George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

LIZA [snatching up the slippers, and hurling them at him one after the other with all her force] There are your slippers. And there. Take your slippers; and may you never have a day’s luck with them!

HIGGINS [ astounded ] What on earth — ! [He comes to her]. Whats the matter? Get up. [He pulls her up]. Anything wrong?

LIZA [breathless] Nothing wrong — with you. Ive won your bet for you, havnt I? Thats enough for you. I dont matter, I suppose.

HIGGINS You won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! I won it. What did you throw those slippers at me for?

LIZA Because I wanted to smash your face. I’d like to kill you, you selfish brute. Why didnt 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? [She crisps her fingers frantically ] .

HIGGINS [looking at her in cool wonder] The creature [220] Allusion to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, in which Dr. Frankenstein refers to the monster he creates as the “creature.” i s nervous, after all.

LIZA [ gives a suffocated scream of fury, and instinctively darts her nails at his face]!!

HIGGINS [catching her wrists] Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat. How dare you shew your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet. [He throws her roughly into the easy-chair].

LIZA [crushed by superior strength and weight ] Whats to become of me? Whats to become of me?

HIGGINS How the devil do I know whats to become of you? What does it matter what becomes of you?

LIZA You dont care. I know you dont care. You wouldnt care if I was dead. I’m nothing to you — not so much as them slippers.

HIGGINS [ thundering ] Those slippers.

LIZA [with bitter submission] Those slippers. I didnt think it made any difference now.

A pause. ELIZA hopeless and crushed. HIGGINS a little uneasy.

HIGGINS [in his loftiest manner] Why have you begun going on like this? May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here?

LIZA No.

HIGGINS Has anybody behaved badly to you? Colonel Pickering ? Mrs. Pearce? Any of the servants?

LIZA No.

HIGGINS I presume you dont pretend that I have treated you badly.

LIZA No.

HIGGINS I am glad to hear it. [He moderates his tone]. Perhaps youre tired after the strain of the day. Will you have a glass of champagne? [He moves towards the door ].

LIZA No. [Recollecting her manners] Thank you.

HIGGINS [good-humored again ] This has been coming on you for some days. I suppose it was natural for you to be anxious about the garden party. But thats all over now [He pats her kindly on the shoulder. She writhes]. Theres nothing more to worry about.

LIZA No. Nothing more for you to worry about. [She suddenly rises and gets away from him by going to the piano bench, where she sits and hides her face]. Oh God! I wish I was dead.

HIGGINS [staring after her in sincere surprise] Why? in heaven’s name, why? [Reasonably, going to her] Listen to me, Eliza. All this irritation is purely subjective.

LIZA I dont understand. I’m too ignorant.

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, dont 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? Whats to become of me?

HIGGINS [enlightened, but not at all impressed] Oh, thats whats 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 shouldnt bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you wont have much difficulty in settling yourself somewhere or other, though I hadnt 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 youre not bad-looking; it’s quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes — not now, of course, because youre crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but when youre all right and quite yourself, youre 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 wont 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 didnt sell myself. Now youve made a lady of me I’m not fit to sell anything else. I wish youd left me where you found me.

HIGGINS [slinging the core of the apple decisively into the grate ] [221] Fireplace. Tosh, Eliza. Dont you insult human relations by dragging all this cant [222] Jargon; insincere speech. about buying and selling into it. You neednt marry the fellow if you dont 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: hes 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! youll 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 t h a t the way you feel towards us?

LIZA I dont 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 dont want to be accused of stealing.

HIGGINS [now deeply wounded] Stealing! You shouldnt have said that, Eliza. That shews 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 cant 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?