Is it the Ghost?

It was the evening on which MM. Debienne and Poligny, the managers of
the Opera, were giving a last gala performance to mark their
retirement. Suddenly the dressing-room of La Sorelli, one of the
principal dancers, was invaded by half-a-dozen young ladies of the
ballet, who had come up from the stage after "dancing" Polyeucte. They
rushed in amid great confusion, some giving vent to forced and
unnatural laughter, others to cries of terror. Sorelli, who wished to
be alone for a moment to "run through" the speech which she was to make
to the resigning managers, looked around angrily at the mad and
tumultuous crowd. It was little Jammes--the girl with the tip-tilted
nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose-red cheeks and the lily-white
neck and shoulders--who gave the explanation in a trembling voice: "It's the ghost!" And she locked the door.

Sorelli's dressing-room was fitted up with official, commonplace
elegance. A pier-glass, a sofa, a dressing-table and a cupboard or two
provided the necessary furniture. On the walls hung a few engravings,
relics of the mother, who had known the glories of the old Opera in the
Rue le Peletier; portraits of Vestris, Gardel, Dupont, Bigottini. But
the room seemed a palace to the brats of the corps de ballet, who were
lodged in common dressing-rooms where they spent their time singing,
quarreling, smacking the dressers and hair-dressers and buying one
another glasses of cassis, beer, or even rhum, until the call-boy's
bell rang.

Sorelli was very superstitious. She shuddered when she heard little
Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool" and then,
as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general, and the Opera
ghost in particular, at once asked for details: "Have you seen him?"