Pamela Giraud

Excerpt

ACT I

SCENE FIRST

(Setting is an attic and workshop of an artificial flower-maker. It is
poorly lighted by means of a candle placed on the work-table. The
ceiling slopes abruptly at the back allowing space to conceal a man.
On the right is a door, on the left a fireplace. Pamela is discovered
at work, and Joseph Binet is seated near her.)

Pamela, Joseph Binet and later Jules Rousseau.

Pamela
Monsieur Joseph Binet!

Joseph
Mademoiselle Pamela Giraud!

Pamela
I plainly see that you wish me to hate you.

Joseph
The idea! What? And this is the beginning of our love—Hate me!

Pamela
Oh, come! Let us talk sensibly.

Joseph
You do not wish, then, that I should express how much I love you?

Pamela
Ah! I may as well tell you plainly, since you compel me to do so, that
I do not wish to become the wife of an upholsterer's apprentice.

Joseph
Is it necessary to become an emperor, or something like that, in order
to marry a flower-maker?

Pamela
No. But it is necessary to be loved, and I don't love you in any way
whatever.

Joseph
In any way! I thought there was only one way of loving.

Pamela
So there is, but there are many ways of not loving. You can be my
friend, without my loving you.

Joseph
Oh!

Pamela
I can look upon you with indifference—

Joseph
Ah!

Pamela
You can be odious to me! And at this moment you weary me, which is
worse!

Joseph
I weary her! I who would cut myself into fine pieces to do all that
she wishes!

Pamela
If you would do what I wish, you would not remain here.

Joseph
And if I go away—Will you love me a little?

Pamela
Yes, for the only time I like you is when you are away!

Joseph
And if I never came back?

Pamela
I should be delighted.

Joseph
Zounds! Why should I, senior apprentice with M. Morel, instead of
aiming at setting up business for myself, fall in love with this young
lady? It is folly! It certainly hinders me in my career; and yet I
dream of her—I am infatuated with her. Suppose my uncle knew it!—But
she is not the only woman in Paris, and, after all, Mlle. Pamela
Giraud, who are you that you should be so high and mighty?

Pamela
I am the daughter of a poor ruined tailor, now become a porter. I gain
my own living—if working night and day can be called living—and it
is with difficulty that I snatch a little holiday to gather lilacs in
the Pres-Saint-Gervais; and I certainly recognize that the senior
apprentice of M. Morel is altogether too good for me. I do not wish to
enter a family which believes that it would thus form a mesalliance.
The Binets indeed!

Joseph
But what has happened to you in the last eight or ten days, my dear
little pet of a Pamela? Up to ten days ago I used to come and cut out
your flowers for you, I used to make the stalks for the roses, and the
hearts for the violets; we used to talk together, we sometimes used to
go to the play, and have a good cry there—and I was "good Joseph,"
"my little Joseph"—a Joseph in fact of the right stuff to make your
husband. All of a sudden—Pshaw!...