e stage. I
am speaking of state services; and, upon my word of honor, I can say no
more.

[4] All the water had to be exhausted, in the building of the Opera.
To give an idea of the amount of water that was pumped up, I can tell
the reader that it represented the area of the courtyard of the Louvre
and a height half as deep again as the towers of Notre Dame. And
nevertheless the engineers had to leave a lake.

[5] These two pairs of boots, which were placed, according to the
Persian's papers, just between the set piece and the scene from the ROI
DE LAHORE, on the spot where Joseph Buquet was found hanging, were
never discovered. They must have been taken by some stage-carpenter or
"door-shutter."

Chapter XXI Interesting and Instructive Vicissitudes of a Persian in
the Cellars of the Opera

THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE

It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake. I had
often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik in my
country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I
made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance. Watch him
as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent
abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to
see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake. One day, when I
thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that
part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear. It was then
that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and
whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.

I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I
floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that
hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music; it rose softly
from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew
not what artifice. It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that
it did not alarm me. On the contrary, in my longing to approach the
source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little
boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing
came from the water itself. By this time, I was alone in the boat in
the middle of the lake; the voice--for it was now distinctly a
voice--was beside me, on the water. I leaned over, leaned still
farther. The lake was perfectly calm, and a moonbeam that passed
through the air hole in the Rue Scribe showed me absolutely