George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

CLARA [ impulsively ] How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman beside Eliza, devouring her with her eyes].

FREDDY [ coming to their side of the ottoman ] Ive certainly had the pleasure.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [ introducing ] My son Freddy.

LIZA How do you do?

FREDDY bows and sits down in the Elizabethan chair, infatuated.

HIGGINS [suddenly] By George, yes: it all comes back to me! [ They stare at him ]. Covent Garden! [ Lamentably ] What a damned thing!

MRS. HIGGINS Henry, please! [ He is about to sit on the edge of the table]. Dont sit on my writing-table: youll break it.

HIGGINS [sulkily] Sorry.

He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fire-irons on his way; extricating himself with muttered imprecations; and finishing his disastrous journey by throwing himself so impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it. MRS. HIGGINS looks at him, but controls herself and says nothing.

A long and painful pause ensues.

MRS. HIGGINS [ at last, conversationally ] Will it rain, do you think?

LIZA The shallow depression [213] Area of low pressure. in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.

FREDDY Ha! ha! how awfully funny!

LIZA What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.

FREDDY Killing!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL I’m sure I hope it wont turn cold. Theres so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.

LIZA [ darkly ] My aunt died of influenza: so they said.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [clicks her tongue sympathetically ]!!!

LIZA [in the same tragic tone] But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.

MRS. HIGGINS [ puzzled ] Done her in?

LIZA Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza ? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [ startled ] Dear me!

LIZA [ piling up the indictment ] What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL What does doing her in mean?

HIGGINS [ hastily ] Oh, thats the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [ to ELIZA, horrified ] You surely dont believe that your aunt was killed?

LIZA Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL But it cant have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed her.

LIZA Not her. Gin was mother’s milk to her. Besides, he’d poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL Do you mean that he drank?

LIZA Drank! My word! Something chronic.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL How dreadful for you!

LIZA Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular. [ Cheerfully ] On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he’d drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. Theres lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [ Now quite at her ease ] You see, it’s like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience, it always takes him when he’s sober; and then it makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just takes that off and makes him happy. [To FREDDY, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter ] Here! what are you sniggering at?

FREDDY The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.

LIZA If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at? [To HIGGINS ] Have I said anything I oughtnt?

MRS. HIGGINS [interposing] Not at all, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA Well, thats a mercy, anyhow. [Expansively] What I always say is —

HIGGINS [ rising and looking at his watch] Ahem!

LIZA [ looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising] Well: I must go . [ They all rise. FREDDY goes to the door]. So pleased to have met you. Good-bye. [ She shakes hands with MRS. HIGGINS ].

MRS. HIGGINS Good-bye.

LIZA Good-bye, Colonel Pickering.

PICKERING Good-bye, Miss Doolittle. [ They shake hands ].

LIZA [ nodding to the others] Good-bye, all.

FREDDY [ opening the door for her ] Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so —

LIZA Walk! Not bloody {54} 54 10 (p. 419) “bloody”: No one knows precisely why this particular adjective became taboo in British English, but it did. Its casual application seems to have been considered blasphemous or sacrilegious, or at least too vulgar for polite conversation. It was unheard on the British stage until Eliza uttered it in 1914; it provoked tidal waves of laughter, as much at the breaking of a taboo as at the enormity of Eliza’s social gaffe. Since there are no more verbal taboos on our stage, except politically incorrect ones, the original effect is not reproducible. likely. [ Sensation ]. I am going in a taxi. [ She goes out ].

PICKERING gasps and sits down. FREDDY goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of ELIZA.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [ suffering from shock] Well, I really cant get used to the new ways.

CLARA [throwing herself discontentedly into the Elizabethan chair ] Oh, it’s all right, mamma, quite right. People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old-fashioned.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL I daresay I am very old-fashioned; but I do hope you wont begin using that expression, Clara. I have got accustomed to hear you talking about men as rotters, [214] Objectionable males. and calling everything filthy and beastly; [215] Offensively dirty and badly behaved. though I do think it horrible and unladylike. But this last is really too much. Dont you think so, Colonel Pickering?

PICKERING Dont ask me. Ive been away in India for several years; and manners have changed so much that I sometimes dont know whether I’m at a respectable dinner-table or in a ship’s forecastle. [216] Crew’s quarters in a ship’s bow.

CLARA It’s all a matter of habit. Theres no right or wrong in it. Nobody means anything by it. And it’s so quaint, and gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [risins] Well, after that, I think it’s time for us to go.

PICKERING and HIGGINS rise.

CLARA [rising] Oh yes: we have three at-homes to go to still. Good-bye, Mrs. Higgins. Good-bye, Colonel Pickering. Good-bye, Professor Higgins.

HIGGINS [coming grimly at her from the divan, and accompanying her to the door] Good-bye. Be sure you try on that small talk at the three at-homes. Dont be nervous about it. Pitch it in strong.

CLARA [all smiles] I will. Good-bye. Such nonsense, all this early Victorian prudery!

HIGGINS [tempting her] Such damned nonsense!

CLARA Such bloody nonsense!

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [convulsively] Clara!