BACKSTAGE

Giry is hurrying across. Raoul appears and calls after her.

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 . . .!

* Next Scene *