Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

by George Bernard Shaw

HIGGINS What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to explain] You see, she’ll be a pupil; and teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred. Ive taught scores of American millionairesses how to speak English: the best looking women in the world. I’m seasoned. They might as well be blocks of wood. I might as well be a block of wood. It‘s — MRS. PEARCE opens the door. She has ELIZA’s hat in her hand. PICKERING retires to the easy-chair at the hearth and sits down.

  HIGGINS [eagerly] Well, Mrs. Pearce: is it all right?

  MRS. PEARCE [at the door] I just wish to trouble you with a word, if I may, Mr. Higgins.

  HIGGINS Yes, certainly. Come in. [She comesforward]. Dont burn that, Mrs. Pearce. I’ll keep it as a curiosity. [He takes the hat].

  MRS. PEARCE Handle it carefully, sir, please. I had to promise her not to burn it; but I had better put it in the oven for a while.

  HIGGINS [putting it down hastily on the piano] Oh! thank you. Well, what have you to say to me?

  PICKERING Am I in the way?

  MRS. PEARCE Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins: will you please be very particular what you say before the girl?

  HIGGINS [sternly] Of course. I’m always particular about what I say. Why do you say this to me?

  MRS. PEARCE [unmoved] No, sir: youre not at all particular when youve mislaid anything or when you get a little impatient. Now it doesnt matter before me: I’m used to it. But you really must not swear before the girl.

  HIGGINS [indignantly] I swear! [Most emphatically] I never swear. I detest the habit. What the devil do you mean?

  MRS. PEARCE [stolidly] Thats what I mean, sir. You swear a great deal too much. I dont mind your damning and blasting, and what the devil and where the devil and who the devil —

  HIGGINS Mrs. Pearce: this language from your lips! Really!

  MRS. PEARCE [not to be put off] — but there is a certain word I must ask you not to use. The girl has just used it herself because the bath was too hot. It begins with the same letter as bath. She knows no better: she learnt it at her mother’s knee. But she must not hear it from your lips.

  HIGGINS [loftily] I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered it, Mrs. Pearce. [She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding an uneasy conscience with a judicial air] Except perhaps in a moment of extreme and justifiable excitement.

  MRS. PEARCE Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread.

  HIGGINS Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pearce, natural to a poet.

  MRS. PEARCE Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not to let the girl hear you repeat it.

  HIGGINS Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?

  MRS. PEARCE No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with this girl as to personal cleanliness.

  HIGGINS Certainly. Quite right. Most important.

  MRS. PEARCE I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy in leaving things about.

  HIGGINS [going to her solemnly] Just so. I intended to call your attention to that [he passes on to PICKERING, who is enjoying the conversation immensely]. It is these little things that matter, Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. [He comes to anchor on the hearthrug, with the air of a man in an unassailable position] .

  MRS. PEARCE Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as a napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good as not to eat everything off the same plate, and to remember not to put the porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean tablecloth, it would be a better example to the girl. You know you nearly choked yourself with a fishbone in the jam only last week.

  HIGGINS [routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the piano] I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but surely I dont do them habitually. [Angrily] By the way: my dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine.

  MRS. PEARCE No doubt it does, Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe your fingers —

  HIGGINS [yelling] Oh very well, very well: I’ll wipe them in my hair in future.

  MRS. PEARCE I hope youre not offended, Mr. Higgins.

  HIGGINS [shocked at finding himself thought capable of an unamiable sentiment] Not at all, not at all. Youre quite right, Mrs. Pearce: I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is that all?

  MRS. PEARCE No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you brought from abroad? I really cant put her back into her old things.

  HIGGINS Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?

  MRS. PEARCE Thank you, sir. Thats all. [She goes out].

  HIGGINS You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary ideas about me. Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man. Ive never been able to feel really grown-up and tremendous, like other chaps. And yet shes firmly persuaded that I’m an arbitrary overbearing bossing kind of person. I cant account for it.{50}

  MRS. PEARCE returns.

  MRS. PEARCE If you please, sir, the trouble’s beginning already. Theres a dustman[204] downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you. He says you have his daughter here.

  PICKERING [rising] Phew! I say! [He retreats to the hearthrug].

  HIGGINS [promptly] Send the blackguard[205] up.

  MRS. PEARCE Oh, very well, sir. [She goes out].

  PICKERING He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.

  HIGGINS Nonsense. Of course hes a blackguard.

  PICKERING Whether he is or not, I’m afraid we shall have some trouble with him.

  HIGGINS [confidently] Oh no: I think not. If theres any trouble he shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get something interesting out of him.

  PICKERING About the girl?

  HIGGINS No. I mean his dialect.

  PICKERING Oh!

  MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Doolittle, sir. [She admits DOOLITTLE and retires].

  ALFRED DOOLITTLE is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the costume of his profession, including a hat with a back brim covering his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather interesting features, and seems equally free from fear and conscience. He has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of giving vent to his feelings without reserve. His present pose is that of wounded honor and stern resolution.

  DOOLITTLE [at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is his man] Professor Higgins?

  HIGGINS Here. Good morning. Sit down.

  DOOLITTLE Morning, Governor. [He sits down magisterially] I come about a very serious matter, Governor.

  HIGGINS [to PICKERING] Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think. [DOOLITTLE opens his mouth, amazed. HIGGINS continues] What do you want, Doolittle?

  DOOLITTLE [menacingly] I want my daughter: thats what I want. See?

  HIGGINS Of course you do. Youre her father, arnt you? You dont suppose anyone else wants her, do you? I’m glad to see you have some spark of family feeling left. Shes upstairs. Take her away at once.

  DOOLITTLE [rising, fearfully taken aback] What!

  HIGGINS Take her away. Do you suppose I’m going to keep your daughter for you?

  DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fairity to take advantage of a man like this? The girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? [He sits down again].

  HIGGINS Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and ask me to teach her how to speak properly so that she could get a place in a flower-shop. This gentleman and my housekeeper have been here all the time. [Bullying him] How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on purpose.

  DOOLITTLE [protesting] No, Governor.

  HIGGINS You must have. How else could you possibly know that she is here?

  DOOLITTLE Dont take a man up like that, Governor.

  HIGGINS The police shall take you up. This is a plant — a plot to extort money by threats. I shall telephone for the police [he goes resolutely to the t
elephone and opens the directory].

  DOOLITTLE Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to the gentleman here: have I said a word about money?

  HIGGINS [throwing the book aside and marching down on Doolittle with a poser] What else did you come for?

  DOOLITTLE [sweettyl Well, what would a man come for? Be human, Governor.

  HIGGINS [disarmed] Alfred: did you put her up to it?

  D0OLITTL So help me, Governor, I never did. I take my Bible oath I aint seen the girl these two months past.

  HIGGINS Then how did you know she was here?

  DOOLITTLE [“most musical, most melancholy”] [206] I’ll tell you, Governor, if youll only let me get a word in. I’m willing to tell you. I’m wanting to tell you. I’m waiting to tell you.

  HIGGINS Pickering: this chap has a certain natural gift of rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild.{51} “I’m willing to tell you: I’m wanting to tell you: I’m waiting to tell you.” Sentimental rhetoric! thats the Welsh strain in him. It also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.

  PICKERING Oh, please, Higgins: I’m west country myself. [To DOOLITTLE] How did you know the girl was here if you didnt send her?

  DOOLITTLE It was like this, Governor. The girl took a boy in the taxi to give him a jaunt. Son of her landlady, he is. He hung about on the chance of her giving him another ride home. Well, she sent him back for her luggage when she heard you was willing for her to stop here. I met the boy at the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street.

  HIGGINS Public house. Yes?

  DOOLITTLE The poor man’s club, Governor: why shouldnt I?

  PICKERING Do let him tell his story, Higgins.

  DOOLITTLE He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my feelings and my duty as a father? I says to the boy, “You bring me the luggage,» I says —

  PICKERING Why didnt you go for it yourself?

  DOOLITTLE Landlady wouldnt have trusted me with it, Governor. Shes that kind of woman: you know. I had to give the boy a penny afore he trusted me with it, the little swine. I brought it to her just to oblige you like, and make myself agreeable. Thats all.

  HIGGINS How much luggage?

  DOOLITTLE Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, a trifle of jewelry, and a bird-cage. She said she didnt want no clothes. What was I to think from that, Governor? I ask you as a parent what was I to think?

  HIGGINS So you came to rescue her from worse than death, eh?

  DOOLITTLE [appreciatively: relieved at being so well understood] Just so, Governor. Thats right.

  PICKERING But why did you bring her luggage if you intended to take her away?

  DOOLITTLE Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now?

  HIGGINS [determinedly] Youre going to take her away, double quick. [He crosses to the hearth and rings the bell].

  DOOLITTLE [rising] No, Governor. Dont say that. I’m not the man to stand in my girl’s light. Heres a career opening for her, as you might say; and —

  MRS. PEARCE opens the door and awaits orders.

  HIGGINS Mrs. Pearce: this is Eliza’s father. He has come to take her away. Give her to him. [He goes back to the piano, with an air of washing his hands of the whole affair].

  DOOLITTLE No. This is a misunderstanding. Listen here —

  MRS. PEARCE He cant take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he?You told me to burn her clothes.

  DOOLITTLE Thats right. I cant carry the girl through the streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.

  HIGGINS You have put it to me that you want your daughter. Take your daughter. If she has no clothes go out and buy her some.

  DOOLITTLE [desperate] Wheres the clothes she come in? Did I burn them or did your missus here?

  MRS. PEARCE I am the housekeeper, if you please. I have sent for some clothes for your girl. When they come you can take her away. You can wait in the kitchen. This way, please.

  DOOLITTLE, much troubled; accompanies her to the door; then hesitates; finally turns confidentially to HIGGINS.

  DOOLITTLE Listen here, Governor.You and me is men of the world, aint we?

  HIGGINS Oh! Men of the world, are we?Youd better go, Mrs. Pearce.

  MRS. PEARCE I think so, indeed, sir. [She goes, with dignity].

  PICKERING The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle.

  DOOLITTLE [to PICKERING] I thank you, Governor.

  [To HIGGINS, who takes refuge on the piano bench, a little overwhelmed by the proximity of his visitor; for DOOLITTLE has a professional, flavor of dust about him]. Well, the truth is, Ive taken a sort of fancy to you, Governor; and if you want the girl, I’m not so set on having her back home again but what I might be open to an arrangement. Regarded in the light of a young woman, shes a fine handsome girl. As a daughter shes not worth her keep; and so I tell you straight. All I ask is my rights as a father; and youre the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing; for I can see youre one of the straight sort, Governor. Well, whats a five pound note to you? And whats Eliza to me? [He returns to his chair and sits down judicially].

  PICKERING I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr. Higgins’s intentions are entirely honorable.

  DOOLITTLE Course they are, Governor. If I thought they wasnt, Id ask fifty.

  HIGGINS [revolted] Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that you would sell your daughter for £50?

  DOOLITTLE Not in a general way I wouldnt; but to oblige a gentleman like you I’d do a good deal, I do assure you.

  PICKERING Have you no morals, man?

  DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm, you know. But if Liza is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too?

  HIGGINS [troubled] I dont know what to do, Pickering. There can be no question that as a matter of morals it’s a positive crime to give this chap a farthing. And yet I feel a sort of rough justice in his claim.

  DOOLITTLE Thats it, Governor. Thats all I say. A father’s heart, as it were.

  PICKERING Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly right —

  DOOLITTLE Dont say that, Governor. Dont look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that hes up agen middle class morality all the time. If theres anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: “Youre undeserving; so you cant have it.” But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I dont need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth. Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what hes brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until shes growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

  HIGGINS [rising, and going over to PICKERING] Pickering: if we were to take this man in hand for three months, he could choose between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.

  PICKERING What do you say to that, Doolittle?

  DOOLITTLE Not me, Governor, thank you kindly. Ive heard all the preachers and all the prime ministers — for I’m a thinking man and game for politics or religion or social reform same as all the other amusements — and I tell you it’s a dog’s life anyway you look at it. Undeserving poverty is my line. Taking one station in society with another, it‘s — it’s — well
, it’s the only one that has any ginger in it, to my taste.

  HIGGINS I suppose we must give him a fiver.

  PICKERING He’ll make a bad use of it, I’m afraid.

  DOOLITTLE Not me, Governor, so help me I wont. Dont you be afraid that I’ll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There wont be a penny of it left by Monday: I’ll have to go to work same as if I’d never had it. It wont pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it’s not been throwed away. You couldnt spend it better.

  HIGGINS [taking out his pocket book and coming between DOOLITTLE and the piano] This is irresistible. Lets give him ten. [He offers two notes to the dustman].

  DOOLITTLE No, Governor. She wouldnt have the heart to spend ten; and perhaps I shouldnt neither. Ten pounds is a lot of money: it makes a man feel prudent like; and then goodbye to happiness. You give me what I ask you, Governor: not a penny more, and not a penny less.

  PICKERING Why dont you marry that missus of yours? I rather draw the line at encouraging that sort of immorality.

  DOOLITTLE Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I’m willing. It’s me that suffers by it. Ive no hold on her. I got to be agreeable to her. I got to give her presents. I got to buy her clothes something sinful. I’m a slave to that woman, Governor, just because I’m not her lawful husband. And she knows it too. Catch her marrying me! Take my advice, Governor: marry Eliza while shes young and dont know no better. If you dont youll be sorry for it after. If you do, she’ll be sorry for it after; but better you than her, because youre a man, and shes only a woman and dont know how to be happy anyhow.

  HIGGINS Pickering: if we listen to this man another minute, we shall have no convictions left. [To DOOLITTLE] Five pounds I think you said.

  DOOLITTLE Thank you kindly, Governor.

  HIGGINS Youre sure you wont take ten?

  DOOLITTLE Not now. Another time, Governor.

  HIGGINS [handing him afive-pound note] Here you are.

  DOOLITTLE Thank you, Governor. Good morning. [He hurries to the door, anxious to get away with his booty. When he opens it he is confronted with a dainty and exquisitely clean young Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono printed cunningly with small white jasmine blossoms. MRS. PEARCE is with her. He gets out of her way deferentially and apologizes]. Beg pardon, miss.