Pygmalion

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].