6 George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion 萧伯纳：《皮格马利翁》

向旧世界挑战，嘲笑、讥讽、鄙弃旧世界却又始终站立在那个世界的边缘而未能跨入新的世界。这就是现实主义戏剧大师萧伯纳（George Bernard Shaw, 1856—1950）。萧伯纳的戏剧创作活动从1892年问世的《鳏夫的房产》（Widower's House）开始，持续了近60年，总共写出51个剧本。有名的剧作包括：《华伦夫人的职业》（Mrs Warren's Profession, 1893）、《魔鬼的弟子》（The Devil's Disciple, 1897）、《人与超人》（Man and Superman, 1902）、《芭芭拉少校》（Major Barbara, 1905）、《皮格马利翁》（Pygmalion, 1912）、《伤心之家》（Heartbreak House, 1919）、《圣女贞德》（Joan ofArc, 1923）、《苹果车》（The Apple Cart, 1929）和《真相毕露》（Too True to Be Good, 1931）。

《皮格马利翁》（Pygmalion）是萧伯纳舞台艺术的绝佳体现：尖锐辛辣的社会讽刺始终与生动有趣的情节故事紧密相连。语言学家希金斯（Higgins）先生在六个月里将一个满口土话俚语的伦敦东区卖花女伊莱扎（Eliza）训练成了一个口音纯正、谈吐文雅、宛若公爵夫人的“上流女士”。在英国，资产阶级一直以进入的学校、交往的人物与本人的衣饰、谈吐和口音为上流社会体面的标志。萧伯纳则通过本剧告诉人们：这些体面的标志并非生而有之，而是可以用金钱买来的。本剧经艾伦·杰伊·勒纳（Alan Jay Lerner）改编、佛雷德里克·洛伊（Frederick Loewe）作曲而被制作成音乐电影《窈窕淑女》（My Fair Lady）。选文来自剧本的第三场的中间一幕，主要是女主角伊莱扎与上流社会数个人物之间的会话，阅读时请特别注意伊莱扎所使用的语言特色。

Excerpt Act Three

It is Mrs Higgins's 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 old house ofthe same pretension.The windows are open, giving access to a balcony with flowers in pots.Ifyou 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 son's room in Wimple Street, is not crowded with furniture and little tables and nicknacks.In the middle ofthe room there is a bit ottoman; and this, with the carpet, the Morris wall-papers, and the Morris chintz window curtains and brocade covers ofthe ottoman and its cushions, supply all the ornament, and are much too 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 Whisler side ofthem）are on the walls.The only landscape is a Cecil Lawson on the scale ofa Rubens.There is a portrait of Mrs Higgins as she was when she defied fashion in her youth in one ofthe beautiful Rossettian costumes which, when caricatured by people who will not understand, led to the absurdities ofpopular estheticism in the eighteen-seventies.

In the corner diagonally opposite the door Mrs Higgins, now over sixty and long past taking the trouble to dress out offashion, sits writing at an elegantly simple writing-table with a bell button within reach ofher hand. There is a Chippendale chair further back in the room between her and the window nearest her side. At the other side ofthe room, further forward, is an Elizabethan chair roughly carved in the taste ofInigo 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; and Higgins enters with his hat on.

……

The Parlour-Maid（opening the door）: Miss Doolittle.（She withdraws）

Higgins（rising hastily and running to Mrs Higgins）: Here she is, mother,（He stands on tiptoe and makes signs over his mother's head to Eliza to indicate to her which lady is her hostess）

（Eliza, who is exquisitely dressed, produces an impression ofsuch remarkable distinction and beauty as she enters that they all rise, quite fluttered. Guided by Higgins' signal, she comes to Mrs Higgins with studied grace.）

Liza（speaking with pedantic correctness ofpronunciation and great beauty oftone）: How do you do, Mrs Higgins?（She gasps slightly in making sure ofthe H in Higgins, but is quite successful.）Mr.Higgins told me I might come.

Mrs Higgins（cordially）: Quite right; I'm very glad indeed to see you.

Pickering: How do you do, Miss Doolittle？

Liza（shaking hands with him）: Colonel Pickering, is it not？

Mrs Eynsford Hill: I feel sure we have met before, Miss Doolittle.I remember your eyes.

Liza: How do you do?（She sits down on the ottoman gracefully in the place just left vacant by Higgins）

Mrs Eynsford Hill（introducing）: My daughter Clara.

Liza: How do you do？

Clara（impulsively）: How do you do?（She sits down on the ottoman beside Eliza, devouring her with her eyes）

Freddy（coming to their side to the ottoman）: I've certainly had the pleasure.

Mrs Eynsford Hill（introducing）: My son Freddy.

Liza: How do you do？

（Freddy bows and sits down in the Elizabethan chair, infatuated. ）

Higgins（suddenly）: By George, yes; it all comes back to me!（They stare at him）Covent Garden!（Lamentably）What a damned thing！

Mrs Higgins: Henry, please!（He is about to sit on the edge ofthe table）Don't sit on my writing-table: you will break it.

Higgins（sulkily）: Sorry.

（He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fire-irons on his way;extricating himself from with muttered imprecations; and finishing his disastrous journey impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it.Mrs Higgins looks at him, but controls herselfand says nothing.）

（A long and painful pause ensues.）

Mrs Higgins（at last, conversationally）: Will it rain, do you think？

Liza: The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction.There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.

Freddy: Ha! Ha! How awfully funny！

Liza: What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.

Freddy: Killing！

Mrs Eynsford Hill: I'm sure I hope it won't turn cold.There's so much influenza about. It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.

Liza（darkly）: My aunt died of influenza; so they said.

Mrs Eynsford Hill:（clicks her tongue sympathetically）! ! ！

Liza（in the same tragic tone）: But it's my belief they done the old woman in.

Mrs Higgins（puzzled）: Done her in？

Liza: Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before.I saw her with my own eyes.Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat till she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.

Mrs Eynsford Hill（startled）: Dear me！

Liza（piling up the indictment）: What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me?Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

Mrs Eynsford Hill: What does doing her in mean？

Higgins（hastily）: Oh, that's the new small talk.To do a person in means to kill them.

Mrs Eynsford Hill（To Eliza, horrified）: You surely don't believe that your aunt was killed.

Liza: Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.

Mrs Eynsford Hill: But it can't have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that.It might have killed her.

Liza: Not her.Gin was mother's milk to her.Besides, he'd poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.

Mrs Eynsford Hill: Do you mean that he drank？

Liza: Drank! My word! Something chronic.

Mrs Eynsford Hill: How dreadful for you！

Liza: Not a bit.It never did him no harm what I could see.But then he did not keep it up regular.（Cheerfully）On the burst, as you might say, time to time.And always more agreeable when he had a drop in.When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he'd drunk himself cheerful and loving-like.There's lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with.（Now quite at her ease）You see, it's like this.If a man has a bit of a conscience, it always takes him when he's sober; and then it makes him low-spirited.A drop of booze just takes that off and makes him happy.（To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter）Here! What are you sniggering at？

Freddy: The new small talk.You do it so awfully well.

Liza: If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at?（To Higgins）Have I said anything I oughtn't？

Mrs Higgins（interposing）: Not at all, Miss Doolittle.

Liza: Well, that's a mercy, anyhow.（Expansively）What I always say is—

Higgins（rising and looking at his watch）: Ahem！

Liza（Looking round at him, taking the hint, and rising）: Well, I must go.（They all rise.Freddy goes to the door）.So pleased to have met you.Goodbye.（She shakes hands with Mrs Higgins）

Mrs Higgins: Goodbye.

Liza: Goodbye, Colonel Pickering.

Pickering: Goodbye, Miss Doolittle.（They shake hands）

Liza（nodding to the others）: Goodbye, all.

Freddy（opening the door for her）: Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolitttle? If so—

Liza（with perfectly elegant diction）: Walk! Not bloody likely.（Sensation）I am going in a taxi.（She goes out）.

（Pickering gasps and sits down.Freddy goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse ofEliza.）

……

（The group breaks up, leaving Higgins isolated.Pickering joins him.）

Pickering: Where is Eliza? We must keep an eye on her.

（Eliza joins them.）

Liza: I don't think I can bear much more.The people all stare so at me.An old lady has just told me that I speak exactly like Queen Vitoria.I am sorry if I have lost your bet.I have done my best; but nothing can make me the same as these people.

Pickering: You have not lost it, my dear.You have won it ten times over.

Higgins: Let us get out of this.I have had enough of chattering to these fools.

Pickering: Eliza is tired; and I am hungry.Let us clear out and have supper somewhere.

Topics for discussion

1．Judging from the scene described, in what kind of place are you sure it takes place？

2．What can you know, from the direction and conversation, about Mr Higgins and Eliza？

3．There is a noticeable distinction between the language Liza used at the beginning and the middle/end of the scene.Can you explain why？