Pygmalion
Page 63HIGGINS [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. I'm
not going to have my masterpiece thrown away on Freddy.
LIZA. You think I like you to say that. But I haven't forgot what you
said a minute ago; and I won't be coaxed round as if I was a baby or a
puppy. If I can't have kindness, I'll have independence.
HIGGINS. Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all
dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
LIZA [rising determinedly] I'll let you see whether I'm dependent on
HIGGINS. What'll you teach, in heaven's name?
LIZA. What you taught me. I'll teach phonetics.
HIGGINS. Ha! Ha! Ha!
LIZA. I'll 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 I'll wring your neck. [He lays hands on her].
Do you hear?
LIZA [defiantly non-resistant] Wring away. What do I care? I knew you'd
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 can't 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! That's done you,
Henry Higgins, it has. Now I don't care that [snapping her fingers] for
your bullying and your big talk. I'll advertize it in the papers that
your duchess is only a flower girl that you taught, and that she'll
teach anybody to be a duchess just the same in six months for a
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 it's
better than snivelling; better than fetching slippers and finding
spectacles, isn't it? [Rising] By George, Eliza, I said I'd 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 I'm not afraid of
you, and can do without you.