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Grasshopper Pull Toy. France 1930's.

Welcome to the 64th installment of 15 Weeks of Phantom, where I post all 68 sections of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, as they were first printed in Le Gaulois newspaper 115 yeas ago.

In today’s installment, we have Part III of Chapter 27, “Faut-il tourner le scorpion ? Faut-il tourner la sauterelle ?” (Shall You Turn the Scorpion? Or Shall You Turn the Grasshopper?).

This section was first printed on Monday, 3 January, 1910.

For anyone following along in David Coward's translation of the First Edition of Phantom of the Opera (either in paperback, or Kindle, or from another vendor -- the ISBN-13 is: 978-0199694570), the text starts in Chapter 27, “I had been struck by the thought, for I knew Erik all too well, that he might have tricked her once more” and goes to the Persian’s line, “And before losing consciousness, I seemed still to hear a voice calling above the swish and boil of water: any old barrels!… barrels!… any old barrels for sale?”

There are some differences between the Gaulois text and the First Edition. In this section, these include:

1) Chapter XXVII was printed as Chapter XXVIII. This numbering error was made in Chapter VII, and was not corrected, so it was propagated throughout the Gaulois publication.

2) Each chapter in the Gaulois publication is one number ahead of the chapters in the First Edition, due to the inclusion of “The Magic Envelope” chapter in the Gaulois.

3) Minor differences in punctuation.

NOTE: Leroux and the editors at Pierre Lafitte & Cie. must have been satisfied with this section, because there are no other textual changes that appear in the First Edition.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE I:

The text highlighted in blue in the first half-panel above indicates the only instances in the novel where Christine switches from using 2nd person plural (formal “you”) to using 2nd person singular (informal “you”) to address Erik. Christine is at her breaking point with Erik here, and this switch from vouvoyer to tutoyer is intended to be condescending.

This text translates as:

“Erik,” cried Christine, who must have rushed towards the monster’s hand, “swear to me, monster, swear to me on your infernal love, that it is the scorpion that I must turn…”

“Yes, to go off to our wedding…”

“Ah, you see! We are going to go off!”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE II:

In designating the grasshopper (sauterelle) as the switch that will ignite the gunpowder, Erik is making a pun on the French word “sauter,” which means both “to jump” and “to explode.” It can also mean “to go off,” which is how I translated it above when Erik says, “go off to our wedding,” and Christine thinks he is making a horrible pun on “go off/explode” to trick her into turning the switch that will ignite the gunpowder.

But there is another, more derogatory meaning to “sauterelle,” as well. “Sauterelle” is French slang for a prostitute, as well as French slang for a picky woman who examines items in a shop without buying anything, as we can see from Albert Barrère's French-English dictionary of Argot and Slang from 1889:

So, in addition to telling Christine that she will blow everyone up if she turns the grasshopper, Erik is also telling her that if she doesn’t agree to marry him, she is a picky whore.

Christine once again shows herself to be a pinnacle of restraint and dignity. Erik deserves far worse than to have Christine belittle him, tutoyer him, and call him a monster.

Because Christine is right — Erik has shown himself to be a monster here. Not because of his face, and she doesn’t mean it that way, but because of his terrible actions. And his redemption at the end is a redemption of his character, of his soul.

Le Fantôme de l’Opéra is Leroux’s retelling of the Beauty and the Beast myth. Erik’s transformation is that he lives out his remaining days as a man, and he dies and is buried a man.

Erik's appearance does not change, but his heart does. His life has been anything but fair — for instance, in Leroux’s novel, Erik helped design and build the Opera House, yet he is given little “official” pay, and he receives no recognition for his work. But because of Christine, he learns that this doesn’t give him the right to impose his will on others in a way that harms or kills them.

The tragedy of Erik’s story is that, in an ideal world, he would have been able to use those revelations in his life for many years to come — as Leroux writes, “Il avait un coeur à contenir l’empire du monde” (”He had a heart that was great enough to have ruled the world”).

But Leroux reminds us that Erik does not live in an ideal world, and neither do we. However, just because Erik doesn’t get a traditional “happily ever after,” that does not negate the importance and power of his transformation, and that’s a lesson that we can all take to heart. We might not get a “happily ever after,” but we can still make a great difference to the people in our lives.

Click here to see the entire edition of Le Gaulois from 3 January, 1910. This link brings you to page 3 of the newspaper — Le Fantôme is at the bottom of the page in the feuilleton section. Click on the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen to turn the pages of the newspaper, and click on the Zoom button at the bottom left to magnify the text.

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