George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

Pearce] Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs. Pearce?
MRS. PEARCE 
[patiently] I think you’d better let me speak

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29
Shaw
to the girl properly in private. I don’t know that I can take
charge of her or consent to the arrangement at all. Of course
I know you don’t mean her any harm; but when you get
what you call interested in people’s accents, you never think
or care what may happen to them or you. Come with me,
Eliza.
HIGGINS
. That’s all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle
her off to the bath-room.
LIZA 
[rising reluctantly and suspiciously] You’re a great bully,
you are. I won’t stay here if I don’t like. I won’t let nobody
wallop me.I never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didn’t. I
was never in trouble with the police, not me. I’m a good
girl—
MRS. PEARCE
. Don’t answer back, girl. You don’t under-
stand the gentleman. Come with me. [She leads the way to
the door, and holds it open for Eliza].
LIZA 
[as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I won’t go
near the king, not if I’m going to have my head cut off. If I’d
known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn’t have come
here. I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a
word to him; and I don’t owe him nothing; and I don’t care;
and I won’t be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as
anyone else—
Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza’s plaints are no longer
audible. Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits
astride it with his arms on the back.
PICKERING
. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you
a man of good character where women are concerned?
HIGGINS 
[moodily] Have you ever met a man of good char-
acter where women are concerned?
PICKERING
. Yes: very frequently.
HIGGINS 
[dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level
of the piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven’t. I
find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me,
she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nui-
sance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a
woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset every-
thing. When you let them into your life, you find that the
woman is driving at one thing and you’re driving at another.
PICKERING
. At what, for example?
HIGGINB 
[coming off the piano restlessly] Oh, Lord knows!
I suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man
wants to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the
wrong track. One wants to go north and the other south;

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30
Pygmalion
and the result is that both have to go east, though they both
hate the east wind. [He sits down on the bench at the key-
board]. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to
remain so.
PICKERING 
[rising and standing over him gravely] Come,
Higgins! You know what I mean. If I’m to be in this business
I shall feel responsible for that girl. I hope it’s understood
that no advantage is to be taken of her position.
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. I’ve taught scores of
American millionairesses how to speak English: the best look-
ing 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.