Gaston Leroux Quotes

What tragedies, what passions, what crimes had surrounded the idyll of Raoul and his sweet and charming Christine! ... What had become of that wonderful, mysterious artist of whom the world was never, never to hear again? ...

Music has the power to make one forget everything save those sounds that touch your heart.

Everybody knows that orthopedic science provides beautiful false noses for people who have lost their noses naturally or as a result of an operation.

When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me forever.

When I opened my eyes, we were still surrounded by darkness. A lantern, standing on the ground, showed a bubbling well. The water splashing from the well disappeared, almost at once, under the floor on which I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the black cloak and the black mask. He was bathing my temples and his hands smelt of death. I tried to push them away and asked, 'Who are you? Where is the voice?' His only answer was a sigh. Suddenly, a hot breath passed over my face and I perceived a white shape, beside the man's black shape, in the darkness. The black shape lifted me on to the white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I murmured, 'Cesar!' The animal quivered. Raoul, I was lying half back on a saddle and I had recognized the white horse out of the PROFETA, which I had so often fed with sugar and sweets. I remembered that, one evening, there was a rumor in the theater that the horse had disappeared and that it had been stolen by the Opera ghost. I believed in the voice, but had never believed in the ghost. Now, however, I began to wonder, with a shiver, whether I was the ghost's prisoner. I called upon the voice to help me, for I should never have imagined that the voice and the ghost were one. You have heard about the Opera ghost, have you not, Raoul?"

"Yes, but tell me what happened when you were on the white horse of the Profeta?"

"I made no movement and let myself go. The black shape held me up, and I made no e

After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers, saying he would like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away my hand and gave a cry. What I had touched was cold and, at the same time, bony; and I remembered that his hands smelt of death. 'Oh, forgive me!' he moaned. And he opened a door before me. 'This is my bedroom, if you care to see it. It is rather curious.' His manners, his words, his attitude gave me confidence and I went in without hesitation. I felt as if I were entering the room of a dead person. The walls were all hung with black, but, instead of the white trimmings that usually set off that funereal upholstery, there was an enormous stave of music with the notes of the DIES IRAE, many times repeated. In the middle of the room was a canopy, from which hung curtains of red brocaded stuff, and, under the canopy, an open coffin. 'That is where I sleep,' said Erik. 'One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.' The sight upset me so much that I turned away my head"

- Chapter 12: Apollo's Lyre

None will ever be true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows ...

We recognize the touch of the Opera ghost.

I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears ... and she did not run away! ... and she did not die! ... She remained alive, weeping over me, weeping with me. We cried together! I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer.

Madame, you will have the goodness to tell me where that genius lives." The old lady did not seem surprised at this indiscreet command. She raised her eyes and said: "In Heaven!" Such simplicity baffled him.

Of a gentleman in dress-clothes, who had suddenly stood before them in the passage, without their knowing where he came from. He seemed to have come straight through

None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom, or indifference over his inward joy.

If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.

During the season, they saw each other and played together almost every day. At the aunt's request, seconded by Professor Valérius, Daaé consented to give the young viscount some violin lessons. In this way, Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's childhood. They also both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends; and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like beggars:
"Ma'am..." or, "Kind gentleman... have you a little story to tell us, please?"
And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.
But their great treat was, in the twilight, in the great silence of the evening, after the sun had set in the sea, when Daaé came and sat down by them on the roadside and in a low voice, as though fearing lest he should frighten the ghosts whom he loved, told them the legends of the land of the North. And, the moment he stopped, the children would ask for more.
There was one story that began:
"A king sat in a little boat on one of those deep still lakes that open like a bright eye in the midst of the Norwegian mountains..."
And another:
"Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She wheedled her mother, was kind to

But do you love me? If Erik were good-looking, would you love me, Christine?

Poor, unhappy Erik! Should we pity him? Should we curse him? He asked only to be someone like everyone else. But he was too ugly. . . Why did God make a man as ugly as that?

One after the other, there came a series of incidents so curious and so inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began to feel uneasy.

Erik: Are you very tired?
Christine: Oh, tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead.
Erik: Your soul is a beautiful thing, child. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept to-night.

He loved her so much that it almost took his breath away.

Come for a walk, dear. The air will do you good."
Raoul thought that she would propose a stroll in the country, far from that building which he detested as a prison whose jailer he could feel walking within the walls... the jailer Erik... But she took him to the stage and made him sit on the wooden curb of a well, in the doubtful peace and coolness of a first scene set for the evening's performance.
On another day, she wandered with him, hand in hand, along the deserted paths of a garden whose creepers had been cut out by a decorator's skillful hands. It was as though the real sky, the real flowers, the real earth were forbidden her for all time and she condemned to breathe no other air than that of the theatre. An occasional fireman passed, watching over their melancholy idyll from afar. And she would drag him up above the clouds, in the magnificent disorder of the grid, where she loved to make him giddy by running in front of him along the frail bridges, among the thousands of ropes fastened to the pulleys, the windlasses, the rollers, in the midst of a regular forest of yards and masts. If he hesitated, she said, with an adorable pout of her lips:
"You, a sailor!"
And then they returned to terra firma, that is to say, to some passage that led them to the little girls' dancing-school, where brats between six and ten were practicing their steps, in the hope of becoming great dancers one day, "covered with diamonds..." Meanwhile, Christine gave them sweets

Raoul," she said, "forget THE MAN'S VOICE and do not even remember its name ... You must never try to fathom the mystery of THE MAN'S VOICE.

You must know . . . that I'm made entirely of death, from head to foot, and that it's a corpse loves you, adores you, and will never leave you, never! I'm going to have the coffin enlarged, Christine, for later, when we've come to the end of our love.

There is a terrible mystery around us...a mystery much more to be feared than any number of ghosts or genii!

I am dying of love. That is how it is...I loved her so! And I love her still....and am dying of love for her. - I kissed her alive...and she looked as beautiful as if she had been dead. ~ Erik

But the real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had begun by singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet. It was the first time that the young artist sang in this work of Gounod, which had not been transferred to the Opera and which was revived at the Opera Comique after it had been produced at the old Theatre Lyrique by Mme. Carvalho. Those who heard her say that her voice, in these passages, was seraphic; but this was nothing to the superhuman notes that she gave forth in the prison scene and the final trio in FAUST, which she sang in the place of La Carlotta, who was ill. No one had ever heard or seen anything like it.

Daae revealed a new Margarita that night, a Margarita of a splendor, a radiance hitherto unsuspected. The whole house went mad, rising to its feet, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine sobbed and fainted in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be carried to her dressing-room.

- Chapter 2: The New Margarita, from The Phantom of the Opera

Everything that concerns you interests me greatly, as you will perhaps one day come to appreciate.

He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness! ... He confesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love ... He has carried me off for love! ... He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love! ... But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps! ... And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty ... he offered it ... he offered to show me the mysterious road ... Only ... only he rose too ... and I was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the voice ... for he sang. And I listened ... and stayed! ... That night, we did not exchange another word. He sang me to sleep.

For several months, there had been nothing discussed at the Opera but this ghost in dress-clothes who stalked about the building, from top to bottom,

Tonight she's still wearing the gold ring, and you're not the one who gave it to her. Tonight she gave her soul again, but not to you.

May one ask at least to what darkness you are returning? ... For what hell are you leaving, mysterious lady ... or for what paradise?

Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the ballet, who had come up from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte. They rushed in amid great confusion, some giving vent to forced and unnatural laughter, others to cries of terror. Sorelli, who wished to be alone for a moment to "run through" the speech which she was to make to the resigning managers, looked around angrily at the mad and tumultuous crowd. It was little Jammes - the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white neck and shoulders - who gave the explanation in a trembling voice:

"It's the ghost!" And she locked the door.

- Chapter 1: Is it the Ghost?

The man, still kneeling, must have understood the cause of my tears, for he said, 'It is true, Christine! ... I am not an Angel, nor a genius, nor a ghost ... I am Erik!

If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her."
He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark. Thrice over, he shouted:
"Humbug! ... Humbug! ... Humbug!

Who was big and strong, like you, M. Richard, gave two blows to M. Isidore Saack, who was small and weak like M. Moncharmin,

But you would have lots of fun with me. For instance, I am the the greatest ventriloquist that ever lived, I am the first ventriloquist in the world!

Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing?

Destiny has chained you to me forever!

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 of the
young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the
cloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and
blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom;
that is to say, of a spectral shade.

Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I asked leave to look at it and read, 'Don Juan Triumphant.' 'Yes,' he said, 'I compose sometimes.' I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.' 'You must work at it as seldom as you can,' I said. He replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a time.' 'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?' I asked, thinking to please him. 'You must never ask me that,' he said, in a gloomy voice. 'I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven.' Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano. He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.' He spoke these last words as though he were flinging an insult at me."

"What did you do?"

"I had no time to think about

He asked only to be 'someone,' like everybody else.

Look!You want to see? See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like? Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a good-looking fellow, eh? ... When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me.She loves me forever! I am a kind of Don Juan, you know! ... Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant!
-Erik in The Phantom of the Opera

He {Erik} filled Christine's mind through the terror with which he inspired her, but the dear child's heart belonged wholly to the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. While they played about like an innocent engaged couple on the upper floors of the opera, to avoid the monster, they little suspected that someone was watching over them.

His horrible, unique, and repulsive ugliness put him beyond the pale of humanity, and it had often been apparent to me that for this reason he no longer felt he had any obligations to the human race.

There is also something of the arrogant vain youth in him; [...] he loves nothing more than to reveal the truly prodigious ingenuity of his mind.

It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake. I had often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance. Watch him as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake. One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear. It was then that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.

I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music; it rose softly from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew not what artifice. It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that it did not alarm me. On the contrary, in my longing to approach the source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing came from the water itself. By this time, I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake; the voice - for it was now distinctly a voice - was beside me, on the water. I leaned over, leaned still farther.

THE OPERA GHOST REALLY EXISTED.

I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture chamber in my house... I want to have a nice quiet flat with ordinary doors and windows and a wife inside it, like anybody else!

They played at hearts as other children might play at ball; only, as it was really their two hearts that they flung to and fro, they had to be very, very handy to catch them, each time, without hurting them.

Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. - Christine, from Gaston Leroux's: The Phantom of the Opera.

In Paris, our lives are one masked ball.

Raoul, you shall not pass!

His manner, his words - everything about him told me to trust him.

Holy angel, in Heaven blessed,
My spirit longs with thee to rest

Richard at once declared that we must be content with that and drop the subject. I agreed with Richard. All's well that ends well. What say you, O.G?

You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!

Hullo… the wall is a looking-glass!

A ghost who, on the same evening, carries off an opera-singer and steals twenty-thousand francs is a ghost who must have his hands very full!

Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give
you my lips! Take them, for the first time and the last.

I am not really wicked. Love me, and you will see!

No, no, you have driven me mad! When I think
that I had only one object in life: to give my name to an opera wench!

Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.

When a man", continued Raoul,"adopts such romantic methods to entice a young girl's affections.."
"The man must be either a villain, or the girl a fool: is that it?

I fell back against the wall and he came up to me, grinding his teeth, and, as I fell upon my knees, he hissed mad, incoherent words and curses at me. Leaning over me, he cried, 'Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a very good-looking fellow, eh? … When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me for ever. I am a kind of Don Juan, you know!' And, drawing himself up to his full height, with his hand on his hip, wagging the hideous thing that was his head on his shoulders, he roared, 'Look at me! I AM DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!' And, when I turned away my head and begged for mercy, he drew it to him, brutally, twisting his dead fingers into my hair."

"Enough! Enough!" cried Raoul. "I will kill him. In Heaven's name, Christine, tell me where the dining-room on the lake is! I must kill him!"

"Oh, be quiet, Raoul, if you want to know!"

"Yes, I want to know how and why you went back; I must know! … But, in any case, I will kill him!"

"Oh, Raoul, listen, listen! … He dragged me by my hair and then … and then … Oh, it is too horrible!"

"Well, what? Out with it!" exclaimed Raoul fiercely. "Out with it, quick!"

"Then he hissed at me. 'Ah, I frighten you, do I? … I da

Then I made her understand that, where she was concerned, I was only a poor dog, ready to die for her. But that she could marry the young man she pleased because she had cried with me, and mingled her tears with mine. ~ Erik

I am an honest girl, M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and I don't lock myself up in my dressing-room with men's voices.

No, he is not a ghost; he is a man of Heaven and earth, that is all.

Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night.

They both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends, and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like beggars:
"Ma'am ... " or, "Kind gentleman ... have you a little story to tell us, please?"
And it seldom happened that they did not have one "given" them; for nearly every old Breton grandame has, at least once in her life, seen the "korrigans" dance by moonlight on the heather.

There is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it.

Possibly, I too shall take the train at that station one day, and go and seek around thy lakes, O Norway, O silent Scandinavia ... Possibly, someday, I shall hear the lonely echoes of the North repeat the singing of her who knew the Angel of Music ...

You want the secret off my succes; my recipe? I have always brought the same care to making an adventure novel, a serialized novel, that others would bring to the making of a poem. My ambition was to raise the level of this much maligned genre.

Mysterious though the ghost may at first appear, he will always be more easily explained than the dismal story in which malevolent people have tried to picture two brothers killing each other who had worshiped each other all their lives. Believe me, etc.

As long as you thought me handsome, you could have come back, I know you would have come back.

Sometimes, the Angel [of Music] leans over the cradle ... and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle at six better than men of fifty, which, you must admit is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practice their scales. And sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a wicked heart or a bad conscience.

All I wanted was to be loved for myself." (Erik)

He stared dully at the desolate, cold road and the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder or more dead than his heart. He had loved an angel and now he despised a woman.

Does he love you so much?" "He would commit murder for me.

The fresh complexion of former days was gone. A mortal pallor covered those features, which he had known so charming and so gentle, and sorrow had furrowed them into pitiless lines and traced dark and unspeakably sad shadows under her eyes.

Know that it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you! ... Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again! ... Oh, mad Christine, who wanted to see me!