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_ ACT IV
The Wimpole Street laboratory. Midnight. Nobody in the room. The
clock on the mantelpiece strikes twelve. The fire is not alight:
it is a summer night.
Presently Higgins and Pickering are heard on the stairs.
HIGGINS [calling down to Pickering] I say, Pick: lock up, will
you. I shan't be going out again.
PICKERING. Right. Can Mrs. Pearce go to bed? We don't want
anything more, do we?
HIGGINS. Lord, no!
Eliza opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in opera
cloak, brilliant evening dress, and diamonds, with fan, flowers,
and all accessories. She comes to the hearth, and switches on the
electric lights there. She is tired: her pallor contrasts
strongly with her dark eyes and hair; and her expression is
almost tragic. She takes off her cloak; puts her fan and flowers
on the piano; and sits down on the bench, brooding and silent.
Higgins, in evening dress, with overcoat and hat, comes in,
carrying a smoking jacket which he has picked up downstairs. He
takes off the hat and overcoat; throws them carelessly on the
newspaper stand; disposes of his coat in the same way; puts on
the smoking jacket; and throws himself wearily into the
easy-chair at the hearth. Pickering, similarly attired, comes in.
He also takes off his hat and overcoat, and is about to throw
them on Higgins's when he hesitates.
PICKERING. I say: Mrs. Pearce will row if we leave these things
lying about in the drawing-room.
HIGGINS. Oh, chuck them over the bannisters into the hall. She'll
find them there in the morning and put them away all right.
She'll think we were drunk.
PICKERING. We are, slightly. Are there any letters?
HIGGINS. I didn't look. [Pickering takes the overcoats and hats
and goes down stairs. Higgins begins half singing half yawning an
air from La Fanciulla del Golden West. Suddenly he stops and
exclaims] I wonder where the devil my slippers are!
Eliza looks at him darkly; then leaves the room.
Higgins yawns again, and resumes his song. Pickering returns,
with the contents of the letter-box in his hand.
PICKERING. Only circulars, and this coroneted billet-doux for
you. [He throws the circulars into the fender, and posts himself
on the hearthrug, with his back to the grate].
HIGGINS [glancing at the billet-doux] Money-lender. [He throws
the letter after the circulars].
Eliza returns with a pair of large down-at-heel slippers. She
places them on the carpet before Higgins, and sits as before
without a word.
HIGGINS [yawning again] Oh Lord! What an evening! What a crew!
What a silly tomfoollery! [He raises his shoe to unlace it, and
catches sight of the slippers. He stops unlacing and looks at
them as if they had appeared there of their own accord]. Oh!
they're there, are they?
PICKERING [stretching himself] Well, I feel a bit tired. It's
been a long day. The garden party, a dinner party, and the opera!
Rather too much of a good thing. But you've won your bet,
Higgins. Eliza did the trick, and something to spare, eh?
HIGGINS [fervently] Thank God it's over!
Eliza flinches violently; but they take no notice of her; and she
recovers herself and sits stonily as before.
PICKERING. Were you nervous at the garden party? I was. Eliza
didn't seem a bit nervous.
HIGGINS. Oh, she wasn't nervous. I knew she'd be all right. No,
it's the strain of putting the job through all these months that
has told on me. It was interesting enough at first, while we were
at the phonetics; but after that I got deadly sick of it. If I
hadn't backed myself to do it I should have chucked the whole
thing up two months ago. It was a silly notion: the whole thing
has been a bore.
PICKERING. Oh come! the garden party was frightfully exciting. My
heart began beating like anything.
HIGGINS. Yes, for the first three minutes. But when I saw we were
going to win hands down, I felt like a bear in a cage, hanging
about doing nothing. The dinner was worse: sitting gorging there
for over an hour, with nobody but a damned fool of a fashionable
woman to talk to! I tell you, Pickering, never again for me. No
more artificial duchesses. The whole thing has been simple
purgatory.
PICKERING. You've never been broken in properly to the social
routine. [Strolling over to the piano] I rather enjoy dipping
into it occasionally myself: it makes me feel young again.
Anyhow, it was a great success: an immense success. I was quite
frightened once or twice because Eliza was doing it so well. You
see, lots of the real people can't do it at all: they're such
fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their
position; and so they never learn. There's always something
professional about doing a thing superlatively well.
HIGGINS. Yes: that's what drives me mad: the silly people don't
know their own silly business. [Rising] However, it's over and
done with; and now I can go to bed at last without dreading
tomorrow.
Eliza's beauty becomes murderous.
PICKERING. I think I shall turn in too. Still, it's been a great
occasion: a triumph for you. Good-night. [He goes].
HIGGINS [following him] Good-night. [Over his shoulder, at the
door] Put out the lights, Eliza; and tell Mrs. Pearce not to make
coffee for me in the morning: I'll take tea. [He goes out].
Eliza tries to control herself and feel indifferent as she rises
and walks across to the hearth to switch off the lights. By the
time she gets there she is on the point of screaming. She sits
down in Higgins's chair and holds on hard to the arms. Finally
she gives way and flings herself furiously on the floor raging.
HIGGINS [in despairing wrath outside] What the devil have I done
with my slippers? [He appears at the door].
LIZA [snatching up the slippers, and hurling them at him one
after the other with all her force] There are your slippers. And
there. Take your slippers; and may you never have a day's luck
with them!
HIGGINS [astounded] What on earth--! [He comes to her]. What's
the matter? Get up. [He pulls her up]. Anything wrong?
LIZA [breathless] Nothing wrong--with YOU. I've won your bet for
you, haven't I? That's enough for you. _I_ don't matter, I
suppose.
HIGGINS. YOU won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! _I_ won it.
What did you throw those slippers at me for?
LIZA. Because I wanted to smash your face. I'd like to kill you,
you selfish brute. Why didn't you leave me where you picked me
out of--in the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now
you can throw me back again there, do you? [She crisps her
fingers, frantically].
HIGGINS [looking at her in cool wonder] The creature IS nervous,
after all.
LIZA [gives a suffocated scream of fury, and instinctively darts
her nails at his face]!!
HIGGINS [catching her wrists] Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat.
How dare you show your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet. [He
throws her roughly into the easy-chair].
LIZA [crushed by superior strength and weight] What's to become
of me? What's to become of me?
HIGGINS. How the devil do I know what's to become of you? What
does it matter what becomes of you?
LIZA. You don't care. I know you don't care. You wouldn't care if
I was dead. I'm nothing to you--not so much as them slippers.
HIGGINS [thundering] THOSE slippers.
LIZA [with bitter submission] Those slippers. I didn't think it
made any difference now.
A pause. Eliza hopeless and crushed. Higgins a little uneasy.
HIGGINS [in his loftiest manner] Why have you begun going on like
this? May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here?
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. Has anybody behaved badly to you? Colonel Pickering?
Mrs. Pearce? Any of the servants?
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. I presume you don't pretend that I have treated you
badly.
LIZA. No.
HIGGINS. I am glad to hear it. [He moderates his tone]. Perhaps
you're tired after the strain of the day. Will you have a glass
of champagne? [He moves towards the door].
LIZA. No. [Recollecting her manners] Thank you.
HIGGINS [good-humored again] This has been coming on you for some
days. I suppose it was natural for you to be anxious about the
garden party. But that's all over now. [He pats her kindly on the
shoulder. She writhes]. There's nothing more to worry about.
LIZA. No. Nothing more for you to worry about. [She suddenly
rises and gets away from him by going to the piano bench, where
she sits and hides her face]. Oh God! I wish I was dead.
HIGGINS [staring after her in sincere surprise] Why? in heaven's
name, why? [Reasonably, going to her] Listen to me, Eliza. All
this irritation is purely subjective.
LIZA. I don't understand. I'm too ignorant.
HIGGINS. It's only imagination. Low spirits and nothing else.
Nobody's hurting you. Nothing's wrong. You go to bed like a good
girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers:
that will make you comfortable.
LIZA. I heard YOUR prayers. "Thank God it's all over!"
HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, don't you thank God it's all over?
Now you are free and can do what you like.
LIZA [pulling herself together in desperation] What am I fit 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 can't 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 happend
to me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to
bed.
LIZA [pertly] You'd better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the
coffee; for she won't be told by me.
HIGGINS [formally] Damn Mrs. Pearce; and damn the coffee; and
damn you; and damn my own folly in having lavished MY hard-earned
knowledge and the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a
heartless guttersnipe. [He goes out with impressive decorum, and
spoils it by slamming the door savagely].
Eliza smiles for the first time; expresses her feelings by a wild
pantomime in which an imitation of Higgins's exit is confused
with her own triumph; and finally goes down on her knees on the
hearthrug to look for the ring. _
Read next: ACT V
Read previous: ACT III
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