Pygmalion and Three Other Plays Page 38

  THE BYSTANDER [inapt at definition] It’s a — well, it’s a copper’s nark, as you might say. What else would you call it? A sort of informer.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [still hysterical] I take my Bible oath I never said a word —

  THE NOTE TAKER [overbearing but good-humored] Oh, shut up, shut up. Do I look like a policeman?

  THE FLOWER GIRL [far from reassured] Then what did you take down my words for? How do I know whether you took me down right? You just shew me what youve wrote about me. [The note taker opens his book and holds it steadily under her nose, though the pressure of the mob trying to read it over his shoulders would upset a weaker man]. Whats that? That aint proper writing. I cant read that.

  THE NOTE TAKER I can. [Reads, reproducing her pronunciation exactly] “Cheer ap, Keptin; n’ baw ya flahr orf a pore gel.”

  THE FLOWER GIRL [much distressed] It’s because I called him Captain. I meant no harm. [To the gentleman] Oh, sir, dont let him lay a charge agen me for a word like that. You —

  THE GENTLEMAN Charge! I make no charge. [To the note taker] Really, sir, if you are a detective, you need not begin protecting me against molestation by young women until I ask you. Anybody could see that the girl meant no harm.

  THE BYSTANDERS GENERALLY [demonstrating against police espionage] Course they could. What business is it of yours? You mind your own affairs. He wants promotion, he does. Taking down people’s words! Girl never said a word to him. What harm if she did? Nice thing a girl cant shelter from the rain without being insulted, etc., etc., etc. [She is conducted by the more sympathetic demonstrators back to her plinth, where she resumes her seat and struggles with her emotion.]

  THE BYSTANDER He aint a tec. Hes a blooming busybody: thats what he is. I tell you, look at his boots.

  THE NOTE TAKER [turning on him genially] And how are all your people down at Selsey?

  THE BYSTANDER [suspiciously] Who told you my people come from Selsey?

  THE NOTE TAKER Never you mind. They did. [To the girl] How do you come to be up so far east?You were born in Lisson Grove.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [appalled] Oh, what harm is there in my leaving Lisson Grove? It wasnt fit for a pig to live in; and I had to pay four-and-six a week. [In tears] Oh, boo-hoo-oo-

  THE NOTE TAKER Live where you like; but stop that noise.

  THE GENTLEMAN [to the girl] Come, come! he cant touch you: you have a right to live where you please.

  A SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [thrusting himself between the note taker and the gentleman] Park Lane, for instance. Id like to go into the Housing Question with you, I would.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [subsiding into a brooding melancholy over her basket, and talking very low-spiritedly to herself] I’m a good girl, I am.

  THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [not attendins to her] Do you know where I come from?

  THE NOTE TAKER [promptly] Hoxton.

  Titterings. Popular interest in the note taker’s performance increases.

  THE SARCASTIC ONE [amazed] Well, who said I didnt? Bly me![187] You know everything, you do.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [still nursing her sense of injury] Aint no call to meddle with me, he aint.

  THE BYSTANDER [to her] Of course he aint. Dont you stand it from him. [To the note taker] See here: what call have you to know about people what never offered to meddle with you? Wheres your warrant?

  SEVERAL BYSTANDERS [encouraged by this seeming point of law] Yes: wheres your warrant?

  THE FLOWER GIRL Let him say what he likes. I dont want to have no truck with him.

  THE BYSTANDER You take us for dirt under your feet, dont you? Catch you taking liberties with a gentleman!

  THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER Yes: tell him where he come from if you want to go fortune-telling.

  THE NOTE TAKER Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India.

  THE GENTLEMAN Quite right. [Great laughter. Reaction in the note taker’s favor. Exclamations of He knows all about it. Told him proper. Hear him tell the toff where he come from? etc.]. May I ask, sir, do you do this for your living at a music hall?{48}

  THE NOTE TAKER Ive thought of that. Perhaps I shall some day.

  The rain has stopped; and the persons on the outside of the crowd begin to drop off.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [resenting the reaction] Hes no gentleman, he aint, to interfere with a poor girl.

  THE DAUGHTER [out of patience, pushing her way rudely to the front and displacing the gentleman, who politely retires to the other side of the pillar] What on earth is Freddy doing? I shall get pneumonia if I stay in this draught any longer.

  THE NOTE TAKER [to himself, hastily making a note of her pronunciation of “monia”] Earlscourt.

  THE DAUGHTER [violently] Will you please keep your impertinent remarks to yourself?

  THE NOTE TAKER Did I say that out loud? I didnt mean to. I beg your pardon. Your mother’s Epsom, unmistake ably.

  THE MOTHER (advancing between her daughter and the note taker] How very curious! I was brought up in Largelady Park, near Epsom.

  THE NOTE TAKER [uproariously amused] Ha! ha! What a devil of a name! Excuse me. [To the daughter] You want a cab, do you?

  THE DAUGHTER Dont dare speak to me.

  THE MOTHER Oh, please, please Clara. [Her daughter repudiates her with an angry shrug and retires haughtily]. We should be so grateful to you, sir, if you found us a cab. [The note taker produces a whistle]. Oh, thank you. [She joins her daughter ].

  The note taker blows a piercing blast.

  THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER There! I knowed he was a plain-clothes copper.

  THE BYSTANDER That aint a police whistle: thats a sporting whistle.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [still preoccupied with her wounded feelings] Hes no right to take away my character. My character is the same to me as any lady’s.

  THE NOTE TAKER I dont know whether youve noticed it; but the rain stopped about two minutes ago.

  THE BYSTANDER So it has. Why didnt you say so before? and us losing our time listening to your silliness. [He walks off towards the Strand].

  THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER I can tell where you come from. You come from Anwell.[188] Go back there.

  THE NOTE TAKER [helpfully] Hanwell.

  THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER [affecting great distinction of speech] Thenk you, teacher. Haw haw! So long [he touches his hat with mock respect and strolls off].

  THE FLOWER GIRL Frightening people like that! How would he like it himself.

  THE MOTHER It’s quite fine now, Clara. We can walk to a motor bus. Come. [She gathers her skirts above her ankles and hurries off] towards the Strand].

  THE DAUGHTER But the cab — [her mother is out of hearing]. Oh, how tiresome! [She follows angrily].

  All the rest have gone except the note taker, the gentleman, and the flower girl, who sits arranging her basket, and still pitying herself in murmurs.

  THE FLOWER GIRL Poor girl! Hard enough for her to live without being worrited and chivied. [189]

  THE GENTLEMAN [returning to his former place on the note taker’s left] How do you do it, if I may ask?

  THE NOTE TAKER Simply phonetics. The science of speech. Thats my profession: also my hobby. Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby! You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue. I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets.

  THE FLOWER GIRL Ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly coward!

  THE GENTLEMAN But is there a living in that?

  THE NOTE TAKER Oh yes. Quite a fat one. This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town[190] with £80 a year, and end in Park Lane with a hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but they give themselves away every time they open their mouths. Now I can teach them —

  THE FLOWER GIRL Let him mind his own business and leave a poor girl —

  THE NOTE TAKER [explosively] Woman: cease this detestable boohooing instantly; or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [with feeble defianc
e] Ive a right to be here if I like, same as you.

  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 Shakespear and Milton and The Bible; and dont sit there crooning like a bilious[191] 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-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. Thats 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.

  THE GENTLEMAN I am myself a student of Indian dialects; and —

  THE NOTE TAKER [eagerly] Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanscrit?

  THE GENTLEMAN I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you?

  THE NOTE TAKER Henry Higgins, author of Higgins’s Universal Alphabet.

  PICKERING [with enthusiasm] I came from India to meet you.

  HIGGINS I was going to India to meet you.

  PICKERING Where do you live?

  HIGGINS 27AWimpole Street. Come and see me to-morrow.

  PICKERING I’m at the Carlton. Come with me now and lets have a jaw over some supper.

  HIGGINS Right you are.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [to PICKERING, as he passes her] Buy a flower, kind gentleman. I’m short for my lodging.

  PICKERING I really havnt any change. I’m sorry [he goes away].

  HIGGINS [shocked at girl’s mendacity] Liar. You said you could change half-a-crown.

  THE FLOWER GIRL [rising in desperation] You ought to be stuffed with nails, you ought. [Flinging the basket at his feet] Take the whole blooming basket for sixpence.

  The church clock strikes the second quarter.

  HIGGINS [hearing in it the voice of God, rebuking him for his Pharisaic [192] want of charity to the poor girl] A reminder. [He raises his hat solemnly; then throws a handful of money into the basket and follows Pickering].

  THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up a half-crown] Ah-ow-ooh! [Picking up a couple offlorins] Aaah-ow-ooh! (Picking up several coins] Aaaaaah-ow-ooh! [Picking up a half-sovereign] Aaaaaaaa,aa.aah-ow-ooh!!!

  FREDDY [springing out of a taxicab] Got one at last. Hallo! [To the girl] Where are the two ladies that were here?

  THE FLOWER GIRL They walked to the bus when the rain stopped.

  FREDDY And left me with a cab on my hands. Damnation!

  THE FLOWER GIRL [with grandeur] Never you mind, young man. I’m going home in a taxi. [She sails off to the cab. The driver puts his hand behind him and holds the door firmly shut against her. Quite understanding his mistrust, she shews him her handful of money. Eightpence aint no object to me, Charlie. [He grins and opens the door]. Angel Court, Drury Lane, round the corner of Micklejohn’s oil shop. Lets see how fast you can make her hop it. [She gets in and pulls the door to with a slam as the taxicab starts].

  FREDDY Well, I’m dashed!

  ACT II

  Next day at 11 a.m. Higgins’s laboratory in Wimpole Street. It is a room on the first floor, looking on the street, and was meant for the drawing-room. The double doors are in the middle of the back wall; and persons entering find in the corner to their right two tall file cabinets at right angles to one another against the walls. In this corner stands a flat writing-table, on which are a phonograph, a laryngoscope, a row of tiny organ pipes with a bellows, a set of lamp chimneys for singing flames [193] with burners attached to a gas plug in the wall by an indiarubber tube, several tuning-forks of different sizes, a life-size image of half a human head, showing in section the vocal organs, and a box containing a supply of wax cylinders [194] for the phonograph.

  Further down the room, on the same side, is a fireplace, with a comfortable leather-covered easy-chair at the side of the hearth nearest the door, and a coal-scuttle. There is a clock on the mantelpiece. Between the fireplace and the phonograph table is a stand for newspapers.

  On the other side of the central door, to the left of the visitor, is a cabinet of shallow drawers. On it is a telephone and the telephone directory. The corner beyond, and most of the side wall, is occupied by a grand piano, with the keyboard at the end furthest from the door, and a bench for the player extending the full length of the keyboard. On the piano is a dessert dish heaped with fruit and sweets, mostly chocolates.

  The middle of the room is clear. Besides the easy-chair, the piano bench, and two chairs at the phonograph table, there is one stray chair. It stands near the fireplace. On the walls, engravings; mostly Piranesis {49}and mezzotint portraits. [195] No paintings.

  Pickering is seated at the table, putting down some cards and a tuning-fork which he has been using. Higgins is standing up near him, closing two or three file drawers which are hanging out. He appears in the morning light as a robust, vital, appetizing sort of man of forty or thereabouts, dressed in a professional-looking black frock-coat with a white linen collar and black silk tie. He is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily, even violently interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific subject, and careless about himself and other people, including their feelings. He is, in fact, but for his years and size, rather like a very impetuous baby “taking notice” eagerly and loudly, and requiring almost as much watching to keep him out of unintended mischief. His manner varies from genial bullying when he is in a good humor to stormy petulance when anything goes wrong; but he is so entirely frank and void of malice that he remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments.

  HIGGINS [as he shuts the last drawer] Well, I think thats the whole show.

  PICKERING It’s really amazing. I havnt taken half of it in, you know.

  HIGGINS Would you like to go over any of it again?

  PICKERING [rising and coming to thefireplace, where he plants himself with his back to the fire] No, thank you; not now. I’m quite done up for this morning.

  HIGGINS [following him, and standing beside him on his left] Tired of listening to sounds?

  PICKERING Yes. It’s a fearful strain. I rather fancied myself because I can pronounce twenty-four distinct vowel sounds; but your hundred and thirty beat me. I cant hear a bit of difference between most of them.

  HIGGINS [chuckling, and going over to the piano to eat sweets] Oh, that comes with practice. You hear no difference at first; but you keep on listening, and presently you find theyre all as different as A from B. [Mrs. Pearce looks in: she is Higgins’s house keeper] Whats the matter?

  MRS. PEARCE [hesitatins, evidently perplexed] A young woman wants to see you, sir.

  HIGGINS A young woman! What does she want?

  MRS. PEARCE Well, sir, she says youll be glad to see her when you know what shes come about. Shes quite a common girl, sir. Very common indeed. I should have sent her away, only I thought perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machines. I hope Ive not done wrong; but really you see such queer people sometimes — youll excuse me, I’m sure, sir —

  HIGGINS Oh, thats all right, Mrs. Pearce. Has she an interesting accent?

  MRS. PEARCE Oh, something dreadful, sir, really. I dont know how you can take an interest in it.

  HIGGINS [to PICKERING] Lets have her up. Shew her up, Mrs. Pearce [he rushes across to his working table and picks out a cylinder to use on the phonograph).

  MRS. PEARCE [only half resigned to it] Very we
ll, sir. It’s for you to say. [She goes downstairs].

  HIGGINS This is rather a bit of luck. I’ll shew you how I make records. We’ll set her talking; and I’ll take it down first in Bell’s visible Speech; then in broad Romic;[196] and then we’ll get her on the phonograph so that you can turn her on as often as you like with the written transcript before you.

  MRS. PEARCE [returning] This is the young woman, sir. The flower girl enters in state. She has a hat with three ostrich feathers, orange, sky-blue, and red. She has a nearly clean apron, and the shoddy coat has been tidied a little. The pathos of this deplorable figure, with its innocent vanity and consequential air, touches PICKERING, who has already straightened himself in the presence of MRS. PEARCE. But as to HIGGINS, the only distinction he makes between men and women is that when he is neither bullying nor exclaiming to the heavens against some featherweight cross, he coaxes women as a child coaxes its nurse when it wants to get anything out of her.

  HIGGINS [brusquely, recognizing her with unconcealed disappointment, and at once, babylike, making an intolerable grievance of it] Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. Shes no use: Ive got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo; and I’m not going to waste another cylinder on it. [To the girl] Be off with you: I dont want you.

  THE FLOWER GIRL Dont you be so saucy. You aint heard what I come for yet. [To MRS. PEARCE, who is waiting at the door for further instruction] Did you tell him I come in a taxi?

  MRS. PEARCE Nonsense, girl! what do you think a gentleman like Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?

  THE FLOWER GIRL Oh, we are proud! He aint above giving lessons, not him: I heard him say so. Well, I aint come here to ask for any compliment; and if my money’s not good enough I can go elsewhere.

  HIGGINS Good enough for what?

  THE FLOWER GIRL Good enough for ye-oo. Now you know, dont you? I’m come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no mistake.

  HIGGINS [stupent] [197] Well!!! [Recovering his breath with a gasp] What do you expect me to say to you?

  THE FLOWER GIRL Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think. Dont I tell you I’m bringing you business?