D uring this time, the farewell ceremony was taking place. I have already said that this magnificent performance was being given on the occasion of the retirement of Mr. Debienne and Mr. Poligny. Everybody at the gathering remarked that the retiring managers looked cheerful in the Parisian way. For, in Paris, our lives are a masked ball; and the lobby of the ballet is the last place in which two men so “knowing”as Mr. Debienne and Mr. Poligny would avoid making the mistake of betraying their grief, however genuine it might be. And they were already smiling rather too broadly upon Sorelli, who had begun to recite her speech, when an exclamation from little Jammes broke the smile of the managers so brutally that the expression of distress and dismay that lay beneath it became apparent to all eyes.

“The Opera ghost!” Jammes yelled these words in a tone of unspeakable terror; and her finger pointed, among the crowd,to a face so white, so gloomy and so ugly, with two such deep black cavities under the eyebrows.

“The Opera ghost! The Opera ghost!” Everyone shouted and pushed his neighbor, wanting to see the Opera ghost, but he was gone. He had slipped through the crowd; and the others vainly hunted for him, while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes.

Sorelli was furious ; she had not been able to finish her speech; the managers had kissed her, thanked her and run away as fast as the ghost himself. No one was surprised at this, for it was known that they were to go through the same ceremony on the floor above, in the lobby of the singers, and that finally they were to receive their personal friends, for the last time, in the great lobby outside the managers' office, where a regular supper would be served.

Here they found the new managers, Mr. Armand Moncharmin and Mr. Firmin Richard, whom they hardly knew. The retiring managers had already handed over to their successors the two tiny master-keys which opened all the thousands of doors of the Opera house. And those little keys, the object of general curiosity, were being passed from hand to hand, when the attention of some of the guests was diverted by their discovery,at the end of the table, of that strange and fantastic face, with the hollow eyes, which had already appeared in the lobby of the ballet and been greeted by little Jammes' exclamation.

There sat the ghost, as natural as could be, except that he neither ate nor drank. Those who began by looking at him with a smile ended by turning away their heads, for the sight of him at once provoked the most funereal thoughts.

He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not have stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them. The friends of Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin thought that this lean and skinny guest was an acquaintance of Debienne's or Poligny's, while Debienne's and Poligny's friends believed that the individual belonged to Firmin Richard's and Armand Moncharmin's party.

The result was that no request was made for an explanation;no unpleasant remark; no joke in bad taste, which might have offended this visitor from the tomb.

What happened was this: Mr. Debienne and Mr. Poligny,sitting at the center of the table, had not seen the man with the death's head. Suddenly he began to speak. “The death of that poor Buquet is perhaps not so natural as people think.”

Debienne and Poligny gave a start . “Is Buquet dead?” they cried.

“Yes,” replied the man, quietly. “He was found, this evening, hanging in the third cellar.”

The two managers, or rather former managers, at once rose and stared strangely at the speaker. Then Debienne made a sign to Mr. Richard and Mr. Moncharmin; Poligny muttered a few words of excuse to the guests; and all four went into the managers' office. I leave Mr. Moncharmin to complete the story.In his Memoirs, he says:

“Debienne and Poligny seemed to grow more and more excited, and they appeared to have something very difficult to tell us. First, they asked us if we knew the man, sitting at the end of the table, who had told them of the death of Joseph Buquet; and, when we answered in the negative , they looked more concerned. They then informed us that he was the ghost of the house. We began to laugh, feeling sure that they were indulging in some joke that was intended to crown our little entertainment. Then, at their request, we became ‘serious',resolving to humor them and to enter into the spirit of the game .They told us that they never would have spoken to us of the ghost, if they had not received formal orders from the ghost himself to ask us to be pleasant to him and to grant any request that he might make. The announcement of the death of Joseph Buquet had served them as a brutal reminder—whenever they had disregarded the ghost's wishes, some fantastic or disastrous event had brought them to a sense of their dependence.

“Richard asked half-seriously and half- jokingly , ‘But, after all, what does this ghost of yours want?’

“ M. Poligny went to his desk and returned with a copy of the house contract. The copy produced by Mr. Poligny was written in black ink and exactly similar to that in our possession, except that, at the end, it contained a paragraph in red ink and in a queer,labored handwriting, as though it had been produced by dipping the heads of matches into the ink, the writing of a child that has never got beyond the down - strokes and has not learned to join its letters. This paragraph ran, word for word, as follows:

The manager shall not, in any month, delay for more than a fortnight the payment of the allowance which he shall make to the Opera ghost, an allowance of twenty thousand francs a month.

“M. Poligny pointed with a hesitating finger to this last clause, which we certainly did not expect.

“‘Is this all? Does he not want anything else?’ asked Richard,with the greatest coolness.

“‘Yes, he does,’ replied Poligny.

“And he turned over the pages of the contract until he came to the clause specifying the days on which certain private boxes were to be reserved for the use of the president of the republic, the ministers and so on. At the end of this clause, a line had been added, also in red ink:

Box Five shall be placed at the disposal of the Opera ghost for every performance.

“Richard said with a laugh that he now understood why Debienne and Poligny were retiring from the management of the Opera. Business was impossible with so unreasonable a ghost. ‘It seems to me that you were much too kind to the ghost.If I had such a troublesome ghost as that, I should not hesitate to have him arrested.’

“‘Well, gentlemen, try it.’ Poligny replied.

“Then we all four left the office. Richard and I had never laughed so much in our lives.”

on the occasionof 在……时候

brutally /ˈbru:təlɪ/ adv. 野蛮地，无情地

cavity /ˈkævətɪ/ n. 腔，洞

furious /ˈfjʊərɪəs/ adj. 发怒的，程度比angry重

go through a ceremony 参加（礼节性且不必要的）仪式

divert /daɪˈvɜ:t/ vi. 移开，转移

funereal /fju:ˈnɪərɪəl/ adj. 适于葬礼的，阴郁的，凄凉的

lean and skinny 指人体形瘦长，瘦得皮包骨

acquaintance /əˈkweɪntəns/ n. 相识而非密友者，泛泛之交

give a start 指震惊地一叫，甚至一颤，start表示（因震惊）猛地一颤、一跳等

mutter /ˈmʌtə/ vt. 低声，咕哝

answer in the negative 给出否定答复

enter into the spirit of the game （指人）全身心投入到游戏角色中，入戏

disregard /ˌdɪsrɪˈɡɑ:d/ vt. 不理会（警告、反对意见等），忽视

jokingly /ˈdʒəʊkɪŋlɪ/ adv. 开玩笑地，戏谑地

M. 先生，法语Monsieur的缩写

down-strokes 书写中的下划笔画，如“f”，“p”，“j”等

fortnight /ˈfɔ:tnaɪt/ n. 两星期时间，两周

allowance /əˈlaʊəns/ n. 津贴，补助

specify /ˈspesɪfaɪ/ vt. 明确规定（细节、材料等），确切说明

at the disposal of sb. 由某人自行支配、随意处理 D5BWhr7n/SWH9ZgjZBvxOaro1Ux0nctId3Tj3FLA9J6SgHMNomXoidiIXyP7CrqE