Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw (the mitten read aloud .txt) š
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Thatās not the sort of feeling I want from you. And donāt you be too sure of yourself or of me. I could have been a bad girl if Iād liked. Iāve seen more of some things than you, for all your learning. Girls like me can drag gentlemen down to make love to them easy enough. And they wish each other dead the next minute.
Higgins
Of course they do. Then what in thunder are we quarrelling about?
Liza
Much troubled. I want a little kindness. I know Iām a common ignorant girl, and you a book-learned gentleman; but Iām not dirt under your feet. What I done Correcting herself what I did was not for the dresses and the taxis: I did it because we were pleasant together and I comeā ācameā āto care for you; not to want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly like.
Higgins
Well, of course. Thatās just how I feel. And how Pickering feels. Eliza: youāre a fool.
Liza
Thatās not a proper answer to give me. She sinks on the chair at the writing-table in tears.
Higgins
Itās all youāll get until you stop being a common idiot. If youāre going to be a lady, youāll have to give up feeling neglected if the men you know donāt spend half their time snivelling over you and the other half giving you black eyes. If you canāt stand the coldness of my sort of life, and the strain of it, go back to the gutter. Work til you are more a brute than a human being; and then cuddle and squabble and drink til you fall asleep. Oh, itās a fine life, the life of the gutter. Itās real: itās warm: itās violent: you can feel it through the thickest skin: you can taste it and smell it without any training or any work. Not like Science and Literature and Classical Music and Philosophy and Art. You find me cold, unfeeling, selfish, donāt you? Very well: be off with you to the sort of people you like. Marry some sentimental hog or other with lots of money, and a thick pair of lips to kiss you with and a thick pair of boots to kick you with. If you canāt appreciate what youāve got, youād better get what you can appreciate.
Liza
Desperate. Oh, you are a cruel tyrant. I canāt talk to you: you turn everything against me: Iām always in the wrong. But you know very well all the time that youāre nothing but a bully. You know I canāt go back to the gutter, as you call it, and that I have no real friends in the world but you and the Colonel. You know well I couldnāt bear to live with a low common man after you two; and itās wicked and cruel of you to insult me by pretending I could. You think I must go back to Wimpole Street because I have nowhere else to go but fatherās. But donāt you be too sure that you have me under your feet to be trampled on and talked down. Iāll marry Freddy, I will, as soon as heās able to support me.
Higgins
Sitting down beside her. Rubbish! you shall marry an ambassador. You shall marry the Governor-General of India or the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or somebody who wants a deputy-queen. Iām not going to have my masterpiece thrown away on Freddy.
Liza
You think I like you to say that. But I havenāt forgot what you said a minute ago; and I wonāt be coaxed round as if I was a baby or a puppy. If I canāt have kindness, Iāll have independence.
Higgins
Independence? Thatās middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
Liza
Rising determinedly. Iāll let you see whether Iām dependent on you. If you can preach, I can teach. Iāll go and be a teacher.
Higgins
Whatāll you teach, in heavenās name?
Liza
What you taught me. Iāll teach phonetics.
Higgins
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Liza
Iāll offer myself as an assistant to Professor Nepean.
Higgins
Rising in a fury. What! That impostor! that humbug! that toadying ignoramus! Teach him my methods! my discoveries! You take one step in his direction and Iāll wring your neck. He lays hands on her. Do you hear?
Liza
Defiantly nonresistant. Wring away. What do I care? I knew youād strike me some day. He lets her go, stamping with rage at having forgotten himself, and recoils so hastily that he stumbles back into his seat on the ottoman. Aha! Now I know how to deal with you. What a fool I was not to think of it before! You canāt take away the knowledge you gave me. You said I had a finer ear than you. And I can be civil and kind to people, which is more than you can. Aha! Thatās done you, Henry Higgins, it has. Now I donāt care that Snapping her fingers for your bullying and your big talk. Iāll advertize it in the papers that your duchess is only a flower girl that you taught, and that sheāll teach anybody to be a duchess just the same in six months for a thousand guineas. Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet and being trampled on and called names, when all the time I had only to lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick myself.
Higgins
Wondering at her. You damned impudent slut, you! But itās better than snivelling; better than fetching slippers and finding spectacles, isnāt it? Rising. By George, Eliza, I said Iād make a woman of you; and I have. I like you like this.
Liza
Yes: you turn round and make up to me now that Iām not afraid of you, and can do without you.
Higgins
Of course I do, you little fool. Five minutes ago you
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