George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

HIGGINS Anyhow, theres no good bothering now. The things done. Good-bye, mother. [He kisses her, and follows PICKERING ] .

PICKERING [turning for a final consolation] There are plenty of openings. We’ll do whats right. Good-bye.

HIGGINS [to PICKERING as they go out together] Let’s take her to the Shakespear exhibition at Earls Court.

PICKERING Yes: lets. Her remarks will be delicious.

HIGGINS She’ll mimic all the people for us when we get home.

PICKERING Ripping. [Both are heard laughing as they go downstairs] .

MRS. HIGGINS [rises with an impatient bounce, and returns to her work at the writing-table. She sweeps a litter of disarranged papers out of her way; snatches a sheet of paper from her stationery case; and tries resolutely to write. At the third line she gives it up; flings down her pen; grips the table angrily and exclaims] Oh, men! men!! men!!!

The Wimpole Street laboratory. Midnight. Nobody in the room. The clock on the mantelpiece strikes twelve. The fire is not alight: it is a summer night.

Presently Higgins and Pickering are heard on the stairs.

HIGGINS [ calling down to PICKERING ] I say, Pick: lock up, will you. I shant be going out again.

PICKERING Right. Can Mrs. Pearce go to bed? We dont want anything more, do we?

HIGGINS Lord, no!

ELIZA opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in opera cloak, brilliant evening dress, and diamonds, with fan, flowers, and all acces- , sories. 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 [217] Loose-fitting jacket for wear when relaxing at home. 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’s when he hesitates.

PICKERING I say: Mrs. Pearce will row if we leave these things lying about in the drawing-room.

HIGGINS Oh, chuck them over the bannisters into the hall. She’ll find them there in the morning and put them away all right. She’ll think we were drunk.

PICKERING We are, slightly. Are there any letters?

HIGGINS I didnt look. [ PICKERING takes the overcoats and hats and goes downstairs. HIGGINS begins half singing half yawning an air from La Fanciulla del Golden West. {56} 56 12 (p. 428) La Fanciulla del Golden West: Italian composer Giacomo Puccini’s great opera is actually titled La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West, 1910); Shaw has conflated its title with that of its play-source, The Girl of the Golden West (1905), by American playwright David Belasco. The aria Higgins is “half-singing” is most likely “Ch’ ella mi creda libero e lontano” (Let her think that I am free and far away). Suddenly he stops and exclaims] I wonder where the devil my slippers are!

ELIZA looks at him darkly; then rises suddenly and leaves the room.

HIGGINS yawns again, and resumes his song.

PICKERING returns, with the contents of the letter-box in his hand.

PICKERING Only circulars, and this coroneted billet-doux [218] Love letter with a crest embossed on it; Pickering is speaking ironically. for you. [He throws the circulars into the fender, and posts himself on the hearthrug, with his back to the grate ].

HIGGINS [glancing at the billet-doux] Money-lender. [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.

HIGGINS [yawnins again ] Oh Lord! What an evening! What a crew! What a silly tomfoollery! [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! theyre there, are they?

PICKERING [stretching himself ] Well, I feel a bit tired. It’s been a long day. The garden party, a dinner party, and the opera! Rather too much of a good thing. But you’ve won your bet, Higgins. Eliza did the trick, and something to spare, eh?

HIGGINS [ fervently ] Thank God it’s over!

ELIZA flinches violently; but they take no notice of her; and she recovers herself and sits stonily as before.

PICKERING Were you nervous at the garden party? I was. Eliza didnt seem a bit nervous.

HIGGINS Oh, she wasnt 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 hadnt 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.

PICKERING Oh come! the garden party was frightfully exciting. My heart began beating like anything.

HIGGINS Yes, for the first three minutes. But when I saw we were going to win 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.

PICKERING Youve never been broken in properly to the social routine. [Strolling over to the piano] I rather enjoy dipping into it occasionally myself: it makes me feel young again. Anyhow, it was a great success: an immense success. I was quite frightened once or twice because Eliza was doing it so well. You see, lots of the real people cant do it at all: theyre such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn. Theres always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.

HIGGINS Yes: thats what drives me mad: the silly people dont know their own silly business. [219] Higgins is repeating a well-known saying by English theologian and logician Richard Whately (1787-1863). [Rising] However, it’s over and done with; and now I can go to bed at last without dreading tomorrow.

ELIZA’s beauty becomes murderous.

PICKERING I think I shall turn in too. Still, it’s been a great occasion: a triumph for you. Good-night. [He goes].

HIGGINS [ following him] Good-night. [Over his shoulder, at the door] Put out the lights, Eliza; and tell Mrs. Pearce not to make coffee for me in the morning: I’ll take tea. [He goes out]. ELIZA tries to control herself and feel indifferent as she rises and walks across 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’s chair and holds on hard to the arms. Finally she gives way and flings herself furiously on the floor raging.

HIGGINS [in despairing wrath outside ] What the devil have I done with my slippers? [He appears at the door ] .