Призрак оперы / The Phantom of the Opera

“Yes, he was found hanging in the third-floor cellar!”

“It’s the ghost!” little Meg blurted; but she at once corrected herself, with her hands pressed to her mouth:

“No, no! I didn’t say it! I didn’t say it!”

All around her repeated:

“Yes—it must be the ghost!”

Sorelli was very pale.

The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death. The verdict was “natural suicide.”

The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet was very popular.

The dressing-rooms emptied and the ballet-girls were crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess.

Chapter II

On the first landing[21 - landing – площадка], Sorelli met 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 hat. “Oh, Sorelli, what an evening! And Christine Daae: what a triumph!”

“Impossible!” said Meg.

“Six months ago, she used to sing awfully! But, my dear count, we are going to inquire after a poor man who was found hanging by the neck.”

They all went on to the foyer of the ballet[22 - the foyer of the ballet – танцевальное фойе], which was already full of people. The Comte de Chagny was right. The real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had begun by singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet.

No one had ever heard or seen anything like it.

Everybody went mad, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine sobbed and fainted in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be carried to her dressing-room.

The Comte de Chagny was loudly applauding. Philippe de Chagny was just forty-one years old. He was a great aristocrat and a good-looking man, with attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold eyes. He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society.

On the death of old Count Philibert[23 - Count Philibert – граф Филибер], he became the head of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in France.

The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and, when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for Philippe to accept the management of so large an estate.