“Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be 'some one,' like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must need pity the Opera ghost...”

“He had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar.”

“He had a hear that could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar.”

“He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness!...He confesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love. ... He has carried me off for love!...He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love!...But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps!...And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty...he offered it...he offered to show me the mysterious road...Only...only he rose too...and I was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the voice...for he sang. And I listened ... and stayed!...That night, we did not exchange another word. He sang me to sleep.”

“If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her."He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark. Thrice over, he shouted:"Humbug!...Humbug!...Humbug!”

“He stared dully at the desolate, cold road and the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder or more dead than his heart. He had loved an angel and now he despised a woman.”

“The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, acreature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of themanagers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of theyoung ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, thecloak-room attendants or the concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh andblood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom;that is to say, of a spectral shade.”