Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 7. Faust and What Followed (continued)

And Margarita replied:

         "Oh, how strange!
              Like a spell does the evening bind me!
          And a deep languid charm
          I feel without alarm
              With its melody enwind me
          And all my heart subdue."

At that moment, at that identical moment, the terrible thing happened. ...Carlotta croaked like a toad:

"Co-ack!"

There was consternation on Carlotta's face and consternation on the faces of all the audience. The two managers in their box could not suppress an exclamation of horror. Every one felt that the thing was not natural, that there was witchcraft behind it. That toad smelt of brimstone. Poor, wretched, despairing, crushed Carlotta!

The uproar in the house was indescribable. If the thing had happened to any one but Carlotta, she would have been hooted. But everybody knew how perfect an instrument her voice was; and there was no display of anger, but only of horror and dismay, the sort of dismay which men would have felt if they had witnessed the catastrophe that broke the arms of the Venus de Milo. ... And even then they would have seen...and understood...

But here that toad was incomprehensible! So much so that, after some seconds spent in asking herself if she had really heard that note, that sound, that infernal noise issue from her throat, she tried to persuade herself that it was not so, that she was the victim of an illusion, an illusion of the ear, and not of an act of treachery on the part of her voice. ...

Meanwhile, in Box Five, Moncharmin and Richard had turned very pale. This extraordinary and inexplicable incident filled them with a dread which was the more mysterious inasmuch as for some little while, they had fallen within the direct influence of the ghost. They had felt his breath. Moncharmin's hair stood on end. Richard wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Yes, the ghost was there, around them, behind them, beside them; they felt his presence without seeing him, they heard his breath, close, close, close to them!...They were sure that there were three people in the box....They trembled ....They thought of running away....They dared not.... They dared not make a movement or exchange a word that would have told the ghost that they knew that he was there!...What was going to happen?