The retiring managers had already handed over to their successors the
two tiny master-keys which opened all the doors--thousands of doors--
of the Opera house. And those little keys, the object of general
curiosity, were being passed from hand to hand, when the attention
of some of the guests was diverted by their discovery, at the end
of the table, of that strange, wan and fantastic face, with the
hollow eyes, which had already appeared in the foyer of the ballet
and been greeted by little Jammes' exclamation:
"The Opera ghost!"
There sat the ghost, as natural as could be, except that he neither
ate nor drank. Those who began by looking at him with a smile ended
by turning away their heads, for the sight of him at once provoked
the most funereal thoughts. No one repeated the joke of the foyer,
no one exclaimed:
"There's the Opera ghost!"
He himself did not speak a word and his very neighbors could not
have stated at what precise moment he had sat down between them;
but every one felt that if the dead did ever come and sit at
the table of the living, they could not cut a more ghastly figure.
The friends of Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin thought that this
lean and skinny guest was an acquaintance of Debienne's or Poligny's,
while Debienne's and Poligny's friends believed that the cadaverous
individual belonged to Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin's party.
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