Pygmalion

for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to go? What am I to do? What’s to become of me?

Higgins
Enlightened, but not at all impressed. Oh, that’s what’s worrying you, is it? He thrusts his hands into his pockets, and walks about in his usual manner, rattling the contents of his pockets, as if condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness. I shouldn’t bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you won’t have much difficulty in settling yourself, somewhere or other, though I hadn’t quite realized that you were going away. She looks quickly at him: he does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand on the piano and decides that he will eat an apple. You might marry, you know. He bites a large piece out of the apple, and munches it noisily. You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); and you’re not bad-looking; it’s quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes⁠—not now, of course, because you’re crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but when you’re all right and quite yourself, you’re what I should call attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself in the glass; and you won’t feel so cheap.



Eliza again looks at him, speechless, and does not stir.



The look is quite lost on him: he eats his apple with a dreamy expression of happiness, as it is quite a good one.


Higgins
A genial afterthought occurring to him. I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well⁠—


Liza
We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.


Higgins
Waking up. What do you mean?


Liza
I sold flowers. I didn’t sell myself. Now you’ve made a lady of me I’m not fit to sell anything else. I wish you’d left me where you found me.


Higgins
Slinging the core of the apple decisively into the grate. Tosh, Eliza. Don’t you insult human relations by dragging all this cant about buying and selling into it. You needn’t marry the fellow if you don’t like him.


Liza
What else am I to do?


Higgins
Oh, lots of things. What about your old idea of a florist’s shop? Pickering could set you up in one: he’s lots of money. Chuckling. He’ll have to pay for all those togs you have been wearing today; and that, with the hire of the jewellery, will make a big hole in two hundred pounds. Why, six months ago you would have thought it the millennium to have a flower shop of your own. Come! you’ll be all right. I must clear off to bed: I’m devilish sleepy. By the way, I came down for something: I forget what it was.


Liza
Your slippers.


Higgins
Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me. He picks them up, and is going out when she rises and speaks to him.


Liza
Before you go, sir⁠—


Higgins
Dropping the slippers in his surprise at her calling him sir. Eh?


Liza
Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering?


Higgins
Coming back into the room as if her question were the very climax of unreason. What the devil use would they be to Pickering?


Liza
He might want them for the next girl you pick up to experiment on.


Higgins
Shocked and hurt. Is that the way you feel towards us?


Liza
I don’t want to hear anything more about that. All I want to know is whether anything belongs to me. My own clothes were burnt.


Higgins
But what does it matter? Why need you start bothering about that in the middle of the night?


Liza
I want to know what I may take away with me. I don’t want to be accused of stealing.


Higgins
Now deeply wounded. Stealing! You shouldn’t have said that, Eliza. That shows a want of feeling.


Liza
I’m sorry. I’m only a common ignorant girl; and in my station I have to be careful. There can’t be any feelings between the like of you and the like of me. Please will you tell me what belongs to me and what doesn’t?


Higgins
Very sulky. You may take the whole damned houseful if you like. Except the jewels. They’re hired. Will that satisfy you? He turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme dudgeon.


Liza
Drinking in his emotion like nectar, and nagging him to provoke a further supply. Stop, please. She takes off her jewels. Will you take these to your room and keep them safe? I don’t want to run the risk of their being missing.


Higgins
Furious. Hand them over. She puts them into his hands. If these belonged to me instead of to the jeweler, I’d ram them down your ungrateful throat. He perfunctorily thrusts them into his pockets, unconsciously decorating himself with the protruding ends of the chains.


Liza
Taking a ring off. This ring isn’t the jeweler’s: it’s the one you bought me in Brighton. I don’t want it now. Higgins dashes the ring violently into the fireplace, and turns on her so threateningly that she crouches over the piano with her hands over her face, and exclaims. Don’t you hit me.


Higgins
Hit you! You infamous creature, how dare you accuse me of such a thing? It is you who have hit me. You have wounded me to the heart.


Liza
Thrilling with hidden joy. I’m glad. I’ve got a little of my own back, anyhow.


Higgins
With dignity, in his finest professional style. You have caused me to lose my temper: a thing that has hardly ever happened to me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to bed.


Liza
Pertly.