The Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 30: The Author Explains All Things

I have now told the unusual but true story of the opera ghost.

Although it has been many years since these events have taken place, the mysteries of the opera house have always haunted me. I felt it was my resposibility to find out the truth.

I uncovered many of the secret passages that Raoul and the Foreign Stranger had used to get to the cellars. I found the darkest, deepest place in the opera house where Erik had kept Raoul for countless days. On its walls were carved the letters "R" and "C," for Raoul and Christine.

I could not find Erik's house on the lake. Before his death, Erik blocked all the passages that led to it. As for his tricks, I discovered the key to almost all of them.

How did Erik appear and disappear from Box Five? The marble column beside the box appears quite solid. However, it is hollow, so someone can hide inside of it. Erik was able to speak to anyone in the box from inside the column and never be seen.

How did Erik take the twenty thousand francs from Mr. Richard's safety-pinned pocket? Erik had installed all the trapdoors in the opera house. He knew where each and every trapdoor led. He came up through one that was in the managers' office. It was narrow, just large enough for him to squeeze his arm through. He easily took the money from Mr. Richard's pocket while the coat hung over his chair.

But once Erik gave up his plan to marry Christine, he gave up everything, including money. Erik used the same trapdoor to return the money back to Mr. Richard's jacket pocket.

I learned that Erik grew up in a small French town. He was born with a terrible wasting disease that ate away at his face and hands, exposing the skeleton beneath the ragged skin. He ran away at an early age from his father's house.

The only way he could earn a living was by working at fairs, where he was paid to put his ugliness on display. He learned to be an artist and magician at the fairs. His hideous face and heavnly voice were soon known far and wide.

Escaping from a king who wanted him dead, Erik came to Paris and dreamed of becoming a famous builder. He wanted to be just like everyone else. He put the things and his music behind him. He set about constructing the opera house—with all the amazing skills that he had used to build the king's palace in his homeland.

In the cellars of the opera house, his artistic nature took over again. He wanted to create a home that would be unseen and unknown by the rest of the world. There, he could hide from men's eyes forever.

Poor, unhappy Erik! With an ordinary face, he would have been considered a talented and famous genius. In the end, he had to be satisfied with the cellar of the opera.

We should, indeed, pity this poor creature. I was there when they removed his skeleton from the opera house. I saw the plain gold ring on his bony finger. Christine had slipped it on his hand when she came to bury him.

Christine had kept her promise.