 Preface to Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Preface to Pygmalion. A Professor of Phonetics. As will be seen later on, Pygmalion needs not a preface but a sequel, which I have supplied in its due place. The English have no respect for their language and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners. English is not accessible even to Englishmen. The reformer England needs today is an energetic, phonetic enthusiast. That is why I have made such a one the hero of a popular play. There have been heroes of that kind crying in the wilderness for many years past. When I became interested in the subject toward the end of the 1870s, Melville Bell was dead, but Alexander J. Ellis was still a living patriarch with an impressive head always covered by a velvet skullcap, for which he would apologize to public meetings in a very courtly manner. He and Tito Paglardini, another phonetic veteran, were men whom it was impossible to dislike. Henry Sweet, then a young man, lacked their sweetness of character. He was about as conciliatory to conventional morals as Ibsen or Samuel Butler. His great ability as a phonetician—he was, I think, the best of them all at his job— have entitled him to high official recognition and perhaps enabled him to popularize his subject, but for his satanic contempt for all academic dignitaries and persons in general who thought more of Greek than of phonetics. Once, in the days when the Imperial Institute rose in South Kensington and Joseph Chamberlain was booming the empire, I induced the editor of a leading monthly review to commission an article from Sweet on the imperial importance of his subject. When it arrived, it contained nothing but a savagely derisive attack on a professor of language and literature whose chair Sweet regarded as proper to a phonetic expert only. The article being libelous had to be returned as impossible, and I had to renounce my dream of dragging its author into the limelight. When I met him afterwards for the first time in many years, I found to my astonishment that he, who had been a quite tolerably presentable young man, had actually managed by sheer scorn to alter his personal appearance until he had become a sort of walking repudiation of Oxford and all its traditions. It must have been largely in his own despite that he was squeezed into something called a readership of phonetics there. The future of phonetics rests probably with his pupils, who all swore by him, but nothing could bring the man himself into any sort of compliance with the university, to which he nevertheless clung by divine right in an intensely oxonian way. I dare say his papers, if he has left any, include some satires that may be published without two destructive results fifty years hence. He was, I believe, not in the least an ill-natured man, very much the opposite, I should say. But he would not suffer fools gladly. Those who knew him will recognize in my third act the allusion to the patent shorthand in which he used to write postcards, and which may be acquired from a four-and-six-penny manual published by the Clarendon Press. The postcards which Mrs. Higgins describes are such as I have received from sweet. I would decipher a sound which a cockney would represent by Zerre, and a Frenchman by Sier, and then write demanding with some heat what on earth it meant. Sweet, with boundless contempt for my stupidity, would reply that it not only meant, but obviously was, the word result, as no other word containing that sound and capable of making sense with the context existed in any language spoken on earth. That less expert mortals should require fuller indications was beyond sweet's patience. Therefore, though the whole point of his current shorthand is that it can express every sound in the language perfectly, vowels as well as consonants, and that your hand has to make no stroke except the easy and current ones with which you write M, N, and U, L, P, and Q, scribbling them at whatever angle comes easiest to you, his unfortunate determination to make this remarkable and quite legible script serve also as a shorthand reduced it in his own practice to the most inscrutable of cryptograms. His true objective was the provision of a full accurate legible script for our noble but ill-dressed language, but he was led past that by his contempt for the popular Pitman system of shorthand, which he called the Pitfall system. The triumph of Pitman was a triumph of business organization. There was a weekly paper to persuade you to learn Pitman. There were cheap textbooks and exercise books and transcripts of speeches for you to copy, and schools where experienced teachers coached you up to the necessary proficiency. Sweet could not organize his market in that fashion. He might as well have been the Sibyl who tore up the leaves of prophecy that nobody would attend to. The foreign six-penny manual, mostly in his lithographed handwriting, that was never vulgarly advertised, may someday perhaps be taken up by a syndicate and pushed upon the public, as the Times pushed the Encyclopedia Britannica, but until then it will certainly not prevail against Pitman. I have bought three copies of it during my lifetime, and I am informed by the publishers that its cloistered existence is still a steady and healthy one. I actually learned the system two several times, and yet the shorthand in which I am writing these lines is Pitman's, and the reason is that my secretary cannot transcribe sweet, having been perforce taught in the schools of Pitman. Therefore, sweet railed at Pitman as vainly as Thersides railed at Ajax. His railery, however it may have eased his soul, gave no popular vogue to current shorthand. Pygmalion Higgins is not a portrait of sweet, to whom the adventure of Eliza Dunlittle would have been impossible. Still, as will be seen, there are touches of sweet in the play. With Higgins's physique and temperament, sweet might have set the Thames on fire. As it was, he impressed himself professionally on Europe to an extent that made his comparative personal obscurity, and the failure of Oxford to do justice to his eminence, a puzzle to foreign specialists in his subject. I do not blame Oxford because I think Oxford quite right in demanding a certain social amenity from its nurslings. Heaven knows it is not exorbitant in its requirements. For although I well know how hard it is for a man of genius with a seriously underrated subject to maintain serene and kindly relations with the men who underrate it, and who keep all the best places for less important subjects which they profess without originality and sometimes without much capacity for them, still if he overwhelms them with wrath and disdain, he cannot expect them to heap honors on him. Of the later generations of funititions, I know little. Among them towers the poet laureate to whom perhaps Higgins may owe his miltonic sympathies, though here again I must disclaim all portraiture. But if the play makes the public aware that there are such people as funititions, and that they are among the most important people in England at present, it will serve its turn. I wish to boast that Pygmalion has been an extremely successful play all over Europe and North America as well as at home. It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wise-acres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else. Finally, and for the encouragement of people troubled with accents that cut them off from all high employment, I may add that the change wrought by Professor Higgins in The Flower Girl is neither impossible nor uncommon. The modern concierge's daughter who fulfills her ambition by playing the Queen of Spain in rubleses at the Theatre Français is only one of many thousands of men and women who have sloughed off their native dialects and acquired a new tongue. But the thing has to be done scientifically, or the last state of the aspirant may be worse than the first. An honest and natural slum dialect is more tolerable than the attempt of a phonetically untaught person to imitate the vulgar dialect of the golf club, and I am sorry to say that in spite of the efforts of our Academy of Dramatic Art, there is still too much sham golfing English on our stage, and too little of the noble English of Forbes Robertson. End to The Preface of Pygmalion The cast for this dramatic reading of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw are as follows. The narrator was read by Kirsten Ferrari and Mary Anderson. Daughter, Miss Eanesford Hill, read by Susie G. Mother, Mrs. Eanesford Hill, read by Gazina. Bystander, read by Peter Yersley. Freddie, Eanesford Hill, read by E. Anish. The flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, read by Kristen Hughes. Gentleman, Captain Pickering, read by Martin Clifton. The note-taker, Professor Henry Higgins, read by Alex Foster. Sarcastic Bystander, read by Peter Yersley. Mrs. Pierce, read by Christiane Levesque. Mr. Doolittle, read by David Barnes. Mrs. Higgins, read by Larissa Jaworski. Parler maid, read by Linda Wilcox. File editor and director, David Lawrence. End of preface to Pygmalion. Act 1 of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mary Anderson. Act 1 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. I'm getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddie be doing all this time? He's been gone twenty minutes. Not so long, but he ought to have got us a cab by this. He won't get no cab, not until half past eleven, Mrs. when they come back after dropping their theatre fares. But we must have a cab. We can't stand here until half past eleven. It's too bad. Well, it ain't my fault, Mrs. If Freddie had a bit of gumption he would have got one at the theatre door. What could he have done, poor boy? Other people got cabs. Why couldn't he? Freddie 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. Well, haven't you got a cab? There's not one to be had for love or money. Oh, Freddie, there must be one. You can't have tried. Too tiresome. Do you expect us to go and get one ourselves? I tell you, they're all engaged. The rain was so sudden nobody was prepared and everybody had to take a cab. I'd been to Charing Cross one way or nearly to Ludgate Circus the other and they were all engaged. Did you try Trafalgar Square? There wasn't one at Trafalgar Square. Did you try? I tried as far as Charing Cross Station. Did you expect me to walk to Hammersmith? You haven't tried at all. You really are very helpless, Freddie. Go again and don't come back until you have found a cab. I shall simply get soaked for nothing. And what about us? Are we to stay here all night in this draft with next to nothing on? You selfish pig. 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. Now then, Freddie, look where you're going, dear. Sorry. There's men as fire. Two bunches of violets trod in the mud. 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 been long exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom, if ever, been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly. Its mousy colour 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 corsapron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be but compared to the lady's 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. How do you know that my son's name is Freddie Prey? Oh, is your son, is he? Well, if you've done your duty by him as a mother should he'd know better than to spoil poor girl's flowers and run away without pying. Were you pying me for him? Do nothing of the sort, mother. The idea. Please allow me, Clara. Have you any pennies? No. I've nothing smaller than six pennies. I'll give you a change for a tennequin, Lidie. Give it to me. Now, this is for your flowers. Thank you kindly, Lidie. Make her give you the change. These things are only a penny a bunch. Do hold your tongue, Clara. You can keep the change. Oh, thank you, Lidie. Now, tell me how you know that young gentleman's name. I didn't. I heard you call him by it. Don't try to deceive me. Who's trying to deceive you? I call him Freddie or Charlie, same as you might yourself if you was talking to a stranger and we should be pleasant. Sixpence thrown away. Really, Mama, you might have spared Freddie that. An elderly gentleman of the amiable military type rushes into shelter and closes a dripping umbrella. He is in the same plight as Freddie, 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. Phew! Oh, sir, is there any sign of it stopping? I'm afraid not. It started worse than ever about two minutes ago. Oh, dear. If it's worse, there's a sign it's nearly over. So cheer up, Catten, and buy a flower for poor girl. I'm sorry, I haven't any change. I'll give you a change, Catten. For a sovereign, I've nothing less. Oh, do buy a flower off me, Catten. I can change half a crown. Take this for tuppence. Now, don't be troublesome. There's a good girl. I really haven't any change. Stop. Here's three havens, if that's any use to you. Thank you, sir. You be careful. Give him a flower for it. There's a bloke here behind, taking down every blessed word you're saying. I've done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. I've arrived self-hours if I keep off the kerb. I'm a respectable girl, so help me. I never spoke to him except it hasn't by a flower off me. Oh, sir, don't let him charge me. You know what it means to me. That tiger-whammy character and drive me out on the street for speaking to a gentleman. There, there, there. Who's hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for? It's all right. He's a gentleman. Look at his boots. She thought you was a copper's-nark, sir. What's a copper's-nark? It's a... well, it's a copper's-nark, as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of informer. Oh, shut up. Shut up. Do I look like a policeman? Then what do you tie down my words for? Oh, I know whether you took me down right. You just show me what you wrote about me. I'm proper right. I can't read that. I can. Cheer up, Captain. Now, hire a flower for poor girl. Because I call a metnow home. Oh, sir, don't let him lay a charger. Give me four words like that. You... Charge, I make no charge. Really, sir, if you're 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. Of course I could. What business is it of yours? You mind your own affairs. He wants promotion, he does. Taking down people's words. They all never said a word to him. What arm if she did? Nice thing a girl can't shelter from the rain without being insulted. He ain't a tech. He's a blooming busybody. That's what he is. I tell you, look at his boats. And how are all your people down at Selsey? Who told you my people come from Selsey? Never your mind. They did. How do you come to be up so far east? You were born in Lyssen Grove. Ow! What arm is there in my leaving Lyssen Grove? It won't fit for a big living. Live where you like, but stop that noise. Come, come. He can't touch you. He can't touch you. You have a right to live where you please. Park Lane, for instance? I'd like to go into the housing question with you, I would. I'm a cook. Do you know where I come from? Hoxton. Well, who said I didn't? Bly me. You know everything you do. Ain't no cool man with me, ain't? Of course he ain't. Don't you stand it from him. See here, what cool have you and know about people what never offered to meddle with you? Where's your warrant? Yes, where's your warrant? Them say we're lies. I don't want to have no drunk with them. You take us for dirt under your feet, don't you? Catch you taking liberties with a gentleman. Yes, tell him where he come from if you want to go fortune, tell him. Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge and India. Quite right. May I ask, sir, do you do this for your living at a music hall? I've thought of that, maybe I shall someday. The rain has stopped, and the persons on the outside of the crowd begin to drop off. Ain't no gentleman ain't, do you feel with a poor girl? What on earth is Freddie doing? I shall get an ammonia if I stay in this draught any longer. Earl's Court. Will you please keep your impertinent remarks to yourself? Did I say that out loud? I didn't mean to. I beg your pardon, your mother's epsom unmistakably. How very curious. I was brought up in large Lady Park, near Epsom. What a devil of a name. Excuse me, we want a cab, do you? Don't dare speak to me. Oh, please, please Clara. We should be so grateful to you, sir, if you found us a cab. The note-taker produces a whistle. Oh, thank you. The note-taker blows a piercing blast. There. I know you as a plain-clothes copper. That ain't a police whistle. That's a sporting whistle. There is no right to take away my character. My character's same to me as any lady's. I don't know whether you've noticed it, but the rain stopped about two minutes ago. So it has. Why didn't you say it so before? And us losing our time listening to your silliness. I can tell where you come from. You come from Hanwell. Go back there. Hanwell. Thank you, teacher. Ha-ha. So long. Frightening people like that are we like himself. It's quite fine now, Clara. We can walk to a motor-bus. Come. She gathers her skirts above her ankles, and hurries off toward the strand. But the cab. 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. Poor girl. Enough will live without being worse than chivvy. How do you do it, if I may ask? 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 Yorkshman by his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London, sometimes within two streets. Or be a shaman himself, a manic coward. But is there a living in that? Oh, yes, quite a fat one. This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish town with eighty 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... They're mine, his own business, and love a poor girl. Woman, cease this detestable boo-hooing instantly, or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship. I'll be right up here if I lie, same as you. 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 Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible, and don't sit there crooning like a billiard's pigeon. Heavens, what a sound! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! God! You see this creature with her curbstone 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 a 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. I am myself a student of Indian dialects and— Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit? I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you? Henry Higgins, author of Higgins Universal Alphabet. I came from India to meet you. I was going to India to meet you. Where do you live? 27A Wimpole Street. Come and see me tomorrow. I'm at the Carlton. Come with me now, and let's have a jaw over some supper. Right you are. Barfraer, carn, gentlemen. I'm short from a lodging. I really haven't any change. I'm sorry. Liar! You said you could change half a crown. You ought be stuff with nails, you ought. Did I go blooming basket for sixpence? The church clock strikes the second quarter. A reminder. He raises his hat solemnly, then throws a handful of money into the basket, and follows Pickering. Picking up a half crown. Oh! Picking up a couple of florins. Oh! Picking up several coins. Oh! Picking up a half sovereign. Oh! Freddie springs out of a taxi cab. Got one at last. Hello? What are the two ladies that were here? They walked at the bus when the rain stopped. And left me with a cab on my hands. Damnation. 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. Opens ain't no object to meet, Charlie. Angel Court drew a lame round the corner of Micka John's oil shop. Let's see how fast you can micro-op it. Well, I'm dashed. End of Act One. This recording is in the public domain. Act Two of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act Two. Next day at 11 a.m. Higgins Laboratory in Wimple 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 India rubber 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 sidewall 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 piranhas 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 humour 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. Well, I think that's the whole show. It's really amazing. I haven't taken half of it in, you know. Would you like to go over any of it again? 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. Tired of listening to sounds? Yes, it's a fearful strain. I rather fancied myself because I can pronounce 24 distinct vowel sounds. But your 130 beat me. I can't hear a bit of difference between most of them. 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. Pierce looks in. She is Higgins' housekeeper. What's the matter? A young woman wants to see you, sir. A young woman? What does she want? 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. Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Pierce. Has she an interesting accent? Oh, something dreadful, sir, really. I don't know how you can take an interest in it. Let's have her up. Show her up, Mrs. Pierce. He rushes across to his working-table and picks out a cylinder to use on the photograph. Very well, sir. It's for you to say. This is a bit of luck. I'll show you how I make records. We'll set her talking, and then I'll take it down first in Belle'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. That's 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 him's suppressence of Mrs. Pierce. 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 feather-weight cross, he coaxes women as a choice as its nurse when it wants to get anything out of her. Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use. I've got all the records I want of Lis and Grove Lingo, and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. Be off with you. I don't want you. Don't you be so saucy. You ain't heard what I come for yet. Do you tell him I come in a taxi? Nonsense, girl. What, do you think a gentleman like Mr. Higgins cares what you came in? Oh, we are proud. He ain't above-given lessons nor him. I ought him say so. Well, I ain't coming here to ask for any compliment. And if me money's not good enough, I can go elsewhere. Good enough for what? Good enough for you. Now, you know, don't ya? I'm come to have lessons, I am, and to pay for them, too, make no mistake. Well, what do you expect me to say to you? 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? Pickering, shall we ask this baggage to sit down, or shall we throw her out of the window? Ow! 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. What is it you want, my girl? I want to be a lady in a flower shop, instead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won't take me unless I can talk more gentile. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am, ready to pay. I'm not asking any favour, and he treats me as if I was dead. How can you be such a foolish, ignorant girl as to think you could afford to pay, Mr. Higgins? What should not? I know what lessons cost as well as you do, and I'm ready to pay. How much? 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. You'd had a drop in, hadn't you? Sit down. Oh, if you're going to make a compliment of it. Sit down. Sit down, girl. Do as you're told. She places the straight chair near the hearth rug between Higgins and Pickering, and stands behind it, waiting for the girl to sit down. Ow! Won't you sit down? Don't mind if I do. What's your name? Liza Doolittle. Liza Elizabeth Betsy and Bess. They went to the woods to get a bird's nest. They found a nest with four eggs in it. They took one apiece and left three in it. Oh, don't be silly. You mustn't speak to the gentleman like that. Well, why won't you speak sensible to me? Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons? Oh, I know what's right. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for 18 pence 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. 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 60 or 70 guineas from a millionaire. How so? Figure it out. A millionaire has about £150 a day. She earns about half a crown. Who told you I own? 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. It's handsome, but I thought it's enormous. It's the biggest offer I ever had. £60? What are you talking about? I never offered you £60. Where would I get... Hold your tongue. But I ain't got £60. Don't cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going to touch your money. Somebody is going to touch you with a broomstick if you don't stop snivelling. Sit down. I think he was my father. If I decide to teach you, I'll be worse than two fathers to you. Here. He offers her his silk handkerchief. What's this for? 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 one for the other if you wish to become a lady in a shop. 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. He takes the handkerchief. Here. You give me that handkerchief. He give it to me, not to you. He did. I think it must be regarded as her property, Mrs. Pierce. Serve you right, Mr. Higgins. 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 you for the lessons. Oh, you are real good. Thank you, Captain. It's almost irresistible. She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty. How? I ain't dirty. I'll wash my face and hands before I come, I did. You're certainly not going to turn her head with flattery, Higgins. 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. What is life but a series inspired folly's? 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 gutter-snipe. Ow! 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. Pierce. Monkey-brand, if it won't come off any other way. Is there a good fire in the kitchen? Yes, but... Take all her clothes off and burn them. Ring up whitely or somebody for due ones. Wrap her up in brown paper till they come. You're no gentleman, you're not. To talk are such things. I'm a good girl, I am. And I know what the luck of you are, I do. We want none of your listen-grove prudery here, young woman. You've got to learn to behave like a duchess. Take her away, Mrs. Pierce, if she gives you any trouble, wallop her. No. I'll call the police, I will. But I've no place to put her. Put her in the dustbin. Ow! Oh, come, Higgins, be reasonable. You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins. Really, you must. You can't walk over everybody like this. I walk over everybody. My dear Mrs. Pierce, 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. Well, did you ever hear anything like that, sir? Never, Mrs. Pierce, never. What's the matter? 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. Why not? Why not? But you don't know anything about her. What about her parents? She may be married. Gone! There, as the girl there properly says, gone. 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? Who'd marry me? Barge, Georgie Liza, the street will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before I've done with you. Nonsense, sir. You mustn't talk like that to her. I'm going away. He's off his jumpies. I don't want no bombies touching me. Oh, indeed. I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pierce. You needn't order the new clothes for a throw-out. No! You've got no right to touch me. You see now what comes of being saucy. This way, please. I didn't want no clothes. I wouldn't have taken them. She throws away the handkerchief. I can borrow my own clothes. Higgins deftly retrieves the handkerchief and intercepts 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. 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. I ain't got no parents. They told me I was big enough to earn my own living and turn me out. Where's your mother? I ain't got no mother. Oh, it turned me out was me six stepmother, but I done without him, and I'm a good girl I am. 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. You can adopt her, Mrs. Pierce. I'm sure a daughter would be a great amusement to you. Now don't make any more fuss. Take her downstairs and- But what's to become of her? Is she to be paid anything? Do be sensible, sir. Oh, pay her whatever is necessary. Put it in the housekeeping book. 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. Oh, you are a brute. It's a lie. Nobody ever saw a sign of liquor on me. She goes back to her chair and plants herself there defiantly. Does it occur to you, Higgins, that the girl has some feelings? Oh, no, I don't think so. Not any feelings that we need bother about. Have you, Eliza? I got my feelings same as anyone else. You see the difficulty? What difficulty? To get her to talk grammar, the mere pronunciation is easy enough. I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady. 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. What's to become of her if I leave her in the gutter? Tell me that, Mrs. Pierce. That's her own business, not yours, Mr. Higgins. Well, when I've done with her, we can throw her back into the gutter. Then it will be her own business again. So that's all right. Oh, you've no feeling hard on you. You don't care for nothing but yourself. Here, I've had enough of this. I'm going. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought. Higgins snatches a chocolate cream from the piano, his eyes suddenly beginning to twinkle with mischief. Have some chocolates, Eliza. How do I know what might be in him? He's a good of girls being drug-buddle like you. Higgins whips out his pen-knife, cuts a chocolate in two, puts one half into his mouth and bolts it and offers her the other half. Pledge of good faith, Eliza. I eat one half, you eat the other. Eliza 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, hm? I wouldn't have ate it. Only I'm too ladylike to take it out of my mouth. I think that you said you came in a taxi. Well, what if I did? I have as good a right to take a taxi as anyone else. 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. Mr. Higgins, you're tempting the girl. It's not right. She should think of the future. At her age? Nonsense. Time enough to think of the future when you haven't any future to think of. 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. 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. You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs. Pierce, 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 in goodness. Mr. Higgins, but I really must interfere. Mrs. Pierce 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. How can she? She's incapable of understanding anything. Besides, do any of us understand what we're doing? If we did, would we ever do it? Very clever, Higgins, but not sound sense. Miss Doolittle? There. That's all you get out of Eliza. Oh, whoa! No use explaining. As a military man, you ought to know that. Give her her orders. That's what she wants. Eliza, you ought 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 warped by Mrs. Pierce 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're 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 go, and the angels will weep with you. Now, are you satisfied, Pickering? Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs. Pierce? I think you'd better let me speak to the girl properly and 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. That's all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pierce. Bundle her after the bathroom. You're a great bully, you are. I won't stay here if I don't like it. 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. 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. As she goes out... Well, what I say is right. I won't go near the king, if I had known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn't have come here. I've always been a good girl. 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 same as anyone else. Mrs. Pierce shuts the door and Eliza's plates are no longer audible. Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits astride it with his arms on the back. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned? Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned? Yes, very frequently. 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. They are one another. At what, for example? 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 onto 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. So here I am. A confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so. Come, Higgins, you know what I mean. If I am to be in this business I shall feel responsible for the girl. But no advantage is to be taken off her position. What? That thing? Sacred, I assure you. You see, she'll be a pupil and teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred. I've taught scores of American millionaireesses 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. Pierce opens the door. She has Eliza's hat in her hand. Pickering retires to the easy chair and sits down. Well, Mrs. Pierce, is it all right? I just wish to trouble you with a word, if I may, Mr. Higgins. Yes, certainly. Come in. Don't burn that, Mrs. Pierce. I'll keep it as a curiosity. He takes the hat. 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. Putting it down hastily on the piano. Oh, oh, thank you. Well, what have you to say to me? Am I in the way? Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins, will you please be very particular what you say before the girl? Of course. I'm always particular about what I say. Why do you say this to me? 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. I swear? I never swear I detest the habit. What the devil do you mean? That's what I mean, sir. You might deal too much. I don't mind your damning and blasting and what the devil and where the devil and who the devil— Really, Mrs. Pierce, this language from your lips— 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. I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered it, Mrs. Pierce. 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. Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread. Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pierce, natural to a poet. Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not to let the girl hear you repeat it. Oh, very well, very well. Is that all? No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with this girl as to personal cleanliness. Certainly, quite right. Most important. I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy in leaving things about. Just so. I intended to call your attention to that. It is these little things that matter-pickering take care of the pants and the pounds will take care of themselves as is true of personal habits as of money. Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come to breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as napkin to the extent you do, sir? And if you would be so good as to not eat everything off the same plate and to remember not to put the porridge-sauce-pan 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 fish-bone in the jam only last week. I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind, but surely I don't do them habitually. By the way, my dressing-gown smells most damned a bit benzene. No doubt it does, Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe your fingers... Oh, very well, very well. I'll wipe them in my hair in future. I hope you're not offended, Mr. Higgins. Not at all. Not at all. You're quite right, Mrs. Beers. I shall be particularly careful before the go. Is that all? 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. Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all? Thank you, sir. That's all. She goes out. 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 bossy kind of person. I can't account for it. Mrs. Beers returns. If you please, sir. The trouble's beginning already. There's a dust man downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you. He says you have his daughter here. Phew! I say. Send the blaggard up. Oh! Very well, sir. He may not be a blaggard, Higgins. Nonsense. Of course he's a blaggard. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some trouble with him. 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. About the girl? No, I mean his dialect. Oh! Doolittle, sir. She admits Doolittle and retires. Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dust man, 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 honour and stern resolution. Professor Higgins. Here. Good morning. Sit down. Morning, Governor. I come about a very serious matter, Governor. Brought up in Hanslow. Mother Welsh, I should think. What do you want, Doolittle? I want me daughter. Ask what I want. See? Of course you do. You're her father, aren't you? You don't suppose anybody else wants her, do you? I'm glad to see you'd have some spark of family feeling left. She's upstairs. Take her away at once. What? Take her away? Do you suppose I'm going to keep your daughter for you? Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? A girl belongs to me. You got her. Now, where do I come in? Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and ask her how 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. How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose. No, Governor. You must have. How else could you possibly know that she is here? Don't take a man up like that, Governor. 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. Have I asked you for a brass farving? I leave it at a gentleman here. Have I said a word about money? What else did you come for? Well, what would a man come for? Be you, Mungovna. Alfred, did you put her up to it? So help me, Governor, I never did. I take me by below. I ain't seen the girl these two months past. Then how did you know she was here? I'll tell you, Governor, if you'd 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. Pickering this chap has a certain natural gift of rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native wood-notes 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. He also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty. Oh, please, Higgins, I'm West Country myself. How did you know the girl was here if you didn't send her? It was like this, Governor. A girl took a boy in a taxi to give him a jump. Son of her landlady is. He hung a bat 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 along Acure and Endles Street. Public house, yes. A poor man's club, Governor. Why shouldn't I? Do let him tell his story, Higgins. He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my feelings and my duty as a father? I say to the boy, you bring me the luggage, I says. Why didn't you go for it yourself? 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 or four, he trusted me with it, a little swine. I brought it to her just to oblige you like and make myself agreeable. That's all. How much luggage? Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, trifle a jewellery and a birdcage. 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? So you came to rescue her from worse than death, eh? Just so, Governor. That's right. But why did you bring her luggage if you intended to take her away? Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now? You're going to take her away double quick. He crosses to the hearth and rings the bell. No, Governor, don't say that. I'm not a man to stand in me girl's light. Here's a career opening for her, as you might say. Mrs. Pierce opens the door and awaits orders. Mrs. Pierce, this is Eliza's father. He has come to take her away. Give her to him. No, this is a misunderstanding. Listen here. He can't take her away, Mr. Higgins. How can he? You told me to burn her clothes. That's right. I can't carry a girl through the streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you. 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. Where's the clothes she's coming? Did I burn them or did you miss his ear? 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. Do little, much troubled accompanies her to the door, then hesitates, finally turns confidentially to Higgins. Listen here, Governor. You and me's men are a world, ain't we? Oh, men of the world, are we? Who'd better go, Mrs. Pears? I think so. Indeed, sir. The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle. I thank you, Governor. Well, the truth is, I've sought a take in a 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 finance some girl. As a daughter, she's not worth her keep. And so I tell you straight, all I ask is me 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-pan note, are you? And what's her lies, are me. I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr. Higgins' intentions are entirely honourable. Call, say, oh, Governor, if I thought they weren't, I'd ask fifty. Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that you would sell your daughter for fifty pounds? Not in a general way, I wouldn't. But obliged a gentleman like you, I'd do a good deal. I'd do assure ya. Have you no morals, man? 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? 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. As it, Governor, that's all I say, a father's art, as it were. Well, I know the feeling, but really it seems hardly right. Don't say that, Governor. Don't look at it that way. What am I, Governors, both? I ask ya, 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 he's up against 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 widders 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, because 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, eh? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask ya, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with ya. 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 at a price of his own daughter, what he's brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she's grown big enough to be interesting to you, gentlemen? He's five pounds unreasonable. I put it to ya, and I leave it to ya. 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. What do you say to that, do little? Not be, Governor, thank you kindly. I've heard all the preachers and all the prime ministers, for I'm a thinking man, game for politics or religion or social reform, same as all the other amusements. And I tell ya, it's a dog's life anyway you look at it. Undeserving poverty, that's my line. Taking one station in society with another, it's, well, it's the only one that has any ginger in it to my taste. I suppose we must give him a favour. You'll make a bad use of it, I'm afraid. 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 pauperise me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the Mrs. Giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others and satisfaction to you to think it's not been throwed away. Ya couldn't spend it better. This is irresistible, let's give him ten. He offers two notes to the dustman. Nah, Governor, she wouldn't have the heart to spend ten. And perhaps I shouldn't leave her. 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 for, Governor. Not a penny more and not a penny less. Why don't you marry that Mrs. of yours? I'd rather draw the line at encouraging that sort of immorality. Tell her so, Governor, tell her so. I'm willing. It's me that suffers by it. I've got no hold on her. I've got to be reasonable. I've got to give her presence. I've got to buy her clothes, something sinful. I'm a slave to that woman, Governor, just because I ain't 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. Pickering, if we listen to this man another minute, we shall have no convictions left. Five pounds, I think you said. Thank you kindly, Governor. You're sure you won't take ten? Not now. Another time, Governor. Higgins hands him a five-pound note. Here you are. 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, exquisitely clean young Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono printed cunningly with small white jasmine blossoms. Mrs. Pierce is with her. He gets out of her way deferentially and apologizes. Big pardon, miss. God! Don't you know your own daughter? Blimey! Is she Liza? Don't I look silly? Silly? Now, Mr. Higgins, please don't say anything to make the girl conceded about herself. Oh, quite right, Mrs. Pierce. Yes, damn silly. Please, sir. I mean extremely silly. I should look all right with me add-on. She takes up her hat, puts it on, and walks across the room to the fireplace with a fashionable air. A new fashion by George and it ought to look horrible. Well, I never thought she'd clean up as good-looking as Akavna. She's a credit to me, ain't she? I tell you, it's easy to clean up here. Odd and cold water on tap, just as much as you like there is, wooly towels there is, and a towel or so odd it burns your fingers. Soft brushes to scrub yourself and a wooden bowl of soap smellin' like primroses. Now I know why ladies is so clean. Warshons a treat for them. Wish they saw what it is for like a me. I'm glad the bathroom met with your approval. It didn't, not all of it. And I don't care ooey as me say it. Mrs. Pierce knows. What was wrong, Mrs. Pierce? Oh, nothing, sir. It doesn't matter. I had a good mind to break it. I didn't know which way to look, but on a towel over it I did. Over what? Over the looking glass, sir. Do little you've brought your daughter up too strictly. Me? I never brought her up at all, except to give her a lick of a strap-down 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. I'm a good girl, I am, and I won't pick up no free and easy ways. Eliza, if you say again that you're a good girl, your father shall take you home. Not him. You don't know me, Father. All he came here for was to touch you for some money to get drunk on. Well, what else would I want money for? To put it in the plate of 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 get me, Nanny, or Lip, and don't let me hear you giving his gentlemen any of it, neither. Or you'll hear about it from me, see? Have you any further advice to give her before you go, Dolittle? Your blessing, for instance? Nah, Governor, I ain't such a mug as to put up my children of 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. 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. Certainly. I'll come, Governor. Not just this week, as I've got 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. Pierce, who disdains the salutation and goes out. He winks at Higgins, thinking him probably a fellow sufferer from Mrs. Pierce's difficult disposition, and follows her. Don't you believe the old liar? Eight is soon you set a bulldog on him as a clergyman. You won't see him again in a hurry. I don't want to, Eliza. Do you? 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. What is his trade, Eliza? Taking money out of other people's pockets into his own. His proper trades are navvy, and he works at it sometimes, too, for exercise, and earns good money out. Aren't you going to call me Miss Dolittle any more? I beg your pardon, Miss Dolittle. It was a slip of the tongue. Oh, I don't mind. Only it sounded so genteel. I should just like a 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 him, you know. Better wait till we get you something really fashionable. Besides, you shouldn't have cut your old friends now that you have risen in the world. That's what we call snobbery. You don't call like a them, my friends, now, I should hope. They've took out me often enough with a ridicule when they had the chance. And now I mean to get a bit me-own back. But if I'm to have fashionable clothes, I'll wait. I should like to have some. Mrs. Pierce 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. Now, Eliza, the new things have come for you to try on. Ow! She rushes out. Oh, don't rush about like that, girl. Pickering we seem to have taken on a stiff job. Higgins, we have. End of Act Two. Act Three of Pigmalion by George Bernard Shaw. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act Three 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 and 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 Byrne Jones, and her room, which is very unlike her son's room in Wimple Street, is not crowded with furniture and little tables and knick-knacks. In the middle of the room there is a big ottoman, and this, with the carpet, the Morris wallpapers, 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 Grovener Gallery thirty years ago—the Byrne 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 when she defied fashion in her youth in one of the beautiful Rosettiun costumes, which, when caricatured by people who did not understand, led to the absurdities of popular aestheticism in the 1870s. 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 chints. It is between four and five in the afternoon. The door is opened violently and Higgins enters with his hat on. Henry, what are you doing here today? It's 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. Oh, bother! He throws the hat down on the table. Go home at once! I know, mother. I came on purpose. But you mustn't. I'm serious, Henry. You offend all my friends. They stop coming whenever they meet you. Nonsense. I know I have no small talk. But people don't mind. Oh, don't they? Small talk indeed. What about your large talk? Really, dear, you mustn't stay. I must. I have a job for you, a phonetic job. 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. Well, this isn't a phonetic job. You said it was. Not your part of it. I've picked up a girl. Does that mean that some girl has picked you up? Not at all. I don't mean a love affair. What a pity. Why? 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? Oh, I can't be bothered with young women. My idea of a lovable 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. Do you know what you would do if you really loved me, Henry? Oh, bother. What? Marry, I suppose? 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. She's coming to see you. I don't remember asking her. You didn't. I asked her. If you'd known her, you wouldn't have asked her. Indeed. Why? Well, it's like this. She's a common flower girl. I picked her off the curb-stone. And invite her to my at-home? Oh, that'll be all right. I've taught her to speak properly. And she has strict orders as to her behaviour. She's to keep to two subjects, the weather and everybody's health. Find day in how do you do, you know, and to not let herself get on things in general. That will be safe. Safe? To talk about our health? About our insides? Perhaps about our outsides? How could you be so silly, Henry? Well, she must talk about something. 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 be able to pass her off as a duchess in six months. I've started on her some months ago, and she's getting on like a high-sunfire. 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. That's satisfactory at all events. Well, it isn't, it isn't. What does that mean? You see, I've got her pronunciation all right. I 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. Mrs. and Miss Einsford Hill. 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 Einsford 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 straightened means. The daughter has acquired a gay heir of being very much at home in society— the bravado of gentile poverty. How do you do? How do you do? My son, Henry. You're celebrated son. I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins. Delighted. How do you do? I've seen you before somewhere. You're the ghost of an ocean where, but I've heard your voice. It doesn't matter. You'd better sit down. I'm sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustn't mind him. I don't. Not at all. Oh, have I been rude? I didn't mean to be. The parlor maid returns, ushering in Pickering. Colonel Pickering! How do you do, Mrs. Higgins? So glad you've come. Do you know Mrs. Einsford Hill? Miss Einsford Hill? Has Henry told you what we've come for? We were interrupted, dammit. Oh, Henry—Henry, really? Are we in the way? No, no, you couldn't have come. Fortunately, we want you to meet a friend of ours. Yes, by George. We want two or three people. You'll do as well as anybody else. The parlor maid returns, ushering Freddie. Mr. Einsford Hill! God of heaven, another of them. How do you do? Very good of you to come, Colonel Pickering. How do you do? I don't think you know my son, Professor Higgins. How do you do? I'll take my oath I've met you before somewhere. Where was it? I don't think so. It doesn't matter, anyhow. Sit down. Well, here we are, anyhow. And now, what the devil are we going to talk about until Eliza comes? Henry, you are the life and soul of the Royal Society's soirees. But really, you're rather trying on more commonplace occasions. Am I? Very sorry. I suppose I am, you know. I sympathise. I haven't got any small talk. If people would only be frank and say what they really think. Lord forbid. But why? 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? Is it so very cynical? Cynical? Who the Dickens said it was cynical? I mean it wouldn't be decent. Oh, I'm sure you don't mean that, Mr Higgins. You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed to be civilised 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? What do you know of poetry? What do you know of science? What does he know of art or science or anything else? What the devil do you imagine I know of philosophy? Or of manners, Henry. Miss Doolittle. 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' signals, she comes to Mrs Higgins with studied grace. How do you do, Mrs Higgins? Mr Higgins told me I might come. Quite right. I'm very glad indeed to see you. How do you do, Miss Doolittle? Colonel Pickering, is it not? I feel sure we have met before, Mrs Doolittle. I remember your rise. How do you do? My daughter Clara. How do you do? How do you do? I have certainly had the pleasure. My son, Freddie, how do you do? By George, yes, it all comes back to me. Covent Garden. What a damn thing. Henry, please! Don't sit on my writing table. You'll break it. Sorry. Higgins goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fire-irons on his way, extricating himself with muttered implications 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. Along and painful paths ensues. Where the train do you think? 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. How awfully funny. What is wrong with that young man? I bet I got it right. Killing. I'm sure I hope it won't turn cold. There's so much influenza about. It runs right through a whole family regularly every spring. My aunt died of influenza, so they said, but it's my belief they've done the old woman in. Done her in? Yes, 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 till she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon. Dear me, 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. What does doing her in mean? Oh, that's the new small talk. To do a peasant in means to kill them. You surely don't believe that your aunt was killed. Do I not? Them she lived with would have killed her for a hatpin, let alone a hat. But it can't have been right for your father to pull spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed her. 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. Do you mean that he drank? Drank, my word, something chronic. How dreadful for you. Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular. On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he'd 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 drunk himself cheerful and lovinglike. There's lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. 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. Here, what are you sniggering at? The new small talk. You do it so awfully well. If I was doing it proper what was you laughing at? Have I said anything I wouldn't? Not at all, Miss Doolittle. Well, that's a mercy anyhow. What I always say is... Ahem. Well, I must go. They all rise. Freddie goes to the door. So pleased to have met you. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye, Colonel Pickering. Goodbye, Miss Doolittle. Goodbye, all. Are you walking across the park, Miss Doolittle? If so... Walk? Not bloody likely. I am going in a taxi. Pickering gasps and sits down. Freddie goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of Eliza. Well, I really can't get used to the new ways. Oh, it's all right, Mama. Quite right. People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you're so old-fashioned. I dare say 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? 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 folksal. 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. Well, after that, I think it's time for us to go. Oh, yes. We have three at-homes to go to still. Goodbye, Mrs. Higgins. Goodbye, Colonel Pickering. Goodbye, Professor Higgins. Goodbye. Be sure you try on that small talk at the three at-homes. Don't be nervous about it. Pitch it in strong. I will. Goodbye. Such nonsense. All this Victorian prudery. Such damned nonsense. Such bloody nonsense. 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. Well, I ask you. Goodbye. Goodbye. Would you like to meet Miss Doolittle again? Yes, I should, most awfully. Well, you know my days. Yes. Thanks awfully. Goodbye. Goodbye, Mr. Higgins. Goodbye. Goodbye. It's no use. I shall never be able to bring myself to use that word. Don't. It's not compulsory, you know. You'll get on quite well without it. Only Clara is so down on me if I'm not positively reeking with the latest slang. Goodbye. Goodbye. 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 door. 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? Oh, quite nice. Always be delighted to see him. Thank you, dear. Goodbye. She goes out. Well, is Eliza presentable? You silly boy, of course she's not presentable. She's a triumph of your art and of her dressmakers. 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. Don't you think something might be done? I mean something to eliminate the sanguinary element from her conversation. Not as long as she's in Henry's hands. Do you mean that my language is improper? No, dearest, it would be quite proper, say, on a canal barge. But it would not be proper for her at a garden party. Well, I must say. 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. Well, if you say so, I suppose I don't always talk like a bishop. Colonel Pickering, will you tell me what is the exact state of things in Wimpole Street? Well, I've come to live here with Henry. We work together, my Indian dialects, and we think it more convenient. Quite so. I'll know all about that. It's an excellent arrangement. But where does this girl live? With us, of course. Where would she live? But on what terms? Is she a servant? If not, what is she? I think I know what you mean, Mrs. 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. She remembers my appointments and so forth. How does your housekeeper get on with her? Mrs. Pierce, oh, she's jolly glad to have 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, Peake? Yes, that's the formula. You don't think, sir, and that's the end of every conversation about Eliza. As if I ever stopped 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. You certainly are a pretty pair of babies playing with your live doll. 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. 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. We keep records of every stage, phone discs and photographs. Yes, by George. It's the most absorbing experiment I ever tackled. She regularly fills our lives up, doesn't she pick? We're always talking Eliza. Teaching Eliza. Dressing Eliza. What? Inventing new Elizas. You know, she has the most extraordinary quickness of ear. I assure you, my dear Mrs. Higgins, that girl, just like a parrot, I've tried her with... She's a genius. She can play the piano quite beautifully. I've taken her to classical concerts and to music. Continental dialects. African dialects. Hottentot halls. And it's all the same to her. She plays everything. Glicks. Things it took me years to get hold of. And she hears right off when she comes home, whether it's... Picks them up like a shot, right away, as if she had... Beethoven and Brahms or Lihar and Lionel Monk. Been at it her whole life. Though six months ago, she'd never as much as touched a piano. Shh! I beg your pardon. Sorry. When Pickering starts shouting, nobody can get a word in edge ways. Be quiet, Henry. Colonel Pickering, don't you realise that when Eliza walked into Wimpole Street, something walked in with her? Her father did, but Henry soon got rid of him. Hmm. It would have been more to the point if her mother had. But as her mother didn't, something else did. But what? A problem. Oh! I see. The problem of how to pass her off as a lady. I'll solve that problem. I've half solved it already. No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures. The problem of what's to be done with her afterwards. I don't see anything in that. She can go her own way with all the advantages I've given her. 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? Oh, that'll be all right, Mrs. Higgins. We'll find her some light employment. She's happy enough. Don't you worry about her. Goodbye. Anyhow, there's no good bothering now. The thing's done. Goodbye, mother. There are plenty of openings. We'll do what's right. Goodbye. Let's take her to the Shakespeare exhibition at Earl's Court. Yes, let's. Her remarks will be delicious. She'll mimic all the people for us when we get home. Ripping. 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 stationary 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! All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act IV The Wimple Street Laboratory Midnight. Nobody in the room. The clock on the mantelpiece strikes twelve. The fire is not a light. It is a summer night. Presently, Higgins and Pickering are heard on the stairs. I say pick. Lock up, will you? I shan't be going out again. Right. Can Mrs. Pierce go to bed? We don't want any more, do we? Lord, no. Eliza opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in an 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' when he hesitates. I say Mrs. Pierce will row if we leave these things lying about in the drawing-room. Oh, chuck them over the banisters into the hall. She'll find them there in the morning and put them away all right. She'll think we were drunk. We are, slightly. Are there any letters? I didn't look. He puts the overcoats and hats and goes downstairs. 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. Only circulars in this coroneted billy-doo for you? He throws the circulars into the fender and posts himself on the hearth-rog with his back to the grate. Glancing at the billet-dwa, 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. Oh, Lord, what an evening! What a crew! What a silly tomfoolery! 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, aren't they? Well, I feel a bit tired. It's been a long day. The Garden Party, a dinner party, and the opera are rather too much of a good thing. But you've won your bet, Higgins. Eliza did the trick and something to spare, eh? Thank God it's over. Eliza flinches violently, but they take no notice of her and she recovers herself and sits stonely as before. Were you nervous at the Garden Party I was? Eliza didn't seem a bit nervous. 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. Oh, come! The Garden Party was frightfully exciting. My heart began beating like anything. Yes, for the first three minutes. But when I saw we were going to win, my 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. You've never been broken in properly to the social routine. I rather enjoy dipping into it occasionally myself. It makes me feel young again. Anyhow, it was a great 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. There are 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. Yes, that's what drives me mad. The silly people don't know their own silly business. However, it's over and done with, and now I can go to bed. At last without dreading tomorrow. Eliza's beauty becomes murderous. I think I shall turn into. Still, it's been a great occasion, a triumph for you. Good night. Good night. Over his shoulder, at the door. Put out the lights, Eliza, and tell Mrs. Pierce not to make coffee for me in the morning. I'll take tea. He goes out. Eliza tries to control herself and feeling different as she rises 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' chair and holds on hard to the arms. Finally she gives way and flings herself furiously on the floor, raging. In despairing wrath outside. What the devil have I done with my slippers? He appears at the door. Eliza snatches up the slippers and hurls them at him one after the other with all her force. Take your slippers and there! Take your slippers! And may you never have a day's luck with them. What on earth? What's the matter? Get up! Anything wrong? 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. You won my bet. You presumptuous insect. I won it. What did you throw these slippers at me for? 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? The creature is nervous after all. Eliza instinctively darts her nails at his face. Higgins catches her wrists. Ah, would you? Claws in, you cat! How dare you show your temper to me! Sit down and be quiet. Get roughly into the easy chair. What's to become of me? What's to become of me? How the devil do I know what's to become of you? What does it matter what becomes of you? 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. Those slippers. Those slippers. I didn't think it made any difference now. A pause. Eliza hopeless and crushed. Higgins a little uneasy. Why have you begun going on like this? May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here? No. Has anybody behaved badly to you? Colonel Pickering? Mrs. Pierce? Any of the servants? No. I presume you don't pretend that I have treated you badly? No. I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps you're tired after the strain of the day. Will you have a glass of champagne? No. Thank you. 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. There's nothing more to worry about. No. Nothing more for you to worry about. Oh, God, I wish I was dead. Why? In Heaven's name, why? Listen to me, Eliza. All this irritation is purely subjective. I don't understand. I'm too ignorant. It's only imagination, low spirits and nothing else. Nobody's hurting you. Nothing's wrong. You go to bed like a good girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers. That will make you comfortable. I heard your prayers. Thank God it's all over. Well, don't you thank God it's all over? Now you are free and can do what you like. What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What's to become of me? Oh, that's what's worrying you, is it? He thrust his hands into his pockets and walks about in his usual manner, rattling the contents of his pockets as if condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness. I shouldn't bother about it, if I owe you. I should imagine you won't have much difficulty in settling yourself, somewhere or other, although I hadn't thought about it. I don't know. She looks quickly at him. He does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand on the piano and decides that he will eat an apple. You might marry, you know. You see, Eliza, not all men are confirmed old batterers like me in the Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort, poor Daryls, and you're not bad-looking. It's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes. Not now, of course, because you're crying and looking as ugly as they are. You know, Eliza, you're not a bad man. You're not a bad man. Of course, because you're crying and looking as ugly as the very devil, but when you're all right and quite yourself, you're what I should call attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you understand, you go to bed and have a good night's rest, and then you get up and look at yourself in the glass and you won't feel so cheap. Eliza again looks at him, speechless, and does not stir. The look is quite lost on him. He eats his apple with a dreamy expression of happiness, as it is quite a good one. I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well. We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. What do you mean? I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me. I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish you'd left me where you found me. Tosh, Eliza. Don't you insult human relations by dragging all this cant about buying and selling into it. You needn't marry the fellow if you don't like him. What else am I to do? Lots of things. What about your old idea of a florist's shop? Pickering could set you up in one. He's lots of money. You'll have to pay for all those togs you've been wearing today, and that, with the hire of the jewelry, will make a big hole in two hundred pounds. Why, six months ago, you'd have thought it the millennium to have a flower shop of your own. Come, you'll be all right. I must clear off to bed. I'm devilish, sleepy. By the way, I came down for something. I forget what it was. Your slippers. Oh, yes, of course. You shied them at me. Before you go, sir. Dropping the slippers in his surprise at her calling him, sir. Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering? What the devil use would they beat Pickering? He might want them for the next girl you pick up to experiment on. Is that the way you feel towards us? I don't want to hear anything more about that. All I want to know is whether anything belongs to me. My own clothes were burnt. But what does it matter? Why'd need you start bothering about that in the middle of the night? I want to know what I may take away with me. I don't want to be accused of stealing. Stealing? You shouldn't have said that, Eliza. That shows a want of feeling. I'm sorry. I'm only a common ignorant girl. And in my station I have to be careful. There can't be any feelings between the like of you and the like of me. Please, will you tell me what belongs to me and what doesn't? You may take the whole damned household if you like, except the jewels. They're hired. Will that satisfy you? Stop, please. She takes off her jewels. Will you take these to a room, please, and keep them safe? I don't want to run the risk of their being missing. Hand them over. She puts them into his hands. If these belong to me instead of the jeweler I'd ram them down your ungrateful throat. He perfunctorily thrusts them into his pockets, unconsciously decorating himself with the protruding ends of the chains. Eliza takes a ring off. This ring isn't the jeweler's. It's the one you bought me in Brighton. I don't want it now. Higgins dashes the ring violently into the fireplace and turns on her so threateningly that she crouches over the piano with her hands over her face. Don't you hit me! Hit you? You infamous creature, how dare you accuse me of such a thing? It is you who have hit me. You have wounded me to the heart. I'm glad. I've got a little of my own back anyhow. You have caused me to lose my temper, a thing that has hardly ever happened to me before. I prefer to say nothing more to-night. I am going to bed. You'd better leave a note for Mrs. Pierce about the coffee, for she won't be told by me. Damn Mrs. Pierce and damn the coffee and damn you and damn my own folly in having lavished my hard-earned knowledge and the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a heartless gutter-snipe! He goes out with impressive decorum and spoils it by slamming the door savagely. Eliza smiles for the first time, expresses her feelings by a wild pantomime in which an imitation of Higgins's exit is confused with her own triumph and finally goes down on her knees on the hearth rug to look for the ring.