Pygmalion
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,