George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

HIGGINS [very sulky] You may take the whole damned houseful if you like. Except the jewels. Theyre hired. Will that satisfy you? [He turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme dudgeon ] . [223] Resentment; indignation.

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 dont 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 isnt the jeweler’s: it’s the one you bought me in Brighton. I dont 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] Dont 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. Ive 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 hap pend to me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to bed.

LIZA [pertly] Youd better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the coffee; for she wont be told by me.

HIGGINS [ formally ] Damn Mrs. Pearce; and damn the coffee; and damn you; and damn my own folly in having lavished 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. {57} 57 13 (p. 435) and finally goes down on her knees on the hearthrug to look for the ring: The hearthrug is in front of the fireplace where Higgins had flung the ring. By having Eliza search there among the ashes, Shaw is playing on the story of Cinderella. In later editions Shaw added that Eliza then puts the ring on the dessert stand, where she knows Higgins will find it because of his fondness for sweets.

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, shew them up.

THE PARLOR-MAID Theyre 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 theyve finished with the police. I suppose hes lost something.

THE PARLOR-MAID Yes, mam [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: heres 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. [224] Slang for “ran away.”

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 wasnt 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 cant find anything. I dont know what appointments Ive 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 dont 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 cant 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. Hes been sent on from Wimpole Street.

HIGGINS Oh, bother! I cant 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 shes 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. Wont you sit down?

DOOLITTLE [ taken aback as he becomes conscious that he has forgotten his hostess] Asking your pardon, maam. [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 cant think of anything else.