Thérèse. I have someone to talk to now and tell my little worries to. It's not that, even. One always finds people ready to listen to you and pity you, but what one doesn't find is people one can tell one's most impossible dreams to and feel sure one won't be laughed at. That's real friendship. [She stops working as she continues] To dare to think out loud before another person and let her see the gods of one's secret idolatry, and to be sure one's not exposing one's precious things to blasphemy. How I love you for being like you are and for caring for me a little. [She resumes her work]
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. I don't care for you a little, Thérèse! I care for you very much indeed. I like you because you're brave and hurl yourself against obstacles like a little battering ram, and because you're straight and honest and one can depend on you.
Thérèse [who can't get open the letter she holds] Please pass me the scissors. Thanks. [She cuts open the envelope] I might have been all those things, and it would have been no good at all, if you hadn't been able to see them.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Remember that in being friends with you I get as much as I give. My people were very religious and very proud of their title. I made up my mind to leave home, but since then I've been quite alone—alone for thirty years. I'm selfish in my love for you now. I've had so little of that sort of happiness.
Thérèse. You've done so much for women. You've helped so many.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot [touching her piles of letters] Here's another who won't renew.
Thérèse. What will Madame Nérisse say? [Continuing] You know, Mademoiselle, it's not only success that I want. I have a great ambition. I should like to think that because I've lived there might be a little less suffering in the world. That's the sort of thing that I can say to nobody but you.
Mademoiselle de Meuriot [tenderly] Thérèse has an ardent soul.
Thérèse. Yes, Thérèse has an ardent soul. It was you who said that about me first, and I think I deserve it. [Changing her tone] Here's the subscriber's book. [She hands the book and continues in her former voice] Like Guyan, I have more tears than I need to spend on my own sufferings, so I can give the spare ones to other people. And not only tears, but courage and consolation that I have no opportunity of using up myself. Do you understand what I mean?
Mademoiselle de Meuriot. Yes, I understand, my dear. I see my own youth over again. [Sadly] Oh, I hope that you—but I don't want to rouse up those old ghosts; I should only distress you. Perhaps lives like mine are necessary, if it's only to throw into relief lives that are more beautiful than mine. Keep your lovely dreams. [A silence] When I think that instead of being an old maid I might have been the mother of a girl like you!