Act IV

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 shan't be going out again.

PICKERING. Right. Can Mrs. Pearce go to bed? We don't 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 accessories. 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 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 didn't look. [Pickering takes the overcoats and hats

and goes down stairs. Higgins begins half singing half yawning an

air from La Fanciulla del Golden West. Suddenly he stops and

exclaims] I wonder where the devil my slippers are!

Eliza looks at him darkly; then 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 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 [yawning 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!

they're 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

didn't seem a bit nervous.

HIGGINS. Oh, she wasn't 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

hadn't 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. You've 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 can't do it at all: they're such

fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their

position; and so they never learn. There's always something

professional about doing a thing superlatively well.

HIGGINS. Yes: that's what drives me mad: the silly people don't

know their own silly business. [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].

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]. What's

the matter? Get up. [He pulls her up]. Anything wrong?

LIZA [breathless] Nothing wrong—with YOU. I've won your bet for

you, haven't I? That's enough for you. _I_ don't 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 didn't 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 IS 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 show your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet. [He

throws her roughly into the easy-chair].

LIZA [crushed by superior strength and weight] What's to become

of me? What's to become of me?

HIGGINS. How the devil do I know what's to become of you? What

does it matter what becomes of you?

LIZA. You don't care. I know you don't care. You wouldn't 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 didn't 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 don't pretend that I have treated you

badly.

LIZA. No.

HIGGINS. I am glad to hear it. [He moderates his tone]. Perhaps

you're 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 that's all over now. [He pats her kindly on the

shoulder. She writhes]. There's 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 don't 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, don't 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?

What's to become of me?

HIGGINS [enlightened, but not at all impressed] Oh, that's what's

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 shouldn't bother about it if I were you. I should

imagine you won't have much difficulty in settling yourself,

somewhere or other, though I hadn't 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 you're not

bad-looking; it's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes—not

now, of course, because you're crying and looking as ugly as the

very devil; but when you're all right and quite yourself, you're

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

won't 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 didn't sell myself. Now you've made a

lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish you'd left

me where you found me.

HIGGINS [slinging the core of the apple decisively into the

grate] Tosh, Eliza. Don't you insult human relations by dragging

all this cant about buying and selling into it. You needn't marry

the fellow if you don't 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: he's 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! you'll 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 THAT the way you feel towards us?

LIZA. I don't 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 don't want

to be accused of stealing.

HIGGINS [now deeply wounded] Stealing! You shouldn't have said

that, Eliza. That shows 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 can't 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?

HIGGINS [very sulky] You may take the whole damned houseful if

you like. Except the jewels. They're hired. Will that satisfy

you? [He turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme

dudgeon].

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

don't 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 isn't the jeweler's: it's the

one you bought me in Brighton. I don't 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] Don't 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. I've 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 happend

to me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to

bed.

LIZA [pertly] You'd better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the

coffee; for she won't be told by me.

HIGGINS [formally] Damn Mrs. Pearce; and damn the coffee; and

damn you; and damn my own folly in having lavished MY 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.