Pygmalion

Covent Garden at 11: p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab whistles blowing frantically in all directions. Pedestrians running for shelter into the market and under the portico of St. Paul’s Church, where there are already several people, among them a lady and her daughter in evening dress. They are all peering out gloomily at the rain, except one man with his back turned to the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied with a notebook in which he is writing busily.

The church clock strikes the first quarter.

The Daughter

In the space between the central pillars, close to the one on her left. I’m getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddy be doing all this time? He’s been gone twenty minutes.

The Mother

On her daughter’s right. Not so long. But he ought to have got us a cab by this.

A Bystander

On the lady’s right. He won’t get no cab not until half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their theatre fares.

The Mother

But we must have a cab. We can’t stand here until half-past eleven. It’s too bad.

A Bystander

Well, it ain’t my fault, missus.

The Daughter

If Freddy had a bit of gumption, he would have got one at the theatre door.

The Mother

What could he have done, poor boy?

The Daughter

Other people got cabs. Why couldn’t he?

Freddy rushes in out of the rain from the Southampton Street side, and comes between them closing a dripping umbrella. He is a young man of twenty, in evening dress, very wet around the ankles.

The Note Taker

A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere⁠—no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don’t sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

The Flower Girl

Quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her head. Ah⁠—ah⁠—ah⁠—ow⁠—ow⁠—oo!

The Note Taker

Whipping out his book. Heavens! what a sound! He writes; then holds out the book and reads, reproducing her vowels exactly. Ah⁠—ah⁠—ah⁠—ow⁠—ow⁠—ow⁠—oo!

The Flower Girl

Tickled by the performance, and laughing in spite of herself. Garn!

The Note Taker

You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. I could even get her a place as lady’s maid or shop assistant, which requires better English. That’s the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines.

Liza

Overwhelmed. Ah⁠—ah⁠—ow⁠—oo!

Higgins

There! That’s all you get out of Eliza. Ah⁠—ah⁠—ow⁠—oo! No use explaining. As a military man you ought to know that. Give her her orders: that’s what she wants. Eliza: you are to live here for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist’s shop. If you’re good and do whatever you’re told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you’re naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out you’re not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. If you are not found out, you shall have a present of seven-and-sixpence to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl; and the angels will weep for you. To Pickering. Now are you satisfied, Pickering? To Mrs. Pearce. Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs. Pearce?

Mrs. Pearce

You give me what I ask you, Governor: not a penny more, and not a penny less.

Pickering

Why don’t 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. I’ve 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 she’s young and don’t know no better. If you don’t you’ll be sorry for it after. If you do, she’ll be sorry for it after; but better you than her, because you’re a man, and she’s only a woman and don’t 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

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 till she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.