The Phantom of the Opera if illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans
"It's the ghost!" little Jammes had cried...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!"
"If that's the ghost, he's very ugly!"
Did the ghost really take a seat at the managers' supper-table that night, uninvited?
"The black shape lifted me onto the white shape, a glad neighing greeted my astounded ears and I murmured, 'Cesar!'"
"I don't whether the effects of the cordial had worn off when the man's shape lifted me into the boat, but my terror began all over again."
"I was in the middle of a drawing-room that seemed to be adorned and furnished with nothing but flowers, flowers both magnificent and stupid, because of the silk ribbons that tied them to baskets, like those which they sell in the shops on the boulevards."
"...I overwhelmed him with abuse and called upon him to take off his mask, if it covered the face of an honest man."
"He replied serenely, 'You shall never see Erik's face.'"
"You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it."
"I burned his mask; and I managed so well that, even when he was not singing, he tried to catch my eye, like a dog sitting by its master."
This ball was an exceptional affair, given some time before Shrovetide...it was expected to be much gayer, noisier, more Bohemian than the ordinary masked ball.
"My dear fellow," said Count Philippe, "you have fired at a cat."
He would go down to the tomb escorted by the whitest shoulders in the world, decked with the richest jewels.
"YOU'RE LOOKING AT ME BECAUSE I AM ALL WET?... Oh, my dear, it's raining cats and dogs outside!"
"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 around in the streets."
"You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see!"
The daroga went to the window and opened it. His heart was full of pity, but he took care to keep his eyes fixed on the trees in the Tuileries gardens, lest he should see the monster's face.
They took the train one day from the 'northern railway station of the world.' Possibly, I too shall take the train at that station, one day, and go and seek around thy lakes, O Norway, O silent Scandinavia, for there are perhaps still living traces of Raoul and Christine...
And now what do they mean to do with that skeleton? Surely they will not bury it in the common grave!
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