Madame Giry’s Tale/The Fairground

[GIRY is hurrying across. RAOUL appears and calls after her]

(spoken)

[RAOUL]
Madame Giry. Wait!

[GIRY]
Please, Monsieur, I know no more than anyone else

[RAOUL]
That's not true

[GIRY (uneasily)]
Monsieur, don't ask. There have been too many accidents

[RAOUL]
Accidents?!

[She moves off again. He stops her.]

Please, Madame Giry, for all our sakes

[GIRY has glanced nervously about her and suddenly deciding to trust him, cuts in.]

[GIRY]
Very well. It was years ago. There was a traveling fair in the city—gypsies. I was very young, studying to be a ballerina. One of many, living in the dormitories of the opera house

[There is a flashback to when Madame Giry is still very young and at the traveling fair. Young Madame Giry's school is taking a fieldtrip to a traveling circus]

[WOMAN]
See the wonder from the East!

[CRUEL MAN]
Come. Come. Come inside. Come and see the Devil's Child

[Instrumental interlude]

[Man]
Murder! Murder!

[Policeman]
Which way?

[Man]
That way!

[GIRY]
I hid him from the world and its cruelties. He has known nothing else of life since then, except this opera house. It was his playground and, now, his artistic domain. He's a genius. He's an architect and designer. He's a composer and a magician. A genius, Monsieur!

[RAOUL]
Clearly, Madame Giry, genius has turned to madness