V. SUITE DE «LA LOGE N° 5»

V

CONTINUATION OF "BOX No. 5"

Having spoken, Mr. Richard paid no further attention to the inspector and dealt with various matters with his manager, who had just entered. The inspector had thought he might take his leave, and very softly, very softly, oh! good Lord! so softly!... backing away, he had drawn near the door, when Mr. Richard, noticing the maneuver, nailed the man in his tracks with a thundering: "Don't move!"

By the care of Mr. Rémy, they had gone to fetch the usherette, who was a concierge on the rue de Provence, a few steps from the Opera. She soon made her entrance.

--What is your name?

--Mame Giry. You know me well, Mr. Director; I'm the mother of little Giry, little Meg, that is!

This was said in a rough and solemn tone that impressed Mr. Richard for a moment. He looked at Mame Giry (faded shawl, worn shoes, old taffeta dress, soot-colored hat). It was evident, from the director's attitude, that he did not know at all, or did not remember having known, Mame Giry, nor even little Giry, "nor even little Meg!" But Mame Giry's pride was such that this famous usherette (I believe it is from her name that the well-known word in stage-door slang was made: "giries." Example: an actress reproaches a colleague for her gossip, her tittle-tattle; she will say to her: "That's all giries"), that this usherette, let us say, imagined herself known to everyone.

--Don't know you! the director finally proclaimed... But, Mame Giry, nevertheless I would like to know what happened to you last night, that you and the inspector were forced to call upon a municipal guard...

--I just wanted to see you to speak to you of it, Mr. Director, so that the same troubles that befell Mr. Debienne and Poligny don't befall you... They, too, at first, would not listen to me...

--I'm not asking you all that. I'm asking you what happened to you last night!

Mame Giry turned red with indignation. No one had ever spoken to her in such a tone. She rose as if to leave, already gathering the folds of her skirt and dignifiedly shaking the feathers of her soot-colored hat; but, thinking better of it, she sat down again and said in a surly voice:

--What happened is that the phantom has been bothered again!

Thereupon, as Mr. Richard was about to explode, Mr. Moncharmin intervened and directed the questioning, from which it resulted that Mame Giry found it perfectly natural that a voice should be heard proclaiming that there was someone in a box where there was no one. She could not explain this phenomenon, which was not new to her, except by the intervention of the phantom. This phantom, no one saw him in the box, but everyone could hear him. She had heard him often, she had, and one could believe her, for she never lied. One could ask Mr. Debienne and Poligny and all who knew her, and also Mr. Isidore Saack, whose leg the phantom had broken!

--Indeed? interrupted Moncharmin. The phantom broke poor Isidore Saack's leg?

Mame Giry opened wide eyes in which was painted the astonishment she felt at such ignorance. At last, she consented to instruct these two unhappy innocents. The thing had happened in the time of Mr. Debienne and Poligny, always in box no. 5 and also during a performance of Faust.

Mame Giry coughs, clears her throat... she begins... one would say she is preparing to sing the entire score of Gounod.

--There, sir. There was, that evening, in the front row Mr. Maniera and his lady, the lapidaries of the rue Mogador, and, behind Mrs. Maniera, their intimate friend, Mr. Isidore Saack. Mephistopheles was singing (Mame Giry sings): "You who feign sleep," and then Mr. Maniera hears in his right ear (his wife was on his left) a voice that says to him: "Ah! ah! it is not Julie who feigns sleep!" (His lady's name is precisely Julie). Mr. Maniera turns to the right to see who was speaking to him thus. No one! He rubs his ear and says to himself: "Am I dreaming?" Thereupon, Mephistopheles continued his song... But perhaps I am boring the directors?

--No! no! continue...

--The directors are too kind!

(A grimace from Mame Giry.) So, Mephistopheles continued his song (Mame Giry sings): "Catherine whom I adore--why refuse--to the lover who implores you--so sweet a kiss?" and at once Mr. Maniera hears, always in his right ear, the voice that says to him: "Ah! ah! it is not Julie who would refuse a kiss to Isidore?" Thereupon, he turns, but this time, toward his lady and Isidore, and what does he see? Isidore who had taken from behind the hand of his lady and was covering it with kisses in the little hollow of the glove... like this, my good sirs. (Mame Giry covers with kisses the bit of flesh left bare by her lisle-thread glove.) Then, you can well think it did not pass gently! Smack! Slap! Mr. Maniera, who was tall and strong like you, Mr. Richard; dealt a pair of slaps to Mr. Isidore Saack, who was thin and weak like Mr. Moncharmin, saving the respect I owe him. It was a scandal. In the house, they cried: "Enough! Enough! He will kill him!..." At last, Mr. Isidore Saack managed to escape...

--The phantom had not then broken his leg? asks Mr. Moncharmin, a little vexed that his physique had made so small an impression on Mame Giry.

--He broke it, sir, replies Mame Giry with haughtiness (for she has understood the wounding intent). He broke it clean in the great staircase, which he was descending too quickly, sir! and so well, faith, that the poor man will not climb it again any time soon!...

--It was the phantom who told you the remarks he had slipped into Mr. Maniera's right ear? questions, always with a seriousness he believes to be of the highest comedy, the examining magistrate Moncharmin.

--No! sir, it was Mr. Maniera himself. So...

--But you, you have already spoken to the phantom, my good woman?

--As I speak to you, my good sir...

--And when he speaks to you, the phantom, what does he say to you?

--Well! he tells me to bring him a little stool!

At these words pronounced solemnly, Mame Giry's face became marble, yellow marble, veined with red streaks, like that of the columns supporting the grand staircase and which are called sarrancolin marble.

This time, Richard had started laughing in company with Moncharmin and the secretary Rémy; but instructed by experience, the inspector no longer laughed. Leaning against the wall, he asked himself, feverishly jingling his keys in his pocket, how this story would end. And the more Mame Giry took him on a "surly" tone, the more he feared the return of the director's anger! And now, behold, before the directorial hilarity, Mame Giry dared to become threatening! truly threatening!

--Instead of laughing at the phantom, she cried indignantly, you would do better to do as Mr. Poligny, who, he, realized for himself...

--Realized what? questions Moncharmin, who has never been so amused.

--The phantom!... Since I tell you... See!... (She suddenly calms, for she judges the hour grave.) See!... I remember it as if it were yesterday. This time, they were playing The Jewess. Mr. Poligny had wanted to attend, all alone, in the phantom's box, the performance. Mrs. Krauss had obtained a tremendous success. She had just sung, you know well, the second act piece (Mame Giry sings in a low voice):

Near him whom I love I wish to live and die, And death, itself, Cannot part us.

--Good! Good! I'm with you... observes with a discouraging smile Mr. Moncharmin.

But Mame Giry continues in a low voice, swaying the feather of her soot-colored hat:

Let us depart! let us depart! Here below, henceforth The same fate awaits us both.

--Yes! Yes! we're there? repeats Richard, again impatient... and then? and then?

--And then, it is at that moment that Leopold cries: "Let us flee!" is it not? and that Eleazar stops them, asking them: "Where are you running?" Well, exactly at that moment, Mr. Poligny, whom I was observing from the back of a neighboring box, which had remained empty, Mr. Poligny stood straight up, and left stiff as a statue, and I only had time to ask him, like Eleazar: "Where are you going?" But he did not answer me and he was paler than a dead man! I watched him descend the staircase, but he did not break his leg... Yet, he walked as in a dream, as in a bad dream, and he could not even find his way... he who was paid to know the Opera well!

Thus spoke Mame Giry, and she fell silent to judge the effect she had produced. The story of Poligny had made Moncharmin shake his head.

--All this does not tell me in what circumstances, nor how the phantom of the Opera asked you for a little stool? he insisted, looking fixedly at mother Giry, as they say, between "four-eyes."

--Well, but, it is since that evening... for, from that evening, they left our phantom in peace... they no longer tried to dispute his box with him. Mr. Debienne and Poligny gave orders that it be left to him at all performances. So, when he came, he would ask me for his little stool...

--Ahem! ahem! a phantom who asks for a little stool? Is it then a woman, your phantom? questioned Moncharmin.

--No, the phantom is a man.

--How do you know?

He has a man's voice, oh! a sweet man's voice! Here is how it passes: When he comes to the Opera, he arrives usually toward the middle of the first act, he knocks three little sharp taps at the door of box no. 5. The first time I heard those three taps, knowing very well there was still no one in the box, you can imagine if I was intrigued! I open the door, I listen, I look: no one! and then, lo and behold, I hear a voice that says to me: "Mame Jules" (that is the name of my late husband), a little "stool, please?" Saving your respect, Mr. Director, I was like a tomato... But the voice continued: "Do not be afraid, Mame Jules, it is I the phantom of the Opera!!!" I looked toward where the voice came from, which was, besides, so good, and so "welcoming," that it hardly frightened me anymore. The voice, Mr. Director, was seated on the first armchair of the first row, on the right. Saving that I saw no one on the armchair, one would have sworn there was someone on it, who spoke, and someone of good breeding, faith.

--The box to the right of box no. 5, asked Moncharmin, was it occupied?

--No; box no. 7 as box no. 3 on the left were not yet occupied. It was only the beginning of the show.

--And what did you do?

--Well, I brought the little stool. Evidently, it was not for himself he asked a little stool, it was for his lady! But her, I have never heard nor seen...

Eh? What? the phantom had a woman now! From Mame Giry, the double gaze of Mr. Moncharmin and Richard rose to the inspector, who, behind the usherette, waved his arms with the design of attracting his chiefs' attention upon himself. He struck his forehead with a despairing index finger to make the directors understand that mother Jules was surely mad, pantomime which definitively engaged Mr. Richard to part with an inspector who kept a hallucinated woman in his service. The good woman continued, all to her phantom, now vaunting his generosity.

--At the end of the show, he always gives me a forty-sou piece, sometimes a hundred sous, sometimes even ten francs, when he has not come for several days. Only, since they began again to bother him, he gives me nothing at all anymore...

--Pardon, my good woman... (New revolt of the soot-colored hat feather, before so persistent a familiarity) pardon!... But how does the phantom manage to hand you your forty sous? questions Moncharmin, naturally curious.

--Bah! he leaves them on the box ledge. I find them there with the program that I always bring him; some evenings I even find flowers in my box, a rose that will have fallen from his lady's bodice... for, sure, he must sometimes come with a lady, for one day, they forgot a fan.

--Ah! ah! the phantom forgot a fan? And what did you do with it?

--Well! I brought it back to him the next time.

Here, the inspector's voice made itself heard:

--You did not observe the regulation, Mame Giry, I fine you.

--Be silent, imbecile! (Bass voice of Mr. Firmin Richard.)

--You brought back the fan! And then?

--And then, they took it away again, Mr. Director; I no longer found it at the end of the show, proof that they left in its place a box of English candies that I so love, Mr. Director. It is one of the phantom's kindnesses...

--That will do, Mame Giry... You may withdraw.

When Mame Giry had respectfully bowed, not without a certain dignity that never abandoned her, to her two directors, these declared to the inspector that they were decided to deprive themselves of the services of that old madwoman. And they dismissed the inspector.

When the inspector had withdrawn in his turn, after having protested his devotion to the house, the directors warned the manager that he should have the inspector's account settled. When they were alone, the directors communicated to each other the same thought, which had come to both at once, that of going to take a little turn toward box no. 5.

We shall soon follow them there.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”