Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw (most life changing books .txt) š
- Author: George Bernard Shaw
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LIZA. You must have touched a millionaire this time, dad.
DOOLITTLE. I have. But Iām dressed something special today. Iām going to St. Georgeās, Hanover Square. Your stepmother is going to marry me.
LIZA [angrily] Youāre going to let yourself down to marry that low common woman!
PICKERING [quietly] He ought to, Eliza. [To Doolittle] Why has she changed her mind?
DOOLITTLE [sadly] Intimidated, Governor. Intimidated. Middle class morality claims its victim. Wonāt you put on your hat, Liza, and come and see me turned off?
LIZA. If the Colonel says I must, IāIāll [almost sobbing] Iāll demean myself. And get insulted for my pains, like enough.
DOOLITTLE. Donāt be afraid: she never comes to words with anyone now, poor woman! respectability has broke all the spirit out of her.
PICKERING [squeezing Elizaās elbow gently] Be kind to them, Eliza. Make the best of it.
LIZA [forcing a little smile for him through her vexation] Oh well, just to show thereās no ill feeling. Iāll be back in a moment. [She goes out].
DOOLITTLE [sitting down beside Pickering] I feel uncommon nervous about the ceremony, Colonel. I wish youād come and see me through it.
PICKERING. But youāve been through it before, man. You were married to Elizaās mother.
DOOLITTLE. Who told you that, Colonel?
PICKERING. Well, nobody told me. But I concluded naturallyā
DOOLITTLE. No: that aināt the natural way, Colonel: itās only the middle class way. My way was always the undeserving way. But donāt say nothing to Eliza. She donāt know: I always had a delicacy about telling her.
PICKERING. Quite right. Weāll leave it so, if you donāt mind.
DOOLITTLE. And youāll come to the church, Colonel, and put me through straight?
PICKERING. With pleasure. As far as a bachelor can.
MRS. HIGGINS. May I come, Mr. Doolittle? I should be very sorry to miss your wedding.
DOOLITTLE. I should indeed be honored by your condescension, maāam; and my poor old woman would take it as a tremenjous compliment. Sheās been very low, thinking of the happy days that are no more.
MRS. HIGGINS [rising] Iāll order the carriage and get ready. [The men rise, except Higgins]. I shanāt be more than fifteen minutes. [As she goes to the door Eliza comes in, hatted and buttoning her gloves]. Iām going to the church to see your father married, Eliza. You had better come in the brougham with me. Colonel Pickering can go on with the bridegroom.
Mrs. Higgins goes out. Eliza comes to the middle of the room between the centre window and the ottoman. Pickering joins her.
DOOLITTLE. Bridegroom! What a word! It makes a man realize his position, somehow. [He takes up his hat and goes towards the door].
PICKERING. Before I go, Eliza, do forgive him and come back to us.
LIZA. I donāt think papa would allow me. Would you, dad?
DOOLITTLE [sad but magnanimous] They played you off very cunning, Eliza, them two sportsmen. If it had been only one of them, you could have nailed him. But you see, there was two; and one of them chaperoned the other, as you might say. [To Pickering] It was artful of you, Colonel; but I bear no malice: I should have done the same myself. I been the victim of one woman after another all my life; and I donāt grudge you two getting the better of Eliza. I shanāt interfere. Itās time for us to go, Colonel. So long, Henry. See you in St. Georgeās, Eliza. [He goes out].
PICKERING [coaxing] Do stay with us, Eliza. [He follows Doolittle].
Eliza goes out on the balcony to avoid being alone with Higgins. He rises and joins her there. She immediately comes back into the room and makes for the door; but he goes along the balcony quickly and gets his back to the door before she reaches it.
HIGGINS. Well, Eliza, youāve had a bit of your own back, as you call it. Have you had enough? and are you going to be reasonable? Or do you want any more?
LIZA. You want me back only to pick up your slippers and put up with your tempers and fetch and carry for you.
HIGGINS. I havenāt said I wanted you back at all.
LIZA. Oh, indeed. Then what are we talking about?
HIGGINS. About you, not about me. If you come back I shall treat you just as I have always treated you. I canāt change my nature; and I donāt intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickeringās.
LIZA. Thatās not true. He treats a flower girl as if she was a duchess.
HIGGINS. And I treat a duchess as if she was a flower girl.
LIZA. I see. [She turns away composedly, and sits on the ottoman, facing the window]. The same to everybody.
HIGGINS. Just so.
LIZA. Like father.
HIGGINS [grinning, a little taken down] Without accepting the comparison at all points, Eliza, itās quite true that your father is not a snob, and that he will be quite at home in any station of life to which his eccentric destiny may call him. [Seriously] The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.
LIZA. Amen. You are a born preacher.
HIGGINS [irritated] The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better.
LIZA [with sudden sincerity] I donāt care how you treat me. I donāt mind your swearing at me. I donāt mind a black eye: Iāve had one before this. But [standing up and facing him] I wonāt be passed over.
HIGGINS. Then get out of my way; for I wonāt stop for you. You talk about me as if I were a motor bus.
LIZA. So you are a motor bus: all bounce and go, and no consideration for anyone. But I can do without you: donāt think I canāt.
HIGGINS. I know you can. I told you you could.
LIZA [wounded, getting away from him to the other side of the ottoman with her face to the hearth] I know you did, you brute. You wanted to get rid of me.
HIGGINS. Liar.
LIZA. Thank you. [She sits down with dignity].
HIGGINS. You never asked yourself, I suppose, whether I could do without YOU.
LIZA [earnestly] Donāt you try to get round me. Youāll HAVE to do without me.
HIGGINS [arrogant] I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own spark of divine fire. But [with sudden humility] I shall miss you, Eliza. [He sits down near her on the ottoman]. I have learnt something from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance. I like them, rather.
LIZA. Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs. When you feel lonely without me, you can turn the machine on. Itās got no feelings to hurt.
HIGGINS. I canāt turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.
LIZA. Oh, you ARE a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her. Mrs. Pearce warned me. Time and again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the last minute. And you donāt care a bit for her. And you donāt care a bit for me.
HIGGINS. I care for life, for humanity; and you are a part of it that has come my way and been built into my house. What more can you or anyone ask?
LIZA. I wonāt care for anybody that doesnāt care for me.
HIGGINS. Commercial principles, Eliza. Like [reproducing her Covent Garden pronunciation with professional exactness] sāyollin voylets [selling violets], isnāt it?
LIZA. Donāt sneer at me. Itās mean to sneer at me.
HIGGINS. I have never sneered in my life. Sneering doesnāt become either the human face or the human soul. I am expressing my righteous contempt for Commercialism. I donāt and wonāt trade in affection. You call me a brute because you couldnāt buy a claim on me by fetching my slippers and finding my spectacles. You were a fool: I think a woman fetching a manās slippers is a disgusting sight: did I ever fetch YOUR slippers? I think a good deal more of you for throwing them in my face. No use slaving for me and then saying you want to be cared for: who cares for a slave? If you come back, come back for the sake of good fellowship; for youāll get nothing else. Youāve had a thousand times as much out of me as I have out of you; and if you dare to set up your little dogās tricks of fetching and carrying slippers against my creation of a Duchess Eliza, Iāll slam the door in your silly face.
LIZA. What did you do it for if you didnāt care for me?
HIGGINS [heartily] Why, because it was my job.
LIZA. You never thought of the trouble it would make for me.
HIGGINS. Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble. Thereās only one way of escaping trouble; and thatās killing things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed.
LIZA. Iām no preacher: I donāt notice things like that. I notice that you donāt notice me.
HIGGINS [jumping up and walking about intolerantly] Eliza: youāre an idiot. I waste the treasures of my Miltonic mind by spreading them before you. Once for all, understand that I go my way and do my work without caring twopence what happens to either of us. I am not intimidated, like your father and your stepmother. So you can come back or go to the devil: which you please.
LIZA. What am I to come back for?
HIGGINS [bouncing up on his knees on the ottoman and leaning over it to her] For the fun of it. Thatās why I took you on.
LIZA [with averted face] And you may throw me out tomorrow if I donāt do everything you want me to?
HIGGINS. Yes; and you may walk out tomorrow if I donāt do everything YOU want me to.
LIZA. And live with my stepmother?
HIGGINS. Yes, or sell flowers.
LIZA. Oh! if I only COULD go back to my flower basket! I should be independent of both you and father and all the world! Why did you take my independence from me? Why did I give it up? Iām a slave now, for all my fine clothes.
HIGGINS. Not a bit. Iāll adopt you as my daughter and settle money on you if you like. Or would you rather marry Pickering?
LIZA [looking fiercely round at him] I wouldnāt marry YOU if you asked me; and youāre nearer my age than what he is.
HIGGINS [gently] Than he is: not āthan what he is.ā
LIZA [losing her temper and rising] Iāll talk as I like. Youāre not my teacher now.
HIGGINS [reflectively] I donāt suppose Pickering would, though. Heās as confirmed an old bachelor as I am.
LIZA. Thatās not what I want; and donāt you think it. Iāve always had chaps enough wanting me that way. Freddy Hill writes to me twice and three times a day, sheets and sheets.
HIGGINS [disagreeably surprised] Damn his impudence! [He recoils and finds himself sitting on his heels].
LIZA. He has a right to if he likes, poor lad. And he does love me.
HIGGINS [getting of the ottoman]
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