Act V

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, show them up.

THE PARLOR-MAID. They're 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 they've finished with the police. I suppose he's 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: here's 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.

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 wasn't

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 can't find

anything. I don't know what appointments I've 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 don't 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 can't 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. He's been sent on from Wimpole Street.

HIGGINS. Ob, bother! I can't 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 she's 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. Won't you sit down?

DOOLITTLE [taken aback as he becomes conscious that he has

forgotten his hostess] Asking your pardon, ma'am. [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 can't think of anything else.

HIGGINS. What the dickens has happened to you?

DOOLITTLE. I shouldn't mind if it had only happened to me:

anything might happen to anybody and nobody to blame but

Providence, as you might say. But this is something that you done

to me: yes, you, Henry Higgins.

HIGGINS. Have you found Eliza? That's the point.

DOOLITTLE. Have you lost her?

HIGGINS. Yes.

DOOLITTLE. You have all the luck, you have. I ain't found her;

but she'll find me quick enough now after what you done to me.

MRS. HIGGINS. But what has my son done to you, Mr. Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE. Done to me! Ruined me. Destroyed my happiness. Tied me

up and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality.

HIGGINS [rising intolerantly and standing over Doolittle] You're

raving. You're drunk. You're mad. I gave you five pounds. After

that I had two conversations with you, at half-a-crown an hour.

I've never seen you since.

DOOLITTLE. Oh! Drunk! am I? Mad! am I? Tell me this. Did you or

did you not write a letter to an old blighter in America that was

giving five millions to found Moral Reform Societies all over the

world, and that wanted you to invent a universal language for

him?

HIGGINS. What! Ezra D. Wannafeller! He's dead. [He sits down

again carelessly].

DOOLITTLE. Yes: he's dead; and I'm done for. Now did you or did

you not write a letter to him to say that the most original

moralist at present in England, to the best of your knowledge,

was Alfred Doolittle, a common dustman.

HIGGINS. Oh, after your last visit I remember making some silly

joke of the kind.

DOOLITTLE. Ah! you may well call it a silly joke. It put the lid

on me right enough. Just give him the chance he wanted to show

that Americans is not like us: that they recognize and respect

merit in every class of life, however humble. Them words is in

his blooming will, in which, Henry Higgins, thanks to your silly

joking, he leaves me a share in his Pre-digested Cheese Trust

worth three thousand a year on condition that I lecture for his

Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as often as they ask me up

to six times a year.

HIGGINS. The devil he does! Whew! [Brightening suddenly] What a

lark!

PICKERING. A safe thing for you, Doolittle. They won't ask you

twice.

DOOLITTLE. It ain't the lecturing I mind. I'll lecture them blue

in the face, I will, and not turn a hair. It's making a gentleman

of me that I object to. Who asked him to make a gentleman of me?

I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everybody for

money when I wanted it, same as I touched you, Henry Higgins. Now

I am worrited; tied neck and heels; and everybody touches me for

money. It's a fine thing for you, says my solicitor. Is it? says

I. You mean it's a good thing for you, I says. When I was a poor

man and had a solicitor once when they found a pram in the dust

cart, he got me off, and got shut of me and got me shut of him as

quick as he could. Same with the doctors: used to shove me out of

the hospital before I could hardly stand on my legs, and nothing

to pay. Now they finds out that I'm not a healthy man and can't

live unless they looks after me twice a day. In the house I'm not

let do a hand's turn for myself: somebody else must do it and

touch me for it. A year ago I hadn't a relative in the world

except two or three that wouldn't speak to me. Now I've fifty, and

not a decent week's wages among the lot of them. I have to live

for others and not for myself: that's middle class morality. You

talk of losing Eliza. Don't you be anxious: I bet she's on my

doorstep by this: she that could support herself easy by selling

flowers if I wasn't respectable. And the next one to touch me

will be you, Henry Higgins. I'll have to learn to speak middle

class language from you, instead of speaking proper English.

That's where you'll come in; and I daresay that's what you done

it for.

MRS. HIGGINS. But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not suffer all

this if you are really in earnest. Nobody can force you to accept

this bequest. You can repudiate it. Isn't that so, Colonel

Pickering?

PICKERING. I believe so.

DOOLITTLE [softening his manner in deference to her sex] That's

the tragedy of it, ma'am. It's easy to say chuck it; but I

haven't the nerve. Which one of us has? We're all intimidated.

Intimidated, ma'am: that's what we are. What is there for me if I

chuck it but the workhouse in my old age? I have to dye my hair

already to keep my job as a dustman. If I was one of the

deserving poor, and had put by a bit, I could chuck it; but then

why should I, acause the deserving poor might as well be

millionaires for all the happiness they ever has. They don't know

what happiness is. But I, as one of the undeserving poor, have

nothing between me and the pauper's uniform but this here blasted

three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class.

(Excuse the expression, ma'am: you'd use it yourself if you had

my provocation). They've got you every way you turn: it's a

choice between the Skilly of the workhouse and the Char Bydis of

the middle class; and I haven't the nerve for the workhouse.

Intimidated: that's what I am. Broke. Bought up. Happier men than

me will call for my dust, and touch me for their tip; and I'll

look on helpless, and envy them. And that's what your son has

brought me to. [He is overcome by emotion].

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, I'm very glad you're not going to do anything

foolish, Mr. Doolittle. For this solves the problem of Eliza's

future. You can provide for her now.

DOOLITTLE [with melancholy resignation] Yes, ma'am; I'm expected

to provide for everyone now, out of three thousand a year.

HIGGINS [jumping up] Nonsense! he can't provide for her. He

shan't provide for her. She doesn't belong to him. I paid him

five pounds for her. Doolittle: either you're an honest man or a

rogue.

DOOLITTLE [tolerantly] A little of both, Henry, like the rest of

us: a little of both.

HIGGINS. Well, you took that money for the girl; and you have no

right to take her as well.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: don't be absurd. If you really want to know

where Eliza is, she is upstairs.

HIGGINS [amazed] Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch her

downstairs. [He makes resolutely for the door].

MRS. HIGGINS [rising and following him] Be quiet, Henry. Sit

down.

HIGGINS. I—

MRS. HIGGINS. Sit down, dear; and listen to me.

HIGGINS. Oh very well, very well, very well. [He throws himself

ungraciously on the ottoman, with his face towards the windows].

But I think you might have told me this half an hour ago.

MRS. HIGGINS. Eliza came to me this morning. She passed the night

partly walking about in a rage, partly trying to throw herself

into the river and being afraid to, and partly in the Carlton

Hotel. She told me of the brutal way you two treated her.

HIGGINS [bounding up again] What!

PICKERING [rising also] My dear Mrs. Higgins, she's been telling

you stories. We didn't treat her brutally. We hardly said a word

to her; and we parted on particularly good terms. [Turning on

Higgins]. Higgins did you bully her after I went to bed?

HIGGINS. Just the other way about. She threw my slippers in my

face. She behaved in the most outrageous way. I never gave her

the slightest provocation. The slippers came bang into my face

the moment I entered the room—before I had uttered a word. And

used perfectly awful language.

PICKERING [astonished] But why? What did we do to her?

MRS. HIGGINS. I think I know pretty well what you did. The girl

is naturally rather affectionate, I think. Isn't she, Mr.

Doolittle?

DOOLITTLE. Very tender-hearted, ma'am. Takes after me.

MRS. HIGGINS. Just so. She had become attached to you both. She

worked very hard for you, Henry! I don't think you quite realize

what anything in the nature of brain work means to a girl like

that. Well, it seems that when the great day of trial came, and

she did this wonderful thing for you without making a single

mistake, you two sat there and never said a word to her, but

talked together of how glad you were that it was all over and how

you had been bored with the whole thing. And then you were

surprised because she threw your slippers at you! _I_ should have

thrown the fire-irons at you.

HIGGINS. We said nothing except that we were tired and wanted to

go to bed. Did we, Pick?

PICKERING [shrugging his shoulders] That was all.

MRS. HIGGINS [ironically] Quite sure?

PICKERING. Absolutely. Really, that was all.

MRS. HIGGINS. You didn't thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or

tell her how splendid she'd been.

HIGGINS [impatiently] But she knew all about that. We didn't make

speeches to her, if that's what you mean.

PICKERING [conscience stricken] Perhaps we were a little

inconsiderate. Is she very angry?

MRS. HIGGINS [returning to her place at the writing-table] Well,

I'm afraid she won't go back to Wimpole Street, especially now

that Mr. Doolittle is able to keep up the position you have

thrust on her; but she says she is quite willing to meet you on

friendly terms and to let bygones be bygones.

HIGGINS [furious] Is she, by George? Ho!

MRS. HIGGINS. If you promise to behave yourself, Henry, I'll ask

her to come down. If not, go home; for you have taken up quite

enough of my time.

HIGGINS. Oh, all right. Very well. Pick: you behave yourself. Let

us put on our best Sunday manners for this creature that we

picked out of the mud. [He flings himself sulkily into the

Elizabethan chair].

DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, Henry Higgins! have some

consideration for my feelings as a middle class man.

MRS. HIGGINS. Remember your promise, Henry. [She presses the

bell-button on the writing-table]. Mr. Doolittle: will you be so

good as to step out on the balcony for a moment. I don't want

Eliza to have the shock of your news until she has made it up

with these two gentlemen. Would you mind?

DOOLITTLE. As you wish, lady. Anything to help Henry to keep her

off my hands. [He disappears through the window].

The parlor-maid answers the bell. Pickering sits down in

Doolittle's place.

MRS. HIGGINS. Ask Miss Doolittle to come down, please.

THE PARLOR-MAID. Yes, mam. [She goes out].

MRS. HIGGINS. Now, Henry: be good.

HIGGINS. I am behaving myself perfectly.

PICKERING. He is doing his best, Mrs. Higgins.

A pause. Higgins throws back his head; stretches out his legs;

and begins to whistle.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry, dearest, you don't look at all nice in that

attitude.

HIGGINS [pulling himself together] I was not trying to look nice,

mother.

MRS. HIGGINS. It doesn't matter, dear. I only wanted to make you

speak.

HIGGINS. Why?

MRS. HIGGINS. Because you can't speak and whistle at the same

time.

Higgins groans. Another very trying pause.

HIGGINS [springing up, out of patience] Where the devil is that

girl? Are we to wait here all day?

Eliza enters, sunny, self-possessed, and giving a staggeringly

convincing exhibition of ease of manner. She carries a little

work-basket, and is very much at home. Pickering is too much

taken aback to rise.

LIZA. How do you do, Professor Higgins? Are you quite well?

HIGGINS [choking] Am I—[He can say no more].

LIZA. But of course you are: you are never ill. So glad to see

you again, Colonel Pickering. [He rises hastily; and they shake

hands]. Quite chilly this morning, isn't it? [She sits down on

his left. He sits beside her].

HIGGINS. Don't you dare try this game on me. I taught it to you;

and it doesn't take me in. Get up and come home; and don't be a

fool.

Eliza takes a piece of needlework from her basket, and begins to

stitch at it, without taking the least notice of this outburst.

MRS. HIGGINS. Very nicely put, indeed, Henry. No woman could

resist such an invitation.

HIGGINS. You let her alone, mother. Let her speak for herself.

You will jolly soon see whether she has an idea that I haven't

put into her head or a word that I haven't put into her mouth. I

tell you I have created this thing out of the squashed cabbage

leaves of Covent Garden; and now she pretends to play the fine

lady with me.

MRS. HIGGINS [placidly] Yes, dear; but you'll sit down, won't

you?

Higgins sits down again, savagely.

LIZA [to Pickering, taking no apparent notice of Higgins, and

working away deftly] Will you drop me altogether now that the

experiment is over, Colonel Pickering?

PICKERING. Oh don't. You mustn't think of it as an experiment. It

shocks me, somehow.

LIZA. Oh, I'm only a squashed cabbage leaf.

PICKERING [impulsively] No.

LIZA [continuing quietly]—but I owe so much to you that I should

be very unhappy if you forgot me.

PICKERING. It's very kind of you to say so, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA. It's not because you paid for my dresses. I know you are

generous to everybody with money. But it was from you that I

learnt really nice manners; and that is what makes one a lady,

isn't it? You see it was so very difficult for me with the

example of Professor Higgins always before me. I was brought up

to be just like him, unable to control myself, and using bad

language on the slightest provocation. And I should never have

known that ladies and gentlemen didn't behave like that if you

hadn't been there.

HIGGINS. Well!!

PICKERING. Oh, that's only his way, you know. He doesn't mean it.

LIZA. Oh, I didn't mean it either, when I was a flower girl. It

was only my way. But you see I did it; and that's what makes the

difference after all.

PICKERING. No doubt. Still, he taught you to speak; and I

couldn't have done that, you know.

LIZA [trivially] Of course: that is his profession.

HIGGINS. Damnation!

LIZA [continuing] It was just like learning to dance in the

fashionable way: there was nothing more than that in it. But do

you know what began my real education?

PICKERING. What?

LIZA [stopping her work for a moment] Your calling me Miss

Doolittle that day when I first came to Wimpole Street. That was

the beginning of self-respect for me. [She resumes her

stitching]. And there were a hundred little things you never

noticed, because they came naturally to you. Things about

standing up and taking off your hat and opening doors—

PICKERING. Oh, that was nothing.

LIZA. Yes: things that showed you thought and felt about me as if

I were something better than a scullerymaid; though of course I

know you would have been just the same to a scullery-maid if she

had been let in the drawing-room. You never took off your boots

in the dining room when I was there.

PICKERING. You mustn't mind that. Higgins takes off his boots all

over the place.

LIZA. I know. I am not blaming him. It is his way, isn't it? But

it made such a difference to me that you didn't do it. You see,

really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the

dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the

difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she

behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl

to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower

girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because

you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

MRS. HIGGINS. Please don't grind your teeth, Henry.

PICKERING. Well, this is really very nice of you, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA. I should like you to call me Eliza, now, if you would.

PICKERING. Thank you. Eliza, of course.

LIZA. And I should like Professor Higgins to call me Miss

Doolittle.

HIGGINS. I'll see you damned first.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry! Henry!

PICKERING [laughing] Why don't you slang back at him? Don't stand

it. It would do him a lot of good.

LIZA. I can't. I could have done it once; but now I can't go back

to it. Last night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to

me; and I tried to get back into the old way with her; but it was

no use. You told me, you know, that when a child is brought to a

foreign country, it picks up the language in a few weeks, and

forgets its own. Well, I am a child in your country. I have

forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours.

That's the real break-off with the corner of Tottenham Court

Road. Leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.

PICKERING [much alarmed] Oh! but you're coming back to Wimpole

Street, aren't you? You'll forgive Higgins?

HIGGINS [rising] Forgive! Will she, by George! Let her go. Let

her find out how she can get on without us. She will relapse into

the gutter in three weeks without me at her elbow.

Doolittle appears at the centre window. With a look of dignified

reproach at Higgins, he comes slowly and silently to his

daughter, who, with her back to the window, is unconscious of his

approach.

PICKERING. He's incorrigible, Eliza. You won't relapse, will you?

LIZA. No: Not now. Never again. I have learnt my lesson. I don't

believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried.

[Doolittle touches her on her left shoulder. She drops her work,

losing her self-possession utterly at the spectacle of her

father's splendor] A—a—a—a—a—ah—ow—ooh!

HIGGINS [with a crow of triumph] Aha! Just so. A—a—a—a—

ahowooh! A—a—a—a—ahowooh ! A—a—a—a—ahowooh! Victory!

Victory! [He throws himself on the divan, folding his arms, and

spraddling arrogantly].

DOOLITTLE. Can you blame the girl? Don't look at me like that,

Eliza. It ain't my fault. I've come into money.

LIZA. You must have touched a millionaire this time, dad.

DOOLITTLE. I have. But I'm dressed something special today. I'm

going to St. George's, Hanover Square. Your stepmother is going

to marry me.

LIZA [angrily] You're 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. Won't you put on your hat,

Liza, and come and see me turned off?

LIZA. If the Colonel says I must, I—I'll [almost sobbing] I'll

demean myself. And get insulted for my pains, like enough.

DOOLITTLE. Don't be afraid: she never comes to words with anyone

now, poor woman! respectability has broke all the spirit out of

her.

PICKERING [squeezing Eliza's 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 there's no ill feeling. I'll be back in a

moment. [She goes out].

DOOLITTLE [sitting down beside Pickering] I feel uncommon nervous

about the ceremony, Colonel. I wish you'd come and see me through

it.

PICKERING. But you've been through it before, man. You were

married to Eliza's mother.

DOOLITTLE. Who told you that, Colonel?

PICKERING. Well, nobody told me. But I concluded naturally—

DOOLITTLE. No: that ain't the natural way, Colonel: it's only the

middle class way. My way was always the undeserving way. But

don't say nothing to Eliza. She don't know: I always had a

delicacy about telling her.

PICKERING. Quite right. We'll leave it so, if you don't mind.

DOOLITTLE. And you'll 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,

ma'am; and my poor old woman would take it as a tremenjous

compliment. She's been very low, thinking of the happy days that

are no more.

MRS. HIGGINS [rising] I'll order the carriage and get ready. [The

men rise, except Higgins]. I shan't be more than fifteen minutes.

[As she goes to the door Eliza comes in, hatted and buttoning her

gloves]. I'm 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 don't 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 don't grudge you two getting the

better of Eliza. I shan't interfere. It's time for us to go,

Colonel. So long, Henry. See you in St. George's, 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, you've 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 haven't 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 can't change my nature;

and I don't intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly

the same as Colonel Pickering's.

LIZA. That's 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, it's 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 don't care how you treat me. I

don't mind your swearing at me. I don't mind a black eye: I've

had one before this. But [standing up and facing him] I won't be

passed over.

HIGGINS. Then get out of my way; for I won't 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: don't think I

can't.

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] Don't you try to get round me. You'll 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. It's got no feelings to hurt.

HIGGINS. I can't 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 don't care a bit for

her. And you don't 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 won't care for anybody that doesn't care for me.

HIGGINS. Commercial principles, Eliza. Like [reproducing her

Covent Garden pronunciation with professional exactness] s'yollin

voylets [selling violets], isn't it?

LIZA. Don't sneer at me. It's mean to sneer at me.

HIGGINS. I have never sneered in my life. Sneering doesn't become

either the human face or the human soul. I am expressing my

righteous contempt for Commercialism. I don't and won't trade in

affection. You call me a brute because you couldn't buy a claim

on me by fetching my slippers and finding my spectacles. You were

a fool: I think a woman fetching a man's 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

you'll get nothing else. You've had a thousand times as much out

of me as I have out of you; and if you dare to set up your little

dog's tricks of fetching and carrying slippers against my

creation of a Duchess Eliza, I'll slam the door in your silly

face.

LIZA. What did you do it for if you didn't 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.

There's only one way of escaping trouble; and that's killing

things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have

troublesome people killed.

LIZA. I'm no preacher: I don't notice things like that. I notice

that you don't notice me.

HIGGINS [jumping up and walking about intolerantly] Eliza: you're

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. That's why I took you on.

LIZA [with averted face] And you may throw me out tomorrow if I

don't do everything you want me to?

HIGGINS. Yes; and you may walk out tomorrow if I don't 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? I'm a

slave now, for all my fine clothes.

HIGGINS. Not a bit. I'll 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 wouldn't marry YOU if you

asked me; and you're nearer my age than what he is.

HIGGINS [gently] Than he is: not "than what he is."

LIZA [losing her temper and rising] I'll talk as I like. You're

not my teacher now.

HIGGINS [reflectively] I don't suppose Pickering would, though.

He's as confirmed an old bachelor as I am.

LIZA. That's not what I want; and don't you think it. I've 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] You have no right to encourage

him.

LIZA. Every girl has a right to be loved.

HIGGINS. What! By fools like that?

LIZA. Freddy's not a fool. And if he's weak and poor and wants

me, may be he'd make me happier than my betters that bully me and

don't want me.

HIGGINS. Can he MAKE anything of you? That's the point.

LIZA. Perhaps I could make something of him. But I never thought

of us making anything of one another; and you never think of

anything else. I only want to be natural.

HIGGINS. In short, you want me to be as infatuated about you as

Freddy? Is that it?

LIZA. No I don't. That's not the sort of feeling I want from you.

And don't you be too sure of yourself or of me. I could have been

a bad girl if I'd liked. I've seen more of some things than you,

for all your learning. Girls like me can drag gentlemen down to

make love to them easy enough. And they wish each other dead the

next minute.

HIGGINS. Of course they do. Then what in thunder are we

quarrelling about?

LIZA [much troubled] I want a little kindness. I know I'm a

common ignorant girl, and you a book-learned gentleman; but I'm

not dirt under your feet. What I done [correcting herself] what I

did was not for the dresses and the taxis: I did it because we

were pleasant together and I come—came—to care for you; not to

want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference

between us, but more friendly like.

HIGGINS. Well, of course. That's just how I feel. And how

Pickering feels. Eliza: you're a fool.

LIZA. That's not a proper answer to give me [she sinks on the

chair at the writing-table in tears].

HIGGINS. It's all you'll get until you stop being a common idiot.

If you're going to be a lady, you'll have to give up feeling

neglected if the men you know don't spend half their time

snivelling over you and the other half giving you black eyes. If

you can't stand the coldness of my sort of life, and the strain

of it, go back to the gutter. Work til you are more a brute than

a human being; and then cuddle and squabble and drink til you

fall asleep. Oh, it's a fine life, the life of the gutter. It's

real: it's warm: it's violent: you can feel it through the

thickest skin: you can taste it and smell it without any training

or any work. Not like Science and Literature and Classical Music

and Philosophy and Art. You find me cold, unfeeling, selfish,

don't you? Very well: be off with you to the sort of people you

like. Marry some sentimental hog or other with lots of money, and

a thick pair of lips to kiss you with and a thick pair of boots

to kick you with. If you can't appreciate what you've got, you'd

better get what you can appreciate.

LIZA [desperate] Oh, you are a cruel tyrant. I can't talk to you:

you turn everything against me: I'm always in the wrong. But you

know very well all the time that you're nothing but a bully. You

know I can't go back to the gutter, as you call it, and that I

have no real friends in the world but you and the Colonel. You

know well I couldn't bear to live with a low common man after you

two; and it's wicked and cruel of you to insult me by pretending

I could. You think I must go back to Wimpole Street because I

have nowhere else to go but father's. But don't you be too sure

that you have me under your feet to be trampled on and talked

down. I'll marry Freddy, I will, as soon as he's able to support

me.

HIGGINS [sitting down beside her] Rubbish! you shall marry an

ambassador. You shall marry the Governor-General of India or the

Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or somebody who wants a deputy-queen.

I'm not going to have my masterpiece thrown away on Freddy.

LIZA. You think I like you to say that. But I haven't forgot what

you said a minute ago; and I won't be coaxed round as if I was a

baby or a puppy. If I can't have kindness, I'll have

independence.

HIGGINS. Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all

dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

LIZA [rising determinedly] I'll let you see whether I'm dependent

on you. If you can preach, I can teach. I'll go and be a teacher.

HIGGINS. What'll you teach, in heaven's name?

LIZA. What you taught me. I'll teach phonetics.

HIGGINS. Ha! Ha! Ha!

LIZA. I'll offer myself as an assistant to Professor Nepean.

HIGGINS [rising in a fury] What! That impostor! that humbug! that

toadying ignoramus! Teach him my methods! my discoveries! You

take one step in his direction and I'll wring your neck. [He lays

hands on her]. Do you hear?

LIZA [defiantly non-resistant] Wring away. What do I care? I knew

you'd strike me some day. [He lets her go, stamping with rage at

having forgotten himself, and recoils so hastily that he stumbles

back into his seat on the ottoman]. Aha! Now I know how to deal

with you. What a fool I was not to think of it before! You can't

take away the knowledge you gave me. You said I had a finer ear

than you. And I can be civil and kind to people, which is more

than you can. Aha! That's done you, Henry Higgins, it has. Now I

don't care that [snapping her fingers] for your bullying and your

big talk. I'll advertize it in the papers that your duchess is

only a flower girl that you taught, and that she'll teach anybody

to be a duchess just the same in six months for a thousand

guineas. Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet and

being trampled on and called names, when all the time I had only

to lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick

myself.