Pygmalion

HIGGINS. 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.

LIZA. I heard YOUR prayers. “Thank God it’s all over!”

HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, don’t you thank God it’s all over? Now you
are free and can do what you like.

LIZA [pulling herself together in desperation] 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?

HIGGINS [enlightened, but not at all impressed] Oh, that’s what’s
worrying you, is it? [He thrusts 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 were you. I should imagine you won’t have much
difficulty in settling yourself, somewhere or other, though I hadn’t
quite realized that you were going away. [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. [He
bites a large piece out of the apple, and munches it noisily]. You see,
Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel.
Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); 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 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 nice rest; and then 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.

HIGGINS [a genial afterthought occurring to him] I daresay my mother
could find some chap or other who would do very well—

LIZA. We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.

HIGGINS [waking up] What do you mean?

LIZA. 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.

HIGGINS [slinging the core of the apple decisively into the grate]
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.

LIZA. What else am I to do?

HIGGINS. Oh, 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.
[Chuckling] He’ll have to pay for all those togs you have been wearing
today; and that, with the hire of the jewellery, will make a big hole
in two hundred pounds. Why, six months ago you would 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.

LIZA. Your slippers.

HIGGINS. Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me. [He picks them up,
and is going out when she rises and speaks to him].

LIZA. Before you go, sir—

HIGGINS [dropping the slippers in his surprise at her calling him sir]
Eh?

LIZA. Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering?

HIGGINS [coming back into the room as if her question were the very
climax of unreason] What the devil use would they be to Pickering?

LIZA. He might want them for the next girl you pick up to experiment on.

HIGGINS [shocked and hurt] Is THAT the way you feel towards us?

LIZA. 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.

HIGGINS. But what does it matter? Why need you start bothering about
that in the middle of the night?

LIZA. I want to know what I may take away with me. I don’t want to be
accused of stealing.

HIGGINS [now deeply wounded] Stealing! You shouldn’t have said that,
Eliza. That shows a want of feeling.

LIZA. 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?

HIGGINS [very sulky] You may take the whole damned houseful if you
like. Except the jewels. They’re hired. Will that satisfy you? [He
turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme dudgeon].

LIZA [drinking in his emotion like nectar, and nagging him to provoke a
further supply] Stop, please. [She takes off her jewels]. Will you take
these to your room and keep them safe? I don’t want to run the risk of
their being missing.

HIGGINS [furious] Hand them over. [She puts them into his hands]. If
these belonged to me instead of to 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].

LIZA [taking 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, and
exclaims] Don’t you hit me.

HIGGINS. 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.

LIZA [thrilling with hidden joy] I’m glad. I’ve got a little of my own
back, anyhow.

HIGGINS [with dignity, in his finest professional style] You have
caused me to lose my temper: a thing that has hardly ever happened to
me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to bed.

LIZA [pertly] You’d better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the
coffee; for she won’t be told by me.

HIGGINS [formally] Damn Mrs. Pearce; 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 guttersnipe. [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 hearthrug to
look for the ring.

ACT V

Mrs. Higgins’s drawing-room. She is at her writing-table as before. The
parlor-maid comes in.

THE PARLOR-MAID [at the door] Mr. Henry, mam, is downstairs with
Colonel Pickering.

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, show them up.

THE PARLOR-MAID. They’re using the telephone, mam. Telephoning to the
police, I think.

MRS. HIGGINS. What!

THE PARLOR-MAID [coming further in and lowering her voice] Mr. Henry’s
in a state, mam. I thought I’d better tell you.

MRS. HIGGINS. If you had told me that Mr. Henry was not in a state it
would have been more surprising. Tell them to come up when they’ve
finished with the police. I suppose he’s lost something.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, maam [going].

MRS. HIGGINS. Go upstairs and tell Miss Doolittle that Mr. Henry and
the Colonel are here. Ask her not to come down till I send for her.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, mam.

Higgins bursts in. He is, as the parlor-maid has said, in a state.

HIGGINS. Look here, mother: here’s a confounded thing!

MRS. HIGGINS. Yes, dear. Good-morning. [He checks his impatience and
kisses her, whilst the parlor-maid goes out]. What is it?

HIGGINS. Eliza’s bolted.

MRS. HIGGINS [calmly continuing her writing] You must have frightened
her.

HIGGINS. Frightened her! nonsense! She was left last night, as usual,
to turn out the lights and all that; and instead of going to bed she
changed her clothes and went right off: her bed wasn’t slept in. She
came in a cab for her things before seven this morning; and that fool
Mrs. Pearce let her have them without telling me a word about it. What
am I to do?

MRS. HIGGINS. Do without, I’m afraid, Henry. The girl has a perfect
right to leave if she chooses.

HIGGINS [wandering distractedly across the room] But I can’t find
anything. I don’t know what appointments I’ve got. I’m— [Pickering
comes in. Mrs. Higgins puts down her pen and turns away from the
writing-table].

PICKERING [shaking hands] Good-morning, Mrs. Higgins. Has Henry told
you? [He sits down on the ottoman].

HIGGINS. What does that ass of an inspector say? Have you offered a
reward?

MRS. HIGGINS [rising in indignant amazement] You don’t mean to say you
have set the police after Eliza?

HIGGINS. Of course. What are the police for? What else could we do? [He
sits in the Elizabethan chair].

PICKERING. The inspector made a lot of difficulties. I really think he
suspected us of some improper purpose.

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, of course he did. What right have you to go to the
police and give the girl’s name as if she were a thief, or a lost
umbrella, or something? Really! [She sits down again, deeply vexed].

HIGGINS. But we want to find her.

PICKERING. We can’t let her go like this, you know, Mrs. Higgins. What
were we to do?

MRS. HIGGINS. You have no more sense, either of you, than two children.
Why—

The parlor-maid comes in and breaks off the conversation.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Mr. Henry: a gentleman wants to see you very
particular. He’s been sent on from Wimpole Street.

HIGGINS. Oh, bother! I can’t see anyone now. Who is it?

THE PARLOR-MAID. A Mr. Doolittle, Sir.

PICKERING. Doolittle! Do you mean the dustman?

THE PARLOR-MAID. Dustman! Oh no, sir: a gentleman.

HIGGINS [springing up excitedly] By George, Pick, it’s some relative of
hers that she’s gone to. Somebody we know nothing about. [To the
parlor-maid] Send him up, quick.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, Sir. [She goes].

HIGGINS [eagerly, going to his mother] Genteel relatives! now we shall
hear something. [He sits down in the Chippendale chair].

MRS. HIGGINS. Do you know any of her people?

PICKERING. Only her father: the fellow we told you about.

THE PARLOR-MAID [announcing] Mr. Doolittle. [She withdraws].

Doolittle enters. He is brilliantly dressed in a new fashionable
frock-coat, with white waistcoat and grey trousers. A flower in his
buttonhole, a dazzling silk hat, and patent leather shoes complete the
effect. He is too concerned with the business he has come on to notice
Mrs. Higgins. He walks straight to Higgins, and accosts him with
vehement reproach.

DOOLITTLE [indicating his own person] See here! Do you see this? You
done this.

HIGGINS. Done what, man?

DOOLITTLE. This, I tell you. Look at it. Look at this hat. Look at this
coat.

PICKERING. Has Eliza been buying you clothes?

DOOLITTLE. Eliza! not she. Not half. Why would she buy me clothes?

MRS. HIGGINS. Good-morning, Mr. Doolittle. Won’t you sit down?

DOOLITTLE [taken aback as he becomes conscious that he has forgotten
his hostess] Asking your pardon, ma’am. [He approaches her and shakes
her proffered hand]. Thank you. [He sits down on the ottoman, on
Pickering’s right]. I am that full of what has happened to me that I
can’t think of anything else.

HIGGINS. What the dickens has happened to you?

DOOLITTLE. I shouldn’t mind if it had only happened to me: anything
might happen to anybody and nobody to blame but Providence, as you
might say. But this is something that you done to me: yes, you, Henry
Higgins.

HIGGINS. Have you found Eliza? That’s the point.

DOOLITTLE. Have you lost her?

HIGGINS. Yes.

DOOLITTLE. You have all the luck, you have. I ain’t found her; but
she’ll find me quick enough now after what you done to me.

MRS. HIGGINS. But what has my son done to you, Mr. Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE. Done to me! Ruined me. Destroyed my happiness. Tied me up
and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality.

HIGGINS [rising intolerantly and standing over Doolittle] You’re
raving. You’re drunk. You’re mad. I gave you five pounds. After that I
had two conversations with you, at half-a-crown an hour. I’ve never
seen you since.

DOOLITTLE. Oh! Drunk! am I? Mad! am I? Tell me this. Did you or did you
not write a letter to an old blighter in America that was giving five
millions to found Moral Reform Societies all over the world, and that
wanted you to invent a universal language for him?

HIGGINS. What! Ezra D. Wannafeller! He’s dead. [He sits down again
carelessly].

DOOLITTLE. Yes: he’s dead; and I’m done for. Now did you or did you not
write a letter to him to say that the most original moralist at present
in England, to the best of your knowledge, was Alfred Doolittle, a
common dustman.

HIGGINS. Oh, after your last visit I remember making some silly joke of
the kind.

DOOLITTLE. Ah! you may well call it a silly joke. It put the lid on me
right enough. Just give him the chance he wanted to show that Americans
is not like us: that they recognize and respect merit in every class of
life, however humble. Them words is in his blooming will, in which,
Henry Higgins, thanks to your silly joking, he leaves me a share in his
Pre-digested Cheese Trust worth three thousand a year on condition that
I lecture for his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as often as
they ask me up to six times a year.

HIGGINS. The devil he does! Whew! [Brightening suddenly] What a lark!

PICKERING. A safe thing for you, Doolittle. They won’t ask you twice.

DOOLITTLE. It ain’t the lecturing I mind. I’ll lecture them blue in the
face, I will, and not turn a hair. It’s making a gentleman of me that I
object to. Who asked him to make a gentleman of me? I was happy. I was
free. I touched pretty nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same
as I touched you, Henry Higgins. Now I am worrited; tied neck and
heels; and everybody touches me for money. It’s a fine thing for you,
says my solicitor. Is it? says I. You mean it’s a good thing for you, I
says. When I was a poor man and had a solicitor once when they found a
pram in the dust cart, he got me off, and got shut of me and got me
shut of him as quick as he could. Same with the doctors: used to shove
me out of the hospital before I could hardly stand on my legs, and
nothing to pay. Now they finds out that I’m not a healthy man and can’t
live unless they looks after me twice a day. In the house I’m not let
do a hand’s turn for myself: somebody else must do it and touch me for
it. A year ago I hadn’t a relative in the world except two or three
that wouldn’t speak to me. Now I’ve fifty, and not a decent week’s
wages among the lot of them. I have to live for others and not for
myself: that’s middle class morality. You talk of losing Eliza. Don’t
you be anxious: I bet she’s on my doorstep by this: she that could
support herself easy by selling flowers if I wasn’t respectable. And
the next one to touch me will be you, Henry Higgins. I’ll have to learn
to speak middle class language from you, instead of speaking proper
English. That’s where you’ll come in; and I daresay that’s what you
done it for.

MRS. HIGGINS. But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not suffer all this
if you are really in earnest. Nobody can force you to accept this
bequest. You can repudiate it. Isn’t that so, Colonel Pickering?

PICKERING. I believe so.

DOOLITTLE [softening his manner in deference to her sex] That’s the
tragedy of it, ma’am. It’s easy to say chuck it; but I haven’t the
nerve. Which one of us has? We’re all intimidated. Intimidated, ma’am:
that’s what we are. What is there for me if I chuck it but the
workhouse in my old age? I have to dye my hair already to keep my job
as a dustman. If I was one of the deserving poor, and had put by a bit,
I could chuck it; but then why should I, acause the deserving poor
might as well be millionaires for all the happiness they ever has. They
don’t know what happiness is. But I, as one of the undeserving poor,
have nothing between me and the pauper’s uniform but this here blasted
three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class. (Excuse the
expression, ma’am: you’d use it yourself if you had my provocation).
They’ve got you every way you turn: it’s a choice between the Skilly of
the workhouse and the Char Bydis of the middle class; and I haven’t the
nerve for the workhouse. Intimidated: that’s what I am. Broke. Bought
up. Happier men than me will call for my dust, and touch me for their
tip; and I’ll look on helpless, and envy them. And that’s what your son
has brought me to. [He is overcome by emotion].

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, I’m very glad you’re not going to do anything
foolish, Mr. Doolittle. For this solves the problem of Eliza’s future.
You can provide for her now.

DOOLITTLE [with melancholy resignation] Yes, ma’am; I’m expected to
provide for everyone now, out of three thousand a year.

HIGGINS [jumping up] Nonsense! he can’t provide for her. He shan’t
provide for her. She doesn’t belong to him. I paid him five pounds for
her. Doolittle: either you’re an honest man or a rogue.

DOOLITTLE [tolerantly] A little of both, Henry, like the rest of us: a
little of both.

HIGGINS. Well, you took that money for the girl; and you have no right
to take her as well.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: don’t be absurd. If you really want to know where
Eliza is, she is upstairs.

HIGGINS [amazed] Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch her
downstairs. [He makes resolutely for the door].

MRS. HIGGINS [rising and following him] Be quiet, Henry. Sit down.

HIGGINS. I—

MRS. HIGGINS. Sit down, dear; and listen to me.

HIGGINS. Oh very well, very well, very well. [He throws himself
ungraciously on the ottoman, with his face towards the windows]. But I
think you might have told me this half an hour ago.

MRS. HIGGINS. Eliza came to me this morning. She passed the night
partly walking about in a rage, partly trying to throw herself into the
river and being afraid to, and partly in the Carlton Hotel. She told me
of the brutal way you two treated her.

HIGGINS [bounding up again] What!

PICKERING [rising also] My dear Mrs. Higgins, she’s been telling you
stories. We didn’t treat her brutally. We hardly said a word to her;
and we parted on particularly good terms. [Turning on Higgins].
Higgins: did you bully her after I went to bed?

HIGGINS. Just the other way about. She threw my slippers in my face.
She behaved in the most outrageous way. I never gave her the slightest
provocation. The slippers came bang into my face the moment I entered
the room—before I had uttered a word. And used perfectly awful
language.

PICKERING [astonished] But why? What did we do to her?

MRS. HIGGINS. I think I know pretty well what you did. The girl is
naturally rather affectionate, I think. Isn’t she, Mr. Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE. Very tender-hearted, ma’am. Takes after me.

MRS. HIGGINS. Just so. She had become attached to you both. She worked
very hard for you, Henry! I don’t think you quite realize what anything
in the nature of brain work means to a girl like that. Well, it seems
that when the great day of trial came, and she did this wonderful thing
for you without making a single mistake, you two sat there and never
said a word to her, but talked together of how glad you were that it
was all over and how you had been bored with the whole thing. And then
you were surprised because she threw your slippers at you! _I_ should
have thrown the fire-irons at you.

HIGGINS. We said nothing except that we were tired and wanted to go to
bed. Did we, Pick?

PICKERING [shrugging his shoulders] That was all.

MRS. HIGGINS [ironically] Quite sure?

PICKERING. Absolutely. Really, that was all.

MRS. HIGGINS. You didn’t thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or tell
her how splendid she’d been.

HIGGINS [impatiently] But she knew all about that. We didn’t make
speeches to her, if that’s what you mean.

PICKERING [conscience stricken] Perhaps we were a little inconsiderate.
Is she very angry?

MRS. HIGGINS [returning to her place at the writing-table] Well, I’m
afraid she won’t go back to Wimpole Street, especially now that Mr.
Doolittle is able to keep up the position you have thrust on her; but
she says she is quite willing to meet you on friendly terms and to let
bygones be bygones.

HIGGINS [furious] Is she, by George? Ho!

MRS. HIGGINS. If you promise to behave yourself, Henry, I’ll ask her to
come down. If not, go home; for you have taken up quite enough of my
time.

HIGGINS. Oh, all right. Very well. Pick: you behave yourself. Let us
put on our best Sunday manners for this creature that we picked out of
the mud. [He flings himself sulkily into the Elizabethan chair].

DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, Henry Higgins! have some
consideration for my feelings as a middle class man.

MRS. HIGGINS. Remember your promise, Henry. [She presses the
bell-button on the writing-table]. Mr. Doolittle: will you be so good
as to step out on the balcony for a moment. I don’t want Eliza to have
the shock of your news until she has made it up with these two
gentlemen. Would you mind?

DOOLITTLE. As you wish, lady. Anything to help Henry to keep her off my
hands. [He disappears through the window].

The parlor-maid answers the bell. Pickering sits down in Doolittle’s
place.

MRS. HIGGINS. Ask Miss Doolittle to come down, please.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, mam. [She goes out].

MRS. HIGGINS. Now, Henry: be good.

HIGGINS. I am behaving myself perfectly.

PICKERING. He is doing his best, Mrs. Higgins.

A pause. Higgins throws back his head; stretches out his legs; and
begins to whistle.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry, dearest, you don’t look at all nice in that
attitude.

HIGGINS [pulling himself together] I was not trying to look nice,
mother.

MRS. HIGGINS. It doesn’t matter, dear. I only wanted to make you speak.

HIGGINS. Why?

MRS. HIGGINS. Because you can’t speak and whistle at the same time.

Higgins groans. Another very trying pause.

HIGGINS [springing up, out of patience] Where the devil is that girl?
Are we to wait here all day?

Eliza enters, sunny, self-possessed, and giving a staggeringly
convincing exhibition of ease of manner. She carries a little
work-basket, and is very much at home. Pickering is too much taken
aback to rise.

LIZA. How do you do, Professor Higgins? Are you quite well?

HIGGINS [choking] Am I— [He can say no more].

LIZA. But of course you are: you are never ill. So glad to see you
again, Colonel Pickering. [He rises hastily; and they shake hands].
Quite chilly this morning, isn’t it? [She sits down on his left. He
sits beside her].

HIGGINS. Don’t you dare try this game on me. I taught it to you; and it
doesn’t take me in. Get up and come home; and don’t be a fool.

Eliza takes a piece of needlework from her basket, and begins to stitch
at it, without taking the least notice of this outburst.

MRS. HIGGINS. Very nicely put, indeed, Henry. No woman could resist
such an invitation.

HIGGINS. You let her alone, mother. Let her speak for herself. You will
jolly soon see whether she has an idea that I haven’t put into her head
or a word that I haven’t put into her mouth. I tell you I have created
this thing out of the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden; and now
she pretends to play the fine lady with me.

MRS. HIGGINS [placidly] Yes, dear; but you’ll sit down, won’t you?

Higgins sits down again, savagely.

LIZA [to Pickering, taking no apparent notice of Higgins, and working
away deftly] Will you drop me altogether now that the experiment is
over, Colonel Pickering?

PICKERING. Oh don’t. You mustn’t think of it as an experiment. It
shocks me, somehow.

LIZA. Oh, I’m only a squashed cabbage leaf.

PICKERING [impulsively] No.

LIZA [continuing quietly]—but I owe so much to you that I should be
very unhappy if you forgot me.

PICKERING. It’s very kind of you to say so, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA. It’s not because you paid for my dresses. I know you are generous
to everybody with money. But it was from you that I learnt really nice
manners; and that is what makes one a lady, isn’t it? You see it was so
very difficult for me with the example of Professor Higgins always
before me. I was brought up to be just like him, unable to control
myself, and using bad language on the slightest provocation. And I
should never have known that ladies and gentlemen didn’t behave like
that if you hadn’t been there.

HIGGINS. Well!!

PICKERING. Oh, that’s only his way, you know. He doesn’t mean it.

LIZA. Oh, I didn’t mean it either, when I was a flower girl. It was
only my way. But you see I did it; and that’s what makes the difference
after all.

PICKERING. No doubt. Still, he taught you to speak; and I couldn’t have
done that, you know.

LIZA [trivially] Of course: that is his profession.

HIGGINS. Damnation!

LIZA [continuing] It was just like learning to dance in the fashionable
way: there was nothing more than that in it. But do you know what began
my real education?

PICKERING. What?

LIZA [stopping her work for a moment] Your calling me Miss Doolittle
that day when I first came to Wimpole Street. That was the beginning of
self-respect for me. [She resumes her stitching]. And there were a
hundred little things you never noticed, because they came naturally to
you. Things about standing up and taking off your hat and opening
doors—

PICKERING. Oh, that was nothing.

LIZA. Yes: things that showed you thought and felt about me as if I
were something better than a scullery-maid; though of course I know you
would have been just the same to a scullery-maid if she had been let in
the drawing-room. You never took off your boots in the dining room when
I was there.

PICKERING. You mustn’t mind that. Higgins takes off his boots all over
the place.

LIZA. I know. I am not blaming him. It is his way, isn’t it? But it
made such a difference to me that you didn’t do it. You see, really and
truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the
proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a
flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated. I shall
always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats
me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to
you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

MRS. HIGGINS. Please don’t grind your teeth, Henry.

PICKERING. Well, this is really very nice of you, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA. I should like you to call me Eliza, now, if you would.

PICKERING. Thank you. Eliza, of course.

LIZA. And I should like Professor Higgins to call me Miss Doolittle.

HIGGINS. I’ll see you damned first.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry! Henry!

PICKERING [laughing] Why don’t you slang back at him? Don’t stand it.
It would do him a lot of good.

LIZA. I can’t. I could have done it once; but now I can’t go back to
it. Last night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to me; and I
tried to get back into the old way with her; but it was no use. You
told me, you know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country,
it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own. Well, I
am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can
speak nothing but yours. That’s the real break-off with the corner of
Tottenham Court Road. Leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.

PICKERING [much alarmed] Oh! but you’re coming back to Wimpole Street,
aren’t you? You’ll forgive Higgins?

HIGGINS [rising] Forgive! Will she, by George! Let her go. Let her find
out how she can get on without us. She will relapse into the gutter in
three weeks without me at her elbow.

Doolittle appears at the centre window. With a look of dignified
reproach at Higgins, he comes slowly and silently to his daughter, who,
with her back to the window, is unconscious of his approach.

PICKERING. He’s incorrigible, Eliza. You won’t relapse, will you?

LIZA. No: Not now. Never again. I have learnt my lesson. I don’t
believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried. [Doolittle
touches her on her left shoulder. She drops her work, losing her
self-possession utterly at the spectacle of her father’s splendor]
A—a—a—a—a—ah—ow—ooh!

HIGGINS [with a crow of triumph] Aha! Just so. A—a—a—a—ahowooh!
A—a—a—a—ahowooh ! A—a—a—a—ahowooh! Victory! Victory! [He throws
himself on the divan, folding his arms, and spraddling arrogantly].

DOOLITTLE. Can you blame the girl? Don’t look at me like that, Eliza.
It ain’t my fault. I’ve come into money.

LIZA. You must have touched a millionaire this time, dad.

DOOLITTLE. I have. But I’m dressed something special today. I’m going
to St. George’s, Hanover Square. Your stepmother is going to marry me.

LIZA [angrily] You’re going to let yourself down to marry that low
common woman!

PICKERING [quietly] He ought to, Eliza. [To Doolittle] Why has she
changed her mind?

DOOLITTLE [sadly] Intimidated, Governor. Intimidated. Middle class
morality claims its victim. Won’t you put on your hat, Liza, and come
and see me turned off?

LIZA. If the Colonel says I must, I—I’ll [almost sobbing] I’ll demean
myself. And get insulted for my pains, like enough.

DOOLITTLE. Don’t be afraid: she never comes to words with anyone now,
poor woman! respectability has broke all the spirit out of her.

PICKERING [squeezing Eliza’s elbow gently] Be kind to them, Eliza. Make
the best of it.

LIZA [forcing a little smile for him through her vexation] Oh well,
just to show there’s no ill feeling. I’ll be back in a moment. [She
goes out].

DOOLITTLE [sitting down beside Pickering] I feel uncommon nervous about
the ceremony, Colonel. I wish you’d come and see me through it.

PICKERING. But you’ve been through it before, man. You were married to
Eliza’s mother.

DOOLITTLE. Who told you that, Colonel?

PICKERING. Well, nobody told me. But I concluded naturally—

DOOLITTLE. No: that ain’t the natural way, Colonel: it’s only the
middle class way. My way was always the undeserving way. But don’t say
nothing to Eliza. She don’t know: I always had a delicacy about telling
her.

PICKERING. Quite right. We’ll leave it so, if you don’t mind.

DOOLITTLE. And you’ll come to the church, Colonel, and put me through
straight?

PICKERING. With pleasure. As far as a bachelor can.

MRS. HIGGINS. May I come, Mr. Doolittle? I should be very sorry to miss
your wedding.

DOOLITTLE. I should indeed be honored by your condescension, ma’am; and
my poor old woman would take it as a tremenjous compliment. She’s been
very low, thinking of the happy days that are no more.

MRS. HIGGINS [rising] I’ll order the carriage and get ready. [The men
rise, except Higgins]. I shan’t be more than fifteen minutes. [As she
goes to the door Eliza comes in, hatted and buttoning her gloves]. I’m
going to the church to see your father married, Eliza. You had better
come in the brougham with me. Colonel Pickering can go on with the
bridegroom.

Mrs. Higgins goes out. Eliza comes to the middle of the room between
the centre window and the ottoman. Pickering joins her.

DOOLITTLE. Bridegroom! What a word! It makes a man realize his
position, somehow. [He takes up his hat and goes towards the door].

PICKERING. Before I go, Eliza, do forgive him and come back to us.

LIZA. I don’t think papa would allow me. Would you, dad?

DOOLITTLE [sad but magnanimous] They played you off very cunning,
Eliza, them two sportsmen. If it had been only one of them, you could
have nailed him. But you see, there was two; and one of them chaperoned
the other, as you might say. [To Pickering] It was artful of you,
Colonel; but I bear no malice: I should have done the same myself. I
been the victim of one woman after another all my life; and I don’t
grudge you two getting the better of Eliza. I shan’t interfere. It’s
time for us to go, Colonel. So long, Henry. See you in St. George’s,
Eliza. [He goes out].

PICKERING [coaxing] Do stay with us, Eliza. [He follows Doolittle].

Eliza goes out on the balcony to avoid being alone with Higgins. He
rises and joins her there. She immediately comes back into the room and
makes for the door; but he goes along the balcony quickly and gets his
back to the door before she reaches it.

HIGGINS. Well, Eliza, you’ve had a bit of your own back, as you call
it. Have you had enough? and are you going to be reasonable? Or do you
want any more?

LIZA. You want me back only to pick up your slippers and put up with
your tempers and fetch and carry for you.

HIGGINS. I haven’t said I wanted you back at all.

LIZA. Oh, indeed. Then what are we talking about?

HIGGINS. About you, not about me. If you come back I shall treat you
just as I have always treated you. I can’t change my nature; and I
don’t intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as
Colonel Pickering’s.

LIZA. That’s not true. He treats a flower girl as if she was a duchess.

HIGGINS. And I treat a duchess as if she was a flower girl.

LIZA. I see. [She turns away composedly, and sits on the ottoman,
facing the window]. The same to everybody.

HIGGINS. Just so.

LIZA. Like father.

HIGGINS [grinning, a little taken down] Without accepting the
comparison at all points, Eliza, it’s quite true that your father is
not a snob, and that he will be quite at home in any station of life to
which his eccentric destiny may call him. [Seriously] The great secret,
Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other
particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human
souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no
third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

LIZA. Amen. You are a born preacher.

HIGGINS [irritated] The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but
whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better.

LIZA [with sudden sincerity] I don’t care how you treat me. I don’t
mind your swearing at me. I don’t mind a black eye: I’ve had one before
this. But [standing up and facing him] I won’t be passed over.

HIGGINS. Then get out of my way; for I won’t stop for you. You talk
about me as if I were a motor bus.

LIZA. So you are a motor bus: all bounce and go, and no consideration
for anyone. But I can do without you: don’t think I can’t.

HIGGINS. I know you can. I told you you could.

LIZA [wounded, getting away from him to the other side of the ottoman
with her face to the hearth] I know you did, you brute. You wanted to
get rid of me.

HIGGINS. Liar.

LIZA. Thank you. [She sits down with dignity].

HIGGINS. You never asked yourself, I suppose, whether I could do
without YOU.

LIZA [earnestly] Don’t you try to get round me. You’ll HAVE to do
without me.

HIGGINS [arrogant] I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own
spark of divine fire. But [with sudden humility] I shall miss you,
Eliza. [He sits down near her on the ottoman]. I have learnt something
from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I
have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.

LIZA. Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book
of photographs. When you feel lonely without me, you can turn the
machine on. It’s got no feelings to hurt.

HIGGINS. I can’t turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you
can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.

LIZA. Oh, you ARE a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as
some could twist her arms to hurt her. Mrs. Pearce warned me. Time and
again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the
last minute. And you don’t care a bit for her. And you don’t care a bit
for me.

HIGGINS. I care for life, for humanity; and you are a part of it that
has come my way and been built into my house. What more can you or
anyone ask?

LIZA. I won’t care for anybody that doesn’t care for me.

HIGGINS. Commercial principles, Eliza. Like [reproducing her Covent
Garden pronunciation with professional exactness] s’yollin voylets
[selling violets], isn’t it?

LIZA. Don’t sneer at me. It’s mean to sneer at me.

HIGGINS. I have never sneered in my life. Sneering doesn’t become
either the human face or the human soul. I am expressing my righteous
contempt for Commercialism. I don’t and won’t trade in affection. You
call me a brute because you couldn’t buy a claim on me by fetching my
slippers and finding my spectacles. You were a fool: I think a woman
fetching a man’s slippers is a disgusting sight: did I ever fetch YOUR
slippers? I think a good deal more of you for throwing them in my face.
No use slaving for me and then saying you want to be cared for: who
cares for a slave? If you come back, come back for the sake of good
fellowship; for you’ll get nothing else. You’ve had a thousand times as
much out of me as I have out of you; and if you dare to set up your
little dog’s tricks of fetching and carrying slippers against my
creation of a Duchess Eliza, I’ll slam the door in your silly face.

LIZA. What did you do it for if you didn’t care for me?

HIGGINS [heartily] Why, because it was my job.

LIZA. You never thought of the trouble it would make for me.