IN WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THIS
    SINGULAR WORK INFORMS
      THE READER HOW HE
    ACQUIRED THE CERTAINTY
     THAT THE OPERA GHOST
           REALLY EXISTED

    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.

    When I
        began to ransack the archives
               of the National Academy
                   of Music
         I was at once
              struck by the surprising coincidences
                   between the phenomena
                  ascribed to the
         "ghost"
            and the most extraordinary
               and fantastic tragedy
             that ever
                  excited the Paris upper classes;
        and I soon
              conceived the idea
             that this tragedy
                might reasonably
                      be explained
                           by the phenomena in question.

    The events
          do not
              date more
                   than thirty years back;
        and it
            would not
                  be difficult
                      to find
                           at the present day,
           in the foyer
               of the ballet,
         old men
               of the highest respectability,
           men upon
             whose word one
                could absolutely rely,
         who would remember as
             though they
                happened yesterday the mysterious
                       and dramatic conditions
                 that attended the kidnapping
                       of Christine Daae,
           the disappearance
               of the Vicomte de Chagny
             and the death
                   of his elder brother,
         Count Philippe,
           whose body
            was found
                   on the bank
                       of the lake
             that exists
                   in the lower cellars
                       of the Opera
                   on the Rue-Scribe side.

    But none of
           those witnesses had
         until
             that day thought
               that there was any
                  reason for
                      connecting the more
                          or less legendary figure
                               of the Opera ghost with
                 that terrible story.

    The truth
        was slow
              to enter my mind,
           puzzled by an inquiry
             that at every moment
                was complicated by events which,
         at first sight,
           might be
              looked upon as superhuman;
        and more than once
             I was
                   within an ace
                       of abandoning a task
             in which
                 I was
                      exhausting myself
                           in the hopeless pursuit
                               of a vain image.

    At last,
           I received the proof
             that my presentiments
                had not deceived me,
         and I
            was rewarded
                   for all my efforts
                 on the day
             when I acquired the certainty
                 that the Opera ghost
                    was more
                           than a mere shade.

    On that day,
           I had
              spent long hours
                over THE MEMOIRS
                    OF A MANAGER,
         the light
               and frivolous work
                   of the too-skeptical Moncharmin,
           who,
         during his term
               at the Opera,
           understood nothing
               of the mysterious behavior
             of the ghost and
             who was
                  making all the fun
                       of it
                 that he
                    could at the very moment
             when he
                became the first victim
                       of the curious financial operation
                 that went on inside the
         "magic envelope."

    I had just
          left the library in despair,
           when I met
               the delightful acting-manager
                   of our National Academy,
         who stood
              chatting on a landing
                   with a lively
                       and well-groomed little old man,
           to whom
             he introduced me gaily.

    The acting-manager
        knew all
               about my investigations and
         how eagerly and unsuccessfully
             I had been trying
                  to discover the whereabouts
                       of the examining magistrate
                     in the famous Chagny case,
           M. Faure. Nobody knew
             what had become of him,
         alive or dead;
        and here
             he was back from Canada,
           where he
            had spent fifteen years,
         and the first thing
             he had done,
           on his return to Paris,
         was to come
               to the secretarial offices
             at the Opera
              and ask
                   for a free seat.