- Ella: Who is Mrs. Toquet?
- Widow Sonder: Isn't she the crazy old woman who lives in the woods, she's harmless but she steals.
- [adjusting Serafina's stays]
- Ella: Has she always been like that? I mean has she always...
- Widow Sonder: They say she was once a grand lady and lived on the hill. But she took to reading books and went from bad to worse, stuffed her head with full of ideas, and now she's a bit addled.
- Birdena: A bit addled? Oh, Mother! She's as crazy as a cockroach.
- Ella: No she isn't! She's just different. She's full of good ideas.
- [first lines]
- Narrator: A long time ago in a small principality somewhere in the middle of a happy Europe, there was a rich old duke who lived happily in a fine palace, and a number of ladies and gentleman who lived happily on a fashionable hill, and everybody else who lived happily in the village. Now, it came to pass that in the spring, three days of festival were declared. They were celebrating the return of Prince Charles, the only son of the reigning duke. Most of the townspeople had never seen Prince Charles. He had been away for many years, getting his education of the finest universities, cafes, and boudoirs of Paris, London and Vienna.
- Kovin: [taps charles with his pipe] You're not well Charles. You're not yourself... You know what ails you. Careful, Charles. Remember your special weakness.
- Prince Charles: [playing the melody to "climbing rose" on the piano] She's frightened, sad and hurt. Afraid to hope, expecting ridicule. A tender heart half afraid to love.
- Kovin: Oh, Careful, Charles.
- Prince Charles: [upset, he stops playing] Why be careful? Every man has his own special vulnerability. I once knew a man who couldn't resist fat women; women with rolls. Another who fell madly in love with everytime a woman slapped his face. Well this is mine.
- [smiles, and resumes playing, this time a more jovial variation of the tune]
- Prince Charles: Why go against nature?
- Cousin Loulou: I should like to present my cousin Mrs. Sonder, and her two daughters Birdena and Serafina.
- Kovin: [interrupts, elbowing his way between Birdena and the Widow] Charles. I beg your pardon.
- Birdena: It's a great privilege, Your Highness. I'm looking forward to hearing about your travels.
- Serafina: Oh yes! We're very fond of Paris.
- Prince Charles: Oh, you know Paris?
- Birdena: Oh, we don't precisely know Paris, but we're very devoted to it, aren't we, Cousin Loulou? It's so French!
- Mrs. Toquet: What's your name?
- Ella: Ella, but they won't even call me by name! They call me, Edwin and Willy and the others, because of the ashes they call me Cinderella.
- Mrs. Toquet: Cinderella... Cin-der-el-la. Such a beautiful word, I like it very much. There are other words I like very much, like windowsill and elbow. *El-bow.* And I like apple dumpling too. Apple dumpling, it's a comical word. Apple dumpling. Pickle relish! That has a nice snap to it! What happened to your hair?
- Narrator: It was the old story of the rejected becoming all the more rejected because they behaved badly because they'd been rejected - one of those, uh, circles. And there it was again.
- Duke: You condescending, disrespectful, blasé, impertinent young rake. We are all dependent upon the good will and the cooperation of the people of of this principality.
- Prince Charles: Life can be pretty unbearable if you don't have anything to hope for.
- Ella: Do you have something to hope for?
- Prince Charles: I think I'm beginning to have.
- Mrs. Toquet: When you see him, you give him my recipe for turnip fritters. Tell him to try it without the turnips. It's better that way.
- Narrator: Preparations for the great Ball began. Rub, rub, rub, and rub. Twenty minutes of rub and rub.
- Coachman: Does she know about leaving at midnight?
- Mrs. Toquet: Ahh, yes.
- [to Ella]
- Mrs. Toquet: You see, he must take you home at midnight so that he can go back to the Palace in time to pick up his people. They're leaving at one o'clock. So, if you leave promptly at midnight, nobody will be the wiser and nobody will be annoyed and everybody will be happy. That's diplomacy.
- Mrs. Toquet: It's Venetian glass. Made by a genius in Venice, who sold them for a good price to a bazaar keeper, who sold them at a great profit to a merchant from Rome, who sold them at a great profit to a shopkeeper in Paris, who sold them at a great profit. Everybody made money. Everybody was happy! That's economics.
- Mrs. Toquet: Can he cook?
- Ella: Well, I don't know. I don't think so.
- Mrs. Toquet: Too bad. Men make the best cooks. Better than women, they say. Don't worry. Perhaps he can do other things.
- Mrs. Toquet: Now for some slippers. Now, I just happen to have a pair that I think - put it on.
- Ella: Oh! Isn't it beautiful. It's glass!
- Mrs. Toquet: He conquers who endures all. All women must endure these discomforts.
- Ella: Why?
- Mrs. Toquet: For fashion! It fascinates men. Makes them marvel at women. Fills them with awe, because they know they couldn't stand it.
- Mrs. Toquet: You're sad. You need to hear a little philosophy. Let me see, now. I must give you some homely wisdom. Try this: life is like your pipe, you never know where you put it. Does that make you feel better?
- Ella: No! Not yet, that is. Maybe later.
- Mrs. Toquet: Try another: the clouds pass, the blue remains constant.
- Ella: I - I guess it does.
- Mrs. Toquet: Hmm. Try this one: life is mysterious and search for causes occasionally bring about strange results, just as potatoes occasionally resemble eminent statesmen.
- Prince Charles: [singing] Climbing rose, On the wall, Pluck it now, Before the petals fall. Apple ripe, On the bough, Take if for the time, To take is now. Happy day, Sun or rain, Live it for, It never comes again. Lads have died, Young and gay, Pretty maids, Can fade away. Nothing is forever...
- Prince Charles: Riding through town, I kept remember something that happened years ago. I'd been home for the holidays and was leaving to return to school. My carriage was held up in the middle of the town because something was going on in the street ahead, blocking our path. It involved a child - a little girl of about five. She was crying in a sort of tragic frenzy. She'd run out of her house in the path of the carriage and some towns people were trying to hold her back. I don't know what it was all about. But one thing I've remembered ever since in the most minute detail: she had great, agonized, rebellious eyes, fringed with dark lashes, and her cheeks were wet with tears. It was the most tragic face I ever saw. Not just sad. It had the agony of a Greek Tragedy, beyond hope of comforting. I've never known sorrow, not really, but ever since that day, I've felt I've had some knowledge of what it's like, of all the human soul can stand of pain and misery. And ever since that day, I find it almost impossible to resist a weeping woman.