IV. Тексты для чтения

Oscar Wilde. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Jack: Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax.

Gwendolen: Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr.Wor­thing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.

Jack: I do mean something else.

Gwendolen: I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong.

Jack: And I would like to be allowed to take advantage of Lady Bracknell's temporary absence...

Gwendolen: I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her about.

Jack [nervously]: Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl I have ever met since... I met you.

Gwendolen: Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you. We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am told; and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute con­fidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.

Jack: You really love me, Gwendolen?

Gwendolen: Passionately!

Jack: Darling! You don't know how happy you've made me.

Gwendolen: My own Ernest!

Jack: But you don't really mean to say that you couldn't love me if my name wasn't Ernest?

Gwendolen: But your name is Ernest.

Jack: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn't love me then?

Gwendolen [glibly]: Ah! That is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them.

Jack: Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don't much care about the name of Ernest.... I don't think the name suits me at all.

Gwendolen: It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own. It produces vibrations.

Jack: Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charm­ing name.

Gwendolen: Jack?... No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations.... I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John. And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment's solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.

George Bernard Shaw. PYGMALION

HIGGINS [ brusquely, recognizing her (Eliza) with unconcealed disappointment, and at once, babylike, making an intolerable grievance of it ] Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use: I’ve got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo; and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. [ To the girl ] Be off with you: I don’t want you.

THE FLOWER GIRL Dont you be so saucy. You aint heard what I come for yet. [ To Mrs Pearce, who is waiting at the door for further instructions ] Did you tell him I come in a taxi?

MRS PEARCE Nonsense, girl! what do you think a gentleman like Mr Higgins cares what you came in?

THE FLOWER GIRL Oh, we are proud! He aint above giving lessons, not him: I heard him say so. Well, I aint come here to ask for any compliment; and if my money's not good enough I can go elsewhere.

HIGGINS Good enough for what?

THE FLOWER GIRL Good enough for ye-oo. Now you know, dont you? I'm come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no mistake.

HIGGINS Well!!! [ Recovering his breath with a gasp ] What do you expect me to say to you?

THE FLOWER GIRL Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think. Dont I tell you I'm bringing you business?

HIGGINS. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down, or shall we throw her out of the window?

THE FLOWER GIRL [ running away in terror to the piano, where she turns at bay ] Ah-ah-oh-ow-ow-ow-oo! [ Wounded and whimpering ] I wont be called a baggage when Ive offered to pay like any lady.

Motionless, the two men stare at her from the other side of the room, amazed.

PICKERING [ gently ] What is it you want, my girl?

THE FLOWER GIRL I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they wont take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready to pay him- not asking any favour- and he treats me as if I was dirt.

MRS PEARCE How can you be such a foolish ignorant girl as to think you could afford to pay Mr Higgins?

THE FLOWER GIRL Why shouldnt I? I know what lessons cost as well as you do; and I'm ready to pay.

HIGGINS How much?

THE FLOWER GIRL [ coming back to him, triumphant ] Now youre talking! I thought youd come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night. [ Confidentially ] Youd had a drop in, hadnt you?

HIGGINS [ peremptorily ] Sit down.

THE FLOWER GIRL Oh, if youre going to make a compliment of it –

HIGGINS [ thundering at her ] Sit down.

MRS PEARCE [ severely ] Sit down, girl. Do as you’re told. [ She places the stray chair near the hearthrug between Higgins and Pickering, and stands behind it waiting for the girl to sit down. ]

THE FLOWER GIRL. Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo! [ She stands, half rebellious, half bewildered. ]

PICKERING [ very courteous ] Wont you sit down?

THE FLOWER GIRL [ coyly ] Dont mind if I do. [ She sits down. Pickering returns to the hearthrug. ]

HIGGINS What’s your name?

THE FLOWER GIRL Liza Doolittle.

HIGGINS. How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons?

LIZA Oh, I know whats right. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for eighteen pence an hour from a real French gentleman. Well, you wouldnt have the face to ask me the same for teaching me my own language as you would for French; so I wont give more than a shilling. Take it or leave it.

HIGGINS [ walking up and down the room, rattling his keys and his cash in his pockets ] You know, Pickering, if you consider a shilling, not as a simple shilling, but as a percentage of this girl's income, it works out as fully equivalent to sixty or seventy guineas from a millionaire.

PICKERING. How so?

HIGGINS Figure it out. A millionaire has about £ 150 a day. She earns about half-a-crown.

LIZA [ haughtily ] Who told you I only –

HIGGINS [ continuing ] She offers me two-fifths of her day's income for a lesson. Two-fifths of a millionaire's income for a day would be somewhere about £ 60. It's handsome. By George, it's enormous! It's the biggest offer I ever had.

LIZA [ rising, terrified ] Sixty pounds! What are you talking about? I never offered you sixty pounds. Where would I get –

HIGGINS Hold your tongue.

LIZA [ weeping ] But I aint got sixty pounds. Oh –

MRS PEARCE Don’t cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going to touch your money.

HIGGINS Somebody is going to touch you, with a broomstick, if you don’t stop snivelling. Sit down.

LIZA [ obeying slowly ] Ah-ah-ah-ow-oo-o! One would think you was my father.

HIGGINS If I decide to teach you, I'll be worse than two fathers to you. Here! [ he offers her his silk handkerchief ]

LIZA What’s this for?

HIGGINS To wipe your eyes. To wipe any part of your face that feels moist. Remember: that’s your handkerchief; and that’s your sleeve. Don’t mistake the one for the other if you wish to become a lady in a shop.

Liza, utterly bewildered, stares helplessly at him.

MRS PEARCE It's no use talking to her like that, Mr Higgins: she doesn’t understand you. Besides, you’re quite wrong: she doesn’t do it that way at all [ she takes the handkerchief ].

LIZA [ snatching it ] Here! You give me that handkerchief. He give it to me, not to you.

PICKERING [ laughing ] He did. I think it must be regarded as her property, Mrs Pearce.

MRS PEARCE [ resigning herself ] Serve you right, Mr Higgins.

PICKERING Higgins: I'm interested. What about the ambassador's garden party? I'll say you’re the greatest teacher alive if you make that good. I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment you can’t do it. And I'll pay for the lessons.

LIZA Oh, you are real good. Thank you, Captain.

T1

Eileen So anyway, right, I was, I was living in Edinburgh, erm, with this friend of mine and there were a few of us in the flat... and we were going out and we decided to call a taxi to go out. So erm, we phoned a cab and it took quite a long time to arrive, so we were kind of standing at the door, you know, half in, half out, waiting to get into the taxi and stuff and erm, this black cab arrived and parked outside and you know it was erm, the flat was, it was on a road which was a hill and the car was parked just er, the cab was parked in front of the house and the cab driver got out and came to the house just to check that it was the right house and stuff (Ring the door-bell? or...) and we were all standing there, but he, for some reason he decided to get out anyway, and while he was coming to speak to us, me and this friend of mine decided, 'Oh, there's our cab, let's just get in, get in the cab, ' so, erm, we went to the cab, got in and we sat in the back and you know these big black cabs that, you know, the back is separated from the front by that glass (By that glass screen...) panel, this glass slidey thing, and so we just sat there and were kind of watching everybody, you know, chatting at the door, thinking, 'What's taking them so long? Why aren't they coming to this cab? ' And erm, and then suddenly the cab started rolling backwards (No!) quite slowly at first and then it just got a little bit faster and a little bit faster and it was just such a shock that we didn't really know, we didn't really know what was happening. We looked at each other and thought, 'Erm... erm' and then we looked out the window and we saw everybody kind of looking, and then we looked at each other and we just didn't know what to do! And the cab was just like rolling backwards and backwards and backwards and er, because of the glass door we thought, 'God, we can't do anything, what can we do? ' so we just kind of stood there, and then suddenly the cab driver who was standing at the door, suddenly erm, realised that his, you know, his living, his livelihood, was rolling backwards down the hill (Getting faster and faster...) Yes, getting faster and faster. And erm, he kind of ran towards the car and you would expect him to kind of run round to the driver's seat, you know, driver's door, get in the cab and pull on the handbrake, but erm, but he didn't do that – he was obviously in such a panic that he ran round to the back of this huge heavy black cab and this tiny little man kind of stood there trying to stop this car with the force of his body, from running down the hill... (Oh, myGod! What happened?) And, well, he, of course he couldn't do it, you know and we were sitting in the back of the cab looking out the back window, by this time finding the whole thing really funny, which was stupid because, you know, we were hurtling towards our deaths. And erm, and this man was totally stricken and he didn't know what to do and he wasn't making any, he wasn't managing to stop the cab at all... the cab was just like going down and down and he was running along backwards with his hands up against his cab and erm, but then luckily erm, my friend had the presence of mind to slide back the glass door and reach over and pull on the handbrake, so I mean, in the end it was OK but I mean, it was ridiculous, 'cos it could have been a really, you know, a really dangerous situation. But actually just because of this man's reaction we were sitting, we were sitting in the back of the car just laughing...