It was a dark and rainy day in Paris.
The old English man didn't even want to be in France, let alone Paris. But there was a reason to be here other than his desire to be miserable.
The opera house that burned down so many years ago was having an auction for the first time since the great fire.
The auctioneer, who to his unfortunate dismay, was French.
There was a poster of the opera Hannibal featuring La Signora Chiara Vargas, though the woman was now long dead.
There was a grand piano that was used by the composer Roderich Edelstein himself.
He was about to leave when the Frog-sorry, the Frenchman pulled out one of those Russian Nesting dolls. But this was not an ordinary doll. This one was a music box.
As the Frenchman opened it to play, a haunting melody that brought painful memories of a lively woman with hair a golden as the sun and as joyful as the sunflowers. The Englishman swore he could feel her bright blue eyes and her smile in the cold of the ruined theatre.
This time the man actually listened to what the Frenchman said.
"A Russian Nesting doll found in the basements of the theatre. Unlike the dolls just like it, this one is a music box as you can hear and see. Starting the bid at fifteen."
Damn French. He raised his hand.
"Fifteen, do I hear twenty? Twenty."
A elderly woman with her son? raised her hand.
"Twenty five?"
Two can play that game.
"Thirty?"
He stared at the woman, daring her to raise the bid. The funny thing is, he could have swore that he knew her. She must have had one of those faces where you think that you knew her but you didn't. She must have been pretty in her youth with those violet eyes.
She didn't raise the bid.
He won.
The French frog gave him his prize. The doll's face was painted with the utmost love and skill. Beautiful blue eyes, blonde waves, a smile that could charm a million men.
Oh yes. This doll's creator love his muse.
The Englishman nearly puked.
"And now, the final item of the auction. This very theatre. Of course there were the rumors of the Phantom of the Opera, a mystery never explained but was wonderful to gossip about,"
Bollocks.
"So without further adieu, let us shed some light on the past, and to frighten away the ghost of many years ago with the future. Monsieur!"
Suddenly all the lights in the theatre turned on at once, blinding them temporally.
Along with all of the memories of the past.
So the Narrator obviously doesn't like the French. I dare you to guess wrong on who it is.