Ballad of the Phantom's loneliness

Voici une modeste nouvelle que je viens de terminer d'écrire pour un de mes cours. Si l'anglais ne vous répugne pas, je suis ouverte à toutes les critiques!

Ballad of the Phantom's loneliness.

The diffuse light of the candle glowed in the darkness of the room. Beside it, a cool-staring man was sitting on a rich-looking black velvet sofa. He was wearing an old three-piece suit making him looking as he was returning right from the nineteenth century. But the most remarkable thing about him was not his clothes but his face... Half of his soft and exquisite features were hidden by a white half mask. You could have believed he was getting ready for a bal masqué except his gloomy, grave and glum expression. After a long while gazing at the flickering blazing of the candle, he stood up and walked calmly across the place. Diverse items cluttered the room in a so consequent manner that he could not go further than three strides. During his stroll, he was stroking with love the ebony desk, the candlestick, the feminine marble bust and the red velvet curtains that kept the room in a perpetual night. After three or four times of this ritual, he placed himself in front of the lofty mirror enclosed with wrought iron and began to contemplate his person intensely.

He cast his eye over his appearance and stopped suddenly when his look skimmed over his half hidden features. He could not recall the last time he had seen his face without the white mask he was wearing. His deep-seated hatred had no boundaries towards this slender object. This object was the symbol of the distorted skin that brought him the aversion of his mother, the disgust of his childhood friends... Carried like a dog, from town to town, to be exposed in a fair : « Come! Come inside and contemplate the Devil's child! ». Even this day, he could still hear the shouting of the crowd looking at his disfigured face.

But one day, he managed to escape from the fair which was set in the middle of Paris. He ran, ran, ran until the wind formed tears in his eyes.

Then he saw it for the very first time : the great Opera, so humongous that it certainly was the perfect place to hid from the world and forget all about humans and society that had brought him so much pain and despair. He entered the Opera and, years after years, grew in age and intelligence... But his grudge was buried deep inside of his heart. A glimpse of a man dwelling in the depths of the Opera sufficed to fire his crave for revenge.

« Phantom... » he thought, knocking the mirror with his clenched fist. « They call me Phantom of the Opera... They treated me as the ugliest animal on earth, and now, the want me to be no more than a drifting soul... »

His hand reached a thick rope dumped on the ebony desk and he tensed it until his bones could be seen under the pale skin of his phalanxes.

« I am a man! » he cried out loud « Tonight... They will pay, they will beg my pity. Tonight, justice will be done, this rope will become the witness of my determination, I swear it! »


The day after, the gates of the Opera were closed. Every single newspaper talked about this major event : a corpse was found in the vaults of the theater, hanged with a thick rope...