CAST OF CHARACTERS 8 страница

On the piteous spectacle of the pair spending their evenings in shorthand schools and polytechnic classes, learning bookkeeping and typewriting with incipient junior clerks, male and female, from the elementary schools, let me not dwell. There were even classes at the London School of Economics,* and a humble personal appeal to the director of that institution to recommend a course bearing on the flower business. He, being a humorist, explained to them the method of the celebrated Dickensian essay on Chinese Metaphysics by the gentleman who read an article on China and an article on Metaphysics and combined the information. He suggested that they should combine the London School with Kew Gardens. Eliza, to whom the procedure of the Dickensian gentleman seemed perfectly correct (as in fact it was) and not in the least funny (which was only her ignorance), took his advice with entire gravity. But the effort that cost her the deepest humiliation was a request to Higgins, whose pet artistic fancy, next to Milton's verse, was calligraphy, and who himself wrote a most beautiful Italian hand, that he would teach her to write. He declared that she was congenitally incapable of forming a single letter worthy of the least of Milton's words; but she persisted; and again he suddenly threw himself into the task of teaching her with a combination of stormy intensity, concentrated patience, and occasional bursts of interesting disquisition on the beauty and nobility, the august mission and destiny, of human handwriting. Eliza ended by acquiring an extremely uncommercial script which was apositive extension of her personal beauty, and spending three times as much on stationery as anyone else because certain qualities and shapes of paper became indispensable to her. She could not even address an envelope in the usual way because it made the margins all wrong.

Their commercial schooldays were a period of disgrace and despair for the young couple. They seemed to be learning nothing about flower shops. At last they gave it up as hopeless, and shook the dust of the shorthand schools, and the polytechnics, and the London School of Economics from their feet* for ever. Besides, the business was in some mysterious way beginning to take care of itself. They had somehow forgotten their objections to employing other people. They came to the conclusion that their own way was the best, and that they had really a remarkable talent for business. The Colonel, who had been compelled for some years to keep a sufficient sum on current account at his bankers to make up their deficits, found that the provision was unnecessary: the young people were prospering. It is true that there was no quite fair play between them and their competitors in trade. Their weekends in the country cost them nothing, and saved them the price of their Sunday dinners; for the motor car was the Colonel's; and he and Higgins paid the hotel bills. Mr F. Hill, florist and greengrocer (they soon discovered that there was money in asparagus; and asparagus led to other vegetables), had an air which stamped the business as classy; and in private life he was still Frederick Eynsford Hill, Esquire. Not that there was any swank about him: nobody but Eliza knew that he had been christened Frederick Challoner. Eliza herself swanked like anything.

That is all. That is how it turned out. It is astonishing how much Eliza still manages to meddle in housekeeping at Wimpole Street in spite of the shop and her own family. And it is notable that though she never nags her husband, and frankly loves the Colonel as if she were his favorite daughter, she has never got out of the habit of nagging Higgins that was established on the fatal night when she won his bet for him. She snaps his head off* on the faintest provocation, or on none. He no longer dares to tease her by assuming an abysmal inferiority of Freddy's mind to his own. He storms and bullies and derides: but she stands up to him so ruthlessly that the Colonel has to ask her from time to time to be kinder to Higgins; and it is the only request of his that brings a mulish expression into her face. Nothing but some emergency or calamity great enough to break down all likes and dislikes, and throw them both back on their common humanity — and may they be spared any such trial! — will ever alter this. She knows that Higgins does not need her, just as her father did not need her. The very scrupulousness with which he told her that day that he had become used to having her there, and dependent on her for all sorts of little services, and that he should miss her if she went away (it would never have occurred to Freddy or the Colonel to say anything of the sort) deepens her inner certainly that she is "no more to him than them slippers"; yet she has a sense, too, that his indifference is deeper than the infatuation of commoner souls. She is immensely interested in him. She has even secret mischievous moments in which she wishes she could get him alone, on a desert island, away from all ties and with nobody else in the world to consider, and just drag him off his pedestal and see him making love like any common man. We all have it comes to business, to the life that she really leads as distinguished from the life of dreams and fancies, she likes Freddy and she likes the Colonel; and she does not like Higgins and Mr. Doolittle. Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.

1913

NOTES

Pygmalion [pig'mæliәn]: In ancient Greek myth, a sculptor Pygmalion made a statue of a girl, and it was so beautiful that he fell in love with it. He prayed to Aphrodite [ˏæfrәˊdaiti], the goddess of love, and the goddess turned the statue, who he had named Galatea [ˏgælә'tiә], into a real live girl. Pygmalion is often accepted as a symbol of the power to breathe life and soul into inanimate things.

Act One

cab wstles: small whistles used to summon cabs (‘taxis’).

portico [ˊpɔ:tikәu]: plural -coes or -cos. The walk of a building covered by a roof supported on columns at regular intervals, usually attached as a porch to the building.

St Paul's Church: ('St' pronounced [snt] or [sn] is the abbreviation for ‘Saint’). This church, erected by Inigo Jones [ˊinigәu ˊdƷәunz] in 1631-1638, was the first Protestant church of any size built in London. Inigo Jones (1572—1651) was an English architect of Spanish descent.

not Wren's Cathedral: the reference is to St Paul's Cathedral, which was begun in 1675, opened in 1697, and completed in 1710. It resembles St Peter's Cathedral in Rome, though it is smaller. The present Cathedral, which stands on the site of previous churches of the same name and is one of the most prominent buildings in London, was built by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723).

Covent Garden Market [ˊkɔvənt ga:dn ˊma:kit]: Covent Garden is an area of London once famous for its vegetable, fruit, and flower market, now replaced by expensive but popular shops, eating places, etc. It originally was a "convent garden" attached to Westminster Abbey. The area also includes St.Paul's Church and Covent Garden Opera House.

chilled to the bone: = quite frozen. Compare also with the expression I'm wet to the skin = I'm wet through. (Cf: “я промок до костей\до нитки”).

he's been gone: = he has been away. Be is often used with gone, when we want to say that somebody or something has disappeared, is finished or is 'no longer there'.

he wont get no cab: the use of double or multiple negatives instead of the correct single negative is very common in cockney speech, the dialect used by some Londoners, mostly from East End, e.g. I ain't never seen no such blokes nowhere is good cockney for I've never seen such people anywhere. In standard English a double negative is the equivalent of an affirmative.

missus [ˊmisiz]: a vulgar and old fashioned form of address. Mrs, Miss, Mr are never used in standard English without a surname. Madam is the polite although rather an old-fashioned way to address a married woman if her surname is not used. In the plural ladies is used. Note also that as a form of address lady is not used in the singular.

cant: note the spelling without the apostrophe. It's a characteristic feature of Shaw's style. Throughout the text you'll notice the contracted grammatical forms don't, won't, I've, you'd, etc. spelt dont,wont,Ive,youd.

gumption [ˊgʌmpʃn]: a colloquial word meaning the ability to think and act in a practical way or the ability to take action needing courage. Note the use of the perfect infinitive after 'could' and 'would' to indicate anterior time.

for love or money: ни за какие деньги

Charing Cross [ˊtʃæriŋ ˊkrɔs]: one of the main railway stations of London, to the south of Trafalgar Square. At this place before 1647, stood Eleanor's Cross, a Gothic monument erected in 1291 by Edward I. A modern copy of the Cross stands in the courtyard of Charing Cross Railway Station.

Ludgate Circus [ˊlʌdgit ˊsɜ:kəs]: in collocations like Ludgate Circus, and Piccadilly Circus, the word circus stands for a circular open space in a city or town, with streets converging on it. If the open space is rectangular in shape, it is called a square. Both are translated into Russian as “площадь”.

Trafalgar Square [trəˊfælgə ˊskweə]: one of the central squares in London, where Nelson Column stands. The column was built to commemorate Nelson's death and victory at the battle of Trafalgar (Oct. 21st. 1805), when the English fleet defeated the combined fleets of France and Spain.

Hammersmith [ˊhæməsmiƟ]: a borough about three or four miles west of Covent Garden.

next to nothing: almost nothing.

Strandwards: towards the Strand. The word 'strand', now used only rhetorically or in poetry, means the margin of the sea, a lake or a river. The Strand, so named because once it was a riverside road connecting the City with the city of Westminster, is a street between the West End and the City, one of the principal thoroughfares of London.

nah then: in the cockney pronunciation the diphthong [au] is usually replaced by [æu] or [a:]. In standard English: Now then, Freddy, look where you're going, dear.

theres menners...: standard English: There's manners for you. Two bunches of violets trodden into the mud. In cockney the vowel [æ] is often changed to [e] while [ʌ] becomes [æ]. The [u:] vowel is strongly labialised and retracted.

plinth: the lower square part of the base of a column. Also the projecting part of a wall.

sailor hat: a hat made of straw with a straight narrow brim and flat top. The name is also used for a child's hat with a turned-up brim.

shoddy: literally, inferior quality fibre made from old cloth; anything of worse quality than it claims or seems to have. As an adjective, 'shoddy' means ‘trashy’, ‘cheap’, also ‘not performed conscientiously’, e.g. 'shoddy work'.

the worse for wear: much worn, spoilt.

pray: an old-fashioned way of saying ‘please’.

ow, eez...: in standard English: Oh, he's your son,is he? Well, if you'd done your duty by him as a mother should, he'd know better than spoil a poor girl's flowers, then run away without paying. Will you pay me for them? A typical feature of cockney pronunciation is the dropping of initial [h] sounds where they should be pronounced, and the insertion of the [h] in front of words beginning with a vowel sound, e.g. [ˊæu ˊhɔ:fəl] instead of [ˊhauˊɔ:fə1]; — 'wal' — the [e] vowel is pronounced very open before a dark [l]; — 'bawmz', 'spawl' — in cockney the diphthongs [ai] and [ɔi] are often pronounced as [ɔ:]; — 'flahrzn' — flowers, (triphthong [auə] is nasalised and retracted); — 'awy', 'pyin' — in cockney the [ei] of Received Pronunciation is replaced by [ai], while the final [ŋ] is pronounced as [n].

The idea!: an expression showing surprise and scorn.

tanner: slang for ‘sixpence’.

kind lady: an old-fashioned expression sometimes used by poor people in addressing their ‘superiors’.

Freddy or Charlie: in informal uneducated speech some Christian names are sometimes used in addressing a stranger, though it may not be his real name.

you was: in uneducated speech was can be used in the second person singular and plural.

plight: condition, state, now usually qualified as bad. It is frequently used with such adjectives as ‘sorry’, ‘evil’, ‘hopeless’.

phew [ˊfju:]: an interjection expressing disgust, weariness, impatience or the like.

oh dear!: interjection expressing surprise, distress, or sympathy.

buy off (somebody): non-standard for ‘buy from’. In standard English 'to buy off' means to get rid of a claim, claimant, or blackmailer by making a payment of money.

sovereign [ˊsɔvrin]: an English gold coin worth £1, no longer in use. The word means literally ‘supreme ruler’, ‘king’ and the coin was so called from the effigy of the monarch on the obverse.

garn: an old-fashioned cockney word not widely heard since the late 1950s, garn is a form of ‘go on!’ or ‘get on!’, and was used as an exclamation of dismissal, defiance or irritation.

half-a-crown: before 1971 an English silver-coloured coin worth two shillings and sixpence.

tuppence: a phonetic spelling of ‘twopence’, pronounced [ˊtʌpəns].

three hapence: phonetic spelling of ‘three-halfpence’ [ˊheipəns].

bloke: informal for ‘person’.

blessed [ˊblesid]: used in informal style to give force to expressions of annoyance.

aint: non-standard for ‘am not’, ‘is not’, ‘are not’ ‘have not’. I ain't done nothing wrong = I haven't done anything wrong. Note the double negative.

kerb (or ‘curb’): the stone edging to a pavement. In England street hawkers are required to keep off the pavement when offering their goods. They usually stand off the kerb, to avoid prosecution for molesting the public.

so help me: short for ‘So help me God’, the end of invocation or oath, meaning ‘as I keep my word’, ‘as I speak the truth’.

hubbub [ˊhʌbʌb]: a loud noise of many voices shouting at once; an uproar, tumult.

deprecate: to express a wish against or disapproval of.

holler [ˊhɔlə]: informal for ‘to shout’. Often used in American English.

steady on: (also ‘steady’) an informal command meaning 'be careful, watch what you are doing'.

easy: a command meaning 'remain calm'.

shut your head: a command, rather rude, meaning 'stop talking!'.

what-she do?: = what has she done? In cockney the auxiliary verbs 'have', 'has' are frequently omitted, e.g. He done it. Another feature of this kind of speech is the use of the suffix 's' in all persons, singular and plural, of the present tense, which incidentally is also used instead of the past, e.g. I meets 'im in the street yesterday and I tells him all the news.

tec: colloquial abbreviation for ‘detective’.

him: used as subject in cockney speech. Note however that the analogous use of 'me' is recognised in standard English. Thus What! him? isnon-standard, but What! me? is correct.

took money off: = non-standard for ‘took money from’.

charge: to accuse.

dunno: = don't know; used in a rapid colloquial speech.

take away my character: character may mean “reputation”, also there is an old meaning of the word "a written statement of person's abilities, a reference".

there: an interjection expressing confirmation, triumph, dismay etc., as There! What did I tell you? Also, as in the present instance, used to soothe a child.

it's aw rawt..: in standard English: It's all right: He's a gentleman: look at his boots. Even in standard English ‘all right’ may be pronounced [ˊɔ:ˊrait] in rapid informal speech. The retraction of vowels is a common feature of cockney pronunciation. This applies to [æ], [ai], [au], [a:], [u:]. The vowel [u:] in ‘bә-oots’ is over-rounded and retracted. It might be mentioned here that the size of policemen's feet was a standing joke with people in Britain. It was said that one can always tell a policeman by his boots, even if he was in plain clothes. The bystander says that the note taker can't be a policeman, because his feet are too small.

a copper's nark: copper is informal for 'policeman'. Nark is slang for a ‘police informer’ or 'spy'. It comes from the Romany (gypsy) word ‘nak’ which means ‘nose’.

take (make, swear) an oath: the word ‘oath’ has two meanings 1) клятва, присяга 2) проклятие, ругательство. In the first sense ‘oath’ is often used with the attributive ‘Bible’: I take my Bible oath. This comes from the requirement to take the oath in a court of justice on the Bible when giving evidence.

shew: variant of ‘show’. The spelling ‘shew’, used in the 18th century and common in the first half of the 19th century, is now obsolete, except in legal documents. For some reason Shaw preferred this archaic spelling. The pronunciation is the same as that of the modern variant.

youve wrote: another feature of uneducated English is the use of the past tense instead of the past participle in the perfect tenses.

cheer ap = Cheer up, Captain; and buy your flower from a poor girl.

lay a charge: to make a formal accusation with a view to prosecution. Note also the use of ‘agen’ instead of ‘against’. Both ‘again’ and ‘against’ may be pronounced with either [ei] or [e] in the second syllable.

espionage: there are several pronunciations of this word: [ˊespiəna:Ʒ], [ˊespiəna:dƷ], [ˊespiənidƷ].

course they could: this paragraph contains a number of instances of the omission of certain ‘form words’, common in rapid colloquial speech. The omitted words are given in brackets: (of) course they could... (the) girl never said a word to him... (a) nice thing etc.

blooming [blu:miŋ]: a slang word, substituted for the rude ‘bloody’, which is used for giving force to an expression.

busy-body [ˊbiziˏbɔdi]: a person who takes too much interest in other people's affairs.

your people: people may be used in the sense of one's parents or relatives.

down at Selsey [ˊselsi]: the adverbs 'up'and 'down'are, used to indicate either 1) direction north or south, e.g. as far up as Aberdeen (which is in Scotland, while the speaker is located, say, in England), and 2) direction from a main centre or capital city. Thus people are said to go down from London to the country, or to go up to London from the provinces. One thus also speaks of an up -train, an up- line, an up -platform, i.e. directed towards London, and vice-versa, a down- train, down- line, a down -platform, i.e. directed from London.

never you mind: note the emphatic use of the personal pronoun you' in ‘never mind’. “You” is sometimes used commands, mostly in negative forms, for giving them more force and expression.

up so far east: the flower girl, according to the note-taker, comes from Lisson Grove, a small street in north-west London. Since the scene is laid much closer to the heart of the capital, it is natural to speak of the girl being so far up east, since St Paul's Church is, roughly speaking, east of Lisson Grove.

grove: literally a small wood or group of trees. Sometimes used in the names of streets, as Lisson Grove.

four-and-six: colloquial for ‘four shillings and sixpence’, abbreviated 4s. 6d. (‘s’ for the Latin ‘solidus, solidi’, ‘d’ for ‘denarius, denarii’).

boo-hoo-oo: the sound of noisy weeping.

come: an imperative used as an expression of slight disapproval, meaning ‘now then’, ‘think again’, ‘don't be hasty’, ‘calm yourself’.

Park Lane [ˊpa:k ˊlein]: a street in central London between Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner. It is famous for its hotels and houses for the rich.

go into: to investigate, to make a study of e.g. Let's go into that tomorrow.

brooding [ˊbru:diŋ]: to brood is ‘to think anxiously or sadly about something, to worry’.

attend [əˊtend]: here used in the meaning ‘turn the mind to’, ‘pay attention to’, e.g. I'll attend to you in 5 minutes.

Hoxton [ˊhɔkstən]: a district in London inhabited by workers and artisans. The principal industry was cabinet-making.

titterings: sound of laughter in a restrained manner, giggling.

bly me [ˊblai mi]: (more usually ‘blimey’): — a non-standard interjection of surprise etc., a corruption of ‘God blind me!’

aint no call to meddle with me: he has no reason (need) to meddle with me.

See here: non-standard variant of 'look here'.

what never etc.: note the non-standard use of the relative pronoun 'what' instead of the correct ‘who’ or ‘that’. This is very common in uneducated speech.

have no truck with: colloquial for ‘have no dealings with’, take for: принимать за (кого-либо)

catch you etc.: informal for I am sure I would not find you taking liberties with a gentleman.

take liberties with: to be unduly familiar with a person; to deal freely with rules or facts.

Cheltenham: a town in West England famous for its horse racing, its spa and its public schools, among which is a grammar school founded in 1574, open to people of high social status.

Harrow [ˊhærəu]: a public school for boys at Harrow-on the-Hill, North-West London. It is one of the most prestigious and expensive public schools in Britain. Among famous 'Old Harrovians', i.e. those who attended and finished Harrow, are the playwright Sheridan, the poet Byron, and the novelist Anthony Trollope.

Cambridge [ˊkeimbridƷ]: university town in the county of Cambridgeshire. The university, founded about 1209, is one of the oldest and most highly regarded British universities. The students who go there often come from public schools.

favor: note the spelling used by the author. This is unusual in

Great Britain, where the accepted spelling is ‘favour’. The or- ending is the spelling preferred in the United States.

told him proper: in non-standard speech the use of the adjective instead of the adverb to modify a verb is very common, toff: an old-fashioned slang word for a ‘rich and well-dressed person of high social class’.

on earth: used colloquially with interrogatives ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ etc. for emphasis, in the sense of ‘ever’, e.g. what on earth is Freddy doing?

pneumownia: an attempt to represent an affected pronunciation of ‘pneumonia’, i.e. with a kind of over-labialiased fau] in the second syllable.

Earlscourt: variant spelling of ‘Earl's Court’, the area of West London, which in Shaw's time used to be a middle-class district, and now it's an area where many young people live.

keep.... to yourself: Оставьте ваши наглые замечания при себе.

Epsom [ˊepsəm]: a town in South West England, where there is a famous racecourse.

uproariously: бурно, весело.

What a devil of a name: The collocation 'a devil of a — ' was used colloquially before a noun to show that the thing or idea represented by that noun was of an unwelcome or remarkable or amusing kind. Thus What a devil of a name! means What an amusing name!

blast [bla:st]: here, ‘the sound of a whistle’. Also used in the sense of ‘a strong gust of wind’, ‘a strong current of air’.

knowed: vulgar form of ‘knew’.

police whistle [pəˊli:s wisl]: a large pocket whistle used by the police in Great Britain. The tone is unmistakable and carries a great distance.

sporting whistle: a whistle used to call a dog, a taxi etc.; in other words, not a police whistle.

and us losing our time etc.: the use of the objective case of personal pronouns instead of the nominative in the subject is a common feature of cockney speech.

Anwell: the cockney pronunciation of Hanwell [ˊhænwəl]. The Middlesex Lunatic Asylum [ˊlu:nətik əˊsailəm] (психиатрическая больница) is situated at Hanwell in the suburbs of London.

Thenk you etc.: cockney for ‘thank you’.

Haw, haw [ˊhɔ:ˊhɔ]: stands for the cockney pronunciation! sound of a boisterous laugh usually spelled ‘ha, ha’ [ˊhaˊha].

motor bus: ‘motor omnibus’ which is the equivalent of the Russian “автобус”. In modern English is abbreviated to ‘bus’.

out of hearing: too far to be heard. (Cf. within hearing = near enough to be heard).

worrited: vulgar for ‘worried’.

chivied: past part, of ‘chivy’, also ‘chevy’, meaning: ‘to chase’, ‘to hunt’.

profession: The word has a narrower meaning in English than in Russian. Profession is a form of employment that is possible only for an educated person and after training, such as law, medicine or teaching and that is respected in society as honourable. (See also Act V.)

happy is the man etc.: an instance of exclamatory inversion, i.e. changing usual sentence order, used in poetry and literature.

make a living: make/earn a living зарабатывать на жизнь spot: detect, recognise.

brogue [brəug]: a dialect pronunciation, especially the Irish pronunciation.

place: to identify by assigning to, or connecting with, some place, time circumstance, etc.; as, I cannot place him.

Kentish Town [ˊkentiʃ 'taun]: a working-class district in northwest London.

drop: to give up, have done with a person or habit.

give oneself away: to expose or betray oneself.

boohooing: childish crying.

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