Pygmalion
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