Pygmalion 文本.docx

1、Pygmalion 文本Act IIIIt is Mrs. Higginss at-home day. Nobody has yet arrived. Her drawing-room, in a flat on Chelsea embankment, has three windows looking on the river; and the ceiling is not so lofty as it would be in an older house of the same pretension. The windows are open, giving access to a bal

2、cony with flowers in pots. If you stand with your face to the windows, you have the fireplace on your left and the door in the right-hand wall close to the corner nearest the windows.Mrs. Higgins was brought up on Morris and Burne Jones; and her room, which is very unlike her sons room in Wimpole St

3、reet, is not crowded with furniture and little tables and nicknacks. In the middle of the room there is a big ottoman; and this, with the carpet, the Morris wall-papers, and the Morris chintz window curtains and brocade covers of the ottoman and its cushions, supply all the ornament, and are much to

4、o handsome to be hidden by odds and ends of useless things. A few good oil-paintings from the exhibitions in the Grosvenor Gallery thirty years ago (the Burne Jones, not the Whistler side of them) are on the walls. The only landscape is a Cecil Lawson on the scale of a Rubens. There is a portrait of

5、 Mrs. Higgins as she was when she defied fashion in her youth in one of the beautiful Rossettian costumes which, when caricatured by people who did not understand, led to the absurdities of popular estheticism in the eighteen-seventies.In the corner diagonally opposite the door Mrs. Higgins, now ove

6、r sixty and long past taking the trouble to dress out of the fashion, sits writing at an elegantly simple writing-table with a bell button within reach of her hand. There is a Chippendale chair further back in the room between her and the window nearest her side. At the other side of the room, furth

7、er forward, is an Elizabethan chair roughly carved in the taste of Inigo Jones. On the same side a piano in a decorated case. The corner between the fireplace and the window is occupied by a divan cushioned in Morris chintz.It is between four and five in the afternoon.The door is opened violently; a

8、nd Higgins enters with his hat on.MRS. HIGGINS dismayed Henry scolding him! What are you doing here to-day? It is my at home day: you promised not to come. As he bends to kiss her, she takes his hat off, and presents it to him.HIGGINS. Oh bother! He throws the hat down on the table.MRS. HIGGINS. Go

9、home at once.HIGGINS kissing her I know, mother. I came on purpose.MRS. HIGGINS. But you mustnt. Im serious, Henry. You offend all my friends: they stop coming whenever they meet you.HIGGINS. Nonsense! I know I have no small talk; but people dont mind. He sits on the settee.MRS. HIGGINS. Oh! dont th

10、ey? Small talk indeed! What about your large talk? Really, dear, you mustnt stay.HIGGINS. I must. Ive a job for you. A phonetic job.MRS. HIGGINS. No use, dear. Im sorry; but I cant get round your vowels; and though I like to get pretty postcards in your patent shorthand, I always have to read the co

11、pies in ordinary writing you so thoughtfully send me.HIGGINS. Well, this isnt a phonetic job.MRS. HIGGINS. You said it was.HIGGINS. Not your part of it. Ive picked up a girl.MRS. HIGGINS. Does that mean that some girl has picked you up?HIGGINS. Not at all. I dont mean a love affair.MRS. HIGGINS. Wha

12、t a pity!HIGGINS. Why?MRS. HIGGINS. Well, you never fall in love with anyone under forty-five. When will you discover that there are some rather nice-looking young women about?HIGGINS. Oh, I cant be bothered with young women. My idea of a loveable woman is something as like you as possible. I shall

13、never get into the way of seriously liking young women: some habits lie too deep to be changed. Rising abruptly and walking about, jingling his money and his keys in his trouser pockets Besides, theyre all idiots.MRS. HIGGINS. Do you know what you would do if you really loved me, Henry?HIGGINS. Oh b

14、other! What? Marry, I suppose?MRS. HIGGINS. No. Stop fidgeting and take your hands out of your pockets. With a gesture of despair, he obeys and sits down again. Thats a good boy. Now tell me about the girl.HIGGINS. Shes coming to see you.MRS. HIGGINS. I dont remember asking her.HIGGINS. You didnt. I

15、 asked her. If youd known her you wouldnt have asked her.MRS. HIGGINS. Indeed! Why?HIGGINS. Well, its like this. Shes a common flower girl. I picked her off the kerbstone.MRS. HIGGINS. And invited her to my at-home!HIGGINS rising and coming to her to coax her Oh, thatll be all right. Ive taught her

16、to speak properly; and she has strict orders as to her behavior. Shes to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybodys health-Fine day and How do you do, you know-and not to let herself go on things in general. That will be safe.MRS. HIGGINS. Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides! per

17、haps about our outsides! How could you be so silly, Henry?HIGGINS impatiently Well, she must talk about something. He controls himself and sits down again. Oh, shell be all right: dont you fuss. Pickering is in it with me. Ive a sort of bet on that Ill pass her off as a duchess in six months. I star

18、ted on her some months ago; and shes getting on like a house on fire. I shall win my bet. She has a quick ear; and shes been easier to teach than my middle-class pupils because shes had to learn a complete new language. She talks English almost as you talk French.MRS. HIGGINS. Thats satisfactory, at

19、 all events.HIGGINS. Well, it is and it isnt.MRS. HIGGINS. What does that mean?HIGGINS. You see, Ive got her pronunciation all right; but you have to consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she pronounces; and thats whereThey are interrupted by the parlor-maid, announcing guests.THE PARLOR

20、-MAID. Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill. She withdraws.HIGGINS. Oh Lord! He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and makes for the door; but before he reaches it his mother introduces him.Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are the mother and daughter who sheltered from the rain in Covent Garden. The mother i

21、s well bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means. The daughter has acquired a gay air of being very much at home in society: the bravado of genteel poverty.MRS. EYNSFORD HILL to Mrs. Higgins How do you do? They shake hands.MISS EYNSFORD HILL. How dyou do? She shakes.MRS. HIGGINS

22、introducing My son Henry.MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins.HIGGINS glumly, making no movement in her direction Delighted. He backs against the piano and bows brusquely.Miss EYNSFORD HILL going to him with confident familiarity How do you do?HIGG

23、INS staring at her Ive seen you before somewhere. I havent the ghost of a notion where; but Ive heard your voice. Drearily It doesnt matter. Youd better sit down.MRS. HIGGINS. Im sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustnt mind him.MISS EYNSFORD HILL gaily I dont. She sits in the

24、Elizabethan chair.MRS. EYNSFORD HILL a little bewildered Not at all. She sits on the ottoman between her daughter and Mrs. Higgins, who has turned her chair away from the writing-table.HIGGINS. Oh, have I been rude? I didnt mean to be. He goes to the central window, through which, with his back to t

25、he company, he contemplates the river and the flowers in Battersea Park on the opposite bank as if they were a frozen dessert.The parlor-maid returns, ushering in Pickering. THE PARLOR-MAID. Colonel Pickering She withdraws.PICKERING. How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?MRS. HIGGINS. So glad youve come. Do y

26、ou know Mrs. Eynsford Hill-Miss Eynsford Hill? Exchange of bows. The Colonel brings the Chippendale chair a little forward between Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Higgins, and sits down.PICKERING. Has Henry told you what weve come for?HIGGINS over his shoulder We were interrupted: damn it!MRS. HIGGINS. Oh Henry,

27、 Henry, really!MRS. EYNSFORD HILL half rising Are we in the way?MRS. HIGGINS rising and making her sit down again No, no. You couldnt have come more fortunately: we want you to meet a friend of ours.HIGGINS turning hopefully Yes, by George! We want two or three people. Youll do as well as anybody el

28、se.The parlor-maid returns, ushering Freddy.THE PARLOR-MAID. Mr. Eynsford Hill.HIGGINS almost audibly, past endurance God of Heaven! another of them.FREDDY shaking hands with Mrs. Higgins Ahdedo?MRS. HIGGINS. Very good of you to come. Introducing Colonel Pickering.FREDDY bowing Ahdedo?MRS. HIGGINS.

29、I dont think you know my son, Professor Higgins.FREDDY going to Higgins Ahdedo?HIGGINS looking at him much as if he were a pickpocket Ill take my oath Ive met you before somewhere. Where was it?FREDDY. I dont think so.HIGGINS resignedly It dont matter, anyhow. Sit down. He shakes Freddys hand, and a

30、lmost slings him on the ottoman with his face to the windows; then comes round to the other side of it.HIGGINS. Well, here we are, anyhow! He sits down on the ottoman next Mrs. Eynsford Hill, on her left. And now, what the devil are we going to talk about until Eliza comes?MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: you a

31、re the life and soul of the Royal Societys soirees; but really youre rather trying on more commonplace occasions.HIGGINS. Am I? Very sorry. Beaming suddenly I suppose I am, you know. Uproariously Ha, ha!MISS EYNSFORD HILL who considers Higgins quite eligible matrimonially I sympathize. I havent any

32、small talk. If people would only be frank and say what they really think!HIGGINS relapsing into gloom Lord forbid!MRS. EYNSFORD HILL taking up her daughters cue But why?HIGGINS. What they think they ought to think is bad enough, Lord knows; but what they really think would break up the whole show. Do you suppose it would be really agreeable if I were to come out now with wh