The Phantom of the Opera

by Gaston Leroux

No one ever sees the Angel; but he is heard by those who are meant to hear him. He often comes when they least expect him, when they are sad and disheartened. Then their ears suddenly perceive celestial harmonies, a divine voice, which they remember all their lives. Persons who are visited by the Angel quiver with a thrill unknown to the rest of mankind.

Is it easier actually to be good when we are perceived to be good? How much of true character is portrayed in a young face?

We worship beauty, thinking it has innate meaning. Perhaps it is little more than fortunate inheritance and good health. Can we see beyond the shell to the man or woman within?

The ghost is the best and the worst in all of us, he is all of us who have ever walked alone, and hated themselves, and longed for redemption.

“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. All the hair he has is three or four long dark locks on his forehead and behind his ears.”

None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom or indifference over his inward joy.

“Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden as the sun’s rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock and her little red shoes and her fiddle, but most of all loved, when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music.”

“You will hear him one day, my child! When I am in Heaven, I will send him to you!”

‘One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.’

Are people so unhappy when they love?” “Yes, Christine, when they love and are not sure of being loved.”

His horrible, unparalleled and repulsive ugliness put him without the pale of humanity; and it often seemed to me that, for this reason, he no longer believed that he had any duty toward the human race.

Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.”

One can get used to everything . . . if one wishes. .

We heard it flow, we heard it ripple! . . . Do you understand that word “ripple”? . . . It is a sound which you hear with your tongue! . . . You put your tongue out of your mouth to listen to it better!

Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be “some one,” like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must needs pity the Opera ghost.

Let us examine anti-Semitism. It is not enough to say that we must liberate ourselves of so-called “anti-Semitic prejudices” and learn to see Jews as they really are—in this way we will surely remain victims of these so-called prejudices. We must confront ourselves with how the ideological figure of the “Jew” is invested by our unconscious desire, with how we have constructed this figure to escape a certain deadlock of our desire.