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Voltaire

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Voltaire
French philosopher and author
pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet
born Nov. 21, 1694, Paris, France
died May 30, 1778, Paris
Main
one of the greatest of all French writers. Although only a few of his
works are still read, he continues to be held in worldwide repute as a
courageous crusader against tyranny, bigotry, and cruelty. Through its
critical capacity, wit, and satire, Voltaire’s work vigorously
propagates an ideal of progress to which people of all nations have
remained responsive. His long life spanned the last years of classicism
and the eve of the revolutionary era, and during this age of transition
his works and activities influenced the direction taken by European
civilization.
Heritage and youth
Voltaire’s background was middle class. According to his birth
certificate he was born on November 21, 1694, but the hypothesis that
his birth was kept secret cannot be dismissed, for he stated on several
occasions that in fact it took place on February 20. He believed that he
was the son of an officer named Rochebrune, who was also a songwriter.
He had no love for either his putative father, François Arouet, a
onetime notary who later became receiver in the Cour des Comptes (audit
office), or his elder brother Armand. Almost nothing is known about his
mother of whom he hardly said anything. Having lost her when he was
seven, he seems to have become an early rebel against family authority.
He attached himself to his godfather, the Abbé de Châteauneuf, a
freethinker and epicurean who presented the boy to the famous courtesan
Ninon de Lenclos when she was in her 84th year. It is doubtless that he
owed his positive outlook and his sense of reality to his bourgeois
origins.
He attended the Jesuit college of Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he
learned to love literature, the theatre, and social life. While he
appreciated the classical taste the college instilled in him, the
religious instruction of the fathers served only to arouse his
skepticism and mockery. He witnessed the last sad years of Louis XIV and
was never to forget the distress and the military disasters of 1709 nor
the horrors of religious persecution. He retained, however, a degree of
admiration for the sovereign, and he remained convinced that the
enlightened kings are the indispensable agents of progress.
He decided against the study of law after he left college. Employed
as secretary at the French embassy in The Hague, he became infatuated
with the daughter of an adventurer. Fearing scandal, the French
ambassador sent him back to Paris. Despite his father’s wishes, he
wanted to devote himself wholly to literature, and he frequented the
Temple, then the centre of free-thinking society. After the death of
Louis XIV, under the morally relaxed Regency, Voltaire became the wit of
Parisian society, and his epigrams were widely quoted. But when he dared
to mock the dissolute regent, the Duc d’Orléans, he was banished from
Paris and then imprisoned in the Bastille for nearly a year (1717).
Behind his cheerful facade, he was fundamentally serious and set himself
to learn the accepted literary forms. In 1718, after the success of
Oedipe, the first of his tragedies, he was acclaimed as the successor of
the great classical dramatist Jean Racine and thenceforward adopted the
name of Voltaire. The origin of this pen name remains doubtful. It is
not certain that it is the anagram of Arouet le jeune (i.e., the
younger). Above all he desired to be the Virgil that France had never
known. He worked at an epic poem whose hero was Henry IV, the king
beloved by the French people for having put an end to the wars of
religion. This Henriade is spoiled by its pedantic imitation of Virgil’s
Aeneid, but his contemporaries saw only the generous ideal of tolerance
that inspired the poem. These literary triumphs earned him a pension
from the regent and the warm approval of the young queen, Marie. He thus
began his career of court poet.
United with other thinkers of his day—literary men and scientists—in
the belief in the efficacy of reason, Voltaire was a Philosophe, as the
18th century termed it. In the salons he professed an aggressive Deism,
which scandalized the devout. He became interested in England, the
country that tolerated freedom of thought; he visited the Tory leader
Viscount Bolingbroke, exiled in France—a politician, an orator, and a
philosopher whom Voltaire admired to the point of comparing him to
Cicero. On Bolingbroke’s advice he learned English in order to read the
philosophical works of John Locke. His intellectual development was
furthered by an accident: as the result of a quarrel with a member of
one of the leading French families, the Chevalier de Rohan, who had made
fun of his adopted name, he was beaten up, taken to the Bastille, and
then conducted to Calais on May 5, 1726, from where he set out for
London. His destiny was now exile and opposition.
Exile to England
During a stay that lasted more than two years he succeeded in learning
the English language; he wrote his notebooks in English and to the end
of his life he was able to speak and write it fluently. He met such
English men of letters as Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, and William
Congreve, the philosopher George Berkeley, and Samuel Clarke, the
theologian. He was presented at court, and he dedicated his Henriade to
Queen Caroline. Though at first he was patronized by Bolingbroke, who
had returned from exile, it appears that he quarrelled with the Tory
leader and turned to Sir Robert Walpole and the liberal Whigs. He
admired the liberalism of English institutions, though he was shocked by
the partisan violence. He envied English intrepidity in the discussion
of religious and philosophic questions and was particularly interested
in the Quakers. He was convinced that it was because of their personal
liberty that the English, notably Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke, were
in the forefront of scientific thought. He believed that this nation of
merchants and sailors owed its victories over Louis XIV to its economic
advantages. He concluded that even in literature France had something to
learn from England; his experience of Shakespearean theatre was
overwhelming, and, however much he was shocked by the “barbarism” of the
productions, he was struck by the energy of the characters and the
dramatic force of the plots.
Return to France
He returned to France at the end of 1728 or the beginning of 1729 and
decided to present England as a model to his compatriots. His social
position was consolidated. By judicious speculation he began to build up
the vast fortune that guaranteed his independence. He attempted to
revive tragedy by discreetly imitating Shakespeare. Brutus, begun in
London and accompanied by a Discours à milord Bolingbroke, was scarcely
a success in 1730; La Mort de César was played only in a college (1735);
in Eriphyle (1732) the apparition of a ghost, as in Hamlet, was booed by
the audience. Zaïre, however, was a resounding success. The play, in
which the sultan Orosmane, deceived by an ambiguous letter, stabs his
prisoner, the devoted Christian-born Zaïre, in a fit of jealousy,
captivated the public with its exotic subject.
At the same time, Voltaire had turned to a new literary genre:
history. In London he had made the acquaintance of Fabrice, a former
companion of the Swedish king Charles XII. The interest he felt for the
extraordinary character of this great soldier impelled him to write his
life, Histoire de Charles XII (1731), a carefully documented historical
narrative that reads like a novel. Philosophic ideas began to impose
themselves as he wrote: the King of Sweden’s exploits brought
desolation, whereas his rival Peter the Great brought Russia into being,
bequeathing a vast, civilized empire. Great men are not warmongers; they
further civilization—a conclusion that tallied with the example of
England. It was this line of thought that Voltaire brought to fruition,
after prolonged meditation, in a work of incisive brevity: the Lettres
philosophiques (1734). These fictitious letters are primarily a
demonstration of the benign effects of religious toleration. They
contrast the wise Empiricist psychology of Locke with the conjectural
lucubrations of René Descartes. A philosopher worthy of the name, such
as Newton, disdains empty, a priori speculations; he observes the facts
and reasons from them. After elucidating the English political system,
its commerce, its literature, and the Shakespeare almost unknown to
France, Voltaire concludes with an attack on the French mathematician
and religious philosopher Pascal: the purpose of life is not to reach
heaven through penitence but to assure happiness to all men by progress
in the sciences and the arts, a fulfillment for which their nature is
destined. This small, brilliant book is a landmark in the history of
thought: not only does it embody the philosophy of the 18th century, but
it also defines the essential direction of the modern mind.
Life with Mme du Châtelet
Scandal followed publication of this work that spoke out so frankly
against the religious and political establishment. When a warrant of
arrest was issued in May of 1734, Voltaire took refuge in the château of
Mme du Châtelet at Cirey in Champagne and thus began his liaison with
this young, remarkably intelligent woman. He lived with her in the
château he had renovated at his own expense. This period of retreat was
interrupted only by a journey to the Low Countries in December 1736—an
exile of a few weeks became advisable after the circulation of a short,
daringly epicurean poem called “Le Mondain.”
The life these two lived together was both luxurious and studious.
After Adélaïde du Guesclin (1734), a play about a national tragedy, he
brought Alzire to the stage in 1736 with great success. The action of
Alzire-in Lima, Peru, at the time of the Spanish conquest—brings out the
moral superiority of a humanitarian civilization over methods of brute
force. Despite the conventional portrayal of “noble savages,” the
tragedy kept its place in the repertory of the Comédie-Française for
almost a century. Mme du Châtelet was passionately drawn to the sciences
and metaphysics and influenced Voltaire’s work in that direction. A
“gallery” or laboratory of the physical sciences was installed at the
château, and they composed a memorandum on the nature of fire for a
meeting of the Académie des Sciences. While Mme du Châtelet was learning
English in order to translate Newton and The Fable of the Bees of
Bernard de Mandeville, Voltaire popularized, in his Éléments de la
philosophie de Newton (1738), those discoveries of English science that
were familiar only to a few advanced minds in France, such as the
astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis. At the same
time, he continued to pursue his historical studies. He began Le Siècle
de Louis XIV, sketched out a universal history of kings, wars,
civilization and manners that became the Essai sur les moeurs, and
plunged into biblical exegesis. Mme du Châtelet herself wrote an Examen,
highly critical of the two Testaments. It was at Cirey that Voltaire,
rounding out his scientific knowledge, acquired the encyclopaedic
culture that was one of the outstanding facets of his genius.
Because of a lawsuit, he followed Mme du Châtelet to Brussels in May
1739, and thereafter they were constantly on the move between Belgium,
Cirey, and Paris. Voltaire corresponded with the crown prince of
Prussia, who, rebelling against his father’s rigid system of military
training and education, had taken refuge in French culture. When the
prince acceded to the throne as Frederick II (the Great), Voltaire
visited his disciple first at Cleves (Kleve, Germany), then at Berlin.
When the War of the Austrian Succession broke out, Voltaire was sent to
Berlin (1742–43) on a secret mission to rally the King of Prussia—who
was proving himself a faithless ally—to the assistance of the French
Army. Such services—as well as his introduction of his friends the
brothers d’Argenson, who became ministers of war and foreign affairs,
respectively, to the protection of Mme de Pompadour, the mistress of
Louis XV—brought him into favour again at Versailles. After his poem
celebrating the victory of Fontenoy (1745), he was appointed
historiographer, gentleman of the king’s chamber, and academician. His
tragedy Mérope, about the mythical Greek queen, won public acclaim on
the first night (1743). The performance of Mahomet, in which Voltaire
presented the founder of Islām as an imposter, was forbidden, however,
after its successful production in 1742. He amassed a vast fortune
through the manipulations of Joseph Pâris Duverney, the financier in
charge of military supplies, who was favoured by Mme de Pompadour. In
this ambience of well-being, he began a liaison with his niece Mme
Denis, a charming widow, without breaking off his relationship with Mme
du Châtelet.
Yet he was not spared disappointments. Louis XV disliked him, and the
pious Catholic faction at court remained acutely hostile. He was guilty
of indiscretions. When Mme du Châtelet lost large sums at the Queen’s
gaming table, he said to her in English: “You are playing with
card-sharpers”; the phrase was understood, and he was forced to go into
hiding at the country mansion as the guest of the Duchesse du Maine in
1747. Ill and exhausted by his restless existence, he at last discovered
the literary form that ideally fitted his lively and disillusioned
temper: he wrote his first contes (stories). Micromégas (1752) measures
the littleness of man in the cosmic scale; Vision de Babouc (1748) and
Memnon (1749) dispute the philosophic optimism of Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz and Alexander Pope. Zadig (1747) is a kind of allegorical
autobiography: like Voltaire, the Babylonian sage Zadig suffers
persecution, is pursued by ill fortune, and ends by doubting the tender
care of Providence for human beings.
The great crisis of his life was drawing near. In 1748 at Commercy,
where he had joined the court of Stanisław (the former king of Poland),
he detected the love affair of Mme du Châtelet and the poet
Saint-Lambert, a slightly ludicrous passion that ended tragically. On
September 10, 1749, he witnessed the death in childbirth of this
uncommonly intelligent woman who for 15 years had been his guide and
counsellor. He returned in despair to the house in Paris where they had
lived together; he rose in the night and wandered in the darkness,
calling her name.
Later travels
The failure of some of his plays aggravated his sense of defeat. He had
attempted the comédie larmoyante, or “sentimental comedy,” that was then
fashionable: after L’Enfant prodigue (1736), a variation of the prodigal
son theme, he adapted William Wycherley’s satiric Restoration drama The
Plain-Dealer to his purpose, entitling it La Prude; he based Nanine
(1749) on a situation taken from Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela, but
all without success. The court spectacles he directed gave him a taste
for scenic effects, and he contrived a sumptuous decor, as well as the
apparition of a ghost, for Sémiramis (1748), but his public was not
captivated. His enemies compared him with Prosper Jolyot, sieur de
Crébillon, who was pre-eminent among French writers of tragedy at this
time. Though Voltaire used the same subjects as his rival (Oreste,
Sémiramis), the Parisian audience preferred the plays of Crébillon.
Exasperated and disappointed, he yielded to the pressing invitation of
Frederick II and set out for Berlin on June 28, 1750.
At the moment of his departure a new literary generation, reacting
against the ideas and tastes to which he remained faithful, was coming
to the fore in France. Disseminators of the philosophical ideas of the
time, such as Denis Diderot, Baron d’Holbach, and their friends, were
protagonists of a thoroughgoing Materialism and regarded Voltaire’s
Deism as too timid. Others had rediscovered with Jean-Jacques Rousseau
the poetry of Christianity. All in fact preferred the charm of sentiment
and passion to the enlightenment of reason. As the years passed,
Voltaire became increasingly more isolated in his glory.
At first he was enchanted by his sojourn in Berlin and Potsdam, but
soon difficulties arose. After a lawsuit with a moneylender, and
quarrels with prominent noblemen, he started a controversy with
Maupertuis (the president of Frederick’s academy of science, the Berlin
Academy) on scientific matters. In a pamphlet entitled “Diatribe du
docteur Akakia” (1752), he covered him with ridicule. The King, enraged,
consigned “Akakia” to the flames and gave its author a thorough dressing
down. Voltaire left Prussia on March 26, 1753, leaving Frederick
exasperated and determined to punish him. On the journey he was held
under house arrest at an inn at Frankfurt, by order of the Prussian
resident. Louis XV forbade him to approach Paris. Not knowing where to
turn, he stayed at Colmar for more than a year. At length he found
asylum at Geneva, where he purchased a house called Les Délices, at the
same time securing winter quarters at Lausanne.
He now completed his two major historical studies. Le Siècle de Louis
XIV (1751), a book on the century of Louis XIV, had been prepared after
an exhaustive 20-year interrogation of the survivors of le grand siècle.
Voltaire was particularly concerned to establish the truth by collecting
evidence from as many witnesses as possible, evidence that he submitted
to exacting criticism. His desire was to write the nation’s history by
means of an examination of its arts and sciences and of its social life,
but military events and politics still occupy a large place in his
survey. The Essai sur les moeurs, the study on customs and morals that
he had begun in 1740 (first complete edition, 1756), traced the course
of world history since the end of the Roman Empire and gave an important
place to the Eastern and Far Eastern countries. Voltaire’s object was to
show humanity slowly developing beyond barbarism. He supplemented these
two works with one on Russian history during the reign of Peter the
Great, Histoire de l’empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand (1759–63),
the Philosophie de l’histoire (1765), and the Précis du siècle de Louis
XV (1768).
At Geneva, he had at first been welcomed and honoured as the champion
of tolerance. But soon he made those around him feel uneasy. At Les
Délices his presentation of plays was stopped, in accordance with the
law of the republic of Geneva, which forbade both public and private
theatre performances. Then there was his mock-heroic poem “La Pucelle”
(1755), a most improper presentation of Joan of Arc (La Pucelle
d’Orléans), which the booksellers printed in spite of his protests.
Attracted by his volatile intelligence, Calvinist pastors as well as
women and young people thronged to his salon. Yet he soon provoked the
hostility of important Swiss intellectuals. The storm broke in November
1757, when volume seven of Diderot’s Encyclopédie was published.
Voltaire had inspired the article on Geneva that his fellow philosopher
Jean d’Alembert had written after a visit to Les Délices; not only was
the city of Calvin asked to build a theatre within its walls but also
certain of its pastors were praised for their doubts of Christ’s
divinity. The scandal sparked a quick response: the Encyclopédie was
forced to interrupt publication, and Rousseau attacked the rational
philosophy of the Philosophes in general in a polemical treatise on the
question of the morality of theatrical performances, Lettre à d’Alembert
sur les spectacles (1758). Rousseau’s view that drama might well be
abolished marked a final break between the two writers.
Voltaire no longer felt safe in Geneva, and he longed to retire from
these quarrels. In 1758 he wrote what was to be his most famous work,
Candide. In this philosophical fantasy, the youth Candide, disciple of
Doctor Pangloss (himself a disciple of the philosophical optimism of
Leibniz), saw and suffered such misfortune that he was unable to believe
that this was “the best of all possible worlds.” Having retired with his
companions to the shores of the Propontis, he discovered that the secret
of happiness was “to cultivate one’s garden,” a practical philosophy
excluding excessive idealism and nebulous metaphysics. Voltaire’s own
garden became Ferney, a property he bought at the end of 1758, together
with Tourney in France, on the Swiss border. By crossing the frontier he
could thus safeguard himself against police incursion from either
country.
Achievements at Ferney
At Ferney, Voltaire entered on one of the most active periods of his
life. Both patriarch and lord of the manor, he developed a modern
estate, sharing in the movement of agricultural reform in which the
aristocracy was interested at the time. He could not be true to himself,
however, without stirring up village feuds and went before the
magistrates on a question of tithes, as well as about the beating of one
of his workmen. He renovated the church and had Deo erexit Voltaire
(“Voltaire erected this to God”) carved on the facade. At Easter
Communion, 1762, he delivered a sermon on stealing and drunkenness and
repeated this sacrilegious offense in the following year, flouting the
prohibition by the bishop of Annecy, in whose jurisdiction Ferney lay.
He meddled in Genevan politics, taking the side of the workers (or
natifs, those without civil rights), and installed a stocking factory
and watchworks on his estate in order to help them. He called for the
liberation of serfs in the Jura, but without success, though he did
succeed in suppressing the customs barrier on the road between Gex in
the Jura and Geneva, the natural outlet for the produce of Gex. Such
generous interventions in local politics earned him enormous popularity.
In 1777 he received a popular acclamation from the people of Ferney. In
1815 the Congress of Vienna halted the annexation of Ferney to
Switzerland in his honour.
His fame was now worldwide. “Innkeeper of Europe”—as he was called—he
welcomed such literary figures as James Boswell, Giovanni Casanova,
Edward Gibbon, the Prince de Ligne, and the fashionable philosophers of
Paris. He kept up an enormous correspondence—with the Philosophes, with
his actresses and actors, and with those high in court circles, such as
the Duc de Richelieu (grandnephew of the Cardinal de Richelieu), the Duc
de Choiseul, and Mme du Barry, Louis XV’s favourite. He renewed his
correspondence with Frederick II and exchanged letters with Catherine II
of Russia.
There was scarcely a subject of importance on which he did not speak.
In his political ideas, he was basically a liberal, though he also
admired the authority of those kings who imposed progressive measures on
their people. On the question of fossils, he entered into foolhardy
controversy with the famous French naturalist Comte de Buffon. On the
other hand, he declared himself a partisan of the Italian scientist Abbé
Lazzaro Spallanzani against the hypothesis of spontaneous generation,
according to which microscopic organisms are generated spontaneously in
organic substances. He busied himself with political economy and revived
his interest in metaphysics by absorbing the ideas of 17th-century
philosophers Benedict de Spinoza and Nicolas Malebranche.
His main interest at this time, however, was his opposition to
l’infâme, a word he used to designate the church, especially when it was
identified with intolerance. For mankind’s future he envisaged a simple
theism, reinforcing the civil power of the state. He believed this end
was being achieved when, about 1770, the courts of Paris, Vienna, and
Madrid came into conflict with the pope; but this was to misjudge the
solidarity of ecclesiastical institutions and the people’s loyalty to
the traditional faith. Voltaire’s beliefs prompted a prodigious number
of polemical writings. He multiplied his personal attacks, often
stooping to low cunning; in his sentimental comedy L’Écossaise (1760),
he mimicked the eminent critic Élie Fréron, who had attacked him in
reviews, by portraying his adversary as a rascally journalist who
intervenes in a quarrel between two Scottish families. He directed Le
Sentiment des Citoyens (1764) against Rousseau. In this anonymous
pamphlet, which supposedly expressed the opinion of the Genevese,
Voltaire, who was well informed, revealed to the public that Rousseau
had abandoned his children. As author he used all kinds of pseudonyms:
Rabbi Akib, Pastor Bourn, Lord Bolingbroke, M. Mamaki “interpreter of
Oriental languages to the king of England,” Clocpitre, Cubstorf, Jean
Plokof—a nonstop performance of puppets. As a part-time scholar he
constructed a personal Encyclopédie, the Dictionnaire philosophique
(1764), enlarged after 1770 by Questions sur l’Encyclopédie. Among the
mass of writings of this period are Le Blanc et le noir (“The White and
the Black”), a philosophical tale in which Oriental fantasy contrasts
with the realism of Jeannot et Colin; Princesse de Babylone, a panorama
of European philosophies in the fairyland of The Thousand and One
Nights; and Le Taureau blanc, a biblical tale.
Again and again Voltaire returned to his chosen themes: the
establishment of religious tolerance, the growth of material prosperity,
respect for the rights of man by the abolition of torture and useless
punishments. These principles were brought into play when he intervened
in some of the notorious public scandals of these years. For instance,
when the Protestant Jean Calas, a merchant of Toulouse accused of having
murdered his son in order to prevent his conversion to the Roman
Catholic Church, was broken on the wheel while protesting his innocence
(March 10, 1762), Voltaire, livid with anger, took up the case and by
his vigorous intervention obtained the vindication of the unfortunate
Calas and the indemnification of the family. But he was less successful
in a dramatic affair concerning the 19-year-old Chevalier de La Barre,
who was beheaded for having insulted a religious procession and damaging
a crucifix (July 1, 1766). Public opinion was distressed by such
barbarity, but it was Voltaire who protested actively, suggesting that
the Philosophes should leave French territory and settle in the town of
Cleves offered them by Frederick II. Although he failed to obtain even a
review of this scandalous trial, he was able to reverse other judicial
errors.
By such means he retained leadership of the philosophic movement. On
the other hand, as a writer, he wanted to halt a development he
deplored—that which led to Romanticism. He tried to save theatrical
tragedy by making concessions to a public that adored scenes of violence
and exoticism. For instance, in L’Orphelin de la Chine (1755), Lekain
(Henri-Louis Cain), who played the part of Genghis Khan, was clad in a
sensational Mongol costume. Lekain, whom Voltaire considered the
greatest tragedian of his time, also played the title role of Tancrède,
which was produced with a sumptuous decor (1760) and which proved to be
Voltaire’s last triumph. Subsequent tragedies, arid and ill-constructed
and overweighted with philosophic propaganda, were either booed off the
stage or not produced at all. He became alarmed at the increasing
influence of Shakespeare; when he gave a home to a grandniece of the
great 17th-century classical dramatist Pierre Corneille and on her
behalf published an annotated edition of the famous tragic author, he
inserted, after Cinna, a translation of Julius Caesar, convinced that
such a confrontation would demonstrate the superiority of the French
dramatist. He was infuriated by the Shakespearean translations of Pierre
Le Tourneur in 1776, which stimulated French appreciation of this more
robust, nonclassical dramatist, and dispatched an abusive Lettre à
l’Académie. He never ceased to acknowledge a degree of genius in
Shakespeare, yet spoke of him as “a drunken savage.” He returned to a
strict classicism in his last plays, but in vain, for the audacities of
his own previous tragedies, timid as they were, had paved the way for
Romantic drama.
It was the theatre that brought him back to Paris in 1778. Wishing to
direct the rehearsals of Irène, he made his triumphal return to the city
he had not seen for 28 years on February 10. More than 300 persons
called on him the day after his arrival. On March 30 he went to the
Académie amid acclamations, and, when Irène was played before a
delirious audience, he was crowned in his box. His health was profoundly
impaired by all this excitement. On May 18 he was stricken with uremia.
He suffered much pain on his deathbed, about which absurd legends were
quickly fabricated; on May 30 he died, peacefully it seems. His nephew,
the Abbé Mignot, had his body, clothed just as it was, swiftly
transported to the Abbey of Scellières, where he was given Christian
burial by the local clergy; the prohibition of such burial arrived after
the ceremony. His remains were transferred to the Panthéon during the
Revolution in July 1791.
Assessment
Voltaire’s name has always evoked vivid reactions. Toward the end of his
life he was attacked by the followers of Rousseau, and after 1800 he was
held responsible for the Revolution. But the excesses of clerical
reactionaries under the Restoration and the Second Empire rallied the
middle and working classes to his memory. At the end of the 19th
century, though conservative critics remained hostile, scientific
research into his life and works was given impetus by Gustave Lanson.
Voltaire himself did not hope that all his vast quantity of writings
would be remembered by posterity. His epic poems and lyrical verse are
virtually dead, as are his plays. But his contes are continually
republished, and his letters are regarded as one of the great monuments
of French literature. He bequeathed a lesson to humanity, which has lost
nothing of its value. He taught his readers to think clearly; his was a
mind at once precise and generous. “He is the necessary philosopher,”
wrote Lanson, “in a world of bureaucrats, engineers, and producers.”
René Henry Pomeau
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Voltaire by Jean-Antoine Houdon
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Candide
Voltaire
1694-1778
Voltaire's Condide was influenced by various atrocities of the
mid-eighteenth century, most notably an earthquake in Lisbon,
the outbreak of the horrific Seven Years' War in the German
states, and the unjust execution of the English Admiral John
Byng. This philosophical tale is often hailed as a paradigmatic
text of the Enlightenment, but it is also an ironic attack on
the optimistic beliefs of the Enlightenment. Voltaire's critique
is directed at Leibniz' principle of sufficient reason, which
maintains that nothing can be so without there being a reason
why it is so. The necessary consequence of this principle is the
belief that the actual world must be the best of all possible
worlds, since anything else would be inconsistent with the
creative power of God.
At the opening of the novel, its eponymous hero, the young
Candide, schooled in this optimistic philosophy by his tutor
Pangloss, is ejected from the magnificent castle in which he is
raised. The rest of the novel details the multiple hardships and
disasters which Candide and his various companions meet in their
travels. These include war, rape, theft, hanging, shipwreck,
earthquake, cannibalism, and slavery. As these experiences
gradually erode Candide's optimistic belief, the novel
mercilessly lampoons science, philosophy, religion, government,
and literature. A caustic and comic satire of the social ills of
its day, Candide's reflections on human injustice, disaster,
suffering, and hope remain as pertinent now as ever.
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CANDIDE
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Type of work: Novel
Author: Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 1694-1778)
Type of plot: Social satire
Time of plot: Eighteenth century
Locale: Europe and South America
First published: Candide: Ou, LOptimisme, 1759 (English
translation, 1759)
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This most popular of Voltaire's works is a masterful satire on the
follies and vices of men, particularly of the belief embodied by
Pangloss that "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds!'
The author, through the outrageous misadventures of his hero, disproves
this theory utterly, taking to task all of man's most prized
institutions: science, philosophy, religion, government, and romance.
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Principal Characters
Candide (kan-ded1), a gentle, honest, and pleasant young man, reputed to
be the illegitimate son of the sister of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh and a
decent man she was too proud to accept as a husband. Expelled from the
Baron's castle after exploring the mysteries and pleasures of love with
Cunegonde, the Baron's daughter, Candide travels all over the world. A
dutiful young man who has been taught that this is the best of all
possible worlds, Candide searches the globe for proof, meeting old
friends and acquaintances in unexpected places and unusual
circumstances. During his travels he has many misadventures and endures
many hardships and pains. Impressed into the Bulgarian army, he
discovers the horrors of war. He lives through the Lisbon Earthquake and
is ordered flogged by officers of the Inquisition. He finds and loses
his sweetheart Cunegonde. He discovers wealth and loses it. He kills men
when he does not mean to do so. All of these experiences slowly convince
Candide that this is really not the best of all possible worlds. After
years of wandering he retires to a little farm where he lives with a
small group of friends and his wife, Cunegonde, now old and far from
pretty.
Cunegonde (kii-na-gond'), the beautiful daughter of the Baron
Thunder-ten-tronckh. With Candide she explores love, only to have her
young lover dismissed violently from the castle. After his dismissal she
endures much pain and many adventures. She is captured by the
Bulgarians, raped, and wounded. She makes her way to Portugal, where she
becomes the mistress of two men, a Jew and an officer of the
Inquisition. She is reunited with Candide, only to be separated from him
by another series of unhappy adventures. At last she and Candide are
reunited. Married, they settle down on a small farm. By that time his
ardor for her has been cooled by the adventures she has undergone and
the effect they have had upon her. She becomes adept as a pastry cook,
happy in that humble occupation.
Pangloss (pan-glos'), Candide's tutor, a professor of
metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology—in other words, abstract nonsense.
Despite the terrible adventures that befall Candide and Pangloss' other
friends, he is unwilling to forego theorizing or to admit that this is
not the best of all possible worlds. He settles down with Candide on the
latter's farm after undergoing many misadventures, including being
hanged unsuccessfully by the Inquisition.
Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh (tondartentronk). Cunegonde's brother, who
inherits his father's title. He is a proud young man, even in adversity
and poverty. and he refuses again and again to give his consent to a
marriage between his sister and Candide. Tired at last of the Baron's
refusals, uttered with no regard for what Candide has endured on behalf
of Cunegonde or the girl's changed condition, Candide causes the proud
Baron to be shipped as a galley slave.
Jacques (zhak')- a kindly Anabaptist who befriends Candide in Holland
and travels with him to Portugal. only to be drowned at the time of the
Lisbon Earthquake.
Martin (mar-tan), a friend Candide meets in Surinam. Martin, accused by
the church of being a Socinian heretic, admits to Candide that he is a
Manichee. though none are supposed to be left in the world. Martin
travels with Candide on the latter portion of Candide's wanderings and
settles down with Candide on the young man's little farm.
Paquette (pa-ket'), a maid to the Baroness Thunder-ten-tronckh. Loved by
Pangloss, she gives him venereal disease. After many misadventures of
her own she turns up again in Candide's life and becomes a member of the
little colony on his farm, where she earns her living by doing
embroidery.
Friar Giroflee (je-ro-fla'), a discontented friar who falls in love with
Paquette during her travels and leaves his order for her sake.
Befriended by Candide, he joins the colony on Candide's farm and turns
carpenter.
The Old Woman, Cunegonde's servant. She relates that she was once a
beautiful princess, the daughter of the Princess Palestrina and a
fictional pope, Urban X. The splendid life she expects is lost when she
is captured by Moroccan pirates and condemned to a hard life as a slave.
She clings to Cunegonde and Candide and settles with them on Candide's
farm.
Cacambo (ka-kam'bo), Candide's servant. Separated from Candide in South
America, he turns up later in Venice as a slave belonging to the deposed
Sultan Ach-met III. Through Cacambo's intercession Candide and his party
are allowed to visit Turkey.
A Contented Old Man, who has learned that hard work and minding one's
own business are the best means to happiness. He avoids boredom, vice,
and need by working a twenty-acre farm. Following his advice, Candide
settles with his friends on a farm of his own.
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The Story
Candide was born in Westphalia, the illegitimate son of Baron
Thunder-ten-tronckh's sister. Dr. Pangloss, his tutor and a devout
follower of Liebnitz, taught him meta-physico-theologo-cosmolonigology
and assured his pupil that this is the best of all possible worlds.
Cunegonde, the daughter of the baron, kissed Candide one day behind a
screen. Candide was expelled from the noble baron's household.
Impressed into the army of the king of Bulgaria, Candide deserted during
a battle between the King of Bulgaria and the king of Abares. Later, he
was befriended by James the Anabaptist. He also met his old friend, Dr.
Pangloss, now a beggar. James, Pangloss, and Candide started for Lisbon.
Their ship was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Portugal. James was
drowned, but Candide and Pangloss swam to shore just as an earthquake
shook the city. The rulers of Lisbon, both secular and religious,
decided to punish those people whose wickedness had brought about the
earthquake, and Candide and Pangloss were among the accused. Pangloss
was hanged, Candide thoroughly whipped.
While he was smarting from his wounds, an old woman accosted Candide and
told him to have courage and to follow her. She led him to a house where
he was fed and clothed. Then Cunegonde appeared. Candide was amazed
because Pangloss had told him that Cunegonde was dead. Cunegonde related
the story of her life from the time that she last saw Candide to their
happy meeting. She was being kept by a Jew and an Inquisitor, but she
held both men at a distance. Candide killed the Jew and the Inquisitor
when they came to see her.
With the old woman, Cunegonde and Candide fled to Cadiz, where they were
robbed. In despair, they sailed for Paraguay, where Candide hoped to
enlist in the Spanish army which was fighting the rebellious Jesuits.
During the voyage, the old woman told her story. They learned that she
was the daughter of Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina.
The governor of Buenos Aires developed a great affection for Cunegonde,
and through his scheming Candide was accused of having committed robbery
while still in Spain. Candide fled with his servant, Cacambo; Cunegonde
and the old woman remained behind. When Candide decided to fight for the
Jesuits, he learned that the
commandant was in reality Cunegonde's brother. The brother, however,
would not hear of his sister's marriage to Candide. They quarreled, and
Candide, fearing that he had killed the brother, took to the road with
Cacambo once more. Shortly afterward, they were captured by the
Oreillons, a tribe of savage Indians, but when Cacambo proved they were
not Jesuits, the two were allowed to go free. They traveled on to
Eldorado. There life was simple and perfect, but Candide was not happy
because he missed Cunegonde.
At last he decided to take some of the useless jeweled pebbles and
golden mud of Eldorado and return to Buenos Aires to search for
Cunegonde. He and Cacambo started out with a hundred sheep laden with
riches, but they lost all but two sheep and the wealth these animals
carried.
Candide approached a Dutch merchant and tried to arrange passage to
Buenos Aires. The merchant sailed away with Candide's money and
treasures, leaving Candide behind. Cacambo then went to Buenos Aires to
find Cunegonde and take her to Venice to meet Candide. After many
adventures, including a sea fight and the miraculous recovery of one of
his lost sheep from a sinking ship, Candide arrived at Bordeaux. His
intention was to go to Venice by way of Paris. Police arrested him in
Paris, however, and Candide was forced to buy his freedom with diamonds.
Later, he sailed on a Dutch ship to Portsmouth, England, where he
witnessed the execution of an English admiral. From Portsmouth he went
to Venice. There he found no Cacambo and no Cunegonde. He did, however,
meet Paquette, Cunegonde's waiting maid. Shortly afterward, Candide
encountered Cacambo, who was now a slave and who informed him that
Cunegonde was in Constantinople. In the Venetian galley which carried
them to Constantinople, Candide found Pangloss and Cunegonde's brother
among the galley slaves. Pangloss related that he had miraculously
escaped from his hanging in Lisbon because the bungling hangman had not
been able to tie a proper knot. Cunegonde's brother told how he survived
the wound which Candide had thought fatal. Candide bought both men from
the Venetians and gave them their freedom.
When the group arrived at Constantinople, Candide bought the old woman
and Cunegonde from their masters and also purchased a little farm to
which they all retired. There each had his own particular work to do.
Candide decided that the best thing in the world was to cultivate one's
garden.
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Critical Evaluation
Candide, Voltaire's tour de force, goes beyond most other famous
satires. Like Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock (1714), it attacks the
pretentiousness of the upper classes; like George Orwell's Animal Farm
(1945), it undercuts political systems; like Jonathan Swift's ambitious
Gulliver's Travels (1726), it sheds sharp light on man's grossness, his
cupidity, and his stupidity, as well as on his crude and frequently
cruel institutions. It goes beyond man and his society, however, to
examine the entire world in which man finds himself. Its thesis is
contrived in explicit response to Leibnitzian optimism that this is "the
best of all possible worlds."
The problem of the existence of evil in the world has bothered man ever
since he dared speculate about the nature of things. It is treated in
the literature of the West at least as early as the book of Genesis,
which attributes evil to man's disobedient nature. St. Augustine and,
later, John Milton enlarged on this theory, claiming that God limited
his own interference in the world when he created man "sufficient to
stand though free to fall." The Book of Job in the Bible centers more
specifically on the problem of suffering. Its answer is essentially no
answer except for God's overwhelming (some have said obscene)
demonstration of power, which humbles Job into acceptance. A third
century Persian philosopher, Mani, devised the theory that earth is a
field of dispute between two nearly matched powers—one of light, one of
darkness—with man caught in the middle.
Most later explanations appear to be variations on these three. The
seventeenth century Frenchman Blaise Pascal believed, like the author of
Job, that man's vision cannot perceive the justice of God's overall
plan. Gottfried Wil-helm von Leibnitz developed this explanation
further. In his Theodicee, published in 1710, he described a harmonious
universe in which all events are linked into a chain of cause and
effect, and in which apparent evil is compensated by some greater good
which may not be evident in the short run to the limited human mind. The
English poet Alexander Pope expressed similar views in rhymed couplets:
All Nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, in spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear: Whatever IS, IS RIGHT.
In his early life, Voltaire had been generally optimistic. Beginning in
1752, however, his writings evidence growing pessimism. On November 1,
1755, an earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, killed thirty to forty thousand
people. This catastrophe provided Voltaire with a perfect springboard
for his skepticism about the basic goodness of this world. "If Pope had
been at Lisbon," he wrote, "would he have dared to say All is well?" His
fellow Frenchman Jean Jacques Rousseau responded that man, not God, is
to blame for evil, including earthquakes: that man brings misfortune
upon himself by congregating in cities instead of living naturally in
the country.
Voltaire continued the debate by composing Candide. He created a young,
impressionable protagonist and set him upon an incredible series of
adventures, many of which are drawn from real life, for example, the
Lisbon earthquake and subsequent auto-da-fe; the political chaos of
Morocco; and the execution of an admiral (Voltaire had tried to
intercede in just such a situation). Like such other wandering heroes as
Gulliver and Huckleberry Finn, Candide is naive. For a time, like a
schoolboy, he reacts to such events as torture, war, and catastrophe by
recalling the favorite principles of his tutor, Pangloss: "Every effect
has a cause," and "All is for the best in this best of all possible
worlds." As horror piles on horror, however, his doubts increase.
Pangloss reappears periodically to soothe his pupil with the most
illogical logic imaginable, but hard experience takes its toll.
Candide's visit to Eldorado, the famed lost city of the New World, is a
high-water mark. Here all is placid and serene. People live in absolute
harmony. Suffering and poverty are unknown. There is no greed; the
natives smile at Candide's interest in the gold and jewels which lie on
the ground as "clay and pebbles." Eldorado is Utopia— as J. G. Weightman
has put it, "a sunny interlude between two series of disasters to show
us how happy and pious we might have been had God not given us our
ungovernable natures and put us into a world containing inexplicable
evil." In his desire to regain his lost love, Cune-gonde, Candide leaves
Eldorado; but having seen a truly harmonious world, he can no longer
accept cruelty, catastrophe, and suffering as necessary ingredients for
a universal good.
In the final chapter, Candide and his little band— including his former
tutor, Pangloss; his more recent friend, the pessimistic Martin; and
Cunegonde, now grown old and ugly—settle on a small farm "till the
company should meet with a more favorable destiny." There they become
almost as distressed by boredom as they previously were by disaster. Two
neighbors, however, bring enlightenment to them. A dervish, questioned
about the existence of evil, responds, "What signifies it whether there
be evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble
his head whether the rats in the vessel are at their ease or not?" This
echo of a metaphor Voltaire had contrived as early as 1736 briefly
asserts the notion that the world may in the view of the "divine
architect" be excellent indeed—but it is not designed for man, the
"mouse" in the hold, any more than noses were designed for spectacles.
The second neighbor, a contented old farmer, advises Candide's group of
the worthwhileness of labor, which "keeps off from us three great
evils—idleness, vice, and want." For once, those philosophical
opposites, Pangloss and Martin, agree; the little community settles down
to work in earnest, each member doing his part with a good will and
deriving satisfaction therefrom.
Candide, then, while an attack on philosophical optimism, is not a
pessimistic work: Its ending, with the hero remarking that "we must
cultivate our garden," reminds the reader of the words of another
realistic, but hopeful, man, Anton Chekhov, who was to observe more than
a century later, "If everyone in the world did all he was capable of on
his own plot of land, what a beautiful world it would be!"
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Candide
Illustrations Jean-Michel
Moreau le Jeune
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Candide
Translated by William F. Fleming
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PART I.
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CHAPTER I.
How Candide was brought up in a
magnificent castle and how he was driven thence.
In the country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most
noble baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, lived a youth whom
nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His face
was the true index of his mind. He had a solid judgment
joined to the most unaffected simplicity; and hence, I
presume, he had his name of Candide. The old servants of the
house suspected him to have been the son of the baron’s
sister, by a very good sort of a gentleman of the
neighborhood, whom that young lady refused to marry, because
he could produce no more than threescore and eleven
quarterings in his arms; the rest of the genealogical tree
belonging to the family having been lost through the
injuries of time.
The baron was one of the most powerful lords in
Westphalia; for his castle had not only a gate, but even
windows; and his great hall was hung with tapestry. He used
to hunt with his mastiffs and spaniels instead of
greyhounds; his groom served him for huntsman; and the
parson of the parish officiated as his grand almoner. He was
called My Lord by all his people, and he never told a story
but every one laughed at it.
My lady baroness weighed three hundred and fifty pounds,
consequently was a person of no small consideration; and
then she did the honors of the house with a dignity that
commanded universal respect. Her daughter was about
seventeen years of age, fresh colored, comely, plump, and
desirable. The baron’s son seemed to be a youth in every
respect worthy of the father he sprung from. Pangloss, the
preceptor, was the oracle of the family, and little Candide
listened to his instructions with all the simplicity natural
to his age and disposition.
Master Pangloss taught the
metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology. He could prove to
admiration that there is no effect without a cause; and,
that in this best of all possible worlds, the baron’s castle
was the most magnificent of all castles, and my lady the
best of all possible baronesses.
It is demonstrable, said he, that things cannot be
otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been
created for some end, they must necessarily be created for
the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for
spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are
visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear
stockings. Stones were made to be hewn, and to construct
castles, therefore My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the
greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged.
Swine were intended to be eaten, therefore we eat pork all
the year round: and they, who assert that everything is
right, do not express themselves correctly; they should
say that everything is best.
Candide listened attentively, and believed implicitly;
for he thought Miss Cunegund excessively handsome, though he
never had the courage to tell her so. He concluded that next
to the happiness of being baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, the
next was that of being Miss Cunegund, the next that of
seeing her every day, and the last that of hearing the
doctrine of Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the
whole province, and consequently of the whole world.
One day when Miss Cunegund went to take a walk in a
little neighboring wood which was called a park, she saw,
through the bushes, the sage Doctor Pangloss giving a
lecture in experimental philosophy to her mother’s
chambermaid, a little brown wench, very pretty, and very
tractable. As Miss Cunegund had a great disposition for the
sciences, she observed with the utmost attention the
experiments, which were repeated before her eyes; she
perfectly well understood the force of the doctor’s
reasoning upon causes and effects. She retired greatly
flurried, quite pensive and filled with the desire of
knowledge, imagining that she might be a sufficing
reason for young Candide, and he for her.
On her way back she happened to meet the young man; she
blushed, he blushed also; she wished him a good morning in a
flattering tone, he returned the salute without knowing what
he said. The next day, as they were rising from dinner,
Cunegund and Candide slipped behind the screen. The miss
dropped her handkerchief, the young man picked it up. She
innocently took hold of his hand, and he as innocently
kissed hers with a warmth, a sensibility, a grace—all very
particular; their lips met; their eyes sparkled; their knees
trembled; their hands strayed. The baron chanced to come by;
he beheld the cause and effect, and, without hesitation,
saluted Candide with some notable kicks on the breech, and
drove him out of doors. The lovely Miss Cunegund fainted
away, and, as soon as she came to herself, the baroness
boxed her ears. Thus a general consternation was spread over
this most magnificent and most agreeable of all possible
castles.
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CHAPTER II.
What befell Candide among the Bulgarians.
Candide, thus driven out of this terrestrial paradise,
rambled a long time without knowing where he went; sometimes
he raised his eyes, all bedewed with tears, towards heaven,
and sometimes he cast a melancholy look towards the
magnificent castle, where dwelt the fairest of young
baronesses. He laid himself down to sleep in a furrow,
heartbroken, and supperless. The snow fell in great flakes,
and, in the morning when he awoke, he was almost frozen to
death; however, he made shift to crawl to the next town,
which was called Wald-berghoff-trarbk-dikdorff, without a
penny in his pocket, and half dead with hunger and fatigue.
He took up his stand at the door of an inn. He had not been
long there, before two men dressed in blue, fixed their eyes
steadfastly upon him. “Faith, comrade,” said one of them to
the other, “yonder is a well made young fellow, and of the
right size.” Upon which they made up to Candide, and with
the greatest civility and politeness invited him to dine
with them. “Gentlemen,” replied Candide, with a most
engaging modesty, “you do me much honor, but upon my word I
have no money.” “Money, sir!” said one of the blues to him,
“young persons of your appearance and merit never pay
anything; why, are not you five feet five inches high?”
“Yes, gentlemen, that is really my size,” replied he, with a
low bow. “Come then, sir, sit down along with us; we will
not only pay your reckoning, but will never suffer such a
clever young fellow as you to want money. Men were born to
assist one another.” “You are perfectly right, gentlemen,”
said Candide, “this is precisely the doctrine of Master
Pangloss; and I am convinced that everything is for the
best.” His generous companions next entreated him to accept
of a few crowns, which he readily complied with, at the same
time offering them his note for the payment, which they
refused, and sat down to table. “Have you not a great
affection for—” “O yes! I have a great affection for the
lovely Miss Cunegund.” “May be so,” replied one of the
blues, “but that is not the question! We ask you whether you
have not a great affection for the king of the Bulgarians?”
“For the king of the Bulgarians?” said Candide, “oh Lord!
not at all, why I never saw him in my life.” “Is it
possible! oh, he is a most charming king! Come, we must
drink his health.” “With all my heart, gentlemen,” says
Candide, and off he tossed his glass. “Bravo!” cry the
blues; “you are now the support, the defender, the hero of
the Bulgarians; your fortune is made; you are in the high
road to glory.” So saying, they handcuffed him, and carried
him away to the regiment. There he was made to wheel about
to the right, to the left, to draw his rammer, to return his
rammer, to present, to fire, to march, and they gave him
thirty blows with a cane; the next day he performed his
exercise a little better, and they gave him but twenty; the
day following he came off with ten, and was looked upon as a
young fellow of surprising genius by all his comrades.
Candide was struck with amazement, and could not for the
soul of him conceive how he came to be a hero. One fine
spring morning, he took it into his head to take a walk, and
he marched straight forward, conceiving it to be a privilege
of the human species, as well as of the brute creation, to
make use of their legs how and when they pleased. He had not
gone above two leagues when he was overtaken by four other
heroes, six feet high, who bound him neck and heels, and
carried him to a dungeon. A court-martial sat upon him, and
he was asked which he liked better, to run the gauntlet six
and thirty times through the whole regiment, or to have his
brains blown out with a dozen musket-balls? In vain did he
remonstrate to them that the human will is free, and that he
chose neither; they obliged him to make a choice, and he
determined, in virtue of that divine gift called free will,
to run the gauntlet six and thirty times. He had gone
through his discipline twice, and the regiment being
composed of 2,000 men, they composed for him exactly 4,000
strokes, which laid bare all his muscles and nerves from the
nape of his neck to his stern. As they were preparing to
make him set out the third time our young hero, unable to
support it any longer, begged as a favor that they would be
so obliging as to shoot him through the head; the favor
being granted, a bandage was tied over his eyes, and he was
made to kneel down. At that very instant, his Bulgarian
majesty happening to pass by made a stop, and inquired into
the delinquent’s crime, and being a prince of great
penetration, he found, from what he heard of Candide, that
he was a young metaphysician, entirely ignorant of the
world; and therefore, out of his great clemency, he
condescended to pardon him, for which his name will be
celebrated in every journal, and in every age. A skilful
surgeon made a cure of the flagellated Candide in three
weeks by means of emollient unguents prescribed by
Dioscorides. His sores were now skinned over and he was able
to march, when the king of the Bulgarians gave battle to the
king of the Abares.
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CHAPTER III.
How Candide escaped from the Bulgarians,
and what befell him afterwards.
Never was anything so gallant, so well accoutred, so
brilliant, and so finely disposed as the two armies. The
trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made such
harmony as never was heard in hell itself. The entertainment
began by a discharge of cannon, which, in the twinkling of
an eye, laid flat about 6,000 men on each side. The musket
bullets swept away, out of the best of all possible worlds,
nine or ten thousand scoundrels that infested its surface.
The bayonet was next the sufficient reason of the deaths of
several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand
souls. Candide trembled like a philosopher, and concealed
himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.
At length, while the two kings were causing Te Deums
to be sung in their camps, Candide took a resolution to go
and reason somewhere else upon causes and effects. After
passing over heaps of dead or dying men, the first place he
came to was a neighboring village, in the Abarian
territories, which had been burned to the ground by the
Bulgarians, agreeably to the laws of war. Here lay a number
of old men covered with wounds, who beheld their wives dying
with their throats cut, and hugging their children to their
breasts, all stained with blood. There several young
virgins, whose bodies had been ripped open, after they had
satisfied the natural necessities of the Bulgarian heroes,
breathed their last; while others, half burned in the
flames, begged to be despatched out of the world. The ground
about them was covered with the brains, arms, and legs of
dead men.
Candide made all the haste he could to another village,
which belonged to the Bulgarians, and there he found the
heroic Abares had enacted the same tragedy. Thence
continuing to walk over palpitating limbs, or through ruined
buildings, at length he arrived beyond the theatre of war,
with a little provision in his budget, and Miss Cunegund’s
image in his heart. When he arrived in Holland his provision
failed him; but having heard that the inhabitants of that
country were all rich and Christians, he made himself sure
of being treated by them in the same manner as at the
baron’s castle, before he had been driven thence through the
power of Miss Cunegund’s bright eyes.
He asked charity of several grave-looking people, who one
and all answered him, that if he continued to follow this
trade they would have him sent to the house of correction,
where he should be taught to get his bread.
He next addressed himself to a person who had just come
from haranguing a numerous assembly for a whole hour on the
subject of charity. The orator, squinting at him under his
broad-brimmed hat, asked him sternly, what brought him
thither and whether he was for the good old cause? “Sir,”
said Candide, in a submissive manner, “I conceive there can
be no effect without a cause; everything is necessarily
concatenated and arranged for the best. It was necessary
that I should be banished from the presence of Miss
Cunegund; that I should afterwards run the gauntlet; and it
is necessary I should beg my bread, till I am able to get
it: all this could not have been otherwise.” “Hark ye,
friend,” said the orator, “do you hold the pope to be
Antichrist?” “Truly, I never heard anything about it,” said
Candide, “but whether he is or not, I am in want to
something to eat.” “Thou deservest not to eat or to drink,”
replied the orator, “wretch, monster, that thou art! hence!
avoid my sight, nor ever come near me again while thou
livest.” The orator’s wife happened to put her head out of
the window at that instant, when, seeing a man who doubted
whether the pope was Antichrist, she discharged upon his
head a utensil full of water. Good heavens, to what excess
does religious zeal transport womankind!
A man who had never been christened, an honest anabaptist
named James, was witness to the cruel and ignominious
treatment showed to one of his brethren, to a rational,
two-footed, unfledged being. Moved with pity he carried him
to his own house, caused him to be cleaned, gave him meat
and drink, and made him a present of two florins, at the
same time proposing to instruct him in his own trade of
weaving Persian silks, which are fabricated in Holland.
Candide, penetrated with so much goodness, threw himself at
his feet, crying, “Now I am convinced that my Master
Pangloss told me truth when he said that everything was for
the best in this world; for I am infinitely more affected
with your extraordinary generosity than with the inhumanity
of that gentleman in the black cloak, and his wife.” The
next day, as Candide was walking out, he met a beggar all
covered with scabs, his eyes sunk in his head, the end of
his nose eaten off, his mouth drawn on one side, his teeth
as black as a cloak, snuffling and coughing most violently,
and every time he attempted to spit out dropped a tooth.
|
CHAPTER IV.
How Candide found his old master Pangloss
again and what happened to him.
Candide, divided between compassion and horror, but
giving way to the former, bestowed on this shocking figure
the two florins which the honest anabaptist, James, had just
before given to him. The spectre looked at him very
earnestly, shed tears and threw his arms about his neck.
Candide started back aghast. “Alas!” said the one wretch to
the other, “don’t you know your dear Pangloss?” “What do I
hear? Is it you, my dear master! you I behold in this
piteous plight? What dreadful misfortune has befallen you?
What has made you leave the most magnificent and delightful
of all castles? What has become of Miss Cunegund, the mirror
of young ladies, and nature’s masterpiece?” “Oh Lord!” cried
Pangloss, “I am so weak I cannot stand,” upon which Candide
instantly led him to the anabaptist’s stable, and procured
him something to eat. As soon as Pangloss had a little
refreshed himself, Candide began to repeat his inquiries
concerning Miss Cunegund. “She is dead,” replied the other.
“Dead!” cried Candide, and immediately fainted away; his
friend restored him by the help of a little bad vinegar,
which he found by chance in the stable. Candide opened his
eyes, and again repeated: “Dead! is Miss Cunegund dead? Ah,
where is the best of worlds now? But of what illness did she
die? Was it of grief on seeing her father kick me out of his
magnificent castle?” “No,” replied Pangloss, “her body was
ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers, after they had
subjected her to as much cruelty as a damsel could survive;
they knocked the baron, her father, on the head for
attempting to defend her; my lady, her mother, was cut in
pieces; my poor pupil was served just in the same manner as
his sister, and as for the castle, they have not left one
stone upon another; they have destroyed all the ducks, and
the sheep, the barns, and the trees; but we have had our
revenge, for the Abares have done the very same thing in a
neighboring barony, which belonged to a Bulgarian lord.”
At hearing this, Candide fainted away a second time, but,
having come to himself again, he said all that it became him
to say; he inquired into the cause and effect, as well as
into the sufficing reason that had reduced Pangloss to so
miserable a condition. “Alas,” replied the preceptor, “it
was love; love, the comfort of the human species; love, the
preserver of the universe; the soul of all sensible beings;
love! tender love!” “Alas,” cried Candide, “I have had some
knowledge of love myself, this sovereign of hearts, this
soul of souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and
twenty kicks on the backside. But how could this beautiful
cause produce in you so hideous an effect?”
Pangloss made answer in these terms: “O my dear Candide,
you must remember Pacquette, that pretty wench, who waited
on our noble baroness; in her arms I tasted the pleasures of
paradise, which produced these hell-torments with which you
see me devoured. She was infected with an ailment, and
perhaps has since died of it; she received this present of a
learned cordelier, who derived it from the fountain head; he
was indebted for it to an old countess, who had it of a
captain of horse, who had it of a marchioness, who had it of
a page, the page had it of a Jesuit, who, during his
novitiate, had it in a direct line from one of the
fellow-adventurers of Christopher Columbus; for my part I
shall give it to nobody, I am a dying man.”
“O sage Pangloss,” cried Candide, “what a strange
genealogy is this! Is not the devil the root of it?” “Not at
all,” replied the great man, “it was a thing unavoidable, a
necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus
had not caught in an island in America this disease, which
contaminates the source of generation, and frequently
impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the
great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate
nor cochineal. It is also to be observed, that, even to the
present time, in this continent of ours, this malady, like
our religious controversies, is peculiar to ourselves. The
Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese,
and the Japanese are entirely unacquainted with it; but
there is a sufficing reason for them to know it in a few
centuries. In the meantime, it is making prodigious havoc
among us, especially in those armies composed of
well-disciplined hirelings, who determine the fate of
nations; for we may safely affirm, that, when an army of
thirty thousand men engages another equal in size, there are
about twenty thousand infected with syphilis on each side.”
“Very surprising, indeed,” said Candide, “but you must
get cured. “Lord help me, how can I?” said Pangloss; “my
dear friend, I have not a penny in the world; and you know
one cannot be bled or have a clyster without money.”
This last speech had its effect on Candide; he flew to
the charitable anabaptist, James; he flung himself at his
feet, and gave him so striking a picture of the miserable
condition of his friend that the good man without any
further hesitation agreed to take Doctor Pangloss into his
house, and to pay for his cure. The cure was effected with
only the loss of one eye and an ear. As he wrote a good
hand, and understood accounts tolerably well, the anabaptist
made him his bookkeeper. At the expiration of two months,
being obliged by some mercantile affairs to go to Lisbon he
took the two philosophers with him in the same ship;
Pangloss, during the course of the voyage, explained to him
how everything was so constituted that it could not be
better. James did not quite agree with him on this point:
“Men,” said he “must, in some things, have deviated from
their original innocence; for they were not born wolves, and
yet they worry one another like those beasts of prey. God
never gave them twenty-four pounders nor bayonets, and yet
they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another.
To this account I might add not only bankruptcies, but the
law which seizes on the effects of bankrupts, only to cheat
the creditors.” “All this was indispensably necessary,”
replied the one-eyed doctor, “for private misfortunes are
public benefits; so that the more private misfortunes there
are, the greater is the general good.” While he was arguing
in this manner, the sky was overcast, the winds blew from
the four quarters of the compass, and the ship was assailed
by a most terrible tempest, within sight of the port of
Lisbon.
|

CHAPTER V.
A tempest, a shipwreck, an earthquake; and
what else befell Dr. Pangloss, Candide, and James the
Anabaptist.
One-half of the passengers, weakened and half-dead with
the inconceivable anxiety and sickness which the rolling of
a vessel at sea occasions through the whole human frame,
were lost to all sense of the danger that surrounded them.
The others made loud outcries, or betook themselves to their
prayers; the sails were blown into shreds, and the masts
were brought by the board. The vessel was a total wreck.
Every one was busily employed, but nobody could be either
heard or obeyed. The anabaptist, being upon deck, lent a
helping hand as well as the rest, when a brutish sailor gave
him a blow and laid him speechless; but, with the violence
of the blow the tar himself tumbled headforemost overboard,
and fell upon a piece of the broken mast, which he
immediately grasped. Honest James, forgetting the injury he
had so lately received from him, flew to his assistance,
and, with great difficulty, hauled him in again, but, in the
attempt, was, by a sudden jerk of the ship, thrown overboard
himself, in sight of the very fellow whom he had risked his
life to save, and who took not the least notice of him in
this distress. Candide, who beheld all that passed and saw
his benefactor one moment rising above water, and the next
swallowed up by the merciless waves, was preparing to jump
after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss,
who demonstrated to him that the roadstead of Lisbon had
been made on purpose for the anabaptist to be drowned there.
While he was proving his argument a priori, the
ship foundered, and the whole crew perished, except Pangloss,
Candide, and the sailor who had been the means of drowning
the good anabaptist. The villain swam ashore; but Pangloss
and Candide reached the land upon a plank.
As soon as they had recovered from their surprise and
fatigue they walked towards Lisbon; with what little money
they had left they thought to save themselves from starving
after having escaped drowning.
Scarcely had they ceased to lament the loss of their
benefactor and set foot in the city, when they perceived
that the earth trembled under their feet, and the sea,
swelling and foaming in the harbor, was dashing in pieces
the vessels that were riding at anchor. Large sheets of
flames and cinders covered the streets and public places;
the houses tottered, and were tumbled topsy-turvy even to
their foundations, which were themselves destroyed, and
thirty thousand inhabitants of both sexes, young and old,
were buried beneath the ruins. The sailor, whistling and
swearing, cried, “Damn it, there’s something to be got
here.” “What can be the sufficing reason of this
phenomenon?” said Pangloss. “It is certainly the day of
judgment,” said Candide. The sailor, defying death in the
pursuit of plunder, rushed into the midst of the ruin, where
he found some money, with which he got drunk, and, after he
had slept himself sober he purchased the favors of the first
good-natured wench that came in his way, amidst the ruins of
demolished houses and the groans of half-buried and expiring
persons. Pangloss pulled him by the sleeve; “Friend,” said
he, “this is not right, you trespass against the
universal reason, and have mistaken your time.” “Death
and zounds!” answered the other, “I am a sailor and was born
at Batavia, and have trampled four times upon the crucifix
in as many voyages to Japan; you have come to a good hand
with your universal reason.”
In the meantime, Candide, who had been wounded by some
pieces of stone that fell from the houses, lay stretched in
the street, almost covered with rubbish. “For God’s sake,”
said he to Pangloss, “get me a little wine and oil! I am
dying.” “This concussion of the earth is no new thing,” said
Pangloss, “the city of Lima in South America, experienced
the same last year; the same cause, the same effects; there
is certainly a train of sulphur all the way underground from
Lima to Lisbon. “Nothing is more probable,” said Candide;
“but for the love of God a little oil and wine.” “Probable!”
replied the philosopher, “I maintain that the thing is
demonstrable.” Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched
him some water from a neighboring spring.
The next day, in searching among the ruins, they found
some eatables with which they repaired their exhausted
strength. After this they assisted the inhabitants in
relieving the distressed and wounded. Some, whom they had
humanely assisted, gave them as good a dinner as could be
expected under such terrible circumstances. The repast,
indeed, was mournful, and the company moistened their bread
with their tears; but Pangloss endeavored to comfort them
under this affliction by affirming that things could not be
otherwise than they were: “For,” said he, “all this is for
the very best end, for if there is a volcano at Lisbon it
could be in no other spot; and it is impossible but things
should be as they are, for everything is for the best.”
By the side of the preceptor sat a little man dressed in
black, who was one of the familiars of the
Inquisition. This person, taking him up with great
complaisance, said, “Possibly, my good sir, you do not
believe in original sin; for, if everything is best, there
could have been no such thing as the fall or punishment of
man.”
“I humbly ask your excellency’s pardon,” answered
Pangloss, still more politely; “for the fall of man and the
curse consequent thereupon necessarily entered into the
system of the best of worlds.” “That is as much as to say,
sir,” rejoined the familiar, “you do not believe in
free will.” “Your excellency will be so good as to excuse
me,” said Pangloss, “free will is consistent with absolute
necessity; for it was necessary we should be free, for in
that the will—”
Pangloss was in the midst of his proposition, when the
inquisitor beckoned to his attendant to help him to a glass
of port wine.
|
CHAPTER VI.
How the Portuguese made a superb auto-da-fé
to prevent any future earthquakes, and how Candide underwent
public flagellation.
After the earthquake, which had destroyed three-fourths
of the city of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think
of no means more effectual to preserve the kingdom from
utter ruin than to entertain the people with an auto-da-fé,
it having been decided by the University of Coimbra, that
the burning of a few people alive by a slow fire, and with
great ceremony, is an infallible preventive of earthquakes.
In consequence thereof they had seized on a Biscayan for
marrying his godmother, and on two Portuguese for taking out
the bacon of a larded pullet they were eating; after dinner
they came and secured Doctor Pangloss, and his pupil Candide,
the one for speaking his mind, and the other for seeming to
approve what he had said. They were conducted to separate
apartments, extremely cool, where they were never incommoded
with the sun. Eight days afterwards they were each dressed
in a sanbenito, and their heads were adorned with
paper mitres. The mitre and sanbenito worn by
Candide were painted with flames reversed and with devils
that had neither tails nor claws; but Doctor Pangloss’s
devils had both tails and claws, and his flames were
upright. In these habits they marched in procession, and
heard a very pathetic sermon, which was followed by an
anthem, accompanied by bagpipes. Candide was flogged to some
tune, while the anthem was being sung; the Biscayan and the
two men who would not eat bacon were burned, and Pangloss
was hanged, which is not a common custom at these
solemnities. The same day there was another earthquake,
which made most dreadful havoc.
Candide, amazed, terrified, confounded, astonished, all
bloody, and trembling from head to foot, said to himself,
“If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the
others? If I had only been whipped, I could have put up with
it, as I did among the Bulgarians; but, oh my dear Pangloss!
my beloved master! thou greatest of philosophers! that ever
I should live to see thee hanged, without knowing for what!
O my dear anabaptist, thou best of men, that it should be
thy fate to be drowned in the very harbor! O Miss Cunegund,
you mirror of young ladies! that it should be your fate to
have your body ripped open!”
He was making the best of his way from the place where he
had been preached to, whipped, absolved and blessed, when he
was accosted by an old woman, who said to him: “Take
courage, child, and follow me.”
|
CHAPTER VII.
How the old woman took care of Candide,
and how he found the object of his love.
Candide followed the old woman, though without taking
courage, to a decayed house, where she gave him a pot of
pomatum to anoint his sores, showed him a very neat bed,
with a suit of clothes hanging by it; and set victuals and
drink before him. “There,” said she, “eat, drink, and sleep,
and may our blessed lady of Atocha, and the great St.
Anthony of Padua, and the illustrious St. James of
Compostella, take you under their protection. I shall be
back to-morrow.” Candide struck with amazement at what he
had seen, at what he had suffered, and still more with the
charity of the old woman, would have shown his
acknowledgment by kissing her hand. “It is not my hand you
ought to kiss,” said the old woman; “I shall be back
to-morrow. Anoint your back, eat, and take your rest.”
Candide, notwithstanding so many disasters, ate and
slept. The next morning, the old woman brought him his
breakfast; examined his back, and rubbed it herself with
another ointment. She returned at the proper time, and
brought him his dinner; and at night, she visited him again
with his supper. The next day she observed the same
ceremonies. “Who are you?” said Candide to her. “Who has
inspired you with so much goodness? What return can I make
you for this charitable assistance?” The good old beldame
kept a profound silence. In the evening she returned, but
without his supper; “Come along with me,” said she, “but do
not speak a word.” She took him by the arm, and walked with
him about a quarter of a mile into the country, till they
came to a lonely house surrounded with moats and gardens.
The old conductress knocked at a little door, which was
immediately opened, and she showed him up a pair of back
stairs, into a small, but richly furnished apartment. There
she made him sit down on a brocaded sofa, shut the door upon
him, and left him. Candide thought himself in a trance; he
looked upon his whole life, hitherto, as a frightful dream,
and the present moment as a very agreeable one.
The old woman soon returned, supporting, with great
difficulty, a young lady, who appeared scarce able to stand.
She was of a majestic mien and stature, her dress was rich,
and glittering with diamonds, and her face was covered with
a veil. “Take off that veil,” said the old woman to Candide.
The young man approached, and, with a trembling hand, took
off her veil. What a happy moment! What surprise! He thought
he beheld Miss Cunegund; he did behold her—it was she
herself. His strength failed him, he could not utter a word,
he fell at her feet. Cunegund fainted upon the sofa. The old
woman bedewed them with spirits; they recovered—they began
to speak. At first they could express themselves only in
broken accents; their questions and answers were alternately
interrupted with sighs, tears, and exclamations. The old
woman desired them to make less noise, and after this
prudent admonition left them together. “Good heavens!” cried
Candide, “is it you? Is it Miss Cunegund I behold, and
alive? Do I find you again in Portugal? then you have not
been ravished? they did not rip open your body, as the
philosopher Pangloss informed me?” “Indeed but they did,”
replied Miss Cunegund; “but these two accidents do not
always prove mortal.” “But were your father and mother
killed?” “Alas!” answered she, “it is but too true!” and she
wept. “And your brother?” “And my brother also.” “And how
came you into Portugal? And how did you know of my being
here? And by what strange adventure did you contrive to have
me brought into this house? And how—” “I will tell you all,”
replied the lady, “but first you must acquaint me with all
that has befallen you since the innocent kiss you gave me,
and the rude kicking you received in consequence of it.”
Candide, with the greatest submission, prepared to obey
the commands of his fair mistress; and though he was still
filled with amazement, though his voice was low and
tremulous, though his back pained him, yet he gave her a
most ingenuous account of everything that had befallen him,
since the moment of their separation. Cunegund, with her
eyes uplifted to heaven, shed tears when he related the
death of the good anabaptist James, and of Pangloss; after
which she thus related her adventures to Candide, who lost
not one syllable she uttered, and seemed to devour her with
his eyes all the time she was speaking.
|
CHAPTER VIII.
Cunegund’s story.
“I was in bed, and fast asleep, when it pleased heaven to
send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh,
where they murdered my father and brother, and cut my mother
in pieces. A tall Bulgarian soldier, six feet high,
perceiving that I had fainted away at this sight, attempted
to ravish me; the operation brought me to my senses. I
cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I would have torn
the tall Bulgarian’s eyes out, not knowing that what had
happened at my father’s castle was a customary thing. The
brutal soldier, enraged at my resistance, gave me a wound in
my left leg with his hanger, the mark of which I still
carry.” “Methinks I long to see it,” said Candide, with all
imaginable simplicity. “You shall,” said Cunegund, “but let
me proceed.” “Pray do,” replied Candide.
She continued. “A Bulgarian captain came in, and saw me
weltering in my blood, and the soldier still as busy as if
no one had been present. The officer, enraged at the
fellow’s want of respect to him, killed him with one stroke
of his sabre as he lay upon me. This captain took care of
me, had me cured, and carried me as a prisoner of war to his
quarters. I washed what little linen he possessed, and
cooked his victuals: he was very fond of me, that was
certain; neither can I deny that he was well made, and had a
soft, white skin, but he was very stupid, and knew nothing
of philosophy: it might plainly be perceived that he had not
been educated under Doctor Pangloss. In three months, having
gambled away all his money, and having grown tired of me, he
sold me to a Jew, named Don Issachar, who traded in Holland
and Portugal, and was passionately fond of women. This Jew
showed me great kindness, in hopes of gaining my favors; but
he never could prevail on me to yield. A modest woman may be
once ravished; but her virtue is greatly strengthened
thereby. In order to make sure of me, he brought me to this
country-house you now see. I had hitherto believed that
nothing could equal the beauty of the castle of Thunder-tentronckh;
but I found I was mistaken.
“The grand inquisitor saw me one day at mass, ogled me
all the time of service, and when it was over, sent to let
me know he wanted to speak with me about some private
business. I was conducted to his palace, where I told him
all my story; he represented to me how much it was beneath a
person of my birth to belong to a circumcised Israelite. He
caused a proposal to be made to Don Issachar, that he should
resign me to his lordship. Don Issachar, being the court
banker, and a man of credit, was not easy to be prevailed
upon. His lordship threatened him with an auto-da-fé;
in short, my Jew was frightened into a compromise, and it
was agreed between them, that the house and myself should
belong to both in common; that the Jew should have Monday,
Wednesday, and the Sabbath to himself; and the inquisitor
the other four days of the week. This agreement has
subsisted almost six months; but not without several
contests, whether the space from Saturday night to Sunday
morning belonged to the old or the new law. For my part, I
have hitherto withstood them both, and truly I believe this
is the very reason why they are both so fond of me.
“At length to turn aside the scourge of earthquakes, and
to intimidate Don Issachar, my lord inquisitor was pleased
to celebrate an auto-da-fé. He did me the honor to
invite me to the ceremony. I had a very good seat; and
refreshments of all kinds were offered the ladies between
mass and the execution. I was dreadfully shocked at the
burning of the two Jews, and the honest Biscayan who married
his godmother; but how great was my surprise, my
consternation, and concern, when I beheld a figure so like
Pangloss, dressed in a sanbenito and mitre! I
rubbed my eyes, I looked at him attentively. I saw him
hanged, and I fainted away: scarce had I recovered my
senses, when I saw you stripped of clothing; this was the
height of horror, grief, and despair. I must confess to you
for a truth, that your skin is whiter and more blooming than
that of the Bulgarian captain. This spectacle worked me up
to a pitch of distraction. I screamed out, and would have
said, ‘hold, barbarians!’ but my voice failed me; and indeed
my cries would have signified nothing. After you had been
severely whipped, how is it possible, I said to myself, that
the lovely Candide and the sage Pangloss should be at
Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred lashes, and the other
to be hanged by order of my lord inquisitor, of whom I am so
great a favorite? Pangloss deceived me most cruelly, in
saying that everything is for the best.
“Thus agitated and perplexed, now distracted and lost,
now half dead with grief, I revolved in my mind the murder
of my father, mother, and brother, committed before my eyes;
the insolence of the rascally Bulgarian soldier; the wound
he gave me in the groin; my servitude; my being a cook-wench
to my Bulgarian captain; my subjection to the hateful Jew,
and my cruel inquisitor; the hanging of Doctor Pangloss; the
Miserere sung while you were being whipped; and
particularly the kiss I gave you behind the screen, the last
day I ever beheld you. I returned thanks to God for having
brought you to the place where I was, after so many trials.
I charged the old woman who attends me to bring you hither
as soon as was convenient. She has punctually executed my
orders, and I now enjoy the inexpressible satisfaction of
seeing you, hearing you, and speaking to you. But you must
certainly be half-dead with hunger; I myself have a great
inclination to eat, and so let us sit down to supper.”
Upon this the two lovers immediately placed themselves at
table, and, after having supped, they returned to seat
themselves again on the magnificent sofa already mentioned,
where they were in amorous dalliance, when Señor Don
Issachar, one of the masters of the house, entered
unexpectedly; it was the Sabbath day, and he came to enjoy
his privilege, and sigh forth his passion at the feet of the
fair Cunegund.
|
CHAPTER IX.
What happened to Cunegund, Candide, the
Grand Inquisitor, and the Jew.
This same Issachar was the most choleric little Hebrew
that had ever been in Israel since the captivity of Babylon.
“What,” said he, “thou Galilean slut? the inquisitor was not
enough for thee, but this rascal must come in for a share
with me?” In uttering these words, he drew out a long
poniard, which he always carried about him, and never
dreaming that his adversary had any arms, he attacked him
most furiously; but our honest Westphalian had received from
the old woman a handsome sword with the suit of clothes.
Candide drew his rapier, and though he was very gentle and
sweet-tempered, he laid the Israelite dead on the floor at
the fair Cunegund’s feet.
“Holy Virgin!” cried she, “what will become of us? A man
killed in my apartment! If the peace-officers come, we are
undone.” “Had not Pangloss been hanged,” replied Candide,
“he would have given us most excellent advice, in this
emergency; for he was a profound philosopher. But, since he
is not here, let us consult the old woman.” She was very
sensible, and was beginning to give her advice, when another
door opened on a sudden. It was now one o’clock in the
morning, and of course the beginning of Sunday, which, by
agreement, fell to the lot of my lord inquisitor. Entering
he discovers the flagellated Candide with his drawn sword in
his hand, a dead body stretched on the floor, Cunegund
frightened out of her wits, and the old woman giving advice.
At that very moment, a sudden thought came into Candide’s
head. If this holy man, thought he, should call assistance,
I shall most undoubtedly be consigned to the flames, and
Miss Cunegund may perhaps meet with no better treatment:
besides, he was the cause of my being so cruelly whipped; he
is my rival; and as I have now begun to dip my hands in
blood, I will kill away, for there is no time to hesitate.
This whole train of reasoning was clear and instantaneous;
so that, without giving time to the inquisitor to recover
from his surprise, he ran him through the body, and laid him
by the side of the Jew. “Here’s another fine piece of work!”
cried Cunegund. “Now there can be no mercy for us, we are
excommunicated; our last hour is come. But how could you,
who are of so mild a temper, despatch a Jew and an
inquisitor in two minutes’ time?” “Beautiful maiden,”
answered Candide, “when a man is in love, is jealous, and
has been flogged by the Inquisition, he becomes lost to all
reflection.”
The old woman then put in her word: “There are three
Andalusian horses in the stable, with as many bridles and
saddles; let the brave Candide get them ready: madam has a
parcel of moidores and jewels, let us mount immediately,
though I have lost one of nature’s cushions; let us set out
for Cadiz; it is the finest weather in the world, and there
is great pleasure in travelling in the cool of the night.”
Candide, without any further hesitation, saddled the
three horses; and Miss Cunegund, the old woman, and he, set
out, and travelled thirty miles without once halting. While
they were making the best of their way, the Holy Brotherhood
entered the house. My lord, the inquisitor, was interred in
a magnificent manner, and master Issachar’s body was thrown
upon a dunghill.
Candide, Cunegund, and the old woman, had by this time
reached the little town of Avacena, in the midst of the
mountains of Sierra Morena, and were engaged in the
following conversation in an inn, where they had taken up
their quarters.
|

CHAPTER X.
in what distress Candide, Cunegund, and
the old woman arrive at Cadiz; and of their embarkation.
“Who could it be that has robbed me of my moidores and
jewels?” exclaimed Miss Cunegund, all bathed in tears. “How
shall we live? What shall we do? Where shall I find
inquisitors and Jews who can give me more?” “Alas!” said the
old woman, “I have a shrewd suspicion of a reverend father
cordelier, who lay last night in the same inn with us at
Badajoz; God forbid I should condemn any one wrongfully, but
he came into our room twice, and he set off in the morning
long before us.” “Alas!” said Candide, “Pangloss has often
demonstrated to me that the goods of this world are common
to all men, and that everyone has an equal right to the
enjoyment of them; but, according to these principles, the
cordelier ought to have left us enough to carry us to the
end of our journey. Have you nothing at all left, my dear
Miss Cunegund?” “Not a maravedi,” replied she. “What is to
be done then?” said Candide. “Sell one of the horses,”
replied the old woman, “I will get up behind Miss Cunegund,
though I have only one cushion to ride on, and we shall
reach Cadiz.”
In the same inn there was a Benedictine friar, who bought
the horse very cheap. Candide, Cunegund, and the old woman,
after passing through Lucina, Chellas, and Letrixa, arrived
at length at Cadiz. A fleet was then getting ready, and
troops were assembling in order to induce the reverend
fathers, Jesuits of Paraguay, who were accused of having
excited one of the Indian tribes in the neighborhood of the
town of the Holy Sacrament, to revolt against the kings of
Spain and Portugal. Candide, having been in the Bulgarian
service, performed the military exercise of that nation
before the general of this little army with so intrepid an
air, and with such agility and expedition, that he received
the command of a company of foot. Being now made a captain,
he embarked with Miss Cunegund, the old woman, two valets,
and the two Andalusian horses, which had belonged to the
grand inquisitor of Portugal.
During their voyage they amused themselves with many
profound reasonings on poor Pangloss’s philosophy. “We are
now going into another world, and surely it must be there
that everything is for the best; for I must confess that we
have had some little reason to complain of what passes in
ours, both as to the physical and moral part. Though I have
a sincere love for you,” said Miss Cunegund, “yet I still
shudder at the reflection of what I have seen and
experienced.” “All will be well,” replied Candide, “the sea
of this new world is already better than our European seas:
it is smoother, and the winds blow more regularly.” “God
grant it,” said Cunegund, “but I have met with such terrible
treatment in this world that I have almost lost all hopes of
a better one.” “What murmuring and complaining is here
indeed!” cried the old woman: “If you had suffered half what
I have, there might be some reason for it.” Miss Cunegund
could scarce refrain from laughing at the good old woman,
and thought it droll enough to pretend to a greater share of
misfortunes than her own. “Alas! my good dame,” said she,
“unless you had been ravished by two Bulgarians, had
received two deep wounds in your belly, had seen two of your
own castles demolished, had lost two fathers, and two
mothers, and seen both of them barbarously murdered before
your eyes, and to sum up all, had two lovers whipped at an
auto-da-fé, I cannot see how you could be more
unfortunate than I. Add to this, though born a baroness, and
bearing seventy-two quarterings, I have been reduced to the
station of a cook-wench.” “Miss,” replied the old woman,
“you do not know my family as yet; but if I were to show you
my posteriors, you would not talk in this manner, but
suspend your judgment.” This speech raised a high curiosity
in Candide and Cunegund; and the old woman continued as
follows:
|
CHAPTER XI.
the history of the old woman.
“I have not always been blear-eyed. My nose did not
always touch my chin; nor was I always a servant. You must
know that I am the daughter of Pope Urban X.4,
and of the princess of Palestrina. To the age of fourteen I
was brought up in a castle, compared with which all the
castles of the German barons would not have been fit for
stabling, and one of my robes would have bought half the
province of Westphalia. I grew up, and improved in beauty,
wit, and every graceful accomplishment; and in the midst of
pleasures, homage, and the highest expectations. I already
began to inspire the men with love. My breast began to take
its right form, and such a breast! white, firm, and formed
like that of Venus of Medici; my eyebrows were as black as
jet, and as for my eyes, they darted flames and eclipsed the
lustre of the stars, as I was told by the poets of our part
of the world. My maids, when they dressed and undressed me,
used to fall into an ecstasy in viewing me before and
behind: and all the men longed to be in their places.
“I was contracted in marriage to a sovereign prince of
Massa Carara. Such a prince! as handsome as myself,
sweet-tempered, agreeable, witty, and in love with me over
head and ears. I loved him, too, as our sex generally do for
the first time, with rapture, transport, and idolatry. The
nuptials were prepared with surprising pomp and
magnificence; the ceremony was attended with feasts,
carousals, and burlettas: all Italy composed sonnets in my
praise, though not one of them was tolerable. I was on the
point of reaching the summit of bliss, when an old
marchioness, who had been mistress to the prince, my
husband, invited him to drink chocolate. In less than two
hours after he returned from the visit, he died of most
terrible convulsions. But this is a mere trifle. My mother,
distracted to the highest degree, and yet less afflicted
than I, determined to absent herself for some time from so
fatal a place. As she had a very fine estate in the
neighborhood of Gaeta, we embarked on board a galley, which
was gilded like the high altar of St. Peter’s, at Rome. In
our passage we were boarded by a Sallee rover. Our men
defended themselves like true pope’s soldiers; they flung
themselves upon their knees, laid down their arms, and
begged the corsair to give them absolution in articulo
mortis.
“The Moors presently stripped us as bare as ever we were
born. My mother, my maids of honor, and myself, were served
all in the same manner. It is amazing how quick these gentry
are at undressing people. But what surprised me most was,
that they made a rude sort of surgical examination of parts
of the body which are sacred to the functions of nature. I
thought it a very strange kind of ceremony; for thus we are
generally apt to judge of things when we have not seen the
world. I afterwards learned that it was to discover if we
had any diamonds concealed. This practice has been
established since time immemorial among those civilized
nations that scour the seas. I was informed that the
religious knights of Malta never fail to make this search
whenever any Moors of either sex fall into their hands. It
is a part of the law of nations, from which they never
deviate.
“I need not tell you how great a hardship it was for a
young princess and her mother to be made slaves and carried
to Morocco. You may easily imagine what we must have
suffered on board a corsair. My mother was still extremely
handsome, our maids of honor, and even our common
waiting-women, had more charms than were to be found in all
Africa. As to myself, I was enchanting; I was beauty itself,
and then I had my virginity. But, alas! I did not retain it
long; this precious flower, which had been reserved for the
lovely prince of Massa Carara, was cropped by the captain of
the Moorish vessel, who was a hideous negro, and thought he
did me infinite honor. Indeed, both the princess of
Palestrina and myself must have had very strong
constitutions to undergo all the hardships and violences we
suffered before our arrival at Morocco. But I will not
detain you any longer with such common things; they are
hardly worth mentioning.
“Upon our arrival at Morocco we found that kingdom
deluged with blood. Fifty sons of the emperor Muley Ishmael
were each at the head of a party. This produced fifty civil
wars of blacks against blacks, of tawnies against tawnies,
and of mulattoes against mulattoes. In short, the whole
empire was one continued scene of carnage.
“No sooner were we landed than a party of blacks, of a
contrary faction to that of my captain, came to rob him of
his booty. Next to the money and jewels, we were the most
valuable things he had. I witnessed on this occasion such a
battle as you never beheld in your cold European climates.
The northern nations have not that fermentation in their
blood, nor that raging lust for women that is so common in
Africa. The natives of Europe seem to have their veins
filled with milk only; but fire and vitriol circulate in
those of the inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighboring
provinces. They fought with the fury of the lions, tigers,
and serpents of their country, to decide who should have us.
A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my captain’s
lieutenant held her by the left; another Moor laid hold of
her by the right leg, and one of our corsairs held her by
the other. In this manner almost all of our women were
dragged by four soldiers. My captain kept me concealed
behind him, and with his drawn scimitar cut down everyone
who opposed him; at length I saw all our Italian women and
my mother mangled and torn in pieces by the monsters who
contended for them. The captives, my companions, the Moors
who took us, the soldiers, the sailors, the blacks, the
whites, the mulattoes, and lastly, my captain himself, were
all slain, and I remained alone expiring upon a heap of dead
bodies. Similar barbarous scenes were transacted every day
over the whole country, which is of three hundred leagues in
extent, and yet they never missed the five stated times of
prayer enjoined by their prophet Mahomet.
“I disengaged myself with great difficulty from such a
heap of corpses, and made a shift to crawl to a large
orange-tree that stood on the bank of a neighboring rivulet,
where I fell down exhausted with fatigue, and overwhelmed
with horror, despair, and hunger. My senses being
overpowered, I fell asleep, or rather seemed to be in a
trance. Thus I lay in a state of weakness and insensibility
between life and death, when I felt myself pressed by
something that moved up and down upon my body. This brought
me to myself. I opened my eyes, and saw a pretty fair-faced
man, who sighed and muttered these words between his teeth,
O che sciagura d’essere senza coglioni!
|
CHAPTER XII.
the adventures of the old woman continued.
“Astonished and delighted to hear my native language, and
no less surprised at the young man’s words, I told him that
there were far greater misfortunes in the world than what he
complained of. And to convince him of it, I gave him a short
history of the horrible disasters that had befallen me; and
as soon as I had finished, fell into a swoon again. He
carried me in his arms to a neighboring cottage, where he
had me put to bed, procured me something to eat, waited on
me with the greatest attention, comforted me, caressed me,
told me that he had never seen anything so perfectly
beautiful as myself, and that he had never so much regretted
the loss of what no one could restore to him. ‘I was born at
Naples,’ said he, ‘where they make eunuchs of thousands of
children every year; some die of the operation; some acquire
voices far beyond the most tuneful of your ladies; and
others are sent to govern states and empires. I underwent
this operation very successfully, and was one of the singers
in the princess of Palestrina’s chapel.’ ‘How,’ cried I, ‘in
my mother’s chapel!’ ‘The princess of Palestrina, your
mother!’ cried he, bursting into a flood of tears. ‘Is it
possible you should be the beautiful young princess whom I
had the care of bringing up till she was six years old, and
who at that tender age promised to be as fair as I now
behold you?’ ‘I am the same,’ I replied. ‘My mother lies
about a hundred yards from here cut in pieces and buried
under a heap of dead bodies.’
“I then related to him all that had befallen me, and he
in return acquainted me with all his adventures, and how he
had been sent to the court of the king of Morocco by a
Christian prince to conclude a treaty with that monarch; in
consequence of which he was to be furnished with military
stores, and ships to enable him to destroy the commerce of
other Christian governments. ‘I have executed my
commission,’ said the eunuch; ‘I am going to take ship at
Ceuta, and I’ll take you along with me to Italy. Ma che
sciagura d’essere senza coglioni!’
“I thanked him with tears of joy, but, instead of taking
me with him into Italy, he carried me to Algiers, and sold
me to the dey of that province. I had not been long a slave
when the plague, which had made the tour of Africa, Asia,
and Europe, broke out at Algiers with redoubled fury. You
have seen an earthquake; but tell me, Miss, have you ever
had the plague?”
“Never,” answered the young baroness.
“If you had ever had it,” continued the old woman, “you
would own an earthquake was a trifle to it. It is very
common in Africa; I was seized with it. Figure to yourself
the distressed condition of the daughter of a pope, only
fifteen years old, and who in less than three months had
felt the miseries of poverty and slavery; had been debauched
almost every day; had beheld her mother cut into four
quarters; had experienced the scourges of famine and war;
and was now dying of the plague at Algiers. I did not,
however, die of it; but my eunuch, and the dey, and almost
the whole seraglio of Algiers, were swept off.
“As soon as the first fury of this dreadful pestilence
was over, a sale was made of the dey’s slaves. I was
purchased by a merchant who carried me to Tunis. This man
sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to another at
Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from
Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople.
After many changes, I at length became the property of an
aga of the janissaries, who, soon after I came into his
possession, was ordered away to the defence of Azoff, then
besieged by the Russians.
“The aga, being very fond of women, took his whole
seraglio with him, and lodged us in a small fort, with two
black eunuchs and twenty soldiers for our guard. Our army
made a great slaughter among the Russians; but they soon
returned us the compliment. Azoff was taken by storm, and
the enemy spared neither age, sex, nor condition, but put
all to the sword, and laid the city in ashes. Our little
fort alone held out; they resolved to reduce us by famine.
The twenty janissaries, who were left to defend it, had
bound themselves by an oath never to surrender the place.
Being reduced to the extremity of famine, they found
themselves obliged to kill our two eunuchs, and eat them
rather than violate their oath. But this horrible repast
soon failing them, they next determined to devour the women.
“We had a very pious and humane man, who gave them a most
excellent sermon on this occasion, exhorting them not to
kill us all at once; ‘Cut off only one of the steaks of each
of those ladies,’ said he, ‘and you will fare extremely
well; if you are under the necessity of having recourse to
the same expedient again, you will find the like supply a
few days hence. Heaven will approve of so charitable an
action, and work your deliverance.’
“By the force of this eloquence he easily persuaded them,
and all of us underwent the operation. The man applied the
same balsam as they do to children after circumcision. We
were all ready to give up the ghost.
“The janissaries had scarcely time to finish the repast
with which we had supplied them, when the Russians attacked
the place by means of flat-bottomed boats, and not a single
janissary escaped. The Russians paid no regard to the
condition we were in; but there are French surgeons in all
parts of the world, and one of them took us under his care,
and cured us. I shall never forget, while I live, that as
soon as my wounds were perfectly healed he made me certain
proposals. In general, he desired us all to be of a good
cheer, assuring us that the like had happened in many
sieges; and that it was perfectly agreeable to the laws of
war.
“As soon as my companions were in a condition to walk,
they were sent to Moscow. As for me, I fell to the lot of a
boyard, who put me to work in his garden, and gave me twenty
lashes a day. But this nobleman having about two years
afterwards been broken alive upon the wheel, with about
thirty others, for some court intrigues, I took advantage of
the event, and made my escape. I travelled over a great part
of Russia. I was a long time an innkeeper’s servant at Riga,
then at Rostock, Wismar, Leipsic, Cassel, Utrecht, Leyden,
The Hague, and Rotterdam: I have grown old in misery and
disgrace, living with only one buttock, and having in
perpetual remembrance that I am a pope’s daughter. I have
been a hundred times upon the point of killing myself, but
still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is,
perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our
nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in
carrying a burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest,
and yet to strive to preserve our existence? In a word, to
caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our
bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?
“In the different countries which it has been my fate to
traverse, and at the many inns where I have been a servant,
I have observed a prodigious number of people who held their
existence in abhorrence, and yet I never knew more than
twelve who voluntarily put an end to their misery; namely,
three negroes, four Englishmen, as many Genevese, and a
German professor, named Robek. My last place was with the
Jew, Don Issachar, who placed me near your person, my fair
lady; to whose fortunes I have attached myself, and have
been more concerned with your adventures than with my own. I
should never have even mentioned the latter to you, had you
not a little piqued me on the head of sufferings; and if it
were not customary to tell stories on board a ship in order
to pass away the time. In short, my dear Miss, I have a
great deal of knowledge and experience in the world,
therefore take my advice: divert yourself, and prevail upon
each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of
them all that has not cursed his existence many times, and
said to himself over and over again that he was the most
wretched of mortals, I give you leave to throw me
head-foremost into the sea.”
|
CHAPTER XIII.
how Candide was obliged to leave the fair
Cunegund and the old woman.
The fair Cunegund, being thus made acquainted with the
history of the old woman’s life and adventures, paid her all
the respect and civility due to a person of her rank and
merit. She very readily acceded to her proposal of engaging
the passengers to relate their adventures in their turns,
and was at length, as well as Candide, compelled to
acknowledge that the old woman was in the right. “It is a
thousand pities,” said Candide, “that the sage Pangloss
should have been hanged contrary to the custom of an
auto-da-fé, for he would have given us a most admirable
lecture on the moral and physical evil which overspreads the
earth and sea; and I think I should have courage enough to
presume to offer (with all due respect) some few
objections.”
While everyone was reciting his adventures, the ship
continued her way, and at length arrived at Buenos Ayres,
where Cunegund, Captain Candide, and the old woman, landed
and went to wait upon the governor Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y
Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza. This nobleman
carried himself with a haughtiness suitable to a person who
bore so many names. He spoke with the most noble disdain to
everyone, carried his nose so high, strained his voice to
such a pitch, assumed so imperious an air, and stalked with
so much loftiness and pride, that everyone who had the honor
of conversing with him was violently tempted to bastinade
his excellency. He was immoderately fond of women, and Miss
Cunegund appeared in his eyes a paragon of beauty. The first
thing he did was to ask her if she was not the captain’s
wife. The air with which he made this demand alarmed Candide,
who did not dare to say he was married to her, because
indeed he was not; neither did he venture to say she was his
sister, because she was not: and though a lie of this nature
proved of great service to one of the ancients, and might
possibly be useful to some of the moderns, yet the purity of
his heart would not permit him to violate the truth. “Miss
Cunegund,” replied he, “is to do me the honor to marry me,
and we humbly beseech your excellency to condescend to grace
the ceremony with your presence.”
Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y
Lampourdos y Souza, twirling his mustachio, and putting on a
sarcastic smile, ordered Captain Candide to go and review
his company. The gentle Candide obeyed, and the governor was
left with Miss Cunegund. He made her a strong declaration of
love, protesting that he was ready to give her his hand in
the face of the church, or otherwise, as should appear most
agreeable to a young lady of her prodigious beauty. Cunegund
desired leave to retire a quarter of an hour to consult the
old woman, and determine how she should proceed.
The old woman gave her the following counsel: “Miss, you
have seventy-two quarterings in your arms, it is true, but
you have not a penny to bless yourself with: it is your own
fault if you do not become the wife of one of the greatest
noblemen in South America, with an exceeding fine mustachio.
What business have you to pride yourself upon an unshaken
constancy? You have been outraged by a Bulgarian soldier; a
Jew and an inquisitor have both tasted of your favors.
People take advantage of misfortunes. I must confess, were I
in your place, I should, without the least scruple, give my
hand to the governor, and thereby make the fortune of the
brave Captain Candide.” While the old woman was thus
haranguing, with all the prudence that old age and
experience furnish, a small bark entered the harbor, in
which was an alcayde and his alguazils. Matters had fallen
out as follows:
The old woman rightly guessed that the cordelier with the
long sleeves, was the person who had taken Miss Cunegund’s
money and jewels, while they and Candide were at Badajoz, in
their flight from Lisbon. This same friar attempted to sell
some of the diamonds to a jeweller, who presently knew them
to have belonged to the grand inquisitor, and stopped them.
The cordelier, before he was hanged, acknowledged that he
had stolen them, and described the persons, and the road
they had taken. The flight of Cunegund and Candide was
already the towntalk. They sent in pursuit of them to Cadiz;
and the vessel which had been sent to make the greater
despatch, had now reached the port of Buenos Ayres. A report
was spread that an alcayde was going to land, and that he
was in pursuit of the murderers of my lord, the inquisitor.
The sage old woman immediately saw what was to be done. “You
cannot run away,” said she to Cunegund, “but you have
nothing to fear; it was not you who killed my lord
inquisitor: besides, as the governor is in love with you, he
will not suffer you to be ill-treated; therefore stand your
ground.” Then hurrying away to Candide, she said: “Be gone
hence this instant, or you will be burned alive.” Candide
found there was no time to be lost; but how could he part
from Cunegund, and whither must he fly for shelter?
|
CHAPTER XIV.
the reception Candide and cacambo met with
among the jesuits in paraguay.
Candide had brought with him from Cadiz such a footman as
one often meets with on the coasts of Spain and in the
colonies. He was the fourth part of a Spaniard, of a mongrel
breed, and born in Tucuman. He had successively gone through
the profession of a singing boy, sexton, sailor, monk,
peddler, soldier, and lackey. His name was Cacambo; he had a
great affection for his master, because his master was a
very good man. He immediately saddled the two Andalusian
horses. “Come, my good master, let us follow the old woman’s
advice, and make all the haste we can from this place
without staying to look behind us.” Candide burst into a
flood of tears: “O, my dear Cunegund, must I then be
compelled to quit you just as the governor was going to
honor us with his presence at our wedding! Cunegund, so long
lost and found again, what will now become of you?” “Lord!”
said Cacambo, “she must do as well as she can; women are
never at a loss. God takes care of them, and so let us make
the best of our way.” “But whither wilt thou carry me? where
can we go? what can we do without Cunegund?” cried the
disconsolate Candide. “By St. James of Compostella,” said
Cacambo, “you were going to fight against the Jesuits of
Paraguay; now let us go and fight for them; I know the road
perfectly well; I’ll conduct you to their kingdom; they will
be delighted with a captain that understands the Bulgarian
drill; you will certainly make a prodigious fortune. If we
cannot succeed in this world we may in another. It is a
great pleasure to see new objects and perform new exploits.”
“Then you have been in Paraguay?” asked Candide. “Ay,
marry, I have,” replied Cacambo; “I was a scout in the
college of the Assumption, and am as well acquainted with
the new government of Los Padres as I am with the streets of
Cadiz. Oh, it is an admirable government, that is most
certain! The kingdom is at present upwards of three hundred
leagues in diameter, and divided into thirty provinces; the
fathers there are masters of everything, and the people have
no money at all; this you must allow is the masterpiece of
justice and reason. For my part, I see nothing so divine as
the good fathers, who wage war in this part of the world
against the troops of Spain and Portugal, at the same time
that they hear the confessions of those very princes in
Europe; who kill Spaniards in America and send them to
heaven at Madrid. This pleases me exceedingly, but let us
push forward; you are going to see the happiest and most
fortunate of all mortals. How charmed will those fathers be
to hear that a captain who understands the Bulgarian
military drill is coming among them.”
As soon as they reached the first barrier, Cacambo called
to the advance guard, and told them that a captain wanted to
speak to my lord, the general. Notice was given to the main
guard, and immediately a Paraguayan officer ran to throw
himself at the feet of the commandant to impart this news to
him. Candide and Cacambo were immediately disarmed, and
their two Andalusian horses were seized. The two strangers
were conducted between two files of musketeers, the
commandant was at the further end with a three-cornered cap
on his head, his gown tucked up, a sword by his side, and a
half-pike in his hand; he made a sign, and instantly
four-and-twenty soldiers drew up round the newcomers. A
sergeant told them that they must wait, the commandant could
not speak to them; and that the reverend father provincial
did not suffer any Spaniard to open his mouth but in his
presence, or to stay above three hours in the province. “And
where is the reverend father provincial?” said Cacambo. “He
has just come from mass and is at the parade,” replied the
sergeant, “and in about three hours’ time you may possibly
have the honor to kiss his spurs.” “But,” said Cacambo, “the
captain, who, as well as myself, is perishing of hunger, is
no Spaniard, but a German; therefore, pray, might we not be
permitted to break our fast till we can be introduced to his
reverence?”
The sergeant immediately went and acquainted the
commandant with what he heard. “God be praised,” said the
reverend commandant, “since he is a German I will hear what
he has to say; let him be brought to my arbor.”
Immediately they conducted Candide to a beautiful
pavilion adorned with a colonade of green marble, spotted
with yellow, and with an intertexture of vines, which served
as a kind of cage for parrots, humming-birds, guinea-hens,
and all other curious kinds of birds. An excellent breakfast
was provided in vessels of gold; and while the Paraguayans
were eating coarse Indian corn out of wooden dishes in the
open air, and exposed to the burning heat of the sun, the
reverend father commandant retired to his cool arbor.
He was a very handsome young man, roundfaced, fair, and
fresh-colored, his eyebrows were finely arched, he had a
piercing eye, the tips of his ears were red, his lips
vermilion, and he had a bold and commanding air; but such a
boldness as neither resembled that of a Spaniard nor of a
Jesuit. He ordered Candide and Cacambo to have their arms
restored to them, together with their two Andalusian horses.
Cacambo gave the poor beasts some oats to eat close by the
arbor, keeping a strict eye upon them all the while for fear
of surprise.
Candide having kissed the hem of the commandant’s robe,
they sat down to table. “It seems you are a German,” said
the Jesuit to him in that language. “Yes, reverend father,”
answered Candide. As they pronounced these words they looked
at each other with great amazement and with an emotion that
neither could conceal.
“From what part of Germany do you come?” said the Jesuit.
“From the dirty province of Westphalia,” answered Candide.
“I was born in the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh.”
“Oh heavens! is it possible?” said the commandant.
“What a miracle!” cried Candide.
“Can it be you?” said the commandant.
On this they both drew a few steps backwards, then
running into each other’s arms, embraced, and wept
profusely. “Is it you then, reverend father? You are the
brother of the fair Miss Cunegund? You that was slain by the
Bulgarians! You the baron’s son! You a Jesuit in Paraguay! I
must confess this is a strange world we live in. O Pangloss!
Pangloss! what joy would this have given you if you had not
been hanged.”
The commandant dismissed the negro slaves, and the
Paraguayans who presented them with liquor in crystal
goblets. He returned thanks to God and St. Ignatius a
thousand times; he clasped Candide in his arms, and both
their faces were bathed in tears. “You will be more
surprised, more affected, more transported,” said Candide,
“when I tell you that Miss Cunegund, your sister, whose
belly was supposed to have been ripped open, is in perfect
health.”
“Where?”
“In your neighborhood, with the governor of Buenos Ayres;
and I myself was going to fight against you.” Every word
they uttered during this long conversation was productive of
some new matter of astonishment. Their souls fluttered on
their tongues, listened in their ears, and sparkled in their
eyes. Like true Germans, they continued a long while at
table, waiting for the reverend father; and the commandant
spoke to his dear Candide as follows:
|

CHAPTER XV.
how Candide killed the brother of his dear
Cunegund.
“Never while I live shall I lose the remembrance of that
horrible day on which I saw my father and mother barbarously
butchered before my eyes, and my sister ravished. When the
Bulgarians retired we searched in vain for my dear sister.
She was nowhere to be found; but the bodies of my father,
mother, and myself, with two servant maids and three little
boys, all of whom had been murdered by the remorseless
enemy, were thrown into a cart to be buried in a chapel
belonging to the Jesuits, within two leagues of our family
seat. A Jesuit sprinkled us with some holy water, which was
confounded salty, and a few drops of it went into my eyes;
the father perceived that my eyelids stirred a little; he
put his hand upon my breast and felt my heart beat; upon
which he gave me proper assistance, and at the end of three
weeks I was perfectly recovered. You know, my dear Candide,
I was very handsome; I became still more so, and the
reverend father Croust, superior of that house, took a great
fancy to me; he gave me the habit of the order, and some
years afterwards I was sent to Rome. Our general stood in
need of new recruits of young German Jesuits. The sovereigns
of Paraguay admit of as few Spanish Jesuits as possible;
they prefer those of other nations, as being more obedient
to command. The reverend father-general looked upon me as a
proper person to work in that vineyard. I set out in company
with a Polander and a Tyrolese. Upon my arrival I was
honored with a subdeaconship and a lieutenancy. Now I am
colonel and priest. We shall give a warm reception to the
king of Spain’s troops; I can assure you they will be well
excommunicated and beaten. Providence has sent you hither to
assist us. But is it true that my dear sister Cunegund is in
the neighborhood with the governor of Buenos Ayres?”
Candide swore that nothing could be more true; and the
tears began again to trickle down their cheeks. The baron
knew no end of embracing Candide, he called him his brother,
his deliverer.
“Perhaps,” said he, “my dear Candide, we shall be
fortunate enough to enter the town, sword in hand, and
recover my sister Cunegund.”
“Ah! that would crown my wishes,” replied Candide; “for I
intended to marry her; and I hope I shall still be able to
effect it.”
“Insolent fellow!” cried the baron. “You! you have the
impudence to marry my sister, who bears seventy-two
quarterings! really, I think you have an insufferable degree
of assurance to dare so much as to mention such an audacious
design to me.”
Candide, thunderstruck at the oddness of this speech,
answered: “Reverend father, all the quarterings in the world
are of no signification. I have delivered your sister from a
Jew and an inquisitor; she is under many obligations to me,
and she is resolved to give me her hand. My master,
Pangloss, always told me that mankind are by nature equal.
Therefore, you may depend upon it that I will marry your
sister.”
“We shall see to that, villain!” said the Jesuit baron of
Thunder-ten-tronckh, and struck him across the face with the
flat side of his sword. Candide in an instant drew his
rapier and plunged it up to the hilt in the Jesuit’s body;
but in pulling it out reeking hot, he burst into tears.
“Good God!” cried he, “I have killed my old master, my
friend, my brother-in-law; I am the best man in the world,
and yet I have already killed three men; and of these three
two were priests.”
Cacambo, who was standing sentry near the door of the
arbor, instantly ran up.
“Nothing remains,” said his master, “but to sell our
lives as dearly as possible; they will undoubtedly look into
the arbor; we must die sword in hand.”
Cacambo, who had seen many of this kind of adventures,
was not discouraged. He stripped the baron of his Jesuit’s
habit and put it upon Candide, then gave him the dead man’s
three-cornered cap and made him mount on horseback. All this
was done as quick as thought.
“Gallop, master,” cried Cacambo; “everybody will take you
for a Jesuit going to give orders; and we shall have passed
the frontiers before they will be able to overtake us.” He
flew as he spoke these words, crying out aloud in Spanish,
“Make way; make way for the reverend father-colonel.”
|
CHAPTER XVI.
what happened to our two travellers with
two girls, two monkeys, and the savages, called oreillons.
Candide and his valet had already passed the frontiers
before it was known that the German Jesuit was dead. The
wary Cacambo had taken care to fill his wallet with bread,
chocolate, some ham, some fruit, and a few bottles of wine.
They penetrated with their Andalusian horses into a strange
country, where they could discover no beaten path. At length
a beautiful meadow, intersected with purling rills, opened
to their view. Cacambo proposed to his master to take some
nourishment, and he set him an example.
“How can you desire me to feast upon ham, when I have
killed the baron’s son and am doomed never more to see the
beautiful Cunegund? What will it avail me to prolong a
wretched life that must be spent far from her in remorse and
despair? And then what will the journal of Trévoux say?” was
Candide’s reply.
While he was making these reflections he still continued
eating. The sun was now on the point of setting when the
ears of our two wanderers were assailed with cries which
seemed to be uttered by a female voice. They could not tell
whether these were cries of grief or of joy; however, they
instantly started up, full of that inquietude and
apprehension which a strange place naturally inspires. The
cries proceeded from two young women who were tripping
disrobed along the mead, while two monkeys followed close at
their heels biting at their limbs. Candide was touched with
compassion; he had learned to shoot while he was among the
Bulgarians, and he could hit a filbert in a hedge without
touching a leaf. Accordingly he took up his double-barrelled
Spanish gun, pulled the trigger, and laid the two monkeys
lifeless on the ground.
“God be praised, my dear Cacambo, I have rescued two poor
girls from a most perilous situation; if I have committed a
sin in killing an inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample
amends by saving the lives of these two distressed damsels.
Who knows but they may be young ladies of a good family, and
that the assistance I have been so happy to give them may
procure us great advantage in this country?”
He was about to continue when he felt himself struck
speechless at seeing the two girls embracing the dead bodies
of the monkeys in the tenderest manner, bathing their wounds
with their tears, and rending the air with the most doleful
lamentations.
“Really,” said he to Cacambo, “I should not have expected
to see such a prodigious share of good nature.”
“Master,” replied the knowing valet, “you have made a
precious piece of work of it; do you know that you have
killed the lovers of these two ladies?”
“Their lovers! Cacambo, you are jesting! It cannot be! I
can never believe it.”
“Dear sir,” replied Cacambo, “you are surprised at
everything; why should you think it so strange that there
should be a country where monkeys insinuate themselves into
the good graces of the ladies? They are the fourth part of a
man as I am the fourth part of a Spaniard.”
“Alas!” replied Candide, “I remember to have heard my
master Pangloss say that such accidents as these frequently
came to pass in former times, and that these commixtures are
productive of centaurs, fauns, and satyrs; and that many of
the ancients had seen such monsters; but I looked upon the
whole as fabulous.”
“Now you are convinced,” said Cacambo, “that it is very
true, and you see what use is made of those creatures by
persons who have not had a proper education; all I am afraid
of is that these same ladies may play us some ugly trick.”
These judicious reflections operated so far on Candide as
to make him quit the meadow and strike into a thicket. There
he and Cacambo supped, and after heartily cursing the grand
inquisitor, the governor of Buenos Ayres, and the baron,
they fell asleep on the ground. When they awoke they were
surprised to find that they could not move; the reason was
that the Oreillons who inhabit that country, and to whom the
ladies had given information of these two strangers, had
bound them with cords made of the bark of trees. They saw
themselves surrounded by fifty naked Oreillons armed with
bows and arrows, clubs, and hatchets of flint; some were
making a fire under a large cauldron; and others were
preparing spits, crying out one and all, “A Jesuit! a
Jesuit! we shall be revenged; we shall have excellent cheer;
let us eat this Jesuit; let us eat him up.”
“I told you, master,” cried Cacambo, mournfully, “that
these two wenches would play us some scurvy trick.”
Candide, seeing the cauldron and the spits, cried out, “I
suppose they are going either to boil or roast us. Ah! what
would Pangloss say if he were to see how pure nature is
formed? Everything is right; it may be so; but I must
confess it is something hard to be bereft of dear Miss
Cunegund, and to be spitted like a rabbit by these barbarous
Oreillons.”
Cacambo, who never lost his presence of mind in distress,
said to the disconsolate Candide: “Do not despair; I
understand a little of the jargon of these people; I will
speak to them.”
“Ay, pray do,” said Candide, “and be sure you make them
sensible of the horrid barbarity of boiling and roasting
human creatures, and how little of Christianity there is in
such practices.”
“Gentlemen,” said Cacambo, “you think perhaps you are
going to feast upon a Jesuit; if so, it is mighty well;
nothing can be more agreeable to justice than thus to treat
your enemies. Indeed the law of nature teaches us to kill
our neighbor, and accordingly we find this practised all
over the world; and if we do not indulge ourselves in eating
human flesh, it is because we have much better fare; but for
your parts, who have not such resources as we, it is
certainly much better judged to feast upon your enemies than
to throw their bodies to the fowls of the air; and thus lose
all the fruits of your victory. But surely, gentlemen, you
would not choose to eat your friends. You imagine you are
going to roast a Jesuit, whereas my master is your friend,
your defender, and you are going to spit the very man who
has been destroying your enemies; as to myself, I am your
countryman; this gentleman is my master, and so far from
being a Jesuit, give me leave to tell you he has very lately
killed one of that order, whose spoils he now wears, and
which have probably occasioned your mistake. To convince you
of the truth of what I say, take the habit he has on and
carry it to the first barrier of the Jesuits’ kingdom, and
inquire whether my master did not kill one of their
officers. There will be little or no time lost by this, and
you may still reserve our bodies in your power to feast on
if you should find what we have told you to be false. But,
on the contrary, if you find it to be true, I am persuaded
you are too well acquainted with the principles of the laws
of society, humanity, and justice, not to use us
courteously, and suffer us to depart unhurt.”
This speech appeared very reasonable to the Oreillons;
they deputed two of their people with all expedition to
inquire into the truth of this affair, who acquitted
themselves of their commission like men of sense, and soon
returned with good tidings for our distressed adventurers.
Upon this they were loosed, and those who were so lately
going to roast and boil them now showed them all sorts of
civilities; offered them girls, gave them refreshments, and
reconducted them to the confines of their country, crying
before them all the way, in token of joy: “He is no Jesuit,
he is no Jesuit.”
Candide could not help admiring the cause of his
deliverance. “What men! what manners!” cried he; “if I had
not fortunately run my sword up to the hilt in the body of
Miss Cunegund’s brother, I should have certainly been eaten
alive. But, after all, pure nature is an excellent thing;
since these people, instead of eating me, showed me a
thousand civilities as soon as they knew I was not a
Jesuit.”
|
CHAPTER XVII.
Candide and his valet arrive in the
country of el dorado—what they saw there.
When they got to the frontiers of the Oreillons, “You
see,” said Cacambo to Candide, “this hemisphere is not
better than the other; now take my advice and let us return
to Europe by the shortest way possible.”
“But how can we get back?” said Candide; “and whither
shall we go? To my own country? The Bulgarians and the
Abares are laying that waste with fire and sword; or shall
we go to Portugal? There I shall be burned; and if we abide
here we are every moment in danger of being spitted. But how
can I bring myself to quit that part of the world where my
dear Miss Cunegund has her residence?”
“Let us return towards Cayenne,” said Cacambo; “there we
shall meet with some Frenchmen; for you know those gentry
ramble all over the world; perhaps they will assist us, and
God will look with pity on our distress.”
It was not so easy to get to Cayenne. They knew pretty
nearly whereabouts it lay; but the mountains, rivers,
precipices, robbers, savages, were dreadful obstacles in the
way. Their horses died with fatigue and their provisions
were at an end. They subsisted a whole month on wild fruit,
till at length they came to a little river bordered with
cocoa trees; the sight of which at once revived their
drooping spirits and furnished nourishment for their
enfeebled bodies.
Cacambo, who was always giving as good advice as the old
woman herself, said to Candide: “You see there is no holding
out any longer; we have travelled enough on foot. I spy an
empty canoe near the river side; let us fill it with
cocoanuts, get into it, and go down with the stream; a river
always leads to some inhabited place. If we do not meet with
agreeable things, we shall at least meet with something
new.”
“Agreed,” replied Candide; “let us recommend ourselves to
Providence.”
They rowed a few leagues down the river, the banks of
which were in some places covered with flowers; in others
barren; in some parts smooth and level, and in others steep
and rugged. The stream widened as they went further on, till
at length it passed under one of the frightful rocks, whose
summits seemed to reach the clouds. Here our two travellers
had the courage to commit themselves to the stream, which,
contracting in this part, hurried them along with a dreadful
noise and rapidity. At the end of four-and-twenty hours they
saw daylight again; but their canoe was dashed to pieces
against the rocks. They were obliged to creep along, from
rock to rock, for the space of a league, till at length a
spacious plain presented itself to their sight. This place
was bounded by a chain of inaccessible mountains. The
country appeared cultivated equally for pleasure and to
produce the necessaries of life. The useful and agreeable
were here equally blended. The roads were covered, or rather
adorned, with carriages formed of glittering materials, in
which were men and women of a surprising beauty, drawn with
great rapidity by red sheep of a very large size; which far
surpassed the finest coursers of Andalusia, Tetuan, or
Mecquinez.
“Here is a country, however,” said Candide, “preferable
to Westphalia.”
He and Cacambo landed near the first village they saw, at
the entrance of which they perceived some children covered
with tattered garments of the richest brocade, playing at
quoits. Our two inhabitants of the other hemisphere amused
themselves greatly with what they saw. The quoits were
large, round pieces, yellow, red, and green, which cast a
most glorious lustre. Our travellers picked some of them up,
and they proved to be gold, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds;
the least of which would have been the greatest ornament to
the superb throne of the Great Mogul.
“Without doubt,” said Cacambo, “those children must be
the king’s sons that are playing at quoits.” As he was
uttering these words the schoolmaster of the village
appeared, who came to call the children to school.
“There,” said Candide, “is the preceptor of the royal
family.”
The little ragamuffins immediately quitted their
diversion, leaving the quoits on the ground with all their
other playthings. Candide gathered them up, ran to the
schoolmaster, and, with a most respectful bow, presented
them to him, giving him to understand by signs that their
royal highnesses had forgot their gold and precious stones.
The schoolmaster, with a smile, flung them upon the ground,
then examining Candide from head to foot with an air of
admiration, he turned his back and went on his way.
Our travellers took care, however, to gather up the gold,
the rubies, and the emeralds.
“Where are we?” cried Candide. “The king’s children in
this country must have an excellent education, since they
are taught to show such a contempt for gold and precious
stones.”
Cacambo was as much surprised as his master. They then
drew near the first house in the village, which was built
after the manner of a European palace. There was a crowd of
people about the door, and a still greater number in the
house. The sound of the most delightful instruments of music
was heard, and the most agreeable smell came from the
kitchen. Cacambo went up to the door and heard those within
talking in the Peruvian language, which was his mother
tongue; for every one knows that Cacambo was born in a
village of Tucuman, where no other language is spoken.
“I will be your interpreter here,” said he to Candide.
“Let us go in; this is an eating-house.”
Immediately two waiters and two servant-girls, dressed in
cloth of gold, and their hair braided with ribbons of
tissue, accosted the strangers and invited them to sit down
to the ordinary. Their dinner consisted of four dishes of
different soups, each garnished with two young paroquets, a
large dish of bouillé that weighed two hundred weight, two
roasted monkeys of a delicious flavor, three hundred
humming-birds in one dish, and six hundred flybirds in
another; some excellent ragouts, delicate tarts, and the
whole served up in dishes of rockcrystal. Several sorts of
liquors, extracted from the sugar-cane, were handed about by
the servants who attended.
Most of the company were chapmen and wagoners, all
extremely polite; they asked Cacambo a few questions with
the utmost discretion and circumspection; and replied to his
in a most obliging and satisfactory manner.
As soon as dinner was over, both Candide and Cacambo
thought they should pay very handsomely for their
entertainment by laying down two of those large gold pieces
which they had picked off the ground; but the landlord and
landlady burst into a fit of laughing and held their sides
for some time. When the fit was over, “Gentlemen,” said the
landlord, “I plainly perceive you are strangers, and such we
are not accustomed to charge; pardon us, therefore, for
laughing when you offered us the common pebbles of our
highways for payment of your reckoning. To be sure, you have
none of the coin of this kingdom; but there is no necessity
of having any money at all to dine in this house. All the
inns, which are established for the convenience of those who
carry on the trade of this nation, are maintained by the
government. You have found but very indifferent
entertainment here, because this is only a poor village; but
in almost every other of these public houses you will meet
with a reception worthy of persons of your merit.” Cacambo
explained the whole of this speech of the landlord to
Candide, who listened to it with the same astonishment with
which his friend communicated it.
“What sort of a country is this,” said the one to the
other, “that is unknown to all the world; and in which
Nature has everywhere so different an appearance to what she
has in ours? Possibly this is that part of the globe where
everything is right, for there must certainly be some such
place. And, for all that Master Pangloss could say, I often
perceived that things went very ill in Westphalia.”
|
CHAPTER XVIII.
what they saw in the country of el dorado.
Cacambo vented all his curiosity upon his landlord by a
thousand different questions; the honest man answered him
thus: “I am very ignorant, sir, but I am contented with my
ignorance; however, we have in this neighborhood an old man
retired from court, who is the most learned and
communicative person in the whole kingdom.” He then
conducted Cacambo to the old man; Candide acted now only a
second character, and attended his valet. They entered a
very plain house, for the door was nothing but silver, and
the ceiling was only of beaten gold, but wrought in such
elegant taste as to vie with the richest. The antechamber,
indeed, was only incrusted with rubies and emeralds; but the
order in which everything was disposed made amends for this
great simplicity.
The old man received the strangers on his sofa, which was
stuffed with humming-birds’ feathers; and ordered his
servants to present them with liquors in golden goblets,
after which he satisfied their curiosity in the following
terms:
“I am now one hundred and seventy-two years old, and I
learned of my late father, who was equerry to the king, the
amazing revolutions of Peru, to which he had been an
eye-witness. This kingdom is the ancient patrimony of the
Incas, who very imprudently quitted it to conquer another
part of the world, and were at length conquered and
destroyed themselves by the Spaniards.
“Those princes of their family who remained in their
native country acted more wisely. They ordained, with the
consent of their whole nation, that none of the inhabitants
of our little kingdom should ever quit it; and to this wise
ordinance we owe the preservation of our innocence and
happiness. The Spaniards had some confused notion of this
country, to which they gave the name of El Dorado;
and Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman, actually came very
near it about three hundred years ago; but the inaccessible
rocks and precipices with which our country is surrounded on
all sides, has hitherto secured us from the rapacious fury
of the people of Europe, who have an unaccountable fondness
for the pebbles and dirt of our land, for the sake of which
they would murder us all to the very last man.”
The conversation lasted some time and turned chiefly on
the form of government, their manners, their women, their
public diversions, and the arts. At length, Candide, who had
always had a taste for metaphysics, asked whether the people
of that country had any religion.
The old man reddened a little at this question.
“Can you doubt it?” said he; “do you take us for wretches
lost to all sense of gratitude?”
Cacambo asked in a respectful manner what was the
established religion of El Dorado. The old man blushed
again, and said: “Can there be two religions, then? Ours, I
apprehend, is the religion of the whole world; we worship
God from morning till night.”
“Do you worship but one God?” said Cacambo, who still
acted as the interpreter of Candide’s doubts.
“Certainly,” said the old man; “there are not two, nor
three, nor four Gods. I must confess the people of your
world ask very extraordinary questions.”
However, Candide could not refrain from making many more
inquiries of the old man; he wanted to know in what manner
they prayed to God in El Dorado.
“We do not pray to him at all,” said the reverend sage;
“we have nothing to ask of Him, He has given us all we want,
and we give Him thanks incessantly.” Candide had a curiosity
to see some of their priests, and desired Cacambo to ask the
old man where they were. At which he smiling said:
“My friends, we are all of us priests; the king and all
the heads of families sing solemn hymns of thanksgiving
every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand
musicians.”
“What!” said Cacambo, “have you no monks among you to
dispute, to govern, to intrigue, and to burn people who are
not of the same opinion with themselves?”
“Do you take us for fools?” said the old man. “Here we
are all of one opinion, and know not what you mean by your
monks.”
During the whole of this discourse Candide was in
raptures, and he said to himself, “What a prodigious
difference is there between this place and Westphalia; and
this house and the baron’s castle. Ah, Master Pangloss! had
you ever seen El Dorado, you would no longer have maintained
that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh was the finest of all
possible edifices; there is nothing like seeing the world,
that’s certain.”
This long conversation being ended, the old man ordered
six sheep to be harnessed and put to the coach,6
and sent twelve of his servants to escort the travellers to
court.
“Excuse me,” said he, “for not waiting on you in person,
my age deprives me of that honor. The king will receive you
in such a manner that you will have no reason to complain;
and doubtless you will make a proper allowance for the
customs of the country if they should not happen altogether
to please you.”
Candide and Cacambo got into the coach, the six sheep
flew, and, in less than a quarter of an hour, they arrived
at the king’s palace, which was situated at the further end
of the capital. At the entrance was a portal two hundred and
twenty feet high and one hundred wide; but it is impossible
for words to express the materials of which it was built.
The reader, however, will readily conceive that they must
have a prodigious superiority over the pebbles and sand,
which we call gold and precious stones.
Twenty beautiful young virgins in waiting received
Candide and Cacambo on their alighting from the coach,
conducted them to the bath and clad them in robes woven of
the down of humming-birds; after which they were introduced
by the great officers of the crown of both sexes to the
king’s apartment, between two files of musicians, each file
consisting of a thousand, agreeable to the custom of the
country. When they drew near to the presence-chamber,
Cacambo asked one of the officers in what manner they were
to pay their obeisance to his majesty; whether it was the
custom to fall upon their knees, or to prostrate themselves
upon the ground; whether they were to put their hands upon
their heads, or behind their backs; whether they were to
lick the dust off the floor; in short, what was the ceremony
usual on such occasions.
“The custom,” said the great officer, “is to embrace the
king and kiss him on each cheek.”
Candide and Cacambo accordingly threw their arms round
his majesty’s neck, who received them in the most gracious
manner imaginable, and very politely asked them to sup with
him.
While supper was preparing orders were given to show them
the city, where they saw public structures that reared their
lofty heads to the clouds; the market-places decorated with
a thousand columns; fountains of spring water, besides
others of rose water, and of liquors drawn from the
sugarcane, incessantly flowing in the great squares; which
were paved with a kind of precious stones that emitted an
odor like that of cloves and cinnamon. Candide asked to see
the high court of justice, the parliament; but was answered
that they had none in that country, being utter strangers to
lawsuits. He then inquired if they had any prisons; they
replied none. But what gave him at once the greatest
surprise and pleasure was the palace of sciences, where he
saw a gallery two thousand feet long, filled with the
various apparatus in mathematics and natural philosophy.
After having spent the whole afternoon in seeing only
about the thousandth part of the city, they were brought
back to the king’s palace. Candide sat down at the table
with his majesty, his valet Cacambo, and several ladies of
the court. Never was entertainment more elegant, nor could
any one possibly show more wit than his majesty displayed
while they were at supper. Cacambo explained all the king’s
bons mots to Candide, and, although they were
translated, they still appeared to be bons mots. Of
all the things that surprised Candide, this was not the
least. They spent a whole month in this hospitable place,
during which time Candide was continually saying to Cacambo:
“I own, my friend, once more, that the castle where I was
born is a mere nothing in comparison to the place where we
now are; but still Miss Cunegund is not here, and you
yourself have doubtless some fair one in Europe for whom you
sigh. If we remain here we shall only be as others are;
whereas, if we return to our own world with only a dozen of
El Dorado sheep, loaded with the pebbles of this country, we
shall be richer than all the kings in Europe; we shall no
longer need to stand in awe of the inquisitors; and we may
easily recover Miss Cunegund.”
This speech was perfectly agreeable to Cacambo. A
fondness for roving, for making a figure in their own
country, and for boasting of what they had seen in their
travels, was so powerful in our two wanderers that they
resolved to be no longer happy; and demanded permission of
the king to quit the country.
“You are about to do a rash and silly action,” said the
king. “I am sensible my kingdom is an inconsiderable spot;
but when people are tolerably at their ease in any place, I
should think it would be to their interest to remain there.
Most assuredly, I have no right to detain you, or any
strangers, against your wills; this is an act of tyranny to
which our manners and our laws are equally repugnant; all
men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted
liberty to depart whenever you please, but you will have
many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the
frontiers. It is impossible to ascend that rapid river which
runs under high and vaulted rocks, and by which you were
conveyed hither by a kind of miracle. The mountains by which
my kingdom are hemmed in on all sides, are ten thousand feet
high, and perfectly perpendicular; they are above ten
leagues across, and the descent from them is one continued
precipice. However, since you are determined to leave us, I
will immediately give orders to the superintendent of my
carriages to cause one to be made that will convey you very
safely. When they have conducted you to the back of the
mountains, nobody can attend you farther; for my subjects
have made a vow never to quit the kingdom, and they are too
prudent to break it. Ask me whatever else you please.”
“All we shall ask of your majesty,” said Cacambo, “is
only a few sheep laden with provisions, pebbles, and the
clay of your country.”
The king smiled at the request, and said: “I cannot
imagine what pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay;
but take away as much of it as you will, and much good may
it do you.”
He immediately gave orders to his engineers to make a
machine to hoist these two extraordinary men out of the
kingdom. Three thousand good machinists went to work and
finished it in about fifteen days, and it did not cost more
than twenty millions sterling of that country’s money.
Candide and Cacambo were placed on this machine, and they
took with them two large red sheep, bridled and saddled, to
ride upon, when they got on the other side of the mountains;
twenty others to serve as sumpters for carrying provisions;
thirty laden with presents of whatever was most curious in
the country, and fifty with gold, diamonds, and other
precious stones. The king, at parting with our two
adventurers, embraced them with the greatest cordiality.
It was a curious sight to behold the manner of their
setting off, and the ingenious method by which they and
their sheep were hoisted to the top of the mountains. The
machinists and engineers took leave of them as soon as they
had conveyed them to a place of safety, and Candide was
wholly occupied with the thoughts of presenting his sheep to
Miss Cunegund.
“Now,” cried he, “thanks to heaven, we have more than
sufficient to pay the governor of Buenos Ayres for Miss
Cunegund, if she is redeemable. Let us make the best of our
way to Cayenne, where we will take shipping and then we may
at leisure think of what kingdom we shall purchase with our
riches.
|
CHAPTER XIX.
what happened to them at Surinam, and how
Candide became acquainted with Martin.
Our travellers’ first day’s journey was very pleasant;
they were elated with the prospect of possessing more riches
than were to be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa together.
Candide, in amorous transports, cut the name of Miss
Cunegund on almost every tree he came to. The second day two
of their sheep sunk in a morass, and were swallowed up with
their lading; two more died of fatigue; some few days
afterwards seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert,
and others, at different times, tumbled down precipices, or
were otherwise lost, so that, after travelling about a
hundred days they had only two sheep left of the hundred and
two they brought with them from El Dorado. Said Candide to
Cacambo:
“You see, my dear friend, how perishable the riches of
this world are; there is nothing solid but virtue.”
“Very true,” said Cacambo, “but we have still two sheep
remaining, with more treasure than ever the king of Spain
will be possessed of; and I espy a town at a distance, which
I take to be Surinam, a town belonging to the Dutch. We are
now at the end of our troubles, and at the beginning of
happiness.”
As they drew near the town they saw a negro stretched on
the ground with only one half of his habit, which was a kind
of linen frock; for the poor man had lost his left leg and
his right hand.
“Good God,” said Candide in Dutch, “what dost thou here,
friend, in this deplorable condition?”
“I am waiting for my master, Mynheer Vanderdendur, the
famous trader,” answered the negro.
“Was it Mynheer Vanderdendur that used you in this cruel
manner?”
“Yes, sir,” said the negro; “it is the custom here. They
give a linen garment twice a year, and that is all our
covering. When we labor in the sugar works, and the mill
happens to snatch hold of a finger, they instantly chop off
our hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off a
leg. Both these cases have happened to me, and it is at this
expense that you eat sugar in Europe; and yet when my mother
sold me for ten patacoons on the coast of Guinea, she said
to me, ‘My dear child, bless our fetiches; adore them
forever; they will make thee live happy; thou hast the honor
to be a slave to our lords the whites, by which thou wilt
make the fortune of us thy parents.’ Alas! I know not
whether I have made their fortunes; but they have not made
mine: dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less
wretched than I. The Dutch fetiches who converted me tell me
every Sunday that the blacks and whites are all children of
one father, whom they call Adam. As for me, I do not
understand anything of genealogies; but if what these
preachers say is true, we are all second cousins; and you
must allow that it is impossible to be worse treated by our
relations than we are.”
“O Pangloss!” cried out Candide, “such horrid doings
never entered thy imagination. Here is an end of the matter;
I find myself, after all, obliged to renounce thy Optimism.”
“Optimism,” said Cacambo, “what is that?”
“Alas!” replied Candide, “it is the obstinacy of
maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.” And
so saying he turned his eyes towards the poor negro, and
shed a flood of tears; and in this weeping mood he entered
the town of Surinam.
Immediately upon their arrival our travellers inquired if
there was any vessel in the harbor which they might send to
Buenos Ayres. The person they addressed themselves to
happened to be the master of a Spanish bark, who offered to
agree with them on moderate terms, and appointed them a
meeting at a public house. Thither Candide and his faithful
Cacambo went to wait for him, taking with them their two
sheep.
Candide, who was all frankness and sincerity, made an
ingenuous recital of his adventures to the Spaniard,
declaring to him at the same time his resolution of carrying
off Miss Cunegund from the governor of Buenos Ayres.
“O ho!” said the shipmaster, “if that is the case, get
whom you please to carry you to Buenos Ayres; for my part, I
wash my hands of the affair. It would prove a hanging matter
to us all. The fair Cunegund is the governor’s favorite
mistress.” These words were like a clap of thunder to
Candide; he wept bitterly for a long time, and, taking
Cacambo aside, he said to him, “I’ll tell you, my dear
friend, what you must do. We have each of us in our pockets
to the value of five or six millions in diamonds; you are
cleverer at these matters than I; you must go to Buenos
Ayres and bring off Miss Cunegund. If the governor makes any
difficulty give him a million; if he holds out, give him
two; as you have not killed an inquisitor, they will have no
suspicion of you. I’ll fit out another ship and go to
Venice, where I will wait for you. Venice is a free country,
where we shall have nothing to fear from Bulgarians, Abares,
Jews, or Inquisitors.”
Cacambo greatly applauded this wise resolution. He was
inconsolable at the thoughts of parting with so good a
master, who treated him more like an intimate friend than a
servant; but the pleasure of being able to do him a service
soon got the better of his sorrow. They embraced each other
with a flood of tears. Candide charged him not to forget the
old woman. Cacambo set out the same day. This Cacambo was a
very honest fellow.
Candide continued some days longer at Surinam, waiting
for any captain to carry him and his two remaining sheep to
Italy. He hired domestics, and purchased many things
necessary for a long voyage; at length Mynheer Vanderdendur,
skipper of a large Dutch vessel, came and offered his
service.
“What will you have,” said Candide, “to carry me, my
servants, my baggage, and these two sheep you see here,
directly to Venice?”
The skipper asked ten thousand piastres, and Candide
agreed to his demand without hesitation.
“Ho, ho!” said the cunning Vanderdendur to himself, “this
stranger must be very rich; he agrees to give me ten
thousand piastres without hesitation.” Returning a little
while after he tells Candide that upon second consideration
he could not undertake the voyage for less than twenty
thousand. “Very well; you shall have them,” said Candide.
“Zounds!” said the skipper to himself, “this man agrees
to pay twenty thousand piastres with as much ease as ten.”
Accordingly he goes back again, and tells him roundly that
he will not carry him to Venice for less than thirty
thousand piastres.
“Then you shall have thirty thousand,” said Candide.
“Odso!” said the Dutchman once more to himself, “thirty
thousand piastres seem a trifle to this man. Those sheep
must certainly be laden with an immense treasure. I’ll e’en
stop here and ask no more; but make him pay down the thirty
thousand piastres, and then we may see what is to be done
farther.” Candide sold two small diamonds, the least of
which was worth more than all the skipper asked. He paid him
beforehand, the two sheep were put on board, and Candide
followed in a small boat to join the vessel in the road. The
skipper took advantage of his opportunity, hoisted sail, and
put out to sea with a favorable wind. Candide, confounded
and amazed, soon lost sight of the ship. “Alas!” said he,
“this is a trick like those in our old world!”
He returned back to the shore overwhelmed with grief;
and, indeed, he had lost what would have made the fortune of
twenty monarchs.
Straightway upon his landing he applied to the Dutch
magistrate; being transported with passion he thundered at
the door, which being opened, he went in, told his case, and
talked a little louder than was necessary. The magistrate
began with fining him ten thousand piastres for his
petulance, and then listened very patiently to what he had
to say, promised to examine into the affair on the skipper’s
return, and ordered him to pay ten thousand piastres more
for the fees of the court.
This treatment put Candide out of all patience; it is
true, he had suffered misfortunes a thousand times more
grievous, but the cool insolence of the judge, and the
villainy of the skipper raised his choler and threw him into
a deep melancholy. The villainy of mankind presented itself
to his mind in all its deformity, and his soul was a prey to
the most gloomy ideas. After some time, hearing that the
captain of a French ship was ready to set sail for Bordeaux,
as he had no more sheep loaded with diamonds to put on
board, he hired the cabin at the usual price; and made it
known in the town that he would pay the passage and board of
any honest man who would give him his company during the
voyage; besides making him a present of ten thousand
piastres, on condition that such person was the most
dissatisfied with his condition, and the most unfortunate in
the whole province.
Upon this there appeared such a crowd of candidates that
a large fleet could not have contained them. Candide,
willing to choose from among those who appeared most likely
to answer his intention, selected twenty, who seemed to him
the most sociable, and who all pretended to merit the
preference. He invited them to his inn, and promised to
treat them with a supper, on condition that every man should
bind himself by an oath to relate his own history; declaring
at the same time, that he would make choice of that person
who should appear to him the most deserving of compassion,
and the most justly dissatisfied with his condition in life;
and that he would make a present to the rest.
This extraordinary assembly continued sitting till four
in the morning. Candide, while he was listening to their
adventures, called to mind what the old woman had said to
him in their voyage to Buenos Ayres, and the wager she had
laid that there was not a person on board the ship but had
met with great misfortunes. Every story he heard put him in
mind of Pangloss.
“My old master,” said he, “would be confoundedly put to
it to demonstrate his favorite system. Would he were here!
Certainly if everything is for the best, it is in El Dorado,
and not in the other parts of the world.”
At length he determined in favor of a poor scholar, who
had labored ten years for the booksellers at Amsterdam:
being of opinion that no employment could be more
detestable.
This scholar, who was in fact a very honest man, had been
robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and forsaken by his
daughter, who had run away with a Portuguese. He had been
likewise deprived of a small employment on which he
subsisted, and he was persecuted by the clergy of Surinam,
who took him for a Socinian. It must be acknowledged that
the other competitors were, at least, as wretched as he; but
Candide was in hopes that the company of a man of letters
would relieve the tediousness of the voyage. All the other
candidates complained that Candide had done them great
injustice, but he stopped their mouths by a present of a
hundred piastres to each.
|

CHAPTER XX.
what befell Candide and Martin on their
passage.
The old philosopher, whose name was Martin, took shipping
with Candide for Bordeaux. Both had seen and suffered a
great deal, and had the ship been going from Surinam to
Japan round the Cape of Good Hope, they could have found
sufficient entertainment for each other during the whole
voyage, in discoursing upon moral and natural evil.
Candide, however, had one advantage over Martin: he lived
in the pleasing hopes of seeing Miss Cunegund once more;
whereas, the poor philosopher had nothing to hope for;
besides, Candide had money and jewels, and, notwithstanding
he had lost a hundred red sheep laden with the greatest
treasure outside of El Dorado, and though he still smarted
from the reflection of the Dutch skipper’s knavery, yet when
he considered what he had still left, and repeated the name
of Cunegund, especially after meal times, he inclined to
Pangloss’ doctrine.
“And pray,” said he to Martin, “what is your opinion of
the whole of this system? what notion have you of moral and
natural evil?”
“Sir,” replied Martin, “our priest accused me of being a
Socinian; but the real truth is, I am a Manichæan.”
“Nay, now you are jesting,” said Candide; “there are no
Manichæans existing at present in the world.”
“And yet I am one,” said Martin; “but I cannot help it. I
cannot for the soul of me think otherwise.”
“Surely the devil must be in you,” said Candide.
“He concerns himself so much,” replied Martin, “in the
affairs of this world that it is very probable he may be in
me as well as everywhere else; but I must confess, when I
cast my eye on this globe, or rather globule, I cannot help
thinking that God has abandoned it to some malignant being.
I always except El Dorado. I scarce ever knew a city that
did not wish the destruction of its neighboring city; nor a
family that did not desire to exterminate some other family.
The poor in all parts of the world bear an inveterate hatred
to the rich, even while they creep and cringe to them; and
the rich treat the poor like sheep, whose wool and flesh
they barter for money; a million of regimented assassins
traverse Europe from one end to the other, to get their
bread by regular depredation and murder, because it is the
most gentlemanlike profession. Even in those cities which
seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts
flourish, the inhabitants are devoured with envy, care, and
inquietudes, which are greater plagues than any experienced
in a town besieged. Private chagrins are still more dreadful
than public calamities. In a word,” concluded the
philosopher, “I have seen and suffered so much that I am a
Manichæan.”
“And yet there is some good in the world,” replied
Candide.
“May be so,” said Martin, “but it has escaped my
knowledge.”
While they were deeply engaged in this dispute they heard
the report of cannon, which redoubled every moment. Each
took out his glass, and they spied two ships warmly engaged
at the distance of about three miles. The wind brought them
both so near the French ship that those on board her had the
pleasure of seeing the fight with great ease. After several
smart broadsides the one gave the other a shot between wind
and water which sunk her outright. Then could Candide and
Martin plainly perceive a hundred men on the deck of the
vessel which was sinking, who, with hands uplifted to
heaven, sent forth piercing cries, and were in a moment
swallowed up by the waves.
“Well,” said Martin, “you now see in what manner mankind
treat one another.”
“It is certain,” said Candide, “that there is something
diabolical in this affair.” As he was speaking thus he spied
something of a shining red hue, which swam close to the
vessel. The boat was hoisted out to see what it might be,
when it proved to be one of his sheep. Candide felt more joy
at the recovery of this one animal than he did grief when he
lost the other hundred, though laden with the large diamonds
of El Dorado.
The French captain quickly perceived that the victorious
ship belonged to the crown of Spain; that the other was a
Dutch pirate, and the very same captain who had robbed
Candide. The immense riches which this villain had amassed,
were buried with him in the deep, and only this one sheep
saved out of the whole.
“You see,” said Candide to Martin, “that vice is
sometimes punished; this villain, the Dutch skipper, has met
with the fate he deserved.”
“Very true,” said Martin, “but why should the passengers
be doomed also to destruction? God has punished the knave,
and the devil has drowned the rest.”
The French and Spanish ships continued their cruise, and
Candide and Martin their conversation. They disputed
fourteen days successively, at the end of which they were
just as far advanced as the first moment they began.
However, they had the satisfaction of disputing, of
communicating their ideas, and of mutually comforting each
other. Candide embraced his sheep with transport.
“Since I have found thee again,” said he, “I may possibly
find my Cunegund once more.”
|
CHAPTER XXI.
Candide and Martin, while thus reasoning
with each other, draw near to the coast of France.
At length they descried the coast of France, when Candide
said to Martin, “Pray Mr. Martin, were you ever in France?”
“Yes, sir,” said Martin, “I have been in several
provinces of that kingdom. In some, one-half of the people
are fools and madmen; in some, they are too artful; in
others, again, they are, in general, either very
good-natured or very brutal; while in others, they affect to
be witty, and in all, their ruling passion is love, the next
is slander, and the last is to talk nonsense.”
“But, pray, Mr. Martin, were you ever in Paris?”
“Yes, sir, I have been in that city, and it is a place
that contains the several species just described; it is a
chaos, a confused multitude, where everyone seeks for
pleasure without being able to find it; at least, as far as
I have observed during my short stay in that city. At my
arrival I was robbed of all I had in the world by
pickpockets and sharpers, at the fair of St. Germain. I was
taken up myself for a robber, and confined in prison a whole
week; after which I hired myself as corrector to a press, in
order to get a little money towards defraying my expenses
back to Holland on foot. I knew the whole tribe of
scribblers, malcontents, and fanatics. It is said the people
of that city are very polite; I believe they may be.”
“For my part, I have no curiosity to see France,” said
Candide; “you may easily conceive, my friend, that after
spending a month in El Dorado, I can desire to behold
nothing upon earth but Miss Cunegund; I am going to wait for
her at Venice. I intend to pass through France, on my way to
Italy. Will you not bear me company?” “With all my heart,”
said Martin; “they say Venice is agreeable to none but noble
Venetians; but that, nevertheless, strangers are well
received there when they have plenty of money; now I have
none, but you have, therefore I will attend you wherever you
please.” “Now we are upon this subject,” said Candide, “do
you think that the earth was originally sea, as we read in
that great book which belongs to the captain of the ship?”
“I believe nothing of it,” replied Martin, “any more than I
do of the many other chimeras which have been related to us
for some time past.” “But then, to what end,” said Candide,
“was the world formed?” “To make us mad,” said Martin. “Are
you not surprised,” continued Candide, “at the love which
the two girls in the country of the Oreillons had for those
two monkeys?—You know I have told you the story.”
“Surprised?” replied Martin, “not in the least; I see
nothing strange in this passion. I have seen so many
extraordinary things that there is nothing extraordinary to
me now.” “Do you think,” said Candide, “that mankind always
massacred one another as they do now? were they always
guilty of lies, fraud, treachery, ingratitude, inconstancy,
envy, ambition, and cruelty? were they always thieves,
fools, cowards, gluttons, drunkards, misers, calumniators,
debauchees, fanatics, and hypocrites?” “Do you believe,”
said Martin, “that hawks have always been accustomed to eat
pigeons when they came in their way?” “Doubtless,” said
Candide. “Well then,” replied Martin, “if hawks have always
had the same nature, why should you pretend that mankind
change theirs?” “Oh,” said Candide, “there is a great deal
of difference; for free will—” and reasoning thus they
arrived at Bordeaux.
|
CHAPTER XXII.
What happened to Candide and Martin in
france.
Candide staid no longer at Bordeaux than was necessary to
dispose of a few of the pebbles he had brought from El
Dorado, and to provide himself with a post-chaise for two
persons, for he could no longer stir a step without his
philosopher Martin. The only thing that gave him concern was
the being obliged to leave his sheep behind him, which he
intrusted to the care of the academy of sciences at
Bordeaux, who proposed, as a prize subject for the year, to
prove why the wool of this sheep was red; and the prize was
adjudged to a northern sage, who demonstrated by A plus
B, minus C, divided by Z, that the sheep must
necessarily be red, and die of the mange.
In the meantime, all the travellers whom Candide met with
in the inns, or on the road, told him to a man, that they
were going to Paris. This general eagerness gave him
likewise a great desire to see this capital; and it was not
much out of his way to Venice.
He entered the city by the suburbs of St. Marceau, and
thought himself in one of the vilest hamlets in all
Westphalia.
Candide had not been long at his inn, before he was
seized with a slight disorder, owing to the fatigue he had
undergone. As he wore a diamond of an enormous size on his
finger and had among the rest of his equipage a strong box
that seemed very weighty, he soon found himself between two
physicians, whom he had not sent for, a number of intimate
friends whom he had never seen, and who would not quit his
bedside, and two women devotees, who were very careful in
providing him hot broths.
“I remember,” said Martin to him, “that the first time I
came to Paris I was likewise taken ill; I was very poor, and
accordingly I had neither friends, nurses, nor physicians,
and yet I did very well.”
However, by dint of purging and bleeding, Candide’s
disorder became very serious. The priest of the parish came
with all imaginable politeness to desire a note of him,
payable to the bearer in the other world. Candide refused to
comply with his request; but the two devotees assured him
that it was a new fashion. Candide replied, that he was not
one that followed the fashion. Martin was for throwing the
priest out of the window. The clerk swore Candide should not
have Christian burial. Martin swore in his turn that he
would bury the clerk alive if he continued to plague them
any longer. The dispute grew warm; Martin took him by the
shoulders and turned him out of the room, which gave great
scandal, and occasioned a procèsverbal.
Candide recovered, and till he was in a condition to go
abroad had a great deal of good company to pass the evenings
with him in his chamber. They played deep. Candide was
surprised to find he could never turn a trick; and Martin
was not at all surprised at the matter.
Among those who did him the honors of the place was a
little spruce abbé of Périgord, one of those insinuating,
busy, fawning, impudent, necessary fellows, that lay wait
for strangers on their arrival, tell them all the scandal of
the town, and offer to minister to their pleasures at
various prices. This man conducted Candide and Martin to the
playhouse; they were acting a new tragedy. Candide found
himself placed near a cluster of wits: this, however, did
not prevent him from shedding tears at some parts of the
piece which were most affecting, and best acted. One of
these talkers said to him between the acts. “You are greatly
to blame to shed tears; that actress plays horribly, and the
man that plays with her still worse, and the piece itself is
still more execrable than the representation. The author
does not understand a word of Arabic, and yet he has laid
his scene in Arabia, and what is more, he is a fellow who
does not believe in innate ideas. Tomorrow I will bring you
a score of pamphlets that have been written against him.”
“Pray, sir,” said Candide to the abbé, “how many theatrical
pieces have you in France?” “Five or six thousand,” replied
the abbé. “Indeed! that is a great number,” said Candide,
“but how many good ones may there be?” “About fifteen or
sixteen.” “Oh! that is a great number,” said Martin.
Candide was greatly taken with an actress, who performed
the part of Queen Elizabeth in a dull kind of tragedy that
is played sometimes. “That actress,” said he to Martin,
“pleases me greatly; she has some sort of resemblance to
Miss Cunegund. I should be very glad to pay my respects to
her.” The abbé of Perigord offered his service to introduce
him to her at her own house. Candide, who was brought up in
Germany, desired to know what might be the ceremonial used
on those occasions, and how a queen of England was treated
in France. “There is a necessary distinction to be observed
in these matters,” said the abbé. “In a country town we take
them to a tavern; here in Paris, they are treated with great
respect during their life time, provided they are handsome,
and when they die we throw their bodies upon a dunghill.”
“How?” said Candide, “throw a queen’s body upon a dunghill!”
“The gentleman is quite right,” said Martin, “he tells you
nothing but the truth. I happened to be at Paris when Miss
Monimia made her exit, as one may say, out of this world
into another. She was refused what they call here the rites
of sepulture; that is to say, she was denied the privilege
of rotting in a churchyard by the side of all the beggars in
the parish. They buried her at the corner of Burgundy
street, which must certainly have shocked her extremely, as
she had very exalted notions of things.” “This is acting
very impolitely,” said Candide. “Lord!” said Martin, “what
can be said to it? it is the way of these people. Figure to
yourself all the contradictions, all the inconsistencies
possible, and you may meet with them in the government, the
courts of justice, the churches, and the public spectacles
of this odd nation.” “Is it true,” said Candide, “that the
people of Paris are always laughing?” “Yes,” replied the
abbé, “but it is with anger in their hearts; they express
all their complaints by loud bursts of laughter, and commit
the most detestable crimes with a smile on their faces.”
“Who was that great overgrown beast,” said Candide, “who
spoke so ill to me of the piece with which I was so much
affected, and of the players who gave me so much pleasure?”
“A very good-for-nothing sort of a man I assure you,”
answered the abbé, “one who gets his livelihood by abusing
every new book and play that is written or performed; he
dislikes much to see any one meet with success, like
eunuchs, who detest every one that possesses those powers
they are deprived of; he is one of those vipers in
literature who nourish themselves with their own venom; a
pamphlet-monger.” “A pamphlet-monger!” said Candide, “what
is that?” “Why, a pamphlet-monger,” replied the abbé, “is a
writer of pamphlets—a fool.”
Candide, Martin, and the abbé of Périgord argued thus on
the staircase, while they stood to see the people go out of
the playhouse. “Though I am very anxious to see Miss
Cunegund again,” said Candide, “yet I have a great
inclination to sup with Miss Clairon, for I am really much
taken with her.”
The abbé was not a person to show his face at this lady’s
house, which was frequented by none but the best company.
“She is engaged this evening,” said he, “but I will do
myself the honor to introduce you to a lady of quality of my
acquaintance, at whose house you will see as much of the
manners of Paris as if you had lived here for forty years.”
Candide, who was naturally curious, suffered himself to
be conducted to this lady’s house, which was in the suburbs
of St. Honoré. The company was engaged at basset; twelve
melancholy punters held each in his hand a small pack of
cards, the corners of which were doubled down, and were so
many registers of their ill fortune. A profound silence
reigned throughout the assembly, a pallid dread had taken
possession of the countenances of the punters, and restless
inquietude stretched every muscle of the face of him who
kept the bank; and the lady of the house, who was seated
next to him, observed with lynx’s eyes every play made, and
noted those who tallied, and made them undouble their cards
with a severe exactness, though mixed with a politeness,
which she thought necessary not to frighten away her
customers. This lady assumed the title of marchioness of
Parolignac. Her daughter, a girl of about fifteen years of
age, was one of the punters, and took care to give her mamma
a hint, by signs, when any one of the players attempted to
repair the rigor of their ill fortune by a little innocent
deception. The company were thus occupied when Candide,
Martin, and the abbé made their entrance; not a creature
rose to salute them, or indeed took the least notice of
them, being wholly intent upon the business in hand. “Ah!”
said Candide, “my lady baroness of Thunder-ten-tronckh would
have behaved more civilly.”
However, the abbé whispered in the ear of the
marchioness, who half raising herself from her seat, honored
Candide with a gracious smile, and gave Martin a nod of her
head, with an air of inexpressible dignity. She then ordered
a seat for Candide, and desired him to make one of their
party at play; he did so, and in a few deals lost near a
thousand pieces; after which they supped very elegantly, and
every one was surprised at seeing Candide lose so much money
without appearing to be the least disturbed at it. The
servants in waiting said to each other, “This is certainly
some English lord.”
The supper was like most others of its kind in Paris. At
first every one was silent; then followed a few confused
murmurs, and afterwards several insipid jokes passed and
repassed, with false reports, false reasonings, a little
politics, and a great deal of scandal. The conversation then
turned upon the new productions in literature. “Pray,” said
the abbé, “good folks, have you seen the romance written by
the Sieur Gauchat, doctor of divinity?” “Yes,” answered one
of the company, “but I had not patience to go through it.
The town is pestered with a swarm of impertinent
productions, but this of Dr. Gauchat’s outdoes them all. In
short, I was so cursedly tired of reading this vile stuff
that I even resolved to come here, and make a party at
basset.” “But what say you to the archdeacon T—’s
miscellaneous collection,” said the abbé. “Oh my God!” cried
the marchioness of Parolignac, “never mention the tedious
creature! only think what pains he is at to tell one things
that all the world knows; and how he labors an argument that
is hardly worth the slightest consideration! how absurdly he
makes use of other people’s wit! how miserably he mangles
what he has pilfered from them! The man makes me quite sick!
A few pages of the good archdeacon are enough in conscience
to satisfy any one.”
There was at the table a person of learning and taste,
who supported what the marchioness had advanced. They next
began to talk of tragedies. The lady desired to know how it
came about that there were several tragedies, which still
continued to be played, though they would not bear reading?
The man of taste explained very clearly how a piece may be
in some manner interesting without having a grain of merit.
He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to
throw together a few incidents that are to be met with in
every romance, and that to dazzle the spectator the thoughts
should be new, without being far-fetched; frequently
sublime, but always natural; the author should have a
thorough knowledge of the human heart and make it speak
properly; he should be a complete poet, without showing an
affectation of it in any of the characters of his piece; he
should be a perfect master of his language, speak it with
all its purity, and with the utmost harmony, and yet so as
not to make the sense a slave to the rhyme. “Whoever,” added
he, “neglects any one of these rules, though he may write
two or three tragedies with tolerable success, will never be
reckoned in the number of good authors. There are very few
good tragedies; some are idyls, in very well-written and
harmonious dialogue; and others a chain of political
reasonings that set one asleep, or else pompous and
high-flown amplifications, that disgust rather than please.
Others again are the ravings of a madman, in an uncouth
style, unmeaning flights, or long apostrophes to the
deities, for want of knowing how to address mankind; in a
word a collection of false maxims and dull commonplace.”
Candide listened to this discourse with great attention,
and conceived a high opinion of the person who delivered it;
and as the marchioness had taken care to place him near her
side, he took the liberty to whisper her softly in the ear
and ask who this person was that spoke so well. “He is a man
of letters,” replied her ladyship, “who never plays, and
whom the abbé brings with him to my house sometimes to spend
an evening. He is a great judge of writing, especially in
tragedy; he has composed one himself, which was damned, and
has written a book that was never seen out of his
bookseller’s shop, excepting only one copy, which he sent me
with a dedication, to which he had prefixed my name.” “Oh
the great man,” cried Candide, “he is a second Pangloss.”
Then turning towards him, “Sir,” said he, “you are
doubtless of opinion that everything is for the best in the
physical and moral world, and that nothing could be
otherwise than it is?” “I, sir!” replied the man of letters,
“I think no such thing, I assure you; I find that all in
this world is set the wrong end uppermost. No one knows what
is his rank, his office, nor what he does, nor what he
should do. With the exception of our evenings, which we
generally pass tolerably merrily, the rest of our time is
spent in idle disputes and quarrels, Jansenists against
Molinists, the parliament against the Church, and one armed
body of men against another; courtier against courtier,
husband against wife, and relations against relations. In
short, this world is nothing but one continued scene of
civil war.”
“Yes,” said Candide, “and I have seen worse than all
that; and yet a learned man, who had the misfortune to be
hanged, taught me that everything was marvellously well, and
that these evils you are speaking of were only so many
shades in a beautiful picture.” “Your hempen sage,” said
Martin, “laughed at you; these shades, as you call them, are
most horrible blemishes.” “The men make these blemishes,”
rejoined Candide, “and they cannot do otherwise.” “Then it
is not their fault,” added Martin. The greatest part of the
gamesters, who did not understand a syllable of this
discourse, amused themselves with drinking, while Martin
reasoned with the learned gentleman; and Candide entertained
the lady of the house with a part of his adventures.
After supper the marchioness conducted Candide into her
dressing-room, and made him sit down under a canopy. “Well,”
said she, “are you still so violently fond of Miss Cunegund
of Thunder-ten-tronckh?” “Yes, madam,” replied Candide. The
marchioness said to him with a tender smile, “You answer me
like a young man born in Westphalia; a Frenchman would have
said, ‘It is true, madam, I had a great passion for Miss
Cunegund; but since I have seen you, I fear I can no longer
love her as I did.’ ” “Alas! madam,” replied Candide, “I
will make you what answer you please.” “You fell in love
with her, I find, in stooping to pick up her handkerchief
which she had dropped; you shall pick up my garter.” “With
all my heart, madam,” said Candide, and he picked it up.
“But you must tie it on again,” said the lady. Candide tied
it on again. “Look ye, young man,” said the marchioness,
“you are a stranger; I make some of my lovers here in Paris
languish for me a whole fortnight; but I surrender to you at
first sight, because I am willing to do the honors of my
country to a young Westphalian.” The fair one having cast
her eye on two very large diamonds that were upon the young
stranger’s finger, praised them in so earnest a manner that
they were in an instant transferred from his finger to hers.
As Candide was going home with the abbé he felt some
qualms of conscience for having been guilty of infidelity to
Miss Cunegund. The abbé took part with him in his
uneasiness; he had but an inconsiderable share in the
thousand pieces Candide had lost at play, and the two
diamonds which had been in a manner extorted from him; and
therefore very prudently designed to make the most he could
of his new acquaintance, which chance had thrown in his way.
He talked much of Miss Cunegund, and Candide assured him
that he would heartily ask pardon of that fair one for his
infidelity to her, when he saw her at Venice.
The abbé redoubled his civilities and seemed to interest
himself warmly in everything that Candide said, did, or
seemed inclined to do.
“And so, sir, you have an engagement at Venice?” “Yes,
Monsieur l’Abbé,” answered Candìde, “I must absolutely wait
upon Miss Cunegund;” and then the pleasure he took in
talking about the object he loved, led him insensibly to
relate, according to custom, part of his adventures with
that illustrious Westphalian beauty.
“I fancy,” said the abbé, “Miss Cunegund has a great deal
of wit, and that her letters must be very entertaining.” “I
never received any from her,” said Candide; “for you are to
consider that, being expelled from the castle upon her
account, I could not write to her, especially as soon after
my departure I heard she was dead; but thank God I found
afterwards she was living. I left again after this, and now
I have sent a messenger to her near two thousand leagues
from here, and wait here for his return with an answer from
her.”
The artful abbé let not a word of all this escape him,
though he seemed to be musing upon something else. He soon
took his leave of the two adventurers, after having embraced
them with the greatest cordiality. The next morning, almost
as soon as his eyes were open, Candide received the
following billet:
“My Dearest Lover—I have been ill in this city these
eight days. I have heard of your arrival, and should fly to
your arms were I able to stir. I was informed of your being
on the way hither at Bordeaux, where I left the faithful
Cacambo, and the old woman, who will soon follow me. The
governor of Buenos Ayres has taken everything from me but
your heart, which I still retain. Come to me immediately on
the receipt of this. Your presence will either give me new
life, or kill me with the pleasure.”
At the receipt of this charming, this unexpected letter,
Candide felt the utmost transports of joy; though, on the
other hand, the indisposition of his beloved Miss Cunegund
overwhelmed him with grief. Distracted between these two
passions he took his gold and his diamonds, and procured a
person to conduct him and Martin to the house where Miss
Cunegund lodged. Upon entering the room he felt his limbs
tremble, his heart flutter, his tongue falter; he attempted
to undraw the curtain, and called for a light to the
bedside. “Lord, sir,” cried a maid servant, who was waiting
in the room, “take care what you do, Miss cannot bear the
least light,” and so saying she pulled the curtain close
again. “Cunegund! my dear Cunegund!” cried Candide, bathed
in tears, “how do you do? If you cannot bear the light,
speak to me at least.” “Alas! she cannot speak,” said the
maid. The sick lady then put a plump hand out of the bed and
Candide first bathed it with tears, then filled it with
diamonds, leaving a purse of gold upon the easy chair.
In the midst of his transports came an officer into the
room, followed by the abbé, and a file of musketeers.
“There,” said he, “are the two suspected foreigners;” at the
same time he ordered them to be seized and carried to
prison. “Travellers are not treated in this manner in the
country of El Dorado,” said Candide. “I am more of a
Manichæan now than ever,” said Martin. “But pray, good sir,
where are you going to carry us?” said Candide. “To a
dungeon, my dear sir,” replied the officer.
When Martin had a little recovered himself, so as to form
a cool judgment of what had passed, he plainly perceived
that the person who had acted the part of Miss Cunegund was
a cheat; that the abbé of Périgord was a sharper who had
imposed upon the honest simplicity of Candide, and that the
officer was a knave, whom they might easily get rid of.
Candide following the advice of his friend Martin, and
burning with impatience to see the real Miss Cunegund,
rather than be obliged to appear at a court of justice,
proposed to the officer to make him a present of three small
diamonds, each of them worth three thousand pistoles. “Ah,
sir,” said this understrapper of justice, “had you committed
ever so much villainy, this would render you the honestest
man living, in my eyes. Three diamonds worth three thousand
pistoles! why, my dear sir, so far from carrying you to
jail, I would lose my life to serve you. There are orders
for stopping all strangers; but leave it to me, I have a
brother at Dieppe, in Normandy; I myself will conduct you
thither, and if you have a diamond left to give him he will
take as much care of you as I myself should.”
“But why,” said Candide, “do they stop all strangers?”
The abbé of Périgord made answer that it was because a poor
devil of the country of Atrebata heard somebody tell foolish
stories, and this induced him to commit a parricide; not
such a one as that in the month of May, 1610, but such as
that in the month of December, in the year 1594, and such as
many that have been perpetrated in other months and years,
by other poor devils who had heard foolish stories.
The officer then explained to them what the abbé meant.
“Horrid monsters,” exclaimed Candide, “is it possible that
such scenes should pass among a people who are perpetually
singing and dancing? Is there no flying this abominable
country immediately, this execrable kingdom where monkeys
provoke tigers? I have seen bears in my country, but men I
have beheld nowhere but in El Dorado. In the name of God,
sir,” said he to the officer, “do me the kindness to conduct
me to Venice, where I am to wait for Miss Cunegund.”
“Really, sir,” replied the officer, “I cannot possibly wait
on you farther than Lower Normandy.” So saying, he ordered
Candide’s irons to be struck off, acknowledged himself
mistaken, and sent his followers about their business, after
which he conducted Candide and Martin to Dieppe, and left
them to the care of his brother. There happened just then to
be a small Dutch ship in the harbor. The Norman, whom the
other three diamonds had converted into the most obliging,
serviceable being that ever breathed, took care to see
Candide and his attendants safe on board this vessel, that
was just ready to sail for Portsmouth in England. This was
not the nearest way to Venice, indeed, but Candide thought
himself escaped out of hell, and did not, in the least,
doubt but he should quickly find an opportunity of resuming
his voyage to Venice.
|
CHAPTER XXIII.
Candide and Martin touch upon the english
coast—what they see there.
“Ah Pangloss! Pangloss! ah Martin! Martin! ah my dear
Miss Cunegund! what sort of a world is this?” Thus exclaimed
Candide as soon as he got on board the Dutch ship. “Why
something very foolish, and very abominable,” said Martin.
“You are acquainted with England,” said Candide; “are they
as great fools in that country as in France?” “Yes, but in a
different manner,” answered Martin. “You know that these two
nations are at war about a few acres of barren land in the
neighborhood of Canada, and that they have expended much
greater sums in the contest than all Canada is worth. To say
exactly whether there are a greater number fit to be
inhabitants of a madhouse in the one country than the other,
exceeds the limits of my imperfect capacity; I know in
general that the people we are going to visit are of a very
dark and gloomy disposition.”
As they were chatting thus together they arrived at
Portsmouth. The shore on each side the harbor was lined with
a multitude of people, whose eyes were steadfastly fixed on
a lusty man who was kneeling down on the deck of one of the
men-of-war, with something tied before his eyes. Opposite to
this personage stood four soldiers, each of whom shot three
bullets into his skull, with all the composure imaginable;
and when it was done, the whole company went away perfectly
well satisfied. “What the devil is all this for?” said
Candide, “and what demon, or foe of mankind, lords it thus
tyrannically over the world?” He then asked who was that
lusty man who had been sent out of the world with so much
ceremony. When he received for answer, that it was an
admiral. “And pray why do you put your admiral to death?”
“Because he did not put a sufficient number of his
fellow-creatures to death. You must know, he had an
engagement with a French admiral, and it has been proved
against him that he was not near enough to his antagonist.”
“But,” replied Candide, “the French admiral must have been
as far from him.” “There is no doubt of that; but in this
country it is found requisite, now and then, to put an
admiral to death, in order to encourage the others to
fight.”
Candide was so shocked at what he saw and heard, that he
would not set foot on shore, but made a bargain with the
Dutch skipper (were he even to rob him like the captain of
Surinam) to carry him directly to Venice.
The skipper was ready in two days. They sailed along the
coast of France, and passed within sight of Lisbon, at which
Candide trembled. From thence they proceeded to the Straits,
entered the Mediterranean, and at length arrived at Venice.
“God be praised,” said Candide, embracing Martin, “this is
the place where I am to behold my beloved Cunegund once
again. I can confide in Cacambo, like another self. All is
well, all very well, all as well as possible.”
|
CHAPTER XXIV.
Of Pacquette and Friar Giroflée.
Upon their arrival at Venice Candide went in search of
Cacambo at every inn and coffee-house, and among all the
ladies of pleasure, but could hear nothing of him. He sent
every day to inquire what ships were in, still no news of
Cacambo. “It is strange,” said he to Martin, “very strange
that I should have had time to sail from Surinam to
Bordeaux; to travel thence to Paris, to Dieppe, to
Portsmouth; to sail along the coast of Portugal and Spain,
and up the Mediterranean to spend some months at Venice; and
that my lovely Cunegund should not have arrived. Instead of
her, I only met with a Parisian impostor, and a rascally
abbé of Périgord. Cunegund is actually dead, and I have
nothing to do but follow her. Alas! how much better would it
have been for me to have remained in the paradise of El
Dorado than to have returned to this cursed Europe! You are
in the right, my dear Martin; you are certainly in the
right; all is misery and deceit.”
He fell into a deep melancholy, and neither went to the
opera then in vogue, nor partook of any of the diversions of
the carnival; nay, he even slighted the fair sex. Martin
said to him, “Upon my word, I think you are very simple to
imagine that a rascally valet, with five or six millions in
his pocket, would go in search of your mistress to the
further end of the world, and bring her to Venice to meet
you. If he finds her he will take her for himself; if he
does not, he will take another. Let me advise you to forget
your valet Cacambo, and your Mistress Cunegund.” Martin’s
speech was not the most consolatory to the dejected Candide.
His melancholy increased, and Martin never ceased trying to
prove to him that there is very little virtue or happiness
in this world; except, perhaps, in El Dorado, where hardly
anybody can gain admittance.
While they were disputing on this important subject, and
still expecting Miss Cunegund, Candide perceived a young
Theatin friar in St. Mark’s Place, with a girl under his
arm. The Theatin looked fresh-colored, plump, and vigorous;
his eyes sparkled; his air and gait were bold and lofty. The
girl was pretty, and was singing a song; and every now and
then gave her Theatin an amorous ogle and wantonly pinched
his ruddy cheeks. “You will at least allow,” said Candide to
Martin, “that these two are happy. Hitherto I have met with
none but unfortunate people in the whole habitable globe,
except in El Dorado; but as to this couple, I would venture
to lay a wager they are happy.” “Done!” said Martin, “they
are not what you imagine.” “Well, we have only to ask them
to dine with us,” said Candide, “and you will see whether I
am mistaken or not.”
Thereupon he accosted them, and with great politeness
invited them to his inn to eat some macaroni, with Lombard
partridges and caviare, and to drink a bottle of
Montepulciano, Lacryma Christi, Cyprus, and Samos wine. The
girl blushed; the Theatin accepted the invitation and she
followed him, eyeing Candide every now and then with a
mixture of surprise and confusion, while the tears stole
down her cheeks. No sooner did she enter his apartment than
she cried out. “How, Mr. Candide, have you quite forgot your
Pacquette? do you not know her again?” Candide had not
regarded her with any degree of attention before, being
wholly occupied with the thoughts of his dear Cunegund. “Ah!
is it you, child? was it you that reduced Doctor Pangloss to
that fine condition I saw him in?”
“Alas! sir,” answered Pacquette, “it was I, indeed. I
find you are acquainted with everything; and I have been
informed of all the misfortunes that happened to the whole
family of my lady baroness and the fair Cunegund. But I can
safely swear to you that my lot was no less deplorable; I
was innocence itself when you saw me last. A cordelier, who
was my confessor, easily seduced me; the consequences proved
terrible. I was obliged to leave the castle some time after
the baron kicked you out from there; and if a famous surgeon
had not taken compassion on me, I had been a dead woman.
Gratitude obliged me to live with him some time as a
mistress; his wife, who was a very devil for jealousy, beat
me unmercifully every day. Oh! she was a perfect fury. The
doctor himself was the most ugly of all mortals, and I the
most wretched creature existing, to be continually beaten
for a man whom I did not love. You are sensible, sir, how
dangerous it was for an ill-natured woman to be married to a
physician. Incensed at the behavior of his wife, he one day
gave her so affectionate a remedy for a slight cold she had
caught that she died in less than two hours in most dreadful
convulsions. Her relations prosecuted the husband, who was
obliged to fly, and I was sent to prison. My innocence would
not have saved me, if I had not been tolerably handsome. The
judge gave me my liberty on condition he should succeed the
doctor. However, I was soon supplanted by a rival, turned
off without a farthing, and obliged to continue the
abominable trade which you men think so pleasing, but which
to us unhappy creatures is the most dreadful of all
sufferings. At length I came to follow the business at
Venice. Ah! sir, did you but know what it is to be obliged
to receive every visitor; old tradesmen, counsellors, monks,
watermen, and abbés; to be exposed to all their insolence
and abuse; to be often necessitated to borrow a petticoat,
only that it may be taken up by some disagreeable wretch; to
be robbed by one gallant of what we get from another; to be
subject to the extortions of civil magistrates; and to have
forever before one’s eyes the prospect of old age, a
hospital, or a dunghill, you would conclude that I am one of
the most unhappy wretches breathing.”
Thus did Pacquette unbosom herself to honest Candide in
his closet, in the presence of Martin, who took occasion to
say to him, “You see I have half won the wager already.”
Friar Giroflée was all this time in the parlor refreshing
himself with a glass or two of wine till dinner was ready.
“But,” said Candide to Pacquette, “you looked so gay and
contented, when I met you, you sang and caressed the Theatin
with so much fondness, that I absolutely thought you as
happy as you say you are now miserable.” “Ah! dear sir,”
said Pacquette, “this is one of the miseries of the trade;
yesterday I was stripped and beaten by an officer; yet
to-day I must appear good humored and gay to please a
friar.”
Candide was convinced and acknowledged that Martin was in
the right. They sat down to table with Pacquette and the
Theatin; the entertainment was agreeable, and towards the
end they began to converse together with some freedom.
“Father,” said Candide to the friar, “you seem to me to
enjoy a state of happiness that even kings might envy; joy
and health are painted in your countenance. You have a
pretty wench to divert you; and you seem to be perfectly
well contented with your condition as a Theatin.”
“Faith, sir,” said Friar Giroflée, “I wish with all my
soul the Theatins were every one of them at the bottom of
the sea. I have been tempted a thousand times to set fire to
the convent and go and turn Turk. My parents obliged me, at
the age of fifteen, to put on this detestable habit only to
increase the fortune of an elder brother of mine, whom God
confound! Jealousy, discord, and fury, reside in our
convent. It is true I have preached often paltry sermons, by
which I have got a little money, part of which the prior
robs me of, and the remainder helps to pay my girls; but, at
night, when I go hence to my convent, I am ready to dash my
brains against the walls of the dormitory; and this is the
case with all the rest of our fraternity.”
Martin, turning towards Candide, with his usual
indifference, said, “Well, what think you now? have I won
the wager entirely?” Candide gave two thousand piastres to
Pacquette, and a thousand to Friar Giroflée, saying, “I will
answer that this will make them happy.” “I am not of your
opinion,” said Martin, “perhaps this money will only make
them wretched.” “Be that as it may,” said Candide, “one
thing comforts me; I see that one often meets with those
whom one never expected to see again; so that, perhaps, as I
have found my red sheep and Pacquette, I may be lucky enough
to find Miss Cunegund also.” “I wish,” said Martin, “she one
day may make you happy; but I doubt it much.” “You lack
faith,” said Candide. “It is because,” said Martin, “I have
seen the world.”
“Observe those gondoliers,” said Candide, “are they not
perpetually singing?” “You do not see them,” answered
Martin, “at home with their wives and brats. The doge has
his chagrin, gondoliers theirs. Nevertheless, in the main, I
look upon the gondolier’s life as preferable to that of the
doge; but the difference is so trifling that it is not worth
the trouble of examining into.”
“I have heard great talk,” said Candide, “of the Senator
Pococuranté, who lives in that fine house at the Brenta,
where, they say, he entertains foreigners in the most polite
manner.” “They pretend this man is a perfect stranger to
uneasiness. I should be glad to see so extraordinary a
being,” said Martin. Candide thereupon sent a messenger to
Seignor Pococuranté, desiring permission to wait on him the
next day.
|
CHAPTER XXV.
Candide and Martin pay a visit to seignor
pococuranté, a noble venetian.
Candide and his friend Martin went in a gondola on the
Brenta, and arrived at the palace of the noble Pococuranté.
The gardens were laid out in elegant taste, and adorned with
fine marble statues; his palace was built after the most
approved rules of architecture. The master of the house, who
was a man of affairs, and very rich, received our two
travellers with great politeness, but without much ceremony,
which somewhat disconcerted Candide, but was not at all
displeasing to Martin.
As soon as they were seated, two very pretty girls,
neatly dressed, brought in chocolate, which was extremely
well prepared. Candide could not help making encomiums upon
their beauty and graceful carriage. “The creatures are well
enough,” said the senator; “I amuse myself with them
sometimes, for I am heartily tired of the women of the town,
their coquetry, their jealousy, their quarrels, their
humors, their meannesses, their pride, and their folly; I am
weary of making sonnets, or of paying for sonnets to be made
on them; but after all, these two girls begin to grow very
indifferent to me.”
After having refreshed himself, Candide walked into a
large gallery, where he was struck with the sight of a fine
collection of paintings. “Pray,” said Candide, “by what
master are the two first of these?” “They are by Raphael,”
answered the senator. “I gave a great deal of money for them
seven years ago, purely out of curiosity, as they were said
to be the finest pieces in Italy; but I cannot say they
please me: the coloring is dark and heavy; the figures do
not swell nor come out enough; and the drapery is bad. In
short, notwithstanding the encomiums lavished upon them,
they are not, in my opinion, a true representation of
nature. I approve of no paintings save those wherein I think
I behold nature herself; and there are few, if any, of that
kind to be met with. I have what is called a fine
collection, but I take no manner of delight in it.”
While dinner was being prepared Pococuranté ordered a
concert. Candide praised the music to the skies. “This
noise,” said the noble Venetian, “may amuse one for a little
time, but if it were to last above half an hour, it would
grow tiresome to everybody, though perhaps no one would care
to own it. Music has become the art of executing what is
difficult; now, whatever is difficult cannot be long
pleasing.
“I believe I might take more pleasure in an opera, if
they had not made such a monster of that species of dramatic
entertainment as perfectly shocks me; and I am amazed how
people can bear to see wretched tragedies set to music;
where the scenes are contrived for no other purpose than to
lug in, as it were by the ears, three or four ridiculous
songs, to give a favorite actress an opportunity of
exhibiting her pipe. Let who will die away in raptures at
the trills of a eunuch quavering the majestic part of Cæsar
or Cato, and strutting in a foolish manner upon the stage,
but for my part I have long ago renounced these paltry
entertainments, which constitute the glory of modern Italy,
and are so dearly purchased by crowned heads.” Candide
opposed these sentiments; but he did it in a discreet
manner; as for Martin, he was entirely of the old senator’s
opinion.
Dinner being served they sat down to table, and, after a
hearty repast, returned to the library. Candide, observing
Homer richly bound, commended the noble Venetian’s taste.
“This,” said he, “is a book that was once the delight of the
great Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany.” “Homer is
no favorite of mine,” answered Pococuranté, coolly; “I was
made to believe once that I took a pleasure in reading him;
but his continual repetitions of battles have all such a
resemblance with each other; his gods that are forever in
haste and bustle, without ever doing anything; his Helen,
who is the cause of the war, and yet hardly acts in the
whole performance; his Troy, that holds out so long, without
being taken: in short, all these things together make the
poem very insipid to me. I have asked some learned men,
whether they are not in reality as much tired as myself with
reading this poet: those who spoke ingenuously, assured me
that he had made them fall asleep, and yet that they could
not well avoid giving him a place in their libraries; but
that it was merely as they would do an antique, or those
rusty medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of
no manner of use in commerce.”
“But your excellency does not surely form the same
opinion of Virgil?” said Candide. “Why, I grant,” replied
Pococuranté, “that the second, third, fourth, and sixth
books of his “Æneid” are excellent; but as for his pious
Æneas, his strong Cloanthus, his friendly Achates, his boy
Ascanius, his silly king Latinus, his ill-bred Amata, his
insipid Lavinia, and some other characters much in the same
strain, I think there cannot in nature be anything more flat
and disagreeable. I must confess I prefer Tasso far beyond
him; nay, even that sleepy taleteller Ariosto.”
“May I take the liberty to ask if you do not experience
great pleasure from reading Horace?” said Candide. “There
are maxims in this writer,” replied Pococuranté, “whence a
man of the world may reap some benefit; and the short
measure of the verse makes them more easily to be retained
in the memory. But I see nothing extraordinary in his
journey to Brundusium, and his account of his bad dinner;
nor in his dirty, low quarrel between one Rupillius, whose
words, as he expresses it, were full of poisonous filth; and
another, whose language was dipped in vinegar. His
indelicate verses against old women and witches have
frequently given me great offence: nor can I discover the
great merit of his telling his friend Mæcenas, that if he
will but rank him in the class of lyric poets, his lofty
head shall touch the stars. Ignorant readers are apt to
judge a writer by his reputation. For my part, I read only
to please myself. I like nothing but what makes for my
purpose.” Candide, who had been brought up with a notion of
never making use of his own judgment, was astonished at what
he heard; but Martin found there was a good deal of reason
in the senator’s remarks.
“O! here is a Tully,” said Candide; “this great man I
fancy you are never tired of reading?” “Indeed I never read
him at all,” replied Pococuranté. “What is it to me whether
he pleads for Rabirius or Cluentius? I try causes enough
myself. I had once some liking for his philosophical works;
but when I found he doubted everything, I thought I knew as
much as himself, and had no need of a guide to learn
ignorance.”
“Ha!” cried Martin, “here are fourscore volumes of the
memoirs of the Academy of Sciences; perhaps there may be
something curious and valuable in this collection.” “Yes,”
answered Pococuranté; “so there might if any one of these
compilers of this rubbish had only invented the art of
pin-making: but all these volumes are filled with mere
chimerical systems, without one single article conducive to
real utility.”
“I see a prodigious number of plays,” said Candide, “in
Italian, Spanish, and French.” “Yes,” replied the Venetian;
“there are I think three thousand, and not three dozen of
them good for anything. As to those huge volumes of
divinity, and those enormous collections of sermons, they
are not all together worth one single page in Seneca; and I
fancy you will readily believe that neither myself, nor
anyone else, ever looks into them.”
Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English
books, said to the senator: “I fancy that a republican must
be highly delighted with those books, which are most of them
written with a noble spirit of freedom.” “It is noble to
write as we think,” said Pococuranté; “it is the privilege
of humanity. Throughout Italy we write only what we do not
think; and the present inhabitants of the country of the
Cæsars and Antonines dare not acquire a single idea without
the permission of a Dominican father. I should be enamored
of the spirit of the English nation, did it not utterly
frustrate the good effects it would produce by passion and
the spirit of party.”
Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not
think that author a great man. “Who?” said Pococuranté
sharply; “that barbarian who writes a tedious commentary in
ten books of rumbling verse, on the first chapter of
Genesis? that slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who
disfigures the creation, by making the Messiah take a pair
of compasses from heaven’s armory to plan the world; whereas
Moses represented the Deity as producing the whole universe
by his fiat? Can I think you have any esteem for a
writer who has spoiled Tasso’s hell and the devil; who
transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad, and at others into
a pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over again a
hundred times; who metamorphoses him into a school-divine;
and who, by an absurdly serious imitation of Ariosto’s comic
invention of firearms, represents the devils and angels
cannonading each other in heaven? Neither I nor any other
Italian can possibly take pleasure in such melancholy
reveries; but the marriage of Sin and Death, and snakes
issuing from the womb of the former, are enough to make any
person sick that is not lost to all sense of delicacy. This
obscene, whimsical, and disagreeable poem met with the
neglect it deserved at its first publication; and I only
treat the author now as he was treated in his own country by
his contemporaries.”
Candide was sensibly grieved at this speech, as he had a
great respect for Homer, and was fond of Milton. “Alas!”
said he softly to Martin, “I am afraid this man holds our
German poets in great contempt.” “There would be no such
great harm in that,” said Martin. “O what a surprising man!”
said Candide, still to himself; “what a prodigious genius is
this Pococuranté! nothing can please him.”
After finishing their survey of the library, they went
down into the garden, when Candide commended the several
beauties that offered themselves to his view. “I know
nothing upon earth laid out in such bad taste,” said
Pococuranté; “everything about it is childish and trifling;
but I shall have another laid out to-morrow upon a nobler
plan.”
As soon as our two travellers had taken leave of his
excellency, “Well,” said Candide to Martin, “I hope you will
own that this man is the happiest of all mortals, for he is
above everything he possesses.” “But do not you see,”
answered Martin, “that he likewise dislikes everything he
possesses? It was an observation of Plato, long since, that
those are not the best stomachs that reject, without
distinction, all sorts of aliments.” “True,” said Candide,
“but still there must certainly be a pleasure in criticising
everything, and in perceiving faults where others think they
see beauties.” “That is,” replied Martin, “there is a
pleasure in having no pleasure.” “Well, well,” said Candide,
“I find that I shall be the only happy man at last, when I
am blessed with the sight of my dear Cunegund.” “It is good
to hope,” said Martin.
In the meanwhile, days and weeks passed away, and no news
of Cacambo. Candide was so overwhelmed with grief, that he
did not reflect on the behavior of Pacquette and Friar
Giroflée, who never stayed to return him thanks for the
presents he had so generously made them.
|
CHAPTER XXVI.
Candide and Martin sup with six
sharpers—who they were.
One evening as Candide, with his attendant Martin, was
going to sit down to supper with some foreigners who lodged
in the same inn where they had taken up their quarters, a
man with a face the color of soot came behind him, and
taking him by the arm, said, “Hold yourself in readiness to
go along with us; be sure you do not fail.” Upon this,
turning about to see from whom these words came, he beheld
Cacambo. Nothing but the sight of Miss Cunegund could have
given him greater joy and surprise. He was almost beside
himself. After embracing this dear friend, “Cunegund!” said
he, “Cunegund is come with you doubtless! Where, where is
she? Carry me to her this instant, that I may die with joy
in her presence.” “Cunegund is not here,” answered Cacambo;
“she is in Constantinople.” “Good heavens! in
Constantinople! but no matter if she were in China, I would
fly thither. Quick, quick, dear Cacambo, let us be gone.”
“Soft and fair,” said Cacambo, “stay till you have supped. I
cannot at present stay to say anything more to you; I am a
slave, and my master waits for me; I must go and attend him
at table: but mum! say not a word, only get your supper, and
hold yourself in readiness.”
Candide, divided between joy and grief, charmed to have
thus met with his faithful agent again, and surprised to
hear he was a slave, his heart palpitating, his senses
confused, but full of the hopes of recovering his dear
Cunegund, sat down to table with Martin, who beheld all
these scenes with great unconcern, and with six strangers,
who had come to spend the carnival at Venice.
Cacambo waited at table upon one of those strangers. When
supper was nearly over, he drew near to his master, and
whispered in his ear, “Sire, your majesty may go when you
please; the ship is ready”; and so saying he left the room.
The guests, surprised at what they had heard, looked at each
other without speaking a word; when another servant drawing
near to his master, in like manner said, “Sire, your
majesty’s post-chaise is at Padua, and the bark is ready.”
The master made him a sign, and he instantly withdrew. The
company all stared at each other again, and the general
astonishment was increased. A third servant then approached
another of the strangers, and said, “Sire, if your majesty
will be advised by me, you will not make any longer stay in
this place; I will go and get everything ready”; and
instantly disappeared.
Candide and Martin then took it for granted that this was
some of the diversions of the carnival, and that these were
characters in masquerade. Then a fourth domestic said to the
fourth stranger, “Your majesty may set off when you please;”
saying which, he went away like the rest. A fifth valet said
the same to a fifth master. But the sixth domestic spoke in
a different style to the person on whom he waited, and who
sat near to Candide. “Troth, sir,” said he, “they will trust
your majesty no longer, nor myself neither; and we may both
of us chance to be sent to jail this very night; and
therefore I shall take care of myself, and so adieu.” The
servants being all gone, the six strangers, with Candide and
Martin, remained in a profound silence. At length Candide
broke it by saying, “Gentlemen, this is a very singular joke
upon my word; how came you all to be kings? For my part I
own frankly, that neither my friend Martin here, nor myself,
have any claim to royalty.”
Cacambo’s master then began, with great gravity, to
deliver himself thus in Italian. “I am not joking in the
least, my name is Achmet III. I was grand seignor for many
years; I dethroned my brother, my nephew dethroned me, my
viziers lost their heads, and I am condemned to end my days
in the old seraglio. My nephew, the Grand Sultan Mahomet,
gives me permission to travel sometimes for my health, and I
am come to spend the carnival at Venice.”
A young man who sat by Achmet, spoke next, and said: “My
name is Ivan. I was once emperor of all the Russias, but was
dethroned in my cradle. My parents were confined, and I was
brought up in a prison, yet I am sometimes allowed to
travel, though always with persons to keep a guard over me,
and I am come to spend the carnival at Venice.”
The third said: “I am Charles Edward, king of England; my
father has renounced his right to the throne in my favor. I
have fought in defence of my rights, and near a thousand of
my friends have had their hearts taken out of their bodies
alive and thrown in their faces. I have myself been confined
in a prison. I am going to Rome to visit the king my father,
who was dethroned as well as myself; and my grandfather and
I have come to spend the carnival at Venice.”
The fourth spoke thus: “I am the king of Poland; the
fortune of war has stripped me of my hereditary dominions.
My father experienced the same vicissitudes of fate. I
resign myself to the will of Providence, in the same manner
as Sultan Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, and King Charles Edward,
whom God long preserve; and I have come to spend the
carnival at Venice.”
The fifth said: “I am king of Poland also. I have twice
lost my kingdom; but Providence has given me other
dominions, where I have done more good than all the
Sarmatian kings put together were ever able to do on the
banks of the Vistula; I resign myself likewise to
Providence; and have come to spend the carnival at Venice.”
It now came to the sixth monarch’s turn to speak:
“Gentlemen,” said he, “I am not so great a prince as the
rest of you, it is true, but I am, however, a crowned head.
I am Theodore, elected king of Corsica. I have had the title
of majesty, and am now hardly treated with common civility.
I have coined money, and am not now worth a single ducat. I
have had two secretaries, and am now without a valet. I was
once seated on a throne, and since that have lain upon a
truss of straw, in a common jail in London, and I very much
fear I shall meet with the same fate here in Venice, where I
came, like your majesties, to divert myself at the
carnival.”
The other five kings listened to this speech with great
attention; it excited their compassion; each of them made
the unhappy Theodore a present of twenty sequins, and
Candide gave him a diamond, worth just a hundred times that
sum. “Who can this private person be,” said the five princes
to one another, “who is able to give, and has actually
given, a hundred times as much as any of us?”
Just as they rose from table, in came four serene
highnesses, who had also been stripped of their territories
by the fortune of war, and had come to spend the remainder
of the carnival at Venice. Candide took no manner of notice
of them; for his thoughts were wholly employed on his voyage
to Constantinople, where he intended to go in search of his
lovely Miss Cunegund.
|
CHAPTER XXVII.
Candide’s voyage to constantinople.
The trusty Cacambo had already engaged the captain of the
Turkish ship that was to carry Sultan Achmet back to
Constantinople, to take Candide and Martin on board.
Accordingly they both embarked, after paying their obeisance
to his miserable highness. As they were going on board,
Candide said to Martin, “You see we supped in company with
six dethroned kings, and to one of them I gave charity.
Perhaps there may be a great many other princes still more
unfortunate. For my part I have lost only a hundred sheep,
and am now going to fly to the arms of my charming Miss
Cunegund. My dear Martin, I must insist on it, that Pangloss
was in the right. All is for the best.” “I wish it may be,”
said Martin. “But this was an odd adventure we met with at
Venice. I do not think there ever was an instance before of
six dethroned monarchs supping together at a public inn.”
“This is not more extraordinary,” said Martin, “than most of
what has happened to us. It is a very common thing for kings
to be dethroned; and as for our having the honor to sup with
six of them, it is a mere accident, not deserving our
attention.”
As soon as Candide set his foot on board the vessel, he
flew to his old friend and valet Cacambo; and throwing his
arms about his neck, embraced him with transports of joy.
“Well,” said he, “what news of Miss Cunegund? Does she still
continue the paragon of beauty? Does she love me still? How
does she do? You have, doubtless, purchased a superb palace
for her at Constantinople.”
“My dear master,” replied Cacambo, “Miss Cunegund washes
dishes on the banks of the Propontis, in the house of a
prince who has very few to wash. She is at present a slave
in the family of an ancient sovereign named Ragotsky, whom
the grand Turk allows three crowns a day to maintain him in
his exile; but the most melancholy circumstance of all is,
that she is turned horribly ugly.” “Ugly or handsome,” said
Candide, “I am a man of honor; and, as such, am obliged to
love her still. But how could she possibly have been reduced
to so abject a condition, when I sent five or six millions
to her by you?” “Lord bless me,” said Cacambo, “was not I
obliged to give two millions to Seignor Don Fernando
d’Ibaraa y Fagueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, the
governor of Buenos Ayres, for liberty to take Miss Cunegund
away with me? and then did not a brave fellow of a pirate
gallantly strip us of all the rest? And then did not this
same pirate carry us with him to Cape Matapan, to Milo, to
Nicaria, to Samos, to Petra, to the Dardanelles, to Marmora,
to Scutari? Miss Cunegund and the old woman are now servants
to the prince I have told you of; and I myself am slave to
the dethroned sultan.” “What a chain of shocking accidents!”
exclaimed Candide. “But after all, I have still some
diamonds left, with which I can easily procure Miss
Cunegund’s liberty. It is a pity though she is grown so
ugly.”
Then turning to Martin, “What think you, friend,” said
he, “whose condition is most to be pitied, the Emperor
Achmet’s the Emperor Ivan’s, King Charles Edward’s, or
mine?” “Faith, I cannot resolve your question,” said Martin,
“unless I had been in the breasts of you all.” “Ah!” cried
Candide, “was Pangloss here now, he would have known, and
satisfied me at once.” “I know not,” said Martin, “in what
balance your Pangloss could have weighed the misfortunes of
mankind, and have set a just estimation on their sufferings.
All that I pretend to know of the matter is that there are
millions of men on the earth, whose conditions are a hundred
times more pitiable than those of King Charles Edward, the
Emperor Ivan, or Sultan Achmet.” “Why, that may be,”
answered Candide.
In a few days they reached the Bosphorus; and the first
thing Candide did was to pay a high ransom for Cacambo:
then, without losing time, he and his companions went on
board a galley, in order to search for his Cunegund on the
banks of the Propontis, notwithstanding she was grown so
ugly.
There were two slaves among the crew of the galley, who
rowed very ill, and to whose bare backs the master of the
vessel frequently applied a lash. Candide, from natural
sympathy, looked at these two slaves more attentively than
at any of the rest, and drew near them with an eye of pity.
Their features, though greatly disfigured, appeared to him
to bear a strong resemblance with those of Pangloss and the
unhappy baron Jesuit, Miss Cunegund’s brother. This idea
affected him with grief and compassion: he examined them
more attentively than before. “In troth,” said he, turning
to Martin, “if I had not seen my master Pangloss fairly
hanged, and had not myself been unlucky enough to run the
baron through the body, I should absolutely think those two
rowers were the men.”
No sooner had Candide uttered the names of the baron and
Pangloss, than the two slaves gave a great cry, ceased
rowing, and let fall their oars out of their hands. The
master of the vessel, seeing this, ran up to them, and
redoubled the discipline of the lash. “Hold, hold,” cried
Candide, “I will give you what money you shall ask for these
two persons.” “Good heavens! it is Candide,” said one of the
men. “Candide!” cried the other. “Do I dream,” said Candide,
“or am I awake? Am I actually on board this galley? Is this
my lord baron, whom I killed? and that my master Pangloss,
whom I saw hanged before my face?”
“It is I! it is I!” cried they both together. “What! is
this your great philosopher?” said Martin. “My dear sir,”
said Candide to the master of the galley, “how much do you
ask for the ransom of the baron of Thunder-ten tronckh, who
is one of the first barons of the empire, and of Mr.
Pangloss, the most profound metaphysician in Germany?” “Why,
then, Christian cur,” replied the Turkish captain, “since
these two dogs of Christian slaves are barons and
metaphysicians, who no doubt are of high rank in their own
country, thou shalt give me fifty thousand sequins.” “You
shall have them, sir; carry me back as quick as thought to
Constantinople, and you shall receive the money
immediately—No! carry me first to Miss Cunegund.” The
captain, upon Candide’s first proposal, had already tacked
about, and he made the crew ply their oars so effectually,
that the vessel flew through the water, quicker than a bird
cleaves the air.
Candide bestowed a thousand embraces on the baron and
Pangloss. “And so then, my dear baron, I did not kill you?
and you, my dear Pangloss, are come to life again after your
hanging? But how came you slaves on board a Turkish galley?”
“And is it true that my dear sister is in this country?”
said the baron. “Yes,” said Cacambo. “And do I once again
behold my dear Candide?” said Pangloss. Candide presented
Martin and Cacambo to them; they embraced each other, and
all spoke together. The galley flew like lightning, and soon
they were got back to port. Candide instantly sent for a
Jew, to whom he sold for fifty thousand sequins a diamond
richly worth one hundred thousand, though the fellow swore
to him all the time by Father Abraham that he gave him the
most he could possibly afford. He no sooner got the money
into his hands, than he paid it down for the ransom of the
baron and Pangloss. The latter flung himself at the feet of
his deliverer, and bathed him with his tears: the former
thanked him with a gracious nod, and promised to return him
the money the first opportunity. “But is it possible,” said
he, “that my sister should be in Turkey?” “Nothing is more
possible,” answered Cacambo, “for she scours the dishes in
the house of a Transylvanian prince.” Candide sent directly
for two Jews, and sold more diamonds to them; and then he
set out with his companions in another galley, to deliver
Miss Cunegund from slavery.
|
CHAPTER XXVIII.
What befell Candide, Cunegund, Pangloss,
Martin, etc.
“Pardon,” said Candide to the baron; “once more let me
entreat your pardon, reverend father, for running you
through the body.” “Say no more about it,” replied the
baron; “I was a little too hasty I must own; but as you seem
to be desirous to know by what accident I came to be a slave
on board the galley where you saw me, I will inform you.
After I had been cured of the would you gave me, by the
college apothecary, I was attacked and carried off by a
party of Spanish troops, who clapped me in prison in Buenos
Ayres, at the very time my sister was setting out from
there. I asked leave to return to Rome, to the general of my
order, who appointed me chaplain to the French ambassador at
Constantinople. I had not been a week in my new office, when
I happened to meet one evening with a young Icoglan,
extremely handsome and well made. The weather was very hot;
the young man had an inclination to bathe. I took the
opportunity to bathe likewise. I did not know it was a crime
for a Christian to be found naked in company with a young
Turk. A cadi ordered me to receive a hundred blows on the
soles of my feet, and sent me to the galleys. I do not
believe that there was ever an act of more flagrant
injustice. But I would fain know how my sister came to be a
scullion to a Transylvanian prince, who has taken refuge
among the Turks?”
“But how happens it that I behold you again, my dear
Pangloss?” said Candide. “It is true,” answered Pangloss,
“you saw me hanged, though I ought properly to have been
burned; but you may remember, that it rained extremely hard
when they were going to roast me. The storm was so violent
that they found it impossible to light the fire; so they
hanged me because they could do no better. A surgeon
purchased my body, carried it home, and prepared to dissect
me. He began by making a crucial incision from my navel to
the clavicle. It is impossible for anyone to have been more
lamely hanged than I had been. The executioner was a
subdeacon, and knew how to burn people very well, but as for
hanging, he was a novice at it, being quite out of practice;
the cord being wet, and not slipping properly, the noose did
not join. In short, I still continued to breathe; the
crucial incision made me scream to such a degree, that my
surgeon fell flat upon his back; and imagining it was the
devil he was dissecting, ran away, and in his fright tumbled
down stairs. His wife hearing the noise, flew from the next
room, and seeing me stretched upon the table with my crucial
incision, was still more terrified than her husband, and
fell upon him. When they had a little recovered themselves,
I heard her say to her husband, ‘My dear, how could you
think of dissecting a heretic? Don’t you know that the devil
is always in them? I’ll run directly to a priest to come and
drive the evil spirit out.’ I trembled from head to foot at
hearing her talk in this manner, and exerted what little
strength I had left to cry out, ‘Have mercy on me!’ At
length the Portuguese barber took courage, sewed up my
wound, and his wife nursed me; and I was upon my legs in a
fortnight’s time. The barber got me a place to be lackey to
a knight of Malta, who was going to Venice; but finding my
master had no money to pay me my wages, I entered into the
service of a Venetian merchant, and went with him to
Constantinople.
“One day I happened to enter a mosque, where I saw no one
but an old man and a very pretty young female devotee, who
was telling her beads; her neck was quite bare, and in her
bosom she had a beautiful nosegay of tulips, roses,
anemones, ranunculuses, hyacinths, and auriculas; she let
fall her nosegay. I ran immediately to take it up, and
presented it to her with a most respectful bow. I was so
long in delivering it that the imam began to be angry; and,
perceiving I was a Christian, he cried out for help; they
carried me before the cadi, who ordered me to receive one
hundred bastinadoes, and sent me to the galleys. I was
chained in the very galley and to the very same bench with
the baron. On board this galley there were four young men
belonging to Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and two
monks of Corfu, who told us that the like adventures
happened every day. The baron pretended that he had been
worse used than myself; and I insisted that there was far
less harm in taking up a nosegay, and putting it into a
woman’s bosom, than to be found stark naked with a young
Icoglan. We were continually whipped, and received twenty
lashes a day with a heavy thong, when the concatenation of
sublunary events brought you on board our galley to ransom
us from slavery.”
“Well, my dear Pangloss,” said Candide to him, “when you
were hanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging at the oar, did
you continue to think that everything in this world happens
for the best?” “I have always abided by my first opinion,”
answered Pangloss; “for, after all, I am a philosopher, and
it would not become me to retract my sentiments; especially
as Leibnitz could not be in the wrong: and that
pre-established harmony is the finest thing in the world, as
well as a plenum and the materia subtilis.”
|
CHAPTER XXIX.
In what manner Candide found Miss Cunegund
and the old woman again.
While Candide, the baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo,
were relating their several adventures, and reasoning on the
contingent or non-contingent events of this world; on causes
and effects; on moral and physical evil; on free will and
necessity; and on the consolation that may be felt by a
person when a slave and chained to an oar in a Turkish
galley, they arrived at the house of the Transylvanian
prince on the coasts of the Propontis. The first objects
they beheld there, were Miss Cunegund and the old woman, who
were hanging some tablecloths on a line to dry.
The baron turned pale at the sight. Even the tender
Candide, that affectionate lover, upon seeing his fair
Cunegund all sunburnt, with blear eyes, a withered neck,
wrinkled face and arms, all covered with a red scurf,
started back with horror; but, recovering himself, he
advanced towards her out of good manners. She embraced
Candide and her brother; they embraced the old woman, and
Candide ransomed them both.
There was a small farm in the neighborhood, which the old
woman proposed to Candide to make shift with till the
company should meet with a more favorable destiny. Cunegund,
not knowing that she was grown ugly, as no one had informed
her of it, reminded Candide of his promise in so peremptory
a manner, that the simple lad did not dare to refuse her; he
then acquainted the baron that he was going to marry his
sister. “I will never suffer,” said the baron, “my sister to
be guilty of an action so derogatory to her birth and
family; nor will I bear this insolence on your part: no, I
never will be reproached that my nephews are not qualified
for the first ecclesiastical dignities in Germany; nor shall
a sister of mine ever be the wife of any person below the
rank of a baron of the empire.” Cunegund flung herself at
her brother’s feet, and bedewed them with her tears; but he
still continued inflexible. “Thou foolish fellow,” said
Candide, “have I not delivered thee from the galleys, paid
thy ransom, and thy sister’s, too, who was a scullion, and
is very ugly, and yet condescend to marry her? and shalt
thou pretend to oppose the match! If I were to listen only
to the dictates of my anger, I should kill thee again.”
“Thou mayest kill me again,” said the baron; “but thou shalt
not marry my sister while I am living.”
|
CHAPTER XXX.
Conclusion.
Candide had, in truth, no great inclination to marry Miss
Cunegund; but the extreme impertinence of the baron
determined him to conclude the match; and Cunegund pressed
him so warmly, that he could not recant. He consulted
Pangloss, Martin, and the faithful Cacambo. Pangloss
composed a fine memorial, by which he proved that the baron
had no right over his sister; and that she might, according
to all the laws of the empire, marry Candide with the left
hand. Martin concluded to throw the baron into the sea;
Cacambo decided that he must be delivered to the Turkish
captain and sent to the galleys; after which he should be
conveyed by the first ship to the father-general at Rome.
This advice was found to be good; the old woman approved of
it, and not a syllable was said to his sister; the business
was executed for a little money; and they had the pleasure
of tricking a Jesuit, and punishing the pride of a German
baron.
It was altogether natural to imagine, that after
undergoing so many disasters, Candide, married to his
mistress and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the
philosopher Martin, the prudent Cacambo, and the old woman,
having besides brought home so many diamonds from the
country of the ancient Incas, would lead the most agreeable
life in the world. But he had been so robbed by the Jews,
that he had nothing left but his little farm; his wife,
every day growing more and more ugly, became headstrong and
insupportable; the old woman was infirm, and more
ill-natured yet than Cunegund. Cacambo, who worked in the
garden, and carried the produce of it to sell at
Constantinople, was above his labor, and cursed his fate.
Pangloss despaired of making a figure in any of the German
universities. And as to Martin, he was firmly persuaded that
a person is equally ill-situated everywhere. He took things
with patience. Candide, Martin, and Pangloss, disputed
sometimes about metaphysics and morality. Boats were often
seen passing under the windows of the farm laden with
effendis, bashaws, and cadis, that were going into
banishment to Lemnos, Mytilene and Erzerum. And other cadis,
bashaws, and effendis, were seen coming back to succeed the
place of the exiles, and were driven out in their turns.
They saw several heads curiously stuck upon poles, and
carried as presents to the sublime porte. Such sights gave
occasion to frequent dissertations; and when no disputes
were in progress, the irksomeness was so excessive that the
old woman ventured one day to tell them, “I would be glad to
know which is worst, to be ravished a hundred times by negro
pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet
among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an
auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in
a galley; and, in short, to experience all the miseries
through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here
doing nothing?” “This,” said Candide, “is a grand question.”
This discourse gave birth to new reflections, and Martin
especially concluded that man was born to live in the
convulsions of disquiet, or in the lethargy of idleness.
Though Candide did not absolutely agree to this, yet he did
not determine anything on that head. Pangloss avowed that he
had undergone dreadful sufferings; but having once
maintained that everything went on as well as possible, he
still maintained it, and at the same time believed nothing
of it.
There was one thing which more than ever confirmed Martin
in his detestable principles, made Candide hesitate, and
embarrassed Pangloss, which was the arrival of Pacquette and
Brother Giroflée one day at their farm. This couple had been
in the utmost distress; they had very speedily made away
with their three thousand piastres; they had parted, been
reconciled; quarrelled again, been thrown into prison; had
made their escape, and at last Brother Giroflée had turned
Turk. Pacquette still continued to follow her trade; but she
got little or nothing by it. “I foresaw very well,” said
Martin to Candide, “that your presents would soon be
squandered, and only make them more miserable. You and
Cacambo have spent millions of piastres, and yet you are not
more happy than Brother Giroflée and Pacquette.” “Ah!” said
Pangloss to Pacquette, “it is heaven that has brought you
here among us, my poor child! Do you know that you have cost
me the tip of my nose, one eye, and one ear? What a handsome
shape is here! and what is this world!” This new adventure
engaged them more deeply than ever in philosophical
disputations.
In the neighborhood lived a famous dervish who passed for
the best philosopher in Turkey; they went to consult him:
Pangloss, who was their spokesman, addressed him thus:
“Master, we come to entreat you to tell us why so strange an
animal as man has been formed?”
“Why do you trouble your head about it?” said the
dervish; “is it any business of yours?” “But, my reverend
father,” said Candide, “there is a horrible deal of evil on
the earth.” “What signifies it,” said the dervish, “whether
there is evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to
Egypt does he trouble his head whether the rats in the
vessel are at their ease or not?” “What must then be done?”
said Pangloss. “Be silent,” answered the dervish. “I
flattered myself,” replied Pangloss, “to have reasoned a
little with you on the causes and effects, on the best of
possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul,
and a pre-established harmony.” At these words the dervish
shut the door in their faces.
During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two
viziers of the bench and the mufti had just been strangled
at Constantinople, and several of their friends empaled.
This catastrophe made a great noise for some hours.
Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were returning to the
little farm, met with a good-looking old man, who was taking
the air at his door, under an alcove formed of the boughs of
orange-trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was
disputative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who
was lately strangled. “I cannot tell,” answered the good old
man; “I never knew the name of any mufti, or vizier
breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the event you speak of;
I presume that in general such as are concerned in public
affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they
deserve it: but I never inquire what is doing at
Constantinople; I am contented with sending thither the
produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my own hands.”
After saying these words, he invited the strangers to come
into his house. His two daughters and two sons presented
them with divers sorts of sherbet of their own making;
besides caymac, heightened with the peels of candied
citrons, oranges, lemons, pineapples, pistachio nuts, and
Mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia or
the American islands. After which the two daughters of this
good Mussulman perfumed the beards of Candide, Pangloss, and
Martin.
“You must certainly have a vast estate,” said Candide to
the Turk; who replied, “I have no more than twenty acres of
ground, the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help
of my children; and our labor keeps off from us three great
evils—idleness, vice, and want.”
Candide, as he was returning home, made profound
reflections on the Turk’s discourse. “This good old man,”
said he to Pangloss and Martin, “appears to me to have
chosen for himself a lot much preferable to that of the six
kings with whom we had the honor to sup.” “Human grandeur,”
said Pangloss, “is very dangerous, if we believe the
testimonies of almost all philosophers; for we find Eglon,
king of Moab, was assassinated by Aod; Absalom was hanged by
the hair of his head, and run through with three darts; King
Nadab, son of Jeroboam, was slain by Baaza; King Ela by
Zimri; Okosias by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the kings
Jehooiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity:
I need not tell you what was the fate of Crœsus, Astyages,
Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal,
Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Cæsar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius,
Domitian, Richard II. of England, Edward II., Henry VI.,
Richard III., Mary Stuart, Charles I., the three Henrys of
France, and the emperor Henry IV.” “Neither need you tell
me,” said Candide, “that we must take care of our garden.”
“You are in the right,” said Pangloss; “for when man was put
into the garden of Eden, it was with an intent to dress it:
and this proves that man was not born to be idle.” “Work
then without disputing,” said Martin; “it is the only way to
render life supportable.”
The little society, one and all, entered into this
laudable design; and set themselves to exert their different
talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful
crop. Cunegund indeed was very ugly, but she became an
excellent hand at pastrywork; Pacquette embroidered; the old
woman had the care of the linen. There was none, down to
Brother Giroflée, but did some service; he was a very good
carpenter, and became an honest man. Pangloss used now and
then to say to Candide, “There is a concatenation of all
events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had
you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of
Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition;
had you not travelled over America on foot; had you not run
the baron through the body; and had you not lost all your
sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado,
you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and
pistachio nuts.” “Excellently observed,” answered Candide;
“but let us take care of our garden.”
|

PART II.
|
CHAPTER I.
How Candide quitted his companions, and
what happened to him.
We soon become tired of everything in life; riches
fatigue the possessor; ambition, when satisfied, leaves only
remorse behind it; the joys of love are but transient joys;
and Candide, made to experience all the vicissitudes of
fortune, was soon disgusted with cultivating his garden.
“Mr. Pangloss,” said he, “if we are in the best of possible
worlds, you will own to me, at least, that this is not
enjoying that portion of possible happiness; but living
obscure in a little corner of the Propontis, having no other
resource than that of my own manual labor, which may one day
fail me; no other pleasures than what Mrs. Cunegund gives
me, who is very ugly; and, which is worse, is my wife; no
other company than yours, which is sometimes irksome to me;
or that of Martin, which makes me melancholy; or that of
Giroflée, who is but very lately become an honest man; or
that of Pacquette, the danger of whose correspondence you
have so fully experienced; or that of the hag who has but
one buttock, and is constantly repeating old wives’ tales.
To this Pangloss made the following reply: “Philosophy
teaches us that monads, divisible in infinitum,
arrange themselves with wonderful sagacity in order to
compose the different bodies which we observe in nature. The
heavenly bodies are what they should be; they are placed
where they should be; they describe the circles which they
should describe; man follows the bent he should follow; he
is what he should be; he does what he should do. You bemoan
yourself, O Candide, because the monad of your soul is
disgusted; but disgust is a modification of the soul; and
this does not hinder, but everything is for the best, both
for you and others. When you beheld me covered with sores, I
did not maintain my opinion the less for that; for if Miss
Pacquette had not made me taste the pleasures of love and
its poison, I should not have met with you in Holland; I
should not have given the anabaptist James an opportunity of
performing a meritorious act; I should not have been hanged
in Lisbon for the edification of my neighbor; I should not
have been here to assist you with my advice, and make you
live and die in Leibnitz’s opinion. Yes, my dear Candide,
everything is linked in a chain, everything is necessary in
the best of possible worlds. There is a necessity that the
burgher of Montauban should instruct kings; that the worm of
Quimper-Corentin should carp, carp, carp; that the declaimer
against philosophers should occasion his own crucifixion in
St. Denis street; that a rascally recollet and the
archdeacon of St. Malo should diffuse their gall and calumny
through their Christian journals; that philosophy should be
accused at the tribunal of Melpomene; and that philosophers
should continue to enlighten human nature, notwithstanding
the croakings of ridiculous animals that flounder in the
marshes of learning; and should you be once more driven by a
hearty kicking from the finest of all castles, to learn
again your exercise among the Bulgarians; should you again
suffer the dirty effects of a Dutchwoman’s zeal; be half
drowned again before Lisbon; to be unmercifully whipped
again by order of the most holy Inquisition; should you run
the same risks again among Los Padres, the Oreillons, and
the French; should you, in short, suffer every possible
calamity and never understand Leibnitz better than I myself
do, you will still maintain that all is well; that all is
for the best; that a plenum, the materia
subtilis, a pre-established harmony, and monads, are
the finest things in the world; and that Leibnitz is a great
man, even to those who do not comprehend him.”
To this fine speech, Candide, the mildest being in
nature, though he had killed three men, two of whom were
priests, answered not a word; but weary of the doctor and
his society, next morning at break of day, taking a white
staff in his hand, marched off, without knowing whither he
was going, but in quest of a place where one does not become
disgusted, and where men are not men, as in the good country
of El Dorado.
Candide, so much the less unhappy as he had no longer a
love for Miss Cunegund, living upon the bounty of different
people, who were not Christians, but yet give alms, arrived
after a very long and very tiresome journey, at Tauris, upon
the frontiers of Persia, a city noted for the cruelties
which the Turks and Persians have by turns exercised
therein.
Half dead with fatigue, having hardly more clothes than
what were necessary to cover that part which constitutes the
man, and which men call shameful, Candide could not well
relish Pangloss’ opinion when a Persian accosted him in the
most polite manner, beseeching him to ennoble his house with
his presence. “You make a jest of me,” cried Candide to him;
“I am a poor devil who has left a miserable dwelling I had
in Propontis because I had married Miss Cunegund; because
she is grown very ugly, and because I was disgusted; I am
not, indeed, able to ennoble anybody’s house; I am not noble
myself, thank God. If I had the honor of being so, Baron
Thunder-ten-tronckh should have paid very dearly for the
kicks on the backside with which he favored me, or I should
have died of shame for it, which would have been pretty
philosophical; besides, I have been whipped ignominiously by
the executioners of the most holy Inquisition, and by two
thousand heroes at three pence halfpenny a day. Give me what
you please, but do not insult my distress with taunts which
would deprive you of the whole value of your beneficence.”
“My lord,” replied the Persian, “you may be a beggar, and
this appears pretty plainly; but my religion obliges me to
use hospitality; it is sufficient that you are a man and
under misfortunes; that the apple of my eye should be the
path for your feet; vouchsafe to ennoble my house with your
radiant presence.” “I will, since you desire it,” answered
Candide. “Come then, enter,” said the Persian. They went in
accordingly, and Candide could not forbear admiring the
respectful treatment shown him by his host. The slaves
anticipated his desires; the whole house seemed to be busied
in nothing but contributing to his satisfaction. “Should
this last,” said Candide to himself, “all does not go so
badly in this country.” Three days were passed, during which
time the kindness of the Persian still continued; and
Candide already cried out: “Master Pangloss, I always
imagined you were in the right, for you are a great
philosopher.”
|
CHAPTER II.
What befell Candide in this house—how he
got out of it.
Candide, being well fed, well clothed, and free from
chagrin, soon became again as ruddy, as fresh, and as gay as
he had been in Westphalia. His host, Ismael Raab, was
pleased to see this change; he was a man six feet high,
adorned with two small eyes extremely red, and a large nose
full of pimples, which sufficiently declared his infraction
of Mahomet’s law; his whiskers were the most famous in the
country, and mothers wished their sons nothing so much as a
like pair. Raab had wives, because he was rich; but he
thought in a manner that is but too common in the East and
in some of our colleges in Europe. “Your excellence is
brighter than the stars,” said the cunning Persian to the
brisk Candide one day, half smiling and half suppressing his
words. “You must have captivated a great many hearts; you
are formed to give and receive happiness.” “Alas!” answered
our hero, “I was happy only by halves, behind a screen,
where I was but half at my ease. Mademoiselle Cunegund was
handsome then—Mademoiselle Cunegund; poor innocent thing!”
“Follow me, my lord,” said the Persian. And Candide followed
accordingly. They came to a very agreeable retreat, where
silence and pleasure reigned. There Ismael Raab tenderly
embraced Candide, and in a few words made a declaration of
love like that which the beautiful Alexis expresses with so
much pleasure in Virgil’s Eclogues. Candide could not
recover from his astonishment. “No,” cried he, “I can never
suffer such infamy! what cause and what horrible effect! I
had rather die.” “So you shall,” replied Ismael, enraged.
“How, thou Christian dog! because I would politely give you
pleasure—resolve directly to satisfy me, or to suffer the
most cruel death.” Candide did not long hesitate. The cogent
reason of the Persian made him tremble; for he feared death
like a philosopher.
We accustom ourselves to everything in time. Candide,
well fed, well taken care of, but closely watched, was not
absolutely disgusted with his condition. Good cheer and the
different diversions performed by Ismael’s slaves gave some
respite to his chagrin; he was unhappy only when he thought;
and thus it is with the greatest part of mankind.
At that time one of the most stanch supporters of the
monkish crew in Persia, the most learned of the Mahometan
doctors, who understood Arabic perfectly, and even Greek, as
spoken at that day in the country of Demosthenes and
Sophocles, the Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk, returned from
Constantinople, where he had conversed with the Reverend
Mamoud-Abram on a very delicate point of doctrine; namely,
whether the prophet had plucked from the angel Gabriel’s
wing the pen which he used for the writing of the Koran; or
if Gabriel had made him a present of it. They had disputed
for three days and three nights with a warmth worthy of the
noblest sages of controversy; and the doctor returned home
persuaded, like all the disciples of Ali, that Mahomet had
plucked the quill; while Mamoud-Abram remained convinced,
like the rest of Omar’s followers, that the prophet was
incapable of committing any such rudeness, and that the
angel had very politely made him a present of this quill for
his pen.
It is said that there was at Constantinople a certain
free-thinker who insinuated that it was necessary to examine
first whether the Koran was really written with a pen taken
from the wing of the angel Gabriel; but he was stoned.
Candide’s arrival had made a noise in Tauris; many who
had heard him speak of contingent and non-contingent effects
imagined he was a philosopher. The Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk
was told of him; he had the curiosity to come and see him;
and Raab, who could hardly refuse a person of such
consequence, sent for Candide to make his appearance. He
seemed to be well pleased with the manner in which Candide
spake of bad physics, bad morals, of agent and effect. “I
understand that you are a philosopher, and that’s all. But
it is enough, Candide,” said the venerable recluse. “It is
not right that so great a man as you are should be treated
with such indignity, as I am told, in the world. You are a
stranger; Ismael Raab has no right over you. I propose to
conduct you to court, there you shall meet with a favorable
reception; the sophi loves the sciences. Ismael, you must
put this young philosopher into my hands, or dread incurring
the displeasure of the prince and drawing upon yourself the
vengeance of heaven; but especially of the monks.” These
last words frightened the otherwise undaunted Persian, and
he consented to everything; Candide, blessing heaven and the
monks, went the same day out of Tauris with the Mahometan
doctor. They took the road to Ispahan, where they arrived
loaded with the blessings and favors of the people.
|
CHAPTER III.
Candide’s reception at court and what
followed.
The Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk made no delay in
presenting Candide to the king. His majesty took a
particular pleasure in hearing him; he made him dispute with
several learned men of his court, who looked upon him as a
fool, an ignoramus, and an idiot; which much contributed to
persuade his majesty that he was a great man. “Because,”
said he to them, “you do not comprehend Candide’s reasonings,
you abuse him; but I, who also comprehend nothing at all of
them, assure you that he is a great philosopher, and I swear
to it by my whisker.” Upon these words the literati were
struck dumb.
Candide had apartments assigned him in the palace; he had
slaves to wait on him; he was dressed in magnificent
clothes, and the sophi commanded that whatever he should
say, no one should dare to assert that he was wrong. His
majesty did not stop here. The venerable monk was
continually soliciting him in favor of his guest, and his
majesty at length resolved to rank him among the number of
his most intimate favorites.
“God be praised and our holy prophet,” said the imam,
addressing himself to Candide. “I am come to tell you an
agreeable piece of news; that you are happy, my dear Candide;
that you are going to raise the envy of the world; you shall
swim in opulence; you may aspire to the most splendid posts
in the empire. But do not forget me, my friend; think that
it is I who have procured you the favor you are just on the
point of enjoying; let gayety reign over the horizon of your
countenance. The king grants you a favor which has been
sought by many, and you will soon exhibit a sight which the
court has not enjoyed these two years past.” “And what are
these favors?” demanded Candide, “with which the prince
intends to honor me?” “This very day,” answered the monk,
quite overjoyed, “this very day you are to receive fifty
strokes with a leathern lash on the soles of your feet, in
the presence of his majesty. The eunuchs named for perfuming
you for the occasion are to be here directly; prepare
yourself to go cheerfully through this little trial and
thereby render yourself worthy of the king of kings.” “Let
the king of kings,” cried Candide in a rage, “keep his
favors to himself, if I must receive fifty blows with a lash
in order to merit them.” “It is thus,” replied the doctor
coldly, “that he deals with those on whom he means to pour
down his benefits. I love you too much to regard the little
temper which you show on this occasion, and I will make you
happy in spite of yourself.”
He had not done speaking when the eunuchs arrived,
preceded by the executor of his majesty’s private pleasures,
who was one of the greatest and most robust lords of the
court. Candide in vain remonstrated against their
proceedings. They perfumed his legs and feet, according to
custom. Four eunuchs carried him to the place appointed for
the ceremony through the midst of a double file of soldiers,
while the trumpets sounded, the cannon fired, and the bells
of all the mosques of Ispahan jingled; the sophi was already
there, accompanied by his principal officers and most
distinguished personages of his court. In an instant they
stretched out Candide upon a little form finely gilded, and
the executor of the private pleasures put himself in a
posture for entering upon his office. “O! Master Pangloss,
Master Pangloss, were you but here!” said Candide, weeping
and roaring out with all his force; a circumstance which
would have been thought very indecent if the monk had not
given the people to understand that his guest had put
himself into such violent agitations only the better to
divert his majesty. This great king, it is true, laughed
like a fool; he even took such delight in the affair that
after the fifty blows had been given, he ordered fifty more
to be added. But his first minister having represented to
him, with a firmness not very common, that such an unheard
of favor with regard to a stranger might alienate the hearts
of his subjects, he revoked that order, and Candide was
carried back to his apartments.
They put him to bed, after having bathed his feet with
vinegar. The grandees came round him in order to
congratulate him on his good fortune. The sophi then came to
assist him in person, and not only gave him his hand to
kiss, according to the custom, but likewise honored him with
a great blow of his fist on his mouth. Whence the
politicians conjectured that Candide would arrive at
extraordinary preferment, and what is very uncommon, though
politicians, they were not deceived.
|
CHAPTER IV.
Fresh favors conferred on Candide; his
great advancement.
As soon as our hero was cured, he was introduced to the
king, to return him his thanks. The monarch received him
very graciously. He gave him two or three hearty boxes on
the ear during their conversation, and conducted him back as
far as the guard-room, with several sound kicks on the
posterior; at which the courtiers were ready to burst for
envy. Since his majesty had been in a drubbing humor, no
person had ever received such signal marks of his majesty’s
favor in this way as did Candide.
Three days after this interview, our philosopher, who was
enraged at the favors he had received, and thought that
everything went very bad, was nominated governor of
Chusistan, with an absolute power. He was decorated with a
fur cap, which is a grand mark of distinction in Persia. He
took his leave of the sophi and departed for Sus, the
capital of his province. From the moment that Candide made
his appearance at court the grandees had plotted his
destruction. The excessive favors which the sophi had heaped
on him served but to increase the storm ready to burst upon
his head. He, however, applauded himself on his good
fortune; and especially his removal from court; he enjoyed
in prospect the pleasures of supreme rank, and he said from
the bottom of his heart:
“How blest the subject from his lord removed!”
He had not gone quite twenty miles from Ispahan before
five hundred horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, came up
with him and his attendants and discharged a volley of
firearms upon them. Candide imagined at first that this was
intended to do him an honor; but the ball which broke his
leg soon gave him to know what was going on. His people laid
down their arms, and Candide, more dead than alive, was
carried to a castle remote from any other dwelling. His
baggage, camels, slaves, white and black eunuchs, with
thirty-six women which the sophi had given him for his use,
all became the prey of the conqueror. Our hero’s leg was cut
off for fear of mortification, and care was taken of his
life, that a more cruel death might be inflicted on him.
“O Pangloss! Pangloss! what would now become of your
optimism if you saw me short of one leg in the hands of my
cruelest enemies; just as I was entering upon the path of
happiness, and was governor, or king, as one may say, of one
of the most considerable provinces of the empire of ancient
Media; when I had camels, slaves, black and white eunuchs,
and thirty-six women for my own use, and of which I had not
made any?” Thus Candide spoke as soon as he was able to
speak.
But while he was thus bemoaning himself, everything was
going for the best for him. The ministry, informed of the
outrages committed against him, had detached a body of
well-disciplined troops in pursuit of the mutineers, and the
monk Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk took care to publish by means of
others of his fraternity that Candide, being the work of the
monks, was consequently the work of God. Such as had any
knowledge of this atrocious attempt were so much the more
ready to discover it, as the ministers of religion gave
assurance on the part of Mahomet that every one who had
eaten pork, drank wine, omitted bathing for any number of
days together, or had conversed with women at the time of
their impurity, against the express prohibitions of the
Koran, should be, ipso facto, absolved, upon
declaring what they knew concerning the conspiracy. They
soon discovered the place of Candide’s confinement, which
they broke open; and as it was a religious affair the party
worsted were exterminated to a man, agreeably to custom in
that case. Candide, marching over a heap of dead bodies,
made his escape, triumphed over the greatest peril he had
hitherto encountered, and with his attendants resumed the
road to his government. He was received there as a favorite
who had been honored with fifty blows of a lash on the soles
of his feet in the presence of the king of kings.
|

CHAPTER V.
How Candide became a very great man, and
yet was not contented.
The good of philosophy is its inspiring us with a love
for our fellow-creatures. Paschal is almost the only
philosopher who seems desirous to make us hate our
neighbors. Luckily Candide had not read Paschal, and he
loved the poor human race very cordially. This was soon
perceived by the upright part of the people. They had always
kept at a distance from the pretended legates of heaven, but
made no scruple of visiting Candide and assisting him with
their counsels. He made several wise regulations for the
encouragement of agriculture, population, commerce, and the
arts. He rewarded those who had made any useful experiments;
and even encouraged such as had produced some essays on
literature.
“When the people in my province are in general content,”
said he with a charming candor, “possibly I shall be so
myself.” Candide was a stranger to mankind; he saw himself
torn to pieces in seditious libels and calumniated in a work
entitled “The Friend to Mankind.” He found that while he was
laboring to make people happy he had only made them
ungrateful. “Ah,” cried Candide, “how hard it is to govern
these beings without feathers, which vegetate on the earth!
Why am I not still in Propontis, in the company of Master
Pangloss, Miss Cunegund, the daughter of Pope Urban X., with
only one cushion, Brother Giroflée, and the most luscious
Pacquette!”
|
CHAPTER VI.
The pleasures of Candide.
Candide, in the bitterness of his grief, wrote a very
pathetic letter to the Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk. He
painted to him in such lively colors the present state of
his soul, that Ed-Ivan, greatly affected with it, obtained
permission of the sophi that Candide should resign his
employments. His majesty, in recompense of his services,
granted him a very considerable pension. Eased from the
weight of grandeur, our philosopher immediately sought after
Pangloss’ optimism, in the pleasures of a private life. He
till then had lived for the benefit of others, and seemed to
have forgotten that he had a seraglio.
He now called it to remembrance with that emotion which
the very name inspires. “Let everything be got ready,” said
he to his first eunuch, “for my visiting my women.” “My
lord,” answered the shrill-piped slave, “it is now that your
excellency deserves the title of wise. The men for whom you
have done so much were not worthy of employing your
thoughts, but the women—” “That may be,” said Candide
modestly.
At the bottom of a garden, where art had assisted nature
to unfold her beauties, stood a small house of simple and
elegant structure, very different from those which are to be
seen in the suburbs of the finest city in Europe. Candide
could not approach it without blushing; the air round this
charming retreat diffused a delicious perfume; the flowers,
amorously intermingled, seemed here to be guided by the
instinct of pleasure, and preserved, for a long time, their
various beauties. Here the rose never lost its lovely hue;
the view of a rock, from which the waters precipitated
themselves with a murmuring and confused noise, invited the
soul of that soft melancholy which is ever the forerunner of
pleasure. Candide entered trembling into a chamber, where
taste and magnificence were united; his senses were drawn by
a secret charm; he cast his eyes on young Telemachus, who
breathed on the canvas in the midst of the nymphs of
Calypso’s court. He next turned them to Diana, half-naked,
flying into the arms of the tender Endymion; his agitation
increased at the sight of a Venus, faithfully copied from
that of Medici; his ears were struck with a divine harmony;
a company of young Circassian females appeared, covered with
their veils; they formed round him a sort of dance,
agreeably designed, and more graceful than those trifling
jigs that are performed on as trifling stages, after the
representation of the death of Cæsar and Pompey.
At a signal given they threw off their veils and
discovered faces full of expression, that lent new life to
the diversion. These beauties studied the most seducing
attitudes, without appearing to intend it; one expressed in
her looks a passion without bounds; another a soft languor
which waits for pleasures without seeking them; this fair
one stooped and raised herself precipitately to disclose to
view those enchanting charms which the fair sex display in
such full scope at Paris; another threw aside a part of her
cymar to show a form, which alone is capable of inflaming a
mortal of any delicacy. The dance ceased and they remained
in profound silence.
This pause recalled Candide to himself. The fire of love
took possession of his breast; he darted the most ardent
looks on all around him; imprinted warm kisses on lips as
warm, and eyes that swam in liquid fire; he passed his hand
over globes whiter than alabaster, whose palpitating motion
repelled the touch; admired their proportion; perceived
little vermilion protuberances like those rosebuds which
only wait the genial rays of the sun to unfold them; he
kissed them with rapture, and his lips for some time
remained glued thereon.
Our philosopher next admired for a while a majestic
figure of a fine and delicate shape. Burning with desires,
he at length threw the handkerchief to a young person whose
eyes he had observed to be always fixed upon him, and which
seemed to say, “Teach me the meaning of a trouble I am
ignorant of”; and who, blushing at the secret avowal, became
a thousand times more charming. The eunuch then opened the
door of a private chamber consecrated to the mysteries of
love, into which the lovers entered; and the eunuch,
addressing his master, said: “Here it is, my lord, you are
going to be truly happy.” “Oh!” answered Candide, “I am in
great hopes of it.”
The ceiling and walls of this little retreat were covered
with mirrors; in the midst was placed a divan of black
satin, on which Candide threw the young Circassian and
caressed her in silent ecstasy. The fair one gave him no
other interruption but to imprint kisses, full of fire, on
his lips. “My lord,” said she to him in the Turkish
language, which she spoke perfectly, “how fortunate is your
slave, to be thus honored with your transports!” An energy
of sentiment can be expressed in every language by those who
truly feel it. These few words enchanted our philosopher; he
was no longer himself; all he saw, all he heard, was new to
him. What difference between Miss Cunegund, grown ugly, and
violated by Bulgarian freebooters, and a Circassian girl of
eighteen, till then a stranger to man. This was the first
time the wise Candide enjoyed her. The objects which he
devoured were repeated in the mirrors; wherever he cast his
eyes he saw upon the black satin the most beautiful and
fairest body possible, and the contrast of colors lent it
new lustre, with round, firm, and plump thighs, an admirable
fall of loins, a—but I am obliged to have a regard to the
false delicacy of our language. It is sufficient for me to
say that our philosopher tasted, by frequent repetitions, of
that portion of happiness he was capable of receiving, and
that the young Circassian in a little while proved his
sufficing reason.
“O master, my dear master!” cried Candide, almost beside
himself, “everything here is as well as in El Dorado; a fine
woman can alone complete the wishes of man. I am as happy as
it is possible to be. Leibnitz is in the right, and you are
a great philosopher. For instance, I engage that you, my
lovely girl, have always had a bias towards optimism,
because you have always been happy.” “Alas! no,” answered
she. “I do not know what optimism is; but I swear to you
that your slave has not known happiness till to-day. If my
lord is pleased to give me leave, I will convince him of it
by a succinct recital of my adventures.” “I am very
willing,” said Candide. “I am in a position to hear an
historical detail.” Upon which the fair slave began as
follows:
|
CHAPTER VII.
The history of Zirza.
“My father was a Christian, and so likewise am I, as far
as I have been told. He had a little hermitage near Cotatis,
where, by his fervent devotion and practising austerities
shocking to human nature, he acquired the veneration of the
faithful. Crowds of women came to pay him their homage and
took a particular satisfaction in bathing his posteriors,
which he lashed every day with several smart strokes of
discipline; doubtless it was to one of the most devout of
these visitants that I owe my being. I was brought up in a
cave in the neighborhood of my father’s little cell. I was
twelve years of age and had not yet left this kind of grave,
when the earth shook with a dreadful noise; the arch of the
vault fell in, and I was drawn out from under the rubbish
half dead when light struck my eyes for the first time. My
father took me into his hermitage as a predestined child.
The whole of this adventure appeared strange to the people;
my father declared it a miracle, and so did they.
“I was called Zirza, which in Persian signifies ‘child of
providence.’ Notice was soon taken of my poor charms; the
women already came but seldom to the hermitage and the men
much oftener. One of them told me that he loved me.
‘Villain,’ said my father to him, ‘hast thou substance
sufficient to love her? This is a great gift which God has
intrusted to me; He has made His appearance to me this
night, under the shape of a venerable hermit, and He forbade
me to give up the possession thereof for less than a
thousand sequins. Get thee gone, poor devil, lest thine
impure breath should blast her charms.’ ‘I have,’ answered
he, ‘only a heart to offer her. But say, barbarian, dost
thou not blush to make sport of the Deity, for the
gratification of thine avarice? With what front, vile
wretch, darest thou pretend that God has spoken to thee?
This is throwing the greatest contempt upon the Author of
beings, to represent Him conversing with such men as thou
art.’ ‘O blasphemy!’ cried my father in a rage, ‘God Himself
has commanded me to stone blasphemers.’ As he spoke these
words, he fell upon my lover, and with repeated blows laid
him dead on the ground, and his blood flew in my face.
Though I had not yet known what love was, this man had
interested me, and his death shocked me, and rendered the
sight of my father insufferable to me. I took a resolution
to leave him; he perceived it. ‘Ungrateful,’ said he to me,
‘it is to me thou owest thy being. Thou are my daughter—and
thou hatest me; but I am going to deserve thy hatred, by the
most rigorous treatment.’ He kept his word but too well with
me, cruel man! During five years, which I spent in tears and
groans, neither my youth nor my clouded beauty could in the
least abate his wrath. Sometimes he stuck a thousand pins
into all the parts of my body; at other times, with his
discipline, he made the blood trickle down my body.” “This,”
said Candide, “gave you less pain than the pins.” “True, my
lord,” answered Zirza. “At last,” continued she, “I fled
from my father’s habitation; and not daring to trust myself
to anybody, I flung myself into the thickest part of the
woods, where I was three days without food, and should have
died were it not for a tiger which I had the happiness to
please, and who was willing to share with me the prey he
caught. But I had many horrors to encounter from this
formidable beast; and the brute had moods as changeable and
dangerous as those which render men, in certain conditions,
the prey of brutal passions which degrade their humanity.
Bad food gave me the scurvy. Scarcely was I cured, when I
followed a merchant of slaves, who was going to Tiflis. The
plague was there then, and I took it. These various
misfortunes did not absolutely affect my features, nor
hinder the sophi’s purveyor from buying me for your use. I
have languished in tears these three months that I have been
among the number of your women. My companions and I imagined
ourselves to be the objects of your contempt; and if you
knew, my lord, how disagreeable eunuchs are, and how little
adapted for comforting young girls who are despised—in
short, I am not yet eighteen years of age; and of these I
have spent twelve in a frightful cavern; undergone an
earthquake; been covered with the blood of the first good
man I had hitherto seen; endured, for the space of four
years, the most cruel tortures, and have had the scurvy, and
the plague. Consumed with desires, amidst a crew of black
and white monsters, still preserving that which I have saved
from the fury of an awkward tiger; and, cursing my fate, I
have passed three months in this seraglio; where I should
have died of the jaundice, had not your excellency honored
me at last with your embraces.” “O heavens!” cried Candide,
“is it possible that you have experienced such great
misfortunes at so tender an age? What would Pangloss say
could he hear you? But your misfortunes are at an end, as
well as mine. Everything does not go badly now; is not this
true?” Upon that Candide resumed his caresses, and was more
than ever confirmed in the belief of Pangloss’ system.
|
CHAPTER VIII.
Candide’s disgusts—an unexpected meeting.
Our philosopher, in the midst of his seraglio, dispensed
his favors equally. He tasted the pleasures of variety, and
always returned to the “child of providence” with fresh
ardor. But this did not last long; he soon felt violent
pains in his loins, and an excruciating colic. He dried up,
as he grew happy. Then Zirza’s breast appeared no longer so
white, or so well placed; her thighs not so hard, nor so
plump; her eyes lost all their vivacity in those of Candide;
her complexion, its lustre; and her lips that pure vermilion
which had enchanted him at first sight. He now perceived
that she walked badly, and had an offensive smell: he saw,
with the greatest disgust, a spot upon the “mount of Venus,”
which he had never observed before to be tainted with any
blemish: the vehement ardor of Zirza became burdensome to
him: he could see, with great coolness, the faults of his
other women, which had escaped him in his first transports
of passion; he saw nothing in them but a bare-faced
impudence; he was ashamed to have walked in the steps of the
wisest of men; and he found women more bitter than death.
Candide, always cherishing Christian sentiments, spent
his leisure time in walking over the streets of Sus; when
one day a cavalier, in a superb dress, came up to him
suddenly and called him by his name. “Is it possible!” cried
Candide, “my lord, that you are — it is not possible;
otherwise you are so very like the abbé of Périgord.” “I am
the very man,” answered the abbé. Upon this Candide started
back, and, with his usual ingenuousness, said, “Are you
happy, Mr. Abbé?” “A fine question,” replied the abbé; “the
little deceit which I have put upon you has contributed not
a little to gain me credit. The police had employed me for
some time; but, having fallen out with them, I quitted the
ecclesiastical habit, which was no longer of any service to
me. I went over into England, where persons of my profession
are better paid. I said all I knew, and all I did not know,
about the strength and weakness of the country I had lately
left. I especially gave bold assurances that the French were
the dregs of the world, and that good sense dwelt nowhere
but in London. In short, I made a splendid fortune, and have
just concluded a treaty at the court of Persia which will
exterminate all the Europeans who come for cotton and silk
into the sophi’s dominions, to the detriment of the
English.” “The object of your mission is very commendable,”
said our philosopher; “but, Mr. Abbé, you are a cheat; I
like not cheats, and I have some credit at court. Tremble
now, your happiness has arrived at its utmost limits; you
are just upon the point of suffering the fate you deserve.”
“My lord Candide,” cried the abbé, throwing himself on his
knees, “have pity on me. I feel myself drawn to evil by an
irresistible force, as you find yourself necessitated to the
practice of virtue. This fatal propensity I have perceived
from the moment I became acquainted with Mr. Wasp, and
worked at the Feuilles.” “What do you call Feuilles?” said
Candide. “Feuilles,” answered the abbé, “are sheets of
seventy-two pages in print, in which the public are
entertained in the strain of calumny, satire, and dulness.
An honest man who can read and write, and who is not able to
continue among the Jesuits, has set himself to compose this
pretty little work, that he may have wherewithal to give his
wife some lace, and bring up his children in the fear of
God; and there are certain honest people, who for a few
pence, and some bottles of bad wine, assist the man in
carrying on his scheme. This Mr. Wasp is, besides, a member
of a curious club, who divert themselves by making poor,
ignorant people drunk, and causing them to blaspheme; or in
bullying a poor simple devil, breaking his furniture, and
afterwards challenging him. Such pretty little amusements
these gentry call ‘mystifications,’ and richly deserve the
attention of the police. In fine, this very honest man, Mr.
Wasp, who boasts he never was in the galleys, is troubled
with a disposition which renders him insensible to the
clearest truths; and from which position he can be drawn
only by certain violent means, which he sustains with a
resignation and courage above conception. I have worked for
some time under this celebrated genius; I have become an
eminent writer in my turn, and I had but just quitted Mr.
Wasp, to do a little for myself, when I had the honor of
paying you a visit at Paris.” “Though you are a very great
cheat, Mr. Abbé, yet your sincerity in this point makes some
impression on me. Go to court; ask for the Rev.
Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk; I shall write to him in your behalf, but
upon express condition that you promise me to become an
honest man; and that you will not be the occasion of some
thousands having their throats cut, for the sake of a little
silk and cotton.” The abbé promised all that Candide
requested, and they parted good friends.
|
CHAPTER IX.
Candide’s disgraces, travels, and
adventures.
No sooner had the abbé got access to court than he
employed all his skill in order to ingratiate himself with
the minister, and ruin his benefactor. He spread a report
that Candide was a traitor, and that he had spoken
disrespectfully of the hallowed whiskers of the king of
kings. All the courtiers condemned him to be burned in a
slow fire; but the sophi, more favorable, only sentenced him
to perpetual banishment, after having previously kissed the
sole of his accuser’s foot, according to the usage among the
Persians. The abbé went in person to put the sentence in
execution: he found our philosopher in pretty good health,
and disposed to become happy again. “My friend,” said the
English ambassador to him, “I come with regret to let you
know that you must quit this kingdom with all expedition,
and kiss my feet, with a true repentance for your horrid
crimes.” “Kiss your feet, Mr. Abbé! certainly you are not in
earnest, and I do not understand joking.” Upon which some
mutes, who had attended the abbé, entered and took off his
shoes, letting poor Candide know, by signs, that he must
submit to this piece of humiliation, or else expect to be
empaled. Candide, by virtue of his free will, kissed the
abbé’s feet. They put on him a sorry linen robe, and the
executioner drove him out of the town, crying all the time,
“Behold a traitor! who has spoken irreverently of the
sophi’s whiskers! irreverently of the imperial whiskers!”
What did the officious monk, while his friend, whom he
protected, was treated thus? I know nothing of that. It is
probable that he was tired of protecting Candide. Who can
depend on the favor of kings, and especially that of monks?
In the meantime our hero went sadly on. “I never spoke,”
said he to himself, “about the king of Persia’s whiskers. I
am cast in an instant from the pinnacle of happiness into
the abyss of misery; because a wretch, who has violated all
laws, accuses me of a pretended crime which I have never
committed; and this wretch, this monster, this persecuter of
virtue—he is happy.”
Candide, after travelling for some days, found himself
upon the frontiers of Turkey. He directed his course towards
the Propontis, with a design to settle there again, and pass
the rest of his days in the cultivation of his garden. He
saw, as he entered a little village, a great multitude of
people tumultuously assembled; he inquired into the cause of
it. “This,” said an old man to him, “is a singular affair.
It is some time ago since the wealthy Mahomet demanded in
marriage the daughter of the janissary Zamoud; he found her
not to be a virgin; and in pursuance of a principle quite
natural and authorized by the laws, he sent her home to her
father, after having branded her in the face. Zamoud,
exasperated at the disgrace brought on his family, in the
first transports of a fury that is very natural, with one
stroke of his scimitar clove the disfigured visage of his
daughter. His eldest son, who loved his sister passionately,
which is very frequent in nature, flew upon his father and
plunged a sharp poniard to his heart. Afterwards, like a
lion who grows more enraged at seeing his own blood flow,
the furious Zamoud ran to Mahomet’s house; and, after
striking to the ground some slaves who opposed his passage,
murdered Mahomet, his wives, and two children then in the
cradle; all of which was very natural, considering the
violent passion he then was in. At last, to crown all, he
killed himself with the same poniard, reeking with the blood
of his father and his enemies, which is also very natural.”
“What a scene of horrors!” cried Candide. “What would you
have said, Master Pangloss, had you found such barbarities
in nature? Would not you acknowledge that nature is
corrupted, that all is not—” “No,” said the old man, “for
the pre-established harmony—” “O heavens! do ye not deceive
me? Is this Pangloss?” cried Candide, “whom I again see?”
“The very same,” answered the old man. “I knew you, but I
was willing to find out your sentiments before I would
discover myself. Come, let us discourse a little on
contingent effects, and see if you have made any progress in
the art of wisdom.” “Alas!” said Candide, “you choose your
time ungenerously; rather let me know what has become of
Miss Cunegund; tell me where are Brother Giroflée, Pacquette,
and Pope Urban’s daughter.” “I know nothing of them,”
replied Pangloss; “it is now two years since I left our
habitation in order to find you out. I have travelled over
almost all Turkey; I was upon the point of setting out for
the court of Persia, where I heard you made a great figure,
and I only tarried in this little village, among these good
people, till I should gather strength to continue my
journey.” “What is this I see?” answered Candide, quite
surprised. “You want an arm, my dear doctor.” “That is
nothing,” replied the one-handed and the one-eyed doctor;
“nothing is more common in the best of worlds than to see
persons who want one eye and one arm. This accident befell
me in a journey from Mecca. Our caravan was attacked by a
troop of Arabs; our guard attempted to make resistance, and,
according to the rules of war, the Arabs, who found
themselves to be the strongest side, massacred us all
without mercy. There perished about five hundred persons in
this attack, among whom were about a dozen pregnant women.
For my part I had only my skull split and an arm cut off; I
did not die, for all this, and I still found that everything
went for the best. But as to yourself, my dear Candide, why
is it that you have a wooden leg?” Upon this Candide began
and gave an account of his adventures. Our philosophers
turned together towards the Propontis and enlivened their
journey by discoursing on physical and moral evil, free will
and predestination, monads and pre-established harmony.
|

CHAPTER X.
Candide and pangloss arrive at the
propontis—what they saw there—what became of them.
O Candide!” said Pangloss, “why were you tired of
cultivating your garden? Why did we not still continue to
eat citrons and pistachio nuts? Why were you weary of your
happiness? Because everything is necessary in the best of
worlds, there was a necessity that you should undergo the
bastinado in the presence of the king of Persia; have your
leg cut off, in order to make Chusistan happy, to experience
the ingratitude of men, and draw down upon the heads of some
atrocious villains the punishment which they had deserved.”
With such talk as this they arrived at their old habitation.
The first objects that presented themselves were Martin and
Pacquette in the habit of slaves. “Whence,” said Candide to
them, “is this metamorphosis?” after embracing them
tenderly. “Alas!” answered they, sobbing, “you have no more
a habitation; another has undertaken the labor of
cultivating your garden; he eats your preserved citrons, and
pistachios, and we are treated like negroes.” “Who,” said
Candide, “is this other?” “The high admiral,” answered they,
“a mortal the least humane of all mortals. The sultan,
willing to recompense his services without putting himself
to any expense, has confiscated all your goods under pretext
that you had gone over to his enemies, and condemned us to
slavery.” “Be advised by me, Candide,” added Martin, “and
continue your journey. I always told you everything is for
the worst; the sum of evil exceeds by much that of good.
Begone, and I do not despair but you may become a Manichæan,
if you are not so already.” Pangloss would have begun an
argument in form, but Candide interrupted him to ask about
Miss Cunegund, the old woman, Brother Giroflée, and Cacambo.
“Cacambo,” answered Martin, “is here; he is at present
employed in emptying slops. The old woman is dead from a
kick given her by a eunuch in the breast. Brother Giroflée
has entered among the janissaries. Miss Cunegund has
recovered her plumpness and former beauty; she is in our
master’s seraglio.” “What a chain of misfortunes,” said
Candide. “Was there a necessity for Miss Cunegund to become
handsome only to make me a cuckold?” “It matters little,”
said Pangloss, “whether Miss Cunegund be beautiful or ugly,
in your arms or those of another; that is nothing to the
general system. For my part, I wish her a numerous progeny.
Philosophers do not perplex themselves by whom women have
children, provided they have them. Population—” “Alas!”
exclaimed Martin, “philosophers might much better employ
themselves in rendering a few individuals happy, than
engaging them to multiply the number of sufferers.” While
they were thus arguing, a great noise was heard on a sudden;
it was the admiral diverting himself by causing a dozen
slaves to be whipped. Pangloss and Candide, both frightened,
with tears in their eyes, parted from their friends, and in
all haste took the road to Constantinople.
There they found all the people in a great stir. A fire
had broken out in the suburb of Pera; five or six hundred
houses were already consumed, and two or three thousand
persons perished in the flames. “What a horrible disaster,”
cried Candide! “All is well,” said Pangloss, “these little
accidents happen every year. It is entirely natural for the
fire to catch houses built of wood, and for those who are in
them to be burned. Besides, this procures some resources to
honest people, who languish in misery.” “What is this I
hear?” said an officer of the sublime porte. “How, wretch,
darest thou say that all is well when half Constantinople is
in flames. Dog, be cursed of our prophet, receive the
punishment due to thy impudence!” And as he uttered these
words he took Pangloss by the middle and flung him headlong
into the flames. Candide, half dead with fright, crept on
all fours as well as he could to a neighboring quarter,
where all was more quiet; and we shall see what became of
him in the next chapter.
|
CHAPTER XI.
Candide continues his travels.
“I have nothing left,” said our philosopher, “but to make
myself either a slave or a Turk. Happiness has forsaken me
forever. A turban would corrupt all my pleasures. I shall be
incapable of tasting tranquillity of soul in a religion full
of imposture, into which I enter merely from a motive of
vile interest. No, I shall never be content if I cease to be
an honest man; let me make myself then a slave.” Candide had
no sooner taken this resolution than he set about putting it
into execution. He chose an Armenian merchant for his
master, who was a man of a very good character, and passed
for virtuous, as much as an Armenian can be. He gave Candide
two hundred sequins as the price of his liberty. The
Armenian was upon the point of departing for Norway; he took
Candide with him, in the hope that a philosopher would be of
use to him in his traffic. They embarked, and the wind was
so favorable for them that they were not above half the
usual time in their passage. They even had no occasion for
buying a wind from the Lapland witches, and contented
themselves with giving them some stock-fish, that they might
not disturb their good fortune with their enchantments;
which sometimes happens, if we may believe Moréri’s
dictionary on this head.
The Armenian no sooner landed than he provided a stock of
whale-blubber and ordered our philosopher to go over all the
country to buy him some dried salt fish; Candide acquitted
himself of his commission in the best manner possible,
returned with several reindeer loaded with this merchandise,
and made profound reflections on the astonishing difference
which is to be found between the Laplanders and other men. A
very diminutive female Laplander, whose head was a little
bigger than her body, her eyes red and full of fire, a flat
nose and very wide mouth, wished him a good day with an
infinite grace. “My little lord,” said this being (a foot
and ten inches high) to him, “I think you very handsome; do
me the favor to love me a little.” So saying, she flew to
him and caught him round the neck. Candide pushed her away
with horror. She cried out, when her husband came in with
several other Laplanders. “What is the meaning of all this
uproar?” said they. “It is,” answered the little thing,
“that this stranger—Alas! I am choked with grief; he
despises me.” “So, then,” said the Lapland husband, “thou
impolite, dishonest, brutal, infamous, cowardly rascal, thou
bringest disgrace upon my house; thou dost me the most
sensible injury; thou refusest to embrace my wife.” “Lo!
here’s a strange custom,” cried our hero; “what would you
have said, then, if I had embraced her?” “I would have
wished thee all sort of prosperity,” said the Laplander to
him in wrath; “but thou only deservest my indignation.” At
uttering this he discharged on Candide’s back a volley of
blows with a cudgel. The reindeer were seized by the
relatives of the offended husband, and Candide, for fear of
worse, was forced to betake himself to flight and renounce
forever his good master; for how dared he present himself
before him without money, whaleblubber, or reindeer?
|
CHAPTER XII.
Candide still continues his travels—new
adventures.
Candide travelled a long time without knowing whither he
was going. At length he resolved to go to Denmark, where he
had heard that everything went pretty well. He had a few
pieces of money about him, which the Armenian had made him a
present of; and this sum, though inconsiderable, he hoped
would carry him to the end of his journey. Hope rendered his
misery supportable to him, and he still passed some happy
moments. He found himself one day in an inn with three
travellers, who talked to him with great warmth about a
plenum and the materia subtilis. “This is
well,” said Candide to himself, “these are philosophers.
Gentlemen,” said he to them, “a plenum is
incontestable; there is no vacuum in nature, and the
materia subtilis is a well-imagined hypothesis.” “You
are then a Cartesian?” cried the three travellers. “Yes,”
answered Candide, “and a Leibnitzian, which is more.” “So
much the worse for you,” replied the philosophers.
“Descartes and Leibnitz had not common sense. We are
Newtonians, and we glory in it; if we dispute, it is only
the better to confirm ourselves in our opinions, and we all
think the same. We search for truth in Newton’s tract,
because we are persuaded that Newton is a very great man.”
“And Descartes, too, and Leibnitz and Pangloss likewise,”
said Candide; “these great men are worth a thousand of
yours.” “You are a fool, friend,” answered the philosophers;
“do you know the laws of refraction, attraction, and motion?
Have you read the truths which Dr. Clarke has published in
answer to the vagaries of your Leibnitz? Do you know what
centrifugal and centripetal force is? and that colors depend
on their density? Have you any notion of the theory of light
and gravitation? Do you know the period of twenty-five
thousand nine hundred and twenty years, which unluckily do
not agree with chronology? No, undoubtedly, you have but
false ideas of all these things; peace then, thou
contemptible monad, and beware how you insult giants by
comparing them to pygmies.” “Gentlemen,” answered Candide,
“were Pangloss here, he would tell you very fine things; for
he is a great philosopher; he has a sovereign contempt for
your Newton; and, as I am his disciple, I likewise make no
great account of him.” The philosophers, enraged beyond
measure, fell upon poor Candide and drubbed him most
philosophically.
Their wrath subsiding, they asked our hero’s pardon for
their too great warmth. Upon this one of them began a very
fine harangue on mildness and moderation.
While they were talking they saw a grand funeral
procession pass by; our philosophers thence took occasion to
descent on the foolish vanity of man. “Would it not be more
reasonable,” said one of them, “that the relatives and
friends of the deceased should, without pomp and noise,
carry the bier themselves? would not this funeral act, by
presenting to them the idea of death, produce an effect the
most salutary, the most philosophical? This reflection,
which would offer itself, namely, ‘the body I carry is that
of my friend, my relative; he is no more; and, like him, I
must cease to be in this world;’ would not this, I say, be a
means of lessening the number of crimes in this vile world,
and of bringing back to virtue beings who believe in the
immortality of the soul? Men are too much inclined to remove
from them the thoughts of death, for fear of presenting too
strong images of it. Whence is it that people keep at a
distance from such a spectacle as a mother and a wife in
tears? The plaintive accents of nature, the piercing cries
of despair, would do much greater honor to the ashes of the
dead, than all these individuals clad in black from head to
foot, together with useless female mourners, and that crowd
of ministers who sing funeral orations which the deceased
cannot hear.”
“This is extremely well spoken,” said Candide; “and did
you always speak thus well, without thinking proper to beat
people, you would be a great philosopher.”
Our travellers parted with expressions of mutual
confidence and friendship. Candide still continued
travelling towards Denmark. He plunged into the woods;
where, musing deeply on all the misfortunes which had
happened to him in the best of worlds, he turned aside from
the road and lost himself. The day began to draw towards the
evening, when he perceived his mistake; he was seized with
dismay, and raising his eyes to heaven, and leaning against
the trunk of a tree, our hero spoke in the following terms:
“I have gone over half the world; seen fraud and calumny
triumphant; have only sought to do service to mankind, and I
have been persecuted. A great king honors me with his favor
and fifty blows. I arrive with a wooden leg in a very fine
province; there I taste pleasures after having drunk deep of
mortifications. An abbé comes; I protect him; he insinuates
himself at court through my means, and I am obliged to kiss
his feet. I meet with my poor Pangloss only to see him
burned. I find myself in company with philosophers, the
mildest and most sociable of all the species of animals that
are spread over the face of the earth, and they give me an
unmerciful drubbing. All must necessarily be for the best,
since Pangloss has said it; but nevertheless I am the most
wretched of all possible beings.” Here Candide stopped short
to listen to the cries of distress which seemed to come from
a place near him. He stepped forward out of curiosity, when
he beheld a young woman who was tearing her hair as if in
the greatest despair. “Whoever you are,” said she to him,
“if you have a heart, follow me.” He went with her, but they
had not gone many paces before Candide perceived a man and a
woman stretched out on the grass. Their faces declared the
nobleness of their souls and origin; their features, though
distorted by pain, had something so interesting that Candide
could not forbear informing himself with a lively eagerness
about the cause which reduced them to so miserable a
situation. “It is my father and mother whom you see,”
explained the young woman; “yes, these are the authors of my
wretched being,” continued she, throwing herself into their
arms. “They fled to avoid the rigor of an unjust sentence; I
accompanied them in their flight, happy to share in their
misfortune, thinking that in the deserts where we were going
to hide ourselves my feeble hands might procure them a
necessary subsistence. We have stopped here to take some
rest; I discovered that tree which you see, whose fruit has
deceived me—alas! sir, I am a wretch to be detested by the
world and myself. Arm your hand to avenge offended virtue,
and to punish the parricide! Strike! This fruit I presented
to my father and mother; they ate of it with pleasure; I
rejoiced to have found the means of quenching the thirst
with which they were tormented—unhappy wretch! it was death
I presented to them; this fruit is poison.”
This tale made Candide shudder; his hair stood on end and
a cold sweat ran over all his body. He was eager, as much as
his present condition could permit, to give some relief to
this unfortunate family; but the poison had already made too
much progress; and the most efficacious remedies would not
have been able to stop its fatal effect.
“Dear child, our only hope!” cried the two unhappy
parents, “God pardon thee as we pardon thee; it was the
excess of thy tenderness which has robbed us of our lives.
Generous stranger, vouchsafe to take care of her; her heart
is noble and formed to virtue; she is a trust which we leave
in your hands that is infinitely more precious to us than
our past fortune. Dear Zenoida, receive our last embraces;
mingle thy tears with ours. Heavens! how happy are these
moments to us! Thou hast opened to us the dreary cave in
which we languished for forty years past. Tender Zenoida, we
bless thee; mayest thou never forget the lessons which our
prudence hath dictated to thee; and may they preserve thee
from the abyss which we see ready to swallow thee.”
They expired as they pronounced these words. Candide had
great difficulty to bring Zenoida to herself. The moon
enlightened the affecting scene; the day appeared, and
Zenoida, plunged in sorrow, had not as yet recovered the use
of her senses. As soon as she opened her eyes she entreated
Candide to dig a hole in the ground in order to inter the
bodies; she assisted in the work with an astonishing
courage. This duty fulfilled, she gave free scope to her
tears. Our philosopher drew her from this fatal place; they
travelled a long time without observing any certain route.
At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in
the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always
ready to give every assistance in their power to their
fellow-creatures in distress. These old people were such as
Philemon and Baucis are described to us. For fifty years
they had tasted the soft endearments of marriage, without
ever experiencing its bitterness; an unimpaired health, the
fruit of temperance and tranquillity of mind, mild and
simple manners; a fund of inexhaustible candor in their
character; all the virtues which man owes to himself, formed
the glorious and only fortune which heaven had granted them.
They were held in veneration in the neighboring villages,
the inhabitants of which, full of a happy rusticity, might
have passed for honest people, had they been Catholics. They
looked upon it as a duty not to suffer Agaton and Sunama
(for so the old couple were called) to want for anything.
Their charity extended to the newcomers. “Alas!” said
Candide, “it is a great loss, my dear Pangloss, that you
were burned; you were master of sound reason; but yet in all
the parts of Europe and Asia which I have travelled over in
your company, everything is not for the best. It is only in
El Dorado, whither no one can go, and in a little cottage
situated in the coldest, most barren, and frightful region
in the world. What pleasure should I have to hear you
harangue about the pre-established harmony and monads! I
should be very willing to pass my days among these honest
Lutherans; but I must renounce going to mass, and resolve to
be torn to pieces in the Journal Chrétien.”
Candide was very inquisitive to learn the adventures of
Zenoida, but compassion withheld him from speaking to her
about it; she perceived the respectful constraint he put
upon himself, and satisfied his impatience in the following
terms:
|
CHAPTER XIII.
The history of Zenoida—how Candide fell in
love with her.
“I am come of one of the most ancient families in
Denmark; one of my ancestors perished at that horrid feast
which the wicked Christiern prepared for the destruction of
so many senators. The riches and dignities with which our
family has been distinguished have hitherto served only to
make them more eminently unfortunate. My father had the
presumption to displease a great man in power by boldly
telling him the truth; he was presently accused by suborned
witnesses of a number of crimes which had no foundation. His
judges were deceived. Alas! where is that judge who can
always discover those snares which envy and treachery lay
for unguarded innocence? My father was sentenced to be
beheaded. He had no way left to avoid his fate but by
flight; accordingly he withdrew to the house of an old
friend, whom he thought deserving of that truly noble
appellation; we remained some time concealed in a castle
belonging to him on the seaside; and we might have continued
there to this day, had not the base wretch with whom we had
taken refuge attempted to repay himself for the services
rendered us in a manner that gave us all reason to detest
him. This infamous monster had conceived a most unnatural
passion for my mother and myself at the same time; he
attempted our virtue by methods the most unworthy of a man
of honor; and we were obliged to expose ourselves to the
most dreadful dangers to avoid the effects of his brutal
passion. In a word, we took to flight a second time, and you
know the rest.”
In finishing this short narrative, Zenoida burst into
tears afresh. Candide wiped them from her eyes, and said to
her, by way of consolation, “Madam, everything is for the
best; if your father had not died by poison he would
infallibly have been discovered, and then his head would
have been cut off. The good lady, your mother, would in all
probability have died of grief, and we should not have been
in this poor hut, where everything is as comfortable as in
the finest of possible castles.” “Alas! sir,” replied
Zenoida, “my father never told me that everything was for
the best; but he has often said, ‘We are all children of the
same divine father, who loves us, but who has not exempted
us from sorrows, the most grievous maladies, and an
innumerable tribe of miseries that afflict the human race.
Poison grows by the side of the efficacious quinquina in
America. The happiest of all mortals has some time or other
shed tears. What we call life is a compound of pleasure and
pain; it is the passing away of a certain stated portion of
time that always appears too long in the sight of the wise
man, and which every one ought to employ in doing good to
the community in which he is placed; in the enjoyment of the
works of Providence, without idly seeking after hidden
causes; in squaring his conduct by the rules of conscience;
and, above all, in showing a due respect to religion. Happy
is he who can follow this unerringly!’
“These things my ever-respected father has frequently
inculcated in me. ‘Ill betide those wretched scribblers,’ he
would often say, ‘who attempt to pry into the hidden ways of
Providence. From the principle that God will be honored from
thousands of atoms, mankind has blended the most absurd
chimeras with respectable truths. The Turkish dervish, the
Persian brahmin, the Chinese bonze, and the Indian talapoin,
all worship the Deity in a different manner; but they enjoy
a tranquillity of soul amidst the darkness in which they are
plunged; and he who would endeavor to enlighten them, does
them but ill service. It is not loving mankind to tear the
bandage of prejudice from their eyes.’ ”
“Why, you talk like a philosopher,” said Candide; “may I
ask you, my pretty young lady, of what religion you are?” “I
was brought up in the Lutheran profession,” answered Zenoida.
“Every word you have spoken,” said Candide, “has been like a
ray of light that has penetrated to my heart, and I find a
sort of esteem and admiration for you, that—but how, in the
name of wonder, came so bright an understanding to be lodged
in so beautiful a form? Upon my word, Miss, I esteem and
admire you, as I said before, so much that—” Candide
stammered out a few words more, when Zenoida, perceiving his
confusion, quitted him, and from that moment carefully
avoided all occasions of being alone with him; and Candide,
on his part, sought every opportunity of being alone with
her, or else remained alone. He was buried in a melancholy
that to him had charms; he was deeply enamored of Zenoida;
but endeavored to conceal his passion from himself. His
looks, however, too plainly evinced the feelings of his
heart. “Alas!” would he often say to himself, “if Master
Pangloss was here, he would give me good advice; for he was
a great philosopher.”
|
CHAPTER XIV.
Continuation of the loves of Candide.
The only consolation that Candide felt was in conversing
with Zenoida in the presence of their hosts. “How happens
it,” said he to her one day, “that the monarch to whom you
have access has suffered such injustice to be done to your
family? Assuredly you have sufficient reason to hate him?”
“How!” said Zenoida, “who can hate their king? who can do
otherwise than love that person to whose hand is consigned
the keen-edged sword of the laws? Kings are the living
images of the Deity, and we ought never to arraign their
conduct; obedience and respect is the duty of a subject.” “I
admire you more and more,” said Candide; “indeed, madam, I
do; pray, do you know the great Leibnitz, and the great
Pangloss, who was burned, after having escaped a hanging?
are you acquainted with the monads, the materia subtilis,
and the vortices?” “No, sir,” replied Zenoida; “I
never heard my father mention any of these; he only gave me
a slight tincture of experimental philosophy, and taught me
to hold in contempt all those kinds of philosophy that do
not directly tend to make mankind happy; that give him false
notions of his duty to himself and his neighbor; that do not
teach him to regulate his conduct, and fill his mind only
with uncouth terms, or ill-founded conjectures; that do not
give him a clearer idea of the author of nature than what he
may acquire from his works, and the wonders that are every
day passing before our sight.” “Once again, Miss, you
enchant me; you ravish me; you are an angel that heaven has
sent to remove from before my eyes the mist of Master
Pangloss’ sophistical arguments. Poor wretch that I was!
After having been so heartily kicked, flogged, and
bastinadoed; after having been in an earthquake; having seen
Doctor Pangloss once hanged, and very lately burned; after
having been outraged by a villainous Persian, who put me to
the most excruciating torture; after having been robbed by a
decree of the divan, and soundly drubbed by the
philosophers; after all these things, I say, to think that
everything was for the best! but now, thank heaven! I am
disabused. But, truly speaking, nature never appeared half
so charming to me as since I have been blessed with the
sight of you. The melody of the rural choristers charms my
ears with a harmony to which they were till now utter
strangers; I breathe a new soul, and the glow of sentiment
that enchants me seems imprinted on every object; I do not
feel that effeminate languor which I did in the gardens of
Sus; the sensation with which you inspire me is wholly
different.” “Let us stop here,” said Zenoida; “you seem to
be running to lengths that may, perhaps, offend my delicacy,
which you ought to respect.” “I will be silent, then,” said
Candide; “but my passion will only burn with the more
force.” On saying these words, he looked steadfastly at
Zenoida; he perceived that she blushed, and, as a man who
was taught by experience, conceived the most flattering
hopes from those appearances.
The beautiful Dane continued a long time to shun the
presence of Candide. One day, as he was walking hastily to
and fro in the garden, he cried out in an amorous ecstasy,
“Ah! why have I not now my El Dorado sheep! why have I not
the power to purchase a small kingdom! ah! were I but a
king!” “What should I be to you?” said a voice which pierced
the heart of our philosopher. “Is it you, lovely Zenoida?”
cried he, falling on his knees. “I thought myself alone. The
few words I heard you just now utter seem to promise me the
felicity to which my soul aspires. I shall, in all
probability, never be a king, nor ever possessed of a
fortune; but, if you love me—do not turn from me those
lovely eyes, but suffer me to read in them a declaration
which is alone capable of confirming my happiness. Beauteous
Zenoida, I adore you; let your heart be open to
compassion—what do I see! you weep! Ah! my happiness is too
great.” “Yes, you are happy,” said Zenoida; “nothing can
oblige me to disguise my tenderness for a person I think
deserving of it: hitherto you have been attached to my
destiny only by the bands of humanity; it is now time to
strengthen those by ties most sacred; I have consulted my
heart, reflect maturely in your turn; but remember, that if
you marry me, you become obliged to be my protector; to
share with me those misfortunes that fate may yet have in
store for me, and to soothe my sorrows.” “Marry you!” said
Candide; “those words have shown me all the folly of my
conduct. Alas! dear idol of my soul, I am not deserving of
the goodness you show towards me. Cunegund is still living—”
“Cunegund! who is that?” “She is my wife,” answered Candide,
with his usual frankness.
Our two lovers remained some moments without uttering a
word; they attempted to speak, but the accents died away on
their lips; their eyes were bathed in tears. Candide held
the fair Zenoida’s hands in his; he pressed them to his
breast, and devoured them with kisses; he had even the
boldness to carry his to the bosom of his mistress; he found
her breath grew short; his soul flew to his lips, and fixing
his mouth with ardor to that of Zenoida, he brought the fair
one back to those senses which she had nearly lost. Candide
thought he read his pardon in her eyes. “Dearest lover,”
said she to him, “anger would but ill suit with the liberty
which I myself have given. Yet hold, you will ruin me in the
opinion of the world; and you yourself would soon cease to
have an affection for me, when once I was become the object
of contempt. Forbear, therefore, and spare my weakness.”
“How!” cried Candide, “because the ill-judging vulgar say
that a woman loses her honor by bestowing happiness on a
being whom she loves, by following the tender bent of
nature, that in the first happy ages of the world—” But I
will forbear to relate the whole of the interesting
conversation, and content myself with saying that the
eloquence of Candide, heightened by the warmth of amorous
expression, had all the effect that may be imagined on a
young, sensible, female philosopher.
The lovers, who till then had passed their days in
tedious melancholy, now counted every hour by a fresh
succession of amorous joys. Pleasure flowed through their
veins in an uninterrupted current. The gloomy woods, the
barren mountains, surrounded by horrid precipices, the icy
plains and dreary fields, covered with snow on all sides,
were so many continual mementoes to them of the necessity of
loving. They determined never to quit that dreadful
solitude, but fate was not yet weary of persecuting them, as
we shall see in the ensuing chapter.
|

CHAPTER XV.
The arrival of Wolhall—a journey to
Copenhagen.
Candide and Zenoida amused themselves with discoursing on
the works of the Deity, the worship which mankind ought to
pay Him, the mutual duties they owe to each other,
especially that of charity, the most useful of all virtues.
They did not confine themselves to frivolous declamations.
Candide taught the young men the respect due to the sacred
restraints of the laws; Zenoida instructed the young women
in the duties they owed their parents; both joined their
endeavors to sow the hopeful seeds of religion in their
young hearts. One day, as they were busied in those pious
offices, Sunama came to tell Zenoida that an old gentleman
with several servants was just alighted at their house; and
that, by the description he had given her of a person of
whom he was in search, she was certain it could be no other
than Zenoida herself. This stranger had followed Sunama
close at her heels, and entered, before she had done
speaking, into the room where were Candide and Zenoida.
At sight of him Zenoida instantly fainted away; but
Wolhall, not in the least affected with the condition he saw
her in, took hold of her hand, and, pulling her to him, with
violence, brought her to her senses; which she had no sooner
recovered than she burst into a flood of tears. “So, niece,”
said he, with a sarcastic smile, “I find you in very good
company. I do not wonder you prefer this habitation to the
capital, to my house, and the company of your family.” “Yes,
sir,” replied Zenoida, “I do prefer this place, where dwell
simplicity and truth, to the mansions of treason and
imposture. I can never behold but with horror that place
where first began my misfortunes; where I have had so many
proofs of your black actions, and where I have no other
relative but yourself.” “Come, madam,” said Wolhall, “follow
me, if you please; for you must accompany me, even if you
should faint again.” Saying this, he dragged her to the door
of the house, and made her get into a post-chaise, which was
waiting for him. She had only time to tell Candide to
follow, and to bestow her blessing on her hosts, with
promises of rewarding them amply for their generous cares.
A domestic of Wolhall was moved with pity at the grief in
which he saw Candide plunged; he imagined that he felt no
other concern for the fair Dane than what unfortunate virtue
inspires: he proposed to him taking a journey to Copenhagen,
and he facilitated the means for his doing it. He did more;
he insinuated to him that he might be admitted as one of
Wolhall’s domestics, if he had no other resources than going
to service. Candide liked his proposal; and had no sooner
arrived than his future fellow-servant presented him as one
of his relatives, for whom he would be answerable. “Rascal,”
said Wolhall to him, “I consent to grant you the honor of
approaching a person of such rank as I am: never forget the
profound respect which you owe to my commands; execute them
if you have sufficient sagacity for it: think that a man
like me degrades himself in speaking to a wretch such as
you.” Our philosopher answered with great humility to this
impertinent discourse; and from that day he was clad in his
master’s livery.
It is easy to imagine the joy and surprise that Zenoida
felt when she recognized her lover among her uncle’s
servants. She threw several opportunities in the way of
Candide, who knew how to profit by them: they swore eternal
constancy. Zenoida had some unhappy moments. She sometimes
reproached herself on account of her love for Candide; she
vexed him sometimes by a few caprices: but Candide idolized
her; he knew that perfection is not the portion of man, and
still less so of woman. Zenoida resumed her good humor. The
kind of constraint under which they lay rendered their
pleasures the more lively; they were still happy.
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CHAPTER XVI.
How Candide found his wife again and lost
his mistress.
Our hero had only to bear with the haughty humors of his
master, and that was purchasing his mistress’ favors at no
dear rate. Happy love is not so easily concealed as many
imagine. Our lovers betrayed themselves. Their connection
was no longer a mystery, but to the short-sighted eyes of
Wolhall; all the domestics knew it. Candide received
congratulations on that head which made him tremble; he
expected the storm ready to burst upon his head, and did not
doubt but a person who had been dear to him was upon the
point of accelerating his misfortune. He had for some days
perceived a face resembling Miss Cunegund; he again saw the
same face in Wolhall’s courtyard: the object which struck
him was poorly clothed, and there was no likelihood that a
favorite of a great Mahometan should be found in the
courtyard of a house at Copenhagen. This disagreeable
object, however, looked at Candide very attentively: when,
coming up to him, and seizing him by the hair, she gave him
the smartest blow on the face with her open hand that he had
received for some time. “I am not deceived!” cried our
philosopher. “O, heavens! who would have thought it? what do
you do here, after having suffered yourself to be violated
by a follower of Mahomet? Go, perfidious spouse, I know you
not.” “Thou shalt know me,” replied Cunegund, “by my
outrageous fury. I know the life thou leadest, thy love for
thy master’s niece, and thy contempt for me. Alas! it is now
three months since I quitted the seraglio, because I was
there good for nothing further. A merchant has bought me to
mend his linen, he takes me along with him when he makes a
voyage to this country; Martin, Cacambo, and Pacquette, whom
he has also bought, are with me; Doctor Pangloss, through
the greatest chance in the world, was in the same vessel as
a passenger; we were shipwrecked some miles from here; I
escaped the danger with the faithful Cacambo, who, I swear
to thee, has a skin as firm as thy own: I behold thee again,
and find thee false. Tremble then, and fear everything from
a provoked wife.”
Candide was quite stupefied at this affecting scene; he
had suffered Cunegund to depart, without thinking of the
proper measures which are always to be taken with those who
know our secrets, when Cacambo presented himself to his
sight. They embraced each other with tenderness. Candide
informed him of the conversation he had just had; he was
very much affected by the loss of the great Pangloss, who,
after having been hanged and burned, was at last unhappily
drowned. They spoke with that free effusion of heart which
friendship inspires. A little billet thrown in at the window
by Zenoida put an end to the conversation. Candide opened
it, and found in it these words:
“Fly, my dear lover, all is discovered. An innocent
propensity which nature authorizes, and which hurts no one,
is a crime in the eyes of credulous and cruel men. Wolhall
has just left my chamber, and has treated me with the utmost
inhumanity: he is gone to obtain an order for thee to be
clapped into a dungeon, there to perish. Fly, my ever dear
lover; preserve a life which thou canst not pass any longer
near me. Those happy moments are no more, in which we gave
proofs of our reciprocal tenderness. Ah! my beloved, how
hast thou offended heaven, to merit so harsh a fate? But I
wander from the purpose: remember always thy precious, dear
Zenoida, and thou, my dear lover, shalt live eternally
within my heart—thou hast never thoroughly understood how
much I loved thee—canst thou receive upon my inflamed lips
my last adieu! I find myself ready to join my unhappy father
in the grave; the light is hateful to me; it serves only to
reveal crimes.”
Cacambo, always wise and prudent, drew Candide, who no
longer was himself, along with him; they made the best of
their way out of the city. Candide opened not his mouth, and
they were already a good way from Copenhagen, before he was
roused from that lethargy in which he was buried. At last he
looked at his faithful Cacambo, and spoke in these terms:
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CHAPTER XVII.
How Candide had a mind to kill himself,
and did not do it—what happened to him at an inn.
“Dear Cacambo, formerly my valet, now my equal, and
always my friend, thou hast borne a share in my misfortunes;
thou hast given me salutary advice; and thou hast been
witness to my love for Miss Cunegund—” “Alas! my old
master,” said Cacambo, “it is she who has served you this
scurvy trick; it is she who, after having learned from your
fellow-servants, that your love for Zenoida was as great as
hers for you, revealed the whole to the barbarous Wolhall.”
“If this is so,” said Candide, “I have nothing further to do
but die.” Our philosopher pulled out of his pocket a little
knife, and began whetting it with a coolness worthy of an
ancient Roman or an Englishman. “What do you mean to do?”
cried Cacambo. “To cut my throat,” answered Candide. “A most
noble thought!” replied Cacambo; “but the philosopher ought
not to take any resolution but upon reflection: you will
always have it in your power to kill yourself, if your mind
does not alter. Be advised by me, my dear master; defer your
resolution till to-morrow; the longer you delay it, the more
courageous will the action be.” “I perceive the strength of
thy reasoning,” said Candide; “besides, if I should cut my
throat immediately, the Gazetteer of Trévoux would
insult my memory: I am determined, therefore, that I will
not kill myself till two or three days hence.” As they
talked thus they arrived at Elsinore, a pretty considerable
town, not far from Copenhagen; there they lay that night,
and Cacambo hugged himself for the good effect which sleep
had produced upon Candide. They left the town at daybreak.
Candide, still the philosopher, (for the prejudices of
childhood are never effaced) entertained his friend Cacambo
on the subject of physical good and evil, the discourses of
the sage Zenoida, and the striking truths which he had
learned from her conversation. “Had not Pangloss been dead,”
said he, “I should combat his system in a victorious manner.
God keep me from becoming a Manichæan. My mistress taught me
to respect the impenetrable veil with which the Deity
envelopes His manner of operating upon us. It is perhaps man
who precipitates himself into the abyss of misfortunes under
which he groans. From a frugivorous animal he has made
himself a carnivorous one. The savages whom we have seen,
eat only Jesuits, and do not live upon bad terms among
themselves. These savages, if there be one scattered here
and there in the woods, only subsisting on acorns and herbs,
are, without doubt, still more happy. Society has given
birth to the greatest crimes. There are men in society, who
are necessitated by their condition to wish the death of
others. The shipwreck of a vessel, the burning of a house,
and the loss of a battle, cause sadness in one part of
society, and give joy to another. All is very bad! my dear
Cacambo, and there is nothing left for a philosopher but to
cut his own throat with all imaginable calmness.” “You are
in the right,” answered Cacambo; “but I perceive an inn; you
must be very dry. Come, my old master! let us drink one
draught, and we will after that continue our philosophical
disquisitions.”
When they entered the inn they saw a company of country
lads and lassies dancing in the midst of the yard, to the
sound of some wretched instruments. Gayety and mirth sat in
every countenance; it was a scene worthy the pencil of
Watteau. As soon as Candide appeared a young woman took him
by the hand, and entreated him to dance. “My pretty maid,”
answered Candide, “when a person has lost his mistress,
found his wife again, and heard that the great Pangloss is
dead, he can have little or no inclination to cut capers.
Moreover, I am to kill myself to-morrow morning; and you
know that a man who has but a few hours to live, ought not
to lose them in dancing.” Cacambo, hearing Candide talk
thus, addressed him in these terms: “A thirst for glory has
always been the characteristic of great philosophers. Cato
of Utica killed himself after having taken a sound nap.
Socrates drank the hemlock potion, after discoursing
familiarly with his friends. Many of the English have blown
their brains out with a pistol, after coming from an
entertainment. But I never yet heard of a great man who cut
his own throat after a dancing bout. It is for you, my dear
master, that this honor is reserved. Take my advice, let us
dance our fill, and we will kill ourselves to-morrow.” “Have
you not remarked,” answered Candide, “this young country
girl? Is she not a very pretty brunette?” “She has something
very taking in her countenance,” said Cacambo. “She has
squeezed my hand,” replied the philosopher. “Did you
notice,” said Cacambo, “how that in the hurry of the dance,
her handkerchief falling aside, disclosed two admirable
little rosebuds? I took particular notice of them.” “Look
you,” said Candide, “had I not my heart filled with Miss
Zenoida—.” The little brunette interrupted him, by begging
him to take one dance with her. Our hero at length
consented, and danced with the best grace in the world. The
dance finished, he kissed his smart country girl, and
retired to his seat, without calling out the queen of the
ring. Upon this a murmuring arose; everyone, performers as
well as spectators, appeared greatly incensed at so flagrant
a piece of disrespect. Candide never dreamed he had been
guilty of any fault, and consequently did not attempt to
make any reparation. A rude clown came up to him, and gave
him a blow with his fist upon the nose. Cacambo returned it
to the peasant with a kick in the belly. In an instant the
musical instruments were all broken, the girls lost their
caps; Candide and Cacambo fought like heroes, but at length
were obliged to take to their heels, after a very hearty
drubbing.
“Everything is embittered to me,” said Candide, giving
his arm to his friend Cacambo; “I have experienced a great
many misfortunes, but I did not expect to be thus beaten to
a mummy for dancing with a country girl at her own request.”
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CHAPTER XVIII.
Candide and cacambo go into a
hospital—whom they meet there.
Cacambo and his old master were quite dispirited. They
began to fall into that sort of malady of the mind which
extinguishes all the faculties. They fell into a depression
of spirits and despair, when they perceived a hospital which
was built for strangers. Cacambo proposed going into it;
Candide followed him. There they met with the most obliging
reception, and charitable treatment. In a little time they
were cured of their wounds, but they caught the itch. The
cure of this malady did not appear to be the work of a day,
the idea of which filled the eyes of our philosopher with
tears; and he said, scratching himself, “Thou wouldst not
let me cut my throat, my dear Cacambo; thy unwise counsels
have brought me again into disgrace and misfortune; and yet,
should I cut my throat now, it will be published in the
journal of Trévoux, and it will be said this man was a
poltroon, who killed himself only for having the itch. See
what thou hast exposed me to, by the mistaken compassion
thou hadst for my fate.” “Our disasters are not without
remedy,” answered Cacambo. “If you will but please to listen
to me. Let us settle here as friars; I understand a little
surgery, and I promise you to alleviate and render
supportable our wretched condition.” “Ah!” cried Candide,
“may all asses perish, and especially asses of surgeons, who
are so dangerous to mankind. I will never suffer that thou
shouldst give out thyself to be what thou art not: this is a
treachery, the consequences of which I dread. Besides, if
thou didst but conceive how hard it is, after having been
viceroy of a fine province, after having seen myself rich
enough to purchase kingdoms, and after having been the
favorite lover of Zenoida, to resolve to serve in quality of
friar in a hospital.” “I concede all that you say,” replied
Cacambo; “but I also realize that it is very hard to die of
hunger. Think, moreover, that the expedient which I propose
to you is perhaps the only one which you can take to elude
the inquiries of the bloody-minded Wolhall, and avoid the
punishment which he is preparing for you.”
One of the friars was passing along as they talked in
this manner. They put some questions to him, to which he
gave satisfactory answers: he assured them that the brothers
wanted for nothing, and enjoyed a reasonable liberty.
Candide thereupon determined to acquiesce in Cacambo’s
counsels. They took the habit together, which was granted
them upon the first application; and our two poor
adventurers now became underlings to those whose duty it was
to perform the most servile offices.
One day, as Candide was serving the patients with some
wretched broth, an old man fixed his eye earnestly upon him.
The visage of this poor wretch was livid, his lips were
covered with froth, his eyes half turned in his head, and
the image of death strongly imprinted on his lean and sunken
cheeks. “Poor man,” said Candide to him, “I pity you; your
sufferings must be horrible.” “They are very great indeed,”
answered the old man, with a hollow voice like a ghost; “I
am told that I am hectic, phthisicky, asthmatic, and poxed
to the bone. If that be the case, I am indeed very ill; yet
all does not go so badly, and this gives me comfort.” “Ah!”
exclaimed Candide, “none but Dr. Pangloss, in a case so
deplorable, can maintain the doctrine of optimism, when all
others besides would preach up pessim—” “Do not pronounce
that abominable word,” cried the poor man; “I am the
Pangloss you speak of. Wretch that I am, let me die in
peace. All is well, all is for the best.” The effort which
he made in pronouncing these words cost him the last tooth,
which he spit out with a great quantity of corrupted matter,
and expired a few moments after.
Candide lamented him greatly, for he had a good heart.
His obstinate perseverance was a source of reflection to our
philosopher; he often called to mind all his adventures.
Cunegund remained at Copenhagen; Candide learned that she
exercised there the occupation of a mender of old clothes,
with all possible distinction. The humor of travelling had
quite left him. The faithful Cacambo supported him with his
counsels and friendship. Candide did not murmur against
Providence. “I know,” said he, at times, “that happiness is
not the portion of man; happiness dwells only in the good
country of El Dorado, where it is impossible for anyone to
go.”
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CHAPTER XIX.
New discoveries.
Candide was not so unhappy, as he had a true friend. He
found in a mongrel valet what the world vainly looks for in
our quarter of the globe. Perhaps nature, which gives origin
to herbs in America that are proper for the maladies of
bodies on our continent, has also placed remedies there for
the maladies of our hearts and minds. Possibly there are men
in the new world of a quite different conformation from us,
who are not slaves to personal interests, and are worthy to
burn with the noble fire of friendship. How desirable would
it be, that instead of bales of indigo and cochineal, all
covered with blood, some of these men were imported among
us! This sort of traffic would be of vast advantage to
mankind. Cacambo was of greater value to Candide than a
dozen of red sheep loaded with the pebbles of El Dorado. Our
philosopher began again to taste the pleasure of life. It
was a comfort to him to watch for the conservation of the
human species, and not to be a useless member of society.
God blessed such pure intentions, by giving him, as well as
Cacambo, the enjoyment of health. They had got rid of the
itch, and fulfilled with cheerfulness the painful functions
of their station; but fortune soon deprived them of the
security which they enjoyed. Cunegund, who had set her heart
upon tormenting her husband, left Copenhagen to follow his
footsteps. Chance brought her to the hospital; she was
accompanied by a man, whom Candide knew to be Baron
Thunder-ten-tronckh. One may easily imagine what must have
been his surprise. The baron, who saw him, addressed him
thus: “I did not tug long at the oar in the Turkish galleys;
the Jesuits heard of my misfortune, and redeemed me for the
honor of their society. I have made a journey into Germany,
where I received some favors from my father’s heirs. I
omitted nothing to find my sister; and having learned at
Constantinople, that she had sailed from there in a vessel
which was shipwrecked on the coasts of Denmark, I disguised
myself, took letters of recommendation to Danish merchants,
who have correspondence with the society, and, in fine, I
found my sister, who still loves you, base and unworthy as
you are of her regard; and since you have had the impudence
to lie with her, I consent to the ratification of the
marriage, or rather a new celebration of it, with this
express proviso, that my sister shall give you only her left
hand; which is very reasonable, since she has seventy-one
quarters, and you have never a one.” “Alas!” said Candide,
“all the quarters of the world without beauty—Miss Cunegund
was very ugly when I had the imprudence to marry her; she
afterwards became handsome again, and another has enjoyed
her charms. She is once more grown ugly, and you would have
me give her my hand a second time. No, upon my word, my
reverend father, send her back to her seraglio at
Constantinople; she has done me too much injury in this
country.” “Ungrateful man,” screamed Cunegund, with the most
frightful contortions; “be persuaded, and relent in time; do
not provoke the baron, who is a priest, to kill us both, to
wipe out his disgrace with our blood. Dost thou believe me
capable of having failed in intention to the fidelity which
I owed thee? What wouldst thou have had me do against a man
who found me handsome? Neither my tears nor my cries could
have softened his brutal insensibility. Seeing there was
nothing to be done, I disposed myself in such a manner as to
be violated with the least brutality possible, and every
other woman would have done the same. This is all the crime
I have committed, and does not merit thy displeasure. But I
know my greatest crime with thee is having deprived thee of
thy mistress; and yet this action ought to convince thee of
my love. Come, my dear spouse, if ever I should again become
handsome; if ever my breasts, now lank and withered, should
recover their roundness and elasticity; if—it will be only
for thee, my dear Candide. We are no longer in Turkey, and I
swear faithfully to thee never to suffer any violation for
the future.”
This discourse did not make much impression upon Candide;
he desired a few hours to make his resolution how to
proceed. The baron granted him two hours; during which time
he consulted his friend Cacambo. After having weighed the
reasons, pro and contra, they determined
to follow the Jesuit and his sister into Germany. They
accordingly left the hospital and set out together on their
travels, not on foot, but on good horses hired by the baron.
They arrived on the frontiers of the kingdom. A huge man, of
a very villainous aspect, surveyed our hero with close
attention. “It is the very man,” said he, casting his eyes
at the same time upon a little bit of paper he had in his
hand. “Sir, if I am not too inquisitive, is not your name
Candide?” “Yes, sir, so I have always been called.” “Sir, I
flatter myself you are the very same; you have black
eyebrows, eyes level with your head, ears not prominent, of
a middling size, and a round, flesh-colored visage; to me
you plainly appear to be five feet five inches high.” “Yes,
sir, that is my stature; but what have you to do with my
ears and stature?” “Sir, we cannot use too much
circumspection in our office. Permit me further to put one
single question more to you: Have you not formerly been a
servant to Lord Wolhall?” “Sir, upon my word,” answered
Candide, quite disconcerted, “I know nothing of what you
mean.” “Maybe so, sir, but I know for certain that you are
the person whose description has been sent me. Take the
trouble then to walk into the guard-house, if you please.
Here, soldiers, take care of this gentleman; get the black
hole ready, and let the armorer be sent for, to make him a
pretty little set of fetters of about thirty or forty pounds
weight. Mr. Candide, you have a good horse there; I am in
want of such a one, and I fancy he will answer my purpose. I
shall make free with him.”
The baron was afraid to say the horse was his. They
carried off poor Candide, and Miss Cunegund wept for a whole
quarter of an hour. The Jesuit seemed perfectly unconcerned
at this accident. “I should have been obliged to have killed
him, or to have made him marry you over again,” said he to
his sister; “and all things considered, what has just
happened is much the best for the honor of our family.”
Cunegund departed with her brother, and only the faithful
Cacambo remained, who would not forsake his friend.
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CHAPTER XX.
Consequence of Candide’s misfortune—how he
found his mistress again—the fortune that happened to him.
“O Pangloss,” said Candide, “what a pity it is you
perished so miserably! You have been witness only to a part
of my misfortunes; and I had hoped to prevail on you to
forsake the ill-founded opinion which you maintained to your
last breath. No man ever suffered greater calamities than I
have done; but there is not a single individual who has not
cursed his existence, as the daughter of Pope Urban warmly
expressed herself. What will become of me, my dear Cacambo?”
“Faith, I cannot tell,” said Cacambo; “all I know is, that I
will not forsake you.” “But Miss Cunegund has forsaken me,”
said Candide. “Alas! a wife is of far less value than a
menial servant who is a true friend.”
Candide and Cacambo discoursed thus in the black hole.
From there they were taken out to be carried back to
Copenhagen. It was there that our philosopher was to know
his doom: he expected it to be dreadful, and our readers,
doubtless, expect so, too; but Candide was mistaken, as our
readers will be, likewise. It was at Copenhagen that
happiness waited to crown all his sufferings: he was hardly
arrived, when he understood that Wolhall was dead. This
barbarian had no one to regret him, while everybody
interested themselves in Candide. His irons were knocked
off, and his freedom gave him so much the more joy as it was
immediately followed by the sight of his dear Zenoida. He
flew to her with the utmost transport. They were a long time
without speaking a word; but their silence was infinitely
more expressive than words. They wept, they embraced each
other, they attempted to speak, but tears stopped their
utterance. Cacambo was a pleased spectator of this scene, so
truly interesting to a sensible being; he shared in the
happiness of his friend, and was almost as much affected as
Candide himself. “Dear Cacambo! adorable Zenoida!” cried
Candide; “you efface from my heart the deep traces of my
misfortunes. Love and friendship prepare for me future days
of serenity and uninterrupted delight. Through what a number
of trials have I passed to arrive at this unexpected
happiness! But they are all forgot, dear Zenoida; I behold
you once more! you love me; everything is for the best in
regard to me; all is good in nature.”
By Wolhall’s death, Zenoida was left at her own disposal.
The court had given her a pension out of her father’s
fortune which had been confiscated; she shared it with
Candide and Cacambo; she appointed them apartments in her
own house, and gave out that she had received several
considerable services from these two strangers, which
obliged her to procure them all the comforts and pleasures
of life, and to repair the injustice which fortune had done
them. There were some who saw through the motive of her
beneficence; which was no very hard matter to do,
considering the great talk her connection with Candide had
formerly occasioned. The greater part blamed her, and her
conduct was only approved by some few who knew how to
reflect. Zenoida, who set a proper value on the good opinion
even of fools, was nevertheless too happy to repent the loss
of it. The news of the death of Miss Cunegund, which was
brought by the correspondents of the Jesuit merchants in
Copenhagen, procured Zenoida the means of conciliating the
minds of people. She ordered a genealogy to be drawn up for
Candide. The author, who was a man of ability in his way,
derived his pedigree from one of the most ancient families
in Europe; he even pretended his true name was Canute, which
was that of one of the former kings of Denmark; which
appeared very probable, as “dide” into “ute” is not such a
great metamorphosis: and Candide by means of this little
change, became a very great lord. He married Zenoida in
public; they lived with as much tranquillity as it is
possible to do. Cacambo was their common friend; and Candide
said often, “All is not so well as in El Dorado; but all
does not go so badly.”
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