CANDIDE
By VOLTAIRE
CANDIDE
I
HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A
MAGNIFICENT CASTLE, AND HOW HE WAS EXPELLED THENCE.
In a castle of Westphalia,
belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth, whom nature had
endowed with the most gentle manners. His countenance was a true picture of his
soul. He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the
reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide. The old servants of the
family suspected him to have been the son of the Baron's sister, by a good,
honest gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady would never marry
because he had been able to prove only seventy-one quarterings, the rest of his
genealogical tree 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 windows.
His great hall, even, was hung with tapestry. All the dogs of his farm-yards
formed a pack of hounds at need; his grooms were his huntsmen; and the curate
of the village was his grand almoner. They called him "My Lord," and
laughed at all his stories.
The Baron's lady weighed about
three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great
consideration, and she did the honours of the house with a dignity that
commanded still greater respect. Her daughter Cunegonde was seventeen years of
age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump, and desirable. The Baron's son seemed to be
in every respect worthy of his father. The Preceptor Pangloss was the oracle of
the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his
age and character.
Pangloss was professor of
metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. He proved admirably 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 castles, and his lady the best of
all possible Baronesses.
"It is demonstrable,"
said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being
created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end. Observe, that the nose
has been formed to bear spectacles—thus we have spectacles. Legs are visibly
designed for stockings and we have 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. Pigs were made to
be eaten—therefore we eat pork all the year round. Consequently they who assert
that all is well have said a foolish thing, they should have said all is for
the best."
Candide listened attentively and
believed innocently; for he thought Miss Cunegonde extremely beautiful, though
he never had the courage to tell her so. He concluded that after the happiness
of being born of Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, the second degree of happiness
was to be Miss Cunegonde, the third that of seeing her every day, and the
fourth that of hearing Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the whole
province, and consequently of the whole world.
One day Cunegonde, while walking
near the castle, in a little wood which they called a park, saw between the
bushes, Dr. Pangloss giving a lesson in experimental natural philosophy to her
mother's chamber-maid, a little brown wench, very pretty and very docile. As
Miss Cunegonde had a great disposition for the sciences, she breathlessly
observed the repeated experiments of which she was a witness; she clearly
perceived the force of the Doctor's reasons, the effects, and the causes; she
turned back greatly flurried, quite pensive, and filled with the desire to be
learned; dreaming that she might well be a sufficient reason for young Candide,
and he for her.
She met Candide on reaching the
castle and blushed; Candide blushed also; she wished him good morrow in a
faltering tone, and Candide spoke to her without knowing what he said. The next
day after dinner, as they went from table, Cunegonde and Candide found
themselves behind a screen; Cunegonde let fall her handkerchief, Candide picked
it up, she took him innocently by the hand, the youth as innocently kissed the
young lady's hand with particular vivacity, sensibility, and grace; their lips
met, their eyes sparkled, their knees trembled, their hands strayed. Baron
Thunder-ten-Tronckh passed near the screen and beholding this cause and effect
chased Candide from the castle with great kicks on the backside; Cunegonde
fainted away; she was boxed on the ears by the Baroness, as soon as she came to
herself; and all was consternation in this most magnificent and most agreeable
of all possible castles.
II
WHAT BECAME OF CANDIDE AMONG THE
BULGARIANS.
Candide, driven from terrestrial
paradise, walked a long while without knowing where, weeping, raising his eyes
to heaven, turning them often towards the most magnificent of castles which
imprisoned the purest of noble young ladies. He lay down to sleep without
supper, in the middle of a field between two furrows. The snow fell in large
flakes. Next day Candide, all benumbed, dragged himself towards the
neighbouring town which was called Waldberghofftrarbk-dikdorff, having no
money, dying of hunger and fatigue, he stopped sorrowfully at the door of an
inn. Two men dressed in blue observed him.
"Comrade," said one,
"here is a well-built young fellow, and of proper height."
They went up to Candide and very
civilly invited him to dinner.
"Gentlemen," replied
Candide, with a most engaging modesty, "you do me great honour, but I have
not wherewithal to pay my share."
"Oh, sir," said one of
the blues to him, "people of your appearance and of your merit never pay
anything: are you not five feet five inches high?"
"Yes, sir, that is my
height," answered he, making a low bow.
"Come, sir, seat yourself;
not only will we pay your reckoning, but we will never suffer such a man as you
to want money; men are only born to assist one another."
"You are right," said
Candide; "this is what I was always taught by Mr. Pangloss, and I see
plainly that all is for the best."
They begged of him to accept a
few crowns. He took them, and wished to give them his note; they refused; they
seated themselves at table.
"Love you not deeply?"
"Oh yes," answered he;
"I deeply love Miss Cunegonde."
"No," said one of the
gentlemen, "we ask you if you do not deeply love the King of the
Bulgarians?"
"Not at all," said he;
"for I have never seen him."
"What! he is the best of
kings, and we must drink his health."
"Oh! very willingly,
gentlemen," and he drank.
"That is enough," they
tell him. "Now you are the help, the support, the defender, the hero of
the Bulgarians. Your fortune is made, and your glory is assured."
Instantly they fettered him, and
carried him away to the regiment. There he was made to wheel about to the
right, and 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 cudgel. The next day
he did his exercise a little less badly, and he received but twenty blows. The
day following they gave him only ten, and he was regarded by his comrades as a
prodigy.
Candide, all stupefied, could not
yet very well realise how he was a hero. He resolved one fine day in spring to
go for a walk, marching straight before him, believing that it was a privilege
of the human as well as of the animal species to make use of their legs as they
pleased. He had advanced two leagues when he was overtaken by four others,
heroes of six feet, who bound him and carried him to a dungeon. He was asked
which he would like the best, to be whipped six-and-thirty times through all
the regiment, or to receive at once twelve balls of lead in his brain. He
vainly said that human will is free, and that he chose neither the one nor the
other. He was forced to make a choice; he determined, in virtue of that gift of
God called liberty, to run the gauntlet six-and-thirty times. He bore this
twice. The regiment was composed of two thousand men; that composed for him
four thousand strokes, which laid bare all his muscles and nerves, from the
nape of his neck quite down to his rump. As they were going to proceed to a
third whipping, Candide, able to bear no more, begged as a favour that they
would be so good as to shoot him. He obtained this favour; they bandaged his
eyes, and bade him kneel down. The King of the Bulgarians passed at this moment
and ascertained the nature of the crime. As he had great talent, he understood
from all that he learnt of Candide that he was a young metaphysician, extremely
ignorant of the things of this world, and he accorded him his pardon with a
clemency which will bring him praise in all the journals, and throughout all
ages.
An able surgeon cured Candide in
three weeks by means of emollients taught by Dioscorides. He had already a
little skin, and was able to march when the King of the Bulgarians gave battle
to the King of the Abares.
III
HOW CANDIDE MADE HIS ESCAPE FROM
THE BULGARIANS, AND WHAT AFTERWARDS BECAME OF HIM.
There was never anything so
gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies.
Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had
never heard. The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each
side; the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand
ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for
the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand
souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he
could during this heroic butchery.
At length, while the two kings
were causing Te Deum to be sung each in his own camp, Candide resolved to go
and reason elsewhere on effects and causes. He passed over heaps of dead and
dying, and first reached a neighbouring village; it was in cinders, it was an
Abare village which the Bulgarians had burnt accordingPg 0 to the laws of war.
Here, old men covered with wounds, beheld their wives, hugging their children to
their bloody breasts, massacred before their faces; there, their daughters,
disembowelled and breathing their last after having satisfied the natural wants
of Bulgarian heroes; while others, half burnt in the flames, begged to be
despatched. The earth was strewed with brains, arms, and legs.
Candide fled quickly to another
village; it belonged to the Bulgarians; and the Abarian heroes had treated it
in the same way. Candide, walking always over palpitating limbs or across
ruins, arrived at last beyond the seat of war, with a few provisions in his
knapsack, and Miss Cunegonde always in his heart. His provisions failed him
when he arrived in Holland; but having heard that everybody was rich in that
country, and that they were Christians, he did not doubt but he should meet
with the same treatment from them as he had met with in the Baron's castle,
before Miss Cunegonde's bright eyes were the cause of his expulsion thence.
He asked alms of several
grave-looking people, who all answered him, that if he continued to follow this
trade they would confine him to the house of correction, where he should be
taught to get a living.
The next he addressed was a man
who had been haranguing a large assembly for a whole hour on the subject of
charity. But the orator, looking askew, said:
"What are you doing here?
Are you for the good cause?"
"There can be no effect
without a cause," modestly answered Candide; "the whole is
necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best. It was necessary for me to
have been banished from the presence of Miss Cunegonde, to have afterwards run
the gauntlet, and now it is necessary I should beg my bread until I learn to
earn it; all this cannot be otherwise."
"My friend," said the
orator to him, "do you believe the Pope to be Anti-Christ?"
"I have not heard it,"
answered Candide; "but whether he be, or whether he be not, I want
bread."
"Thou dost not deserve to
eat," said the other. "Begone, rogue; begone, wretch; do not come
near me again."
The orator's wife, putting her
head out of the window, and spying a man that doubted whether the Pope was
Anti-Christ, poured over him a full.... Oh, heavens! to what excess does
religious zeal carry the ladies.
A man who had never been
christened, a good Anabaptist, named James, beheld the cruel and ignominious
treatment shown to one of his brethren, an unfeathered biped with a rational
soul, he took him home, cleaned him, gave him bread and beer, presented him
with two florins, and even wished to teach him the manufacture of Persian
stuffs which they make in Holland. Candide, almost prostrating himself before
him, cried:
"Master Pangloss has well
said that all is for the best in this world, for I am infinitely more touched
by your extreme generosity than with the inhumanity of that gentleman in the
black coat and his lady."
The next day, as he took a walk,
he met a beggar all covered with scabs, his eyes diseased, the end of his nose
eaten away, his mouth distorted, his teeth black, choking in his throat,
tormented with a violent cough, and spitting out a tooth at each effort.
IV
HOW CANDIDE FOUND HIS OLD MASTER
PANGLOSS, AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM.
Candide, yet more moved with
compassion than with horror, gave to this shocking beggar the two florins which
he had received from the honest Anabaptist James. The spectre looked at him
very earnestly, dropped a few tears, and fell upon his neck. Candide recoiled
in disgust.
"Alas!" said one wretch
to the other, "do you no longer know your dear Pangloss?"
"What do I hear? You, my
dear master! you in this terrible plight! What misfortune has happened to you?
Why are you no longer in the most magnificent of castles? What has become of
Miss Cunegonde, the pearl of girls, and nature's masterpiece?"
"I am so weak that I cannot
stand," said Pangloss.
Upon which Candide carried him to
the Anabaptist's stable, and gave him a crust of bread. As soon as Pangloss had
refreshed himself a little:
"Well," said Candide,
"Cunegonde?"
"She is dead," replied
the other.
Candide fainted at this word; his
friend recalled his senses with a little bad vinegar which he found by chance
in the stable. Candide reopened his eyes.
"Cunegonde is dead! Ah, best
of worlds, where art thou? But of what illness did she die? Was it not for
grief, upon seeing her father kick me out of his magnificent castle?"
"No," said Pangloss,
"she was ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers, after having been violated
by many; they broke the Baron's 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,
not a barn, nor a sheep, nor a duck, nor a tree; but we have had our revenge,
for the Abares have done the very same thing to a neighbouring barony, which
belonged to a Bulgarian lord."
At this discourse Candide fainted
again; but coming to himself, and having said all that it became him to say,
inquired into the cause and effect, as well as into the sufficient reason that
had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a plight.
"Alas!" said the other,
"it was love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the
universe, the soul of all sensible beings, love, tender love."
"Alas!" said Candide,
"I know this love, that sovereign of hearts, that soul of our souls; yet
it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. How could
this beautiful cause produce in you an effect so abominable?"
Pangloss made answer in these
terms: "Oh, my dear Candide, you remember Paquette, that pretty wench who
waited on our noble Baroness; in her arms I tasted the delights of paradise,
which produced in me those hell torments with which you see me devoured; she
was infected with them, she is perhaps dead of them. This present Paquette
received of a learned Grey Friar, who had traced it to its source; he had had
it of an old countess, who had received it from a cavalry captain, who owed it
to a marchioness, who took it from a page, who had received it from a Jesuit,
who when a novice had it in a direct line from one of the companions of
Christopher Columbus. For my part I shall give it to nobody, I am dying."
"Oh, Pangloss!" cried
Candide, "what a strange genealogy! Is not the Devil the original stock of
it?"
"Not at all," replied
this great man, "it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the
best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in an island of America caught this
disease, which contaminates the source of life, frequently even hinders
generation, and which is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we
should have neither chocolate nor cochineal. We are also to observe that upon
our continent, this distemper is like religious controversy, confined to a
particular spot. The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the
Siamese, the Japanese, know nothing of it; but there is a sufficient reason for
believing that they will know it in their turn in a few centuries. In the
meantime, it has made marvellous progress among us, especially in those great
armies composed of honest well-disciplined hirelings, who decide the destiny of
states; for we may safely affirm that when an army of thirty thousand men
fights another of an equal number, there are about twenty thousand of them
p-x-d on each side."
"Well, this is
wonderful!" said Candide, "but you must get cured."
"Alas! how can I?" said
Pangloss, "I have not a farthing, my friend, and all over the globe there
is no letting of blood or taking a glister, without paying, or somebody paying
for you."
These last words determined
Candide; he went and flung himself at the feet of the charitable Anabaptist
James, and gave him so touching a picture of the state to which his friend was
reduced, that the good man did not scruple to take Dr. Pangloss into his house,
and had him cured at his expense. In the cure Pangloss lost only an eye and an
ear. He wrote well, and knew arithmetic perfectly. The Anabaptist James made
him his bookkeeper. At the end of two months, being obliged to go to Lisbon
about some mercantile affairs, he took the two philosophers with him in his
ship. Pangloss explained to him how everything was so constituted that it could
not be better. James was not of this opinion.
"It is more likely,"
said he, "mankind have a little corrupted nature, for they were not born
wolves, and they have become wolves; God has given them neither cannon of
four-and-twenty pounders, nor bayonets; and yet they have made cannon and
bayonets to destroy one another. Into this account I might throw not only
bankrupts, but Justice which seizes on the effects of bankrupts to cheat the
creditors."
"All this was
indispensable," replied the one-eyed doctor, "for private misfortunes
make the general good, so that the more private misfortunes there are the
greater is the general good."
While he reasoned, the sky
darkened, the winds blew from the four quarters, and the ship was assailed by a
most terrible tempest within sight of the port of Lisbon.
V
TEMPEST, SHIPWRECK, EARTHQUAKE,
AND WHAT BECAME OF DOCTOR PANGLOSS, CANDIDE, AND JAMES THE ANABAPTIST.
Half dead of that inconceivable
anguish which the rolling of a ship produces, one-half of the passengers were
not even sensible of the danger. The other half shrieked and prayed. The sheets
were rent, the masts broken, the vessel gaped. Work who would, no one heard, no
one commanded. The Anabaptist being upon deck bore a hand; when a brutish
sailor struck him roughly and laid him sprawling; but with the violence of the
blow he himself tumbled head foremost overboard, and stuck upon a piece of the
broken mast. Honest James ran to his assistance, hauled him up, and from the
effort he made was precipitated into the sea in sight of the sailor, who left
him to perish, without deigning to look at him. Candide drew near and saw his
benefactor, who rose above the water one moment and was then swallowed up for
ever. He was just going to jump after him, but was prevented by the philosopher
Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on
purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned. While he was proving this à priori,
the ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal
sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to the
shore, while Pangloss and Candide were borne thither upon a plank.
As soon as they recovered
themselves a little they walked toward Lisbon. They had some money left, with
which they hoped to save themselves from starving, after they had escaped
drowning. Scarcely had they reached the city, lamenting the death of their
benefactor, when they felt the earth tremble under their feet. The sea swelled
and foamed in the harbour, and beat to pieces the vessels riding at anchor.
Whirlwinds of fire and ashes covered the streets and public places; houses
fell, roofs were flung upon the pavements, and the pavements were scattered.
Thirty thousand inhabitants of all ages and sexes were crushed under the ruins.
The sailor, whistling and swearing, said there was booty to be gained here.
"What can be the sufficient
reason of this phenomenon?" said Pangloss.
"This is the Last Day!"
cried Candide.
The sailor ran among the ruins,
facing death to find money; finding it, he took it, got drunk,Pg 0 and having
slept himself sober, purchased the favours of the first good-natured wench whom
he met on the ruins of the destroyed houses, and in the midst of the dying and
the dead. Pangloss pulled him by the sleeve.
"My friend," said he,
"this is not right. You sin against the universal reason; you choose your
time badly."
"S'blood and fury!"
answered the other; "I am a sailor and born at Batavia. Four times have I
trampled upon the crucifix in four voyages to Japan; a fig for thy universal
reason."
Some falling stones had wounded
Candide. He lay stretched in the street covered with rubbish.
"Alas!" said he to
Pangloss, "get me a little wine and oil; I am dying."
"This concussion of the
earth is no new thing," answered Pangloss. "The city of Lima, in
America, experienced the same convulsions last year; the same cause, the same
effects; there is certainly a train of sulphur under ground from Lima to Lisbon."
"Nothing more
probable," said Candide; "but for the love of God a little oil and
wine."
"How, probable?"
replied the philosopher. "I maintain that the point is capable of being
demonstrated."
Candide fainted away, and
Pangloss fetched him some water from a neighbouring fountain. The following day
they rummaged among the ruins and found provisions, with which they repaired
their exhausted strength. After this they joined with others in relieving those
inhabitants who had escaped death. Some, whom they had succoured, gave them as
good a dinner as they could in such disastrous circumstances; true, the repast
was mournful, and the company moistened their bread with tears; but Pangloss
consoled them, assuring them that things could not be otherwise.
"For," said he,
"all that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at Lisbon it cannot be
elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for
everything is right."
A little man dressed in black,
Familiar of the Inquisition, who sat by him, politely took up his word and
said:
"Apparently, then, sir, you
do not believe in original sin; for if all is for the best there has then been
neither Fall nor punishment."
"I humbly ask your
Excellency's pardon," answered Pangloss, still more politely; "for
the Fall and curse of man necessarily entered into the system of the best of
worlds."
"Sir," said the
Familiar, "you do not then believe in liberty?"
"Your Excellency will excuse
me," said Pangloss; "liberty is consistent with absolute necessity,
for it was necessary we should be free; for, in short, the determinate
will——"
Pangloss was in the middle of his
sentence, when the Familiar beckoned to his footman, who gave him a glass of
wine from Porto or Opporto.
VI
HOW THE PORTUGUESE MADE A
BEAUTIFUL AUTO-DA-FÉ, TO PREVENT ANY FURTHER EARTHQUAKES; AND HOW CANDIDE WAS
PUBLICLY WHIPPED.
After the earthquake had
destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no
means more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the people a beautiful
auto-da-fé; for it had 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 secret to hinder the earth from quaking.
In consequence hereof, they had
seized on a Biscayner, convicted of having married his godmother, and on two
Portuguese, for rejecting the bacon which larded a chicken they were eating;
after dinner, they came and secured Dr. Pangloss, and his disciple Candide, the
one for speaking his mind, the other for having listened with an air of
approbation. They were conducted to separate apartments, extremely cold, as
they were never incommoded by the sun. Eight days after they were dressed in
san-benitos and their heads ornamented with paper mitres. The mitre and
san-benito belonging to Candide were painted with reversed flames and with
devils that had neither tails nor claws; but Pangloss's devils had claws and
tails and the flames were upright. They marched in procession thus habited and
heard a very pathetic sermon, followed by fine church music. Candide was
whipped in cadence while they were singing; the Biscayner, and the two men who
had refused to eat bacon, were burnt; and Pangloss was hanged, though that was
not the custom. The same day the earth sustained a most violent concussion.
Candide, terrified, amazed,
desperate, all bloody, all palpitating, said to himself:
"If this is the best of
possible worlds, what then are the others? Well, if I had been only whipped I
could put up with it, for I experienced that among the Bulgarians; but oh, my
dear Pangloss! thou greatest of philosophers, that I should have seen you
hanged, without knowing for what! Oh, my dear Anabaptist, thou best of men,
that thou should'st have been drowned in the very harbour! Oh, Miss Cunegonde,
thou pearl of girls! that thou should'st have had thy belly ripped open!"
Thus he was musing, scarce able
to stand, preached at, whipped, absolved, and blessed, when an old woman
accosted him saying:
"My son, take courage and
follow me."
VII
HOW THE OLD WOMAN TOOK CARE OF
CANDIDE, AND HOW HE FOUND THE OBJECT HE LOVED.
Candide did not take courage, but
followed the old woman to a decayed house, where she gave him a pot of pomatum
to anoint his sores, showed him a very neat little bed, with a suit of clothes
hanging up, and left him something to eat and drink.
"Eat, drink, sleep,"
said she, "and may our lady of Atocha, the great St. Anthony of Padua, and
the great St. James of Compostella, receive you under their protection. I shall
be back to-morrow."
Candide, amazed at all he had
suffered and still more with the charity of the old woman, wished to kiss her
hand.
"It is not my hand you must
kiss," said the old woman; "I shall be back to-morrow. Anoint
yourself with the pomatum, eat and sleep."
Candide, notwithstanding so many
disasters, ate and slept. The next morning the old woman brought him his
breakfast, looked at his back, and rubbed it herself with another ointment: in
like manner she brought him his dinner; and at night she returned with his
supper. The day following she went through the very same ceremonies.
"Who are you?" said
Candide; "who has inspired you with so much goodness? What return can I
make you?"
The good woman made no answer;
she returned in the evening, but brought no supper.
"Come with me," she
said, "and say nothing."
She took him by the arm, and
walked with him about a quarter of a mile into the country; they arrived at a
lonely house, surrounded with gardens and canals. The old woman knocked at a
little door, it opened, she led Candide up a private staircase into a small
apartment richly furnished. She left him on a brocaded sofa, shut the door and
went away. Candide thought himself in a dream; indeed, that he had been
dreaming unluckily all his life, and that the present moment was the only
agreeable part of it all.
The old woman returned very soon,
supporting with difficulty a trembling woman of a majestic figure, brilliant
with jewels, and covered with a veil.
"Take off that veil,"
said the old woman to Candide.
The young man approaches, he
raises the veil with a timid hand. Oh! what a moment! what surprise! he
believes he beholds Miss Cunegonde? he really sees her! it is herself! His
strength fails him, he cannot utter a word, but drops at her feet. Cunegonde
falls upon the sofa. The old woman supplies a smelling bottle; they come to
themselves and recover their speech. As they began with broken accents, with
questions and answers interchangeably interrupted with sighs, with tears, and
cries. The old woman desired they would make less noise and then she left them
to themselves.
"What, is it you?" said
Candide, "you live? I find you again in Portugal? then you have not been
ravished? then they did not rip open your belly as Doctor Pangloss informed
me?"
"Yes, they did," said
the beautiful Cunegonde; "but those two accidents are not always
mortal."
"But were your father and
mother killed?"
"It is but too true,"
answered Cunegonde, in tears.
"And your brother?"
"My brother also was
killed."
"And why are you in
Portugal? and how did you know of my being here? and by what strange adventure
did you contrive to bring me to this house?"
"I will tell you all
that," replied the lady, "but first of all let me know your history,
since the innocent kiss you gave me and the kicks which you received."
Candide respectfully obeyed her,
and though he was still in a surprise, though his voice was feeble and
trembling, though his back still pained him, yet he gave her a most ingenuous
account of everything that had befallen him since the moment of their separation.
Cunegonde lifted up her eyes to heaven; shed tears upon hearing of the death of
the good Anabaptist and of Pangloss; after which she spoke as follows to
Candide, who did not lose a word and devoured her with his eyes.Pg 0
VIII
THE HISTORY OF CUNEGONDE.
"I was in bed and fast
asleep when it pleased God to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of
Thunder-ten-Tronckh; they slew my father and brother, and cut my mother in
pieces. A tall Bulgarian, six feet high, perceiving that I had fainted away at
this sight, began to ravish me; this made me recover; I regained my senses, I
cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I wanted to tear out the tall
Bulgarian's eyes—not knowing that what happened at my father's house was the
usual practice of war. The brute gave me a cut in the left side with his
hanger, and the mark is still upon me."
"Ah! I hope I shall see
it," said honest Candide.
"You shall," said
Cunegonde, "but let us continue."
"Do so," replied
Candide.
Thus she resumed the thread of
her story:
"A Bulgarian captain came
in, saw me all bleeding, and the soldier not in the least disconcerted. The
captain flew into a passion at the disrespectful behaviour of the brute, and
slew him on my body. He ordered my wounds to be dressed, and took me to his
quarters as a prisoner of war. I washed the few shirts that he had, I did his
cooking; he thought me very pretty—he avowed it; on the other hand, I must own
he had a good shape, and a soft and white skin; but he had little or no mind or
philosophy, and you might see plainly that he had never been instructed by
Doctor Pangloss. In three months time, having lost all his money, and being
grown tired of my company, he sold me to a Jew, named Don Issachar, who traded
to Holland and Portugal, and had a strong passion for women. This Jew was much
attached to my person, but could not triumph over it; I resisted him better
than the Bulgarian soldier. A modest woman may be ravished once, but her virtue
is strengthened by it. In order to render me more tractable, he brought me to
this country house. Hitherto I had imagined that nothing could equal the beauty
of Thunder-ten-Tronckh Castle; but I found I was mistaken.
"The Grand Inquisitor,
seeing me one day at Mass, stared long at me, and sent to tell me that he
wished to speak on private matters. I was conducted to his palace, where I
acquainted him with the history of my family, and he represented to me how much
it was beneath my rank to belong to an Israelite. A proposal was then made to
Don Issachar that he should resign me to my lord. Don Issachar, being the court
banker, and a man of credit, would hear nothing of it. The Inquisitor
threatened him with an auto-da-fé. At last my Jew, intimidated, concluded a
bargain, by which the house and myself should belong to both in common; the Jew
should have for himself Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and the Inquisitor
should have the rest of the week. It is now six months since this agreement was
made. Quarrels have not been wanting, for they could not decide whether the
night from Saturday to Sunday belonged to the old law or to the new. For my
part, I have so far held out against both, and I verily believe that this is
the reason why I am still beloved.
"At length, to avert the
scourge of earthquakes, and to intimidate Don Issachar, my Lord Inquisitor was
pleased to celebrate an auto-da-fé. He did me the honour to invite me to the
ceremony. I had a very good seat, and the ladies were served with refreshments
between Mass and the execution. I was in truth seized with horror at the
burning of those two Jews, and of the honest Biscayner who had married his
godmother; but what was my surprise, my fright, my trouble, when I saw in a
san-benito and mitre a figure which resembled that of Pangloss! I rubbed my
eyes, I looked at him attentively, I saw him hung; I fainted. Scarcely had I
recovered my senses than I saw you stripped, stark naked, and this was the
height of my horror, consternation, grief, and despair. I tell you, truthfully,
that your skin is yet whiter and of a more perfect colour than that of my
Bulgarian captain. This spectacle redoubled all the feelings which overwhelmed
and devoured me. I screamed out, and would have said, 'Stop, barbarians!' but
my voice failed me, and my cries would have been useless after you had been
severely whipped. How is it possible, said I, that the beloved Candide and the
wise Pangloss should both be at Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred lashes,
and the other to be hanged by the Grand Inquisitor, of whom I am the
well-beloved? Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in
the world is for the best.
"Agitated, lost, sometimes
beside myself, and sometimes ready to die of weakness, my mind was filled with
the massacre of my father, mother, and brother, with the insolence of the ugly
Bulgarian soldier, with the stab that he gave me, with my servitude under the
Bulgarian captain, with my hideous Don Issachar, with my abominable Inquisitor,
with the execution of Doctor Pangloss, with the grand Miserere to which they
whipped you, and especially with the kiss I gave you behind the screen the day
that I had last seen you. I praised God for bringing you back to me after so
many trials, and I charged my old woman to take care of you, and to conduct you
hither as soon as possible. She has executed her commission perfectly well; I
have tasted the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you again, of hearing you, of
speaking with you. But you must be hungry, for myself, I am famished; let us
have supper."
They both sat down to table, and,
when supper was over, they placed themselves once more on the sofa; where they
were when Signor Don Issachar arrived. It was the Jewish Sabbath, and Issachar
had come to enjoy his rights, and to explain his tender love.
IX
WHAT BECAME OF CUNEGONDE,
CANDIDE, THE GRAND INQUISITOR, AND THE JEW.
This Issachar was the most
choleric Hebrew that had ever been seen in Israel since the Captivity in
Babylon.
"What!" said he,
"thou bitch of a Galilean, was not the Inquisitor enough for thee? Must
this rascal also share with me?"
In saying this he drew a long
poniard which he always carried about him; and not imagining that his adversary
had any arms he threw himself upon Candide: but our honest Westphalian had
received a handsome sword from the old woman along with the suit of clothes. He
drew his rapier, despite his gentleness, and laid the Israelite stone dead upon
the cushions at Cunegonde's feet.
"Holy Virgin!" cried
she, "what will become of us? A man killed in my apartment! If the
officers of justice come, we are lost!"
"Had not Pangloss been
hanged," said Candide, "he would give us good counsel in this
emergency, for he was a profound philosopher. Failing him let us consult the
old woman."
She was very prudent and
commenced to give her opinion when suddenly another little door opened. It was
an hour after midnight, it was the beginning of Sunday. This day belonged to my
lord the Inquisitor. He entered, and saw the whipped Candide, sword in hand, a
dead man upon the floor, Cunegonde aghast, and the old woman giving counsel.
At this moment, the following is
what passed in the soul of Candide, and how he reasoned:
If this holy man call in
assistance, he will surely have me burnt; and Cunegonde will perhaps be served
in the same manner; he was the cause of my being cruelly whipped; he is my
rival; and, as I have now begun to kill, I will kill away, for there is no time
to hesitate. This reasoning was clear and instantaneous; so that without giving
time to the Inquisitor to recover from his surprise, he pierced him through and
through, and cast him beside the Jew.
"Yet again!" said
Cunegonde, "now there is no mercy for us, we are excommunicated, our last
hour has come. How could you do it? you, naturally so gentle, to slay a Jew and
a prelate in two minutes!"
"My beautiful young
lady," responded Candide, "when one is a lover, jealous and whipped
by the Inquisition, one stops at nothing."
The old woman then put in her
word, saying:
"There are three Andalusian
horses in the stable with bridles and saddles, let the brave Candide get them
ready; madame has money, jewels; let us therefore mount quickly on horseback,
though I can sit only on one buttock; 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."
Immediately Candide saddled the
three horses, and Cunegonde, the old woman and he, travelled thirty miles at a
stretch. While they were journeying, the Holy Brotherhood entered the house; my
lord the Inquisitor was interred in a handsome church, and Issachar's body was
thrown upon a dunghill.
Candide, Cunegonde, and the old
woman, had now reached the little town of Avacena in the midst of the mountains
of the Sierra Morena, and were speaking as follows in a public inn.
X
IN WHAT DISTRESS CANDIDE,
CUNEGONDE, AND THE OLD WOMAN ARRIVED AT CADIZ; AND OF THEIR EMBARKATION.
"Who was it that robbed me
of my money and jewels?" said Cunegonde, all bathed in tears. "How
shall we live? What shall we do? Where find Inquisitors or Jews who will give
me more?"
"Alas!" said the old
woman, "I have a shrewd suspicion of a reverend Grey Friar, who stayed
last night in the same inn with us at Badajos. God preserve me from judging
rashly, but he came into our room twice, and he set out upon his journey long
before us."
"Alas!" said Candide,
"dear Pangloss has often demonstrated to me that the goods of this world
are common to all men, and that each has an equal right to them. But according
to these principles the Grey Friar ought to have left us enough to carry us through
our journey. Have you nothing at all left, my dear Cunegonde?"
"Not a farthing," said
she.
"What then must we do?"
said Candide.
"Sell one of the
horses," replied the old woman. "I will ride behind Miss Cunegonde,
though I can hold myself only on one buttock, and we shall reach Cadiz."
In the same inn there was a
Benedictine prior who bought the horse for a cheap price. Candide, Cunegonde,
and the old woman, having passed through Lucena, Chillas, and Lebrixa, arrived
at length at Cadiz. A fleet was there getting ready, and troops assembling to
bring to reason the reverend Jesuit Fathers of Paraguay, accused of having made
one of the native tribes in the neighborhood of San Sacrament revolt against
the Kings of Spain and Portugal. Candide having been in the Bulgarian service,
performed the military exercise before the general of this little army with so
graceful an address, with so intrepid an air, and with such agility and
expedition, that he was given the command of a company of foot. Now, he was a
captain! He set sail with Miss Cunegonde, the old woman, two valets, and the
two Andalusian horses, which had belonged to the grand Inquisitor of Portugal.
During their voyage they reasoned
a good deal on the philosophy of poor Pangloss.
"We are going into another
world," said Candide; "and surely it must be there that all is for
the best. For I must confess there is reason to complain a little of what
passeth inPg 0 our world in regard to both natural and moral philosophy."
"I love you with all my
heart," said Cunegonde; "but my soul is still full of fright at that
which I have seen and experienced."
"All will be well,"
replied Candide; "the sea of this new world is already better than our
European sea; it is calmer, the winds more regular. It is certainly the New
World which is the best of all possible worlds."
"God grant it," said
Cunegonde; "but I have been so horribly unhappy there that my heart is
almost closed to hope."
"You complain," said
the old woman; "alas! you have not known such misfortunes as mine."
Cunegonde almost broke out
laughing, finding the good woman very amusing, for pretending to have been as
unfortunate as she.
"Alas!" said Cunegonde,
"my good mother, unless you have been ravished by two Bulgarians, have
received two deep wounds in your belly, have had two castles demolished, have
had two mothers cut to pieces before your eyes, and two of your lovers whipped
at an auto-da-fé, I do not conceive how you could be more unfortunate than I.
Add that I was born a baroness of seventy-two quarterings—and have been a
cook!"
"Miss," replied the old
woman, "you do not know my birth; and were I to show you my backside, you
would not talk in that manner, but would suspend your judgment."
This speech having raised extreme
curiosity in the minds of Cunegonde and Candide, the old woman spoke to them as
follows.
XI
HISTORY OF THE OLD WOMAN.
"I had not always bleared
eyes and red eyelids; neither did my nose always touch my chin; nor was I
always a servant. I am the daughter of Pope Urban X,0 and of the Princess of Palestrina.
Until the age of fourteen I was brought up in a palace, to which all the
castles of your German barons would scarcely have served for stables; and one
of my robes was worth more than all the magnificence of Westphalia. As I grew
up I improved in beauty, wit, and every graceful accomplishment, in the midst
of pleasures, hopes, and respectful homage. Already I inspired love. My throat
was formed, and such a throat! white, firm, and shaped like that of the Venus
of Medici; and what eyes! what eyelids! what black eyebrows! such flames darted
from my dark pupils that they eclipsed the scintillation of the stars—as I was
told by the poets in our part of the world. My waiting women, when dressing and
undressing me, used to fall into an ecstasy, whether they viewed me before or
behind; how glad would the gentlemen have been to perform that office for them!
"I was affianced to the most
excellent Prince of Massa Carara. Such a prince! as handsome as myself,
sweet-tempered, agreeable, brilliantly witty, and sparkling with love. I loved
him as one loves for the first time—with idolatry, with transport. The nuptials
were prepared. There was surprising pomp and magnificence; there were fêtes,
carousals, continual opera bouffe; and all Italy composed sonnets in my praise,
though not one of them was passable. I was just upon 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 with her. He died in less than two
hours of most terrible convulsions. But this is only a bagatelle. My mother, in
despair, and scarcely less afflicted than myself, determined to absent herself
for some time from so fatal a place. She had a very fine estate in the
neighbourhood of Gaeta. We embarked on board a galley of the country which was
gilded like the great altar of St. Peter's at Rome. A Sallee corsair swooped
down and boarded us. Our men defended themselves like the Pope's soldiers; they
flung themselves upon their knees, and threw down their arms, begging of the
corsair an absolution in articulo mortis.
"Instantly they were
stripped as bare as monkeys; my mother, our maids of honour, and myself were
all served in the same manner. It is amazing with what expedition those gentry
undress people. But what surprised me most was, that they thrust their fingers
into the part of our bodies which the generality of women suffer no other
instrument but—pipes to enter. It appeared to me a very strange kind of
ceremony; but thus one judges of things when one has not seen the world. I
afterwards learnt that it was to try whether we had concealed any diamonds.
This is the practice established from time immemorial, among civilised nations
that scour the seas. I was informed that the very religious Knights of Malta
never fail to make this search when they take any Turkish prisoners of either
sex. It is a 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 all we had to suffer on board
the pirate vessel. My mother was still very handsome; our maids of honour, and
even our waiting women, had more charms than are to be found in all Africa. As
for myself, I was ravishing, was exquisite, grace itself, and I was a virgin! I
did not remain so long; this flower, which had been reserved for the handsome
Prince of Massa Carara, was plucked by the corsair captain. He was an
abominable negro, and yet believed that he did me a great deal of honour.
Certainly the Princess of Palestrina and myself must have been very strong to
go through all that we experienced until our arrival at Morocco. But let us
pass on; these are such common things as not to be worth mentioning.
"Morocco swam in blood when
we arrived. Fifty sons of the Emperor Muley-Ismael had each their adherents;
this produced fifty civil wars, of blacks against blacks, and blacks against
tawnies, and tawnies against tawnies, and mulattoes against mulattoes. In short
it was a continual carnage throughout the empire.
"No sooner were we landed,
than the blacks of a contrary faction to that of my captain attempted to rob
him of his booty. Next to jewels and gold we were the most valuable things he
had. I was witness to such a battle as you have never seen in your European
climates. The northern nations have not that heat in their blood, nor that
raging lust for women, so common in Africa. It seems that you Europeans have
only milk in your veins; but it is vitriol, it is fire which runs in those of
the inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighbouring countries. They fought with
the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of the country, to see who should
have us. A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my captain's
lieutenant held her by the left; a Moorish soldier had hold of her by one leg,
and one of our corsairs held her by the other. Thus almost all our women were
drawn in quarters by four men. My captain concealed me behind him; and with his
drawn scimitar cut and slashed every one that opposed his fury. At length I saw
all our Italian women, and my mother herself, torn, mangled, massacred, by the
monsters who disputed over them. The slaves, my companions, those who had taken
them, soldiers, sailors, blacks, whites, mulattoes, and at last my captain, all
were killed, and I remained dying on a heap of dead. Such scenes as this were
transacted through an extent of three hundred leagues—and yet they never missed
the five prayers a day ordained by Mahomet.
"With difficulty I
disengaged myself from such a heap of slaughtered bodies, and crawled to a
large orange tree on the bank of a neighbouring rivulet, where I fell,
oppressed with fright, fatigue, horror, despair, and hunger. Immediately after,
my senses, overpowered, gave themselves up to sleep, which was yet more
swooning than repose. I was in this state of weakness and insensibility,
between life and death, when I felt myself pressed by something that moved upon
my body. I opened my eyes, and saw a white man, of good countenance, who
sighed, and who said between his teeth: 'O che sciagura d'essere senza
coglioni!'"
XII
THE ADVENTURES OF THE OLD WOMAN
CONTINUED.
"Astonished and delighted to
hear my native language, and no less surprised at what this man said, I made
answer that there were much greater misfortunes than that of which he
complained. I told him in a few words of the horrors which I had endured, and
fainted a second time. He carried me to a neighbouring house, put me to bed,
gave me food, waited upon me, consoled me, flattered me; he told me that he had
never seen any one so beautiful as I, and that he never so much regretted the
loss of what it was impossible to recover.
"'I was born at Naples,'
said he, 'there they geld two or three thousand children every year; some die
of the operation, others acquire a voice more beautiful than that of women, and
others are raised to offices of state. This operation was performed on me with
great success and I was chapel musician to madam, the Princess of Palestrina.'
"'To my mother!' cried I.
"'Your mother!' cried he,
weeping. 'What! can you be that young princess whom I brought up until the age
of six years, and who promised so early to be as beautiful as you?'
"'It is I, indeed; but my
mother lies four hundred yards hence, torn in quarters, under a heap of dead
bodies.'
"I told him all my
adventures, and he made me acquainted with his; telling me that he had been
sent to the Emperor of Morocco by a Christian power, to conclude a treaty with
that prince, in consequence of which he was to be furnished with military
stores and ships to help to demolish the commerce of other Christian
Governments.
"'My mission is done,' said
this honest eunuch; 'I go to embark for Ceuta, and will take you to Italy. Ma
che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!'
"I thanked him with tears of
commiseration; and instead of taking me to Italy he conducted me to Algiers,
where he sold me to the Dey. Scarcely was I sold, than the plague which had
made the tour of Africa, Asia, and Europe, broke out with great malignancy in
Algiers. You have seen earthquakes; but pray, miss, have you ever had the
plague?"
"Never," answered
Cunegonde.
"If you had," said the
old woman, "you would acknowledge that it is far more terriblePg 0 than an
earthquake. It is common in Africa, and I caught it. Imagine to yourself the
distressed situation of the daughter of a Pope, only fifteen years old, who, in
less than three months, had felt the miseries of poverty and slavery, had been
ravished almost every day, had beheld her mother drawn in quarters, had
experienced famine and war, and was dying of the plague in Algiers. I did not
die, however, but my eunuch, and the Dey, and almost the whole seraglio of
Algiers perished.
"As soon as the first fury
of this terrible pestilence was over, a sale was made of the Dey's slaves; I
was purchased by a merchant, and carried 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. At
length I became the property of an Aga of the Janissaries, who was soon ordered
away to the defence of Azof, then besieged by the Russians.
"The Aga, who was a very
gallant man, took his whole seraglio with him, and lodged us in a small fort on
the Palus Méotides, guarded by two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers. The Turks
killed prodigious numbers of the Russians, but the latter had their revenge.
Azof was destroyed by fire, the inhabitants put to the sword, neither sex nor
age was spared; until there remained only our little fort, and the enemy wanted
to starve us out. The twenty Janissaries had sworn they would never surrender.
The extremities of famine to which they were reduced, obliged them to eat our
two eunuchs, for fear of violating their oath. And at the end of a few days
they resolved also to devour the women.
"We had a very pious and
humane Iman, who preached an excellent sermon, exhorting them not to kill us
all at once.
"'Only cut off a buttock of
each of those ladies,' said he, 'and you'll fare extremely well; if you must go
to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will
accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief.'
"He had great eloquence; he
persuaded them; we underwent this terrible operation. The Iman applied the same
balsam to us, as he does to children after circumcision; and we all nearly
died.
"Scarcely had the
Janissaries finished the repast with which we had furnished them, than the
Russians came in flat-bottomed boats; not a Janissary escaped. The Russians
paid no attention to the condition we were in. There are French surgeons in all
parts of the world; one of them who was very clever took us under his care—he
cured us; and as long as I live I shall remember that as soon as my wounds were
healed he made proposals to me. He bid us all be of good cheer, telling us that
the like had happened in many sieges, and that it was according to the laws of
war.
"As soon as my companions
could walk, they were obliged to set out for Moscow. I fell to the share of a
Boyard who made me his gardener, and gave me twenty lashes a day. But this
nobleman having in two years' time been broke upon the wheel along with thirty
more Boyards for some broils at court, I profited by that event; I fled. I
traversed all Russia; I was a long time an inn-holder's servant at Riga, the
same at Rostock, at Vismar, at Leipzig, at Cassel, at Utrecht, at Leyden, at
the Hague, at Rotterdam. I waxed old in misery and disgrace, having only
one-half of my posteriors, and always remembering I was a Pope's daughter. A
hundred times I was upon the point of killing myself; but still I loved life.
This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics; for is
there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one
can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to cling to one's existence?
in brief, to caress the serpent which devours us, till he has eaten our very
heart?
"In the different countries
which it has been my lot to traverse, and the numerous inns where I have been
servant, I have taken notice of a vast number of people who held their own
existence in abhorrence, and yet I never knew of more than eight who
voluntarily put an end to their misery; three negroes, four Englishmen, and a
German professor named Robek. I ended by being servant to the Jew, Don
Issachar, who placed me near your presence, my fair lady. I am determined to
share your fate, and have been much more affected with your misfortunes than
with my own. I would never even have spoken to you of my misfortunes, had you
not piqued me a little, and if it were not customary to tell stories on board a
ship in order to pass away the time. In short, Miss Cunegonde, I have had
experience, I know the world; therefore I advise you to divert yourself, and
prevail upon each passenger to tell his story; and if there be one of them all,
that has not cursed his life many a time, that has not frequently looked upon
himself as the unhappiest of mortals, I give you leave to throw me headforemost
into the sea."
XIII
HOW CANDIDE WAS FORCED AWAY FROM
HIS FAIR CUNEGONDE AND THE OLD WOMAN.
The beautiful Cunegonde having
heard the old woman's history, paid her all the civilities due to a person of
her rank and merit. She likewise accepted her proposal, and engaged all the passengers,
one after the other, to relate their adventures; and then both she and Candide
allowed that the old woman was in the right.
"It is a great pity,"
said Candide, "that the sage Pangloss was hanged contrary to custom at an
auto-da-fé; he would tell us most amazing things in regard to the physical and
moral evils that overspread earth and sea, and I should be able, with due
respect, to make a few objections."
While each passenger was
recounting his story, the ship made her way. They landed at Buenos Ayres.
Cunegonde, Captain Candide, and the old woman, waited on the Governor, Don
Fernando d'Ibaraa, y Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza. This
nobleman had a stateliness becoming a person who bore so many names. He spoke
to men with so noble a disdain, carried his nose so loftily, raised his voice
so unmercifully, assumed so imperious an air, and stalked with such intolerable
pride, that those who saluted him were strongly inclined to give him a good
drubbing. Cunegonde appeared to him the most beautiful he had ever met. The
first thing he did was to ask whether she was not the captain's wife. The
manner in which he asked the question alarmed Candide; he durst not say she was
his wife, because indeed she was not; neither durst he say she was his sister,
because it was not so; and although this obliging lie had been formerly much in
favour among the ancients, and although it could be useful to the moderns, his
soul was too pure to betray the truth.
"Miss Cunegonde," said
he, "is to do me the honour to marry me, and we beseech your excellency to
deign to sanction our marriage."
Don Fernando d'Ibaraa, y
Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza, turning up his moustachios,
smiled mockingly, and ordered Captain Candide to go and review his company.
Candide obeyed, and the Governor remained alone with Miss Cunegonde. He
declared his passion, protesting he would marry her the next day in the face of
the church, or otherwise, just as should be agreeable to herself. Cunegonde
asked a quarter of an hour to consider of it, to consult the old woman, and to
take her resolution.
The old woman spoke thus to
Cunegonde:
"Miss, you have seventy-two
quarterings, and not a farthing; it is now in your power to be wife to the
greatest lord in South America, who has very beautiful moustachios. Is it for
you to pique yourself upon inviolable fidelity? You have been ravished by
Bulgarians; a Jew and an Inquisitor have enjoyed your favours. Misfortune gives
sufficient excuse. I own, that if I were in your place, I should have no
scruple in marrying the Governor and in making the fortune of Captain
Candide."
While the old woman spoke with
all the prudence which age and experience gave, a small ship entered the port
on board of which were an Alcalde and his alguazils, and this was what had
happened.
As the old woman had shrewdly
guessed, it was a Grey Friar who stole Cunegonde's money and jewels in the town
of Badajos, when she and Candide were escaping. The Friar wanted to sell some
of the diamonds to a jeweller; the jeweller knew them to be the Grand
Inquisitor's. The Friar before he was hanged confessed he had stolen them. He
described the persons, and the route they had taken. The flight of Cunegonde
and Candide was already known. They were traced to Cadiz. A vessel was
immediately sent in pursuit of them. The vessel was already in the port of
Buenos Ayres. The report spread that the Alcalde was going to land, and that he
was in pursuit of the murderers of my lord the Grand Inquisitor. The prudent
old woman saw at once what was to be done.
"You cannot run away,"
said she to Cunegonde, "and you have nothing to fear, for it was not you
that killed my lord; besides the Governor who loves you will not suffer you to
be ill-treated; therefore stay."
She then ran immediately to
Candide.
"Fly," said she,
"or in an hour you will be burnt."
There was not a moment to lose;
but how could he part from Cunegonde, and where could he flee for shelter?
XIV
HOW CANDIDE AND CACAMBO WERE
RECEIVED BY THE JESUITS OF PARAGUAY.
Candide had brought such a valet
with him from Cadiz, as one often meets with on the coasts of Spain and in the
American colonies. He was a quarter Spaniard, born of a mongrel in Tucuman; he
had been singing-boy, sacristan, sailor, monk, pedlar, soldier, and lackey. His
name was Cacambo, and he loved his master, because his master was a very good
man. He quickly saddled the two Andalusian horses.
"Come, master, let us follow
the old woman's advice; let us start, and run without looking behind us."
Candide shed tears.
"Oh! my dear Cunegonde! must
I leave you just at a time when the Governor was going to sanction our
nuptials? Cunegonde, brought to such a distance what will become of you?"
"She will do as well as she
can," said Cacambo; "the women are never at a loss, God provides for
them, let us run."
"Whither art thou carrying
me? Where shall we go? What shall we do without Cunegonde?" said Candide.
"By St. James of
Compostella," said Cacambo, "you were going to fight against the
Jesuits; let us go to fight for them; I know the road well, I'll conduct you to
their kingdom, where they will be charmed to have a captain that understands
the Bulgarian exercise. You'll make a prodigious fortune; if we cannot find our
account in one world we shall in another. It is a great pleasure to see and do
new things."
"You have before been in
Paraguay, then?" said Candide.
"Ay, sure," answered
Cacambo, "I was servant in the College of the Assumption, and am
acquainted with the government of the good Fathers as well as I am with the
streets of Cadiz. It is an admirable government. The kingdom is upwards of
three hundred leagues in diameter, and divided into thirty provinces; there the
Fathers possess all, and the people nothing; it is a masterpiece of reason and
justice. For my part I see nothing so divine as the Fathers who here make war
upon the kings of Spain and Portugal, and in Europe confess those kings; who
here kill Spaniards, and in Madrid send them to heaven; this delights me, let
us push forward. You are going to be the happiest of mortals. What pleasure
will it be to thosePg 0 Fathers to hear that a captain who knows the Bulgarian
exercise has come to them!"
As soon as they reached the first
barrier, Cacambo told the advanced guard that a captain wanted to speak with my
lord the Commandant. Notice was given to the main guard, and immediately a
Paraguayan officer ran and laid himself at the feet of the Commandant, to
impart this news to him. Candide and Cacambo were disarmed, and their two
Andalusian horses seized. The strangers were introduced between two files of
musketeers; the Commandant was at the further end, with the three-cornered cap
on his head, his gown tucked up, a sword by his side, and a spontoon in his
hand. He beckoned, and straightway the new-comers were encompassed by
four-and-twenty soldiers. A sergeant told them they must wait, that the
Commandant could not speak to them, and that the reverend Father Provincial does
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 is upon the parade just
after celebrating mass," answered the sergeant, "and you cannot kiss
his spurs till three hours hence."
"However," said
Cacambo, "the captain is not a Spaniard, but a German, he is ready to
perish with hunger as well as myself; cannot we have something for breakfast,
while we wait for his reverence?"
The sergeant went immediately to
acquaint the Commandant with what he had heard.
"God be praised!" said
the reverend Commandant, "since he is a German, I may speak to him; take
him to my arbour."
Candide was at once conducted to
a beautiful summer-house, ornamented with a very pretty colonnade of green and
gold marble, and with trellises, enclosing parraquets, humming-birds,
fly-birds, guinea-hens, and all other rare birds. An excellent breakfast was
provided in vessels of gold; and while the Paraguayans were eating maize out of
wooden dishes, in the open fields and exposed to the heat of the sun, the
reverend Father Commandant retired to his arbour.
He was a very handsome young man,
with a full face, white skin but high in colour; he had an arched eyebrow, a
lively eye, red ears, vermilion lips, a bold air, but such a boldness as neither
belonged to a Spaniard nor a Jesuit. They returned their arms to Candide and
Cacambo, and also the two Andalusian horses; to whom Cacambo gave some oats to
eat just by the arbour, having an eye upon them all the while for fear of a
surprise.
Candide first kissed the hem of
the Commandant's robe, then they sat down to table.
"You are, then, 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 such an emotion as
they could not conceal.
"And from what part of
Germany do you come?" said the Jesuit.
"I am from the dirty
province of Westphalia," answered Candide; "I was born in the Castle
of Thunder-ten-Tronckh."
"Oh! Heavens! is it
possible?" cried the Commandant.
"What a miracle!" cried
Candide.
"Is it really you?"
said the Commandant.
"It is not possible!"
said Candide.
They drew back; they embraced;
they shed rivulets of tears.
"What, is it you, reverend
Father? You, the brother of the fair Cunegonde! 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 that we live in. Oh, Pangloss! Pangloss! how glad you
would be if you had not been hanged!"
The Commandant sent away the
negro slaves and the Paraguayans, who served them with liquors in goblets of
rock-crystal. He thanked God and St. Ignatius a thousand times; he clasped
Candide in his arms; and their faces were all bathed with tears.
"You will be more surprised,
more affected, and transported," said Candide, "when I tell you that
Cunegonde, your sister, whom you believe to have been ripped open, is in
perfect health."
"Where?"
"In your neighbourhood, with
the Governor of Buenos Ayres; and I was going to fight against you."
Every word which they uttered in
this long conversation but added wonder to wonder. Their souls fluttered on
their tongues, listened in their ears, and sparkled in their eyes. As they were
Germans, they sat a good while at table, waiting for the reverend Father
Provincial, and the Commandant spoke to his dear Candide as follows.
XV
HOW CANDIDE KILLED THE BROTHER OF
HIS DEAR CUNEGONDE.
"I shall have ever present
to my memory the dreadful day, on which I saw my father and mother killed, and
my sister ravished. When the Bulgarians retired, my dear sister could not be
found; but my mother, my father, and myself, with two maid-servants and three
little boys all of whom had been slain, were put in a hearse, to be conveyed
for interment to a chapel belonging to the Jesuits, within two leagues of our
family seat. A Jesuit sprinkled us with some holy water; it was horribly salt;
a few drops of it fell into my eyes; the father perceived that my eyelids
stirred a little; he put his hand upon my heart and felt it beat. I received
assistance, and at the end of three weeks I recovered. You know, my dear
Candide, I was very pretty; but I grew much prettier, and the reverend Father
Didrie, Superior of that House, conceived the tenderest friendship for me; he
gave me the habit of the order, some years after I was sent to Rome. The
Father-General needed new levies of young German-Jesuits. The sovereigns of
Paraguay admit as few Spanish Jesuits as possible; they prefer those of other
nations as being more subordinate to their commands. I was judged fit by the
reverend Father-General to go and work in this vineyard. We set out—a Pole, a
Tyrolese, and myself. Upon my arrival I was honoured with a sub-deaconship and
a lieutenancy. I am to-day colonel and priest. We shall give a warm reception
to the King of Spain's troops; I will answer for it that they shall be
excommunicated and well beaten. Providence sends you here to assist us. But is
it, indeed, true that my dear sister Cunegonde is in the neighbourhood, with
the Governor of Buenos Ayres?"
Candide assured him on oath that
nothing was more true, and their tears began afresh.
The Baron could not refrain from
embracing Candide; he called him his brother, his saviour.
"Ah! perhaps," said he,
"we shall together, my dear Candide, enter the town as conquerors, and
recover my sister Cunegonde."
"That is all I want,"
said Candide, "for I intended to marry her, and I still hope to do
so."
"You insolent!" replied
the Baron, "would you have the impudence to marry my sister who has
seventy-two quarterings! I find thou hast the most consummate effrontery to
dare to mention so presumptuous a design!"
Candide, petrified at this
speech, made answer:
"Reverend Father, all the quarterings
in the world signify nothing; I rescued your sister from the arms of a Jew and
of an Inquisitor; she has great obligations to me, she wishes to marry me;
Master Pangloss always told me that all men are equal, and certainly I will
marry her."
"We shall see that, thou
scoundrel!" said the Jesuit Baron de Thunder-ten-Tronckh, and that instant
struck him across the face with the flat of his sword. Candide in an instant
drew his rapier, and plunged it up to the hilt in the Jesuit's belly; but in pulling
it out reeking hot, he burst into tears.
"Good God!" said he,
"I have killed my old master, my friend, my brother-in-law! I am the
best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three men,
and of these three two were priests."
Cacambo, who stood sentry by the
door of the arbour, ran to him.
"We have nothing more for it
than to sell our lives as dearly as we can," said his master to him,
"without doubt some one will soon enter the arbour, and we must die sword
in hand."
Cacambo, who had been in a great
many scrapes in his lifetime, did not lose his head; he took the Baron's Jesuit
habit, put it on Candide, gave him the square cap, and made him mount on
horseback. All this was done in the twinkling of an eye.
"Let us gallop fast, master,
everybody will take you for a Jesuit, going to give directions to your men, 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."
XVI
ADVENTURES OF THE TWO TRAVELLERS,
WITH TWO GIRLS, TWO MONKEYS, AND THE SAVAGES CALLED OREILLONS.
Candide and his valet had got
beyond the barrier, before it was known in the camp that the German Jesuit was
dead. The wary Cacambo had taken care to fill his wallet with bread, chocolate,
bacon, fruit, and a few bottles of wine. With their Andalusian horses they
penetrated into an unknown country, where they perceived no beaten track. At
length they came to a beautiful meadow intersected with purling rills. Here our
two adventurers fed their horses. Cacambo proposed to his master to take some
food, and he set him an example.
"How can you ask me to eat
ham," said Candide, "after killing the Baron's son, and being doomed
never more to see the beautiful Cunegonde? What will it avail me to spin out my
wretched days and drag them far from her in remorse and despair? And what will
the Journal of Trevoux say?"
While he was thus lamenting his
fate, he went on eating. The sun went down. The two wanderers heard some little
cries which seemed to be uttered by women. They did not know whether they were
cries of pain or joy; but they started up precipitately with that inquietude
and alarm which every little thing inspires in an unknown country. The noise
was made by two naked girls, who tripped along the mead, while two monkeys were
pursuing them and biting their buttocks. Candide was moved with pity; he had
learned to fire a gun in the Bulgarian service, and he was so clever at it,
that he could hit a filbert in a hedge without touching a leaf of the tree. He
took up his double-barrelled Spanish fusil, let it off, and killed the two
monkeys.
"God be praised! My dear
Cacambo, I have rescued those two poor creatures 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 girls. Perhaps they are
young ladies of family; and this adventure may procure us great advantages in
this country."
He was continuing, but stopped
short when he saw the two girls tenderly embracing the monkeys, bathing their
bodies in tears, and rending the air with the most dismal lamentations.
"Little did I expect to see
such good-nature,"Pg 0 said he at length to Cacambo; who made answer:
"Master, you have done a
fine thing now; you have slain the sweethearts of those two young ladies."
"The sweethearts! Is it
possible? You are jesting, Cacambo, I can never believe it!"
"Dear master," replied
Cacambo; "you are surprised at everything. Why should you think it so
strange that in some countries there are monkeys which insinuate themselves into
the good graces of the ladies; they are a fourth part human, as I am a fourth
part Spaniard."
"Alas!" replied
Candide, "I remember to have heard Master Pangloss say, that formerly such
accidents used to happen; that these mixtures were productive of Centaurs,
Fauns, and Satyrs; and that many of the ancients had seen such monsters, but I
looked upon the whole as fabulous."
"You ought now to be
convinced," said Cacambo, "that it is the truth, and you see what use
is made of those creatures, by persons that have not had a proper education;
all I fear is that those ladies will play us some ugly trick."
These sound reflections induced
Candide to leave the meadow and to plunge into a wood. He supped there with
Cacambo; and after cursing the Portuguese inquisitor, the Governor of Buenos
Ayres, and the Baron, they fell asleep on moss. On awaking they felt that they
could not move; for during the night the Oreillons, who inhabited that country,
and to whom the ladies had denounced them, had bound them with cords made of
the bark of trees. They were encompassed by fifty naked Oreillons, armed with
bows and arrows, with clubs and flint hatchets. Some were making a large
cauldron boil, others were preparing spits, and all cried:
"A Jesuit! a Jesuit! we shall
be revenged, we shall have excellent cheer, let us eat the Jesuit, let us eat
him up!"
"I told you, my dear
master," cried Cacambo sadly, "that those two girls would play us
some ugly trick."
Candide seeing the cauldron and
the spits, cried:
"We are certainly going to
be either roasted or boiled. Ah! what would Master Pangloss say, were he to see
how pure nature is formed? Everything is right, may be, but I declare it is
very hard to have lost Miss Cunegonde and to be put upon a spit by Oreillons."
Cacambo never lost his head.
"Do not despair," said
he to the disconsolate Candide, "I understand a little of the jargon of
these people, I will speak to them."
"Be sure," said
Candide, "to represent to them how frightfully inhuman it is to cook men,
and how very un-Christian."
"Gentlemen," said
Cacambo, "you reckon you are to-day going to feast upon a Jesuit. It is
all very well, nothing is more unjust than thus to treat your enemies. Indeed,
the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbour, and such is the practice
all over the world. If we do not accustom ourselves to eating them, it is
because we have better fare. But you have not the same resources as we;
certainly it is much better to devour your enemies than to resign to the crows
and rooks the fruits of your victory. But, gentlemen, surely you would not
choose to eat your friends. You believe that you are going to spit a Jesuit,
and he is your defender. It is the enemy of your enemies that you are going to
roast. As for myself, I was born in your country; this gentleman is my master,
and, far from being a Jesuit, he has just killed one, whose spoils he wears;
and thence comes your mistake. To convince you of the truth of what I say, take
his habit and carry it to the first barrier of the Jesuit kingdom, and inform
yourselves whether my master did not kill a Jesuit officer. It will not take
you long, and you can always eat us if you find that I have lied to you. But I
have told you the truth. You are too well acquainted with the principles of
public law, humanity, and justice not to pardon us."
The Oreillons found this speech
very reasonable. They deputed two of their principal people with all expedition
to inquire into the truth of the matter; these executed their commission like
men of sense, and soon returned with good news. The Oreillons untied their
prisoners, showed them all sorts of civilities, offered them girls, gave them
refreshment, and reconducted them to the confines of their territories,
proclaiming with great joy:
"He is no Jesuit! He is no
Jesuit!"
Candide could not help being surprised
at the cause of his deliverance.
"What people!" said he;
"what men! what manners! If I had not been so lucky as to run Miss
Cunegonde's brother through the body, I should have been devoured without
redemption. But, after all, pure nature is good, since these people, instead of
feasting upon my flesh, have shown me a thousand civilities, when then I was
not a Jesuit."
XVII
ARRIVAL OF CANDIDE AND HIS VALET
AT EL DORADO, AND WHAT THEY SAW THERE.
"You see," said Cacambo
to Candide, as soon as they had reached the frontiers of the Oreillons,
"that this hemisphere is not better than the others, take my word for it;
let us go back to Europe by the shortest way."
"How go back?" said
Candide, "and where shall we go? to my own country? The Bulgarians and the
Abares are slaying all; to Portugal? there I shall be burnt; and if we abide
here we are every moment in danger of being spitted. But how can I resolve to
quit a part of the world where my dear Cunegonde resides?"
"Let us turn towards
Cayenne," said Cacambo, "there we shall find Frenchmen, who wander
all over the world; they may assist us; God will perhaps have pity on us."
It was not easy to get to
Cayenne; they knew vaguely in which direction to go, but rivers, precipices,
robbers, savages, obstructed them all the way. Their horses died of fatigue.
Their provisions were consumed; they fed a whole month upon wild fruits, and
found themselves at last near a little river bordered with cocoa trees, which
sustained their lives and their hopes.
Cacambo, who was as good a
counsellor as the old woman, said to Candide:
"We are able to hold out no
longer; we have walked enough. I see an empty canoe near the river-side; let us
fill it with cocoanuts, throw ourselves into it, and go with the current; a
river always leads to some inhabited spot. If we do not find pleasant things we
shall at least find new things."
"With all my heart,"
said Candide, "let us recommend ourselves to Providence."
They rowed a few leagues, between
banks, in some places flowery, in others barren; in some parts smooth, in
others rugged. The stream ever widened, and at length lost itself under an arch
of frightful rocks which reached to the sky. The two travellers had the courage
to commit themselves to the current. The river, suddenly contracting at this
place, whirled 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. For a league they had to creep from rock to rock,
until at length they discovered an extensive plain, bounded by inaccessible
mountains. The country was cultivated as much for pleasure as for necessity. On
all sides the useful was also the beautiful. The roads were covered, or rather
adorned, with carriages of a glittering form and substance, in which were men
and women of surprising beauty, drawn by large red sheep which surpassed in
fleetness the finest coursers of Andalusia, Tetuan, and Mequinez.
"Here, however, is a
country," said Candide, "which is better than Westphalia."
He stepped out with Cacambo
towards the first village which he saw. Some children dressed in tattered
brocades played at quoits on the outskirts. Our travellers from the other world
amused themselves by looking on. The quoits were large round pieces, yellow,
red, and green, which cast a singular lustre! The travellers picked a few of
them off the ground; this was of gold, that of emeralds, the other of
rubies—the least of them would have been the greatest ornament on the Mogul's
throne.
"Without doubt," said
Cacambo, "these children must be the king's sons that are playing at
quoits!"
The village schoolmaster appeared
at this moment and called them to school.
"There," said Candide,
"is the preceptor of the royal family."
The little truants immediately
quitted their game, leaving the quoits on the ground with all their other playthings.
Candide gathered them up, ran to the master, and presented them to him in a
most humble manner, giving him to understand by signs that their royal
highnesses had forgotten their gold and jewels. The schoolmaster, smiling,
flung them upon the ground; then, looking at Candide with a good deal of
surprise, went about his business.
The travellers, however, took
care to gather up the gold, the rubies, and the emeralds.
"Where are we?" cried
Candide. "The king's children in this country must be well brought up,
since they are taught to despise gold and precious stones."
Cacambo was as much surprised as
Candide. At length they drew near the first house in the village. It was built
like an European palace. A crowd of people pressed about the door, and there
were still more in the house. They heard most agreeable music, and were aware
of a delicious odour of cooking. Cacambo went up to the door and heard they
were talking Peruvian; it was his mother tongue, for it is well known that
Cacambo was born in Tucuman, in a village where no other language was spoken.
"I will be your interpreter
here," said he to Candide; "let us go in, it is a public-house."
Immediately two waiters and two
girls, dressed in cloth of gold, and their hair tied up with ribbons, invited
them to sit down to table with the landlord. They served four dishes of soup,
each garnished with two young parrots; a boiled condor which weighed two
hundred pounds; two roasted monkeys, of excellent flavour; three hundred
humming-birds in one dish, and six hundred fly-birds in another; exquisite
ragouts; delicious pastries; the whole served up in dishes of a kind of
rock-crystal. The waiters and girls poured out several liqueurs drawn from the
sugar-cane.
Most of the company were chapmen
and waggoners, all extremely polite; they asked Cacambo a few questions with
the greatest circumspection, and answered his in the most obliging manner.
As soon as dinner was over,
Cacambo believed as well as Candide that they might well pay their reckoning by
laying down two of those large gold pieces which they had picked up. The
landlord and landlady shouted with laughter and held their sides. When the fit
was over:
"Gentlemen," said the
landlord, "it is plain you are strangers, and such guests we are not
accustomed to see; pardon us therefore for laughing when you offered us the
pebbles from our highroads in payment of your reckoning. You doubtless have not
the money of the country; but it is not necessary to have any money at all to
dine in this house. All hostelries established for the convenience of commerce
are paid by the government. You have fared but very indifferently because this
is a poor village; but everywhere else, you will be received as you
deserve."
Cacambo explained this whole discourse
with great astonishment to Candide, who was as greatly astonished to hear it.
"What sort of a country then
is this," said they to one another; "a country unknown to all the
rest of the world, and where nature is of a kind so different from ours? It is
probably the country where all is well; for there absolutely must be one such
place. And, whatever Master Pangloss might say, I often found that things went
very ill in Westphalia."Pg 0
XVIII
WHAT THEY SAW IN THE COUNTRY OF
EL DORADO.
Cacambo expressed his curiosity
to the landlord, who made answer:
"I am very ignorant, but not
the worse on that account. However, we have in this neighbourhood an old man
retired from Court who is the most learned and most communicative person in the
kingdom."
At once he took Cacambo to the
old man. Candide acted now only a second character, and accompanied his valet.
They entered a very plain house, for the door was only of silver, and the
ceilings were only of gold, but wrought in so elegant a taste as to vie with
the richest. The antechamber, indeed, was only encrusted with rubies and
emeralds, but the order in which everything was arranged 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 liqueurs in diamond goblets; after which he
satisfied their curiosity in the following terms:
"I am now one hundred and
seventy-two years old, and I learnt of my late father, Master of the Horse to
the King, the amazing revolutions of Peru, of which he had been an eyewitness.
The kingdom we now inhabit is the ancient country of the Incas, who quitted it
very imprudently to conquer another part of the world, and were at length
destroyed by the Spaniards.
"More wise by far were the
princes of their family, who remained in their native country; and they
ordained, with the consent of the whole nation, that none of the inhabitants
should ever be permitted to quit this little kingdom; and this has preserved
our innocence and happiness. The Spaniards have had a confused notion of this
country, and have called it El Dorado; and an Englishman, whose name was Sir
Walter Raleigh, came very near it about a hundred years ago; but being
surrounded by inaccessible rocks and precipices, we have hitherto been
sheltered from the rapaciousness of European nations, who have an inconceivable
passion for the pebbles and dirt of our land, for the sake of which they would
murder us to the last man."
The conversation was long: it
turned chiefly on their form of government, their manners, their women, their
public entertainments, and the arts. At length Candide, having always had a
taste for metaphysics, made Cacambo ask whether there was any religion in that
country.
The old man reddened a little.
"How then," said he,
"can you doubt it? Do you take us for ungrateful wretches?"
Cacambo humbly asked, "What
was the religion in El Dorado?"
The old man reddened again.
"Can there be two
religions?" said he. "We have, I believe, the religion of all the
world: we worship God night and morning."
"Do you worship but one
God?" said Cacambo, who still acted as interpreter in representing
Candide's doubts.
"Surely," said the old
man, "there are not two, nor three, nor four. I must confess the people
from your side of the world ask very extraordinary questions."
Candide was not yet tired of
interrogating the good old man; he wanted to know in what manner they prayed to
God in El Dorado.
"We do not pray to
Him," said the worthy sage; "we have nothing to ask of Him; He has
given us all we need, and we return Him thanks without ceasing."
Candide having a curiosity to see
the priests asked where they were. The good old man smiled.
"My friend," said he,
"we are all priests. The King and all the heads of families sing solemn
canticles of thanksgiving every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand
musicians."
"What! have you no monks who
teach, who dispute, who govern, who cabal, and who burn people that are not of
their opinion?"
"We must be mad, indeed, if
that were the case," said the old man; "here we are all of one
opinion, and we know not what you mean by monks."
During this whole discourse
Candide was in raptures, and he said to himself:
"This is vastly different
from Westphalia and the Baron's castle. Had our friend Pangloss seen El Dorado
he would no longer have said that the castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh was the
finest upon earth. It is evident that one must travel."
After this long conversation the
old man ordered a coach and six sheep to be got ready, and twelve of his
domestics to conduct the travellers to Court.
"Excuse me," said he,
"if my age deprives me of the honour of accompanying you. The King will
receive you in a manner that cannot displease you; and no doubt you will make
an allowance for the customs of the country, if some things should not be to
your liking."
Candide and Cacambo got into the
coach, the six sheep flew, and in less than four hours they reached the King's
palace situated at the extremity of the capital. The portal was two hundred and
twenty feet high, and one hundred wide; but words are wanting to express the
materials of which it was built. It is plain such materials must have
prodigious superiority over those pebbles and sand which we call gold and
precious stones.
Twenty beautiful damsels of the
King's guard received Candide and Cacambo as they alighted from the coach,
conducted them to the bath, and dressed them in robes woven of the down of
humming-birds; after which the great crown officers, of both sexes, led them to
the King's apartment, between two files of musicians, a thousand on each side.
When they drew near to the audience chamber Cacambo asked one of the great
officers in what way he should pay his obeisance to his Majesty; whether they
should throw themselves upon their knees or on their stomachs; whether they
should put their hands upon their heads or behind their backs; whether they
should lick the dust off the floor; in a word, what was the ceremony?
"The custom," said the
great officer, "is to embrace the King, and to kiss him on each cheek."
Candide and Cacambo threw
themselves round his Majesty's neck. He received them with all the goodness
imaginable, and politely invited them to supper.
While waiting they were shown the
city, and saw the public edifices raised as high as the clouds, the market
places ornamented with a thousand columns, the fountains of spring water, those
of rose water, those of liqueurs drawn from sugar-cane, incessantly flowing
into the great squares, which were paved with a kind of precious stone, which
gave off a delicious fragrancy like that of cloves and cinnamon. Candide asked
to see the court of justice, the parliament. They told him they had none, and
that they were strangers to lawsuits. He asked if they had any prisons, and
they answered no. But what surprised him most and gave him the greatest
pleasure was the palace of sciences, where he saw a gallery two thousand feet
long, and filled with instruments employed in mathematics and physics.
After rambling about the city the
whole afternoon, and seeing but a thousandth part of it, they were reconducted
to the royal palace, where Candide sat down to table with his Majesty, his
valet Cacambo, and several ladies. Never was there a better entertainment, and
never was more wit shown at a table than that which fell from his Majesty.
Cacambo explained the King's bon-mots to Candide, and notwithstanding they were
translated they still appeared to be bon-mots. Of all the things that surprised
Candide this was not the least.
They spent a month in this
hospitable place. Candide frequently said to Cacambo:
"I own, my friend, once more
that the castle where I was born is nothing in comparison with this; but, after
all, Miss Cunegonde is not here, and you have, without doubt, some mistress in
Europe. If we abide here we shall only be upon a footing with the rest,
whereas, if we return to our old world, only with twelve sheep laden with the
pebbles of El Dorado, we shall be richer than all the kings in Europe. We shall
have no more Inquisitors to fear, and we may easily recover Miss
Cunegonde."
This speech was agreeable to
Cacambo; mankind are so fond of roving, of making a figure in their own
country, and of boasting of what they have seen in their travels, that the two
happy ones resolved to be no longer so, but to ask his Majesty's leave to quit
the country.
"You are foolish," said
the King. "I am sensible that my kingdom is but a small place, but when a
person is comfortably settled in any part he should abide there. I have not the
right to detain strangers. It is a tyranny which neither our manners nor our
laws permit. All men are free. Go when you wish, but the going will be very
difficult. It is impossible to ascend that rapid river on which you came as by
a miracle, and which runs under vaulted rocks. The mountains which surround my
kingdom are ten thousand feet high, and as steep as walls; they are each over
ten leagues in breadth, and there is no other way to descend them than by
precipices. However, since you absolutely wish to depart, I shall give orders
to my engineers to construct a machine that will convey you very safely. When
we have conducted you over the mountains no one can accompany you further, for
my subjects have made a vow never to quit the kingdom, and they are too wise to
break it. Ask me besides anything that you please."
"We desire nothing of your
Majesty," says Candide, "but a few sheep laden with provisions,
pebbles, and the earth of this country."
The King laughed.
"I cannot conceive,"
said he, "what pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay, but take as
much as you like, and great good may it do you."
At once he gave directions that
his engineers should construct a machine to hoist up these two extraordinary
men out of the kingdom. Three thousand good mathematicians went to work; it was
ready in fifteen days, and did not cost more than twenty million sterling in
the specie of that country. They placed Candide and Cacambo on the machine.
There were two great red sheep saddled and bridled to ride upon as soon as they
were beyond the mountains, twenty pack-sheep laden with provisions, thirty with
presents of the curiosities of the country, and fifty with gold, diamonds, and
precious stones. The King embraced the two wanderers very tenderly.
Their departure, with the
ingenious manner in which they and their sheep were hoisted over the mountains,
was a splendid spectacle. The mathematicians took their leave after conveying
them to a place of safety, and Candide had no other desire, no other aim, than
to present his sheep to Miss Cunegonde.
"Now," said he,
"we are able to pay the Governor of Buenos Ayres if Miss Cunegonde can be
ransomed. Let us journey towards Cayenne. Let us embark, and we will afterwards
see what kingdom we shall be able to purchase."
XIX
WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM AT SURINAM
AND HOW CANDIDE GOT ACQUAINTED WITH MARTIN.
Our travellers spent the first
day very agreeably. They were delighted with possessing more treasure than all
Asia, Europe, and Africa could scrape together. Candide, in his raptures, cut
Cunegonde's name on the trees. The second day two of their sheep plunged into a
morass, where they and their burdens were lost; two more died of fatigue a few days
after; seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others subsequently
fell down precipices. At length, after travelling a hundred days, only two
sheep remained. Said Candide to Cacambo:
"My friend, you see how
perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue, and
the happiness of seeing Cunegonde once more."
"I grant all you say,"
said Cacambo, "but we have still two sheep remaining, with more treasure
than the King of Spain will ever have; and I see a town which I take to be
Surinam, belongingPg 0 to the Dutch. We are at the end of all our troubles, and
at the beginning of happiness."
As they drew near the town, they
saw a negro stretched upon the ground, with only one moiety of his clothes,
that is, of his blue linen drawers; the poor man had lost his left leg and his
right hand.
"Good God!" said
Candide in Dutch, "what art thou doing there, friend, in that shocking
condition?"
"I am waiting for my master,
Mynheer Vanderdendur, the famous merchant," answered the negro.
"Was it Mynheer
Vanderdendur," said Candide, "that treated thee thus?"
"Yes, sir," said the
negro, "it is the custom. They give us a pair of linen drawers for our
whole garment twice a year. When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill
snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run
away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me. This is the price
at which you eat sugar in Europe. Yet when my mother sold me for ten patagons0
on the coast of Guinea, she said to me: 'My dear child, bless our fetiches,
adore them for ever; they will make thee live happily; thou hast the honour of
being the slave of our lords, the whites, which is making the fortune of thy
father and mother.' Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes; this I
know, that they have not made mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand
times less wretched than I. The Dutch fetiches, who have converted me, declare
every Sunday that we are all of us children of Adam—blacks as well as whites. I
am not a genealogist, but if these preachers tell truth, we are all second cousins.
Now, you must agree, that it is impossible to treat one's relations in a more
barbarous manner."
"Oh, Pangloss!" cried
Candide, "thou hadst not guessed at this abomination; it is the end. I
must at last renounce thy optimism."
"What is this optimism?"
said Cacambo.
"Alas!" said Candide,
"it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is
wrong."
Looking at the negro, he shed
tears, and weeping, he entered Surinam.
The first thing they inquired
after was whether there was a vessel in the harbour which could be sent to
Buenos Ayres. The person to whom they applied was a Spanish sea-captain, who
offered to agree with them upon reasonable terms. He appointed to meet them at
a public-house, whither Candide and the faithful Cacambo went with their two
sheep, and awaited his coming.
Candide, who had his heart upon
his lips, told the Spaniard all his adventures, and avowed that he intended to
elope with Miss Cunegonde.
"Then I will take good care
not to carry you to Buenos Ayres," said the seaman. "I should be
hanged, and so would you. The fair Cunegonde is my lord's favourite
mistress."
This was a thunderclap for
Candide: he wept for a long while. At last he drew Cacambo aside.
"Here, my dear friend,"
said he to him, "this thou must do. We have, each of us in his pocket,
five or six millions in diamonds; you are more clever than I; you must go and
bring Miss Cunegonde from Buenos Ayres. If the Governor makes any difficulty,
give him a million; if he will not relinquish her, give him two; as you have
not killed an Inquisitor, they will have no suspicion of you; I'll get another
ship, and go and wait for you at Venice; that's a free country, where there is
no danger either from Bulgarians, Abares, Jews, or Inquisitors."
Cacambo applauded this wise
resolution. He despaired at parting from so good a master, who had become his
intimate friend; but the pleasure of serving him prevailed over the pain of
leaving him. They embraced with tears; Candide charged him not to forget the
good old woman. Cacambo set out that very same day. This Cacambo was a very
honest fellow.
Candide stayed some time longer
in Surinam, waiting for another captain to carry him and the two remaining
sheep to Italy. After he had hired domestics, and purchased everything
necessary for a long voyage, Mynheer Vanderdendur, captain of a large vessel,
came and offered his services.
"How much will you
charge," said he to this man, "to carry me straight to Venice—me, my
servants, my baggage, and these two sheep?"
The skipper asked ten thousand
piastres. Candide did not hesitate.
"Oh! oh!" said the
prudent Vanderdendur to himself, "this stranger gives ten thousand
piastres unhesitatingly! He must be very rich."
Returning a little while after,
he let him know that upon second consideration, he could not undertake the
voyage for less than twenty thousand piastres.
"Well, you shall have
them," said Candide.
"Ay!" said the skipper
to himself, "this man agrees to pay twenty thousand piastres with as much
ease as ten."
He went back to him again, and
declared that he could not carry him to Venice for less than thirty thousand
piastres.
"Then you shall have thirty
thousand," replied Candide.
"Oh! oh!" said the Dutch
skipper once more to himself, "thirty thousand piastres are a trifle to
this man; surely these sheep must be laden with an immense treasure; let us say
no more about it. First of all, let him pay down the thirty thousand piastres;
then we shall see."
Candide sold two small diamonds,
the least of which was worth more than what the skipper asked for his freight.
He paid him in advance. The two sheep were put on board. Candide followed in a
little boat to join the vessel in the roads. The skipper seized his
opportunity, set sail, and put out to sea, the wind favouring him. Candide,
dismayed and stupefied, soon lost sight of the vessel.
"Alas!" said he,
"this is a trick worthy of the old world!"
He put back, overwhelmed with
sorrow, for indeed he had lost sufficient to make the fortune of twenty
monarchs. He waited upon the Dutch magistrate, and in his distress he knocked
over loudly at the door. He entered and told his adventure, raising his voice
with unnecessary vehemence. The magistrate began by fining him ten thousand
piastres for making a noise; then he listened patiently, promised to examine
into his affair at the skipper's return, and ordered him to pay ten thousand
piastres for the expense of the hearing.
This drove Candide to despair; he
had, indeed, endured misfortunes a thousand times worse; the coolness of the
magistrate and of the skipper who had robbed him, roused his choler and flung
him into a deep melancholy. The villainy of mankind presented itself before his
imagination in all its deformity, and his mind was filled with gloomy ideas. At
length hearing that a French vessel was ready to set sail for Bordeaux, as he
had no sheep laden with diamonds to take along with him he hired a cabin at the
usual price. He made it known in the town that he would pay the passage and
board and give two thousand piastres to any honest man who would make the
voyage with him, upon condition that this man was the most dissatisfied with
his state, and the most unfortunate in the whole province.
Such a crowd of candidates
presented themselves that a fleet of ships could hardly have held them. Candide
being desirous of selecting from among the best, marked out about one-twentieth
of them who seemed to be sociable men, and who all pretended to merit his
preference. He assembled them at his inn, and gave them a supper on condition
that each took an oath to relate his history faithfully, promising to choose
him who appeared to be most justly discontented with his state, and to bestow
some presents upon the rest.
They sat until four o'clock in
the morning. Candide, in listening to all their adventures, was reminded of
what the old woman had said to him in their voyage to Buenos Ayres, and of her
wager that there was not a person on board the ship but had met with very great
misfortunes. He dreamed of Pangloss at every adventure told to him.
"This Pangloss," said
he, "would be puzzled to demonstrate his system. I wish that he were here.
Certainly, if all things are good, it is in El Dorado and not in the rest of
the world."
At length he made choice of a
poor man of letters, who had worked ten years for the booksellers of Amsterdam.
He judged that there was not in the whole world a trade which could disgust one
more.
This philosopher was an honest
man; but he had been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and abandoned by
his daughter who got a Portuguese to run away with her. He had just been
deprived of a small employment, on which he subsisted; and he was persecuted by
the preachers of Surinam, who took him for a Socinian. We must allow that the
others were at least as wretched as he; but Candide hoped that the philosopher
would entertain him during the voyage. All the other candidates complained that
Candide had done them great injustice; but he appeased them by giving one
hundred piastres to each.
XX
WHAT HAPPENED AT SEA TO CANDIDE
AND MARTIN.
The old philosopher, whose name
was Martin, embarked then with Candide for Bordeaux. They had both seen and
suffered a great deal; and if the vessel had sailed from Surinam to Japan, by
the Cape of Good Hope, the subject of moral and natural evil would have enabled
them to entertain one another during the whole voyage.
Candide, however, had one great
advantage over Martin, in that he always hoped to see Miss Cunegonde; whereas
Martin had nothing at all to hope. Besides, Candide was possessed of money and
jewels, and though he had lost one hundred large red sheep, laden with the
greatest treasure upon earth; though the knavery of the Dutch skipper still sat
heavy upon his mind; yet when he reflected upon what he had still left, and
when he mentioned the name of Cunegonde, especially towards the latter end of a
repast, he inclined to Pangloss's doctrine.
"But you, Mr. Martin,"
said he to the philosopher, "what do you think of all this? what are your
ideas on moral and natural evil?"
"Sir," answered Martin,
"our priests accused me of being a Socinian, but the real fact is I am a
Manichean."
"You jest," said
Candide; "there are no longer Manicheans in the world."
"I am one," said
Martin. "I cannot help it; I know not how to think otherwise."
"Surely you must be
possessed by the devil," said Candide.
"He is so deeply concerned
in the affairs of this world," answered Martin, "that he may very
well be in me, as well as in everybody else; but I own to you that when I cast
an eye on this globe, or rather on this little ball, I cannot help thinking
that God has abandoned it to some malignant being. I except, always, El Dorado.
I scarcely ever knew a city that did not desire the destruction of a
neighbouring city, nor a family that did not wish to exterminate some other
family. Everywhere the weak execrate the powerful, before whom they cringe; and
the powerful beat them like sheep whose wool and flesh they sell. A million
regimented assassins, from one extremity of Europe to the other, get their
bread by disciplined depredation and murder, for want of more honest
employment. Even in those cities which seem to enjoy peace, andPg 00 where the
arts flourish, the inhabitants are devoured by more envy, care, and uneasiness
than are experienced by a besieged town. Secret griefs are more cruel than
public calamities. In a word I have seen so much, and experienced so much that
I am a Manichean."
"There are, however, some
things good," said Candide.
"That may be," said
Martin; "but I know them not."
In the middle of this dispute
they heard the report of cannon; it redoubled every instant. Each took out his
glass. They saw two ships in close fight about three miles off. The wind
brought both so near to the French vessel that our travellers had the pleasure
of seeing the fight at their ease. At length one let off a broadside, so low
and so truly aimed, that the other sank to the bottom. Candide and Martin could
plainly perceive a hundred men on the deck of the sinking vessel; they raised
their hands to heaven and uttered terrible outcries, and the next moment were swallowed
up by the sea.
"Well," said Martin,
"this is how men treat one another."
"It is true," said
Candide; "there is something diabolical in this affair."
While speaking, he saw he knew
not what, of a shining red, swimming close to the vessel.Pg 0 They put out the
long-boat to see what it could be: it was one of his sheep! Candide was more
rejoiced at the recovery of this one sheep than he had been grieved at the loss
of the hundred laden with the large diamonds of El Dorado.
The French captain soon saw that
the captain of the victorious vessel was a Spaniard, and that the other was a
Dutch pirate, and the very same one who had robbed Candide. The immense plunder
which this villain had amassed, was buried with him in the sea, and out of the
whole only one sheep was saved.
"You see," said Candide
to Martin, "that crime is sometimes punished. This rogue of a Dutch
skipper has met with the fate he deserved."
"Yes," 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 course, and Candide continued his conversation with Martin.
They disputed fifteen successive days, and on the last of those fifteen days,
they were as far advanced as on the first. But, however, they chatted, they
communicated ideas, they consoled each other. Candide caressed his sheep.
"Since I have found thee
again," said he, "I may likewise chance to find my Cunegonde."Pg
0
XXI
CANDIDE AND MARTIN, REASONING,
DRAW NEAR THE COAST OF FRANCE.
At length they descried the coast
of France.
"Were you ever in France,
Mr. Martin?" said Candide.
"Yes," said Martin,
"I have been in several provinces. In some one-half of the people are
fools, in others they are too cunning; in some they are weak and simple, in
others they affect to be witty; in all, the principal occupation is love, the
next is slander, and the third is talking nonsense."
"But, Mr. Martin, have you
seen Paris?"
"Yes, I have. All these
kinds are found there. It is a chaos—a confused multitude, where everybody
seeks pleasure and scarcely any one finds it, at least as it appeared to me. I
made a short stay there. On my arrival I was robbed of all I had by pickpockets
at the fair of St. Germain. I myself was taken for a robber and was imprisoned
for eight days, after which I served as corrector of the press to gain the
money necessary for my return to Holland on foot. IPg 0 knew the whole
scribbling rabble, the party rabble, the fanatic rabble. It is said that there
are very polite people in that city, and I wish to believe it."
"For my part, I have no
curiosity to see France," said Candide. "You may easily imagine that
after spending a month at El Dorado I can desire to behold nothing upon earth
but Miss Cunegonde. I go to await her at Venice. We shall pass through France
on our way to Italy. Will you bear me company?"
"With all my heart,"
said Martin. "It is said that Venice is fit only for its own nobility, but
that strangers meet with a very good reception if they have a good deal of
money. I have none of it; you have, therefore I will follow you all over the
world."
"But do you believe,"
said Candide, "that the earth was originally a sea, as we find it asserted
in that large book belonging to the captain?"
"I do not believe a word of
it," said Martin, "any more than I do of the many ravings which have
been published lately."
"But for what end, then, has
this world been formed?" said Candide.
"To plague us to
death," answered Martin.
"Are you not greatly
surprised," continued Candide, "at the love which these two girls ofPg
0 the Oreillons had for those monkeys, of which I have already told you?"
"Not at all," said
Martin. "I do not see that that passion was strange. I have seen so many
extraordinary things that I have ceased to be surprised."
"Do you believe," said
Candide, "that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day,
that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots,
thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious,
bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?"
"Do you believe," said
Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found
them?"
"Yes, without doubt,"
said Candide.
"Well, then," said
Martin, "if hawks have always had the same character why should you
imagine that men may have changed theirs?"
"Oh!" said Candide,
"there is a vast deal of difference, for free will——"
And reasoning thus they arrived
at Bordeaux.Pg 0
XXII
WHAT HAPPENED IN FRANCE TO
CANDIDE AND MARTIN.
Candide stayed in Bordeaux no
longer than was necessary for the selling of a few of the pebbles of El Dorado,
and for hiring a good chaise to hold two passengers; for he could not travel
without his Philosopher Martin. He was only vexed at parting with his sheep,
which he left to the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences, who set as a subject for
that year's prize, "to find why this sheep's wool was red;" and the
prize was awarded to a learned man of the North, who demonstrated by A plus B
minus C divided by Z, that the sheep must be red, and die of the rot.
Meanwhile, all the travellers
whom Candide met in the inns along his route, said to him, "We go to
Paris." This general eagerness at length gave him, too, a desire to see
this capital; and it was not so very great a détour from the road to Venice.
He entered Paris by the suburb of
St. Marceau,Pg 0 and fancied that he was in the dirtiest village of Westphalia.
Scarcely was Candide arrived at
his inn, than he found himself attacked by a slight illness, caused by fatigue.
As he had a very large diamond on his finger, and the people of the inn had
taken notice of a prodigiously heavy box among his baggage, there were two
physicians to attend him, though he had never sent for them, and two devotees
who warmed his broths.
"I remember," Martin
said, "also to have been sick at Paris in my first voyage; I was very
poor, thus I had neither friends, devotees, nor doctors, and I recovered."
However, what with physic and
bleeding, Candide's illness became serious. A parson of the neighborhood came
with great meekness to ask for a bill for the other world payable to the
bearer. Candide would do nothing for him; but the devotees assured him it was
the new fashion. He answered that he was not a man of fashion. Martin wished to
throw the priest out of the window. The priest swore that they would not bury
Candide. Martin swore that he would bury the priest if he continued to be
troublesome. The quarrel grew heated. Martin took him by the shoulders and
roughly turned him out of doors; which occasioned great scandal and a law-suit.Pg
0
Candide got well again, and
during his convalescence he had very good company to sup with him. They played
high. Candide wondered why it was that the ace never came to him; but Martin
was not at all astonished.
Among those who did him the
honours of the town was a little Abbé of Perigord, one of those busybodies who
are ever alert, officious, forward, fawning, and complaisant; who watch for
strangers in their passage through the capital, tell them the scandalous
history of the town, and offer them pleasure at all prices. He first took
Candide and Martin to La Comédie, where they played a new tragedy. Candide
happened to be seated near some of the fashionable wits. This did not prevent
his shedding tears at the well-acted scenes. One of these critics at his side
said to him between the acts:
"Your tears are misplaced;
that is a shocking actress; the actor who plays with her is yet worse; and the
play is still worse than the actors. The author does not know a word of Arabic,
yet the scene is in Arabia; moreover he is a man that does not believe in
innate ideas; and I will bring you, to-morrow, twenty pamphlets written against
him."
"How many dramas have you in
France, sir?" said Candide to the Abbé.
"Five or six thousand."Pg
0
"What a number!" said
Candide. "How many good?"
"Fifteen or sixteen,"
replied the other.
"What a number!" said
Martin.
Candide was very pleased with an
actress who played Queen Elizabeth in a somewhat insipid tragedy sometimes
acted.
"That actress," said he
to Martin, "pleases me much; she has a likeness to Miss Cunegonde; I
should be very glad to wait upon her."
The Perigordian Abbé offered to
introduce him. Candide, brought up in Germany, asked what was the etiquette,
and how they treated queens of England in France.
"It is necessary to make
distinctions," said the Abbé. "In the provinces one takes them to the
inn; in Paris, one respects them when they are beautiful, and throws them on
the highway when they are dead."
"Queens on the
highway!" said Candide.
"Yes, truly," said
Martin, "the Abbé is right. I was in Paris when Miss Monime passed, as the
saying is, from this life to the other. She was refused what people call the
honours of sepulture—that is to say, of rotting with all the beggars of the
neighbourhood in an ugly cemetery; she was interred all alone by her company at
the corner of the Rue de Bourgogne, whichPg 0 ought to trouble her much, for
she thought nobly."
"That was very
uncivil," said Candide.
"What would you have?"
said Martin; "these people are made thus. Imagine all contradictions, all
possible incompatibilities—you will find them in the government, in the
law-courts, in the churches, in the public shows of this droll nation."
"Is it true that they always
laugh in Paris?" said Candide.
"Yes," said the Abbé,
"but it means nothing, for they complain of everything with great fits of
laughter; they even do the most detestable things while laughing."
"Who," said Candide,
"is that great pig who spoke so ill of the piece at which I wept, and of
the actors who gave me so much pleasure?"
"He is a bad
character," answered the Abbé, "who gains his livelihood by saying
evil of all plays and of all books. He hates whatever succeeds, as the eunuchs
hate those who enjoy; he is one of the serpents of literature who nourish
themselves on dirt and spite; he is a folliculaire."
"What is a
folliculaire?" said Candide.
"It is," said the Abbé,
"a pamphleteer—a Fréron."
Thus Candide, Martin, and the
PerigordianPg 0 conversed on the staircase, while watching every one go out
after the performance.
"Although I am eager to see
Cunegonde again," said Candide, "I should like to sup with Miss
Clairon, for she appears to me admirable."
The Abbé was not the man to
approach Miss Clairon, who saw only good company.
"She is engaged for this
evening," he said, "but I shall have the honour to take you to the
house of a lady of quality, and there you will know Paris as if you had lived
in it for years."
Candide, who was naturally
curious, let himself be taken to this lady's house, at the end of the Faubourg
St. Honoré. The company was occupied in playing faro; a dozen melancholy
punters held each in his hand a little pack of cards; a bad record of his
misfortunes. Profound silence reigned; pallor was on the faces of the punters,
anxiety on that of the banker, and the hostess, sitting near the unpitying
banker, noticed with lynx-eyes all the doubled and other increased stakes, as
each player dog's-eared his cards; she made them turn down the edges again with
severe, but polite attention; she showed no vexation for fear of losing her
customers. The lady insisted upon being called the Marchioness of Parolignac.
Her daughter, aged fifteen, was among the punters, and notified with a covert
glance the cheatings of the poor people who tried to repair the cruelties of
fate. The Perigordian Abbé, Candide and Martin entered; no one rose, no one
saluted them, no one looked at them; all were profoundly occupied with their
cards.
"The Baroness of
Thunder-ten-Tronckh was more polite," said Candide.
However, the Abbé whispered to
the Marchioness, who half rose, honoured Candide with a gracious smile, and
Martin with a condescending nod; she gave a seat and a pack of cards to
Candide, who lost fifty thousand francs in two deals, after which they supped
very gaily, and every one was astonished that Candide was not moved by his
loss; the servants said among themselves, in the language of servants:—
"Some English lord is here
this evening."
The supper passed at first like
most Parisian suppers, in silence, followed by a noise of words which could not
be distinguished, then with pleasantries of which most were insipid, with false
news, with bad reasoning, a little politics, and much evil speaking; they also
discussed new books.
"Have you seen," said
the Perigordian Abbé, "the romance of Sieur Gauchat, doctor of
divinity?"
"Yes," answered one of
the guests, "but I have not been able to finish it. We have a crowd of
silly writings, but all together do not approach the impertinence of 'Gauchat,
Doctor of Divinity.' I am so satiated with the great number of detestable books
with which we are inundated that I am reduced to punting at faro."
"And the Mélanges of
Archdeacon Trublet, what do you say of that?" said the Abbé.
"Ah!" said the
Marchioness of Parolignac, "the wearisome mortal! How curiously he repeats
to you all that the world knows! How heavily he discusses that which is not
worth the trouble of lightly remarking upon! How, without wit, he appropriates
the wit of others! How he spoils what he steals! How he disgusts me! But he
will disgust me no longer—it is enough to have read a few of the Archdeacon's
pages."
There was at table a wise man of
taste, who supported the Marchioness. They spoke afterwards of tragedies; the
lady asked why there were tragedies which were sometimes played and which could
not be read. The man of taste explained very well how a piece could have some
interest, and have almost no merit; he proved in few words that it was not
enough to introduce one or two of those situations which one finds in all
romances, and which always seduce the spectator, but that it was necessary to
be new without being odd, often sublime and always natural, to know the human
heart and to make it speak; to be a great poet without allowing any person in
the piece to appear to be a poet; to know language perfectly—to speak it with
purity, with continuous harmony and without rhythm ever taking anything from
sense.
"Whoever," added he,
"does not observe all these rules can produce one or two tragedies,
applauded at a theatre, but he will never be counted in the ranks of good
writers. There are very few good tragedies; some are idylls in dialogue, well
written and well rhymed, others political reasonings which lull to sleep, or
amplifications which repel; others demoniac dreams in barbarous style,
interrupted in sequence, with long apostrophes to the gods, because they do not
know how to speak to men, with false maxims, with bombastic commonplaces!"
Candide listened with attention
to this discourse, and conceived a great idea of the speaker, and as the
Marchioness had taken care to place him beside her, he leaned towards her and
took the liberty of asking who was the man who had spoken so well.
"He is a scholar," said
the lady, "who does not play, whom the Abbé sometimes brings to supper; he
is perfectly at home among tragedies and books, and he has written a tragedy
which was hissed, and a book of which nothing has ever been seen outside his
bookseller's shop excepting the copy which he dedicated to me."
"The great man!" said
Candide. "He is another Pangloss!"
Then, turning towards him, he
said:
"Sir, you think doubtless
that all is for the best in the moral and physical world, and that nothing
could be otherwise than it is?"
"I, sir!" answered the
scholar, "I know nothing of all that; I find that all goes awry with me;
that no one knows either what is his rank, nor what is his condition, what he
does nor what he ought to do; and that except supper, which is always gay, and
where there appears to be enough concord, all the rest of the time is passed in
impertinent quarrels; Jansenist against Molinist, Parliament against the
Church, men of letters against men of letters, courtesans against courtesans,
financiers against the people, wives against husbands, relatives against
relatives—it is eternal war."
"I have seen the
worst," Candide replied. "But a wise man, who since has had the
misfortune to be hanged, taught me that all is marvellously well; these are but
the shadows on a beautiful picture."
"Your hanged man mocked the
world," said Martin. "The shadows are horrible blots."
"They are men who make the
blots," said Candide, "and they cannot be dispensed with."
"It is not their fault
then," said Martin.
Most of the punters, who
understood nothing of this language, drank, and Martin reasoned with the
scholar, and Candide related some of his adventures to his hostess.
After supper the Marchioness took
Candide into her boudoir, and made him sit upon a sofa.
"Ah, well!" said she to
him, "you love desperately Miss Cunegonde of Thunder-ten-Tronckh?"
"Yes, madame," answered
Candide.
The Marchioness replied to him
with a tender smile:
"You answer me like a young
man from Westphalia. A Frenchman would have said, 'It is true that I have loved
Miss Cunegonde, but seeing you, madame, I think I no longer love her.'"
"Alas! madame," said
Candide, "I will answer you as you wish."
"Your passion for her,"
said the Marchioness, "commenced by picking up her handkerchief. I wish
that you would pick up my garter."
"With all my heart,"
said Candide. And he picked it up.
"But I wish that you would
put it on," said the lady.
And Candide put it on.
"You see," said she,
"you are a foreigner. I sometimes make my Parisian lovers languish for
fifteen days, but I give myself to you the first night because one must do the
honours of one's country to a young man from Westphalia."
The lady having perceived two
enormous diamonds upon the hands of the young foreigner praised them with such
good faith that from Candide's fingers they passed to her own.
Candide, returning with the
Perigordian Abbé, felt some remorse in having been unfaithful to Miss
Cunegonde. The Abbé sympathised in his trouble; he had had but a light part of
the fifty thousand francs lost at play and of the value of the two brilliants,
half given, half extorted. His design was to profit as much as he could by the
advantages which the acquaintance of Candide could procure for him. He spoke
much of Cunegonde, and Candide told him that he should ask forgiveness of that
beautiful one for his infidelity when he should see her in Venice.
The Abbé redoubled his politeness
and attentions, and took a tender interest in all that Candide said, in all
that he did, in all that he wished to do.
"And so, sir, you have a
rendezvous at Venice?"
"Yes, monsieur Abbé,"
answered Candide. "It is absolutely necessary that I go to meet Miss
Cunegonde."
And then the pleasure of talking
of that which he loved induced him to relate, according to his custom, part of
his adventures with the fair Westphalian.
"I believe," said the
Abbé, "that Miss Cunegonde has a great deal of wit, and that she writes
charming letters?"
"I have never received any
from her," said Candide, "for being expelled from the castle on her
account I had not an opportunity for writing to her. Soon after that I heard
she was dead; then I found her alive; then I lost her again; and last of all, I
sent an express to her two thousand five hundred leagues from here, and I wait
for an answer."
The Abbé listened attentively,
and seemed to be in a brown study. He soon took his leave of the two foreigners
after a most tender embrace. The following day Candide received, on awaking, a
letter couched in these terms:
"My very dear love, for
eight days I have been ill in this town. I learn that you are here. I would fly
to your arms if I could but move. I was informed of your passage at Bordeaux,
where I left faithful Cacambo and the old woman, who are to follow me very
soon. The Governor of Buenos Ayres has taken all, but there remains to me your
heart. Come! your presence will either give me life or kill me with
pleasure."
This charming, this unhoped-for
letter transported Candide with an inexpressible joy, and the illness of his
dear Cunegonde overwhelmed him with grief. Divided between those two passions,
he took his gold and his diamonds and hurried away, with Martin, to the hotel
where Miss Cunegonde was lodged. He entered her room trembling, his heart
palpitating, his voice sobbing; he wished to open the curtains of the bed, and
asked for a light.
"Take care what you
do," said the servant-maid; "the light hurts her," and
immediately she drew the curtain again.
"My dear Cunegonde,"
said Candide, weeping, "how are you? If you cannot see me, at least speak
to me."
"She cannot speak,"
said the maid.
The lady then put a plump hand
out from the bed, and Candide bathed it with his tears and afterwards filled it
with diamonds, leaving a bag of gold upon the easy chair.
In the midst of these transports
in came an officer, followed by the Abbé and a file of soldiers.
"There," said he,
"are the two suspected foreigners," and at the same time he ordered
them to be seized and carried to prison.
"Travellers are not treated
thus in El Dorado," said Candide.
"I am more a Manichean now
than ever," said Martin.
"But pray, sir, where are
you going to carry us?" said Candide.
"To a dungeon,"
answered the officer.
Martin, having recovered himself
a little, judged that the lady who acted the part of Cunegonde was a cheat,
that the Perigordian Abbé was a knave who had imposed upon the honest
simplicity of Candide, and that the officer was another knave whom they might
easily silence.
Candide, advised by Martin and
impatient to see the real Cunegonde, rather than expose himself before a court
of justice, proposed to the officer to give him three small diamonds, each
worth about three thousand pistoles.
"Ah, sir," said the man
with the ivory baton, "had you committed all the imaginable crimes you
would be to me the most honest man in the world. Three diamonds! Each worth
three thousand pistoles! Sir, instead of carrying you to jail I would lose my
life to serve you. There are orders for arresting all foreigners, but leave it
to me. I have a brother at Dieppe in Normandy! I'll conduct you thither, and if
youPg 0 have a diamond to give him he'll take as much care of you as I
would."
"And why," said
Candide, "should all foreigners be arrested?"
"It is," the
Perigordian Abbé then made answer, "because a poor beggar of the country
of Atrébatie heard some foolish things said. This induced him to commit a
parricide, not such as that of 0 in the month of May, but such as that of in the month of December,0 and such as others
which have been committed in other years and other months by other poor devils
who had heard nonsense spoken."
The officer then explained what
the Abbé meant.
"Ah, the monsters!"
cried Candide. "What horrors among a people who dance and sing! Is there
no way of getting quickly out of this country where monkeys provoke tigers? I
have seen no bears in my country, but men I have beheld nowhere except in El
Dorado. In the name of God, sir, conduct me to Venice, where I am to await Miss
Cunegonde."
"I can conduct you no
further than lower Normandy," said the officer.
Immediately he ordered his irons
to be struck off, acknowledged himself mistaken, sent away his men, set out
with Candide and Martin for Dieppe, and left them in the care of his brother.
There was then a small Dutch ship
in the harbour. The Norman, who by the virtue of three more diamonds had become
the most subservient of men, put Candide and his attendants on board a vessel
that was just ready to set sail for Portsmouth in England.
This was not the way to Venice,
but Candide thought he had made his way out of hell, and reckoned that he would
soon have an opportunity for resuming his journey.
XXIII
CANDIDE AND MARTIN TOUCHED UPON
THE COAST OF ENGLAND, AND WHAT THEY SAW THERE.
"Ah, Pangloss! Pangloss! Ah,
Martin! Martin! Ah, my dear Cunegonde, what sort of a world is this?" said
Candide on board the Dutch ship.
"Something very foolish and
abominable," said Martin.
"You know England? Are they
as foolish there as in France?"
"It is another kind of
folly," said Martin. "You know that these two nations are at war for
a few acres of snow in Canada, and that they spend over this beautiful war much
more than Canada is worth. To tell you exactly, whether there are more people
fit to send to a madhouse in one country than the other, is what my imperfect
intelligence will not permit. I only know in general that the people we are
going to see are very atrabilious."
Talking thus they arrived at
Portsmouth. The coast was lined with crowds of people, whose eyes were fixed on
a fine man kneeling, with his eyes bandaged, on board one of the men of war in
the harbour. Four soldiers stood opposite to this man; each of them fired three
balls at his head, with all the calmness in the world; and the whole assembly
went away very well satisfied.
"What is all this?"
said Candide; "and what demon is it that exercises his empire in this
country?"
He then asked who was that fine
man who had been killed with so much ceremony. They answered, he was an
Admiral.
"And why kill this
Admiral?"
"It is because he did not
kill a sufficient number of men himself. He gave battle to a French Admiral;
and it has been proved that he was not near enough to him."
"But," replied Candide,
"the French Admiral was as far from the English Admiral."
"There is no doubt of it;
but in this country it is found good, from time to time, to kill one Admiral to
encourage the others."
Candide was so shocked and
bewildered by what he saw and heard, that he would not set foot on shore, and
he made a bargain with the Dutch skipper (were he even to rob him like the
Surinam captain) to conduct him without delay to Venice.
The skipper was ready in two
days. They coasted France; they passed in sight of Lisbon, and Candide
trembled. They passed through the Straits, and entered the Mediterranean. At
last they landed at Venice.
"God be praised!" said
Candide, embracing Martin. "It is here that I shall see again my beautiful
Cunegonde. I trust Cacambo as myself. All is well, all will be well, all goes
as well as possible."
XXIV
OF PAQUETTE AND FRIAR GIROFLÉE.
Upon their arrival at Venice,
Candide went to search for Cacambo at every inn and coffee-house, and among all
the ladies of pleasure, but to no purpose. He sent every day to inquire on all
the ships that came in. But there was no news of Cacambo.
"What!" said he to
Martin, "I have had time to voyage from Surinam to Bordeaux, to go from
Bordeaux to Paris, from Paris to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Portsmouth, to coast
along Portugal and Spain, to cross the whole Mediterranean, to spend some
months, and yet the beautiful Cunegonde has not arrived! Instead of her I have
only met a Parisian wench and a Perigordian Abbé. Cunegonde is dead without
doubt, and there is nothing for me but to die. Alas! how much better it would
have been for me to have remained in the paradise of El Dorado than to come
back to this cursed Europe! You are in the right, my dear Martin: all is misery
and illusion."
He fell into a deep melancholy,
and neither went to see the opera, nor any of the other diversions of the
Carnival; nay, he was proof against the temptations of all the ladies.
"You are in truth very
simple," said Martin to him, "if you imagine that a mongrel valet,
who has five or six millions in his pocket, will go to the other end of the
world to seek your mistress and bring her to you to Venice. If he find her, he
will keep her to himself; if he do not find her he will get another. I advise
you to forget your valet Cacambo and your mistress Cunegonde."
Martin was not consoling.
Candide's melancholy increased; and Martin continued to prove to him that there
was very little virtue or happiness upon earth, except perhaps in El Dorado,
where nobody could gain admittance.
While they were disputing on this
important subject and waiting for Cunegonde, Candide saw a young Theatin friar
in St. Mark's Piazza, holding a girl on his arm. The Theatin looked fresh
coloured, plump, and vigorous; his eyes were sparkling, his air assured, his
look lofty, and his step bold. The girl was very pretty, and sang; she looked
amorously at her Theatin, and from time to time pinched his fat cheeks.
"At least you will allow
me," 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 pair, I would venture to lay a wager that they are
very happy."
"I lay you they are
not," said Martin.
"We need only ask them to
dine with us," said Candide, "and you will see whether I am
mistaken."
Immediately he accosted them,
presented his compliments, and invited them to his inn to eat some macaroni,
with Lombard partridges, and caviare, and to drink some Montepulciano, Lachrymæ
Christi, Cyprus and Samos wine. The girl blushed, the Theatin accepted the
invitation and she followed him, casting her eyes on Candide with confusion and
surprise, and dropping a few tears. No sooner had she set foot in Candide's
apartment than she cried out:
"Ah! Mr. Candide does not
know Paquette again."
Candide had not viewed her as yet
with attention, his thoughts being entirely taken up with Cunegonde; but
recollecting her as she spoke.
"Alas!" said he,
"my poor child, it is you who reduced Doctor Pangloss to the beautiful
condition in which I saw him?"
"Alas! it was I, sir,
indeed," answered Paquette. "I see that you have heard all. I have
been informed of the frightful disasters that befell the family of my lady
Baroness, and the fair Cunegonde. I swear to you that my fate has been scarcely
less sad. I was very innocent when you knew me. A Grey Friar, who was my
confessor, easily seduced me. The consequences were terrible. I was obliged to
quit the castle some time after the Baron had sent you away with kicks on the
backside. If a famous surgeon had not taken compassion on me, I should have
died. For some time I was this surgeon's mistress, merely out of gratitude. His
wife, who was mad with jealousy, beat me every day unmercifully; she was a
fury. The surgeon was one of the ugliest of men, and I the most wretched of
women, to be continually beaten for a man I did not love. You know, sir, what a
dangerous thing it is for an ill-natured woman to be married to a doctor.
Incensed at the behaviour of his wife, he one day gave her so effectual a
remedy to cure her of a slight cold, that she died two hours after, in most
horrid convulsions. The wife's relations prosecuted the husband; he took
flight, and I was thrown into jail. My innocence would not have saved me if I
had not been good-looking. The judge set me free, on condition that he
succeeded the surgeon. I was soon supplanted by a rival, turned out of doors
quite destitute, and obliged to continue this abominable trade, which appears
so pleasant to you men, while to us women it is the utmost abyss of misery. I
have come to exercise the profession at Venice. Ah! sir, if you could only
imagine what it is to be obliged to caress indifferently an old merchant, a
lawyer, a monk, a gondolier, an abbé, to be exposed to abuse and insults; to be
often reduced to borrowing a petticoat, only to go and have it raised by a
disagreeable man; to be robbed by one of what one has earned from another; to
be subject to the extortions of the officers of justice; and to have in
prospect only a frightful old age, a hospital, and a dung-hill; you would
conclude that I am one of the most unhappy creatures in the world."
Paquette thus opened her heart to
honest Candide, in the presence of Martin, who said to his friend:
"You see that already I have
won half the wager."
Friar Giroflée stayed in the
dining-room, and drank a glass or two of wine while he was waiting for dinner.
"But," said Candide to
Paquette, "you looked so gay and content when I met you; you sang and you
behaved so lovingly to the Theatin, that you seemed to me as happy as you
pretend to be now the reverse."
"Ah! sir," answered
Paquette, "this is one of the miseries of the trade. Yesterday I wasPg 0
robbed and beaten by an officer; yet to-day I must put on good humour to please
a friar."
Candide wanted no more
convincing; he owned that Martin was in the right. They sat down to table with
Paquette and the Theatin; the repast was entertaining; and towards the end they
conversed with all confidence.
"Father," said Candide
to the Friar, "you appear to me to enjoy a state that all the world might
envy; the flower of health shines in your face, your expression makes plain
your happiness; you have a very pretty girl for your recreation, and you seem
well satisfied with your state as a Theatin."
"My faith, sir," said
Friar Giroflée, "I wish that all the Theatins were at the bottom of the
sea. I have been tempted a hundred times to set fire to the convent, and go and
become a Turk. My parents forced me at the age of fifteen to put on this
detestable habit, to increase the fortune of a cursed elder brother, whom God
confound. Jealousy, discord, and fury, dwell in the convent. It is true I have
preached a few bad sermons that have brought me in a little money, of which the
prior stole half, while the rest serves to maintain my girls; but when I return
at night to the monastery, I am ready to dash my head against the walls of the
dormitory; and all my fellows are in the same case."
Martin turned towards Candide
with his usual coolness.
"Well," said he, "have
I not won the whole wager?"
Candide gave two thousand
piastres to Paquette, and one thousand to Friar Giroflée.
"I'll answer for it,"
said he, "that with this they will be happy."
"I do not believe it at
all," said Martin; "you will, perhaps, with these piastres only
render them the more unhappy."
"Let that be as it
may," said Candide, "but one thing consoles me. I see that we often
meet with those whom we expected never to see more; so that, perhaps, as I have
found my red sheep and Paquette, it may well be that I shall also find
Cunegonde."
"I wish," said Martin,
"she may one day make you very happy; but I doubt it very much."
"You are very hard of
belief," said Candide.
"I have lived," said
Martin.
"You see those
gondoliers," said Candide, "are they not perpetually singing?"
"You do not see them,"
said Martin, "at home with their wives and brats. The Doge has his
troubles, the gondoliers have theirs. It is true that, all things considered,
the life of a gondolier is preferable to that of a Doge; but I believe the
difference to be so trifling that it is not worth the trouble of
examining."
"People talk," said
Candide, "of the Senator Pococurante, who lives in that fine palace on the
Brenta, where he entertains foreigners in the politest manner. They pretend
that this man has never felt any uneasiness."
"I should be glad to see
such a rarity," said Martin.
Candide immediately sent to ask
the Lord Pococurante permission to wait upon him the next day.
XXV
THE VISIT TO LORD POCOCURANTE, A
NOBLE VENETIAN.
Candide and Martin went in a
gondola on the Brenta, and arrived at the palace of the noble Signor
Pococurante. The gardens, laid out with taste, were adorned with fine marble
statues. The palace was beautifully built. The master of the house was a man of
sixty, and very rich. He received the two travellers with polite indifference,
which put Candide a little out of countenance, but was not at all disagreeable
to Martin.
First, two pretty girls, very
neatly dressed, served them with chocolate, which was frothed exceedingly well.
Candide could not refrain from commending their beauty, grace, and address.
"They are good enough
creatures," said the Senator. "I make them lie with me sometimes, for
I am very tired of the ladies of the town, of their coquetries, of their
jealousies, of their quarrels, of their humours, of their pettinesses, of their
prides, of their follies, and of the sonnets which one must make, or have made,
for them. But after all, these two girls begin to weary me."
After breakfast, Candide walking
into a long gallery was surprised by the beautiful pictures. He asked, by what
master were the two first.
"They are by Raphael,"
said the Senator. "I bought them at a great price, out of vanity, some
years ago. They are said to be the finest things in Italy, but they do not
please me at all. The colours are too dark, the figures are not sufficiently
rounded, nor in good relief; the draperies in no way resemble stuffs. In a
word, whatever may be said, I do not find there a true imitation of nature. I
only care for a picture when I think I see nature itself; and there are none of
this sort. I have a great many pictures, but I prize them very little."
While they were waiting for
dinner Pococurante ordered a concert. Candide found the music delicious.
"This noise," said the
Senator, "may amuse one for half an hour; but if it were to last longer it
would grow tiresome to everybody, though they durst not own it. Music, to-day,
is only the art of executing difficult things, and that which is only difficult
cannot please long. Perhaps I should be fonder of the opera if they had not
found the secret of making of it a monster which shocks me. Let who will go to
see bad tragedies set to music, where the scenes are contrived for no other end
than to introduce two or three songs ridiculously out of place, to show off an
actress's voice. Let who will, or who can, die away with pleasure at the sight
of an eunuch quavering the rôle of Cæsar, or of Cato, and strutting awkwardly
upon the stage. For my part I have long since renounced those paltry
entertainments which constitute the glory of modern Italy, and are purchased so
dearly by sovereigns."
Candide disputed the point a
little, but with discretion. Martin was entirely of the Senator's opinion.
They sat down to table, and after
an excellent dinner they went into the library. Candide, seeing a Homer
magnificently bound, commended the virtuoso on his good taste.
"There," said he,
"is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the best
philosopher in Germany."
"It is not mine,"
answered Pococurante coolly. "They used at one time to make me believe
that I took a pleasure in reading him. But that continual repetition of
battles, so extremely like one another; those gods that are always active without
doing anything decisive; that Helen who is the cause of the war, and who yet
scarcely appears in the piece; that Troy, so long besieged without being taken;
all these together caused me great weariness. I have sometimes asked learned
men whether they were not as weary as I of that work. Those who were sincere
have owned to me that the poem made them fall asleep; yet it was necessary to
have it in their library as a monument of antiquity, or like those rusty medals
which are no longer of use in commerce."
"But your Excellency does
not think thus of Virgil?" said Candide.
"I grant," said the
Senator, "that the second, fourth, and sixth books of his Æneid are
excellent, but as for his pious Æneas, his strong Cloanthus, his friend
Achates, his little Ascanius, his silly King Latinus, his bourgeois Amata, his
insipid Lavinia, I think there can be nothing more flat and disagreeable. I
prefer Tasso a good deal, or even the soporific tales of Ariosto."
"May I presume to ask you,
sir," said Candide, "whether you do not receive a great deal of
pleasure from reading Horace?"
"There are maxims in this
writer," answered Pococurante, "from which a man of the world may
reap great benefit, and being written in energetic verse they are more easily
impressed upon the memory. But I care little for his journey to Brundusium, and
his account of a bad dinner, or of his low quarrel between one Rupilius whose
words he says were full of poisonous filth, and another whose language was
imbued with vinegar. I have read with much distaste his indelicate verses
against old women and witches; nor do I see any merit in telling his friend
Mæcenas that if he will but rank him in the choir of lyric poets, his lofty
head shall touch the stars. Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.
For my part, I read only to please myself. I like only that which serves my
purpose."
Candide, having been educated
never to judge for himself, was much surprised at what he heard. Martin found
there was a good deal of reason in Pococurante's remarks.
"Oh! here is Cicero,"
said Candide. "Here is the great man whom I fancy you are never tired of
reading."
"I never read him,"
replied the Venetian. "What is it to me whether he pleads for Rabirius or
Cluentius? I try causes enough myself; his philosophical works seem to me
better, but when I found that he doubted of everything, I concluded that I knew
as much as he, and that I had no need of a guide to learn ignorance."
"Ha! here are four-score
volumes of the Academy of Sciences," cried Martin. "Perhaps there is
something valuable in this collection."
"There might be," said
Pococurante, "if only one of those rakers of rubbish had shown how to make
pins; but in all these volumes there is nothing but chimerical systems, and not
a single useful thing."
"And what dramatic works I
see here," said Candide, "in Italian, Spanish, and French."
"Yes," replied the
Senator, "there are three thousand, and not three dozen of them good for
anything. As to those collections of sermons, which altogether are not worth a
single page of Seneca, and those huge volumes of theology, you may well imagine
that neither I nor any one else ever opens them."
Martin saw some shelves filled
with English books.
"I have a notion," said
he, "that a Republican must be greatly pleased with most of these books,
which are written with a spirit of freedom."
"Yes," answered
Pococurante, "it is noble to write as one thinks; this is the privilege of
humanity. In all our Italy we write only what we do not think; those who
inhabit the country of the Cæsars and the Antoninuses dare not acquire a single
idea without the permission of a Dominican friar. I should be pleased with the
liberty which inspires the English genius if passion and party spirit did not
corrupt all that is estimable in this precious liberty."
Candide, observing a Milton,
asked whether he did not look upon this author as a great man.
"Who?" said
Pococurante, "that barbarian, who writes a long commentary in ten books of
harsh verse on the first chapter of Genesis; that coarse imitator of the
Greeks, who disfigures the Creation, and who, while Moses represents the
Eternal producing the world by a word, makes the Messiah take a great pair of
compasses from the armoury of heaven to circumscribe His work? How can I have
any esteem for a writer who has spoiled Tasso's hell and the devil, who
transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad and other times into a pigmy, who
makes him repeat the same things a hundred times, who makes him dispute on
theology, who, by a serious imitation of Ariosto's comic invention of firearms,
represents the devils cannonading in heaven? Neither I nor any man in Italy
could take pleasure in those melancholy extravagances; and the marriage of Sin
and Death, and the snakes brought forth by Sin, are enough to turn the stomach
of any one with the least taste, and his long description of a pest-house is
good only for a grave-digger. This obscure, whimsical, and disagreeable poem
was despised upon its first publication, and I only treat it now as it was
treated in its own country by contemporaries. For the matter ofPg 0 that I say
what I think, and I care very little whether others think as I do."
Candide was grieved at this
speech, for he had a respect for Homer and was fond of Milton.
"Alas!" said he softly
to Martin, "I am afraid that this man holds our German poets in very great
contempt."
"There would not be much
harm in that," said Martin.
"Oh! what a superior
man," said Candide below his breath. "What a great genius is this
Pococurante! Nothing can please him."
After their survey of the library
they went down into the garden, where Candide praised its several beauties.
"I know of nothing in so bad
a taste," said the master. "All you see here is merely trifling.
After to-morrow I will have it planted with a nobler design."
"Well," said Candide to
Martin when they had taken their leave, "you will agree that this is the
happiest of mortals, for he is above everything he possesses."
"But do you not see,"
answered Martin, "that he is disgusted with all he possesses? Plato
observed a long while ago that those stomachs are not the best that reject all
sorts of food."
"But is there not a
pleasure," said Candide, "in criticising everything, in pointing out
faults where others see nothing but beauties?"
"That is to say,"
replied Martin, "that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure."
"Well, well," said Candide,
"I find that I shall be the only happy man when I am blessed with the
sight of my dear Cunegonde."
"It is always well to
hope," said Martin.
However, the days and the weeks
passed. Cacambo did not come, and Candide was so overwhelmed with grief that he
did not even reflect that Paquette and Friar Giroflée did not return to thank
him.
XXVI
OF A SUPPER WHICH CANDIDE AND
MARTIN TOOK WITH SIX STRANGERS, AND WHO THEY WERE.
One evening that Candide and
Martin were going to sit down to supper with some foreigners who lodged in the
same inn, a man whose complexion was as black as soot, came behind Candide, and
taking him by the arm, said:
"Get yourself ready to go
along with us; do not fail."
Upon this he turned round and
saw—Cacambo! Nothing but the sight of Cunegonde could have astonished and
delighted him more. He was on the point of going mad with joy. He embraced his
dear friend.
"Cunegonde is here, without
doubt; where is she? Take me to her that I may die of joy in her company."
"Cunegonde is not
here," said Cacambo, "she is at Constantinople."
"Oh, heavens! at
Constantinople! But were she in China I would fly thither; let us be off."
"We shall set out after
supper," replied Cacambo. "I can tell you nothing more; I am a slave,
my master awaits me, I must serve him at table; speak not a word, eat, and then
get ready."
Candide, distracted between joy
and grief, delighted at seeing his faithful agent again, astonished at finding
him a slave, filled with the fresh hope of recovering his mistress, his heart
palpitating, his understanding confused, sat down to table with Martin, who saw
all these scenes quite unconcerned, and with six strangers who had come to
spend the Carnival at Venice.
Cacambo waited at table upon one
of the strangers; towards the end of the entertainment he drew near his master,
and whispered in his ear:
"Sire, your Majesty may
start when you please, the vessel is ready."
On saying these words he went
out. The company in great surprise looked at one another without speaking a
word, when another domestic approached his master and said to him:
"Sire, your Majesty's chaise
is at Padua, and the boat is ready."
The master gave a nod and the
servant went away. The company all stared at one another again, and their
surprise redoubled. A third valet came up to a third stranger, saying:
"Sire, believe me, your
Majesty ought not to stay here any longer. I am going to get everything
ready."
And immediately he disappeared.
Candide and Martin did not doubt that this was a masquerade of the Carnival.
Then a fourth domestic said to a fourth master:
"Your Majesty may depart
when you please."
Saying this he went away like the
rest. The fifth valet said the same thing to the fifth master. But the sixth
valet spoke differently to the sixth stranger, who sat near Candide. He said to
him:
"Faith, Sire, they will no
longer give credit to your Majesty nor to me, and we may perhaps both of us be
put in jail this very night. Therefore I will take care of myself. Adieu."
The servants being all gone, the
six strangers, with Candide and Martin, remained in a profound silence. At
length Candide broke it.
"Gentlemen," said he,
"this is a very good joke indeed, but why should you all be kings? For me
I own that neither Martin nor I is a king."
Cacambo's master then gravely
answered in Italian:
"I am not at all joking. My
name is Achmet III. I was Grand Sultan many years. I dethroned my brother; my
nephew dethroned me, my viziers were beheaded, and I am condemned to end my
days in the old Seraglio. My nephew, the great Sultan Mahmoud, permits me to
travel sometimes for my health, and I am come to spend the Carnival at
Venice."
A young man who sat next to
Achmet, spoke then as follows:
"My name is Ivan. I was once
Emperor of all the Russias, but was dethroned in my cradle. My parents were
confined in prison and I was educated there; yet I am sometimes allowed to
travel in company with persons who act as guards; and I am come to spend the
Carnival at Venice."
The third said:
"I am Charles Edward, King
of England; my father has resigned all his legal rights to me. I have fought in
defence of them; and above eight hundred of my adherents have been hanged,
drawn, and quartered. I have been confined in prison; I am going to Rome, to
pay a visit to the King, my father, who was dethroned as well as myself and my
grandfather, and I am come to spend the Carnival at Venice."
The fourth spoke thus in his
turn:
"I am the King of Poland;
the fortune of war has stripped me of my hereditary dominions; my father
underwent the same vicissitudes; I resign myself to Providence in the same
manner as Sultan Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, and King Charles Edward, whom God
long preserve; and I am come to the Carnival at Venice."
The fifth said:
"I am King of Poland also; I
have been twice dethroned; but Providence has given me another country, where I
have done more good than all the Sarmatian kings were ever capable of doing on
the banks of the Vistula; I resign myself likewise to Providence, and am come
to pass the Carnival at Venice."
It was now the sixth monarch's
turn to speak:
"Gentlemen," said he,
"I am not so great a prince as any of you; however, I am a king. I am
Theodore, elected King of Corsica; I had the title of Majesty, and now I am
scarcely treated as a gentleman. I have coined money, and now am not worth a
farthing; I have had two secretaries of state, and now I have scarce a valet; I
have seen myself on a throne, and I have seen myself upon straw in a common
jail in London. I am afraid that I shall meet with the same treatment here
though, like your majesties, I am come to see the Carnival at Venice."
The other five kings listened to
this speech with generous compassion. Each of them gave twenty sequins to King
Theodore to buy him clothes and linen; and Candide made him a present of a
diamond worth two thousand sequins.
"Who can this private person
be," said the five kings to one another, "who is able to give, and
really has 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 were come to spend the Carnival at Venice. But Candide
paid no regard to these newcomers, his thoughts were entirely employed on his
voyage to Constantinople, in search of his beloved Cunegonde.
XXVII
CANDIDE'S VOYAGE TO
CONSTANTINOPLE.
The faithful Cacambo had already
prevailed upon the Turkish skipper, who was to conduct the Sultan Achmet to
Constantinople, to receive Candide and Martin on his ship. They both embarked
after having made their obeisance to his miserable Highness.
"You see," said Candide
to Martin on the way, "we supped with six dethroned kings, and of those
six there was one to whom I gave charity. Perhaps there are many other princes
yet more unfortunate. For my part, I have only lost a hundred sheep; and now I
am flying into Cunegonde's arms. My dear Martin, yet once more Pangloss was
right: all is for the best."
"I wish it," answered
Martin.
"But," said Candide,
"it was a very strange adventure we met with at Venice. It has never
before been seen or heard that six dethroned kings have supped together at a
public inn."
"It is not more
extraordinary," said Martin, "than most of the things that have
happened to us. It is a very common thing for kings to be dethroned; and as for
the honour we have had of supping in their company, it is a trifle not worth
our attention."
No sooner had Candide got on
board the vessel than he flew to his old valet and friend Cacambo, and tenderly
embraced him.
"Well," said he,
"what news of Cunegonde? Is she still a prodigy of beauty? Does she love
me still? How is she? Thou hast doubtless bought her a palace at
Constantinople?"
"My dear master,"
answered Cacambo, "Cunegonde washes dishes on the banks of the Propontis,
in the service of a prince, who has very few dishes to wash; she is a slave in
the family of an ancient sovereign named Ragotsky, to whom the Grand Turk
allows three crowns a day in his exile. But what is worse still is, that she
has lost her beauty and has become horribly ugly."
"Well, handsome or
ugly," replied Candide, "I am a man of honour, and it is my duty to
love her still. But how came she to be reduced to so abject a state with the
five or six millions that you took to her?"
"Ah!" said Cacambo,
"was I not to give two millions to Senor Don Fernando d'Ibaraa, y
Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza, Governor of Buenos Ayres, for
permitting Miss Cunegonde to come away? And didPg 0 not a corsair bravely rob
us of all the rest? Did not this corsair carry us to Cape Matapan, to Milo, to
Nicaria, to Samos, to Petra, to the Dardanelles, to Marmora, to Scutari?
Cunegonde and the old woman serve the prince I now mentioned to you, and I am
slave to the dethroned Sultan."
"What a series of shocking
calamities!" cried Candide. "But after all, I have some diamonds
left; and I may easily pay Cunegonde's ransom. Yet it is a pity that she is
grown so ugly."
Then, turning towards Martin:
"Who do you think," said he, "is most to be pitied—the Sultan
Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, King Charles Edward, or I?"
"How should I know!"
answered Martin. "I must see into your hearts to be able to tell."
"Ah!" said Candide,
"if Pangloss were here, he could tell."
"I know not," said
Martin, "in what sort of scales your Pangloss would weigh the misfortunes
of mankind and set a just estimate on their sorrows. All that I can presume to
say is, that there are millions of people upon earth who have a hundred times
more to complain of than King Charles Edward, the Emperor Ivan, or the Sultan
Achmet."
"That may well be,"
said Candide.
In a few days they reached the
Bosphorus, and Candide began by paying a very high ransom for Cacambo. Then
without losing time, he and his companions went on board a galley, in order to
search on the banks of the Propontis for his Cunegonde, however ugly she might
have become.
Among the crew there were two
slaves who rowed very badly, and to whose bare shoulders the Levantine captain
would now and then apply blows from a bull's pizzle. Candide, from a natural
impulse, looked at these two slaves more attentively than at the other oarsmen,
and approached them with pity. Their features though greatly disfigured, had a
slight resemblance to those of Pangloss and the unhappy Jesuit and Westphalian
Baron, brother to Miss Cunegonde. This moved and saddened him. He looked at
them still more attentively.
"Indeed," said he to
Cacambo, "if I had not seen Master Pangloss hanged, and if I had not had
the misfortune to kill the Baron, I should think it was they that were
rowing."
At the names of the Baron and of
Pangloss, the two galley-slaves uttered a loud cry, held fast by the seat, and
let drop their oars. The captain ran up to them and redoubled his blows with
the bull's pizzle.
"Stop! stop! sir,"
cried Candide. "I will give you what money you please."
"What! it is Candide!"
said one of the slaves.
"What! it is Candide!"
said the other.
"Do I dream?" cried
Candide; "am I awake? or am I on board a galley? Is this the Baron whom I
killed? Is this Master Pangloss whom I saw hanged?"
"It is we! it is we!"
answered they.
"Well! is this the great
philosopher?" said Martin.
"Ah! captain," said
Candide, "what ransom will you take for Monsieur de Thunder-ten-Tronckh,
one of the first barons of the empire, and for Monsieur Pangloss, the
profoundest metaphysician in Germany?"
"Dog of a Christian,"
answered the Levantine captain, "since these two dogs of Christian slaves
are barons and metaphysicians, which I doubt not are high dignities in their
country, you shall give me fifty thousand sequins."
"You shall have them, sir.
Carry me back at once to Constantinople, and you shall receive the money
directly. But no; carry me first to Miss Cunegonde."
Upon the first proposal made by
Candide, however, the Levantine captain had already tacked about, and made the
crew ply their oars quicker than a bird cleaves the air.
Candide embraced the Baron and
Pangloss a hundred times.
"And how happened it, my
dear Baron, that I did not kill you? And, my dear Pangloss, how came you to
life again after being hanged? And why are you both in a Turkish galley?"
"And it is true that my dear
sister is in this country?" said the Baron.
"Yes," answered
Cacambo.
"Then I behold, once more,
my dear Candide," cried Pangloss.
Candide presented Martin and
Cacambo to them; they embraced each other, and all spoke at once. The galley
flew; they were already in the port. Instantly Candide sent for a Jew, to whom
he sold for fifty thousand sequins a diamond worth a hundred thousand, though
the fellow swore to him by Abraham that he could give him no more. He
immediately paid the ransom for the Baron and Pangloss. The latter threw
himself at the feet of his deliverer, and bathed them with his tears; the
former thanked him with a nod, and promised to return him the money on the
first opportunity.
"But is it indeed possible
that my sister can be in Turkey?" said he.
"Nothing is more
possible," said Cacambo, "since she scours the dishes in the service
of a Transylvanian prince."
Candide sent directly for two
Jews and sold them some more diamonds, and then they all set out together in
another galley to deliver Cunegonde from slavery.
XXVIII
WHAT HAPPENED TO CANDIDE,
CUNEGONDE, PANGLOSS, MARTIN, ETC.
"I ask your pardon once
more," said Candide to the Baron, "your pardon, reverend father, for
having run you through the body."
"Say no more about it,"
answered the Baron. "I was a little too hasty, I own, but since you wish
to know by what fatality I came to be a galley-slave I will inform you. After I
had been cured by the surgeon of the college of the wound you gave me, I was
attacked and carried off by a party of Spanish troops, who confined me in
prison at Buenos Ayres at the very time my sister was setting out thence. I
asked leave to return to Rome to the General of my Order. I was appointed
chaplain to the French Ambassador at Constantinople. I had not been eight days
in this employment when one evening I met with a young Ichoglan, who was a very
handsome fellow. The weather was warm. The young man wanted to bathe, and I
took this opportunity of bathing also. I did not know that it was a capital
crime for a Christian to be found naked with a young Mussulman. A cadi ordered
me a hundred blows on the soles of the feet, and condemned me to the galleys. I
do not think there ever was a greater act of injustice. But I should be glad to
know how my sister came to be scullion to a Transylvanian prince who has taken
shelter among the Turks."
"But you, my dear
Pangloss," said Candide, "how can it be that I behold you
again?"
"It is true," said
Pangloss, "that you saw me hanged. I should have been burnt, but you may
remember it rained exceedingly hard when they were going to roast me; the storm
was so violent that they despaired of lighting the fire, so I was hanged
because they could do no better. A surgeon purchased my body, carried me home,
and dissected me. He began with making a crucial incision on me from the navel
to the clavicula. One could not have been worse hanged than I was. The
executioner of the Holy Inquisition was a sub-deacon, and knew how to burn
people marvellously well, but he was not accustomed to hanging. The cord was
wet and did not slip properly, and besides it was badly tied; in short, I still
drew my breath, when the crucial incision made me give such a frightful scream
that my surgeon fell flat upon his back, and imagining that he had been
dissecting the devil he ran away, dying with fear, and fell down the staircase
in his flight. His wife, hearing the noise, flew from the next room. She saw me
stretched out upon the table with my crucial incision. She was seized with yet
greater fear than her husband, fled, and tumbled over him. When they came to
themselves a little, I heard the wife say to her husband: 'My dear, how could
you take it into your head to dissect a heretic? Do you not know that these
people always have the devil in their bodies? I will go and fetch a priest this
minute to exorcise him.' At this proposal I shuddered, and mustering up what
little courage I had still remaining I cried out aloud, 'Have mercy on me!' At
length the Portuguese barber plucked up his spirits. He sewed up my wounds; his
wife even nursed me. I was upon my legs at the end of fifteen days. The barber
found me a place as lackey to a knight of Malta who was going to Venice, but
finding that my master had no money to pay me my wages I entered the service of
a Venetian merchant, and went with him to Constantinople. One day I took it
into my head to step into a mosque, where I saw an old Iman and a very pretty
young devotee who was saying her paternosters. Her bosom was uncovered, and
between her breasts she had a beautiful bouquet of tulips, roses, anemones,
ranunculus, hyacinths, and auriculas. She dropped her bouquet; I picked it up,
and presented it to her with a profound reverence. I was so long in delivering
it that the Iman began to get angry, and seeing that I was a Christian he
called out for help. They carried me before the cadi, who ordered me a hundred
lashes on the soles of the feet and sent me to the galleys. I was chained to
the very same galley and the same bench as the young Baron. On board this
galley there were four young men from Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and
two monks from Corfu, who told us similar adventures happened daily. The Baron
maintained that he had suffered greater injustice than I, and I insisted that
it was far more innocent to take up a bouquet and place it again on a woman's
bosom than to be found stark naked with an Ichoglan. We were continually
disputing, and received twenty lashes with a bull's pizzle when the
concatenation of universal events brought you to our galley, and you were good
enough to ransom us."
"Well, my dear
Pangloss," said Candide to him, "when you had been hanged, dissected,
whipped, and were tugging at the oar, did you always think that everything
happens for the best?"
"I am still of my first
opinion," answered Pangloss, "for I am a philosopher and I cannot
retract, especially as Leibnitz could never be wrong; and besides, the
pre-established harmony is the finest thing in the world, and so is his plenum
and materia subtilis."
XXIX
HOW CANDIDE FOUND CUNEGONDE AND
THE OLD WOMAN AGAIN.
While Candide, the Baron,
Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo were relating their several adventures, were
reasoning on the contingent or non-contingent events of the universe, disputing
on effects and causes, on moral and physical evil, on liberty and necessity,
and on the consolations a slave may feel even on a Turkish galley, they arrived
at the house of the Transylvanian prince on the banks of the Propontis. The
first objects which met their sight were Cunegonde and the old woman hanging
towels out to dry.
The Baron paled at this sight.
The tender, loving Candide, seeing his beautiful Cunegonde embrowned, with
blood-shot eyes, withered neck, wrinkled cheeks, and rough, red arms, recoiled
three paces, seized with horror, and then advanced 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
neighbourhoodPg 0 which the old woman proposed to Candide to make a shift with
till the company could be provided for in a better manner. Cunegonde did not
know she had grown ugly, for nobody had told her of it; and she reminded
Candide of his promise in so positive a tone that the good man durst not refuse
her. He therefore intimated to the Baron that he intended marrying his sister.
"I will not suffer,"
said the Baron, "such meanness on her part, and such insolence on yours; I
will never be reproached with this scandalous thing; my sister's children would
never be able to enter the church in Germany. No; my sister shall only marry a
baron of the empire."
Cunegonde flung herself at his
feet, and bathed them with her tears; still he was inflexible.
"Thou foolish fellow,"
said Candide; "I have delivered thee out of the galleys, I have paid thy
ransom, and thy sister's also; she was a scullion, and is very ugly, yet I am
so condescending as to marry her; and dost thou pretend to oppose the match? I
should kill thee again, were I only to consult my anger."
"Thou mayest kill me
again," said the Baron, "but thou shalt not marry my sister, at least
whilst I am living."
XXX
THE CONCLUSION.
At the bottom of his heart
Candide had no wish to marry Cunegonde. But the extreme impertinence of the Baron
determined him to conclude the match, and Cunegonde pressed him so strongly
that he could not go from his word. He consulted Pangloss, Martin, and the
faithful Cacambo. Pangloss drew up an excellent memorial, wherein he proved
that the Baron had no right over his sister, and that according to all the laws
of the empire, she might marry Candide with her left hand. Martin was for
throwing the Baron into the sea; Cacambo decided that it would be better to
deliver him up again to the captain of the galley, after which they thought to
send him back to the General Father of the Order at Rome by the first ship.
This advice was well received, the old woman approved it; they said not a word
to his sister; the thing was executed for a little money, and they had the
double pleasure of entrapping a Jesuit, and punishing the pride of a German
baron.
It is natural to imagine that
after so many disasters Candide married, and living with the philosopher
Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the prudent Cacambo, and the old woman,
having besides brought so many diamonds from the country of the ancient Incas,
must have led a very happy life. But he was so much imposed upon by the Jews
that he had nothing left except his small farm; his wife became uglier every
day, more peevish and unsupportable; the old woman was infirm and even more
fretful than Cunegonde. Cacambo, who worked in the garden, and took vegetables
for sale to Constantinople, was fatigued with hard work, and cursed his
destiny. Pangloss was in despair at not shining in some German university. For
Martin, he was firmly persuaded that he would be as badly off elsewhere, and
therefore bore things patiently. Candide, Martin, and Pangloss sometimes
disputed about morals and metaphysics. They often saw passing under the windows
of their farm boats full of Effendis, Pashas, and Cadis, who were going into
banishment to Lemnos, Mitylene, or Erzeroum. And they saw other Cadis, Pashas,
and Effendis coming to supply the place of the exiles, and afterwards exiled in
their turn. They saw heads decently impaled for presentation to the Sublime
Porte. Such spectacles as these increased the number of their dissertations;
and when they did not dispute time hung so heavily upon their hands, that one
day the old woman ventured to say to them:
"I want to know which is
worse, to be ravished a hundred times by negro pirates, to have a buttock cut
off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an
auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to row in the galleys—in short, to go through all
the miseries we have undergone, or to stay here and have nothing to do?"
"It is a great
question," said Candide.
This discourse gave rise to new
reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live either
in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust. Candide did not
quite agree to that, but he affirmed nothing. Pangloss owned that he had always
suffered horribly, but as he had once asserted that everything went wonderfully
well, he asserted it still, though he no longer believed it.
What helped to confirm Martin in
his detestable principles, to stagger Candide more than ever, and to puzzle
Pangloss, was that one day they saw Paquette and Friar Giroflée land at the
farm in extreme misery. They had soon squandered their three thousand piastres,
parted, were reconciled, quarrelled again, were thrown into gaol, had escaped,
and Friar Giroflée had at length become Turk. Paquette continued her trade
wherever she went, but made nothing of it.
"I foresaw," said
Martin to Candide, "that your presents would soon be dissipated, and only
make them the more miserable. You have rolled in millions of money, you and
Cacambo; and yet you are not happier than Friar Giroflée and Paquette."
"Ha!" said Pangloss to
Paquette, "Providence has then brought you amongst us again, my poor
child! Do you know that you cost me the tip of my nose, an eye, and an ear, as
you may see? What a world is this!"
And now this new adventure set
them philosophising more than ever.
In the neighbourhood there lived
a very famous Dervish who was esteemed the best philosopher in all Turkey, and
they went to consult him. Pangloss was the speaker.
"Master," said he,
"we come to beg you to tell why so strange an animal as man was
made."
"With what meddlest
thou?" said the Dervish; "is it thy business?"
"But, reverend father,"
said Candide, "there is horrible evil in this world."
"What signifies it,"
said the Dervish, "whether there be evil or good? When his highness sends
a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at
their ease or not?"
"What, then, must we
do?" said Pangloss.
"Hold your tongue,"
answered the Dervish.
"I was in hopes," said
Pangloss, "that I should reason with you a little about causes and
effects, about the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of
the soul, and the pre-established harmony."
At these words, the Dervish shut
the door in their faces.
During this conversation, the
news was spread that two Viziers and the Mufti had been strangled at
Constantinople, and that several of their friends had been impaled. This
catastrophe made a great noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin,
returning to the little farm, saw a good old man taking the fresh air at his
door under an orange bower. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was
argumentative, asked the old man what was the name of the strangled Mufti.
"I do not know,"
answered the worthy man, "and I have not known the name of any Mufti, nor
of any Vizier. I am entirely ignorant of the event you mention; I presume in
general that they who meddle with the administration of public affairs die
sometimes miserably, and that they deserve it; but I never trouble my head
about what is transacting at Constantinople; I content myself with sending
there for sale the fruits of the garden which I cultivate."
Having said these words, he
invited the strangers into his house; his two sons and two daughters presented
them with several sorts of sherbet, which they made themselves, with Kaimak
enriched with the candied-peel of citrons, with oranges, lemons, pine-apples,
pistachio-nuts, and Mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia
or the American islands. After which the two daughters of the honest Mussulman
perfumed the strangers' beards.
"You must have a vast and
magnificent estate," said Candide to the Turk.
"I have only twenty
acres," replied the old man; "I and my children cultivate them; our
labour preserves us from three great evils—weariness, vice, and want."
Candide, on his way home, made
profound reflections on the old man's conversation.
"This honest Turk,"
said he to Pangloss and Martin, "seems to be in a situation far preferable
to that of the six kings with whom we had the honour of supping."
"Grandeur," said
Pangloss, "is extremely dangerous according to the testimony of
philosophers. For, in short, Eglon, King of Moab, was assassinated by Ehud;
Absalom was hung by his hair, and pierced with three darts; King Nadab, the son
of Jeroboam, was killed by Baasa; King Ela by Zimri; Ahaziah by Jehu; Athaliah
by Jehoiada; the Kings Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity.
You know how perished 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, the Emperor Henry IV.! You
know——"
"I know also," said
Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden."
"You are right," said
Pangloss, "for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put
there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was
not born to be idle."
"Let us work," said
Martin, "without disputing; it is the only way to render life
tolerable."
The whole little society entered
into this laudable design, according to their different abilities. Their little
plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde was, indeed, very ugly, but
she became an excellent pastry cook; Paquette worked at embroidery; the old
woman looked after the linen. They were all, not excepting Friar Giroflée, of
some service or other; for he made a good joiner, and became a very honest man.
Pangloss sometimes said to
Candide:
"There is a concatenation of
events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out
of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put
into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not
stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of
El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and
pistachio-nuts."
"All that is very
well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden."