George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

dow].
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 con-
vincing 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?

---

72
Pygmalion
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 her-
self. 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 ex-
periment. 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.

---

73
Shaw
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