Pygmalion

journey by throwing himself so impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it.  Mrs. Higgins looks at him, but controls herself and says nothing.


A long and painful pause ensues.


 Mrs. Higgins
At last, conversationally. Will it rain, do you think?


Liza
The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.


Freddy
Ha! ha! how awfully funny!


Liza
What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.


Freddy
Killing!


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
I’m sure I hope it won’t turn cold. There’s so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.


Liza
Darkly. My aunt died of influenza: so they said.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Clicks her tongue sympathetically.


Liza
In the same tragic tone. But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.


 Mrs. Higgins
Puzzled. Done her in?


Liza
Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Startled. Dear me!


Liza
Piling up the indictment. What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
What does doing her in mean?


Higgins
Hastily. Oh, that’s the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
To Eliza, horrified. You surely don’t believe that your aunt was killed?


Liza
Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hatpin, let alone a hat.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
But it can’t have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed her.


Liza
Not her. Gin was mother’s milk to her. Besides, he’d poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Do you mean that he drank?


Liza
Drank! My word! Something chronic.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
How dreadful for you!


Liza
Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular. Cheerfully. On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he’d drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. There’s lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. Now quite at her ease. You see, it’s like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience, it always takes him when he’s sober; and then it makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just takes that off and makes him happy. To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter. Here! what are you sniggering at?


Freddy
The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.


Liza
If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at? To Higgins. Have I said anything I oughtn’t?


 Mrs. Higgins
Interposing. Not at all, Miss Doolittle.


Liza
Well, that’s a mercy, anyhow. Expansively. What I always say is⁠—


Higgins
Rising and looking at his watch. Ahem!


Liza
Looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising. Well: I must go. They all rise. Freddy goes to the door. So pleased to have met you. Goodbye. She shakes hands with  Mrs. Higgins.


 Mrs. Higgins
Goodbye.


Liza
Goodbye, Colonel Pickering.


Pickering
Goodbye, Miss Doolittle. They shake hands.


Liza
Nodding to the others. Goodbye, all.


Freddy
Opening the door for her. Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so⁠—


Liza
Walk! Not bloody likely. Sensation. I am going in a taxi. She goes out.



Pickering gasps and sits down. Freddy goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of Eliza.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Suffering from shock. Well, I really can’t get used to the new ways.


Clara
Throwing herself discontentedly into the Elizabethan chair. Oh, it’s all right, mamma, quite right. People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old-fashioned.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
I daresay I am very old-fashioned; but I do hope you won’t begin using that expression, Clara. I have got accustomed to hear you talking about men as rotters, and calling everything filthy and beastly; though I do think it horrible and unladylike. But this last is really too much. Don’t you think so, Colonel Pickering?


Pickering
Don’t ask me. I’ve been away in India for several years; and manners have changed so much that I sometimes don’t know whether I’m at a respectable dinner table or in a ship’s forecastle.


Clara
It’s all a matter of habit. There’s no right or wrong in it. Nobody means anything by it. And it’s so quaint, and gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent.


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Rising. Well, after that, I think it’s time for us to go.



Pickering and Higgins rise.


Clara
Rising. Oh yes: we have three at homes to go to still. Goodbye,  Mrs. Higgins. Goodbye, Colonel Pickering. Goodbye, Professor Higgins.


Higgins
Coming grimly at her from the divan, and accompanying her to the door. Goodbye. Be sure you try on that small talk at the three at-homes. Don’t be nervous about it. Pitch it in strong.


Clara
All smiles. I will. Goodbye. Such nonsense, all this early Victorian prudery!


Higgins
Tempting her. Such damned nonsense!


Clara
Such bloody nonsense!


 Mrs. Eynsford Hill
Convulsively. Clara!


Clara
Ha! ha! She goes out radiant,