trouble you in these so precious moments when you decide the fate of the best artists of the Opera, when you renew important engagements and conclude new ones; and that with a sureness of vision, an understanding of the theater, a knowledge of the public and its tastes, an authority which has all but stupefied my old experience. I am aware of what you have just done for Carlotta, Sorelli and little Jammes, and for some others whose admirable qualities, talent or genius you have divined.—(You know well of whom I speak when I write those words; it is evidently not for Carlotta, who sings like a syringe and who should never have left the Ambassadeurs or the café Jacquin; nor for Sorelli, who has success chiefly in her carriage; nor for little Jammes, who dances like a calf in the meadow. It is not either for Christine Daaé, whose genius is certain, but whom you jealously keep apart from any important creation.)—In short, you are free to administer your little business as you see fit, are you not? Still, I should like to take advantage of the fact that you have not yet thrown Christine Daaé out the door, to hear her this evening in the role of Siebel, since that of Marguerite, after her triumph the other day, is forbidden her, and I beg you to dispose neither today nor on following days of my box; for I shall not end this letter without confessing to you how unpleasantly surprised I was, of late, upon arriving at the Opera, to learn that my box had been let—at the box office—on your orders.

I did not protest, first because I am the enemy of scandal, next because I imagined that your predecessors, Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, who have always been charming to me, had neglected before their departure to speak to you of my little fancies. Now, I have just received the reply of Messrs. Debienne and Poligny to my request for explanation, a reply which proves to me that you are aware of my specifications and consequently that you are outrageously making fun of me. If you wish us to live in peace, you must not begin by taking my box from me! Under benefit of these small observations, please consider me, my dear director, your very humble and very obedient servant.

Signed: F. of the Opera."

This letter was accompanied by an extract from the small correspondence of the *Revue théâtrale*, where one read this: "F. of the O: R and M are inexcusable. We warned them and left your specifications in their hands. Greetings!"

Mr. Firmin Richard had scarcely finished this reading when the door of his study opened and Mr. Armand Moncharmin came toward him, a letter in hand, absolutely similar to the one his colleague had received. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"The joke continues," said Mr. Richard; "but it is not funny!"

"What does that mean?" asked Mr. Moncharmin. "Do they think that because they were directors of the Opera we are going to grant them a box in perpetuity?"

For the first as for the second, there was no doubt that the double missive was the facetious fruit of their predecessors' collaboration.

"I am not of a humor to be hoodwinked for long!" declared Firmin Richard.

"It is harmless!" observed Armand Moncharmin.

"After all, what do they want? A box for this evening?"

Mr. Firmin Richard gave orders to his secretary to send the first box no. 5 to Messrs. Debienne and Poligny, if it was not let.

It was not. It was sent to them at once. Messrs. Debienne and Poligny lived: the first, at the corner of the rue Scribe and the boulevard des Capucines; the second, rue Auber. The two letters of the phantom F. of the Opera had been posted at the post office on the boulevard des Capucines. It was Moncharmin who noticed it in examining the envelopes.

"You see!" said Richard.

They shrugged their shoulders and regretted that people of that age still amused themselves with such innocent games.

"Still, they might have been polite!" Moncharmin pointed out. "Did you see how they treat us regarding Carlotta, Sorelli and little Jammes?"

"Well, my dear, those people are sick with jealousy!... When I think they went so far as to pay for a little correspondence in the *Revue théâtrale*!... Have they nothing else to do?"

"By the way!" said Moncharmin again, "they seem much interested in little Christine Daaé..."

"You know as well as I that she has the reputation of being virtuous!" answered Richard.

"One so often steals that reputation," replied Moncharmin. "Do I not myself have the reputation of knowing music, and I do not know the difference between the G clef and the F clef."

"You never had that reputation," declared Richard, "rest assured."

Thereupon Firmin Richard gave orders to the usher to show in the artists who, for two hours, had been walking in the great administrative corridor waiting for the director's door to open, that door behind which awaited them glory and money... or dismissal.

The whole day was spent in discussions, negotiations, signatures or breaches of contract; so I beg you to believe that that evening—the evening of the 25th of January—our two directors, tired by a harsh day of angers, intrigues, recommendations, threats, protests of love or hate, went to bed early, without even the curiosity to go cast a glance into box number 5, to see whether Messrs. Debienne and Poligny found the spectacle to their taste. The Opera had not been idle since the departure of the old management, and Mr. Richard had had the few necessary works carried out, without interrupting the run of performances.

The next morning, Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin found in their mail, on the one hand, a card of thanks from the phantom, worded thus:

"My dear Director.

"Thank you. Charming evening. Daaé exquisite. Look after the chorus. Carlotta, magnificent and banal instrument. Shall write to you soon about the 240,000 francs,—exactly 233,424 fr. 70; Messrs. Debienne and Poligny having sent me the 6,575 fr. 30, representing the first ten days of my pension this year,—their privileges ending the 10th in the evening.

"Servant.

"F. of the O."

On the other hand, a letter from Messrs. Debienne and Poligny:

"Gentlemen,

"We thank you for your kind attention, but you will easily understand that the prospect of hearing *Faust* again, sweet as it may be to former directors of the Opera, cannot make us forget that we have no right whatever to occupy the first box no. 5, which belongs exclusively to him of whom we had the occasion to speak to you, on rereading with you, for the last time, the specifications,—last paragraph of article 63.

"Please accept, gentlemen, etc."

"Ah! but they are beginning to annoy me, those people!" declared Firmin Richard violently, tearing up the letter from Messrs. Debienne and Poligny.

That evening, the first box no. 5 was let.

The next day, upon arriving at their study, Messrs. Richard and Moncharmin found an inspector's report relating to the events which had unfolded the previous evening in the first box no. 5. Here is the essential passage of the report, which is brief:

"I was obliged," writes the inspector, "to require, this evening—the inspector had written his report the previous evening—a municipal guard to evacuate, twice, at the beginning and in the middle of the second act, the first box no. 5. The occupants—they had arrived at the beginning of the second act—caused a veritable scandal there by their laughter and their absurd remarks. From all sides around them, shh! was heard and the house began to protest when the box-keeper came to me; I entered the box and made the necessary observations. These people did not appear to enjoy all their good sense and held stupid discourse with me. I warned them that if such a scandal were repeated I would be forced to have the box evacuated. Scarcely had I left when I again heard their laughter and the protests of the house. I returned with a municipal guard who made them leave. They objected, still laughing, declaring they would not go if their money was not returned. At last they calmed down, and I let them re-enter the box; at once the laughter recommenced, and, this time, I had them expelled definitively."

"Send for the inspector," cried Richard to his secretary, who had read first this report and had already annotated it in blue pencil.

The secretary, Mr. Rémy—twenty-four years old, fine mustache, elegant, distinguished, great bearing—in those days morning coat obligatory during the day, intelligent and timid before the director, 2,400 in salary per year, paid by the director, combs through the newspapers, answers letters, distributes boxes and complimentary tickets, arranges appointments, chats with those who wait in the anteroom, runs to sick artists, seeks understudies, corresponds with department heads, but above all is the bolt of the director's study, perhaps without any compensation thrown out the door from one day to the next, for he is not recognized by the administration—the secretary, who had already sent for the inspector, gave the order to show him in.

The inspector entered, a little uneasy.

"Tell us what happened," said Richard abruptly.

The inspector stammered at once and referred to the report.

"Come now! those people, why were they laughing?" asked Moncharmin.

"Mr. Director, they must have dined well and seemed more prepared to play pranks than to listen to good music. Already, on arriving, no sooner had they entered the box than they came out again and called the box-keeper, who asked them what was the matter. They said to the box-keeper: 'Look in the box, there is no one there, is there?...'—'No,' answered the box-keeper.—'Well,' they affirmed, 'when we came in we heard a voice which said that there was someone.'"

Mr. Moncharmin could not look at Mr. Richard without smiling, but Mr. Richard, he, was not smiling. He had formerly "worked" too much in that genre not to recognize in the tale that the inspector, most naively in the world, was telling him, all the marks of one of those nasty jokes which amuse first those who are their victims and then end by enraging them.

Mr. the inspector, to curry favor with Mr. Moncharmin, who was smiling, had thought fit to smile, he too. Unhappy smile! Mr. Richard's gaze struck the employee like lightning, who at once occupied himself with showing a frightfully downcast face.

"In short, when those people arrived," growled the terrible Richard, "there was no one in the box?"

"No one, Mr. Director! no one! Neither in the box on the right, nor in the box on the left, no one, I swear it to you! I would put my hand in the fire! and that is what proves well that all this is but a joke."

"And the box-keeper, what did she say?"

"Oh! as for the box-keeper, it is quite simple, she says it is the phantom of the Opera. There now!"

And the inspector sniggered. But again he understood he had been wrong to snigger, for he had scarcely pronounced these words: she says it is the phantom of the Opera! when the countenance of Mr. Richard, from gloomy that it was, became fierce.

"Go fetch me the box-keeper!" he commanded... "At once! And bring her back to me! And throw all those people out the door!"

The inspector would have protested, but Richard shut his mouth with a dreadful: "Be silent!" Then, when the lips of the unhappy subordinate seemed closed forever, Mr. the director ordered them to open again anew.

"What is the 'phantom of the Opera'?" he decided to ask with a grunt.

But the inspector was now incapable of saying a word. He made heard by a desperate mime that he knew nothing of it, or rather that he wished to know nothing of it.

"Have you seen him, you, the phantom of the Opera?"

By an energetic shake of the head, the inspector denied ever having seen him.

"Too bad!" declared Mr. Richard coldly.

The inspector opened enormous eyes, eyes starting from their sockets, to ask why Mr. the director had pronounced that sinister: too bad!

"Because I am going to settle the account of all those who have not seen him!" explained Mr. the director. "Since he is everywhere, it is not admissible that he be perceived nowhere. I like people to do their duty, I do!"

“Stories of the world, in your language.”