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Leroux, Gaston, 1868-1927

"The Phantom of the Opera"

A cab was waiting for him.
Erik stepped in; and the Persian, who had gone back to the window,
heard him say to the driver:
"Go to the Opera."
And the cab drove off into the night.
The Persian had seen the poor, unfortunate Erik for the last time.
Three weeks later, the Epoque published this advertisement:
"Erik is dead."

Epilogue.

I have now told the singular, but veracious story of the Opera ghost.
As I declared on the first page of this work, it is no longer possible
to deny that Erik really lived. There are to-day so many proofs
of his existence within the reach of everybody that we can follow
Erik's actions logically through the whole tragedy of the Chagnys.
There is no need to repeat here how greatly the case excited the capital.
The kidnapping of the artist, the death of the Comte de Chagny
under such exceptional conditions, the disappearance of his brother,
the drugging of the gas-man at the Opera and of his two assistants:
what tragedies, what passions, what crimes had surrounded the idyll
of Raoul and the sweet and charming Christine!...What had become
of that wonderful, mysterious artist of whom the world was never,
never to hear again?.


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