Books: Pygmalion

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MRS. PEARCE [patiently] I think you'd better let me speak to the
girl properly in private. I don't know that I can take charge of
her or consent to the arrangement at all. Of course I know you
don't mean her any harm; but when you get what you call
interested in people's accents, you never think or care what may
happen to them or you. Come with me, Eliza.

HIGGINS. That's all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle her off
to the bath-room.

LIZA [rising reluctantly and suspiciously] You're a great bully,
you are. I won't stay here if I don't like. I won't let nobody
wallop me. I never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didn't. I was
never in trouble with the police, not me. I'm a good girl--

MRS. PEARCE. Don't answer back, girl. You don't understand the
gentleman. Come with me. [She leads the way to the door, and
holds it open for Eliza].

LIZA [as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I won't go near
the king, not if I'm going to have my head cut off. If I'd
known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn't have come
here. I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a
word to him; and I don't owe him nothing; and I don't care; and I
won't be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as anyone
else--

Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza's plaints are no longer
audible. Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits
astride it with his arms on the back.

PICKERING. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man
of good character where women are concerned?

HIGGINS [moodily] Have you ever met a man of good character where
women are concerned?

PICKERING. Yes: very frequently.

HIGGINS [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level
of the piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven't. I
find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she
becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I
find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I
become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you
let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at
one thing and you're driving at another.

PICKERING. At what, for example?

HIGGINS [coming off the piano restlessly] Oh, Lord knows! I
suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants
to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong
track. One wants to go north and the other south; and the result
is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east
wind. [He sits down on the bench at the keyboard]. So here I am,
a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so.

PICKERING [rising and standing over him gravely] Come, Higgins!
You know what I mean. If I'm to be in this business I shall feel
responsible for that girl. I hope it's understood that no
advantage is to be taken of her position.

HIGGINS. What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to
explain] You see, she'll be a pupil; and teaching would be
impossible unless pupils were sacred. I've taught scores of
American millionairesses how to speak English: the best looking
women in the world. I'm seasoned. They might as well be blocks of
wood. I might as well be a block of wood. It's--

Mrs. Pearce opens the door. She has Eliza's hat in her hand.
Pickering retires to the easy-chair at the hearth and sits down.

HIGGINS [eagerly] Well, Mrs. Pearce: is it all right?

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] I just wish to trouble you with a word,
if I may, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS. Yes, certainly. Come in. [She comes forward]. Don't burn
that, Mrs. Pearce. I'll keep it as a curiosity. [He takes the
hat].

MRS. PEARCE. Handle it carefully, sir, please. I had to promise
her not to burn it; but I had better put it in the oven for a
while.

HIGGINS [putting it down hastily on the piano] Oh! thank you.
Well, what have you to say to me?

PICKERING. Am I in the way?

MRS. PEARCE. Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins: will you please be
very particular what you say before the girl?

HIGGINS [sternly] Of course. I'm always particular about what I
say. Why do you say this to me?

MRS. PEARCE [unmoved] No, sir: you're not at all particular when
you've mislaid anything or when you get a little impatient. Now
it doesn't matter before me: I'm used to it. But you really must
not swear before the girl.

HIGGINS [indignantly] I swear! [Most emphatically] I never swear.
I detest the habit. What the devil do you mean?

MRS. PEARCE [stolidly] That's what I mean, sir. You swear a great
deal too much. I don't mind your damning and blasting, and what
the devil and where the devil and who the devil--

HIGGINS. Really! Mrs. Pearce: this language from your lips!

MRS. PEARCE [not to be put off]--but there is a certain word I
must ask you not to use. The girl has just used it herself
because the bath was too hot. It begins with the same letter as
bath. She knows no better: she learnt it at her mother's knee.
But she must not hear it from your lips.

HIGGINS [loftily] I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered
it, Mrs. Pearce. [She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding
an uneasy conscience with a judicial air] Except perhaps in a
moment of extreme and justifiable excitement.

MRS. PEARCE. Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your
boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread.

HIGGINS. Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pearce, natural to a
poet.

MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you
not to let the girl hear you repeat it.

HIGGINS. Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with
this girl as to personal cleanliness.

HIGGINS. Certainly. Quite right. Most important.

MRS. PEARCE. I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy
in leaving things about.

HIGGINS [going to her solemnly] Just so. I intended to call your
attention to that [He passes on to Pickering, who is enjoying the
conversation immensely]. It is these little things that matter,
Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care
of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. [He
comes to anchor on the hearthrug, with the air of a man in an
unassailable position].

MRS. PEARCE. Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to
breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as
a napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good
as not to eat everything off the same plate, and to remember not
to put the porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean
tablecloth, it would be a better example to the girl. You know
you nearly choked yourself with a fishbone in the jam only last
week.

HIGGINS [routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the
piano] I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but
surely I don't do them habitually. [Angrily] By the way: my
dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine.

MRS. PEARCE. No doubt it does, Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe
your fingers--

HIGGINS [yelling] Oh very well, very well: I'll wipe them in my
hair in future.

MRS. PEARCE. I hope you're not offended, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS [shocked at finding himself thought capable of an
unamiable sentiment] Not at all, not at all. You're quite right,
Mrs. Pearce: I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is
that all?

MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese
dresses you brought from abroad? I really can't put her back into
her old things.

HIGGINS. Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE. Thank you, sir. That's all. [She goes out].

HIGGINS. You know, Pickering, that woman has the most
extraordinary 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 bossing kind of person. I can't account
for it.

Mrs. Pearce returns.

MRS. PEARCE. If you please, sir, the trouble's beginning already.
There's a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you.
He says you have his daughter here.

PICKERING [rising] Phew! I say! [He retreats to the hearthrug].

HIGGINS [promptly] Send the blackguard up.

MRS. PEARCE. Oh, very well, sir. [She goes out].

PICKERING. He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.

HIGGINS. Nonsense. Of course he's a blackguard.

PICKERING. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some
trouble with him.

HIGGINS [confidently] 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.

PICKERING. About the girl?

HIGGINS. No. I mean his dialect.

PICKERING. Oh!

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Doolittle, sir. [She admits Doolittle
and retires].

Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dustman, 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 honor and stern resolution.

DOOLITTLE [at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is
his man] Professor Higgins?

HIGGINS. Here. Good morning. Sit down.

DOOLITTLE. Morning, Governor. [He sits down magisterially] I come
about a very serious matter, Governor.

HIGGINS [to Pickering] Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I
should think. [Doolittle opens his mouth, amazed. Higgins
continues] What do you want, Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE [menacingly] I want my daughter: that's what I want.
See?

HIGGINS. Of course you do. You're her father, aren't you? You
don't suppose anyone else wants her, do you? I'm glad to see you
have some spark of family feeling left. She's upstairs. Take her
away at once.

DOOLITTLE [rising, fearfully taken aback] What!

HIGGINS. Take her away. Do you suppose I'm going to keep your
daughter for you?

DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this
reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? The
girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? [He sits
down again].

HIGGINS. Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and
ask me 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. [Bullying him] How dare you come here and
attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose.

DOOLITTLE [protesting] No, Governor.

HIGGINS. You must have. How else could you possibly know that she
is here?

DOOLITTLE. Don't take a man up like that, Governor.

HIGGINS. 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].

DOOLITTLE. Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to
the gentleman here: have I said a word about money?

HIGGINS [throwing the book aside and marching down on Doolittle
with a poser] What else did you come for?

DOOLITTLE [sweetly] Well, what would a man come for? Be human,
governor.

HIGGINS [disarmed] Alfred: did you put her up to it?

DOOLITTLE. So help me, Governor, I never did. I take my Bible
oath I ain't seen the girl these two months past.

HIGGINS. Then how did you know she was here?

DOOLITTLE ["most musical, most melancholy"] I'll tell you,
Governor, if you'll 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.

HIGGINS. Pickering: this chap has a certain natural gift of
rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes 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. It
also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.

PICKERING. Oh, PLEASE, Higgins: I'm west country myself. [To
Doolittle] How did you know the girl was here if you didn't send
her?

DOOLITTLE. It was like this, Governor. The girl took a boy in the
taxi to give him a jaunt. Son of her landlady, he is. He hung
about 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 of Long Acre
and Endell Street.

HIGGINS. Public house. Yes?

DOOLITTLE. The poor man's club, Governor: why shouldn't I?

PICKERING. Do let him tell his story, Higgins.

DOOLITTLE. He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my
feelings and my duty as a father? I says to the boy, "You bring
me the luggage," I says--

PICKERING. Why didn't you go for it yourself?

DOOLITTLE. 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
afore he trusted me with it, the little swine. I brought it to
her just to oblige you like, and make myself agreeable. That's
all.

HIGGINS. How much luggage?

DOOLITTLE. Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, a trifle
of jewelry, and a bird-cage. 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?

HIGGINS. So you came to rescue her from worse than death, eh?

DOOLITTLE [appreciatively: relieved at being understood] Just so,
Governor. That's right.

PICKERING. But why did you bring her luggage if you intended to
take her away?

DOOLITTLE. Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now?

HIGGINS [determinedly] You're going to take her away, double
quick. [He crosses to the hearth and rings the bell].

DOOLITTLE [rising] No, Governor. Don't say that. I'm not the man
to stand in my girl's light. Here's a career opening for her, as
you might say; and--

Mrs. Pearce opens the door and awaits orders.

HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce: this is Eliza's father. He has come to take
her away. Give her to him. [He goes back to the piano, with an
air of washing his hands of the whole affair].

DOOLITTLE. No. This is a misunderstanding. Listen here--

MRS. PEARCE. He can't take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he? You
told me to burn her clothes.

DOOLITTLE. That's right. I can't carry the girl through the
streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.

HIGGINS. 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.

DOOLITTLE [desperate] Where's the clothes she come in? Did I burn
them or did your missus here?

MRS. PEARCE. 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.

Doolittle, much troubled, accompanies her to the door; then
hesitates; finally turns confidentially to Higgins.

DOOLITTLE. Listen here, Governor. You and me is men of the world,
ain't we?

HIGGINS. Oh! Men of the world, are we? You'd better go, Mrs.
Pearce.

MRS. PEARCE. I think so, indeed, sir. [She goes, with dignity].

PICKERING. The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle.

DOOLITTLE [to Pickering] I thank you, Governor. [To Higgins, who
takes refuge on the piano bench, a little overwhelmed by the
proximity of his visitor; for Doolittle has a professional flavor
of dust about him]. Well, the truth is, I've taken a sort of
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 fine
handsome girl. As a daughter she's not worth her keep; and so I
tell you straight. All I ask is my 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 pound note to you? And what's Eliza to me? [He returns to
his chair and sits down judicially].

PICKERING. I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr.
Higgins's intentions are entirely honorable.

DOOLITTLE. Course they are, Governor. If I thought they wasn't,
I'd ask fifty.

HIGGINS [revolted] Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that
you would sell your daughter for 50 pounds?

DOOLITTLE. Not in a general way I wouldn't; but to oblige a
gentleman like you I'd do a good deal, I do assure you.

PICKERING. Have you no morals, man?

DOOLITTLE [unabashed] 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?

HIGGINS [troubled] 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.

DOOLITTLE. That's it, Governor. That's all I say. A father's
heart, as it were.

PICKERING. Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly
right--

DOOLITTLE. Don't say that, Governor. Don't look at it that way.
What am I, Governors both? I ask you, 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 that he's up agen 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 widow's
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, cause 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? Just an
excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two
gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with
you. 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 of the
price of his own daughter what he's brought up and fed and
clothed by the sweat of his brow until she's growed big enough to
be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable?
I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

HIGGINS [rising, and going over to Pickering] 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.

PICKERING. What do you say to that, Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, thank you kindly. I've heard all the
preachers and all the prime ministers--for I'm a thinking man and
game for politics or religion or social reform same as all the
other amusements--and I tell you it's a dog's life anyway you
look at it. Undeserving poverty is my line. Taking one station in
society with another, it's--it's--well, it's the only one that
has any ginger in it, to my taste.

HIGGINS. I suppose we must give him a fiver.

PICKERING. He'll make a bad use of it, I'm afraid.

DOOLITTLE. 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 pauperize me, you bet. Just
one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to
ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to
think it's not been throwed away. You couldn't spend it better.

HIGGINS [taking out his pocket book and coming between Doolittle
and the piano] This is irresistible. Let's give him ten. [He
offers two notes to the dustman].

DOOLITTLE. No, Governor. She wouldn't have the heart to spend
ten; and perhaps I shouldn't neither. 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 you, Governor: not a penny
more, and not a penny less.

PICKERING. Why don't you marry that missus of yours? I rather
draw the line at encouraging that sort of immorality.

DOOLITTLE. Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I'm willing. It's
me that suffers by it. I've no hold on her. I got to be agreeable
to her. I got to give her presents. I got to buy her clothes
something sinful. I'm a slave to that woman, Governor, just
because I'm not 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.

HIGGINS. Pickering: if we listen to this man another minute, we
shall have no convictions left. [To Doolittle] Five pounds I
think you said.

DOOLITTLE. Thank you kindly, Governor.

HIGGINS. You're sure you won't take ten?

DOOLITTLE. Not now. Another time, Governor.

HIGGINS [handing him a five-pound note] Here you are.

DOOLITTLE. 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 and exquisitely clean
young Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono printed
cunningly with small white jasmine blossoms. Mrs. Pearce is with
her. He gets out of her way deferentially and apologizes]. Beg
pardon, miss.

THE JAPANESE LADY. Garn! Don't you know your own daughter?

DOOLITTLE {exclaiming Bly me! it's Eliza!
HIGGINS {simul- What's that! This!
PICKERING {taneously By Jove!

LIZA. Don't I look silly?

HIGGINS. Silly?

MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Now, Mr. Higgins, please don't say
anything to make the girl conceited about herself.

HIGGINS [conscientiously] Oh! Quite right, Mrs. Pearce. [To
Eliza] Yes: damned silly.

MRS. PEARCE. Please, sir.

HIGGINS [correcting himself] I mean extremely silly.

LIZA. I should look all right with my hat on. [She takes up her
hat; puts it on; and walks across the room to the fireplace with
a fashionable air].

HIGGINS. A new fashion, by George! And it ought to look horrible!

DOOLITTLE [with fatherly pride] Well, I never thought she'd clean
up as good looking as that, Governor. She's a credit to me, ain't
she?

LIZA. I tell you, it's easy to clean up here. Hot and cold water
on tap, just as much as you like, there is. Woolly towels, there
is; and a towel horse so hot, it burns your fingers. Soft brushes
to scrub yourself, and a wooden bowl of soap smelling like
primroses. Now I know why ladies is so clean. Washing's a treat
for them. Wish they saw what it is for the like of me!

HIGGINS. I'm glad the bath-room met with your approval.

LIZA. It didn't: not all of it; and I don't care who hears me say
it. Mrs. Pearce knows.

HIGGINS. What was wrong, Mrs. Pearce?

MRS. PEARCE [blandly] Oh, nothing, sir. It doesn't matter.

LIZA. I had a good mind to break it. I didn't know which way to
look. But I hung a towel over it, I did.

HIGGINS. Over what?

MRS. PEARCE. Over the looking-glass, sir.

HIGGINS. Doolittle: you have brought your daughter up too
strictly.

DOOLITTLE. Me! I never brought her up at all, except to give her
a lick of a strap now and 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.

LIZA. I'm a good girl, I am; and I won't pick up no free and easy
ways.

HIGGINS. Eliza: if you say again that you're a good girl, your
father shall take you home.

LIZA. Not him. You don't know my father. All he come here for was
to touch you for some money to get drunk on.

DOOLITTLE. Well, what else would I want money for? To put into
the plate in 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 you give me none of your
lip; and don't let me hear you giving this gentleman any of it
neither, or you'll hear from me about it. See?

HIGGINS. Have you any further advice to give her before you go,
Doolittle? Your blessing, for instance.

DOOLITTLE. No, Governor: I ain't such a mug as to put up my
children to 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. [He turns to go].

HIGGINS [impressively] 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.

DOOLITTLE [evasively] Certainly. I'll come, Governor. Not just
this week, because I have 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. Pearce, who disdains the salutation and
goes out. He winks at Higgins, thinking him probably a fellow
sufferer from Mrs. Pearce's difficult disposition, and follows
her].

LIZA. Don't you believe the old liar. He'd as soon you set a
bull-dog on him as a clergyman. You won't see him again in a
hurry.

HIGGINS. I don't want to, Eliza. Do you?

LIZA. 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.

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