RAOUL
Madame Giry. Madame Giry . . .

GIRY
Monsieur, don't ask me - I know no more than anyone else.

(She moves off again. He stops her)

RAOUL
That's not true. You've seen something, haven't you ?

GIRY (uneasily)
I don't know what I've seen . . . Please don't ask me, monsieur . . .

RAOUL (desperately)
Madame, for all our sakes . . .

GIRY (She has glanced nervously about her and
suddenly deciding to trust him, cuts in): Very well. It was years ago. There was a travelling fair in the city. Tumblers, conjurors, human oddities . . .

RAOUL
Go on . . .

GIRY (trance-like, as she retraces the past)
And there was . . . I shall never forget him: a man . . Iocked in a cage . . .

RAOUL
In a cage . . ?

GIRY
A prodigy, monsieur! Scholar, architect, musician .

RAOUL (piecing together the jigsaw)
A composer . . .

GIRY
And an inventor too, monsieur. They boasted he had once built for the Shah of Persia, a maze of mirrors . . .

RAOUL (mystified and impatient, cuts in)
Who was this man . . .?

GIRY (with a shudder)
A freak of nature . . .more monster than man . . .

RAOUL (a murmur)
Deformed . . .?

GIRY
From birth, it seemed . . .

RAOUL
My God . . .

GIRY
And then . . . he went missing. He escaped.

RAOUL
Go on.

GIRY
They never found him it was said he had died . . .

RAOUL (darkly)
But he didn't die, did he?

GIRY
The world forgot him, but I never can . . . For in this darkness I have seen him again . . .

RAOUL
And so our Phantom's this man . . .

GIRY (starts from her daze and turns to go)
I have said too much, monsieur.

(She moves off into the surrounding blackness)

And there have been too many accidents . . .

RAOUL (ironical)
Accidents?!

GIRY
Too many . . .

(And, before he can question her further, she has disappeared)

RAOUL (running after her)
Madame Giry . . .!
 
 

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