Evening Primrose

Charles Snell:
What goes on here?

Roscoe Potts:
Life, my boy. And death, of course. You can't have one without the other.

Charles Snell:
They're nice people, aren't they? A little odd, I'll grant you that, but after forty years in this place, I expect I'll be a little odd myself.

Mrs. Monday:
Tell me, Harkins, are you happy here?

Ella Harkins:
No, madam, I'm not happy here.

Mrs. Monday:
But you stay on?

Ella Harkins:
Yes, madam, I stay on.

Mrs. Monday:
Why do you?

Ella Harkins:
I'm so frightened of the dark men!

Mrs. Monday:
Nobody knows we live here, and nobody must ever know. Once we're discovered, it's the end of us.

Mrs. Monday:
I've lived here since the crash of '97. I've survived two mergers, three complete redecorations and the move from 14th Street. It required many sacrifices. May I say, I hope you're not the latest of them.

Ella Harkins:
They don't feed me. When they're through, I get what's left. They're skinny but they eat like elephants. I saw an elephant once when I was little and I know what elephants can eat!

Charles Snell:
Harkins, who are these dark men?

Ella Harkins:
There's a famous mortuary in Manhattan. Journey's End, I think it's called.

Charles Snell:
Yeah, I've heard of it.

Ella Harkins:
Well, people live there, just like here.

Charles Snell:
Live in a mortuary? Well, how can they? What... What do they live on?

Charles Snell:
Were you born here?

Ella Harkins:
No, I came when I was six.

Charles Snell:
That's amazing. You renounced the world when you were six!

Charles Snell:
You haven't seen the sun for 13 years?

Ella Harkins:
Oh, don't pity me. I have my memories.

Mrs. Bilby:
My name is Bilby and I'm looking for the parasol department. The clerk said, "First left and straight on 'til morning," but that can't be right!

Ella Harkins:
I can't read or write, I don't know what the world is...

Charles Snell:
What? You can't read or write?

Ella Harkins:
I never finished kindergarten.

Charles Snell:
Oh, that's wonderful! I'll teach you, like Pygmalion!

Ella Harkins:
I don't know anything. I've never spoken to a man before who wasn't old. I've never touched a face that wasn't wrinkled.

Ella Harkins:
We don't dare see each other again, it's too dangerous. They're watching us!

Charles Snell:
I don't see anybody.

Ella Harkins:
You never can. They watch in secret ways!

Mrs. Monday:
We're an exclusive group. For years, I was the only member!

Roscoe Potts:
Mrs. Monday will be told. You will be sent for. There will be punishment.

Roscoe Potts:
I'm reminded of the tragic story of young Phipps. Long years ago, there was a velvet smoking jacket on display. Young Phipps conceived a passion for it. Naturally the thing got sold and Phipps, his reason gone, emerged and tore it from a customer. We lived for months in terror dreading an investigation. What happened to the smoking jacket, no one knows. As for young Phipps, we had to call the dark men.

The Judge:
An intruder!

Mrs. Bilby:
Call the dark men!

Miss McLeash:
Yes, call the dark men!

The Judge:
Call the dark men!

Roscoe Potts:
That's for Mrs. Monday to decide.

Roscoe Potts:
Charles, she's not one of us.

Charles Snell:
Well, why not? She lives here, doesn't she?

Roscoe Potts:
We keep her in the bargain basement, Seconds and Rejects department.

Charles Snell:
You keep her? Is the girl a prisoner?