CANDIDA

BERNARD SHAW

1898



ACT I

A fine October morning in the north east suburbs of London, a
vast district many miles away from the London of Mayfair and St.
James's, much less known there than the Paris of the Rue de
Rivoli and the Champs Elysees, and much less narrow, squalid,
fetid and airless in its slums; strong in comfortable, prosperous
middle class life; wide-streeted, myriad-populated; well-served
with ugly iron urinals, Radical clubs, tram lines, and a
perpetual stream of yellow cars; enjoying in its main
thoroughfares the luxury of grass-grown "front gardens,"
untrodden by the foot of man save as to the path from the gate to
the hall door; but blighted by an intolerable monotony of miles
and miles of graceless, characterless brick houses, black iron
railings, stony pavements, slaty roofs, and respectably ill
dressed or disreputably poorly dressed people, quite accustomed
to the place, and mostly plodding about somebody else's work,
which they would not do if they themselves could help it. The
little energy and eagerness that crop up show themselves in
cockney cupidity and business "push." Even the policemen and the
chapels are not infrequent enough to break the monotony.
The sun is shining cheerfully; there is no fog; and though the