The Mysterious Reason

Jammes yelled these words in a tone of unspeakable terror; and her
finger pointed, among the crowd of dandies, to a face so pallid, so
lugubrious and so ugly, with two such deep black cavities under the
straddling eyebrows, that the death's head in question immediately
scored a huge success.

"The Opera ghost! The Opera ghost!" Everybody laughed and pushed his
neighbor and wanted to offer the Opera ghost a drink, but he was gone.
He had slipped through the crowd; and the others vainly hunted for him,
while two old gentlemen tried to calm little Jammes and while little
Giry stood screaming like a peacock.

Sorelli was furious; she had not been able to finish her speech; the
managers, had kissed her, thanked her and run away as fast as the ghost
himself. No one was surprised at this, for it was known that they were
to go through the same ceremony on the floor above, in the foyer of the
singers, and that finally they were themselves to receive their
personal friends, for the last time, in the great lobby outside the
managers' office, where a regular supper would be served.

Here they found the new managers, M. Armand Moncharmin and M. Firmin
Richard, whom they hardly knew; nevertheless, they were lavish in
protestations of friendship and received a thousand flattering
compliments in reply, so that those of the guests who had feared that
they had a rather tedious evening in store for them at once put on
brighter faces. The supper was almost gay and a particularly clever
speech of the representative of the government, mingling the glories of
the past with the successes of the future, caused the greatest
cordiality to prevail.