It was short and said simply:
You have a bad cold. If you are wise, you will see that it
is madness to try to sing to-night.
Carlotta sneered, shrugged her handsome shoulders and sang two
or three notes to reassure herself.
Her friends were faithful to their promise. They were all at the Opera
that night, but looked round in vain for the fierce conspirators
whom they were instructed to suppress. The only unusual thing
was the presence of M. Richard and M. Moncharmin in Box Five.
Carlotta's friends thought that, perhaps, the managers had wind,
on their side, of the proposed disturbance and that they had
determined to be in the house, so as to stop it then and there;
but this was unjustifiable supposition, as the reader knows.
M. Richard and M. Moncharmin were thinking of nothing but their ghost.
"Vain! In vain do I call, through my vigil weary, On creation
and its Lord! Never reply will break the silence dreary! No sign!
No single word!"
The famous baritone, Carolus Fonta, had hardly finished Doctor Faust's
first appeal to the powers of darkness, when M. Firmin Richard,
who was sitting in the ghost's own chair, the front chair on the right,
leaned over to his partner and asked him chaffingly:
"Well, has the ghost whispered a word in your ear yet?"
"Wait, don't be in such a hurry," replied M.
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