Pygmalion
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.