Ms. Shaw
Pre AP English 9
Summer Assignment 2008
Email: s.shaw@hackensackschools.org
In order to be considered for Pre AP English 9, all students must complete and submit the following summer assignment by Friday, September 5, 2008. There are no exceptions to the due date. If any element/part of the assignment is missing, the whole assignment is considered late and will be heavily penalized (you will receive a zero for the assignment). Be forewarned that this course is part of the Advanced Placement program for a reason; it is designed for students who have an extreme interest in reading, writing, critical thinking and creativity. All students in this program must have a strong work ethic and an aptitude for literary analysis. Students in this course will be challenged continuously, and expected to submit written work regularly, on time and exceptionally well done.
The summer assignment will introduce student to the wonderful world of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and the 1964 classic film My Fair Lady.
Requirements for Summer Assignment:
Caveat:
Do not use Cliff Notes, Monarch Notes, Spark Notes or any other reading aids from the Internet. I will know if you do so and you will receive no credit for the assignment. Hackensack High School has a Zero Tolerance policy on plagiarism! Do not even think of using anyone’s words but your own for the assignment! Please remember it is much more productive if you try to use your own thoughts and words than to copy the ideas of another.
**Failure to hand in this assignment on the appointed date will result in a zero for the assignment. Please note that we do not accept the following excuses: Notes from home, broken computers, lost disks, no printer, long vacations, weather catastrophes, pet emergencies, visiting relatives, confusion as to what school to attend, or any other excuse as to why you do not have the assignment on the due date.**
Assignments for the Summer of 2008:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/pygml10.txt
§ You can also just Google “Pygmalion etext” to find it as well.
§ You can also purchase a copy from a bookstore or Amazon.com.
this?
Remember, this is an honors level English class and I expect nothing but the best from my students. Do not leave completing this assignment until the last minute. If you do, your work and grades will suffer. Do not rush through this assignment either; you will miss all the wonderful elements and humorous and tender moments of Pygmalion. I expect you to be very knowledgeable about the provided information so we can begin to discuss and build upon your knowledge on the very first day of school. What you learn this summer you will need for the rest of your literary career in high school and life.
Remember, you can always email if you need help.
s.shaw@hackensackschools.org
I look forward to seeing you in September!
PreAP English 9
Summer Assignment 2008
Pygmalion
Directions: Answer the following questions about George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion with complete sentences and specific references and examples from the text. Be sure to use proper MLA citations when quoting from the play. Reminder: All answers must be typed – Times New Roman, 12-point font and double spaced.
Act I Questions for Pygmalion:
· How would you describe the types of characters represented in Act I?
· How is the note taker affected by the church bells?
Act II Questions for Pygmalion:
· How does he differ from Higgins in character, drive, ability, and attitudes – especially in his attitude to Eliza?
· In what ways does he stand up for her and represent her best interests?
· On what points are Pickering and Mrs. Pearce in agreement?
5. Mr. Doolittle, Eliza’s father, exposes the pretensions of what he calls “middle-class morality,” as an excuse for never giving to the poor. Why does Mr. Doolittle prefer his own “undeserving poverty”? Explain your answer.
Act III Questions for Pygmalion:
2. How does Mrs. Higgins react to Eliza?
Act IV Questions for Pygmalion:
· What feelings do you think Eliza has for Higgins?
· What advantages might Shaw see in introducing the crisis in the fourth act?
· What advantages might Shaw see in keeping this act so very short?
Act V Questions for Pygmalion:
3. In what ways does Mr. Doolittle’s acceptance of affluence conflict with his earlier criticisms of middle class morality?
· Through Mr. Doolittle, what might Shaw be saying about society and humanity? Explain your answer.
Final Thoughts:
PYGMALION
BERNARD SHAW
1912
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: In the printed version of this text, all
apostrophes for contractions such as "can't", "wouldn't" and
"he'd" were omitted, to read as "cant", "wouldnt", and "hed".
This etext edition restores the omitted apostrophes.
ACT I
Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab
whistles blowing frantically in all directions. Pedestrians
running for shelter into the market and under the portico of St.
Paul's Church, where there are already several people, among them
a lady and her daughter in evening dress. They are all peering
out gloomily at the rain, except one man with his back turned to
the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied with a notebook in which
he is writing busily.
The church clock strikes the first quarter.
THE DAUGHTER [in the space between the central pillars, close to
the one on her left] I'm getting chilled to the bone. What can
Freddy be doing all this time? He's been gone twenty minutes.
THE MOTHER [on her daughter's right] Not so long. But he ought to
have got us a cab by this.
A BYSTANDER [on the lady's right] He won't get no cab not until
half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping
their theatre fares.
THE MOTHER. But we must have a cab. We can't stand here until
half-past eleven. It's too bad.
THE BYSTANDER. Well, it ain't my fault, missus.
THE DAUGHTER. If Freddy had a bit of gumption, he would have got
one at the theatre door.
THE MOTHER. What could he have done, poor boy?
THE DAUGHTER. Other people got cabs. Why couldn't he?
Freddy rushes in out of the rain from the Southampton Street
side, and comes between them closing a dripping umbrella. He is a
young man of twenty, in evening dress, very wet around the
ankles.
THE DAUGHTER. Well, haven't you got a cab?
FREDDY. There's not one to be had for love or money.
THE MOTHER. Oh, Freddy, there must be one. You can't have tried.
THE DAUGHTER. It's too tiresome. Do you expect us to go and get
one ourselves?
FREDDY. I tell you they're all engaged. The rain was so sudden:
nobody was prepared; and everybody had to take a cab. I've been
to Charing Cross one way and nearly to Ludgate Circus the other;
and they were all engaged.
THE MOTHER. Did you try Trafalgar Square?
FREDDY. There wasn't one at Trafalgar Square.
THE DAUGHTER. Did you try?
FREDDY. I tried as far as Charing Cross Station. Did you expect
me to walk to Hammersmith?
THE DAUGHTER. You haven't tried at all.
THE MOTHER. You really are very helpless, Freddy. Go again; and
don't come back until you have found a cab.
FREDDY. I shall simply get soaked for nothing.
THE DAUGHTER. And what about us? Are we to stay here all night in
this draught, with next to nothing on. You selfish pig--
FREDDY. Oh, very well: I'll go, I'll go. [He opens his umbrella
and dashes off Strandwards, but comes into
collision with a flower girl, who is hurrying in for shelter,
knocking her basket out of her hands. A blinding flash of
lightning, followed instantly by a rattling peal of thunder,
orchestrates the incident]
THE FLOWER GIRL. Nah then, Freddy: look wh' y' gowin, deah.
FREDDY. Sorry [he rushes off].
THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up her scattered flowers and replacing
them in the basket] There's menners f' yer! Te-oo banches o
voylets trod into the mad. [She sits down on the plinth of the
column, sorting her flowers, on the lady's right. She is not at
all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps
twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black
straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London
and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing
rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a
shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped
to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her
boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as
she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very
dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition
leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a
dentist].
THE MOTHER. How do you know that my son's name is Freddy, pray?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y'
de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore
gel's flahrzn than ran awy atbaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them?
[Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her
dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as
unintelligible outside London.]
THE DAUGHTER. Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea!
THE MOTHER. Please allow me, Clara. Have you any pennies?
THE DAUGHTER. No. I've nothing smaller than sixpence.
THE FLOWER GIRL [hopefully] I can give you change for a tanner,
kind lady.
THE MOTHER [to Clara] Give it to me. [Clara parts reluctantly].
Now [to the girl] This is for your flowers.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Thank you kindly, lady.
THE DAUGHTER. Make her give you the change. These things are only
a penny a bunch.
THE MOTHER. Do hold your tongue, Clara. [To the girl].
You can keep the change.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, thank you, lady.
THE MOTHER. Now tell me how you know that young gentleman's name.
THE FLOWER GIRL. I didn't.
THE MOTHER. I heard you call him by it. Don't try to deceive me.
THE FLOWER GIRL [protesting] Who's trying to deceive you? I
called him Freddy or Charlie same as you might yourself if you
was talking to a stranger and wished to be pleasant. [She sits
down beside her basket].
THE DAUGHTER. Sixpence thrown away! Really, mamma, you might have
spared Freddy that. [She retreats in disgust behind the pillar].
An elderly gentleman of the amiable military type rushes into
shelter, and closes a dripping umbrella. He is in the same plight
as Freddy, very wet about the ankles. He is in evening dress,
with a light overcoat. He takes the place left vacant by the
daughter's retirement.
THE GENTLEMAN. Phew!
THE MOTHER [to the gentleman] Oh, sir, is there any sign of its
stopping?
THE GENTLEMAN. I'm afraid not. It started worse than ever about
two minutes ago. [He goes to the plinth beside the flower girl;
puts up his foot on it; and stoops to turn down his trouser
ends].
THE MOTHER. Oh, dear! [She retires sadly and joins her daughter].
THE FLOWER GIRL [taking advantage of the military gentleman's
proximity to establish friendly relations with him]. If it's
worse it's a sign it's nearly over. So cheer up, Captain; and buy
a flower off a poor girl.
THE GENTLEMAN. I'm sorry, I haven't any change.
THE FLOWER GIRL. I can give you change, Captain,
THE GENTLEMEN. For a sovereign? I've nothing less.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Garn! Oh do buy a flower off me, Captain. I can
change half-a-crown. Take this for tuppence.
THE GENTLEMAN. Now don't be troublesome: there's a good girl.
[Trying his pockets] I really haven't any change--Stop: here's
three hapence, if that's any use to you [he retreats to the other
pillar].
THE FLOWER GIRL [disappointed, but thinking three halfpence
better than nothing] Thank you, sir.
THE BYSTANDER [to the girl] You be careful: give him a flower for
it. There's a bloke here behind taking down every blessed word
you're saying. [All turn to the man who is taking notes].
THE FLOWER GIRL [springing up terrified] I ain't done nothing
wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I've a right to sell flowers
if I keep off the kerb. [Hysterically] I'm a respectable girl: so
help me, I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower
off me. [General hubbub, mostly sympathetic to the flower girl,
but deprecating her excessive sensibility. Cries of Don't start
hollerin. Who's hurting you? Nobody's going to touch you. What's
the good of fussing? Steady on. Easy, easy, etc., come from the
elderly staid spectators, who pat her comfortingly. Less patient
ones bid her shut her head, or ask her roughly what is wrong with
her. A remoter group, not knowing what the matter is, crowd in
and increase the noise with question and answer: What's the row?
What she do? Where is he? A tec taking her down. What! him? Yes:
him over there: Took money off the gentleman, etc. The flower
girl, distraught and mobbed, breaks through them to the
gentleman, crying mildly] Oh, sir, don't let him charge me. You
dunno what it means to me. They'll take away my character and
drive me on the streets for speaking to gentlemen. They--
THE NOTE TAKER [coming forward on her right, the rest crowding
after him] There, there, there, there! Who's hurting you, you
silly girl? What do you take me for?
THE BYSTANDER. It's all right: he's a gentleman: look at his
boots. [Explaining to the note taker] She thought you was a
copper's nark, sir.
THE NOTE TAKER [with quick interest] What's a copper's nark?
THE BYSTANDER [inept at definition] It's a--well, it's a copper's
nark, as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of
informer.
THE FLOWER GIRL [still hysterical] I take my Bible oath I never
said a word--
THE NOTE TAKER [overbearing but good-humored] Oh, shut up, shut
up. Do I look like a policeman?
THE FLOWER GIRL [far from reassured] Then what did you take down
my words for? How do I know whether you took me down right? You
just show me what you've wrote about me. [The note taker opens
his book and holds it steadily under her nose, though the
pressure of the mob trying to read it over his shoulders would
upset a weaker man]. What's that? That ain't proper writing. I
can't read that.
THE NOTE TAKER. I can. [Reads, reproducing her pronunciation
exactly] "Cheer ap, Keptin; n' haw ya flahr orf a pore gel."
THE FLOWER GIRL [much distressed] It's because I called him
Captain. I meant no harm. [To the gentleman] Oh, sir, don't let
him lay a charge agen me for a word like that. You--
THE GENTLEMAN. Charge! I make no charge. [To the note taker]
Really, sir, if you are a detective, you need not begin
protecting me against molestation by young women until I ask you.
Anybody could see that the girl meant no harm.
THE BYSTANDERS GENERALLY [demonstrating against police espionage]
Course they could. What business is it of yours? You mind your
own affairs. He wants promotion, he does. Taking down people's
words! Girl never said a word to him. What harm if she did? Nice
thing a girl can't shelter from the rain without being insulted,
etc., etc., etc. [She is conducted by the more sympathetic
demonstrators back to her plinth, where she resumes her seat and
struggles with her emotion].
THE BYSTANDER. He ain't a tec. He's a blooming busybody: that's
what he is. I tell you, look at his boots.
THE NOTE TAKER [turning on him genially] And how are all your
people down at Selsey?
THE BYSTANDER [suspiciously] Who told you my people come from
Selsey?
THE NOTE TAKER. Never you mind. They did. [To the girl] How do
you come to be up so far east? You were born in Lisson Grove.
THE FLOWER GIRL [appalled] Oh, what harm is there in my leaving
Lisson Grove? It wasn't fit for a pig to live in; and I had to
pay four-and-six a week. [In tears] Oh, boo--hoo--oo--
THE NOTE TAKER. Live where you like; but stop that noise.
THE GENTLEMAN [to the girl] Come, come! he can't touch you: you
have a right to live where you please.
A SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [thrusting himself between the note taker
and the gentleman] Park Lane, for instance. I'd like to go into
the Housing Question with you, I would.
THE FLOWER GIRL [subsiding into a brooding melancholy over her
basket, and talking very low-spiritedly to herself] I'm a good
girl, I am.
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [not attending to her] Do you know where
_I_ come from?
THE NOTE TAKER [promptly] Hoxton.
Titterings. Popular interest in the note taker's
performance increases.
THE SARCASTIC ONE [amazed] Well, who said I didn't? Bly me! You
know everything, you do.
THE FLOWER GIRL [still nursing her sense of injury] Ain't no call
to meddle with me, he ain't.
THE BYSTANDER [to her] Of course he ain't. Don't you stand it
from him. [To the note taker] See here: what call have you to
know about people what never offered to meddle with you? Where's
your warrant?
SEVERAL BYSTANDERS [encouraged by this seeming point of law] Yes:
where's your warrant?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Let him say what he likes. I don't want to have
no truck with him.
THE BYSTANDER. You take us for dirt under your feet, don't you?
Catch you taking liberties with a gentleman!
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. Yes: tell HIM where he come from if you
want to go fortune-telling.
THE NOTE TAKER. Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India.
THE GENTLEMAN. Quite right. [Great laughter. Reaction in the note
taker's favor. Exclamations of He knows all about it. Told him
proper. Hear him tell the toff where he come from? etc.]. May I
ask, sir, do you do this for your living at a music hall?
THE NOTE TAKER. I've thought of that. Perhaps I shall some day.
The rain has stopped; and the persons on the outside of the crowd
begin to drop off.
THE FLOWER GIRL [resenting the reaction] He's no gentleman, he
ain't, to interfere with a poor girl.
THE DAUGHTER [out of patience, pushing her way rudely to the
front and displacing the gentleman, who politely retires to the
other side of the pillar] What on earth is Freddy doing? I shall
get pneumonia if I stay in this draught any longer.
THE NOTE TAKER [to himself, hastily making a note of her
pronunciation of "monia"] Earlscourt.
THE DAUGHTER [violently] Will you please keep your impertinent
remarks to yourself?
THE NOTE TAKER. Did I say that out loud? I didn't mean to. I beg
your pardon. Your mother's Epsom, unmistakeably.
THE MOTHER [advancing between her daughter and the note taker]
How very curious! I was brought up in Largelady Park, near Epsom.
THE NOTE TAKER [uproariously amused] Ha! ha! What a devil of a
name! Excuse me. [To the daughter] You want a cab, do you?
THE DAUGHTER. Don't dare speak to me.
THE MOTHER. Oh, please, please Clara. [Her daughter repudiates
her with an angry shrug and retires haughtily.] We should be so
grateful to you, sir, if you found us a cab. [The note taker
produces a whistle]. Oh, thank you. [She joins her daughter]. The
note taker blows a piercing blast.
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. There! I knowed he was a
plain-clothes copper.
THE BYSTANDER. That ain't a police whistle: that's a sporting
whistle.
THE FLOWER GIRL [still preoccupied with her wounded feelings]
He's no right to take away my character. My character is the same
to me as any lady's.
THE NOTE TAKER. I don't know whether you've noticed it; but the
rain stopped about two minutes ago.
THE BYSTANDER. So it has. Why didn't you say so before? and us
losing our time listening to your silliness. [He walks off
towards the Strand].
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. I can tell where you come from. You come
from Anwell. Go back there.
THE NOTE TAKER [helpfully] _H_anwell.
THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [affecting great distinction of speech]
Thenk you, teacher. Haw haw! So long [he touches his hat with
mock respect and strolls off].
THE FLOWER GIRL. Frightening people like that! How would he like
it himself.
THE MOTHER. It's quite fine now, Clara. We can walk to a motor
bus. Come. [She gathers her skirts above her ankles and hurries
off towards the Strand].
THE DAUGHTER. But the cab--[her mother is out of hearing]. Oh,
how tiresome! [She follows angrily].
All the rest have gone except the note taker, the
gentleman, and the flower girl, who sits arranging her basket,
and still pitying herself in murmurs.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Poor girl! Hard enough for her to live without
being worrited and chivied.
THE GENTLEMAN [returning to his former place on the note taker's
left] How do you do it, if I may ask?
THE NOTE TAKER. Simply phonetics. The science of speech. That's
my profession; also my hobby. Happy is the man who can make a
living by his hobby! You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman
by his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place
him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly coward!
THE GENTLEMAN. But is there a living in that?
THE NOTE TAKER. Oh yes. Quite a fat one. This is an age of
upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town with 80 pounds a year, and
end in Park Lane with a hundred thousand. They want to drop
Kentish Town; but they give themselves away every time they open
their mouths. Now I can teach them--
THE FLOWER GIRL. Let him mind his own business and leave a poor
girl--
THE NOTE TAKER [explosively] Woman: cease this detestable
boohooing instantly; or else seek the shelter of some other place
of worship.
THE FLOWER GIRL [with feeble defiance] I've a right to be here if
I like, same as you.
THE NOTE TAKER. A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting
sounds has no right to be anywhere--no right to live. Remember
that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of
articulate speech: that your native language is the language of
Shakespear and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning
like a bilious pigeon.
THE FLOWER GIRL [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in
mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her head]
Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!
THE NOTE TAKER [whipping out his book] Heavens! what a sound! [He
writes; then holds out the book and reads, reproducing her vowels
exactly] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo!
THE FLOWER GIRL [tickled by the performance, and laughing in
spite of herself] Garn!
THE NOTE TAKER. You see this creature with her kerbstone English:
the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her
days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a
duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a
place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better
English. That's the sort of thing I do for commercial
millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific
work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.
THE GENTLEMAN. I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and--
THE NOTE TAKER [eagerly] Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering,
the author of Spoken Sanscrit?
THE GENTLEMAN. I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you?
THE NOTE TAKER. Henry Higgins, author of Higgins's Universal
Alphabet.
PICKERING [with enthusiasm] I came from India to meet you.
HIGGINS. I was going to India to meet you.
PICKERING. Where do you live?
HIGGINS. 27A Wimpole Street. Come and see me tomorrow.
PICKERING. I'm at the Carlton. Come with me now and let's have a
jaw over some supper.
HIGGINS. Right you are.
THE FLOWER GIRL [to Pickering, as he passes her] Buy a flower,
kind gentleman. I'm short for my lodging.
PICKERING. I really haven't any change. I'm sorry [he goes away].
HIGGINS [shocked at girl's mendacity] Liar. You said you could
change half-a-crown.
THE FLOWER GIRL [rising in desperation] You ought to be stuffed
with nails, you ought. [Flinging the basket at his feet] Take the
whole blooming basket for sixpence.
The church clock strikes the second quarter.
HIGGINS [hearing in it the voice of God, rebuking him for his
Pharisaic want of charity to the poor girl] A reminder. [He
raises his hat solemnly; then throws a handful of money into the
basket and follows Pickering].
THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up a half-crown] Ah--ow--ooh! [Picking
up a couple of florins] Aaah--ow--ooh! [Picking up several coins]
Aaaaaah--ow--ooh! [Picking up a half-sovereign] Aasaaaaaaaaah--
ow--ooh!!!
FREDDY [springing out of a taxicab] Got one at last. Hallo! [To
the girl] Where are the two ladies that were here?
THE FLOWER GIRL. They walked to the bus when the rain stopped.
FREDDY. And left me with a cab on my hands. Damnation!
THE FLOWER GIRL [with grandeur] Never you mind, young man. I'm
going home in a taxi. [She sails off to the cab. The driver puts
his hand behind him and holds the door firmly shut against her.
Quite understanding his mistrust, she shows him her handful of
money]. Eightpence ain't no object to me, Charlie. [He grins and
opens the door]. Angel Court, Drury Lane, round the corner of
Micklejohn's oil shop. Let's see how fast you can make her hop
it. [She gets in and pulls the door to with a slam as the taxicab
starts].
FREDDY. Well, I'm dashed!
ACT II
Next day at 11 a.m. Higgins's laboratory in Wimpole Street. It
is a room on the first floor, looking on the street, and was
meant for the drawing-room. The double doors are in the middle of
the back hall; and persons entering find in the corner to their
right two tall file cabinets at right angles to one another
against the walls. In this corner stands a flat writing-table, on
which are a phonograph, a laryngoscope, a row of tiny organ pipes
with a bellows, a set of lamp chimneys for singing flames with
burners attached to a gas plug in the wall by an indiarubber
tube, several tuning-forks of different sizes, a life-size image
of half a human head, showing in section the vocal organs, and a
box containing a supply of wax cylinders for the phonograph.
Further down the room, on the same side, is a fireplace, with a
comfortable leather-covered easy-chair at the side of the hearth
nearest the door, and a coal-scuttle. There is a clock on the
mantelpiece. Between the fireplace and the phonograph table is a
stand for newspapers.
On the other side of the central door, to the left of the
visitor, is a cabinet of shallow drawers. On it is a telephone
and the telephone directory. The corner beyond, and most of the
side wall, is occupied by a grand piano, with the keyboard at the
end furthest from the door, and a bench for the player extending
the full length of the keyboard. On the piano is a dessert dish
heaped with fruit and sweets, mostly chocolates.
The middle of the room is clear. Besides the easy chair, the
piano bench, and two chairs at the phonograph table, there is one
stray chair. It stands near the fireplace. On the walls,
engravings; mostly Piranesis and mezzotint portraits. No
paintings.
Pickering is seated at the table, putting down some cards and a
tuning-fork which he has been using. Higgins is standing up near
him, closing two or three file drawers which are hanging out. He
appears in the morning light as a robust, vital, appetizing sort
of man of forty or thereabouts, dressed in a professional-looking
black frock-coat with a white linen collar and black silk tie. He
is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily, even violently
interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific
subject, and careless about himself and other people, including
their feelings. He is, in fact, but for his years and size,
rather like a very impetuous baby "taking notice" eagerly and
loudly, and requiring almost as much watching to keep him out of
unintended mischief. His manner varies from genial bullying when
he is in a good humor to stormy petulance when anything goes
wrong; but he is so entirely frank and void of malice that he
remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments.
HIGGINS [as he shuts the last drawer] Well, I think that's the
whole show.
PICKERING. It's really amazing. I haven't taken half of it in,
you know.
HIGGINS. Would you like to go over any of it again?
PICKERING [rising and coming to the fireplace, where he plants
himself with his back to the fire] No, thank you; not now. I'm
quite done up for this morning.
HIGGINS [following him, and standing beside him on his left]
Tired of listening to sounds?
PICKERING. Yes. It's a fearful strain. I rather fancied myself
because I can pronounce twenty-four distinct vowel sounds; but
your hundred and thirty beat me. I can't hear a bit of difference
between most of them.
HIGGINS [chuckling, and going over to the piano to eat sweets]
Oh, that comes with practice. You hear no difference at first;
but you keep on listening, and presently you find they're all as
different as A from B. [Mrs. Pearce looks in: she is Higgins's
housekeeper] What's the matter?
MRS. PEARCE [hesitating, evidently perplexed] A young woman wants
to see you, sir.
HIGGINS. A young woman! What does she want?
MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, she says you'll be glad to see her when
you know what she's come about. She's quite a common girl, sir.
Very common indeed. I should have sent her away, only I thought
perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machines. I hope I've
not done wrong; but really you see such queer people sometimes--
you'll excuse me, I'm sure, sir--
HIGGINS. Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Pearce. Has she an
interesting accent?
MRS. PEARCE. Oh, something dreadful, sir, really. I don't know
how you can take an interest in it.
HIGGINS [to Pickering] Let's have her up. Show her up, Mrs.
Pearce [he rushes across to his working table and picks out a
cylinder to use on the phonograph].
MRS. PEARCE [only half resigned to it] Very well, sir. It's for
you to say. [She goes downstairs].
HIGGINS. This is rather a bit of luck. I'll show you how I make
records. We'll set her talking; and I'll take it down first in
Bell's visible Speech; then in broad Romic; and then we'll get
her on the phonograph so that you can turn her on as often as you
like with the written transcript before you.
MRS. PEARCE [returning] This is the young woman, sir.
The flower girl enters in state. She has a hat with three ostrich
feathers, orange, sky-blue, and red. She has a nearly clean
apron, and the shoddy coat has been tidied a little. The pathos
of this deplorable figure, with its innocent vanity and
consequential air, touches Pickering, who has already
straightened himself in the presence of Mrs. Pearce. But as to
Higgins, the only distinction he makes between men and women is
that when he is neither bullying nor exclaiming to the heavens
against some featherweight cross, he coaxes women as a child
coaxes its nurse when it wants to get anything out of her.
HIGGINS [brusquely, recognizing her with unconcealed
disappointment, and at once, baby-like, making an intolerable
grievance of it] Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night.
She's no use: I've got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove
lingo; and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. [To the
girl] Be off with you: I don't want you.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Don't you be so saucy. You ain't heard what I
come for yet. [To Mrs. Pearce, who is waiting at the door for
further instruction] Did you tell him I come in a taxi?
MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, girl! what do you think a gentleman like
Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, we are proud! He ain't above giving lessons,
not him: I heard him say so. Well, I ain't come here to ask for
any compliment; and if my money's not good enough I can go
elsewhere.
HIGGINS. Good enough for what?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Good enough for ye--oo. Now you know, don't you?
I'm come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no
mistake.
HIGGINS [stupent] WELL!!! [Recovering his breath with a gasp]
What do you expect me to say to you?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me
to sit down, I think. Don't I tell you I'm bringing you business?
HIGGINS. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down or
shall we throw her out of the window?
THE FLOWER GIRL [running away in terror to the piano, where she
turns at bay] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo! [Wounded and
whimpering] I won't be called a baggage when I've offered to pay
like any lady.
Motionless, the two men stare at her from the other side of the
room, amazed.
PICKERING [gently] What is it you want, my girl?
THE FLOWER GIRL. I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of
selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won't
take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach
me. Well, here I am ready to pay him--not asking any favor--and
he treats me as if I was dirt.
MRS. PEARCE. How can you be such a foolish ignorant girl as to
think you could afford to pay Mr. Higgins?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Why shouldn't I? I know what lessons cost as
well as you do; and I'm ready to pay.
HIGGINS. How much?
THE FLOWER GIRL [coming back to him, triumphant] Now you're
talking! I thought you'd come off it when you saw a chance of
getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night.
[Confidentially] You'd had a drop in, hadn't you?
HIGGINS [peremptorily] Sit down.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, if you're going to make a compliment of it--
HIGGINS [thundering at her] Sit down.
MRS. PEARCE [severely] Sit down, girl. Do as you're told. [She
places the stray chair near the hearthrug between Higgins and
Pickering, and stands behind it waiting for the girl to sit
down].
THE FLOWER GIRL. Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo! [She stands, half
rebellious, half bewildered].
PICKERING [very courteous] Won't you sit down?
LIZA [coyly] Don't mind if I do. [She sits down. Pickering
returns to the hearthrug].
HIGGINS. What's your name?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Liza Doolittle.
HIGGINS [declaiming gravely]
Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess,
They went to the woods to get a birds nes':
PICKERING. They found a nest with four eggs in it:
HIGGINS. They took one apiece, and left three in it.
They laugh heartily at their own wit.
LIZA. Oh, don't be silly.
MRS. PEARCE. You mustn't speak to the gentleman like that.
LIZA. Well, why won't he speak sensible to me?
HIGGINS. Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me
for the lessons?
LIZA. Oh, I know what's right. A lady friend of mine gets French
lessons for eighteenpence an hour from a real French gentleman.
Well, you wouldn't have the face to ask me the same for teaching
me my own language as you would for French; so I won't give more
than a shilling. Take it or leave it.
HIGGINS [walking up and down the room, rattling his keys and his
cash in his pockets] You know, Pickering, if you consider a
shilling, not as a simple shilling, but as a percentage of this
girl's income, it works out as fully equivalent to sixty or
seventy guineas from a millionaire.
PICKERING. How so?
HIGGINS. Figure it out. A millionaire has about 150 pounds a day.
She earns about half-a-crown.
LIZA [haughtily] Who told you I only--
HIGGINS [continuing] She offers me two-fifths of her day's income
for a lesson. Two-fifths of a millionaire's income for a day
would be somewhere about 60 pounds. It's handsome. By George,
it's enormous! it's the biggest offer I ever had.
LIZA [rising, terrified] Sixty pounds! What are you talking
about? I never offered you sixty pounds. Where would I get--
HIGGINS. Hold your tongue.
LIZA [weeping] But I ain't got sixty pounds. Oh--
MRS. PEARCE. Don't cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going
to touch your money.
HIGGINS. Somebody is going to touch you, with a broomstick, if
you don't stop snivelling. Sit down.
LIZA [obeying slowly] Ah--ah--ah--ow--oo--o! One would think you
was my father.
HIGGINS. If I decide to teach you, I'll be worse than two fathers
to you. Here [he offers her his silk handkerchief]!
LIZA. What's this for?
HIGGINS. To wipe your eyes. To wipe any part of your face that
feels moist. Remember: that's your handkerchief; and that's your
sleeve. Don't mistake the one for the other if you wish to become
a lady in a shop.
Liza, utterly bewildered, stares helplessly at him.
MRS. PEARCE. It's no use talking to her like that, Mr. Higgins:
she doesn't understand you. Besides, you're quite wrong: she
doesn't do it that way at all [she takes the handkerchief].
LIZA [snatching it] Here! You give me that handkerchief. He give
it to me, not to you.
PICKERING [laughing] He did. I think it must be regarded as her
property, Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE [resigning herself] Serve you right, Mr. Higgins.
PICKERING. Higgins: I'm interested. What about the ambassador's
garden party? I'll say you're the greatest teacher alive if you
make that good. I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment
you can't do it. And I'll pay for the lessons.
LIZA. Oh, you are real good. Thank you, Captain.
HIGGINS [tempted, looking at her] It's almost irresistible. She's
so deliciously low--so horribly dirty--
LIZA [protesting extremely] Ah--ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oooo!!! I
ain't dirty: I washed my face and hands afore I come, I did.
PICKERING. You're certainly not going to turn her head with
flattery, Higgins.
MRS. PEARCE [uneasy] Oh, don't say that, sir: there's more ways
than one of turning a girl's head; and nobody can do it better
than Mr. Higgins, though he may not always mean it. I do hope,
sir, you won't encourage him to do anything foolish.
HIGGINS [becoming excited as the idea grows on him] What is life
but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them
to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day. I shall
make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe.
LIZA [strongly deprecating this view of her] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--
oo!
HIGGINS [carried away] Yes: in six months--in three if she has a
good ear and a quick tongue--I'll take her anywhere and pass her
off as anything. We'll start today: now! this moment! Take her
away and clean her, Mrs. Pearce. Monkey Brand, if it won't come
off any other way. Is there a good fire in the kitchen?
MRS. PEARCE [protesting]. Yes; but--
HIGGINS [storming on] Take all her clothes off and burn them.
Ring up Whiteley or somebody for new ones. Wrap her up in brown
paper till they come.
LIZA. You're no gentleman, you're not, to talk of such things.
I'm a good girl, I am; and I know what the like of you are, I do.
HIGGINS. We want none of your Lisson Grove prudery here, young
woman. You've got to learn to behave like a duchess. Take her
away, Mrs. Pearce. If she gives you any trouble wallop her.
LIZA [springing up and running between Pickering and Mrs. Pearce
for protection] No! I'll call the police, I will.
MRS. PEARCE. But I've no place to put her.
HIGGINS. Put her in the dustbin.
LIZA. Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!
PICKERING. Oh come, Higgins! be reasonable.
MRS. PEARCE [resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins:
really you must. You can't walk over everybody like this.
Higgins, thus scolded, subsides. The hurricane is succeeded by a
zephyr of amiable surprise.
HIGGINS [with professional exquisiteness of modulation] I walk
over everybody! My dear Mrs. Pearce, my dear Pickering, I never
had the slightest intention of walking over anyone. All I propose
is that we should be kind to this poor girl. We must help her to
prepare and fit herself for her new station in life. If I did not
express myself clearly it was because I did not wish to hurt her
delicacy, or yours.
Liza, reassured, steals back to her chair.
MRS. PEARCE [to Pickering] Well, did you ever hear anything like
that, sir?
PICKERING [laughing heartily] Never, Mrs. Pearce: never.
HIGGINS [patiently] What's the matter?
MRS. PEARCE. Well, the matter is, sir, that you can't take a girl
up like that as if you were picking up a pebble on the beach.
HIGGINS. Why not?
MRS. PEARCE. Why not! But you don't know anything about her. What
about her parents? She may be married.
LIZA. Garn!
HIGGINS. There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married
indeed! Don't you know that a woman of that class looks a worn
out drudge of fifty a year after she's married.
LIZA. Who'd marry me?
HIGGINS [suddenly resorting to the most thrillingly beautiful low
tones in his best elocutionary style] By George, Eliza, the
streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves
for your sake before I've done with you.
MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, sir. You mustn't talk like that to her.
LIZA [rising and squaring herself determinedly] I'm going away.
He's off his chump, he is. I don't want no balmies teaching me.
HIGGINS [wounded in his tenderest point by her insensibility to
his elocution] Oh, indeed! I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pearce:
you needn't order the new clothes for her. Throw her out.
LIZA [whimpering] Nah--ow. You got no right to touch me.
MRS. PEARCE. You see now what comes of being saucy. [Indicating
the door] This way, please.
LIZA [almost in tears] I didn't want no clothes. I wouldn't have
taken them [she throws away the handkerchief]. I can buy my own
clothes.
HIGGINS [deftly retrieving the handkerchief and intercepting her
on her reluctant way to the door] You're an ungrateful wicked
girl. This is my return for offering to take you out of the
gutter and dress you beautifully and make a lady of you.
MRS. PEARCE. Stop, Mr. Higgins. I won't allow it. It's you that
are wicked. Go home to your parents, girl; and tell them to take
better care of you.
LIZA. I ain't got no parents. They told me I was big enough to
earn my own living and turned me out.
MRS. PEARCE. Where's your mother?
LIZA. I ain't got no mother. Her that turned me out was my sixth
stepmother. But I done without them. And I'm a good girl, I am.
HIGGINS. Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about?
The girl doesn't belong to anybody--is no use to anybody but me.
[He goes to Mrs. Pearce and begins coaxing]. You can adopt her,
Mrs. Pearce: I'm sure a daughter would be a great amusement to
you. Now don't make any more fuss. Take her downstairs; and--
MRS. PEARCE. But what's to become of her? Is she to be paid
anything? Do be sensible, sir.
HIGGINS. Oh, pay her whatever is necessary: put it down in the
housekeeping book. [Impatiently] What on earth will she want with
money? She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink if
you give her money.
LIZA [turning on him] Oh you are a brute. It's a lie: nobody ever
saw the sign of liquor on me. [She goes back to her chair and
plants herself there defiantly].
PICKERING [in good-humored remonstrance] Does it occur to you,
Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?
HIGGINS [looking critically at her] Oh no, I don't think so. Not
any feelings that we need bother about. [Cheerily] Have you,
Eliza?
LIZA. I got my feelings same as anyone else.
HIGGINS [to Pickering, reflectively] You see the difficulty?
PICKERING. Eh? What difficulty?
HIGGINS. To get her to talk grammar. The mere pronunciation is
easy enough.
LIZA. I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.
MRS. PEARCE. Will you please keep to the point, Mr. Higgins. I
want to know on what terms the girl is to be here. Is she to have
any wages? And what is to become of her when you've finished
your teaching? You must look ahead a little.
HIGGINS [impatiently] What's to become of her if I leave her in
the gutter? Tell me that, Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE. That's her own business, not yours, Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS. Well, when I've done with her, we can throw her back
into the gutter; and then it will be her own business again; so
that's all right.
LIZA. Oh, you've no feeling heart in you: you don't care for
nothing but yourself [she rises and takes the floor resolutely].
Here! I've had enough of this. I'm going [making for the door].
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought.
HIGGINS [snatching a chocolate cream from the piano, his eyes
suddenly beginning to twinkle with mischief] Have some
chocolates, Eliza.
LIZA [halting, tempted] How do I know what might be in them? I've
heard of girls being drugged by the like of you.
Higgins whips out his penknife; cuts a chocolate in two; puts one
half into his mouth and bolts it; and offers her the other half.
HIGGINS. Pledge of good faith, Eliza. I eat one half you eat the
other.
[Liza opens her mouth to retort: he pops the half chocolate into
it]. You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day.
You shall live on them. Eh?
LIZA [who has disposed of the chocolate after being nearly choked
by it] I wouldn't have ate it, only I'm too ladylike to take it
out of my mouth.
HIGGINS. Listen, Eliza. I think you said you came in a taxi.
LIZA. Well, what if I did? I've as good a right to take a taxi as
anyone else.
HIGGINS. You have, Eliza; and in future you shall have as many
taxis as you want. You shall go up and down and round the town in
a taxi every day. Think of that, Eliza.
MRS. PEARCE. Mr. Higgins: you're tempting the girl. It's not
right. She should think of the future.
HIGGINS. At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future
when you haven't any future to think of. No, Eliza: do as this
lady does: think of other people's futures; but never think of
your own. Think of chocolates, and taxis, and gold, and diamonds.
LIZA. No: I don't want no gold and no diamonds. I'm a good girl,
I am. [She sits down again, with an attempt at dignity].
HIGGINS. You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs.
Pearce. And you shall marry an officer in the Guards, with a
beautiful moustache: the son of a marquis, who will disinherit
him for marrying you, but will relent when he sees your beauty
and goodness--
PICKERING. Excuse me, Higgins; but I really must interfere. Mrs.
Pearce is quite right. If this girl is to put herself in your
hands for six months for an experiment in teaching, she must
understand thoroughly what she's doing.
HIGGINS. How can she? She's incapable of understanding anything.
Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did,
would we ever do it?
PICKERING. Very clever, Higgins; but not sound sense. [To Eliza]
Miss Doolittle--
LIZA [overwhelmed] Ah--ah--ow--oo!
HIGGINS. There! That's all you get out of Eliza. Ah--ah--ow--oo!
No use explaining. As a military man you ought to know that. Give
her her orders: that's what she wants. Eliza: you are to live
here for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully,
like a lady in a florist's shop. If you're good and do whatever
you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots
to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If
you're naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among
the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a
broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham
Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out
you're not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower
of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other
presumptuous flower girls. If you are not found out, you shall
have a present of seven-and-sixpence to start life with as a lady
in a shop. If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful
and wicked girl; and the angels will weep for you. [To Pickering]
Now are you satisfied, Pickering? [To Mrs. Pearce] Can I put it
more plainly and fairly, Mrs. Pearce?
MRS. PEARCE [patiently] I think you'd better let me speak to the
girl properly in private. I don't know that I can take charge of
her or consent to the arrangement at all. Of course I know you
don't mean her any harm; but when you get what you call
interested in people's accents, you never think or care what may
happen to them or you. Come with me, Eliza.
HIGGINS. That's all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle her off
to the bath-room.
LIZA [rising reluctantly and suspiciously] You're a great bully,
you are. I won't stay here if I don't like. I won't let nobody
wallop me. I never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didn't. I was
never in trouble with the police, not me. I'm a good girl--
MRS. PEARCE. Don't answer back, girl. You don't understand the
gentleman. Come with me. [She leads the way to the door, and
holds it open for Eliza].
LIZA [as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I won't go near
the king, not if I'm going to have my head cut off. If I'd
known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn't have come
here. I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a
word to him; and I don't owe him nothing; and I don't care; and I
won't be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as anyone
else--
Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza's plaints are no longer
audible. Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits
astride it with his arms on the back.
PICKERING. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man
of good character where women are concerned?
HIGGINS [moodily] Have you ever met a man of good character where
women are concerned?
PICKERING. Yes: very frequently.
HIGGINS [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level
of the piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven't. I
find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she
becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I
find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I
become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you
let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at
one thing and you're driving at another.
PICKERING. At what, for example?
HIGGINS [coming off the piano restlessly] Oh, Lord knows! I
suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants
to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong
track. One wants to go north and the other south; and the result
is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east
wind. [He sits down on the bench at the keyboard]. So here I am,
a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so.
PICKERING [rising and standing over him gravely] Come, Higgins!
You know what I mean. If I'm to be in this business I shall feel
responsible for that girl. I hope it's understood that no
advantage is to be taken of her position.
HIGGINS. What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to
explain] You see, she'll be a pupil; and teaching would be
impossible unless pupils were sacred. I've taught scores of
American millionairesses how to speak English: the best looking
women in the world. I'm seasoned. They might as well be blocks of
wood. I might as well be a block of wood. It's--
Mrs. Pearce opens the door. She has Eliza's hat in her hand.
Pickering retires to the easy-chair at the hearth and sits down.
HIGGINS [eagerly] Well, Mrs. Pearce: is it all right?
MRS. PEARCE [at the door] I just wish to trouble you with a word,
if I may, Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS. Yes, certainly. Come in. [She comes forward]. Don't burn
that, Mrs. Pearce. I'll keep it as a curiosity. [He takes the
hat].
MRS. PEARCE. Handle it carefully, sir, please. I had to promise
her not to burn it; but I had better put it in the oven for a
while.
HIGGINS [putting it down hastily on the piano] Oh! thank you.
Well, what have you to say to me?
PICKERING. Am I in the way?
MRS. PEARCE. Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins: will you please be
very particular what you say before the girl?
HIGGINS [sternly] Of course. I'm always particular about what I
say. Why do you say this to me?
MRS. PEARCE [unmoved] No, sir: you're not at all particular when
you've mislaid anything or when you get a little impatient. Now
it doesn't matter before me: I'm used to it. But you really must
not swear before the girl.
HIGGINS [indignantly] I swear! [Most emphatically] I never swear.
I detest the habit. What the devil do you mean?
MRS. PEARCE [stolidly] That's what I mean, sir. You swear a great
deal too much. I don't mind your damning and blasting, and what
the devil and where the devil and who the devil--
HIGGINS. Really! Mrs. Pearce: this language from your lips!
MRS. PEARCE [not to be put off]--but there is a certain word I
must ask you not to use. The girl has just used it herself
because the bath was too hot. It begins with the same letter as
bath. She knows no better: she learnt it at her mother's knee.
But she must not hear it from your lips.
HIGGINS [loftily] I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered
it, Mrs. Pearce. [She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding
an uneasy conscience with a judicial air] Except perhaps in a
moment of extreme and justifiable excitement.
MRS. PEARCE. Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your
boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread.
HIGGINS. Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pearce, natural to a
poet.
MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you
not to let the girl hear you repeat it.
HIGGINS. Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?
MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with
this girl as to personal cleanliness.
HIGGINS. Certainly. Quite right. Most important.
MRS. PEARCE. I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy
in leaving things about.
HIGGINS [going to her solemnly] Just so. I intended to call your
attention to that [He passes on to Pickering, who is enjoying the
conversation immensely]. It is these little things that matter,
Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care
of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. [He
comes to anchor on the hearthrug, with the air of a man in an
unassailable position].
MRS. PEARCE. Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to
breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as
a napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good
as not to eat everything off the same plate, and to remember not
to put the porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean
tablecloth, it would be a better example to the girl. You know
you nearly choked yourself with a fishbone in the jam only last
week.
HIGGINS [routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the
piano] I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but
surely I don't do them habitually. [Angrily] By the way: my
dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine.
MRS. PEARCE. No doubt it does, Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe
your fingers--
HIGGINS [yelling] Oh very well, very well: I'll wipe them in my
hair in future.
MRS. PEARCE. I hope you're not offended, Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS [shocked at finding himself thought capable of an
unamiable sentiment] Not at all, not at all. You're quite right,
Mrs. Pearce: I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is
that all?
MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese
dresses you brought from abroad? I really can't put her back into
her old things.
HIGGINS. Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?
MRS. PEARCE. Thank you, sir. That's all. [She goes out].
HIGGINS. You know, Pickering, that woman has the most
extraordinary ideas about me. Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of
man. I've never been able to feel really grown-up and tremendous,
like other chaps. And yet she's firmly persuaded that I'm an
arbitrary overbearing bossing kind of person. I can't account
for it.
Mrs. Pearce returns.
MRS. PEARCE. If you please, sir, the trouble's beginning already.
There's a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you.
He says you have his daughter here.
PICKERING [rising] Phew! I say! [He retreats to the hearthrug].
HIGGINS [promptly] Send the blackguard up.
MRS. PEARCE. Oh, very well, sir. [She goes out].
PICKERING. He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.
HIGGINS. Nonsense. Of course he's a blackguard.
PICKERING. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some
trouble with him.
HIGGINS [confidently] Oh no: I think not. If there's any trouble
he shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get
something interesting out of him.
PICKERING. About the girl?
HIGGINS. No. I mean his dialect.
PICKERING. Oh!
MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Doolittle, sir. [She admits Doolittle
and retires].
Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the
costume of his profession, including a hat with a back brim
covering his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather
interesting features, and seems equally free from fear and
conscience. He has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a
habit of giving vent to his feelings without reserve. His present
pose is that of wounded honor and stern resolution.
DOOLITTLE [at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is
his man] Professor Higgins?
HIGGINS. Here. Good morning. Sit down.
DOOLITTLE. Morning, Governor. [He sits down magisterially] I come
about a very serious matter, Governor.
HIGGINS [to Pickering] Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I
should think. [Doolittle opens his mouth, amazed. Higgins
continues] What do you want, Doolittle?
DOOLITTLE [menacingly] I want my daughter: that's what I want.
See?
HIGGINS. Of course you do. You're her father, aren't you? You
don't suppose anyone else wants her, do you? I'm glad to see you
have some spark of family feeling left. She's upstairs. Take her
away at once.
DOOLITTLE [rising, fearfully taken aback] What!
HIGGINS. Take her away. Do you suppose I'm going to keep your
daughter for you?
DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this
reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? The
girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? [He sits
down again].
HIGGINS. Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and
ask me to teach her how to speak properly so that she could get a
place in a flower-shop. This gentleman and my housekeeper have
been here all the time. [Bullying him] How dare you come here and
attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose.
DOOLITTLE [protesting] No, Governor.
HIGGINS. You must have. How else could you possibly know that she
is here?
DOOLITTLE. Don't take a man up like that, Governor.
HIGGINS. The police shall take you up. This is a plant--a plot to
extort money by threats. I shall telephone for the police [he
goes resolutely to the telephone and opens the directory].
DOOLITTLE. Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to
the gentleman here: have I said a word about money?
HIGGINS [throwing the book aside and marching down on Doolittle
with a poser] What else did you come for?
DOOLITTLE [sweetly] Well, what would a man come for? Be human,
governor.
HIGGINS [disarmed] Alfred: did you put her up to it?
DOOLITTLE. So help me, Governor, I never did. I take my Bible
oath I ain't seen the girl these two months past.
HIGGINS. Then how did you know she was here?
DOOLITTLE ["most musical, most melancholy"] I'll tell you,
Governor, if you'll only let me get a word in. I'm willing to
tell you. I'm wanting to tell you. I'm waiting to tell you.
HIGGINS. Pickering: this chap has a certain natural gift of
rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild. "I'm
willing to tell you: I'm wanting to tell you: I'm waiting to tell
you." Sentimental rhetoric! That's the Welsh strain in him. It
also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.
PICKERING. Oh, PLEASE, Higgins: I'm west country myself. [To
Doolittle] How did you know the girl was here if you didn't send
her?
DOOLITTLE. It was like this, Governor. The girl took a boy in the
taxi to give him a jaunt. Son of her landlady, he is. He hung
about on the chance of her giving him another ride home. Well,
she sent him back for her luggage when she heard you was willing
for her to stop here. I met the boy at the corner of Long Acre
and Endell Street.
HIGGINS. Public house. Yes?
DOOLITTLE. The poor man's club, Governor: why shouldn't I?
PICKERING. Do let him tell his story, Higgins.
DOOLITTLE. He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my
feelings and my duty as a father? I says to the boy, "You bring
me the luggage," I says--
PICKERING. Why didn't you go for it yourself?
DOOLITTLE. Landlady wouldn't have trusted me with it, Governor.
She's that kind of woman: you know. I had to give the boy a penny
afore he trusted me with it, the little swine. I brought it to
her just to oblige you like, and make myself agreeable. That's
all.
HIGGINS. How much luggage?
DOOLITTLE. Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, a trifle
of jewelry, and a bird-cage. She said she didn't want no clothes.
What was I to think from that, Governor? I ask you as a parent
what was I to think?
HIGGINS. So you came to rescue her from worse than death, eh?
DOOLITTLE [appreciatively: relieved at being understood] Just so,
Governor. That's right.
PICKERING. But why did you bring her luggage if you intended to
take her away?
DOOLITTLE. Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now?
HIGGINS [determinedly] You're going to take her away, double
quick. [He crosses to the hearth and rings the bell].
DOOLITTLE [rising] No, Governor. Don't say that. I'm not the man
to stand in my girl's light. Here's a career opening for her, as
you might say; and--
Mrs. Pearce opens the door and awaits orders.
HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce: this is Eliza's father. He has come to take
her away. Give her to him. [He goes back to the piano, with an
air of washing his hands of the whole affair].
DOOLITTLE. No. This is a misunderstanding. Listen here--
MRS. PEARCE. He can't take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he? You
told me to burn her clothes.
DOOLITTLE. That's right. I can't carry the girl through the
streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.
HIGGINS. You have put it to me that you want your daughter. Take
your daughter. If she has no clothes go out and buy her some.
DOOLITTLE [desperate] Where's the clothes she come in? Did I burn
them or did your missus here?
MRS. PEARCE. I am the housekeeper, if you please. I have sent for
some clothes for your girl. When they come you can take her away.
You can wait in the kitchen. This way, please.
Doolittle, much troubled, accompanies her to the door; then
hesitates; finally turns confidentially to Higgins.
DOOLITTLE. Listen here, Governor. You and me is men of the world,
ain't we?
HIGGINS. Oh! Men of the world, are we? You'd better go, Mrs.
Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE. I think so, indeed, sir. [She goes, with dignity].
PICKERING. The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle.
DOOLITTLE [to Pickering] I thank you, Governor. [To Higgins, who
takes refuge on the piano bench, a little overwhelmed by the
proximity of his visitor; for Doolittle has a professional flavor
of dust about him]. Well, the truth is, I've taken a sort of
fancy to you, Governor; and if you want the girl, I'm not so set
on having her back home again but what I might be open to an
arrangement. Regarded in the light of a young woman, she's a fine
handsome girl. As a daughter she's not worth her keep; and so I
tell you straight. All I ask is my rights as a father; and you're
the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing; for I
can see you're one of the straight sort, Governor. Well, what's a
five pound note to you? And what's Eliza to me? [He returns to
his chair and sits down judicially].
PICKERING. I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr.
Higgins's intentions are entirely honorable.
DOOLITTLE. Course they are, Governor. If I thought they wasn't,
I'd ask fifty.
HIGGINS [revolted] Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that
you would sell your daughter for 50 pounds?
DOOLITTLE. Not in a general way I wouldn't; but to oblige a
gentleman like you I'd do a good deal, I do assure you.
PICKERING. Have you no morals, man?
DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Can't afford them, Governor. Neither could
you if you was as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm, you know.
But if Liza is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too?
HIGGINS [troubled] I don't know what to do, Pickering. There can
be no question that as a matter of morals it's a positive crime
to give this chap a farthing. And yet I feel a sort of rough
justice in his claim.
DOOLITTLE. That's it, Governor. That's all I say. A father's
heart, as it were.
PICKERING. Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly
right--
DOOLITTLE. Don't say that, Governor. Don't look at it that way.
What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the
undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a
man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the
time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it,
it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't
have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's
that ever got money out of six different charities in one week
for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a
deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and
I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a
thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I
feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as
they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an
excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two
gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with
you. I ain't pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I
mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that's the truth.
Will you take advantage of a man's nature to do him out of the
price of his own daughter what he's brought up and fed and
clothed by the sweat of his brow until she's growed big enough to
be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable?
I put it to you; and I leave it to you.
HIGGINS [rising, and going over to Pickering] Pickering: if we
were to take this man in hand for three months, he could choose
between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.
PICKERING. What do you say to that, Doolittle?
DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, thank you kindly. I've heard all the
preachers and all the prime ministers--for I'm a thinking man and
game for politics or religion or social reform same as all the
other amusements--and I tell you it's a dog's life anyway you
look at it. Undeserving poverty is my line. Taking one station in
society with another, it's--it's--well, it's the only one that
has any ginger in it, to my taste.
HIGGINS. I suppose we must give him a fiver.
PICKERING. He'll make a bad use of it, I'm afraid.
DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, so help me I won't. Don't you be
afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There
won't be a penny of it left by Monday: I'll have to go to work
same as if I'd never had it. It won't pauperize me, you bet. Just
one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to
ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to
think it's not been throwed away. You couldn't spend it better.
HIGGINS [taking out his pocket book and coming between Doolittle
and the piano] This is irresistible. Let's give him ten. [He
offers two notes to the dustman].
DOOLITTLE. No, Governor. She wouldn't have the heart to spend
ten; and perhaps I shouldn't neither. Ten pounds is a lot of
money: it makes a man feel prudent like; and then goodbye to
happiness. You give me what I ask you, Governor: not a penny
more, and not a penny less.
PICKERING. Why don't you marry that missus of yours? I rather
draw the line at encouraging that sort of immorality.
DOOLITTLE. Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I'm willing. It's
me that suffers by it. I've no hold on her. I got to be agreeable
to her. I got to give her presents. I got to buy her clothes
something sinful. I'm a slave to that woman, Governor, just
because I'm not her lawful husband. And she knows it too. Catch
her marrying me! Take my advice, Governor: marry Eliza while
she's young and don't know no better. If you don't you'll be
sorry for it after. If you do, she'll be sorry for it after; but
better you than her, because you're a man, and she's only a woman
and don't know how to be happy anyhow.
HIGGINS. Pickering: if we listen to this man another minute, we
shall have no convictions left. [To Doolittle] Five pounds I
think you said.
DOOLITTLE. Thank you kindly, Governor.
HIGGINS. You're sure you won't take ten?
DOOLITTLE. Not now. Another time, Governor.
HIGGINS [handing him a five-pound note] Here you are.
DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Governor. Good morning.
[He hurries to the door, anxious to get away with his booty. When
he opens it he is confronted with a dainty and exquisitely clean
young Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono printed
cunningly with small white jasmine blossoms. Mrs. Pearce is with
her. He gets out of her way deferentially and apologizes]. Beg
pardon, miss.
THE JAPANESE LADY. Garn! Don't you know your own daughter?
DOOLITTLE {exclaiming Bly me! it's Eliza!
HIGGINS {simul- What's that! This!
PICKERING {taneously By Jove!
LIZA. Don't I look silly?
HIGGINS. Silly?
MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Now, Mr. Higgins, please don't say
anything to make the girl conceited about herself.
HIGGINS [conscientiously] Oh! Quite right, Mrs. Pearce. [To
Eliza] Yes: damned silly.
MRS. PEARCE. Please, sir.
HIGGINS [correcting himself] I mean extremely silly.
LIZA. I should look all right with my hat on. [She takes up her
hat; puts it on; and walks across the room to the fireplace with
a fashionable air].
HIGGINS. A new fashion, by George! And it ought to look horrible!
DOOLITTLE [with fatherly pride] Well, I never thought she'd clean
up as good looking as that, Governor. She's a credit to me, ain't
she?
LIZA. I tell you, it's easy to clean up here. Hot and cold water
on tap, just as much as you like, there is. Woolly towels, there
is; and a towel horse so hot, it burns your fingers. Soft brushes
to scrub yourself, and a wooden bowl of soap smelling like
primroses. Now I know why ladies is so clean. Washing's a treat
for them. Wish they saw what it is for the like of me!
HIGGINS. I'm glad the bath-room met with your approval.
LIZA. It didn't: not all of it; and I don't care who hears me say
it. Mrs. Pearce knows.
HIGGINS. What was wrong, Mrs. Pearce?
MRS. PEARCE [blandly] Oh, nothing, sir. It doesn't matter.
LIZA. I had a good mind to break it. I didn't know which way to
look. But I hung a towel over it, I did.
HIGGINS. Over what?
MRS. PEARCE. Over the looking-glass, sir.
HIGGINS. Doolittle: you have brought your daughter up too
strictly.
DOOLITTLE. Me! I never brought her up at all, except to give her
a lick of a strap now and again. Don't put it on me, Governor.
She ain't accustomed to it, you see: that's all. But she'll soon
pick up your free-and-easy ways.
LIZA. I'm a good girl, I am; and I won't pick up no free and easy
ways.
HIGGINS. Eliza: if you say again that you're a good girl, your
father shall take you home.
LIZA. Not him. You don't know my father. All he come here for was
to touch you for some money to get drunk on.
DOOLITTLE. Well, what else would I want money for? To put into
the plate in church, I suppose. [She puts out her tongue at him.
He is so incensed by this that Pickering presently finds it
necessary to step between them]. Don't you give me none of your
lip; and don't let me hear you giving this gentleman any of it
neither, or you'll hear from me about it. See?
HIGGINS. Have you any further advice to give her before you go,
Doolittle? Your blessing, for instance.
DOOLITTLE. No, Governor: I ain't such a mug as to put up my
children to all I know myself. Hard enough to hold them in
without that. If you want Eliza's mind improved, Governor, you do
it yourself with a strap. So long, gentlemen. [He turns to go].
HIGGINS [impressively] Stop. You'll come regularly to see your
daughter. It's your duty, you know. My brother is a clergyman;
and he could help you in your talks with her.
DOOLITTLE [evasively] Certainly. I'll come, Governor. Not just
this week, because I have a job at a distance. But later on you
may depend on me. Afternoon, gentlemen. Afternoon, ma'am. [He
takes off his hat to Mrs. Pearce, who disdains the salutation and
goes out. He winks at Higgins, thinking him probably a fellow
sufferer from Mrs. Pearce's difficult disposition, and follows
her].
LIZA. Don't you believe the old liar. He'd as soon you set a
bull-dog on him as a clergyman. You won't see him again in a
hurry.
HIGGINS. I don't want to, Eliza. Do you?
LIZA. Not me. I don't want never to see him again, I don't. He's
a disgrace to me, he is, collecting dust, instead of working at
his trade.
PICKERING. What is his trade, Eliza?
LIZA. Talking money out of other people's pockets into his own.
His proper trade's a navvy; and he works at it sometimes too--for
exercise--and earns good money at it. Ain't you going to call me
Miss Doolittle any more?
PICKERING. I beg your pardon, Miss Doolittle. It was a slip of
the tongue.
LIZA. Oh, I don't mind; only it sounded so genteel. I should just
like to take a taxi to the corner of Tottenham Court Road and get
out there and tell it to wait for me, just to put the girls in
their place a bit. I wouldn't speak to them, you know.
PICKERING. Better wait til we get you something really
fashionable.
HIGGINS. Besides, you shouldn't cut your old friends now that you
have risen in the world. That's what we call snobbery.
LIZA. You don't call the like of them my friends now, I should
hope. They've took it out of me often enough with their ridicule
when they had the chance; and now I mean to get a bit of my own
back. But if I'm to have fashionable clothes, I'll wait. I should
like to have some. Mrs. Pearce says you're going to give me some
to wear in bed at night different to what I wear in the daytime;
but it do seem a waste of money when you could get something to
show. Besides, I never could fancy changing into cold things on a
winter night.
MRS. PEARCE [coming back] Now, Eliza. The new things have come
for you to try on.
LIZA. Ah--ow--oo--ooh! [She rushes out].
MRS. PEARCE [following her] Oh, don't rush about like that, girl
[She shuts the door behind her].
HIGGINS. Pickering: we have taken on a stiff job.
PICKERING [with conviction] Higgins: we have.
ACT III
It is Mrs. Higgins's at-home day. Nobody has yet arrived. Her
drawing-room, in a flat on Chelsea embankment, has three windows
looking on the river; and the ceiling is not so lofty as it would
be in an older house of the same pretension. The windows are
open, giving access to a balcony with flowers in pots. If you
stand with your face to the windows, you have the fireplace on
your left and the door in the right-hand wall close to the corner
nearest the windows.
Mrs. Higgins was brought up on Morris and Burne Jones; and her
room, which is very unlike her son's room in Wimpole Street, is
not crowded with furniture and little tables and nicknacks. In
the middle of the room there is a big ottoman; and this, with the
carpet, the Morris wall-papers, and the Morris chintz window
curtains and brocade covers of the ottoman and its cushions,
supply all the ornament, and are much too handsome to be hidden
by odds and ends of useless things. A few good oil-paintings from
the exhibitions in the Grosvenor Gallery thirty years ago (the
Burne Jones, not the Whistler side of them) are on the walls. The
only landscape is a Cecil Lawson on the scale of a Rubens. There
is a portrait of Mrs. Higgins as she was when she defied fashion
in her youth in one of the beautiful Rossettian costumes which,
when caricatured by people who did not understand, led to the
absurdities of popular estheticism in the eighteen-seventies.
In the corner diagonally opposite the door Mrs. Higgins, now over
sixty and long past taking the trouble to dress out of the
fashion, sits writing at an elegantly simple writing-table with a
bell button within reach of her hand. There is a Chippendale
chair further back in the room between her and the window nearest
her side. At the other side of the room, further forward, is an
Elizabethan chair roughly carved in the taste of Inigo Jones. On
the same side a piano in a decorated case. The corner between the
fireplace and the window is occupied by a divan cushioned in
Morris chintz.
It is between four and five in the afternoon.
The door is opened violently; and Higgins enters with his hat on.
MRS. HIGGINS [dismayed] Henry [scolding him]! What are you doing
here to-day? It is my at home day: you promised not to come. [As
he bends to kiss her, she takes his hat off, and presents it to
him].
HIGGINS. Oh bother! [He throws the hat down on the table].
MRS. HIGGINS. Go home at once.
HIGGINS [kissing her] I know, mother. I came on purpose.
MRS. HIGGINS. But you mustn't. I'm serious, Henry. You offend all
my friends: they stop coming whenever they meet you.
HIGGINS. Nonsense! I know I have no small talk; but people don't
mind. [He sits on the settee].
MRS. HIGGINS. Oh! don't they? Small talk indeed! What about your
large talk? Really, dear, you mustn't stay.
HIGGINS. I must. I've a job for you. A phonetic job.
MRS. HIGGINS. No use, dear. I'm sorry; but I can't get round your
vowels; and though I like to get pretty postcards in your patent
shorthand, I always have to read the copies in ordinary writing
you so thoughtfully send me.
HIGGINS. Well, this isn't a phonetic job.
MRS. HIGGINS. You said it was.
HIGGINS. Not your part of it. I've picked up a girl.
MRS. HIGGINS. Does that mean that some girl has picked you up?
HIGGINS. Not at all. I don't mean a love affair.
MRS. HIGGINS. What a pity!
HIGGINS. Why?
MRS. HIGGINS. Well, you never fall in love with anyone under
forty-five. When will you discover that there are some rather
nice-looking young women about?
HIGGINS. Oh, I can't be bothered with young women. My idea of a
loveable woman is something as like you as possible. I shall
never get into the way of seriously liking young women: some
habits lie too deep to be changed. [Rising abruptly and walking
about, jingling his money and his keys in his trouser pockets]
Besides, they're all idiots.
MRS. HIGGINS. Do you know what you would do if you really loved
me, Henry?
HIGGINS. Oh bother! What? Marry, I suppose?
MRS. HIGGINS. No. Stop fidgeting and take your hands out of your
pockets. [With a gesture of despair, he obeys and sits down
again]. That's a good boy. Now tell me about the girl.
HIGGINS. She's coming to see you.
MRS. HIGGINS. I don't remember asking her.
HIGGINS. You didn't. I asked her. If you'd known her you wouldn't
have asked her.
MRS. HIGGINS. Indeed! Why?
HIGGINS. Well, it's like this. She's a common flower girl. I
picked her off the kerbstone.
MRS. HIGGINS. And invited her to my at-home!
HIGGINS [rising and coming to her to coax her] Oh, that'll be all
right. I've taught her to speak properly; and she has strict
orders as to her behavior. She's to keep to two subjects: the
weather and everybody's health--Fine day and How do you do, you
know--and not to let herself go on things in general. That will
be safe.
MRS. HIGGINS. Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides!
perhaps about our outsides! How could you be so silly, Henry?
HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, she must talk about something. [He
controls himself and sits down again]. Oh, she'll be all right:
don't you fuss. Pickering is in it with me. I've a sort of bet on
that I'll pass her off as a duchess in six months. I started on
her some months ago; and she's getting on like a house on fire. I
shall win my bet. She has a quick ear; and she's been easier to
teach than my middle-class pupils because she's had to learn a
complete new language. She talks English almost as you talk
French.
MRS. HIGGINS. That's satisfactory, at all events.
HIGGINS. Well, it is and it isn't.
MRS. HIGGINS. What does that mean?
HIGGINS. You see, I've got her pronunciation all right; but you
have to consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she
pronounces; and that's where--
They are interrupted by the parlor-maid, announcing guests.
THE PARLOR-MAID. Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill. [She withdraws].
HIGGINS. Oh Lord! [He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and
makes for the door; but before he reaches it his mother
introduces him].
Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are the mother and daughter who
sheltered from the rain in Covent Garden. The mother is well
bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means.
The daughter has acquired a gay air of being very much at home in
society: the bravado of genteel poverty.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Mrs. Higgins] How do you do? [They shake
hands].
MISS EYNSFORD HILL. How d'you do? [She shakes].
MRS. HIGGINS [introducing] My son Henry.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet
you, Professor Higgins.
HIGGINS [glumly, making no movement in her direction] Delighted.
[He backs against the piano and bows brusquely].
Miss EYNSFORD HILL [going to him with confident familiarity] How
do you do?
HIGGINS [staring at her] I've seen you before somewhere. I
haven't the ghost of a notion where; but I've heard your voice.
[Drearily] It doesn't matter. You'd better sit down.
MRS. HIGGINS. I'm sorry to say that my celebrated son has no
manners. You mustn't mind him.
MISS EYNSFORD HILL [gaily] I don't. [She sits in the Elizabethan
chair].
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [a little bewildered] Not at all. [She sits on
the ottoman between her daughter and Mrs. Higgins, who has turned
her chair away from the writing-table].
HIGGINS. Oh, have I been rude? I didn't mean to be. [He goes to
the central window, through which, with his back to the company,
he contemplates the river and the flowers in Battersea Park on
the opposite bank as if they were a frozen dessert.]
The parlor-maid returns, ushering in Pickering.
THE PARLOR-MAID. Colonel Pickering [She withdraws].
PICKERING. How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?
MRS. HIGGINS. So glad you've come. Do you know Mrs. Eynsford
Hill--Miss Eynsford Hill? [Exchange of bows. The Colonel brings
the Chippendale chair a little forward between Mrs. Hill and Mrs.
Higgins, and sits down].
PICKERING. Has Henry told you what we've come for?
HIGGINS [over his shoulder] We were interrupted: damn it!
MRS. HIGGINS. Oh Henry, Henry, really!
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [half rising] Are we in the way?
MRS. HIGGINS [rising and making her sit down again] No, no. You
couldn't have come more fortunately: we want you to meet a friend
of ours.
HIGGINS [turning hopefully] Yes, by George! We want two or three
people. You'll do as well as anybody else.
The parlor-maid returns, ushering Freddy.
THE PARLOR-MAID. Mr. Eynsford Hill.
HIGGINS [almost audibly, past endurance] God of Heaven! another
of them.
FREDDY [shaking hands with Mrs. Higgins] Ahdedo?
MRS. HIGGINS. Very good of you to come. [Introducing] Colonel
Pickering.
FREDDY [bowing] Ahdedo?
MRS. HIGGINS. I don't think you know my son, Professor Higgins.
FREDDY [going to Higgins] Ahdedo?
HIGGINS [looking at him much as if he were a pickpocket] I'll
take my oath I've met you before somewhere. Where was it?
FREDDY. I don't think so.
HIGGINS [resignedly] It don't matter, anyhow. Sit down. He shakes
Freddy's hand, and almost slings him on the ottoman with his face
to the windows; then comes round to the other side of it.
HIGGINS. Well, here we are, anyhow! [He sits down on the ottoman
next Mrs. Eynsford Hill, on her left.] And now, what the devil
are we going to talk about until Eliza comes?
MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: you are the life and soul of the Royal
Society's soirees; but really you're rather trying on more
commonplace occasions.
HIGGINS. Am I? Very sorry. [Beaming suddenly] I suppose I am, you
know. [Uproariously] Ha, ha!
MISS EYNSFORD HILL [who considers Higgins quite eligible
matrimonially] I sympathize. I haven't any small talk. If people
would only be frank and say what they really think!
HIGGINS [relapsing into gloom] Lord forbid!
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [taking up her daughter's cue] But why?
HIGGINS. What they think they ought to think is bad enough, Lord
knows; but what they really think would break up the whole show.
Do you suppose it would be really agreeable if I were to come out
now with what I really think?
MISS EYNSFORD HILL [gaily] Is it so very cynical?
HIGGINS. Cynical! Who the dickens said it was cynical? I mean it
wouldn't be decent.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [seriously] Oh! I'm sure you don't mean that,
Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS. You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed
to be civilized and cultured--to know all about poetry and
philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us
know even the meanings of these names? [To Miss Hill] What do you
know of poetry? [To Mrs. Hill] What do you know of science?
[Indicating Freddy] What does he know of art or science or
anything else? What the devil do you imagine I know of
philosophy?
MRS. HIGGINS [warningly] Or of manners, Henry?
THE PARLOR-MAID [opening the door] Miss Doolittle. [She
withdraws].
HIGGINS [rising hastily and running to Mrs. Higgins] Here she is,
mother. [He stands on tiptoe and makes signs over his mother's
head to Eliza to indicate to her which lady is her hostess].
Eliza, who is exquisitely dressed, produces an impression of such
remarkable distinction and beauty as she enters that they all
rise, quite flustered. Guided by Higgins's signals, she comes to
Mrs. Higgins with studied grace.
LIZA [speaking with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and
great beauty of tone] How do you do, Mrs. Higgins? [She gasps
slightly in making sure of the H in Higgins, but is quite
successful]. Mr. Higgins told me I might come.
MRS. HIGGINS [cordially] Quite right: I'm very glad indeed to see
you.
PICKERING. How do you do, Miss Doolittle?
LIZA [shaking hands with him] Colonel Pickering, is it not?
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I feel sure we have met before, Miss
Doolittle. I remember your eyes.
LIZA. How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman gracefully in
the place just left vacant by Higgins].
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [introducing] My daughter Clara.
LIZA. How do you do?
CLARA [impulsively] How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman
beside Eliza, devouring her with her eyes].
FREDDY [coming to their side of the ottoman] I've certainly had
the pleasure.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [introducing] My son Freddy.
LIZA. How do you do?
Freddy bows and sits down in the Elizabethan chair, infatuated.
HIGGINS [suddenly] By George, yes: it all comes back to me! [They
stare at him]. Covent Garden! [Lamentably] What a damned thing!
MRS. HIGGINS. Henry, please! [He is about to sit on the edge of
the table]. Don't sit on my writing-table: you'll break it.
HIGGINS [sulkily] Sorry.
He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the
fire-irons on his way; extricating himself with muttered
imprecations; and finishing his disastrous journey by throwing
himself so impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it.
Mrs. Higgins looks at him, but controls herself and says nothing.
A long and painful pause ensues.
MRS. HIGGINS [at last, conversationally] Will it rain, do you
think?
LIZA. The shallow depression in the west of these islands is
likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no
indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.
FREDDY. Ha! ha! how awfully funny!
LIZA. What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.
FREDDY. Killing!
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I'm sure I hope it won't turn cold. There's
so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family
regularly every spring.
LIZA [darkly] My aunt died of influenza: so they said.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [clicks her tongue sympathetically]!!!
LIZA [in the same tragic tone] But it's my belief they done the
old woman in.
MRS. HIGGINS [puzzled] Done her in?
LIZA. Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza?
She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw
her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all
thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her
throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the
spoon.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [startled] Dear me!
LIZA [piling up the indictment] What call would a woman with that
strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new
straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and
what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. What does doing her in mean?
HIGGINS [hastily] Oh, that's the new small talk. To do a person
in means to kill them.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Eliza, horrified] You surely don't believe
that your aunt was killed?
LIZA. Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a
hat-pin, let alone a hat.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. But it can't have been right for your father
to pour spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed
her.
LIZA. Not her. Gin was mother's milk to her. Besides, he'd poured
so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Do you mean that he drank?
LIZA. Drank! My word! Something chronic.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. How dreadful for you!
LIZA. Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But
then he did not keep it up regular. [Cheerfully] On the burst, as
you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when
he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give
him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he'd
drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. There's lots of women has
to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [Now
quite at her ease] You see, it's like this. If a man has a bit of
a conscience, it always takes him when he's sober; and then it
makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just takes that off and
makes him happy. [To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed
laughter] Here! what are you sniggering at?
FREDDY. The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.
LIZA. If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at? [To
Higgins] Have I said anything I oughtn't?
MRS. HIGGINS [interposing] Not at all, Miss Doolittle.
LIZA. Well, that's a mercy, anyhow. [Expansively] What I always
say is--
HIGGINS [rising and looking at his watch] Ahem!
LIZA [looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising] Well: I
must go. [They all rise. Freddy goes to the door]. So pleased to
have met you. Good-bye. [She shakes hands with Mrs. Higgins].
MRS. HIGGINS. Good-bye.
LIZA. Good-bye, Colonel Pickering.
PICKERING. Good-bye, Miss Doolittle. [They shake hands].
LIZA [nodding to the others] Good-bye, all.
FREDDY [opening the door for her] Are you walking across the
Park, Miss Doolittle? If so--
LIZA. Walk! Not bloody likely. [Sensation]. I am going in a taxi.
[She goes out].
Pickering gasps and sits down. Freddy goes out on the balcony to
catch another glimpse of Eliza.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [suffering from shock] Well, I really can't
get used to the new ways.
CLARA [throwing herself discontentedly into the Elizabethan
chair]. Oh, it's all right, mamma, quite right. People will think
we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old-fashioned.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I daresay I am very old-fashioned; but I do
hope you won't begin using that expression, Clara. I have got
accustomed to hear you talking about men as rotters, and calling
everything filthy and beastly; though I do think it horrible and
unladylike. But this last is really too much. Don't you think so,
Colonel Pickering?
PICKERING. Don't ask me. I've been away in India for several
years; and manners have changed so much that I sometimes don't
know whether I'm at a respectable dinner-table or in a ship's
forecastle.
CLARA. It's all a matter of habit. There's no right or wrong in
it. Nobody means anything by it. And it's so quaint, and gives
such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very
witty. I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [rising] Well, after that, I think it's time
for us to go.
Pickering and Higgins rise.
CLARA [rising] Oh yes: we have three at homes to go to still.
Good-bye, Mrs. Higgins. Good-bye, Colonel Pickering. Good-bye,
Professor Higgins.
HIGGINS [coming grimly at her from the divan, and accompanying
her to the door] Good-bye. Be sure you try on that small talk at
the three at-homes. Don't be nervous about it. Pitch it in
strong.
CLARA [all smiles] I will. Good-bye. Such nonsense, all this
early Victorian prudery!
HIGGINS [tempting her] Such damned nonsense!
CLARA. Such bloody nonsense!
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [convulsively] Clara!
CLARA. Ha! ha! [She goes out radiant, conscious of being
thoroughly up to date, and is heard descending the stairs in a
stream of silvery laughter].
FREDDY [to the heavens at large] Well, I ask you [He gives it up,
and comes to Mrs. Higgins]. Good-bye.
MRS. HIGGINS [shaking hands] Good-bye. Would you like to meet
Miss Doolittle again?
FREDDY [eagerly] Yes, I should, most awfully.
MRS. HIGGINS. Well, you know my days.
FREDDY. Yes. Thanks awfully. Good-bye. [He goes out].
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Good-bye, Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS. Good-bye. Good-bye.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Pickering] It's no use. I shall never be
able to bring myself to use that word.
PICKERING. Don't. It's not compulsory, you know. You'll get on
quite well without it.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Only, Clara is so down on me if I am not
positively reeking with the latest slang. Good-bye.
PICKERING. Good-bye [They shake hands].
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Mrs. Higgins] You mustn't mind Clara.
[Pickering, catching from her lowered tone that this is not meant
for him to hear, discreetly joins Higgins at the window]. We're
so poor! and she gets so few parties, poor child! She doesn't
quite know. [Mrs. Higgins, seeing that her eyes are moist, takes
her hand sympathetically and goes with her to the door]. But the
boy is nice. Don't you think so?
MRS. HIGGINS. Oh, quite nice. I shall always be delighted to see
him.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Thank you, dear. Good-bye. [She goes out].
HIGGINS [eagerly] Well? Is Eliza presentable [he swoops on his
mother and drags her to the ottoman, where she sits down in
Eliza's place with her son on her left]?
Pickering returns to his chair on her right.
MRS. HIGGINS. You silly boy, of course she's not presentable.
She's a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker's; but if you
suppose for a moment that she doesn't give herself away in every
sentence she utters, you must be perfectly cracked about her.
PICKERING. But don't you think something might be done? I mean
something to eliminate the sanguinary element from her
conversation.
MRS. HIGGINS. Not as long as she is in Henry's hands.
HIGGINS [aggrieved] Do you mean that my language is improper?
MRS. HIGGINS. No, dearest: it would be quite proper--say on a
canal barge; but it would not be proper for her at a garden
party.
HIGGINS [deeply injured] Well I must say--
PICKERING [interrupting him] Come, Higgins: you must learn to
know yourself. I haven't heard such language as yours since we
used to review the volunteers in Hyde Park twenty years ago.
HIGGINS [sulkily] Oh, well, if you say so, I suppose I don't
always talk like a bishop.
MRS. HIGGINS [quieting Henry with a touch] Colonel Pickering:
will you tell me what is the exact state of things in Wimpole
Street?
PICKERING [cheerfully: as if this completely changed the subject]
Well, I have come to live there with Henry. We work together at
my Indian Dialects; and we think it more convenient--
MRS. HIGGINS. Quite so. I know all about that: it's an excellent
arrangement. But where does this girl live?
HIGGINS. With us, of course. Where would she live?
MRS. HIGGINS. But on what terms? Is she a servant? If not, what
is she?
PICKERING [slowly] I think I know what you mean, Mrs. Higgins.
HIGGINS. Well, dash me if I do! I've had to work at the girl
every day for months to get her to her present pitch. Besides,
she's useful. She knows where my things are, and remembers my
appointments and so forth.
MRS. HIGGINS. How does your housekeeper get on with her?
HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce? Oh, she's jolly glad to get so much taken
off her hands; for before Eliza came, she had to have to find
things and remind me of my appointments. But she's got some silly
bee in her bonnet about Eliza. She keeps saying "You don't think,
sir": doesn't she, Pick?
PICKERING. Yes: that's the formula. "You don't think, sir."
That's the end of every conversation about Eliza.
HIGGINS. As if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her
confounded vowels and consonants. I'm worn out, thinking about
her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to
mention her soul, which is the quaintest of the lot.
MRS. HIGGINS. You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing
with your live doll.
HIGGINS. Playing! The hardest job I ever tackled: make no mistake
about that, mother. But you have no idea how frightfully
interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a
quite different human being by creating a new speech for her.
It's filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class
and soul from soul.
PICKERING [drawing his chair closer to Mrs. Higgins and bending
over to her eagerly] Yes: it's enormously interesting. I assure
you, Mrs. Higgins, we take Eliza very seriously. Every week--
every day almost--there is some new change. [Closer again] We
keep records of every stage--dozens of gramophone disks and
photographs--
HIGGINS [assailing her at the other ear] Yes, by George: it's the
most absorbing experiment I ever tackled. She regularly fills our
lives up; doesn't she, Pick?
PICKERING. We're always talking Eliza.
HIGGINS. Teaching Eliza.
PICKERING. Dressing Eliza.
MRS. HIGGINS. What!
HIGGINS. Inventing new Elizas.
Higgins and Pickering, speaking together:
HIGGINS. You know, she has the most extraordinary quickness of
ear:
PICKERING. I assure you, my dear Mrs. Higgins, that girl
HIGGINS. just like a parrot. I've tried her with every
PICKERING. is a genius. She can play the piano quite
beautifully
HIGGINS. possible sort of sound that a human being can make--
PICKERING. We have taken her to classical concerts and to music
HIGGINS. Continental dialects, African dialects, Hottentot
PICKERING. halls; and it's all the same to her: she plays
everything
HIGGINS. clicks, things it took me years to get hold of; and
PICKERING. she hears right off when she comes home, whether it's
HIGGINS. she picks them up like a shot, right away, as if she
had
PICKERING. Beethoven and Brahms or Lehar and Lionel Morickton;
HIGGINS. been at it all her life.
PICKERING. though six months ago, she'd never as much as touched
a piano.
MRS. HIGGINS [putting her fingers in her ears, as they are by
this time shouting one another down with an intolerable noise]
Sh--sh--sh--sh! [They stop].
PICKERING. I beg your pardon. [He draws his chair back
apologetically].
HIGGINS. Sorry. When Pickering starts shouting nobody can get a
word in edgeways.
MRS. HIGGINS. Be quiet, Henry. Colonel Pickering: don't you
realize that when Eliza walked into Wimpole Street, something
walked in with her?
PICKERING. Her father did. But Henry soon got rid of him.
MRS. HIGGINS. It would have been more to the point if her mother
had. But as her mother didn't something else did.
PICKERING. But what?
MRS. HIGGINS [unconsciously dating herself by the word] A
problem.
PICKERING. Oh, I see. The problem of how to pass her off as a
lady.
HIGGINS. I'll solve that problem. I've half solved it already.
MRS. HIGGINS. No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the
problem of what is to be done with her afterwards.
HIGGINS. I don't see anything in that. She can go her own way,
with all the advantages I have given her.
MRS. HIGGINS. The advantages of that poor woman who was here just
now! The manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from
earning her own living without giving her a fine lady's income!
Is that what you mean?
PICKERING [indulgently, being rather bored] Oh, that will be all
right, Mrs. Higgins. [He rises to go].
HIGGINS [rising also] We'll find her some light employment.
PICKERING. She's happy enough. Don't you worry about her. Good-
bye. [He shakes hands as if he were consoling a frightened child,
and makes for the door].
HIGGINS. Anyhow, there's no good bothering now. The thing's done.
Good-bye, mother. [He kisses her, and follows Pickering].
PICKERING [turning for a final consolation] There are plenty of
openings. We'll do what's right. Good-bye.
HIGGINS [to Pickering as they go out together] Let's take her to
the Shakespear exhibition at Earls Court.
PICKERING. Yes: let's. Her remarks will be delicious.
HIGGINS. She'll mimic all the people for us when we get home.
PICKERING. Ripping. [Both are heard laughing as they go
downstairs].
MRS. HIGGINS [rises with an impatient bounce, and returns to her
work at the writing-table. She sweeps a litter of disarranged
papers out of her way; snatches a sheet of paper from her
stationery case; and tries resolutely to write. At the third line
she gives it up; flings down her pen; grips the table angrily and
exclaims] Oh, men! men!! men!!!
ACT IV
The Wimpole Street laboratory. Midnight. Nobody in the room. The
clock on the mantelpiece strikes twelve. The fire is not alight:
it is a summer night.
Presently Higgins and Pickering are heard on the stairs.
HIGGINS [calling down to Pickering] I say, Pick: lock up, will
you. I shan't be going out again.
PICKERING. Right. Can Mrs. Pearce go to bed? We don't want
anything more, do we?
HIGGINS. Lord, no!
Eliza opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in opera
cloak, brilliant evening dress, and diamonds, with fan, flowers,
and all accessories. She comes to the hearth, and switches on the
electric lights there. She is tired: her pallor contrasts
strongly with her dark eyes and hair; and her expression is
almost tragic. She takes off her cloak; puts her fan and flowers
on the piano; and sits down on the bench, brooding and silent.
Higgins, in evening dress, with overcoat and hat, comes in,
carrying a smoking jacket which he has picked up downstairs. He
takes off the hat and overcoat; throws them carelessly on the
newspaper stand; disposes of his coat in the same way; puts on
the smoking jacket; and throws himself wearily into the
easy-chair at the hearth. Pickering, similarly attired, comes in.
He also takes off his hat and overcoat, and is about to throw
them on Higgins's when he hesitates.
PICKERING. I say: Mrs. Pearce will row if we leave these things
lying about in the drawing-room.
HIGGINS. Oh, chuck them over the bannisters into the hall. She'll
find them there in the morning and put them away all right.
She'll think we were drunk.
PICKERING. We are, slightly. Are there any letters?
HIGGINS. I didn't look. [Pickering takes the overcoats and hats
and goes down stairs. Higgins begins half singing half yawning an
air from La Fanciulla del Golden West. Suddenly he stops and
exclaims] I wonder where the devil my slippers are!
Eliza looks at him darkly; then leaves the room.
Higgins yawns again, and resumes his song. Pickering returns,
with the contents of the letter-box in his hand.
PICKERING. Only circulars, and this coroneted billet-doux for
you. [He throws the circulars into the fender, and posts himself
on the hearthrug, with his back to the grate].
HIGGINS [glancing at the billet-doux] Money-lender. [He throws
the letter after the circulars].
Eliza returns with a pair of large down-at-heel slippers. She
places them on the carpet before Higgins, and sits as before
without a word.
HIGGINS [yawning again] Oh Lord! What an evening! What a crew!
What a silly tomfoollery! [He raises his shoe to unlace it, and
catches sight of the slippers. He stops unlacing and looks at
them as if they had appeared there of their own accord]. Oh!
they're there, are they?
PICKERING [stretching himself] Well, I feel a bit tired. It's
been a long day. The garden party, a dinner party, and the opera!
Rather too much of a good thing. But you've won your bet,
Higgins. Eliza did the trick, and something to spare, eh?
HIGGINS [fervently] Thank God it's over!
Eliza flinches violently; but they take no notice of her; and she
recovers herself and sits stonily as before.
PICKERING. Were you nervous at the garden party? I was. Eliza
didn't seem a bit nervous.
HIGGINS. Oh, she wasn't nervous. I knew she'd be all right. No,
it's the strain of putting the job through all these months that
has told on me. It was interesting enough at first, while we were
at the phonetics; but after that I got deadly sick of it. If I
hadn't backed myself to do it I should have chucked the whole
thing up two months ago. It was a silly notion: the whole thing
has been a bore.
PICKERING. Oh come! the garden party was frightfully exciting. My
heart began beating like anything.
HIGGINS. Yes, for the first three minutes. But when I saw we were
going to win hands down, I felt like a bear in a cage, hanging
about doing nothing. The dinner was worse: sitting gorging there
for over an hour, with nobody but a damned fool of a fashionable
woman to talk to! I tell you, Pickering, never again for me. No
more artificial duchesses. The whole thing has been simple
purgatory.
PICKERING. You've never been broken in properly to the social
routine. [Strolling over to the piano] I rather enjoy dipping
into it occasionally myself: it makes me feel young again.
Anyhow, it was a great success: an immense success. I was quite
frightened once or twice because Eliza was doing it so well. You
see, lots of the real people can't do it at all: they're such
fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their
position; and so they never learn. There's always something
professional about doing a thing superlatively well.
HIGGINS. Yes: that's what drives me mad: the silly people don't
know their own silly business. [Rising] However, it's over and
done with; and now I can go to bed at last without dreading
tomorrow.
Eliza's beauty becomes murderous.
PICKERING. I think I shall turn in too. Still, it's been a great
occasion: a triumph for you. Good-night. [He goes].
HIGGINS [following him] Good-night. [Over his shoulder, at the
door] Put out the lights, Eliza; and tell Mrs. Pearce not to make
coffee for me in the morning: I'll take tea. [He goes out].
Eliza tries to control herself and feel indifferent as she rises
and walks across to the hearth to switch off the lights. By the
time she gets there she is on the point of screaming. She sits
down in Higgins's chair and holds on hard to the arms. Finally
she gives way and flings herself furiously on the floor raging.
HIGGINS [in despairing wrath outside] What the devil have I done
with my slippers? [He appears at the door].
LIZA [snatching up the slippers, and hurling them at him one
after the other with all her force] There are your slippers. And
there. Take your slippers; and may you never have a day's luck
with them!
HIGGINS [astounded] What on earth--! [He comes to her]. What's
the matter? Get up. [He pulls her up]. Anything wrong?
LIZA [breathless] Nothing wrong--with YOU. I've won your bet for
you, haven't I? That's enough for you. _I_ don't matter, I
suppose.
HIGGINS. YOU won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! _I_ won it.
What did you throw those slippers at me for?
LIZA. Because I wanted to smash your face. I'd like to kill you,
you selfish brute. Why didn't you leave me where you picked me
out of--in the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now
you can throw me back again there, do you? [She crisps her
fingers, frantically].
HIGGINS [looking at her in cool wonder] The creature IS nervous,
after all.
LIZA [gives a suffocated scream of fury, and instinctively darts
her nails at his face]!!
HIGGINS [catching her wrists] Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat.
How dare you show your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet. [He
throws her roughly into the easy-chair].
LIZA [crushed by superior strength and weight] What's to become
of me? What's to become of me?
HIGGINS. How the devil do I know what's to become of you? What
does it matter what becomes of you?
LIZA. You don't care. I know you don't care. You wouldn't care if
I was dead. I'm nothing to you--not so much as them slippers.
HIGGINS [thundering] THOSE slippers.
LIZA [with bitter submission] Those slippers. I didn't think it
made any difference now.
A pause. Eliza hopeless and crushed. Higgins a little uneasy.
HIGGINS [in his loftiest manner] Why have you begun going on like
this? May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here?
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. Has anybody behaved badly to you? Colonel Pickering?
Mrs. Pearce? Any of the servants?
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. I presume you don't pretend that I have treated you
badly.
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. I am glad to hear it. [He moderates his tone]. Perhaps
you're tired after the strain of the day. Will you have a glass
of champagne? [He moves towards the door].
LIZA. No. [Recollecting her manners] Thank you.
HIGGINS [good-humored again] This has been coming on you for some
days. I suppose it was natural for you to be anxious about the
garden party. But that's all over now. [He pats her kindly on the
shoulder. She writhes]. There's nothing more to worry about.
LIZA. No. Nothing more for you to worry about. [She suddenly
rises and gets away from him by going to the piano bench, where
she sits and hides her face]. Oh God! I wish I was dead.
HIGGINS [staring after her in sincere surprise] Why? in heaven's
name, why? [Reasonably, going to her] Listen to me, Eliza. All
this irritation is purely subjective.
LIZA. I don't understand. I'm too ignorant.