I t was the evening when Mr. Debienne and Mr.Poligny, the managers of the Opera, were giving a last performance to mark their retirement. Suddenly the dressing room of Ms. Sorelli, one of the principal dancers,was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the ballet. 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 retired managers, looked around angrily at the mad and noisy crowd. It was little Jammes who gave the explanation in a trembling voice, “It's the ghost!” And she locked the door.

Sorelli was very superstitious . She shuddered when hearing little Jammes speak of the ghost, called the girl a “silly little fool” and then, as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general , and the Opera ghost in particular , at once asked for details.

According to the girls, the ghost had appeared to them in the shape 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 the wall. “Ha!” said one of them, who had more or less kept her head . “You see, the ghost everywhere!”

And it was true. 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, like a shadow,who spoke to no one, to whom no one dared speak and who vanished as soon as he was seen, no one knowing how or where.

Joseph Buquet, the chief scene-changer, claimed to have run up against the ghost on the little staircase, which leads to “the cellars”. And to anyone who cared to listen to him he described the ghost as follows, “He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame. His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils. You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man's skull. His skin, which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead , is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little worth talking about that you can't see it side-face; and the absence of that nose is a horrible thing to look at.”

His words were received with interest and amazement;and soon there were other people to say that they too had met a man in dress-clothes with a death's head on his shoulders.Sensible men who had wind of the story began by saying that Joseph Buquet had been the victim of a joke played by one of his assistants. And then, one after the other, there came a series of incidents so curious and so inexplicable that the very shrewdest people began to feel uneasy.

For instance, a fireman who had gone to make a round of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the stage, pale,scared, trembling, with his eyes starting out of his head, and practically fainted in the arms of the mother of little Jammes.And why? Because he had seen coming toward him, a head of fire!

The Corps de Ballet was flung into alarm. At first sight,this fiery head in no way corresponded with Joseph Buquet's description of the ghost. But the young ladies soon persuaded themselves that the ghost had several heads, which he changed about as he pleased. And, of course, they at once imagined that they were in the greatest danger.

Now, to return to the evening in question...

“It's the ghost!” little Jammes had cried. An agonizing silence now reigned in the dressing room. Nothing was heard but the hard breathing of the girls. At last, Jammes, flinging herself upon the farthest corner of the wall, with every mark of real terror on her face, whispered, “Listen!”

Everybody seemed to hear a rustling outside the door.There was no sound of footsteps. It was like light silk sliding over the panel. Then it stopped.

Sorelli went up to the door and, in a shaking voice, asked,“Who's there?” But nobody answered. Then feeling all eyes upon her, watching her last movement, she made an effort to show courage, and said very loudly, “Is there any one behind the door?”

Armed with a knife that never left her, Sorelli turned the key and opened the door slowly, while the ballet-girls retreated to the inner dressing room. Sorelli looked into the passage bravely. It was empty. And the dancer slammed the door again,with a deep sigh.

“No,” she said, “there is no one there. Come, children, pull yourselves together ! I dare say no one has ever seen the ghost.”“Yes, yes, we saw him—we saw him just now!” cried the girls.“He had his death's head and his dress-coat, just as when he appeared to Joseph Buquet!”

A silence followed, which was soon broken by little Giry,who said, “Joseph Buquet would do better to hold his tongue .Mother says the ghost doesn't like being talked about.”

“And why does your mother say so?”

“I swore not to tell!” gasped Meg.

But they left her no peace and promised to keep the secret, until Meg, deciding to say all she knew, began, with her eyes fixed on the door:

“Well, it's because of the ghost's private box .”

“Has the ghost a box? Oh, do tell us, do tell us!”

“Not so loud!” said Meg. “It's Box Five, you know, next to the stage-box, on the left. Mother has charge of it. No one has had it for over a month, except the ghost, and orders have been given at the box-office that it must never be sold.”

The ballet-girls exchanged glances.

“But no one's ever seen him in that box, Giry, ” said one of them.

“That's just it! The ghost is not seen. And he has no dress coat and no head! All that talk about his death's head and his head of fire is nonsense ! There's nothing in it. You only hear him when he is in the box. Mother has never seen him, but she has heard him. Mother knows, because she gives him a contract.”

Then little Giry began to cry. “I ought to have held my tongue. If mother ever came to know...! But I was quite right,Joseph Buquet had no business talking of things that don't concern him. It will bring him bad luck. Mother was saying so last night...”

There was a sound of hurried and heavy footsteps in the passage and a breathless voice cried, “Cecile! Cecile! Are you there?”

“It's mother's voice,” said Jammes. “What's the matter?”

She opened the door. A respectable lady burst into the dressing room and dropped into a vacant armchair , groaning . “How awful!” she said. “How awful!”

“What? What?”

“Joseph Buquet is dead!”

The room became filled with exclamations, with astonished cries, with scared requests for explanations.

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

Sorelli went pale. “I shall never be able to recite my speech,” she said.

Mrs. Jammes gave her opinion, while she emptied a glass of whiskey that happened to be standing on a table; the ghost must have something to do with it.

The truth is that no one ever knew how Joseph Buquet met his death. The verdict at the investigation was “natural suicide”. In his Memoirs of a Manager, Mr. Moncharmin, one of the joint managers who succeeded Mr. Debienne and Mr. Poligny,describes the incident as follows:

“A grievous accident spoiled the little party which Mr. Debienne and Mr. Poligny gave to celebrate their retirement.I was in the manager's office, when Mercier, the acting-manager,suddenly came darting in. He seemed half mad and told me that the body of a scene-changer had been found hanging in the third cellar. I shouted: ‘Cut him down!’

“A short while later, Mercier returned, exclaiming, ‘By the time I had rushed down the staircase with Jacob's ladder, the man was no longer hanging from his rope!’

“A pretty strange suicide, if you ask me. I imagine that somebody must have been interested in seeing that the rope disappeared after it had effected its purpose; and time will show if I am wrong.”

The horrid news soon spread all over the Opera, where Joseph Buquet was very popular. The dressing rooms emptied and the ballet-girls, crowding around Sorelli like timid sheep around their shepherdess , made for the lobby through the ill-lit passages and staircases, walking as fast as their little pink legs could carry them.

amid confusion 慌慌张张地；在慌乱中

give vent to 发泄，宣泄（情感）；（尤指突然地或作为回应）发出（声音）

run through 浏览

superstitious /ˌsju:pəˈstɪʃəs/ adj. 迷信的

in general 总体来说，大体上

in particular 尤其，特别

keep one's head 保持镇定，保持清醒

stalk /stɔ:k/ vi. （邪恶势力、疾病等）可怕地蔓延

run up against 遇到，碰到（困难、问题等，多为不好的事物）

drumhead /ˈdrʌmhed/ n. 鼓面

have wind of 听到秘密消息，风吹草动

shrewd /ʃru:d/ adj. 敏锐的；精明的

make a round of inspection 例行检查

fiery /ˈfaɪərɪ/ adj. 冒火的；火一般的

correspond with 与……一致，与……相符

agonizing /ˈæɡənaɪzɪŋ/ adj. 令人苦恼的，令人痛苦的

reign /reɪn/ vi. 盛行；支配。此处用来形容屋中的绝对寂静

rustling /ˈrʌslɪŋ/ n. 沙沙声

pull oneself together 振作起来

hold one's tongue 保持沉默，不开口

gasp /ɡɑ:sp/ vt. 气喘吁吁地说

leave sb. no peace 缠着某人（问、看）

box /bɒks/ n. 包厢

exchange /ɪksˈtʃeɪndʒ/ vt. 交换

exchange glances 互换眼色

nonsense /ˈnɒnsəns/ n. 胡说，废话

vacant /ˈveɪkənt/ adj. 空缺的，未占着的

groan /ɡrəʊn/ vi. 呻吟，叹息

groan inwardly 暗中叫苦

whiskey /ˈhwɪskɪ/ n. 威士忌

verdict /ˈvɜ:dɪkt/ n. 裁断，裁决，结论

memoir /ˈmemwɑ:/ n. 法语，意为“回忆录”

grievous / ˈ ɡr i : v ə s / adj. （指坏事）严重的，剧烈的

spoil /spɔɪl/ vt. 毁掉，糟蹋

dart /dɑ:t/ vi. 猛冲，突进

horrid /ˈhɒrɪd/ adj. 可怕的，恐怖的

timid /ˈtɪmɪd/ adj. 胆怯的，羞怯的

shepherdess /ˈʃepədɪs/ n. 牧羊女 xVHhpYUsMphhEdyzI7gwL9hOiwXxEwioJ1WxYjsP97KPg8CWC/xyvWHR1vf6Frqv