The Phantom of Manhattan - Softcover

Forsyth, Frederick

 
9780312975852: The Phantom of Manhattan
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0312975856 ISBN 13: 9780312975852
Verlag: St Martins Pr, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

With the help of the woman who had originally freed him from torment, the Phantom of the Opera escapes by ship to America to begin a new and secret life that leads him to power and wealth, until a mysterious death-bed message transforms his life once again. Reprint.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Frederick Forsyth is the author of nine bestselling novels: The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, The Fist of God, and Icon. His other works include The Biafra Story, The Shepherd, and a short story collection, No Comebacks.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Phantom of Manhattan
ONE
THE CONFESSION OF ANTOINETTE GIRY
HOSPICE OF THE SISTERS OF CHARITY OF THE ORDER OF ST.-VINCENT-DE-PAUL, PARIS, SEPTEMBER 1906
There is a crack in the plaster of the ceiling far above my head and close to it a spider is creating a web. Strange to think this spider will outlive me, be here when I am gone, a few hours from now. Good luck, little spider, making a web to catch a fly to feed your babies.
How did it come to this? That I, Antoinette Giry, at the age of fifty-eight, am lying on my back in a hospice for the people of Paris, run by the good sisters, waiting to meet myMaker? I do not think I have been a very good person, not good like these sisters who clean up the endless mess, bound by their oath of poverty, chastity, humility and obedience. I could never have managed that. They have faith, you see. I was never able to have that faith. Is it time I learned it now? Probably. For I shall be gone before the night sky fills that small high window over there at the edge of my vision.
I am here, I suppose, because I simply ran out of money. Well, almost. There is a little bag under my pillow which no one knows about. But that is for a special purpose. Forty years ago I was a ballerina, so slim and young and beautiful then. So they told me, the young men who came to the stage door. And handsome they were too, those clean, sweet-smelling hard young bodies that could give and take so much pleasure.
And the most beautiful was Lucien. All the chorus called him Lucien le Bel, with a face to make a girl's heart hammer like a tambour. He took me out one sunny Sunday to the Bois de Boulogne and proposed, on one knee as it should be done, and I accepted him. One year later he was killed by the Prussian guns at Sedan.Then I wanted no more of marriage for a long time, nearly five years while I danced at the ballet.
I was twenty-eight when it ended, the dancing career. For one thing I had met Jules and we married and I became heavy with little Meg. More to the point, I was losing my litheness. Senior dancer of the corps fighting every day to stay slim and supple. But the Director was very good to me, a kind man. The Mistress of the Chorus was retiring; he said I had the experience and he did not wish to look outside the Opera for her successor. He appointed me. Maîtresse du corps de ballet. As soon as Meg was born and put with a wet nurse I took up my duties. It was 1876, one year after the opening of Garnier's new and magnificent opera house. At last we were out of those cramped shoe boxes in the rue le Peletier, the war was well over, the damage to my beloved Paris repaired and life was good.
I did not even mind when Jules met his fat Belgian and ran off to the Ardennes. Good riddance. At least I had a job, which was more than he could ever say. Enough to keep my small apartment, raise Meg and nightly watch my girls delighting every crowned head in Europe.I wonder what happened to Jules? Too late to start enquiring now. And Meg? A ballet dancer and chorus girl like her mama--I could at least do that for her--until the awful fall ten years ago which left the right knee stiff forever. Even then she was lucky, with a bit of help from me. Dresser and personal maid to the greatest diva in Europe, Christine de Chagny. Well, if you discount that uncouth Australian Melba, which I do. I wonder where Meg is now? Milan, Rome, Madrid perhaps. Where the diva is singing. And to think I once used to shout at the Vicomtesse de Chagny to pay attention and stay in line!
So what am I doing here, waiting for a too-early grave? Well, there was retirement eight years ago, on my fiftieth birthday. They were very nice about it. The usual platitudes. And a generous bonus for my twenty-two years as mistress. Enough to live on. Plus a little private coaching for the incredibly clumsy daughters of the rich. Not much but enough, and a little put by. Until last spring.
That was when the pains began, not many at first but sharp and sudden, deep in the lower stomach. They gave me bismuth for indigestion and charged a small fortune. I didnot know then that the steel crab was in me, driving his great claws into me and always growing as he fed. Not until July. Then it was too late. So I lie here, trying not to scream with the pain, waiting for the next spoonful of the white goddess, the powder that comes from the poppies of the East.
Not long to wait now for the final sleep. I am not even afraid anymore. Perhaps He will be merciful? I hope so, but surely He will take away the pain. I try to concentrate on something else. I look back and think of all the girls I trained, and my pretty young Meg with her stiff knee waiting to find her man--I hope she finds a good one. And of course I think of my boys, my two lovely tragic boys. I think of them most of all.
"Madame, Monsieur l'Abbé is here."
"Thank you, Sister. I cannot see too well. Where is he?"
"I am here, my child, Father Sebastien. By your side. Do you feel my hand on your arm?"
"Yes, Father."
"You should make your peace with God, ma fille. I am ready to take your confession."
"It is time. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."
"Tell me, my child. Keep nothing back."
"There was a time, long ago, in the year 1882, when I did something that changed many lives. I did not know then what would happen. I acted on impulse and for motives I thought to be good. I was thirty-four, the mistress of the corps de ballet at the Paris Opera. I was married but my husband had deserted me and run off with another woman."
"You must forgive them, my child. Forgiveness is a part of penitence."
"Oh, I do, Father. Long since. But I had a daughter, Meg, then six years old. There was a fair out at Neuilly and I took her one Sunday. There were calliopes and carousels, steam engines and performing monkeys who collected centimes for the hurdy-gurdy man. Meg had never seen a circus before. But there was also a show of freaks. A line of tents with notices advertising the world's strongest man, the acrobat dwarves, a man so covered in tattoos that one could not see his skin, a black man with a bone through his nose and pointed teeth, a lady with a beard.
"At the end of the line was a sort of cage on wheels, with bars spaced almost a foot apart, and filthy reeking straw on the floor. Itwas bright in the sun but dark in the cage so I peered in to see what animal it contained. I heard the clank of chains and saw something lying huddled in the straw. Just then a man came up.
"He was big and beefy, with a red, crude face. He carried a tray on a sash round his neck. It contained lumps of horse manure collected from where the ponies were tethered, and pieces of rotten fruit. 'Have a go, lady,' he said, 'see if you can pelt the monster. One centime a throw.' Then he turned to the cage and shouted, 'Come on, come near the front or you know what you'll get.' The chains clanked again, and something more animal than human shuffled into the light, nearer to the bars.
"I could see that it was indeed human, though hardly so. A male in rags, crusted with filth, gnawing on an old piece of apple. Apparently he had to live on what people threw over him. Ordure and feces clung to his thin body. There were manacles on his wrists and ankles and the steel had bitten into the flesh to leave open wounds where maggots writhed. But it was the face and head that caused Meg to burst into tears.
"The skull and face were hideously deformed,the former displaying only a few tufts of filthy hair. The face was distorted down one side as if struck long ago by a monstrous hammer and the flesh of this visage was raw and shapeless like molten candle wax. The eyes were deep set...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
St Martins Pr
Erscheinungsdatum
2000
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0312975856
ISBN 13 
9780312975852
Einband
Taschenbuch
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780312246563: The Phantom of Manhattan

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0312246560 ISBN 13:  9780312246563
Verlag: Import, 1999
Hardcover