Chapter XIV The Singular Attitude of a Safety-Pin
Behind the curtain, there was an indescribable crowd.
Artists, scene-shifters, dancers, supers, choristers, subscribers
were all asking questions, shouting and hustling one another.
"What became of her?"
"She's run away."
"With the Vicomte de Chagny, of course!"
"No, with the count!"
"Ah, here's Carlotta! Carlotta did the trick!"
"No, it was the ghost!" And a few laughed, especially as a
careful examination of the trap-doors and boards had put the idea
of an accident out of the question.
Amid this noisy throng, three men stood talking in a low voice
and with despairing gestures. They were Gabriel, the chorus-master;
Mercier, the acting-manager; and Remy, the secretary. They retired
to a corner of the lobby by which the stage communicates
with the wide passage leading to the foyer of the ballet.
Here they stood and argued behind some enormous "properties."
"I knocked at the door," said Remy. "They did not answer.
Perhaps they are not in the office. In any case, it's impossible
to find out, for they took the keys with them,"
"They" were obviously the managers, who had given orders,
during the last entr'acte, that they were not to be disturbed
on any pretext whatever. They were not in to anybody.
"All the same," exclaimed Gabriel, "a singer isn't run away with,
from the middle of the stage, every day!"
"Did you shout that to them?" asked Mercier, impatiently.
"I'll go back again," said Remy, and disappeared at a run.
Thereupon the stage-manager arrived.
"Well, M. Mercier, are you coming? What are you two doing here?
You're wanted, Mr. Acting-Manager."
"I refuse to know or to do anything before the commissary arrives,"
declared Mercier. "I have sent for Mifroid. We shall see when
he comes!"
"And I tell you that you ought to go down to the organ at once."
"Not before the commissary comes."
"I've been down to the organ myself already."
"Ah! And what did you see?"
"Well, I saw nobody! Do you hear--nobody!"
"What do you want me to do down there for{sic}?"
"You're right!" said the stage-manager, frantically pushing his
hands through his rebellious hair. "You're right! But there
might be some one at the organ who could tell us how the stage came
to be suddenly darkened. Now Mauclair is nowhere to be found.
Do you understand that?"
Mauclair was the gas-man, who dispensed day and night at will on
the stage of the Opera.
"Mauclair is not to be found!" repeated Mercier, taken aback.
"Well, what about his assistants?"
"There's no Mauclair and no assistants! No one at the lights,
I tell you! You can imagine," roared the stage-manager, "that that
little girl must have, been carried off by somebody else: she didn't
run away by herself! It was a calculated stroke and we have to find
out about it....And what are the managers doing all this time?
... I gave orders that no one was to go down to the lights and I
posted a fireman in front of the gas-man's box beside the organ.
Wasn't that right?"
"Yes, yes, quite right, quite right. And now let's wait
for the commissary."
The stage-manager walked away, shrugging his shoulders, fuming,
muttering insults at those milksops who remained quietly squatting
in a corner while the whole theater was topsyturvy{sic}.
Gabriel and Mercier were not so quiet as all that. Only they
had received an order that paralyzed them. The managers were not
to be disturbed on any account. Remy had violated that order
and met with no success.
At that moment he returned from his new expedition, wearing a
curiously startled air.
"Well, have you seen them?" asked Mercier.
"Moncharmin opened the door at last. His eyes were starting out
of his head. I thought he meant to strike me. I could not get
a word in; and what do you think he shouted at me? ‘Have you
a safety-pin?' ‘No!' ‘Well, then, clearout!' I tried to tell him
that an unheard-of thing had happened on the stage, but he roared,
‘A safety-pin! Give me a safety-pin at once!' A boy heard him--
he was bellowing like a bull--ran up with a safety-pin and gave it
to him; whereupon Moncharmin slammed the door in my face, and there
you are!"
"And couldn't you have said, ‘Christine Daae.'"
"I should like to have seen you in my place. He was foaming at
the mouth. He thought of nothing but his safety-pin. I believe,
if they hadn't brought him one on the spot, he would have fallen
down in a fit!...Oh, all this isn't natural; and our managers
are going mad!...Besides, it can't go on like this! I'm not used
to being treated in that fashion!"
Suddenly Gabriel whispered:
"It's another trick of O. G.'s."
Rimy gave a grin, Mercier a sigh and seemed about to speak...but,
meeting Gabriel's eye, said nothing.
However, Mercier felt his responsibility increased as the minutes
passed without the managers' appearing; and, at last, he could
stand it no longer.
"Look here, I'll go and hunt them out myself!"
Gabriel, turning very gloomy and serious, stopped him.
"Be careful what you're doing, Mercier! If they're staying
in their office, it's probably because they have to! O. G. has
more than one trick in his bag!"
But Mercier shook his head.
"That's their lookout! I'm going! If people had listened to me,
the police would have known everything long ago!"
And he went.
"What's everything?" asked Remy. "What was there to tell the police?
Why don't you answer, Gabriel?...Ah, so you know something!
Well, you would do better to tell me, too, if you don't want me
to shout out that you are all going mad!...Yes, that's what
you are: mad!"
Gabriel put on a stupid look and pretended not to understand
the private secretary's unseemly outburst.
"What ‘something' am I supposed to know?" he said. "I don't know
what you mean."
Remy began to lose his temper.
"This evening, Richard and Moncharmin were behaving like lunatics,
here, between the acts."
"I never noticed it," growled Gabriel, very much annoyed.
"Then you're the only one!...Do you think that I didn't see
them?...And that M. Parabise, the manager of the Credit Central,
noticed nothing?...And that M. de La Borderie, the ambassador,
has no eyes to see with?...Why, all the subscribers were pointing
at our managers!"
"But what were our managers doing?" asked Gabriel, putting on his
most innocent air.
"What were they doing? You know better than any one what they
were doing!...You were there!...And you were watching them,
you and Mercier!...And you were the only two who didn't laugh.
"I don't understand!"
Gabriel raised his arms and dropped them to his sides again,
which gesture was meant to convey that the question did not interest
him in the least. Remy continued:
"What is the sense of this new mania of theirs? WHY WON'T THEY