Candide

1759
CANDIDE
by Voltaire
CHAPTER 1
How Candide Was Brought Up in a Magnificent Castle and How He Was
Driven Thence

In the country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most noble
Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, lived a youth whom Nature had endowed
with a most sweet disposition. His face was the true index of his
mind. He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected
simplicity; and hence, I presume, he had his name of Candide. The
old servants of the house suspected him to have been the son of the
Baron's sister, by a very good sort of a gentleman of the
neighborhood, whom that young lady refused to marry, because he
could produce no more than threescore and eleven quarterings in his
arms; the rest of the genealogical tree belonging to the family having
been lost through the injuries of time.
The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for
his castle had not only a gate, but even windows, and his great hall
was hung with tapestry. He used to hunt with his mastiffs and spaniels
instead of greyhounds; his groom served him for huntsman; and the
parson of the parish officiated as his grand almoner. He was called
"My Lord" by all his people, and he never told a story but everyone
laughed at it.
My Lady Baroness, who weighed three hundred and fifty pounds,
consequently was a person of no small consideration; and then she
did the honors of the house with a dignity that commanded universal
respect. Her daughter was about seventeen years of age, fresh-colored,
comely, plump, and desirable. The Baron's son seemed to be a youth
in every respect worthy of the father he sprung from. Pangloss, the
preceptor, was the oracle of the family, and little Candide listened
to his instructions with all the simplicity natural to his age and
disposition.
Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology.
He could prove to admiration that there is no effect without a
cause; and, that in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's
castle was the most magnificent of all castles, and My Lady the best
of all possible baronesses.
"It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than
as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they
must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance,
the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The
legs are visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear
stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles,
therefore My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron
in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be
eaten, therefore we eat pork all the year round: and they, who
assert that everything is right, do not express themselves
correctly; they should say that everything is best."
Candide listened attentively and believed implicitly, for he thought
Miss Cunegund excessively handsome, though he never had the courage to
tell her so. He concluded that next to the happiness of being Baron of
Thunder-ten-tronckh, the next was that of being Miss Cunegund, the
next that of seeing her every day, and the last that of hearing the
doctrine of Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the whole
province, and consequently of the whole world.
One day when Miss Cunegund went to take a walk in a little
neighboring wood which was called a park, she saw, through the bushes,
the sage Doctor Pangloss giving a lecture in experimental philosophy
to her mother's chambermaid, a little brown wench, very pretty, and
very tractable. As Miss Cunegund had a great disposition for the
sciences, she observed with the utmost attention the experiments which
were repeated before her eyes; she perfectly well understood the force
of the doctor's reasoning upon causes and effects. She retired greatly
flurried, quite pensive and filled with the desire of knowledge,
imagining that she might be a sufficing reason for young Candide,
and he for her.
On her way back she happened to meet the young man; she blushed,
he blushed also; she wished him a good morning in a flattering tone,
he returned the salute, without knowing what he said. The next day, as
they were rising from dinner, Cunegund and Candide slipped behind
the screen. The miss dropped her handkerchief, the young man picked it
up. She innocently took hold of his hand, and he as innocently
kissed hers with a warmth, a sensibility, a grace-all very particular;
their lips met; their eyes sparkled; their knees trembled; their hands
strayed. The Baron chanced to come by; he beheld the cause and effect,
and, without hesitation, saluted Candide with some notable kicks on
the breech and drove him out of doors. The lovely Miss Cunegund
fainted away, and, as soon as she came to herself, the Baroness
boxed her ears. Thus a general consternation was spread over this most
magnificent and most agreeable of all possible castles.
CHAPTER 2
What Befell Candide among the Bulgarians

Candide, thus driven out of this terrestrial paradise, rambled a
long time without knowing where he went; sometimes he raised his eyes,
all bedewed with tears, towards heaven, and sometimes he cast a
melancholy look towards the magnificent castle, where dwelt the
fairest of young baronesses. He laid himself down to sleep in a
furrow, heartbroken, and supperless. The snow fell in great flakes,
and, in the morning when he awoke, he was almost frozen to death;
however, he made shift to crawl to the next town, which was called
Wald-berghoff-trarbkdikdorff, without a penny in his pocket, and
half dead with hunger and fatigue. He took up his stand at the door of
an inn. He had not been long there before two men dressed in blue
fixed their eyes steadfastly upon him.
"Faith, comrade," said one of them to the other, "yonder is a well
made young fellow and of the right size." Upon which they made up to
Candide and with the greatest civility and politeness invited him to
dine with them.
"Gentlemen," replied Candide, with a most engaging modesty, you do
me much honor, but upon my word I have no money."
"Money, sir!" said one of the blues to him, "young persons of your
appearance and merit never pay anything; why, are not you five feet
five inches high?"
"Yes, gentlemen, that is really my size," replied he, with a low
bow.
"Come then, sir, sit down along with us; we will not only pay your
reckoning, but will never suffer such a clever young fellow as you
to want money. Men were born to assist one another."
"You are perfectly right, gentlemen," said Candide, "this is
precisely the doctrine of Master Pangloss; and I am convinced that
everything is for the best."
His generous companions next entreated him to accept of a few
crowns, which he readily complied with, at the same time offering them
his note for the payment, which they refused, and sat down to table.
"Have you not a great affection for-"
"O yes! I have a great affection for the lovely Miss Cunegund."
"Maybe so," replied one of the blues, "but that is not the question!
We ask you whether you have not a great affection for the King of
the Bulgarians?"
"For the King of the Bulgarians?" said Candide. "Oh, Lord! not at
all, why I never saw him in my life."
"Is it possible? Oh, he is a most charming king! Come, we must drink
his health."
"With all my heart, gentlemen," said Candide, and off he tossed
his glass.
"Bravo!" cried the blues; "you are now the support, the defender,
the hero of the Bulgarians; your fortune is made; you are in the
high road to glory."
So saying, they handcuffed him, and carried him away to the
regiment. There he was made to wheel about to the right, to the
left, to draw his rammer, to return his rammer, to present, to fire,
to march, and they gave him thirty blows with a cane; the next day
he performed his exercise a little better, and they gave him but
twenty; the day following he came off with ten, and was looked upon as
a young fellow of surprising genius by all his comrades.
Candide was struck with amazement, and could not for the soul of him
conceive how he came to be a hero. One fine spring morning, he took it
into his head to take a walk, and he marched straight forward,
conceiving it to be a privilege of the human species, as well as of
the brute creation, to make use of their legs how and when they
pleased. He had not gone above two leagues when he was overtaken by
four other heroes, six feet high, who bound him neck and heels, and
carried him to a dungeon. A courtmartial sat upon him, and he was
asked which he liked better, to run the gauntlet six and thirty
times through the whole regiment, or to have his brains blown out with
a dozen musket-balls?
In vain did he remonstrate to them that the human will is free,
and that he chose neither; they obliged him to make a choice, and he
determined, in virtue of that divine gift called free will, to run the
gauntlet six and thirty times.
He had gone through his discipline twice, and the regiment being
composed of 2,000 men, they composed for him exactly 4,000 strokes,
which laid bare all his muscles and nerves from the nape of his neck
to his stern. As they were preparing to make him set out the third
time our young hero, unable to support it any longer, begged as a
favor that they would be so obliging as to shoot him through the head;
the favor being granted, a bandage was tied over his eyes, and he
was made to kneel down.
At that very instant, His Bulgarian Majesty happening to pass by
made a stop, and inquired into the delinquent's crime, and being a
prince of great penetration, he found, from what he heard of
Candide, that he was a young metaphysician, entirely ignorant of the
world; and therefore, out of his great clemency, he condescended to
pardon him, for which his name will be celebrated in every journal,
and in every age. A skillful surgeon made a cure of the flagellated
Candide in three weeks by means of emollient unguents prescribed by
Dioscorides. His sores were now skimmed over and he was able to march,
when the King of the Bulgarians gave battle to the King of the Abares.
CHAPTER 3
How Candide Escaped from the Bulgarians and What Befell Him
Afterward

Never was anything so gallant, so well accoutred, so brilliant,
and so finely disposed as the two armies. The trumpets, fifes,
hautboys, drums, and cannon made such harmony as never was heard in
Hell itself. The entertainment began by a discharge of cannon,
which, in the twinkling of an eye, laid flat about 6,000 men on each
side. The musket bullets swept away, out of the best of all possible
worlds, nine or ten thousand scoundrels that infested its surface. The
bayonet was next the sufficient reason of the deaths of several
thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide
trembled like a philosopher, and concealed himself as well as he could
during this heroic butchery.
At length, while the two kings were causing Te Deums to be sung in
their camps, Candide took a resolution to go and reason somewhere else
upon causes and effects. After passing over heaps of dead or dying
men, the first place he came to was a neighboring village, in the
Abarian territories, which had been burned to the ground by the
Bulgarians, agreeably to the laws of war. Here lay a number of old men
covered with wounds, who beheld their wives dying with their throats
cut, and hugging their children to their breasts, all stained with
blood. There several young virgins, whose bodies had been ripped open,
after they had satisfied the natural necessities of the Bulgarian
heroes, breathed their last; while others, half-burned in the
flames, begged to be dispatched out of the world. The ground about
them was covered with the brains, arms, and legs of dead men.
Candide made all the haste he could to another village, which
belonged to the Bulgarians, and there he found the heroic Abares had
enacted the same tragedy. Thence continuing to walk over palpitating
limbs, or through ruined buildings, at length he arrived beyond the
theater of war, with a little provision in his budget, and Miss
Cunegund's image in his heart. When he arrived in Holland his
provision failed him; but having heard that the inhabitants of that
country were all rich and Christians, he made himself sure of being
treated by them in the same manner as the Baron's castle, before he
had been driven thence through the power of Miss Cunegund's bright
eyes.
He asked charity of several grave-looking people, who one and all
answered him, that if he continued to follow this trade they would
have him sent to the house of correction, where he should be taught to
get his bread.
He next addressed himself to a person who had just come from
haranguing a numerous assembly for a whole hour on the subject of
charity. The orator, squinting at him under his broadbrimmed hat,
asked him sternly, what brought him thither and whether he was for the
good old cause?
"Sir," said Candide, in a submissive manner, "I conceive there can
be no effect without a cause; everything is necessarily concatenated
and arranged for the best. It was necessary that I should be
banished from the presence of Miss Cunegund; that I should
afterwards run the gauntlet; and it is necessary I should beg my
bread, till I am able to get it. All this could not have been
otherwise."
"Hark ye, friend," said the orator, "do you hold the Pope to be
Antichrist?"
"Truly, I never heard anything about it," said Candide, "but whether
he is or not, I am in want of something to eat."
"Thou deservest not to eat or to drink," replied the orator,
"wretch, monster, that thou art! hence! avoid my sight, nor ever
come near me again while thou livest."
The orator's wife happened to put her head out of the window at that
instant, when, seeing a man who doubted whether the Pope was
Antichrist, she discharged upon his head a utensil full of water. Good
heavens, to what excess does religious zeal transport womankind!
A man who had never been christened, an honest Anabaptist named
James, was witness to the cruel and ignominious treatment showed to
one of his brethren, to a rational, two-footed, unfledged being. Moved
with pity he carried him to his own house, caused him to be cleaned,
gave him meat and drink, and made him a present of two florins, at the
same time proposing to instruct him in his own trade of weaving
Persian silks, which are fabricated in Holland.
Candide, penetrated with so much goodness, threw himself at his
feet, crying, "Now I am convinced that my Master Pangloss told me
truth when he said that everything was for the best in this world; for
I am infinitely more affected with your extraordinary generosity
than with the inhumanity of that gentleman in the black cloak and
his wife."
CHAPTER 4
How Candide Found His Old Master Pangloss Again and What Happened to
Him

The next day, as Candide was walking out, he met a beggar all
covered with scabs, his eyes sunk in his head, the end of his nose
eaten off, his mouth drawn on one side, his teeth as black as a cloak,
snuffling and coughing most violently, and every time he attempted
to spit out dropped a tooth.
Candide, divided between compassion and horror, but giving way to
the former, bestowed on this shocking figure the two florins which the
honest Anabaptist, James, had just before given to him. The specter
looked at him very earnestly, shed tears and threw his arms about
his neck. Candide started back aghast.
"Alas!" said the one wretch to the other, "don't you know dear
Pangloss?"
"What do I hear? Is it you, my dear master! you I behold in this
piteous plight? What dreadful misfortune has befallen you? What has
made you leave the most magnificent and delightful of all castles?
What has become of Miss Cunegund, the mirror of young ladies, and
Nature's masterpiece?"
"Oh, Lord!" cried Pangloss, "I am so weak I cannot stand," upon
which Candide instantly led him to the Anabaptist's stable, and
procured him something to eat.
As soon as Pangloss had a little refreshed himself, Candide began to
repeat his inquiries concerning Miss Cunegund.
"She is dead," replied the other.
"Dead!" cried Candide, and immediately fainted away; his friend
restored him by the help of a little bad vinegar, which he found by
chance in the stable.
Candide opened his eyes, and again repeated: "Dead! is Miss Cunegund
dead? Ah, where is the best of worlds now? But of what illness did she
die? Was it of grief on seeing her father kick me out of his
magnificent castle?"
"No," replied Pangloss, "her body was ripped open by the Bulgarian
soldiers, after they had subjected her to as much cruelty as a
damsel could survive; they knocked the Baron, her father, on the
head for attempting to defend her; My Lady, her mother, was cut in
pieces; my poor pupil was served just in the same manner as his
sister; and as for the castle, they have not left one stone upon
another; they have destroyed all the ducks, and sheep, the barns,
and the trees; but we have had our revenge, for the Abares have done
the very same thing in a neighboring barony, which belonged to a
Bulgarian lord."
At hearing this, Candide fainted away a second time, but, not
withstanding, having come to himself again, he said all that it became
him to say; he inquired into the cause and effect, as well as into the
sufficing reason that had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a
condition.
"Alas," replied the preceptor, "it was love; love, the comfort of
the human species; love, the preserver of the universe; the soul of
all sensible beings; love! tender love!"
"Alas," cried Candide, "I have had some knowledge of love myself,
this sovereign of hearts, this soul of souls; yet it never cost me
more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. But how could
this beautiful cause produce in you so hideous an effect?"
Pangloss made answer in these terms:
"O my dear Candide, you must remember Pacquette, that pretty
wench, who waited on our noble Baroness; in her arms I tasted the
pleasures of Paradise, which produced these Hell torments with which
you see me devoured. She was infected with an ailment, and perhaps has
since died of it; she received this present of a learned Franciscan,
who derived it from the fountainhead; he was indebted for it to an old
countess, who had it of a captain of horse, who had it of a
marchioness, who had it of a page, the page had it of a Jesuit, who,
during his novitiate, had it in a direct line from one of the fellow
adventurers of Christopher Columbus; for my part I shall give it to
nobody, I am a dying man."
"O sage Pangloss," cried Candide, "what a strange genealogy is this!
Is not the devil the root of it?"
"Not at all," replied the great man, "it was a thing unavoidable,
a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had
not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates
the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself,
and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have
had neither chocolate nor cochineal. It is also to be observed,
that, even to the present time, in this continent of ours, this
malady, like our religious controversies, is peculiar to ourselves.
The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, and
the Japanese are entirely unacquainted with it; but there is a
sufficing reason for them to know it in a few centuries. In the
meantime, it is making prodigious havoc among us, especially in
those armies composed of well disciplined hirelings, who determine the
fate of nations; for we may safely affirm, that, when an army of
thirty thousand men engages another equal in size, there are about
twenty thousand infected with syphilis on each side."
"Very surprising, indeed," said Candide, "but you must get cured."
"Lord help me, how can I?" said Pangloss. "My dear friend, I have
not a penny in the world; and you know one cannot be bled or have an
enema without money."
This last speech had its effect on Candide; he flew to the
charitable Anabaptist, James; he flung himself at his feet, and gave
him so striking a picture of the miserable condition of his friend
that the good man without any further hesitation agreed to take Dr.
Pangloss into his house, and to pay for his cure. The cure was
effected with only the loss of one eye and an ear. As be wrote a
good hand, and understood accounts tolerably well, the Anabaptist made
him his bookkeeper. At the expiration of two months, being obliged
by some mercantile affairs to go to Lisbon he took the two
philosophers with him in the same ship; Pangloss, during the course of
the voyage, explained to him how everything was so constituted that it
could not be better. James did not quite agree with him on this point.
"Men," said he "must, in some things, have deviated from their
original innocence; for they were not born wolves, and yet they
worry one another like those beasts of prey. God never gave them
twenty-four pounders nor bayonets, and yet they have made cannon and
bayonets to destroy one another. To this account I might add not
only bankruptcies, but the law which seizes on the effects of
bankrupts, only to cheat the creditors."
"All this was indispensably necessary," replied the one-eyed doctor,
"for private misfortunes are public benefits; so that the more private
misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good."
While he was arguing in this manner, the sky was overcast, the winds
blew from the four quarters of the compass, and the ship was
assailed by a most terrible tempest, within sight of the port of
Lisbon.
CHAPTER 5
A Tempest, a Shipwreck, an Earthquake, and What Else Befell Dr.
Pangloss, Candide, and James, the Anabaptist

One half of the passengers, weakened and half-dead with the
inconceivable anxiety and sickness which the rolling of a vessel at
sea occasions through the whole human frame, were lost to all sense of
the danger that surrounded them. The others made loud outcries, or
betook themselves to their prayers; the sails were blown into
shreds, and the masts were brought by the board. The vessel was a
total wreck. Everyone was busily employed, but nobody could be
either heard or obeyed. The Anabaptist, being upon deck, lent a
helping hand as well as the rest, when a brutish sailor gave him a
blow and laid him speechless; but, not withstanding, with the violence
of the blow the tar himself tumbled headforemost overboard, and fell
upon a piece of the broken mast, which he immediately grasped.
Honest James, forgetting the injury he had so lately received from
him, flew to his assistance, and, with great difficulty, hauled him in
again, but, not withstanding, in the attempt, was, by a sudden jerk of
the ship, thrown overboard himself, in sight of the very fellow whom
he had risked his life to save and who took not the least notice of
him in this distress. Candide, who beheld all that passed and saw
his benefactor one moment rising above water, and the next swallowed
up by the merciless waves, was preparing to jump after him, but was
prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that
the roadstead of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to
be drowned there. While he was proving his argument a priori, the ship
foundered, and the whole crew perished, except Pangloss, Candide,
and the sailor who had been the means of drowning the good Anabaptist.
The villain swam ashore; but Pangloss and Candide reached the land
upon a plank.
As soon as they had recovered from their surprise and fatigue they
walked towards Lisbon; with what little money they had left they
thought to save themselves from starving after having escaped
drowning.
Scarcely had they ceased to lament the loss of their benefactor
and set foot in the city, when they perceived that the earth
trembled under their feet, and the sea, swelling and foaming in the
harbor, was dashing in pieces the vessels that were riding at
anchor. Large sheets of flames and cinders covered the streets and
public places; the houses tottered, and were tumbled topsy-turvy
even to their foundations, which were themselves destroyed, and thirty
thousand inhabitants of both sexes, young and old, were buried beneath
the ruins.
The sailor, whistling and swearing, cried, "Damn it, there's
something to be got here."
"What can be the sufficing reason of this phenomenon?" said
Pangloss.
"It is certainly the day of judgment," said Candide.
The sailor, defying death in the pursuit of plunder, rushed into the
midst of the ruin, where he found some money, with which he got drunk,
and, after he had slept himself sober he purchased the favors of the
first good-natured wench that came in his way, amidst the ruins of
demolished houses and the groans of half-buried and expiring persons.
Pangloss pulled him by the sleeve. "Friend," said he, "this is not
right, you trespass against the universal reason, and have mistaken
your time."
"Death and zounds!" answered the other, "I am a sailor and was
born at Batavia, and have trampled four times upon the crucifix in
as many voyages to Japan; you have come to a good hand with your
universal reason."
In the meantime, Candide, who had been wounded by some pieces of
stone that fell from the houses, lay stretched in the street, almost
covered with rubbish.
"For God's sake," said he to Pangloss, "get me a little wine and
oil! I am dying."
"This concussion of the earth is no new thing," said Pangloss,
"the city of Lima in South America experienced the same last year; the
same cause, the same effects; there is certainly a train of sulphur
all the way underground from Lima to Lisbon."
"Nothing is more probable," said Candide; "but for the love of God a
little oil and wine."
"Probable!" replied the philosopher, "I maintain that the thing is
demonstrable."
Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a
neighboring spring. The next day, in searching among the ruins, they
found some eatables with which they repaired their exhausted strength.
After this they assisted the inhabitants in relieving the distressed
and wounded. Some, whom they had humanely assisted, gave them as
good a dinner as could be expected under such terrible
circumstances. The repast, indeed, was mournful, and the company
moistened their bread with their tears; but Pangloss endeavored to
comfort them under this affliction by affirming that things could
not be otherwise that they were.
"For," said he, "all this is for the very best end, for if there
is a volcano at Lisbon it could be in no other spot; and it is
impossible but things should be as they are, for everything is for the
best."
By the side of the preceptor sat a little man dressed in black,
who was one of the familiars of the Inquisition. This person, taking
him up with great complaisance, said, "Possibly, my good sir, you do
not believe in original sin; for, if everything is best, there could
have been no such thing as the fall or punishment of man."
Your Excellency will pardon me," answered Pangloss, still more
politely; "for the fall of man and the curse consequent thereupon
necessarily entered into the system of the best of worlds."
"That is as much as to say, sir," rejoined the familiar, "you do not
believe in free will."
"Your Excellency will be so good as to excuse me," said Pangloss,
"free will is consistent with absolute necessity; for it was necessary
we should be free, for in that the will-"
Pangloss was in the midst of his proposition, when the familiar
beckoned to his attendant to help him to a glass of port wine.
CHAPTER 6
How the Portuguese Made a Superb Auto-De-Fe to Prevent Any Future
Earthquakes, and How Candide Underwent Public Flagellation

After the earthquake, which had destroyed three-fourths of the
city of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means more
effectual to preserve the kingdom from utter ruin than to entertain
the people with an auto-da-fe, it having been decided by the
University of Coimbra, that the burning of a few people alive by a
slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible preventive of
earthquakes.
In consequence thereof they had seized on a Biscayan for marrying
his godmother, and on two Portuguese for taking out the bacon of a
larded pullet they were eating; after dinner they came and secured Dr.
Pangloss, and his pupil Candide, the one for speaking his mind, and
the other for seeming to approve what he had said. They were conducted
to separate apartments, extremely cool, where they were never
incommoded with the sun. Eight days afterwards they were each
dressed in a sanbenito, and their heads were adorned with paper
mitres. The mitre and sanbenito worn by Candide were painted with
flames reversed and with devils that had neither tails nor claws;
but Dr. Pangloss's devils had both tails and claws, and his flames
were upright. In these habits they marched in procession, and heard
a very pathetic sermon, which was followed by an anthem, accompanied
by bagpipes. Candide was flogged to some tune, while the anthem was
being sung; the Biscayan and the two men who would not eat bacon
were burned, and Pangloss was hanged, which is not a common custom
at these solemnities. The same day there was another earthquake, which
made most dreadful havoc.
Candide, amazed, terrified, confounded, astonished, all bloody,
and trembling from head to foot, said to himself, "If this is the best
of all possible worlds, what are the others? If I had only been
whipped, I could have put up with it, as I did among the Bulgarians;
but, not withstanding, oh my dear Pangloss! my beloved master! thou
greatest of philosophers! that ever I should live to see thee
hanged, without knowing for what! O my dear Anabaptist, thou best of
men, that it should be thy fate to be drowned in the very harbor! O
Miss Cunegund, you mirror of young ladies! that it should be your fate
to have your body ripped open!"
He was making the best of his way from the place where he had been
preached to, whipped, absolved and blessed, when he was accosted by an
old woman, who said to him, "Take courage, child, and follow me."
CHAPTER 7
How the Old Woman Took Care Of Candide, and How He Found the
Object of His Love

Candide followed the old woman, though without taking courage, to
a decayed house, where she gave him a pot of pomatum to anoint his
sores, showed him a very neat bed, with a suit of clothes hanging by
it; and set victuals and drink before him.
"There," said she, "eat, drink, and sleep, and may Our Lady of
Atocha, and the great St. Anthony of Padua, and the illustrious St.
James of Compostella, take you under their protection. I shall be back
tomorrow."
Candide, struck with amazement at what he had seen, at what he had
suffered, and still more with the charity of the old woman, would have
shown his acknowledgment by kissing her hand.
"It is not my hand you ought to kiss," said the old woman. "I
shall be back tomorrow. Anoint your back, eat, and take your rest."
Candide, notwithstanding so many disasters, ate and slept. The
next morning, the old woman brought him his breakfast; examined his
back, and rubbed it herself with another ointment. She returned at the
proper time, and brought him his dinner; and at night, she visited him
again with his supper. The next day she observed the same ceremonies.
"Who are you?" said Candide to her. "Who has inspired you with so
much goodness? What return can I make you for this charitable
assistance?"
The good old beldame kept a profound silence. In the evening she
returned, but without his supper.
"Come along with me," said she, "but do not speak a word."
She took him by the arm, and walked with him about a quarter of a
mile into the country, till they came to a lonely house surrounded
with moats and gardens. The old conductress knocked at a little
door, which was immediately opened, and she showed him up a pair of
back stairs, into a small, but richly furnished apartment. There she
made him sit down on a brocaded sofa, shut the door upon him, and left
him. Candide thought himself in a trance; he looked upon his whole
life, hitherto, as a frightful dream, and the present moment as a very
agreeable one.
The old woman soon returned, supporting, with great difficulty, a
young lady, who appeared scarce able to stand. She was of a majestic
mien and stature, her dress was rich, and glittering with diamonds,
and her face was covered with a veil.
"Take off that veil," said the old woman to Candide.
The young man approached, and, with a trembling hand, took off her
veil. What a happy moment! What surprise! He thought he beheld Miss
Cunegund; he did behold her -it was she herself. His strength failed
him, he could not utter a word, he fell at her feet. Cunegund
fainted upon the sofa. The old woman bedewed them with spirits; they
recovered-they began to speak. At first they could express
themselves only in broken accents; their questions and answers were
alternately interrupted with sighs, tears, and exclamations. The old
woman desired them to make less noise, and after this prudent
admonition left them together.
"Good heavens!" cried Candide, "is it you? Is it Miss Cunegund I
behold, and alive? Do I find you again in Portugal? then you have
not been ravished? they did not rip open your body, as the philosopher
Pangloss informed me?"
"Indeed but they did," replied Miss Cunegund; "but these two
accidents do not always prove mortal."
"But were your father and mother killed?"
"Alas!" answered she, "it is but too true!" and she wept.
"And your brother?"
"And my brother also."
"And how came you into Portugal? And how did you know of my being
here? And by what strange adventure did you contrive to have me
brought into this house? And how-"
"I will tell you all," replied the lady, "but first you must
acquaint me with all that has befallen you since the innocent kiss you
gave me, and the rude kicking you received in consequence of it."
Candide, with the greatest submission, prepared to obey the commands
of his fair mistress; and though he was still filled with amazement,
though his voice was low and tremulous, though his back pained him,
yet he gave her a most ingenuous account of everything that had
befallen him, since the moment of their separation. Cunegund, with her
eyes uplifted to heaven, shed tears when he related the death of the
good Anabaptist, James, and of Pangloss; after which she thus
related her adventures to Candide, who lost not one syllable she
uttered, and seemed to devour her with his eyes all the time she was
speaking.
CHAPTER 8
Cunegund's Story

I was in bed, and fast asleep, when it pleased Heaven to send the
Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh, where they
murdered my father and brother, and cut my mother in pieces. A tall
Bulgarian soldier, six feet high, perceiving that I had fainted away
at this sight, attempted to ravish me; the operation brought me to
my senses. I cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I would have torn
the tall Bulgarian's eyes out, not knowing that what had happened at
my father's castle was a customary thing. The brutal soldier,
enraged at my resistance, gave me a wound in my left leg with his
hanger, the mark of which I still carry."
"Methinks I long to see it," said Candide, with all imaginable
simplicity.
"You shall," said Cunegund, "but let me proceed."
"Pray do," replied Candide.
She continued. "A Bulgarian captain came in, and saw me weltering in
my blood, and the soldier still as busy as if no one had been present.
The officer, enraged at the fellow's want of respect to him, killed
him with one stroke of his sabre as he lay upon me. This captain
took care of me, had me cured, and carried me as a prisoner of war
to his quarters. I washed what little linen he possessed, and cooked
his victuals: he was very fond of me, that was certain; neither can
I deny that he was well made, and had a soft, white skin, but he was
very stupid, and knew nothing of philosophy: it might plainly be
perceived that he had not been educated under Dr. Pangloss. In three
months, having gambled away all his money, and having grown tired of
me, he sold me to a Jew, named Don Issachar, who traded in Holland and
Portugal, and was passionately fond of women. This Jew showed me great
kindness, in hopes of gaining my favors; but he never could prevail on
me to yield. A modest woman may be once ravished; but her virtue is
greatly strengthened thereby. In order to make sure of me, he
brought me to this country house you now see. I had hitherto
believed that nothing could equal the beauty of the castle of
Thunder-ten-tronckh; but I found I was mistaken.
"The Grand Inquisitor saw me one day at Mass, ogled me all the
time of service, and when it was over, sent to let me know he wanted
to speak with me about some private business. I was conducted to his
palace, where I told him all my story; he represented to me how much
it was beneath a person of my birth to belong to a circumcised
Israelite. He caused a proposal to be made to Don Issachar, that he
should resign me to His Lordship. Don Issachar, being the court banker
and a man of credit, was not easy to be prevailed upon. His Lordship
threatened him with an auto-da-fe; in short, my Jew was frightened
into a compromise, and it was agreed between them, that the house
and myself should belong to both in common; that the Jew should have
Monday, Wednesday, and the Sabbath to himself; and the Inquisitor
the other four days of the week. This agreement has subsisted almost
six months; but not without several contests, whether the space from
Saturday night to Sunday morning belonged to the old or the new law.
For my part, I have hitherto withstood them both, and truly I
believe this is the very reason why they are both so fond of me.
"At length to turn aside the scourge of earthquakes, and to
intimidate Don Issachar, My Lord Inquisitor was pleased to celebrate
an auto-da-fe. He did me the honor to invite me to the ceremony. I had
a very good seat; and refreshments of all kinds were offered the
ladies between Mass and the execution. I was dreadfully shocked at the
burning of the two Jews, and the honest Biscayan who married his
godmother; but how great was my surprise, my consternation, and
concern, when I beheld a figure so like Pangloss, dressed in a
sanbenito and mitre! I rubbed my eyes, I looked at him attentively.
I saw him hanged, and I fainted away: scarce had I recovered my
senses, when I saw you stripped of clothing; this was the height of
horror, grief, and despair. I must confess to you for a truth, that
your skin is whiter and more blooming than that of the Bulgarian
captain. This spectacle worked me up to a pitch of distraction. I
screamed out, and would have said, 'Hold, barbarians!' but my voice
failed me; and indeed my cries would have signified nothing. After you
had been severely whipped, I said to myself, 'How is it possible
that the lovely Candide and the sage Pangloss should be at Lisbon, the
one to receive a hundred lashes, and the other to be hanged by order
of My Lord Inquisitor, of whom I am so great a favorite? Pangloss
deceived me most cruelly, in saying that everything is for the best.'
"Thus agitated and perplexed, now distracted and lost, now half dead
with grief, I revolved in my mind the murder of my father, mother, and
brother, committed before my eyes; the insolence of the rascally
Bulgarian soldier; the wound he gave me in the groin; my servitude; my
being a cook-wench to my Bulgarian captain; my subjection to the
hateful Jew, and my cruel Inquisitor; the hanging of Doctor
Pangloss; the Miserere sung while you were being whipped; and
particularly the kiss I gave you behind the screen, the last day I
ever beheld you. I returned thanks to God for having brought you to
the place where I was, after so many trials. I charged the old woman
who attends me to bring you hither as soon as was convenient. She
has punctually executed my orders, and I now enjoy the inexpressible
satisfaction of seeing you, hearing you, and speaking to you. But
you must certainly be half-dead with hunger; I myself have a great
inclination to eat, and so let us sit down to supper."
Upon this the two lovers immediately placed themselves at table,
and, after having supped, they returned to seat themselves again on
the magnificent sofa already mentioned, where they were in amorous
dalliance, when Senor Don Issachar, one of the masters of the house,
entered unexpectedly; it was the Sabbath day, and he came to enjoy his
privilege, and sigh forth his passion at the feet of the fair Cunegund.
CHAPTER 9
What Happened to Cunegund, Candide, the Grand Inquisitor, and the
Jew

This same Issachar was the most choleric little Hebrew that had ever
been in Israel since the captivity of Babylon.
"What," said he, "thou Galilean slut? The Inquisitor was not
enough for thee, but this rascal must come in for a share with me?"
In uttering these words, he drew out a long poniard, which he always
carried about him, and never dreaming that his adversary had any arms,
he attacked him most furiously; but our honest Westphalian had
received from the old woman a handsome sword with the suit of clothes.
Candide drew his rapier, and though he was very gentle and
sweet-tempered, he laid the Israelite dead on the floor at the fair
Cunegund's feet.
"Holy Virgin!" cried she, "what will become of us? A man killed in
my apartment! If the peace-officers come, we are undone."
"Had not Pangloss been hanged," replied Candide, "he would have
given us most excellent advice, in this emergency; for he was a
profound philosopher. But, since he is not here, let us consult the
old woman."
She was very sensible, and was beginning to give her advice, when
another door opened on a sudden. It was now one o'clock in the
morning, and of course the beginning of Sunday, which, by agreement,
fell to the lot of My Lord Inquisitor. Entering he discovered the
flagellated Candide with his drawn sword in his hand, a dead body
stretched on the floor, Cunegund frightened out of her wits, and the
old woman giving advice.
At that very moment, a sudden thought came into Candide's head.
"If this holy man," thought he, "should call assistance, I shall
most undoubtedly be consigned to the flames, and Miss Cunegund may
perhaps meet with no better treatment: besides, he was the cause of my
being so cruelly whipped; he is my rival; and as I have now begun to
dip my hands in blood, I will kill away, for there is no time to
hesitate."
This whole train of reasoning was clear and instantaneous; so
that, without giving time to the Inquisitor to recover from his
surprise, he ran him through the body, and laid him by the side of the
Jew.
"Here's another fine piece of work!" cried Cunegund. "Now there
can be no mercy for us, we are excommunicated; our last hour is
come. But how could you, who are of so mild a temper, despatch a Jew
and an Inquisitor in two minutes' time?"
"Beautiful maiden," answered Candide, "when a man is in love, is
jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he becomes lost to
all reflection."
The old woman then put in her word:
"There are three Andalusian horses in the stable, with as many
bridles and saddles; let the brave Candide get them ready. Madam has a
parcel of moidores and jewels, let us mount immediately, though I have
lost one buttock; let us set out for Cadiz; it is the finest weather
in the world, and there is great pleasure in traveling in the cool
of the night."
Candide, without any further hesitation, saddled the three horses;
and Miss Cunegund, the old woman, and he, set out, and traveled thirty
miles without once halting. While they were making the best of their
way, the Holy Brotherhood entered the house. My Lord, the
Inquisitor, was interred in a magnificent manner, and Master
Issachar's body was thrown upon a dunghill.
Candide, Cunegund, and the old woman, had by this time reached the
little town of Avacena, in the midst of the mountains of Sierra
Morena, and were engaged in the following conversation in an inn,
where they had taken up their quarters.
CHAPTER 10
In What Distress Candide, Cunegund, and the Old Woman Arrive at
Cadiz, and Of Their Embarkation

Who could it be that has robbed me of my moidores and jewels?"
exclaimed Miss Cunegund, all bathed in tears. "How shall we live? What
shall we do? Where shall I find Inquisitors and Jews who can give me
more?"
"Alas!" said the old woman, "I have a shrewd suspicion of a reverend
Franciscan father, who lay last night in the same inn with us at
Badajoz. God forbid I should condemn any one wrongfully, but he came
into our room twice, and he set off in the morning long before us."
"Alas!" said Candide, "Pangloss has often demonstrated to me that
the goods of this world are common to all men, and that everyone has
an equal right to the enjoyment of them; but, not withstanding,
according to these principles, the Franciscan ought to have left us
enough to carry us to the end of our journey. Have you nothing at
all left, my dear Miss Cunegund?"
"Not a maravedi," replied she.
"What is to be done then?" said Candide.
"Sell one of the horses," replied the old woman. "I will get up
behind Miss Cunegund, though I have only one buttock to ride on, and
we shall reach Cadiz."
In the same inn there was a Benedictine friar, who bought the
horse very cheap. Candide, Cunegund, and the old woman, after
passing through Lucina, Chellas, and Letrixa, arrived at length at
Cadiz. A fleet was then getting ready, and troops were assembling in
order to induce the reverend fathers, Jesuits of Paraguay, who were
accused of having excited one of the Indian tribes in the neighborhood
of the town of the Holy Sacrament, to revolt against the Kings of
Spain and Portugal.
Candide, having been in the Bulgarian service, performed the
military exercise of that nation before the general of this little
army with so intrepid an air, and with such agility and expedition,
that he received the command of a company of foot. Being now made a
captain, he embarked with Miss Cunegund, the old woman, two valets,
and the two Andalusian horses, which had belonged to the Grand
Inquisitor of Portugal.
During their voyage they amused themselves with many profound
reasonings on poor Pangloss's philosophy.
"We are now going into another world, and surely it must be there
that everything is for the best; for I must confess that we have had
some little reason to complain of what passes in ours, both as to
the physical and moral part. Though I have a sincere love for you,"
said Miss Cunegund, "yet I still shudder at the reflection of what I
have seen and experienced."
"All will be well," replied Candide, "the sea of this new world is
already better than our European seas: it is smoother, and the winds
blow more regularly."
"God grant it," said Cunegund, "but I have met with such terrible
treatment in this world that I have almost lost all hopes of a
better one."
"What murmuring and complaining is here indeed!" cried the old
woman. "If you had suffered half what I have, there might be some
reason for it."
Miss Cunegund could scarce refrain from laughing at the good old
woman, and thought it droll enough to pretend to a greater share of
misfortunes than her own.
"Alas! my good dame," said she, "unless you had been ravished by two
Bulgarians, had received two deep wounds in your belly, had seen two
of your own castles demolished, had lost two fathers, and two mothers,
and seen both of them barbarously murdered before your eyes, and to
sum up all, had two lovers whipped at an auto-da-fe, I cannot see
how you could be more unfortunate than I. Add to this, though born a
baroness, and bearing seventy-two quarterings, I have been reduced
to the station of a cook-wench."
"Miss," replied the old woman, "you do not know my family as yet;
but if I were to show you my posteriors, you would not talk in this
manner, but suspend your judgment." This speech raised a high
curiosity in Candide and Cunegund; and the old woman continued as
follows.
CHAPTER 11
The History of the Old Woman

I have not always been blear-eyed. My nose did not always touch my
chin; nor was I always a servant. You must know that I am the daughter
of Pope Urban X, and of the Princess of Palestrina. To the age of
fourteen I was brought up in a castle, compared with which all the
castles of the German barons would not have been fit for stabling, and
one of my robes would have bought half the province of Westphalia. I
grew up, and improved in beauty, wit, and every graceful
accomplishment; and in the midst of pleasures, homage, and the highest
expectations. I already began to inspire the men with love. My
breast began to take its right form, and such a breast! white, firm,
and formed like that of the Venus de' Medici; my eyebrows were as
black as jet, and as for my eyes, they darted flames and eclipsed
the luster of the stars, as I was told by the poets of our part of the
world. My maids, when they dressed and undressed me, used to fall into
an ecstasy in viewing me before and behind; and all the men longed
to be in their places.
"I was contracted in marriage to a sovereign prince of Massa
Carrara. Such a prince! as handsome as myself, sweet-tempered,
agreeable, witty, and in love with me over head and ears. I loved him,
too, as our sex generally do for the first time, with rapture,
transport, and idolatry. The nuptials were prepared with surprising
pomp and magnificence; the ceremony was attended with feasts,
carousals, and burlesques: all Italy composed sonnets in my praise,
though not one of them was tolerable.
"I was on the point of reaching the summit of bliss, when an old
marchioness, who had been mistress to the Prince, my husband,
invited him to drink chocolate. In less than two hours after he
returned from the visit, he died of most terrible convulsions.
"But this is a mere trifle. My mother, distracted to the highest
degree, and yet less afflicted than I, determined to absent herself
for some time from so fatal a place. As she had a very fine estate
in the neighborhood of Gaeta, we embarked on board a galley, which was
gilded like the high altar of St. Peter's, at Rome. In our passage
we were boarded by a Sallee rover. Our men defended themselves like
true Pope's soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, laid
down their arms, and begged the corsair to give them absolution in
articulo mortis.
"The Moors presently stripped us as bare as ever we were born. My
mother, my maids of honor, and myself, were served all in the same
manner. It is amazing how quick these gentry are at undressing people.
But what surprised me most was, that they made a rude sort of surgical
examination of parts of the body which are sacred to the functions
of nature. I thought it a very strange kind of ceremony; for thus we
are generally apt to judge of things when we have not seen the
world. I afterwards learned that it was to discover if we had any
diamonds concealed. This practice had been established since time
immemorial among those civilized nations that scour the seas. I was
informed that the religious Knights of Malta never fail to make this
search whenever any Moors of either sex fall into their hands. It is a
part of the law of nations, from which they never deviate.
"I need not tell you how great a hardship it was for a young
princess and her mother to be made slaves and carried to Morocco.
You may easily imagine what we must have suffered on board a
corsair. My mother was still extremely handsome, our maids of honor,
and even our common waiting-women, had more charms than were to be
found in all Africa.
"As to myself, I was enchanting; I was beauty itself, and then I had
my virginity. But, alas! I did not retain it long; this precious
flower, which had been reserved for the lovely Prince of Massa
Carrara, was cropped by the captain of the Moorish vessel, who was a
hideous Negro, and thought he did me infinite honor. Indeed, both
the Princess of Palestrina and myself must have had very strong
constitutions to undergo all the hardships and violences we suffered
before our arrival at Morocco. But I will not detain you any longer
with such common things; they are hardly worth mentioning.
"Upon our arrival at Morocco we found that kingdom deluged with
blood. Fifty sons of the Emperor Muley Ishmael were each at the head
of a party. This produced fifty civil wars of blacks against blacks,
of tawnies against tawnies, and of mulattoes against mulattoes. In
short, the whole empire was one continued scene of carnage.
"No sooner were we landed than a party of blacks, of a contrary
faction to that of my captain, came to rob him of his booty. Next to
the money and jewels, we were the most valuable things he had. I
witnessed on this occasion such a battle as you never beheld in your
cold European climates. The northern nations have not that
fermentation in their blood, nor that raging lust for women that is so
common in Africa. The natives of Europe seem to have their veins
filled with milk only; but fire and vitriol circulate in those of
the inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighboring provinces. They
fought with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of their
country, to decide who should have us. A Moor seized my mother by
the right arm, while my captain's lieutenant held her by the left;
another Moor laid hold of her by the right leg, and one of our
corsairs held her by the other. In this manner almost all of our women
were dragged by four soldiers.
"My captain kept me concealed behind him, and with his drawn
scimitar cut down everyone who opposed him; at length I saw all our
Italian women and my mother mangled and torn in pieces by the monsters
who contended for them. The captives, my companions, the Moors who
took us, the soldiers, the sailors, the blacks, the whites, the
mulattoes, and lastly, my captain himself, were all slain, and I
remained alone expiring upon a heap of dead bodies. Similar
barbarous scenes were transacted every day over the whole country,
which is of three hundred leagues in extent, and yet they never missed
the five stated times of prayer enjoined by their prophet Mahomet.
"I disengaged myself with great difficulty from such a heap of
corpses, and made a shift to crawl to a large orange tree that stood
on the bank of a neighboring rivulet, where I fell down exhausted with
fatigue, and overwhelmed with horror, despair, and hunger. My senses
being overpowered, I fell asleep, or rather seemed to be in a
trance. Thus I lay in a state of weakness and insensibility between
life and death, when I felt myself pressed by something that moved
up and down upon my body. This brought me to myself. I opened my eyes,
and saw a pretty fair-faced man, who sighed and muttered these words
between his teeth, 'O che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!"'
CHAPTER 12
The Adventures of the Old Woman Continued

Astonished and delighted to hear my native language, and no less
surprised at the young man's words, I told him that there were far
greater misfortunes in the world than what he complained of. And to
convince him of it, I gave him a short history of the horrible
disasters that had befallen me; and as soon as I had finished, fell
into a swoon again.
"He carried me in his arms to a neighboring cottage, where he had me
put to bed, procured me something to eat, waited on me with the
greatest attention, comforted me, caressed me, told me that he had
never seen anything so perfectly beautiful as myself, and that he
had never so much regretted the loss of what no one could restore to
him.
"'I was born at Naples,' said he, 'where they make eunuchs of
thousands of children every year; some die of the operation; some
acquire voices far beyond the most tuneful of your ladies; and
others are sent to govern states and empires. I underwent this
operation very successfully, and was one of the singers in the
Princess of Palestrina's chapel.'
"'How,' cried I, 'in my mother's chapel!'
"'The Princess of Palestrina, your mother!' cried he, bursting
into a flood of tears. 'Is it possible you should be the beautiful
young princess whom I had the care of bringing up till she was six
years old, and who at that tender age promised to be as fair as I
now behold you?'
"'I am the same,' I replied. 'My mother lies about a hundred yards
from here cut in pieces and buried under a heap of dead bodies.'
"I then related to him all that had befallen me, and he in return
acquainted me with all his adventures, and how he had been sent to the
court of the King of Morocco by a Christian prince to conclude a
treaty with that monarch; in consequence of which he was to be
furnished with military stores, and ships to destroy the commerce of
other Christian governments.
"'I have executed my commission,' said the eunuch; 'I am going to
take ship at Ceuta, and I'll take you along with me to Italy. Ma che
sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!'
"I thanked him with tears of joy, but, not withstanding, instead
of taking me with him to Italy, he carried me to Algiers, and sold
me to the Dey of that province. I had not been long a slave when the
plague, which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and Europe, broke out
at Algiers with redoubled fury. You have seen an earthquake; but
tell me, miss, have you ever had the plague?"
"Never," answered the young Baroness.
"If you had ever had it," continued the old woman, "you would own an
earthquake was a trifle to it. It is very common in Africa; I was
seized with it. Figure to yourself the distressed condition of the
daughter of a Pope, only fifteen years old, and who in less than three
months had felt the miseries of poverty and slavery; had been
debauched almost every day; had beheld her mother cut into four
quarters; had experienced the scourges of famine and war; and was
now dying of the plague at Algiers. I did not, however, die of it; but
my eunuch, and the Dey, and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers, were
swept off.
"As soon as the first fury of this dreadful pestilence was over, a
sale was made of the Dey's slaves. I was purchased by a merchant who
carried me to Tunis. This man sold me to another merchant, who sold me
again to another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria,
from Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. After
many changes, I at length became the property of an Aga of the
Janissaries, who, soon after I came into his possession, was ordered
away to the defense of Azoff, then besieged by the Russians.
"The Aga, being very fond of women, took his whole seraglio with
him, and lodged us in a small fort, with two black eunuchs and
twenty soldiers for our guard. Our army made a great slaughter among
the Russians; but they soon returned us the compliment. Azoff was
taken by storm, and the enemy spared neither age, sex, nor
condition, but put all to the sword, and laid the city in ashes. Our
little fort alone held out; they resolved to reduce us by famine.
The twenty janissaries, who were left to defend it, had bound
themselves by an oath never to surrender the place. Being reduced to
the extremity of famine, they found themselves obliged to kill our two
eunuchs, and eat them rather than violate their oath. But this
horrible repast soon failing them, they next determined to devour
the women.
"We had a very pious and humane man, who gave them a most
excellent sermon on this occasion, exhorting them not to kill us all
at once. 'Cut off only one of the buttocks of each of those ladies,'
said he, 'and you will fare extremely well; if you are under the
necessity of having recourse to the same expedient again, you will
find the like supply a few days hence. Heaven will approve of so
charitable an action, and work your deliverance.'
"By the force of this eloquence he easily persuaded them, and all of
us underwent the operation. The man applied the same balsam as they do
to children after circumcision. We were all ready to give up the
ghost.
"The Janissaries had scarcely time to finish the repast with which
we had supplied them, when the Russians attacked the place by means of
flat-bottomed boats, and not a single janissary escaped. The
Russians paid no regard to the condition we were in; but there are
French surgeons in all parts of the world, and one of them took us
under his care, and cured us. I shall never forget, while I live, that
as soon as my wounds were perfectly healed he made me certain
proposals. In general, he desired us all to be of a good cheer,
assuring us that the like had happened in many sieges; and that it was
perfectly agreeable to the laws of war.
"As soon as my companions were in a condition to walk, they were
sent to Moscow. As for me, I fell to the lot of a Boyard, who put me
to work in his garden, and gave me twenty lashes a day. But this
nobleman having about two years afterwards been broken alive upon
the wheel, with about thirty others, for some court intrigues, I
took advantage of the event, and made my escape. I traveled over a
great part of Russia. I was a long time an innkeeper's servant at
Riga, then at Rostock, Wismar, Leipsic, Cassel, Utrecht, Leyden, The
Hague, and Rotterdam. I have grown old in misery and disgrace,
living with only one buttock, and having in perpetual remembrance that
I am a Pope's daughter. I have been a hundred times upon the point
of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous
weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our
nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a
burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest, and yet to strive to
preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the serpent that
devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into
our hearts?
"In the different countries which it has been my fate to traverse,
and at the many inns where I have been a servant, I have observed a
prodigious number of people who held their existence in abhorrence,
and yet I never knew more than twelve who voluntarily put an end to
their misery; namely, three Negroes, four Englishmen, as many
Genevese, and a German professor named Robek. My last place was with
the Jew, Don Issachar, who placed me near your person, my fair lady;
to whose fortunes I have attached myself, and have been more concerned
with your adventures than with my own. I should never have even
mentioned the latter to you, had you not a little piqued me on the
head of sufferings; and if it were not customary to tell stories on
board a ship in order to pass away the time.
"In short, my dear miss, I have a great deal of knowledge and
experience in the world, therefore take my advice: divert yourself,
and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one
of them all that has not cursed his existence many times, and said
to himself over and over again that he was the most wretched of
mortals, I give you leave to throw me headfirst into the sea."
CHAPTER 13
How Candide Was Obliged to Leave the Fair Cunegund and the Old Woman

The fair Cunegund, being thus made acquainted with the history of
the old woman's life and adventures, paid her all the respect and
civility due to a person of her rank and merit. She very readily
acceded to her proposal of engaging the passengers to relate their
adventures in their turns, and was at length, as well as Candide,
compelled to acknowledge that the old woman was in the right.
"It is a thousand pities," said Candide, "that the sage Pangloss
should have been hanged contrary to the custom of an auto-da-fe, for
he would have given us a most admirable lecture on the moral and
physical evil which overspreads the earth and sea; and I think I
should have courage enough to presume to offer (with all due
respect) some few objections."
While everyone was reciting his adventures, the ship continued on
her way, and at length arrived at Buenos Ayres, where Cunegund,
Captain Candide, and the old woman, landed and went to wait upon the
governor, Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y
Souza. This nobleman carried himself with a haughtiness suitable to
a person who bore so many names. He spoke with the most noble
disdain to everyone, carried his nose so high, strained his voice to
such a pitch, assumed so imperious an air, and stalked with so much
loftiness and pride, that everyone who had the honor of conversing
with him was violently tempted to bastinade His Excellency. He was
immoderately fond of women, and Miss Cunegund appeared in his eyes a
paragon of beauty. The first thing he did was to ask her if she was
not the captain's wife. The air with which he made this demand alarmed
Candide, who did not dare to say he was married to her, because indeed
he was not; neither did he venture to say she was his sister,
because she was not; and though a lie of this nature proved of great
service to one of the ancients, and might possibly be useful to some
of the moderns, yet the purity of his heart would not permit him to
violate the truth.
"Miss Cunegund," replied he, "is to do me the honor to marry me, and
we humbly beseech Your Excellency to condescend to grace the
ceremony with your presence."
Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y
Souza, twirling his mustachio, and putting on a sarcastic smile,
ordered Captain Candide to go and review his company. The gentle
Candide obeyed, and the Governor was left with Miss Cunegund. He
made her a strong declaration of love, protesting that he was ready to
give her his hand in the face of the Church, or otherwise, as should
appear most agreeable to a young lady of her prodigious beauty.
Cunegund desired leave to retire a quarter of an hour to consult the
old woman, and determine how she should proceed.
The old woman gave her the following counsel:
"Miss, you have seventy-two quarterings in your arms, it is true,
but you have not a penny to bless yourself with. It is your own
fault if you do not become the wife of one of the greatest noblemen in
South America, with an exceeding fine mustachio. What business have
you to pride yourself upon an unshaken constancy? You have been
outraged by a Bulgarian soldier; a Jew and an Inquisitor have both
tasted of your favors. People take advantage of misfortunes. I must
confess, were I in your place, I should, without the least scruple,
give my hand to the Governor, and thereby make the fortune of the
brave Captain Candide."
While the old woman was thus haranguing, with all the prudence
that old age and experience furnish, a small bark entered the
harbor, in which was an alcayde and his alguazils. Matters had
fallen out as follows.
The old woman rightly guessed that the Franciscan with the long
sleeves, was the person who had taken Miss Cunegund's money and
jewels, while they and Candide were at Badajoz, in their flight from
Lisbon. This same friar attempted to sell some of the diamonds to a
jeweler, who presently knew them to have belonged to the Grand
Inquisitor, and stopped them. The Franciscan, before he was hanged,
acknowledged that he had stolen them and described the persons, and
the road they had taken. The flight of Cunegund and Candide was
already the towntalk. They sent in pursuit of them to Cadiz; and the
vessel which had been sent to make the greater dispatch, had now
reached the port of Buenos Ayres. A report was spread that an
alcayde was going to land, and that he was in pursuit of the murderers
of My Lord, the Inquisitor. The sage old woman immediately saw what
was to be done.
"You cannot run away," said she to Cunegund, "but you have nothing
to fear; it was not you who killed My Lord Inquisitor: besides, as the
Governor is in love with you, he will not suffer you to be
ill-treated; therefore stand your ground."
Then hurrying away to Candide, she said, "Be gone hence this
instant, or you will be burned alive."
Candide found there was no time to be lost; but how could he part
from Cunegund, and whither must he fly for shelter?
CHAPTER 14
The Reception Candide and Cacambo Met with among the Jesuits in
Paraguay

Candide had brought with him from Cadiz such a footman as one
often meets with on the coasts of Spain and in the colonies. He was
the fourth part of a Spaniard, of a mongrel breed, and born in
Tucuman. He had successively gone through the profession of a
singing boy, sexton, sailor, monk, peddler, soldier, and lackey. His
name was Cacambo; he had a great affection for his master, because his
master was a very good man. He immediately saddled the two
Andalusian horses.
"Come, my good master, let us follow the old woman's advice, and
make all the haste we can from this place without staying to look
behind us."
Candide burst into a flood of tears, "O my dear Cunegund, must I
then be compelled to quit you just as the Governor was going to
honor us with his presence at our wedding! Cunegund, so long lost
and found again, what will now become of you?"
"Lord!" said Cacambo, 'she must do as well as she can; women are
never at a loss. God takes care of them, and so let us make the best
of our way."
"But whither wilt thou carry me? where can we go? what can we do
without Cunegund?" cried the disconsolate Candide.
"By St. James of Compostella," said Cacambo, "you were going to
fight against the Jesuits of Paraguay; now let us go and fight for
them; I know the road perfectly well; I'll conduct you to their
kingdom; they will be delighted with a captain that understands the
Bulgarian drill; you will certainly make a prodigious fortune. If we
cannot succeed in this world we may in another. It is a great pleasure
to see new objects and perform new exploits."
"Then you have been in Paraguay?" asked Candide.
"Ay, marry, I have," replied Cacambo. "I was a scout in the
College of the Assumption, and am as well acquainted with the new
government of the Los Padres as I am with the streets of Cadiz. Oh, it
is an admirable government, that is most certain! The kingdom is at
present upwards of three hundred leagues in diameter, and divided into
thirty provinces; the fathers there are masters of everything, and the
people have no money at all; this you must allow is the masterpiece of
justice and reason. For my part, I see nothing so divine as the good
fathers, who wage war in this part of the world against the troops
of Spain and Portugal, at the same time that they hear the confessions
of those very princes in Europe; who kill Spaniards in America and
send them to Heaven at Madrid. This pleases me exceedingly, but let us
push forward; you are going to see the happiest and most fortunate
of all mortals. How charmed will those fathers be to hear that a
captain who understands the Bulgarian military drill is coming to
them."
As soon as they reached the first barrier, Cacambo called to the
advance guard, and told them that a captain wanted to speak to My
Lord, the General. Notice was given to the main guard, and immediately
a Paraguayan officer ran to throw himself at the feet of the
Commandant to impart this news to him. Candide and Cacambo were
immediately disarmed, and their two Andalusian horses were seized. The
two strangers were conducted between two files of musketeers, the
Commandant was at the further end with a three-cornered cap on his
head, his gown tucked up, a sword by his side, and a half-pike in
his hand; he made a sign, and instantly four and twenty soldiers
drew up round the newcomers. A sergeant told them that they must wait,
the Commandant could not speak to them; and that the Reverend Father
Provincial did not suffer any Spaniard to open his mouth but in his
presence, or to stay above three hours in the province.
"And where is the Reverend Father Provincial?" said Cacambo.
"He has just come from Mass and is at the parade," replied the
sergeant, "and in about three hours' time you may possibly have the
honor to kiss his spurs."
"But," said Cacambo, "the Captain, who, as well as myself, is
perishing of hunger, is no Spaniard, but a German; therefore, pray,
might we not be permitted to break our fast till we can be
introduced to His Reverence?"
The sergeant immediately went and acquainted the Commandant with
what he heard.
"God be praised," said the Reverend Commandant, "since he is a
German I will hear what he has to say; let him be brought to my
arbor."
Immediately they conducted Candide to a beautiful pavilion adomed
with a colonnade of green marble, spotted with yellow, and with an
intertexture of vines, which served as a kind of cage for parrots,
humming birds, guinea hens, and all other curious kinds of birds. An
excellent breakfast was provided in vessels of gold; and while the
Paraguayans were eating coarse Indian corn out of wooden dishes in the
open air, and exposed to the burning heat of the sun, the Reverend
Father Commandant retired to his cool arbor.
He was a very handsome young man, round-faced, fair, and
fresh-colored, his eyebrows were finely arched, he had a piercing eye,
the tips of his ears were red, his lips vermilion, and he had a bold
and commanding air; but such a boldness as neither resembled that of a
Spaniard nor of a Jesuit. He ordered Candide and Cacambo to have their
arms restored to them, together with their two Andalusian horses.
Cacambo gave the poor beasts some oats to eat close by the arbor,
keeping a strict eye upon them all the while for fear of surprise.
Candide having kissed the hem of the Commandant's robe, they sat
down to table.
"It seems you are a German," said the Jesuit to him in that
language.
"Yes, Reverend Father," answered Candide.
As they pronounced these words they looked at each other with
great amazement and with an emotion that neither could conceal.
"From what part of Germany do you come?" said the Jesuit.
"From the dirty province of Westphalia," answered Candide.
"I was born in the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh."
"Oh heavens! is it possible?" said the Commandant.
"What a miracle!" cried Candide.
"Can it be you?" said the Commandant.
On this they both drew a few steps backwards, then running into each
other's arms, embraced, and wept profusely.
"Is it you then, Reverend Father? You are the brother of the fair
Miss Cunegund? You that was slain by the Bulgarians! You the Baron's
son! You a Jesuit in Paraguay! I must confess this is a strange
world we live in. O Pangloss! what joy would this have given you if
you had not been hanged."
The Commandant dismissed the Negro slaves, and the Paraguayans who
presented them with liquor in crystal goblets. He returned thanks to
God and St. Ignatius a thousand times; he clasped Candide in his arms,
and both their faces were bathed in tears.
"You will be more surprised, more affected, more transported,"
said Candide, "when I tell you that Miss Cunegund, your sister,
whose belly was supposed to have been ripped open, is in perfect
health."
"In your neighborhood, with the Governor of Buenos Ayres; and I
myself was going to fight against you."
Every word they uttered during this long conversation was productive
of some new matter of astonishment. Their souls fluttered on their
tongues, listened in their ears, and sparkled in their eyes. Like true
Germans, they continued a long while at table, waiting for the
Reverend Father; and the Commandant spoke to his dear Candide as
follows.
CHAPTER 15
How Candide Killed the Brother of His Dear Cunegund

Never while I live shall I lose the remembrance of that horrible day
on which I saw my father and mother barbarously butchered before my
eyes, and my sister ravished. When the Bulgarians retired we
searched in vain for my dear sister. She was nowhere to be found;
but the bodies of my father, mother, and myself, with two servant
maids and three little boys, all of whom had been murdered by the
remorseless enemy, were thrown into a cart to be buried in a chapel
belonging to the Jesuits, within two leagues of our family seat. A
Jesuit sprinkled us with some holy water, which was confounded
salty, and a few drops of it went into my eyes; the father perceived
that my eyelids stirred a little; he put his hand upon my breast and
felt my heartbeat; upon which he gave me proper assistance, and at the
end of three weeks I was perfectly recovered. You know, my dear
Candide, I was very handsome; I became still more so, and the Reverend
Father Croust, superior of that house, took a great fancy to me; he
gave me the habit of the order, and some years afterwards I was sent
to Rome. Our General stood in need of new recruits of young German
Jesuits. The sovereigns of Paraguay admit of as few Spanish Jesuits as
possible; they prefer those of other nations, as being more obedient
to command. The Reverend Father General looked upon me as a proper
person to work in that vineyard. I set out in company with a
Polander and a Tyrolese. Upon my arrival I was honored with a
subdeaconship and a lieutenancy. Now I am colonel and priest. We shall
give a warm reception to the King of Spain's troops; I can assure
you they will be well excommunicated and beaten. Providence has sent
you hither to assist us. But is it true that my dear sister Cunegund
is in the neighborhood with the Governor of Buenos Ayres?"
Candide swore that nothing could be more true; and the tears began
again to trickle down their cheeks. The Baron knew no end of embracing
Candide, be called him his brother, his deliverer.
"Perhaps," said he, "my dear Candide, we shall be fortunate enough
to enter the town, sword in hand, and recover my sister Cunegund."
"Ah! that would crown my wishes," replied Candide; "for I intended
to marry her; and I hope I shall still be able to effect it."
"Insolent fellow!" cried the Baron. "You! you have the impudence
to marry my sister, who bears seventy-two quarterings! Really, I think
you have an insufferable degree of assurance to dare so much as to
mention such an audacious design to me."
Candide, thunderstruck at the oddness of this speech, answered:
"Reverend Father, all the quarterings in the world are of no
signification. I have delivered your sister from a Jew and an
Inquisitor; she is under many obligations to me, and she is resolved
to give me her hand. My master, Pangloss, always told me that
mankind are by nature equal. Therefore, you may depend upon it that
I will marry your sister."
"We shall see to that, villain!" said the Jesuit, Baron of
Thunder-ten-tronckh, and struck him across the face with the flat side
of his sword. Candide in an instant drew his rapier and plunged it
up to the hilt in the Jesuit's body; but in pulling it out reeking
hot, he burst into tears.
"Good God!" cried he, "I have killed my old master, my friend, my
brother-in-law. I am the best man in the world, and yet I have already
killed three men, and of these three, two were priests."
Cacambo, who was standing sentry near the door of the arbor,
instantly ran up.
"Nothing remains," said his master, "but to sell our lives as dearly
as possible; they will undoubtedly look into the arbor; we must die
sword in hand."
Cacambo, who had seen many of this kind of adventures, was not
discouraged. He stripped the Baron of his Jesuit's habit and put it
upon Candide, then gave him the dead man's three-cornered cap and made
him mount on horseback. All this was done as quick as thought.
"Gallop, master," cried Cacambo; "everybody will take you for a
Jesuit going to give orders; and we shall have passed the frontiers
before they will be able to overtake us."
He flew as he spoke these words, crying out aloud in Spanish,
"Make way; make way for the Reverend Father Colonel."
CHAPTER 16
What Happened to Our Two Travelers with Two Girls, Two Monkeys,
and the Savages, Called Oreillons

Candide and his valet had already passed the frontiers before it was
known that the German Jesuit was dead. The wary Cacambo had taken care
to fill his wallet with bread, chocolate, some ham, some fruit, and
a few bottles of wine. They penetrated with their Andalusian horses
into a strange country, where they could discover no beaten path. At
length a beautiful meadow, intersected with purling rills, opened to
their view. Cacambo proposed to his master to take some nourishment,
and he set him an example.
"How can you desire me to feast upon ham, when I have killed the
Baron's son and am doomed never more to see the beautiful Cunegund?
What will it avail me to prolong a wretched life that must be spent
far from her in remorse and despair? And then what will the journal of
Trevoux say?" was Candide's reply.
While he was making these reflections he still continued eating. The
sun was now on the point of setting when the ears of our two wanderers
were assailed with cries which seemed to be uttered by a female voice.
They could not tell whether these were cries of grief or of joy;
however, they instantly started up, full of that inquietude and
apprehension which a strange place naturally inspires. The cries
proceeded from two young women who were tripping disrobed along the
mead, while two monkeys followed close at their heels biting at
their limbs. Candide was touched with compassion; he had learned to
shoot while he was among the Bulgarians, and he could hit a filbert in
a hedge without touching a leaf. Accordingly he took up his
double-barrelled Spanish gun, pulled the trigger, and laid the two
monkeys lifeless on the ground.
"God be praised, my dear Cacambo, I have rescued two poor girls from
a most perilous situation; if I have committed a sin in killing an
Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the
lives of these two distressed damsels. Who knows but they may be young
ladies of a good family, and that the assistance I have been so
happy to give them may procure us great advantage in this country?"
He was about to continue when he felt himself struck speechless at
seeing the two girls embracing the dead bodies of the monkeys in the
tenderest manner, bathing their wounds with their tears, and rending
the air with the most doleful lamentations.
"Really," said he to Cacambo, "I should not have expected to see
such a prodigious share of good nature."
"Master," replied the knowing valet, "you have made a precious piece
of work of it; do you know that you have killed the lovers of these
two ladies?"
"Their lovers! Cacambo, you are jesting! It cannot be! I can never
believe it."
"Dear sir," replied Cacambo, "you are surprised at everything. Why
should you think it so strange that there should be a country where
monkeys insinuate themselves into the good graces of the ladies?
They are the fourth part of a man as I am the fourth part of a
Spaniard."
"Alas!" replied Candide, "I remember to have heard my master
Pangloss say that such accidents as these frequently came to pass in
former times, and that these commixtures are productive of centaurs,
fauns, and satyrs; and that many of the ancients had seen such
monsters; but I looked upon the whole as fabulous."
"Now you are convinced," said Cacambo, "that it is very true, and
you see what use is made of those creatures by persons who have not
had a proper education; all I am afraid of is that these same ladies
may play us some ugly trick."
These judicious reflections operated so far on Candide as to make
him quit the meadow and strike into a thicket. There he and Cacambo
supped, and after heartily cursing the Grand Inquisitor, the
Governor of Buenos Ayres, and the Baron, they fell asleep on the
ground. When they awoke they were surprised to find that they could
not move; the reason was that the Oreillons who inhabit that
country, and to whom the ladies had given information of these two
strangers, had bound them with cords made of the bark of trees. They
saw themselves surrounded by fifty naked Oreillons armed with bows and
arrows, clubs, and hatchets of flint; some were making a fire under
a large cauldron; and others were preparing spits, crying out one
and all, "A Jesuit! a Jesuit! we shall be revenged; we shall have
excellent cheer; let us eat this Jesuit; let us eat him up."
"I told you, master," cried Cacambo, mournfully, "that these two
wenches would play us some scurvy trick."
Candide, seeing the cauldron and the spits, cried out, "I suppose
they are going either to boil or roast us. Ah! what would Pangloss say
if he were to see how pure nature is formed? Everything is right; it
may be so; but I must confess it is something hard to be bereft of
dear Miss Cunegund, and to be spitted like a rabbit by these barbarous
Oreillons."
Cacambo, who never lost his presence of mind in distress, said to
the disconsolate Candide, "Do not despair; I understand a little of
the jargon of these people; I will speak to them."
"Ay, pray do," said Candide, "and be sure you make them sensible
of the horrid barbarity of boiling and roasting human creatures, and
how little of Christianity there is in such practices."
"Gentlemen," said Cacambo, "you think perhaps you are going to feast
upon a Jesuit; if so, it is mighty well; nothing can be more agreeable
to justice than thus to treat your enemies. Indeed the law of nature
teaches us to kill our neighbor, and accordingly we find this
practiced all over the world; and if we do not indulge ourselves in
eating human flesh, it is because we have much better fare; but for
your parts, who have not such resources as we, it is certainly much
better judged to feast upon your enemies than to throw their bodies to
the fowls of the air; and thus lose all the fruits of your victory.
"But surely, gentlemen, you would not choose to eat your friends.
You imagine you are going to roast a Jesuit, whereas my master is your
friend, your defender, and you are going to spit the very man who
has been destroying your enemies; as to myself, I am your
countryman; this gentleman is my master, and so far from being a
Jesuit, give me leave to tell you he has very lately killed one of
that order, whose spoils he now wears, and which have probably
occasioned your mistake. To convince you of the truth of what I say,
take the habit he has on and carry it to the first barrier of the
Jesuits' kingdom, and inquire whether my master did not kill one of
their officers. There will be little or no time lost by this, and
you may still reserve our bodies in your power to feast on if you
should find what we have told you to be false. But, on the contrary,
if you find it to be true, I am persuaded you are too well
acquainted with the principles of the laws of society, humanity, and
justice, not to use us courteously, and suffer us to depart unhurt."
This speech appeared very reasonable to the Oreillons; they
deputed two of their people with all expedition to inquire into the
truth of this affair, who acquitted themselves of their commission
like men of sense, and soon returned with good tidings for our
distressed adventurers. Upon this they were loosed, and those who were
so lately going to roast and boil them now showed them all sorts of
civilities, offered them girls, gave them refreshments, and
reconducted them to the confines of their country, crying before
them all the way, in token of joy, "He is no Jesuit! he is no Jesuit!"
Candide could not help admiring the cause of his deliverance.
"What men! what manners!" cried he. "If I had not fortunately run my
sword up to the hilt in the body of Miss Cunegund's brother, I
should have certainly been eaten alive. But, after all, pure nature is
an excellent thing; since these people, instead of eating me, showed
me a thousand civilities as soon as they knew was not a Jesuit."
CHAPTER 17
Candide and His Valet Arrive in the Country of El Dorado-What They
Saw There

When to the frontiers of the Oreillons, said Cacambo to Candide,
"You see, this hemisphere is not better than the other; now take my
advice and let us return to Europe by the shortest way possible."
"But how can we get back?" said Candide; "and whither shall we go?
To my own country? The Bulgarians and the Abares are laying that waste
with fire and sword. Or shall we go to Portugal? There I shall be
burned; and if we abide here we are every moment in danger of being
spitted. But how can I bring myself to quit that part of the world
where my dear Miss Cunegund has her residence?"
"Let us return towards Cayenne," said Cacambo. "There we shall
meet with some Frenchmen, for you know those gentry ramble all over
the world. Perhaps they will assist us, and God will look with pity on
our distress."
It was not so easy to get to Cayenne. They knew pretty nearly
whereabouts it lay; but the mountains, rivers, precipices, robbers,
savages, were dreadful obstacles in the way. Their horses died with
fatigue and their provisions were at an end. They subsisted a whole
month on wild fruit, till at length they came to a little river
bordered with cocoa trees; the sight of which at once revived their
drooping spirits and furnished nourishment for their enfeebled bodies.
Cacambo, who was always giving as good advice as the old woman
herself, said to Candide, "You see there is no holding out any longer;
we have traveled enough on foot. I spy an empty canoe near the river
side; let us fill it with cocoanuts, get into it, and go down with the
stream; a river always leads to some inhabited place. If we do not
meet with agreeable things, we shall at least meet with something
new."
"Agreed," replied Candide; "let us recommend ourselves to
Providence."
They rowed a few leagues down the river, the banks of which were
in some places covered with flowers; in others barren; in some parts
smooth and level, and in others steep and rugged. The stream widened
as they went further on, till at length it passed under one of the
frightful rocks, whose summits seemed to reach the clouds. Here our
two travelers had the courage to commit themselves to the stream,
which, contracting in this part, hurried them along with a dreadful
noise and rapidity.
At the end of four and twenty hours they saw daylight again; but
their canoe was dashed to pieces against the rocks. They were
obliged to creep along, from rock to rock, for the space of a
league, till at length a spacious plain presented itself to their
sight. This place was bounded by a chain of inaccessible mountains.
The country appeared cultivated equally for pleasure and to produce
the necessaries of life. The useful and agreeable were here equally
blended. The roads were covered, or rather adorned, with carriages
formed of glittering materials, in which were men and women of a
surprising beauty, drawn with great rapidity by red sheep of a very
large size; which far surpassed the finest coursers of Andalusian
Tetuan, or Mecquinez.
"Here is a country, however," said Candide, "preferable to
Westphalia."
He and Cacambo landed near the first village they saw, at the
entrance of which they perceived some children covered with tattered
garments of the richest brocade, playing at quoits. Our two
inhabitants of the other hemisphere amused themselves greatly with
what they saw. The quoits were large, round pieces, yellow, red, and
green, which cast a most glorious luster. Our travelers picked some of
them up, and they proved to be gold, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds;
the least of which would have been the greatest ornament to the superb
throne of the Great Mogul.
"Without doubt," said Cacambo, "those children must be the King's
sons that are playing at quoits."
As he was uttering these words the schoolmaster of the village
appeared, who came to call the children to school.
"There," said Candide, "is the preceptor of the royal family."
The little ragamuffins immediately quitted their diversion,
leaving the quoits on the ground with all their other playthings.
Candide gathered them up, ran to the schoolmaster, and, with a most
respectful bow, presented them to him, giving him to understand by
signs that their Royal Highnesses had forgot their gold and precious
stones. The schoolmaster, with a smile, flung them upon the ground,
then examining Candide from head to foot with an air of admiration, he
turned his back and went on his way.
Our travelers took care, however, to gather up the gold, the rubies,
and the emeralds.
"Where are we?" cried Candide. "The King's children in this
country must have an excellent education, since they are taught to
show such a contempt for gold and precious stones."
Cacambo was as much surprised as his master. They then drew near the
first house in the village, which was built after the manner of a
European palace. There was a crowd of people about the door, and a
still greater number in the house. The sound of the most delightful
instruments of music was heard, and the most agreeable smell came from
the kitchen. Cacambo went up to the door and heard those within
talking in the Peruvian language, which was his mother tongue; for
everyone knows that Cacambo was born in a village of Tucuman, where no
other language is spoken.
"I will be your interpreter here," said he to Candide. "Let us go
in; this is an eating house."
Immediately two waiters and two servant-girls, dressed in cloth of
gold, and their hair braided with ribbons of tissue, accosted the
strangers and invited them to sit down to the ordinary. Their dinner
consisted of four dishes of different soups, each garnished with two
young paroquets, a large dish of bouille that weighed two hundred
weight, two roasted monkeys of a delicious flavor, three hundred
hummingbirds in one dish, and six hundred flybirds in another; some
excellent ragouts, delicate tarts, and the whole served up in dishes
of rock-crystal. Several sorts of liquors, extracted from the
sugarcane, were handed about by the servants who attended.
Most of the company were chapmen and wagoners, all extremely polite;
they asked Cacambo a few questions with the utmost discretion and
circumspection; and replied to his in a most obliging and satisfactory
manner.
As soon as dinner was over, both Candide and Cacambo thought they
should pay very handsomely for their entertainment by laying down
two of those large gold pieces which they had picked off the ground;
but the landlord and landlady burst into a fit of laughing and held
their sides for some time.
When the fit was over, the landlord said, "Gentlemen, I plainly
perceive you are strangers, and such we are not accustomed to
charge; pardon us, therefore, for laughing when you offered us the
common pebbles of our highways for payment of your reckoning. To be
sure, you have none of the coin of this kingdom; but there is no
necessity of having any money at all to dine in this house. All the
inns, which are established for the convenience of those who carry
on the trade of this nation, are maintained by the government. You
have found but very indifferent entertainment here, because this is
only a poor village; but in almost every other of these public
houses you will meet with a reception worthy of persons of your
merit."
Cacambo explained the whole of this speech of the landlord to
Candide, who listened to it with the same astonishment with which
his friend communicated it.
"What sort of a country is this," said the one to the other, "that
is unknown to all the world; and in which Nature has everywhere so
different an appearance to what she has in ours? Possibly this is that
part of the globe where everywhere is right, for there must
certainly be some such place. And, for all that Master Pangloss
could say, I often perceived that things went very ill in Westphalia."
CHAPTER 18
What They Saw in the Country of El Dorado

Cacambo vented all his curiosity upon his landlord by a thousand
different questions; the honest man answered him thus, "I am very
ignorant, sir, but I am contented with my ignorance; however, we
have in this neighborhood an old man retired from court, who is the
most learned and communicative person in the whole kingdom."
He then conducted Cacambo to the old man; Candide acted now only a
second character, and attended his valet. They entered a very plain
house, for the door was nothing but silver, and the ceiling was only
of beaten gold, but wrought in such elegant taste as to vie with the
richest. The antechamber, indeed, was only incrusted with rubies and
emeralds; but the order in which everything was disposed made amends
for this great simplicity.
The old man received the strangers on his sofa, which was stuffed
with hummingbirds' feathers; and ordered his servants to present
them with liquors in golden goblets, after which he satisfied their
curiosity in the following terms.
"I am now one hundred and seventy-two years old, and I learned of my
late father, who was equerry to the King, the amazing revolutions of
Peru, to which he had been an eyewitness. This kingdom is the
ancient patrimony of the Incas, who very imprudently quitted it to
conquer another part of the world, and were at length conquered and
destroyed themselves by the Spaniards.
"Those princes of their family who remained in their native
country acted more wisely. They ordained, with the consent of their
whole nation, that none of the inhabitants of our little kingdom
should ever quit it; and to this wise ordinance we owe the
preservation of our innocence and happiness. The Spaniards had some
confused notion of this country, to which they gave the name of El
Dorado; and Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman, actually came very near
it about three hundred years ago; but the inaccessible rocks and
precipices with which our country is surrounded on all sides, has
hitherto secured us from the rapacious fury of the people of Europe,
who have an unaccountable fondness for the pebbles and dirt of our
land, for the sake of which they would murder us all to the very
last man."
The conversation lasted some time and turned chiefly on the form
of government, their manners, their women, their public diversions,
and the arts. At length, Candide, who had always had a taste for
metaphysics, asked whether the people of that country had any
religion.
The old man reddened a little at this question.
"Can you doubt it?" said he; "do you take us for wretches lost to
all sense of gratitude?"
Cacambo asked in a respectful manner what was the established
religion of El Dorado. The old man blushed again and said, "Can
there be two religions, then? Ours, I apprehend, is the religion of
the whole world; we worship God from morning till night."
"Do you worship but one God?" said Cacambo, who still acted as the
interpreter of Candide's doubts.
"Certainly," said the old man; "there are not two, nor three, nor
four Gods. I must confess the people of your world ask very
extraordinary questions."
However, Candide could not refrain from making many more inquiries
of the old man; he wanted to know in what manner they prayed to God in
El Dorado.
"We do not pray to Him at all," said the reverend sage; "we have
nothing to ask of Him, He has given us all we want, and we give Him
thanks incessantly."
Candide had a curiosity to see some of their priests, and desired
Cacambo to ask the old man where they were. At which he smiling
said, "My friends, we are all of us priests; the King and all the
heads of families sing solemn hymns of thanksgiving every morning,
accompanied by five or six thousand musicians."
"What!" said Cacambo, "have you no monks among you to dispute, to
govern, to intrigue, and to burn people who are not of the same
opinion with themselves?"
"Do you take us for fools?" said the old man. "Here we are all of
one opinion, and know not what you mean by your monks."
During the whole of this discourse Candide was in raptures, and he
said to himself, "What a prodigious difference is there between this
place and Westphalia; and this house and the Baron's castle. Ah,
Master Pangloss! had you ever seen El Dorado, you would no longer have
maintained that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh was the finest of
all possible edifices; there is nothing like seeing the world,
that's certain."
This long conversation being ended, the old man ordered six sheep to
be harnessed and put to the coach, and sent twelve of his servants
to escort the travelers to court.
"Excuse me," said he, "for not waiting on you in person, my age
deprives me of that honor. The King will receive you in such a
manner that you will have no reason to complain; and doubtless you
will make a proper allowance for the customs of the country if they
should not happen altogether to please you."
Candide and Cacambo got into the coach, the six sheep flew, and,
in less than a quarter of an hour, they arrived at the King's
palace, which was situated at the further end of the capital. At the
entrance was a portal two hundred and twenty feet high and one hundred
wide; but it is impossible for words to express the materials of which
it was built. The reader, however, will readily conceive that they
must have a prodigious superiority over the pebbles and sand, which we
call gold and precious stones.
Twenty beautiful young virgins in waiting received Candide and
Cacambo on their alighting from the coach, conducted them to the
bath and clad them in robes woven of the down of hummingbirds; after
which they were introduced by the great officers of the crown of
both sexes to the King's apartment, between two files of musicians,
each file consisting of a thousand, agreeable to the custom of the
country.
When they drew near to the presence-chamber, Cacambo asked one of
the officers in what manner they were to pay their obeisance to His
Majesty; whether it was the custom to fall upon their knees, or to
prostrate themselves upon the ground; whether they were to put their
hands upon their heads, or behind their backs; whether they were to
lick the dust off the floor; in short, what was the ceremony usual
on such occasions.
"The custom," said the great officer, "is to embrace the King and
kiss him on each cheek."
Candide and Cacambo accordingly threw their arms round His Majesty's
neck, who received them in the most gracious manner imaginable, and
very politely asked them to sup with him.
While supper was preparing, orders were given to show them the city,
where they saw public structures that reared their lofty heads to
the clouds; the marketplaces decorated with a thousand columns;
fountains of spring water, besides others of rose water, and of
liquors drawn from the sugarcane, incessantly flowing in the great
squares, which were paved with a kind of precious stones that
emitted an odor like that of cloves and cinnamon.
Candide asked to see the High Court of justice, the Parliament;
but was answered that they had none in that country, being utter
strangers to lawsuits. He then inquired if they had any prisons;
they replied none. But what gave him at once the greatest surprise and
pleasure was the Palace of Sciences, where he saw a gallery two
thousand feet long, filled with the various apparatus in mathematics
and natural philosophy.
After having spent the whole afternoon in seeing only about the
thousandth part of the city, they were brought back to the King's
palace. Candide sat down at the table with His Majesty, his valet
Cacambo, and several ladies of the court. Never was entertainment more
elegant, nor could any one possibly show more wit than His Majesty
displayed while they were at supper. Cacambo explained all the
King's bons mots to Candide, and, although they were translated,
they still appeared to be bons mots. Of all the things that
surprised Candide, this was not the least.
They spent a whole month in this hospitable place, during which time
Candide was continually saying to Cacambo, "I own, my friend, once
more, that the castle where I was born is a mere nothing in comparison
to the place where we now are; but still Miss Cunegund is not here,
and you yourself have doubtless some fair one in Europe for whom you
sigh. If we remain here we shall only be as others are; whereas if
we return to our own world with only a dozen of El Dorado sheep,
loaded with the pebbles of this country, we shall be richer than all
the kings in Europe; we shall no longer need to stand in awe of the
Inquisitors; and we may easily recover Miss Cunegund."
This speech was perfectly agreeable to Cacambo. A fondness for
roving, for making a figure in their own country, and for boasting
of what they had seen in their travels, was so powerful in our two
wanderers that they resolved to be no longer happy; and demanded
permission of the King to quit the country.
"You are about to do a rash and silly action," said the King. "I
am sensible my kingdom is an inconsiderable spot; but when people
are tolerably at their ease in any place, I should think it would be
to their interest to remain there. Most assuredly, I have no right
to detain you, or any strangers, against your wills; this is an act of
tyranny to which our manners and our laws are equally repugnant. All
men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to
depart whenever you please, but you will have many and great
difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers. It is impossible
to ascend that rapid river which runs under high and vaulted rocks,
and by which you were conveyed hither by a kind of miracle. The
mountains by which my kingdom are hemmed in on all sides, are ten
thousand feet high, and perfectly perpendicular; they are above ten
leagues across, and the descent from them is one continued precipice.
"However, since you are determined to leave us, I will immediately
give orders to the superintendent of my carriages to cause one to be
made that will convey you very safely. When they have conducted you to
the back of the mountains, nobody can attend you farther; for my
subjects have made a vow never to quit the kingdom, and they are too
prudent to break it. Ask me whatever else you please."
"All we shall ask of Your Majesty," said Cacambo, "is only a few
sheep laden with provisions, pebbles, and the clay of your country."
The King smiled at the request and said, "I cannot imagine what
pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay; but take away as
much of it as you will, and much good may it do you."
He immediately gave orders to his engineers to make a machine to
hoist these two extraordinary men out of the kingdom. Three thousand
good machinists went to work and finished it in about fifteen days,
and it did not cost more than twenty millions sterling of that
country's money. Candide and Cacambo were placed on this machine,
and they took with them two large red sheep, bridled and saddled, to
ride upon, when they got on the other side of the mountains; twenty
others to serve as sumpters for carrying provisions; thirty laden with
presents of whatever was most curious in the country, and fifty with
gold, diamonds, and other precious stones. The King, at parting with
our two adventurers, embraced them with the greatest cordiality.
It was a curious sight to behold the manner of their setting off,
and the ingenious method by which they and their sheep were hoisted to
the top of the mountains. The machinists and engineers took leave of
them as soon as they had conveyed them to a place of safety, and
Candide was wholly occupied with the thoughts of presenting his
sheep to Miss Cunegund.
"Now," cried he, "thanks to Heaven, we have more than sufficient
to pay the Governor of Buenos Ayres for Miss Cunegund, if she is
redeemable. Let us make the best of our way to Cayenne, where we
will take shipping and then we may at leisure think of what kingdom we
shall purchase with our riches."
CHAPTER 19
What Happened to Them at Surinam, and How Candide Became
Acquainted with Martin

Our travelers' first day's journey was very pleasant; they were
elated with the prospect of possessing more riches than were to be
found in Europe, Asia, and Africa together. Candide, in amorous
transports, cut the name of Miss Cunegund on almost every tree he came
to. The second day two of their sheep sunk in a morass, and were
swallowed up with their Jading; two more died of fatigue; some few
days afterwards seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert, and
others, at different times, tumbled down precipices, or were otherwise
lost, so that, after traveling about a hundred days they had only
two sheep left of the hundred and two they brought with them from El
Dorado.
Said Candide to Cacambo, "You see, my dear friend, how perishable
the riches of this world are; there is nothing solid but virtue."
"Very true," said Cacambo, "but we have still two sheep remaining,
with more treasure than ever the King of Spain will be possessed of;
and I espy a town at a distance, which I take to be Surinam, a town
belonging to the Dutch. We are now at the end of our troubles, and
at the beginning of happiness."
As they drew near the town they saw a Negro stretched on the
ground with only one half of his habit, which was a kind of linen
frock; for the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand.
"Good God," said Candide in Dutch, "what dost thou here, friend,
in this deplorable condition?"
"I am waiting for my master, Mynheer Vanderdendur, the famous
trader," answered the Negro.
"Was it Mynheer Vanderdendur that used you in this cruel manner?"
"Yes, sir," said the Negro; "it is the custom here. They give a
linen garment twice a year, and that is all our covering. When we
labor in the sugar works, and the mill happens to snatch hold of a
finger, they instantly chop off our hand; and when we attempt to run
away, they cut off a leg. Both these cases have happened to me, and it
is at this expense that you eat sugar in Europe; and yet when my
mother sold me for ten patacoons on the coast of Guinea, she said to
me, 'My dear child, bless our fetishes; adore them forever; they
will make thee live happy; thou hast the honor to be a slave to our
lords the whites, by which thou wilt make the fortune of us thy
parents.'
"Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes; but they
have not made mine; dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times
less wretched than I. The Dutch fetishes who converted me tell me
every Sunday that the blacks and whites are all children of one
father, whom they call Adam. As for me, I do not understand anything
of genealogies; but if what these preachers say is true, we are all
second cousins; and you must allow that it is impossible to be worse
treated by our relations than we are."
"O Pangloss!" cried out Candide, "such horrid doings never entered
thy imagination. Here is an end of the matter. I find myself, after
all, obliged to renounce thy Optimism."
"Optimism," said Cacambo, "what is that?"
"Alas!" replied Candide, "it is the obstinacy of maintaining that
everything is best when it is worst."
And so saying he turned his eyes towards the poor Negro, and shed
a flood of tears; and in this weeping mood he entered the town of
Surinam.
Immediately upon their arrival our travelers inquired if there was
any vessel in the harbor which they might send to Buenos Ayres. The
person they addressed themselves to happened to be the master of a
Spanish bark, who offered to agree with them on moderate terms, and
appointed them a meeting at a public house. Thither Candide and his
faithful Cacambo went to wait for him, taking with them their two
sheep.
Candide, who was all frankness and sincerity, made an ingenuous
recital of his adventures to the Spaniard, declaring to him at the
same time his resolution of carrying off Miss Cunegund from the
Governor of Buenos Ayres.
"Oh, ho!" said the shipmaster, "if that is the case, get whom you
please to carry you to Buenos Ayres; for my part, I wash my hands of
the affair. It would prove a hanging matter to us all. The fair
Cunegund is the Governor's favorite mistress."
These words were like a clap of thunder to Candide; he wept bitterly
for a long time, and, taking Cacambo aside, he said to him, "I'll tell
you, my dear friend, what you must do. We have each of us in our
pockets to the value of five or six millions in diamonds; you are
cleverer at these matters than I; you must go to Buenos Ayres and
bring off Miss Cunegund. If the Governor makes any difficulty give him
a million; if he holds out, give him two; as you have not killed an
Inquisitor, they will have no suspicion of you. I'll fit out another
ship and go to Venice, where I will wait for you. Venice is a free
country, where we shall have nothing to fear from Bulgarians,
Abares, Jews or Inquisitors."
Cacambo greatly applauded this wise resolution. He was
inconsolable at the thoughts of parting with so good a master, who
treated him more like an intimate friend than a servant; but the
pleasure of being able to do him a service soon got the better of
his sorrow. They embraced each other with a flood of tears. Candide
charged him not to forget the old woman. Cacambo set out the same day.
This Cacambo was a very honest fellow.
Candide continued some days longer at Surinam, waiting for any
captain to carry him and his two remaining sheep to Italy. He hired
domestics, and purchased many things necessary for a long voyage; at
length Mynheer Vanderdendur, skipper of a large Dutch vessel, came and
offered his service.
"What will you have," said Candide, "to carry me, my servants, my
baggage, and these two sheep you see here, directly to Venice?"
The skipper asked ten thousand piastres, and Candide agreed to his
demand without hestitation.
"Ho, ho!" said the cunning Vanderdendur to himself, "this stranger
must be very rich; he agrees to give me ten thousand piastres
without hesitation."
Returning a little while after, he told Candide that upon second
consideration he could not undertake the voyage for less than twenty
thousand.
"Very well; you shall have them," said Candide.
"Zounds!" said the skipper to himself, "this man agrees to pay
twenty thousand piastres with as much ease as ten."
Accordingly he went back again, and told him roundly that he would
not carry him to Venice for less than thirty thousand piastres.
"Then you shall have thirty thousand," said Candide.
"Odso!" said the Dutchman once more to himself, "thirty thousand
piastres seem a trifle to this man. Those sheep must certainly be
laden with an immense treasure. I'll e'en stop here and ask no more;
but make him pay down the thirty thousand piastres, and then we may
see what is to be done farther."
Candide sold two small diamonds, the least of which was worth more
than all the skipper asked. He paid him beforehand, the two sheep were
put on board, and Candide followed in a small boat to join the
vessel in the road. The skipper took advantage of his opportunity,
hoisted sail, and put out to sea with a favorable wind. Candide,
confounded and amazed, soon lost sight of the ship.
"Alas!" said he, "this is a trick like those in our old world!"
He returned back to the shore overwhelmed with grief; and, indeed,
he had lost what would have made the fortune of twenty monarchs.
Straightway upon his landing he applied to the Dutch magistrate;
being transported with passion he thundered at the door, which being
opened, he went in, told his case, and talked a little louder than was
necessary. The magistrate began with fining him ten thousand
piastres for his petulance, and then listened very patiently to what
he had to say, promised to examine into the affair on the skipper's
return, and ordered him to pay ten thousand piastres more for the fees
of the court.
This treatment put Candide out of all patience; it is true, he had
suffered misfortunes a thousand times more grievous, but the cool
insolence of the judge, and the villainy of the skipper raised his
choler and threw him into a deep melancholy. The villainy of mankind
presented itself to his mind in all its deformity, and his soul was
a prey to the most gloomy ideas. After some time, hearing that the
captain of a French ship was ready to set sail for Bordeaux, as he had
no more sheep loaded with diamonds to put on board, he hired the cabin
at the usual price; and made it known in the town that he would pay
the passage and board of any honest man who would give him his company
during the voyage; besides making him a present of ten thousand
piastres, on condition that such person was the most dissatisfied with
his condition, and the most unfortunate in the whole province.
Upon this there appeared such a crowd of candidates that a large
fleet could not have contained them. Candide, willing to choose from
among those who appeared most likely to answer his intention, selected
twenty, who seemed to him the most sociable, and who all pretended
to merit the preference. He invited them to his inn, and promised to
treat them with a supper, on condition that every man should bind
himself by an oath to relate his own history; declaring at the same
time, that he would make choice of that person who should appear to
him the most deserving of compassion, and the most justly dissatisfied
with his condition in life; and that he would make a present to the
rest.
This extraordinary assembly continued sitting till four in the
morning. Candide, while he was listening to their adventures, called
to mind what the old woman had said to him in their voyage to Buenos
Ayres, and the wager she had laid that there was not a person on board
the ship but had met with great misfortunes. Every story he heard
put him in mind of Pangloss.
"My old master," said he, "would be confoundedly put to it to
demonstrate his favorite system. Would he were here! Certainly if
everything is for the best, it is in El Dorado, and not in the other
parts of the world."
At length he determined in favor of a poor scholar, who had
labored ten years for the booksellers at Amsterdam: being of opinion
that no employment could be more detestable.
This scholar, who was in fact a very honest man, had been robbed
by his wife, beaten by his son, and forsaken by his daughter, who
had run away with a Portuguese. He had been likewise deprived of a
small employment on which he subsisted, and he was persecuted by the
clergy of Surinam, who took him for a Socinian. It must be
acknowledged that the other competitors were, at least, as wretched as
he; but Candide was in hopes that the company of a man of letters
would relieve the tediousness of the voyage. All the other
candidates complained that Candide had done them great injustice,
but he stopped their mouths by a present of a hundred piastres to
each.
CHAPTER 20
What Befell Candide and Martin on Their Passage

The old philosopher, whose name was Martin, took shipping with
Candide for Bordeaux. Both had seen and suffered a great deal, and had
the ship been going from Surinam to Japan round the Cape of Good Hope,
they could have found sufficient entertainment for each other during
the whole voyage, in discoursing upon moral and natural evil.
Candide, however, had one advantage over Martin: he lived in the
pleasing hopes of seeing Miss Cunegund once more; whereas, the poor
philosopher had nothing to hope for. Besides, Candide had money and
jewels, and, not withstanding he had lost a hundred red sheep laden
with the greatest treasure outside of El Dorado, and though he still
smarted from the reflection of the Dutch skipper's knavery, yet when
he considered what he had still left, and repeated the name of
Cunegund, especially after meal times, he inclined to Pangloss's
doctrine.
"And pray," said he to Martin, "what is your opinion of the whole of
this system? What notion have you of moral and natural evil?"
"Sir," replied Martin, "our priest accused me of being a Socinian;
but the real truth is, I am a Manichaean."
"Nay, now you are jesting," said Candide; "there are no
Manichaeans existing at present in the world."
"And yet I am one," said Martin; "but I cannot help it. I cannot for
the soul of me think otherwise."
"Surely the Devil must be in you," said Candide.
"He concerns himself so much," replied Martin, "in the affairs of
this world that it is very probable he may be in me as well as
everywhere else; but I must confess, when I cast my eye on this globe,
or rather globule, I cannot help thinking that God has abandoned it to
some malignant being. I always except El Dorado. I scarce ever knew
a city that did not wish the destruction of its neighboring city;
nor a family that did not desire to exterminate some other family. The
poor in all parts of the world bear an inveterate hatred to the
rich, even while they creep and cringe to them; and the rich treat the
poor like sheep, whose wool and flesh they barter for money; a million
of regimented assassins traverse Europe from one end to the other,
to get their bread by regular depredation and murder, because it is
the most gentlemanlike profession. Even in those cities which seem
to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts flourish, the
inhabitants are devoured with envy, care, and inquietudes, which are
greater plagues than any experienced in a town besieged. Private
chagrins are still more dreadful than public calamities. In a word,"
concluded the philosopher, "I have seen and suffered so much that I am
a Manichaean."
"And yet there is some good in the world," replied Candide.
"Maybe so," said Martin, "but it has escaped my knowledge."
While they were deeply engaged in this dispute they heard the report
of cannon, which redoubled every moment. Each took out his glass,
and they spied two ships warmly engaged at the distance of about three
miles. The wind brought them both so near the French ship that those
on board her had the pleasure of seeing the fight with great ease.
After several smart broadsides the one gave the other a shot between
wind and water which sunk her outright. Then could Candide and
Martin plainly perceive a hundred men on the deck of the vessel
which was sinking, who, with hands uplifted to Heaven, sent forth
piercing cries, and were in a moment swallowed up by the waves.
"Well," said Martin, "you now see in what manner mankind treat one
another."
"It is certain," said Candide, "that there is something diabolical
in this affair." As he was speaking thus he spied something of a
shining red hue, which swam close to the vessel. The boat was
hoisted out to see what it might be, when it proved to be one of his
sheep. Candide felt more joy at the recovery of this one animal than
he did grief when he lost the other hundred, though laden with the
large diamonds of El Dorado.
The French captain quickly perceived that the victorious ship
belonged to the crown of Spain; that the other was a Dutch pirate, and
the very same captain who had robbed Candide. The immense riches which
this villain had amassed, were buried with him in the deep, and only
this one sheep saved out of the whole.
"You see," said Candide to Martin, "that vice is sometimes punished.
This villain, the Dutch skipper, has met with the fate he deserved."
"Very true," said Martin, "but why should the passengers be doomed
also to destruction? God has punished the knave, and the Devil has
drowned the rest."
The French and Spanish ships continued their cruise, and Candide and
Martin their conversation. They disputed fourteen days successively,
at the end of which they were just as far advanced as the first moment
they began. However, they had the satisfaction of disputing, of
communicating their ideas, and of mutually comforting each other.
Candide embraced his sheep with transport.
"Since I have found thee again," said he, "I may possibly find my
Cunegund once more."
CHAPTER 21
Candide and Martin, While Thus Reasoning with Each Other, Draw
Near to the Coast of France

At length they descried the coast of France, when Candide said to
Martin, "Pray Monsieur Martin, were you ever in France?"
"Yes, sir," said Martin, "I have been in several provinces of that
kingdom. In some, one half of the people are fools and madmen; in
some, they are too artful; in others, again, they are, in general,
either very good-natured or very brutal; while in others, they
affect to be witty, and in all, their ruling passion is love, the next
is slander, and the last is to talk nonsense."
"But, pray, Monsieur Martin, were you ever in Paris?"
"Yes, sir, I have been in that city, and it is a place that contains
the several species just described; it is a chaos, a confused
multitude, where everyone seeks for pleasure without being able to
find it; at least, as far as I have observed during my short stay in
that city. At my arrival I was robbed of all I had in the world by
pickpockets and sharpers, at the fair of Saint-Germain. I was taken up
myself for a robber, and confined in prison a whole week; after
which I hired myself as corrector to a press in order to get a
little money towards defraying my expenses back to Holland on foot.
I knew the whole tribe of scribblers, malcontents, and fanatics. It is
said the people of that city are very polite; I believe they may be."
"For my part, I have no curiosity to see France," said Candide. "You
may easily conceive, my friend, that after spending a month in El
Dorado, I can desire to behold nothing upon earth but Miss Cunegund. I
am going to wait for her at Venice. I intend to pass through France,
on my way to Italy. Will you not bear me company?"
"With all my heart," said Martin. "They say Venice is agreeable to
none but noble Venetians, but that, nevertheless, strangers are well
received there when they have plenty of money; now I have none, but
you have, therefore I will attend you wherever you please."
"Now we are upon this subject," said Candide, "do you think that the
earth was originally sea, as we read in that great book which
belongs to the captain of the ship?"
"I believe nothing of it," replied Martin, "any more than I do of
the many other chimeras which have been related to us for some time
past."
"But then, to what end," said Candide, "was the world formed?"
"To make us mad," said Martin.
"Are you not surprised," continued Candide, "at the love which the
two girls in the country of the Oreillons had for those two monkeys?
-You know I have told you the story."
"Surprised?" replied Martin, "not in the least. I see nothing
strange in this passion. I have seen so many extraordinary things that
there is nothing extraordinary to me now."
"Do you think," said Candide, "that mankind always massacred one
another as they do now? Were they always guilty of lies, fraud,
treachery, ingratitude, inconstancy, envy, ambition, and cruelty? Were
they always thieves, fools, cowards, gluttons, drunkards, misers,
calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, and hypocrites?"
"Do you believe," said Martin, "that hawks have always been
accustomed to eat pigeons when they came in their way?"
"Doubtless," said Candide.
"Well then," replied Martin, "if hawks have always had the same
nature, why should you pretend that mankind change theirs?"
"Oh," said Candide, "there is a great deal of difference; for free
will-" and reasoning thus they arrived at Bordeaux.
CHAPTER 22
What Happened to Candide and Martin in France

Candide stayed no longer at Bordeaux than was necessary to dispose
of a few of the pebbles he had brought from El Dorado, and to
provide himself with a post-chaise for two persons, for he could no
longer stir a step without his philosopher Martin. The only thing that
give him concern was being obliged to leave his sheep behind him,
which he intrusted to the care of the Academy of Sciences at Bordeaux,
who proposed, as a prize subject for the year, to prove why the wool
of this sheep was red; and the prize was adjudged to a northern
sage, who demonstrated by A plus B, minus C, divided by Z, that the
sheep must necessarily be red, and die of the mange.
In the meantime, all travelers whom Candide met with in the inns, or
on the road, told him to a man, that they were going to Paris. This
general eagerness gave him likewise a great desire to see this
capital; and it was not much out of his way to Venice.
He entered the city by the suburbs of Saint-Marceau, and thought
himself in one of the vilest hamlets in all Westphalia.
Candide had not been long at his inn, before he was seized with a
slight disorder, owing to the fatigue he had undergone. As he wore a
diamond of an enormous size on his finger and had among the rest of
his equipage a strong box that seemed very weighty, he soon found
himself between two physicians, whom he had not sent for, a number
of intimate friends whom he had never seen, and who would not quit his
bedside, and two women devotees, who were very careful in providing
him hot broths.
"I remember," said Martin to him, "that the first time I came to
Paris I was likewise taken ill. I was very poor, and accordingly I had
neither friends, nurses, nor physicians, and yet I did very well."
However, by dint of purging and bleeding, Candide's disorder
became very serious. The priest of the parish came with all imaginable
politeness to desire a note of him, payable to the bearer in the other
world. Candide refused to comply with his request; but the two
devotees assured him that it was a new fashion. Candide replied,
that he was not one that followed the fashion. Martin was for throwing
the priest out of the window. The clerk swore Candide should not
have Christian burial. Martin swore in his turn that he would bury the
clerk alive if he continued to plague them any longer. The dispute
grew warm; Martin took him by the shoulders and turned him out of
the room, which gave great scandal, and occasioned a proces-verbal.
Candide recovered, and till he was in a condition to go abroad had a
great deal of good company to pass the evenings with him in his
chamber. They played deep. Candide was surprised to find he could
never turn a trick; and Martin was not at all surprised at the matter.
Among those who did him the honors of the place was a little
spruce abbe of Perigord, one of those insinuating, busy, fawning,
impudent, necessary fellows, that lay wait for strangers on their
arrival, tell them all the scandal of the town, and offer to
minister to their pleasures at various prices. This man conducted
Candide and Martin to the playhouse; they were acting a new tragedy.
Candide found himself placed near a cluster of wits: this, however,
did not prevent him from shedding tears at some parts of the piece
which were most affecting, and best acted.
One of these talkers said to him between acts, "You are greatly to
blame to shed tears; that actress plays horribly, and the man that
plays with her still worse, and the piece itself is still more
execrable than the representation. The author does not understand a
word of Arabic, and yet he has laid his scene in Arabia, and what is
more, he is a fellow who does not believe in innate ideas. Tomorrow
I will bring you a score of pamphlets that have been written against
him."
"Pray, sir," said Candide to the abbe, "how many theatrical pieces
have you in France?"
"Five or six thousand," replied the abbe.
"Indeed! that is a great number," said Candide, "but how many good
ones may there be?"
"About fifteen or sixteen."
"Oh! that is a great number," said Martin.
Candide was greatly taken with an actress, who performed the part of
Queen Elizabeth in a dull kind of tragedy that is played sometimes.
"That actress," said he to Martin, "pleases me greatly; she has some
sort of resemblance to Miss Cunegund. I should be very glad to pay
my respects to her."
The abbe of Perigord offered his service to introduce him to her
at her own house. Candide, who was brought up in Germany, desired to
know what might be the ceremonial used on those occasions, and how a
queen of England was treated in France.
"There is a necessary distinction to be observed in these
matters," said the abbe. "In a country town we take them to a
tavern; here in Paris, they are treated with great respect during
their lifetime, provided they are handsome, and when they die we throw
their bodies upon a dunghill."
"How?" said Candide, "throw a queen's body upon a dunghill!"
"The gentleman is quite right," said Martin, "he tells you nothing
but the truth. I happened to be at Paris when Miss Monimia made her
exit, as one may say, out of this world into another. She was
refused what they call here the rites of sepulture; that is to say,
she was denied the privilege of rotting in a churchyard by the side of
all the beggars in the parish. They buried her at the corner of
Burgundy Street, which must certainly have shocked her extremely, as
she had very exalted notions of things."
"This is acting very impolitely," said Candide.
"Lord!" said Martin, "what can be said to it? It is the way of these
people. Figure to yourself all the contradictions, all the
inconsistencies possible, and you may meet with them in the
government, the courts of justice, the churches, and the public
spectacles of this odd nation."
"Is it true," said Candide, "that the people of Paris are always
laughing?"
"Yes," replied the abbe, "but it is with anger in their hearts; they
express all their complaints by loud bursts of laughter, and commit
the most detestable crimes with a smile on their faces."
"Who was that great overgrown beast," said Candide, "who spoke so
ill to me of the piece with which I was so much affected, and of the
players who gave me so much pleasure?"
"A very good-for-nothing sort of a man I assure you," answered the
abbe, "one who gets his livelihood by abusing every new book and
play that is written or performed; he dislikes much to see anyone meet
with success, like eunuchs, who detest everyone that possesses those
powers they are deprived of; he is one of those vipers in literature
who nourish themselves with their own venom; a pamphlet-monger."
"A pamphlet-manger!" said Candide, "what is that?"
"Why, a pamphlet-manger," replied the abbe, "is a writer of
pamphlets-a fool."
Candide, Martin, and the abbe of Perigord argued thus on the
staircase, while they stood to see the people go out of the playhouse.
"Though I am very anxious to see Miss Cunegund again," said Candide,
"yet I have a great inclination to sup with Miss Clairon, for I am
really much taken with her."
The abbe was not a person to show his face at this lady's house,
which was frequented by none but the best company.
"She is engaged this evening," said he, "but I will do myself the
honor to introduce you to a lady of quality of my acquaintance, at
whose house you will see as much of the manners of Paris as if you had
lived here for forty years."
Candide, who was naturally curious, suffered himself to be conducted
to this lady's house, which was in the suburbs of Saint-Honore. The
company was engaged at basser; twelve melancholy punters held each
in his hand a small pack of cards, the corners of which were doubled
down, and were so many registers of their ill fortune. A profound
silence reigned throughout the assembly, a pallid dread had taken
possession of the countenances of the punters, and restless inquietude
stretched every muscle of the face of him who kept the bank; and the
lady of the house, who was seated next to him, observed with lynx's
eyes every play made, and noted those who tallied, and made them
undouble their cards with a severe exactness, though mixed with a
politeness, which she thought necessary not to frighten away her
customers. This lady assumed the title of Marchioness of Parolignac.
Her daughter, a girl of about fifteen years of age, was one of the
punters, and took care to give her mamma a hint, by signs, when any
one of the players attempted to repair the rigor of their ill
fortune by a little innocent deception. The company were thus occupied
when Candide, Martin, and the abbe made their entrance; not a creature
rose to salute them, or indeed took the least notice of them, being
wholly intent upon the business at hand.
"Ah!" said Candide, "My Lady Baroness of Thunder-ten-tronckh would
have behaved more civilly."
However, the abbe whispered in the ear of the Marchioness, who
half raising herself from her seat, honored Candide with a gracious
smile, and gave Martin a nod of her head, with an air of inexpressible
dignity. She then ordered a seat for Candide, and desired him to
make one of their party at play; he did so, and in a few deals lost
near a thousand pieces; after which they supped very elegantly, and
everyone was surprised at seeing Candide lose so much money without
appearing to be the least disturbed at it. The servants in waiting
said to each other, "This is certainly some English lord."
The supper was like most others of its kind in Paris. At first
everyone was silent; then followed a few confused murmurs, and
afterwards several insipid jokes passed and repassed, with false
reports, false reasonings, a little politics, and a great deal of
scandal. The conversation then turned upon the new productions in
literature.
"Pray," said the abbe, "good folks, have you seen the romance
written by a certain Gauchat, Doctor of Divinity?"
"Yes," answered one of the company, "but I had not patience to go
through it. The town is pestered with a swarm of impertinent
productions, but this of Dr. Gauchat's outdoes them all. In short, I
was so cursedly tired of reading this vile stuff that I even
resolved to come here, and make a party at basset."
"But what say you to the archdeacon T-'s miscellaneous
collection," said the abbe.
"Oh my God!" cried the Marchioness of Parolignac, "never mention the
tedious creature! Only think what pains he is at to tell one things
that all the world knows; and how he labors an argument that is hardly
worth the slightest consideration! how absurdly he makes use of
other people's wit! how miserably he mangles what he has pilfered from
them! The man makes me quite sick! A few pages of the good
archdeacon are enough in conscience to satisfy anyone."
There was at the table a person of learning and taste, who supported
what the Marchioness had advanced. They next began to talk of
tragedies. The lady desired to know how it came about that there
were several tragedies, which still continued to be played, though
they would not bear reading? The man of taste explained very clearly
how a piece may be in some manner interesting without having a grain
of merit. He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to
throw together a few incidents that are to be met with in every
romance, and that to dazzle the spectator the thoughts should be
new, without being farfetched; frequently sublime, but always natural;
the author should have a thorough knowledge of the human heart and
make it speak properly; he should be a complete poet, without
showing an affectation of it in any of the characters of his piece; he
should be a perfect master of his language, speak it with all its
purity, and with the utmost harmony, and yet so as not to make the
sense a slave to the rhyme.
"Whoever," added he, "neglects any one of these rules, though he may
write two or three tragedies with tolerable success, will never be
reckoned in the number of good authors. There are very few good
tragedies; some are idylls, in very well-written and harmonious
dialogue; and others a chain of political reasonings that set one
asleep, or else pompous and high-flown amplification, that disgust
rather than please. Others again are the ravings of a madman, in an
uncouth style, unmeaning flights, or long apostrophes to the
deities, for want of knowing how to address mankind; in a word a
collection of false maxims and dull commonplace."
Candide listened to this discourse with great attention, and
conceived a high opinion of the person who delivered it; and as the
Marchioness had taken care to place him near her side, he took the
liberty to whisper her softly in the ear and ask who this person was
that spoke so well.
"He is a man of letters," replied Her Ladyship, "who never plays,
and whom the abbe brings with him to my house sometimes to spend an
evening. He is a great judge of writing, especially in tragedy; he has
composed one himself, which was damned, and has written a book that
was never seen out of his bookseller's shop, excepting only one
copy, which he sent me with a dedication, to which he had prefixed
my name."
"Oh the great man," cried Candide, "he is a second Pangloss."
Then turning towards him, "Sir," said he, "you are doubtless of
opinion that everything is for the best in the physical and moral
world, and that nothing could be otherwise than it is?"
"I, sir!" replied the man of letters, "I think no such thing, I
assure you; I find that all in this world is set the wrong end
uppermost. No one knows what is his rank, his office, nor what he
does, nor what he should do. With the exception of our evenings, which
we generally pass tolerably merrily, the rest of our time is spent
in idle disputes and quarrels, Jansenists against Molinists, the
Parliament against the Church, and one armed body of men against
another; courtier against courtier, husband against wife, and
relations against relations. In short, this world is nothing but one
continued scene of civil war."
"Yes," said Candide, "and I have seen worse than all that; and yet a
learned man, who had the misfortune to be hanged, taught me that
everything was marvelously well, and that these evils you are speaking
of were only so many shades in a beautiful picture."
"Your hempen sage," said Martin, "laughed at you; these shades, as
you call them, are most horrible blemishes."
"The men make these blemishes," rejoined Candide, "and they cannot
do otherwise."
"Then it is not their fault," added Martin.
The greatest part of the gamesters, who did not understand a
syllable of this discourse, amused themselves with drinking, while
Martin reasoned with the learned gentleman and Candide entertained the
lady of the house with a part of his adventures.
After supper the Marchioness conducted Candide into her
dressingroom, and made him sit down under a canopy.
"Well," said she, "are you still so violently fond of Miss
Cunegund of Thunder-ten-tronckh?"
"Yes, madam," replied Candide.
The Marchioness said to him with a tender smile, "You answer me like
a young man born in Westphalia; a Frenchman would have said, 'It is
true, madam, I had a great passion for Miss Cunegund; but since I have
seen you, I fear I can no longer love her as I did.'"
"Alas! madam," replied Candide, "I will make you what answer you
please."
"You fell in love with her, I find, in stooping to pick up her
handkerchief which she had dropped; you shall pick up my garter."
"With all my heart, madam," said Candide, and he picked it up.
"But you must tie it on again," said the lady.
Candide tied it on again.
"Look ye, young man," said the Marchioness, "you are a stranger; I
make some of my lovers here in Paris languish for me a whole
fortnight; but I surrender to you at first sight, because I am willing
to do the honors of my country to a young Westphalian."
The fair one having cast her eye on two very large diamonds that
were upon the young stranger's finger, praised them in so earnest a
manner that they were in an instant transferred from his finger to
hers.
As Candide was going home with the abbe he felt some qualms of
conscience for having been guilty of infidelity to Miss Cunegund.
The abbe took part with him in his uneasiness; he had but an
inconsiderable share in the thousand pieces Candide had lost at
play, and the two diamonds which had been in a manner extorted from
him; and therefore very prudently designed to make the most he could
of his new acquaintance, which chance had thrown in his way. He talked
much of Miss Cunegund, and Candide assured him that he would
heartily ask pardon of that fair one for his infidelity to her, when
he saw her at Venice.
The abbe redoubled his civilities and seemed to interest himself
warmly in everything that Candide said, did, or seemed inclined to do.
"And so, sir, you have an engagement at Venice?"
"Yes, Monsieur l'Abbe," answered Candide, "I must absolutely wait
upon Miss Cunegund," and then the pleasure he took in talking about
the object he loved, led him insensibly to relate, according to
custom, part of his adventures with that illustrious Westphalian
beauty.
"I fancy," said the abbe, "Miss Cunegund has a great deal of wit,
and that her letters must be very entertaining."
"I never received any from her," said Candide; "for you are to
consider that, being expelled from the castle upon her account, I
could not write to her, especially as soon after my departure I
heard she was dead; but thank God I found afterwards she was living. I
left her again after this, and now I have sent a messenger to her near
two thousand leagues from here, and wait here for his return with an
answer from her."
The artful abbe let not a word of all this escape him, though he
seemed to be musing upon something else. He soon took his leave of the
two adventurers, after having embraced them with the greatest
cordiality.
The next morning, almost as soon as his eyes were open, Candide
received the following billet:
"My Dearest Lover- I have been ill in this city these eight days.
I have heard of your arrival, and should fly to your arms were I
able to stir. I was informed of your being on the way hither at
Bordeaux, where I left the faithful Cacambo, and the old woman, who
will soon follow me. The Governor of Buenos Ayres has taken everything
from me but your heart, which I still retain. Come to me immediately
on the receipt of this. Your presence will either give me new life, or
kill me with the pleasure."
At the receipt of this charming, this unexpected letter, Candide
felt the utmost transports of joy; though, on the other hand, the
indisposition of his beloved Miss Cunegund overwhelmed him with grief.
Distracted between these two passions he took his gold and his
diamonds, and procured a person to conduct him and Martin to the house
where Miss Cunegund lodged. Upon entering the room he felt his limbs
tremble, his heart flutter, his tongue falter; he attempted to
undraw the curtain, and called for a light to the bedside.
"Lord sir," cried a maidservant, who was waiting in the room,
"take care what you do, Miss cannot bear the least light," and so
saying she pulled the curtain close again.
"Cunegund! my dear cried Candide, bathed in tears, "how do you do?
If you cannot bear the light, speak to me at least."
"Alas! she cannot speak," said the maid.
The sick lady then put a plump hand out of the bed and Candide first
bathed it with tears, then filled it with diamonds, leaving a purse of
gold upon the easy chair.
In the midst of his transports came an officer into the room,
followed by the abbe, and a file of musketeers.
"There," said he, "are the two suspected foreigners." At the same
time he ordered them to be seized and carried to prison.
"Travelers are not treated in this manner in the country of El
Dorado," said Candide.
"I am more of a Manichaean now than ever," said Martin.
"But pray, good sir, where are you going to carry us?" said Candide.
"To a dungeon, my dear sir," replied the officer.
When Martin had a little recovered himself, so as to form a cool
judgment of what had passed, he plainly perceived that the person
who had acted the part of Miss Cunegund was a cheat; that the abbe
of Perigord was a sharper who had imposed upon the honest simplicity
of Candide, and that the officer was a knave, whom they might easily
get rid of.
Candide following the advice of his friend Martin, and burning
with impatience to see the real Miss Cunegund, rather than be
obliged to appear at a court of justice, proposed to the officer to
make him a present of three small diamonds, each of them worth three
thousand pistoles.
"Ah, sir," said the understrapper of justice, "had you commited ever
so much villainy, this would render you the honestest man living, in
my eyes. Three diamonds worth three thousand pistoles! Why, my dear
sir, so far from carrying you to jail, I would lose my life to serve
you. There are orders for stopping all strangers; but leave it to
me, I have a brother at Dieppe, in Normandy. I myself will conduct you
thither, and if you have a diamond left to give him he will take as
much care of you as I myself should."
"But why," said Candide, "do they stop all strangers?"
The abbe of Perigord made answer that it was because a poor devil of
the country of Atrebata heard somebody tell foolish stories, and
this induced him to commit a parricide; not such a one as that in
the month of May, 1610, but such as that in the month of December in
the year 1594, and such as many that have been perpetrated in other
months and years, by other poor devils who had heard foolish stories.
The officer then explained to them what the abbe meant.
"Horrid monsters," exclaimed Candide, "is it possible that such
scenes should pass among a people who are perpetually singing and
dancing? Is there no flying this abominable country immediately,
this execrable kingdom where monkeys provoke tigers? I have seen bears
in my country, but men I have beheld nowhere but in El Dorado. In
the name of God, sir," said he to the officer, "do me the kindness
to conduct me to Venice, where I am to wait for Miss Cunegund."
"Really, sir," replied the officer, "I cannot possibly wait on you
farther than Lower Normandy."
So saying, he ordered Candide's irons to be struck off, acknowledged
himself mistaken, and sent his followers about their business, after
which he conducted Candide and Martin to Dieppe, and left them to
the care of his brother.
There happened just then to be a small Dutch ship in the harbor. The
Norman, whom the other three diamonds had converted into the most
obliging, serviceable being that ever breathed, took care to see
Candide and his attendants safe on board this vessel, that was just
ready to sail for Portsmouth in England. This was not the nearest
way to Venice, indeed, but Candide thought himself escaped out of
Hell, and did not, in the least, doubt but he should quickly find an
opportunity of resuming his voyage to Venice.
CHAPTER 23
Candide and Martin Touch upon the English Coast-What They See There

Ah Pangloss! Pangloss! ah Martin! ah my dear Miss Cunegund! What
sort of a world is this?" Thus exclaimed Candide as soon as he got
on board the Dutch ship.
"Why something very foolish, and very abominable," said Martin.
"You are acquainted with England," said Candide; "are they as
great fools in that country as in France?"
"Yes, but in a different manner," answered Martin. "You know that
these two nations are at war about a few acres of barren land in the
neighborhood of Canada, and that they have expended much greater
sums in the contest than all Canada is worth. To say exactly whether
there are a greater number fit to be inhabitants of a madhouse in
the one country than the other, exceeds the limits of my imperfect
capacity; I know in general that the people we are going to visit
are of a very dark and gloomy disposition."
As they were chatting thus together they arrived at Portsmouth.
The shore on each side the harbor was lined with a multitude of
people, whose eyes were steadfastly fixed on a lusty man who was
kneeling down on the deck of one of the men-of-war, with something
tied before his eyes. Opposite to this personage stood four
soldiers, each of whom shot three bullets into his skull, with all the
composure imaginable; and when it was done, the whole company went
away perfectly well satisfied.
"What the devil is all this for?" said Candide, "and what demon,
or foe of mankind, lords it thus tyrannically over the world?"
He then asked who was that lusty man who had been sent out of the
world with so much ceremony. When he received for answer, that it
was an admiral.
"And pray why do you put your admiral to death?"
"Because he did not put a sufficient number of his fellow
creatures to death. You must know, he had an engagement with a
French admiral, and it has been proved against him that he was not
near enough to his antagonist."
"But," replied Candide, "the French admiral must have been as far
from him."
"There is no doubt of that; but in this country it is found
requisite, now and then, to put an admiral to death, in order to
encourage the others to fight."
Candide was so shocked at what he saw and heard, that he would not
set foot on shore, but made a bargain with the Dutch skipper (were
he even to rob him like the captain of Surinam) to carry him
directly to Venice.
The skipper was ready in two days. They sailed along the coast of
France, and passed within sight of Lisbon, at which Candide
trembled. From thence they proceeded to the Straits, entered the
Mediterranean, and at length arrived at Venice.
"God be praised," said Candide, embracing Martin, "this is the place
where I am to behold my beloved Cunegund once again. I can confide
in Cacambo, like another self. All is well, all is very well, all is
well as possible."
CHAPTER 24
Of Pacquette and Friar Giroflee

Upon their arrival at Venice Candide went in search of Cacambo at
every inn and coffee-house, and among all the ladies of pleasure,
but could hear nothing of him. He sent every day to inquire what ships
were in, still no news of Cacambo.
"It is strange," said he to Martin, "very strange that I should have
time to sail from Surinam to Bordeaux; to travel thence to Paris, to
Dieppe, to Portsmouth; to sail along the coast of Portugal and
Spain, and up the Mediterranean to spend some months at Venice; and
that my lovely Cunegund should not have arrived. Instead of her, I
only met with a Parisian impostor, and a rascally abbe of Perigord.
Cunegund is actually dead, and I have nothing to do but follow her.
Alas! how much better would it have been for me to have remained in
the paradise of El Dorado than to have returned to this cursed Europe!
You are in the right, my dear Martin; you are certainly in the
right; all is misery and deceit."
He fell into a deep melancholy, and neither went to the opera then
in vogue, nor partook of any of the diversions of the Carnival; nay,
he even slighted the fair sex.
Martin said to him, "Upon my word, I think you are very simple to
imagine that a rascally valet, with five or six millions in his
pocket, would go in search of your mistress to the further of the
world, and bring her to Venice to meet you. If he finds her he will
take her for himself; if he does not, he will take another. Let me
advise you to forget your valet Cacambo, and your mistress Cunegund."
Martin's speech was not the most consolatory to the dejected
Candide. His melancholy increased, and Martin never ceased trying to
prove to him that there is very little virtue or happiness in this
world; except, perhaps, in El Dorado, where hardly anybody can gain
admittance.
While they were disputing on this important subject, and still
expecting Miss Cunegund, Candide perceived a young Theatin friar in
the Piazza San Marco, with a girl under his arm. The Theatin looked
fresh-colored, plump, and vigorous; his eyes sparkled; his air and
gait were bold and lofty. The girl was pretty, and was singing a song;
and every now and then gave her Theatin an amorous ogle and wantonly
pinched his ruddy cheeks.
"You will at least allow," said Candide to Martin, "that these two
are happy. Hitherto I have met with none but unfortunate people in the
whole habitable globe, except in El Dorado; but as to this couple, I
would venture to lay a wager they are happy."
"Done!" said Martin, "they are not what you imagine."
"Well, we have only to ask them to dine with us," said Candide, "and
you will see whether I am mistaken or not."
Thereupon he accosted them, and with great politeness invited them
to his inn to eat some macaroni, with Lombard partridges and caviar,
and to drink a bottle of Montepulciano, Lacryma Christi, Cyprus, and
Samos wine. The girl blushed; the Theatin accepted the invitation
and she followed him, eyeing Candide every now and then with a mixture
of surprise and confusion, while the tears stole down her cheeks. No
sooner did she enter his apartment than she cried out, "How,
Monsieur Candide, have you quite forgot your Pacquette? do you not
know her again?"
Candide had not regarded her with any degree of attention before,
being wholly occupied with the thoughts of his dear Cunegund.
"Ah! is it you, child? was it you that reduced Dr. Pangloss to
that fine condition I saw him in?"
"Alas! sir," answered Pacquette, "it was I, indeed. I find you are
acquainted with everything; and I have been informed of all the
misfortunes that happened to the whole family of My Lady Baroness
and the fair Cunegund. But I can safely swear to you that my lot was
no less deplorable; I was innocence itself when you saw me last. A
Franciscan, who was my confessor, easily seduced me; the
consequences proved terrible. I was obliged to leave the castle some
time after the Baron kicked you out by the backside from there; and if
a famous surgeon had not taken compassion on me, I had been a dead
woman. Gratitude obliged me to live with him some time as his
mistress; his wife, who was a very devil for jealousy, beat me
unmercifully every day. Oh! she was a perfect fury. The doctor himself
was the most ugly of all mortals, and I the most wretched creature
existing, to be continually beaten for a man whom I did not love.
You are sensible, sir, how dangerous it was for an ill-natured woman
to be married to a physician. Incensed at the behavior of his wife, he
one day gave her so affectionate a remedy for a slight cold she had
caught that she died in less than two hours in most dreadful
convulsions. Her relations prosecuted the husband, who was obliged
to fly, and I was sent to prison. My innocence would not have saved
me, if I had not been tolerably handsome. The judge gave me my liberty
on condition he should succeed the doctor. However, I was soon
supplanted by a rival, turned off without a farthing, and obliged to
continue the abominable trade which you men think so pleasing, but
which to us unhappy creatures is the most dreadful of all
sufferings. At length I came to follow the business at Venice. Ah!
sir, did you but know what it is to be obliged to receive every
visitor; old tradesmen, counselors, monks, watermen, and abbes; to
be exposed to all their insolence and abuse; to be often
necessitated to borrow a petticoat, only that it may be taken up by
some disagreeable wretch; to be robbed by one gallant of what we get
from another; to be subject to the extortions of civil magistrates;
and to have forever before one's eyes the prospect of old age, a
hospital, or a dunghill, you would conclude that I am one of the
most unhappy wretches breathing."
Thus did Pacquette unbosom herself to honest Candide in his
closet, in the presence of Martin, who took occasion to say to him,
"You see I have half won the wager already."
Friar Giroflee was all this time in the parlor refreshing himself
with a glass or two of wine till dinner was ready.
"But," said Candide to Pacquette, "you looked so gay and
contented, when I met you, you sang and caressed the Theatin with so
much fondness, that I absolutely thought you as happy as you say you
are now miserable."
"Ah! dear sir," said Pacquette, "this is one of the miseries of
the trade; yesterday I was stripped and beaten by an officer; yet
today I must appear good humored and gay to please a friar."
Candide was convinced and acknowledged that Martin was in the right.
They sat down to table with Pacquette and the Theatin; the
entertainment was agreeable, and towards the end they began to
converse together with some freedom.
"Father," said Candide to the friar, "you seem to me to enjoy a
state of happiness that even kings might envy; joy and health are
painted in your countenance. You have a pretty wench to divert you;
and you seem to be perfectly well contented with your condition as a
Theatin."
"Faith, sir," said Friar Giroflee, "I wish with all my soul the
Theatins were every one of them at the bottom of the sea. I have
been tempted a thousand times to set fire to the monastery and go
and turn Turk. My parents obliged me, at the age of fifteen, to put on
this detestable habit only to increase the fortune of an elder brother
of mine, whom God confound! jealousy, discord, and fury, reside in our
monastery. It is true I have preached often paltry sermons, by which I
have got a little money, part of which the prior robs me of, and the
remainder helps to pay my girls; but, not withstanding, at night, when
I go hence to my monastery, I am ready to dash my brains against the
walls of the dormitory; and this is the case with all the rest of
our fraternity."
Martin, turning towards Candide, with his usual indifference,
said, "Well, what think you now? have I won the wager entirely?"
Candide gave two thousand piastres to Pacquette, and a thousand to
Friar Giroflee, saying, "I will answer that this will make them
happy."
"I am not of your opinion," said Martin, "perhaps this money will
only make them wretched."
"Be that as it may," said Candide, "one thing comforts me; I see
that one often meets with those whom one never expected to see
again; so that, perhaps, as I have found my red sheep and Pacquette, I
may be lucky enough to find Miss Cunegund also."
"I wish," said Martin, "she one day may make you happy; but I
doubt it much."
"You lack faith," said Candide.
"It is because," said Martin, "I have seen the world."
"Observe those gondoliers," said Candide, "are they not
perpetually singing?"
"You do not see them," answered Martin, "at home with their wives
and brats. The doge has his chagrin, gondoliers theirs.
Nevertheless, in the main, I look upon the gondolier's life as
preferable to that of the doge; but the difference is so trifling that
it is not worth the trouble of examining into."
"I have heard great talk," said Candide, "of the Senator
Pococurante, who lives in that fine house at the Brenta, where, they
say, he entertains foreigners in the most polite manner."
"They pretend this man is a perfect stranger to uneasiness. I should
be glad to see so extraordinary a being," said Martin.
Candide thereupon sent a messenger to Seignor Pococurante,
desiring permission to wait on him the next day.
CHAPTER 25
Candide and Martin Pay a Visit to Seignor Pococurante, a Noble
Venetian

Candide and his friend Martin went in a gondola on the Brenta, and
arrived at the palace of the noble Pococurante. The gardens were
laid out in elegant taste, and adorned with fine marble statues; his
palace was built after the most approved rules of architecture. The
master of the house, who was a man of affairs, and very rich, received
our two travelers with great politeness, but without much ceremony,
which somewhat disconcerted Candide, but was not at all displeasing to
Martin.
As soon as they were seated, two very pretty girls, neatly
dressed, brought in chocolate, which was extremely well prepared.
Candide could not help praising their beauty and graceful carriage.
"The creatures are all right," said the senator; "I amuse myself
with them sometimes, for I am heartily tired of the women of the town,
their coquetry, their jealousy, their quarrels, their humors, their
meannesses, their pride, and their folly; I am weary of making
sonnets, or of paying for sonnets to be made on them; but after all,
these two girls begin to grow very indifferent to me."
After having refreshed himself, Candide walked into a large gallery,
where he was struck with the sight of a fine collection of paintings.
"Pray," said Candide, "by what master are the two first of these?"
"They are by Raphael," answered the senator. "I gave a great deal of
money for them seven years ago, purely out of curiosity, as they
were said to be the finest pieces in Italy; but I cannot say they
please me: the coloring is dark and heavy; the figures do not swell
nor come out enough; and the drapery is bad. In short, notwithstanding
the encomiums lavished upon them, they are not, in my opinion, a
true representation of nature. I approve of no paintings save those
wherein I think I behold nature itself; and there are few, if any,
of that kind to be met with. I have what is called a fine
collection, but I take no manner of delight in it."
While dinner was being prepared Pococurante ordered a concert.
Candide praised the music to the skies.
"This noise," said the noble Venetian, "may amuse one for a little
time, but if it were to last above half an hour, it would grow
tiresome to everybody, though perhaps no one would care to own it.
Music has become the art of executing what is difficult; now, whatever
is difficult cannot be long pleasing.
"I believe I might take more pleasure in an opera, if they had not
made such a monster of that species of dramatic entertainment as
perfectly shocks me; and I am amazed how people can bear to see
wretched tragedies set to music; where the scenes are contrived for no
other purpose than to lug in, as it were by the ears, three or four
ridiculous songs, to give a favorite actress an opportunity of
exhibiting her pipe. Let who will die away in raptures at the trills
of a eunuch quavering the majestic part of Caesar or Cato, and
strutting in a foolish manner upon the stage, but for my part I have
long ago renounced these paltry entertainments, which constitute the
glory of modern Italy, and are so dearly purchased by crowned heads."
Candide opposed these sentiments; but he did it in a discreet
manner; as for Martin, he was entirely of the old senator's opinion.
Dinner being served they sat down to table, and, after a hearty
repast, returned to the library. Candide, observing Homer richly
bound, commended the noble Venetian's taste.
"This," said he, "is a book that was once the delight of the great
Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany."
"Homer is no favorite of mine," answered Pococurante, coolly, "I was
made to believe once that I took a pleasure in reading him; but his
continual repetitions of battles have all such a resemblance with each
other; his gods that are forever in haste and bustle, without ever
doing anything; his Helen, who is the cause of the war, and yet hardly
acts in the whole performance; his Troy, that holds out so long,
without being taken: in short, all these things together make the poem
very insipid to me. I have asked some learned men, whether they are
not in reality as much tired as myself with reading this poet: those
who spoke ingenuously, assured me that he had made them fall asleep,
and yet that they could not well avoid giving him a place in their
libraries; but that it was merely as they would do an antique, or
those rusty medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of no
manner of use in commerce."
"But your excellency does not surely form the same opinion of
Virgil?" said Candide.
"Why, I grant," replied Pococurante, "that the second, third,
fourth, and sixth books of his Aeneid, are excellent; but as for his
pious Aeneas, his strong Cloanthus, his friendly Achates, his boy
Ascanius, his silly king Latinus, his ill-bred Amata, his insipid
Lavinia, and some other characters much in the same strain, I think
there cannot in nature be anything more flat and disagreeable. I
must confess I prefer Tasso far beyond him; nay, even that sleepy
taleteller Ariosto."
"May I take the liberty to ask if you do not experience great
pleasure from reading Horace?" said Candide.
"There are maxims in this writer," replied Pococurante, "whence a
man of the world may reap some benefit; and the short measure of the
verse makes them more easily to be retained in the memory. But I see
nothing extraordinary in his journey to Brundusium, and his account of
his had dinner; nor in his dirty, low quarrel between one Rupillius,
whose words, as he expresses it, were full of poisonous filth; and
another, whose language was dipped in vinegar. His indelicate verses
against old women and witches have frequently given me great
offense: nor can I discover the great merit of his telling his
friend Maecenas, that if he will but rank him in the class of lyric
poets, his lofty head shall touch the stars. Ignorant readers are
apt to judge a writer by his reputation. For my part, I read only to
please myself. I like nothing but what makes for my purpose."
Candide, who had been brought up with a notion of never making use
of his own judgment, was astonished at what he heard; but Martin found
there was a good deal of reason in the senator's remarks.
"Oh! here is a Tully," said Candide; "this great man I fancy you are
never tired of reading?"
"Indeed I never read him at all," replied Pococurante. "What is it
to me whether he pleads for Rabirius or Cluentius? I try causes enough
myself. I had once some liking for his philosophical works; but when I
found he doubted everything, I thought I knew as much as himself,
and had no need of a guide to learn ignorance."
"Ha!" cried Martin, "here are fourscore volumes of the memoirs of
the Academy of Sciences; perhaps there may be something curious and
valuable in this collection."
"Yes," answered Pococurante, "so there might if any one of these
compilers of this rubbish had only invented the art of pin-making; but
all these volumes are filled with mere chimerical systems, without one
single article conductive to real utility."
"I see a prodigious number of plays," said Candide, "in Italian,
Spanish, and French."
"Yes," replied the Venetian, "there are I think three thousand,
and not three dozen of them good for anything. As to those huge
volumes of divinity, and those enormous collections of sermons, they
are not all together worth one single page in Seneca; and I fancy
you will readily believe that neither myself, nor anyone else, ever
looks into them."
Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English books, said to
the senator, "I fancy that a republican must be highly delighted
with those books, which are most of them written with a noble spirit
of freedom."
"It is noble to write as we think," said Pococurante; "it is the
privilege of humanity. Throughout Italy we write only what we do not
think; and the present inhabitants of the country of the Caesars and
Antonines dare not acquire a single idea without the permission of a
Dominican father. I should be enamored of the spirit of the English
nation, did it not utterly frustrate the good effects it would produce
by passion and the spirit of party."
Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not think that
author a great man.
"Who?" said Pococurante sharply; "that barbarian who writes a
tedious commentary in ten books of rumbling verse, on the first
chapter of Genesis? that slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who
disfigures the creation, by making the Messiah take a pair of
compasses from Heaven's armory to plan the world; whereas Moses
represented the Diety as producing the whole universe by his fiat? Can
I think you have any esteem for a writer who has spoiled Tasso's
Hell and the Devil; who transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad,
and at others into a pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over
again a hundred times; who metamorphoses him into a school-divine; and
who, by an absurdly serious imitation of Ariosto's comic invention
of firearms, represents the devils and angels cannonading each other
in Heaven? Neither I nor any other Italian can possibly take
pleasure in such melancholy reveries; but the marriage of Sin and
Death, and snakes issuing from the womb of the former, are enough to
make any person sick that is not lost to all sense of delicacy. This
obscene, whimsical, and disagreeable poem met with the neglect it
deserved at its first publication; and I only treat the author now
as he was treated in his own country by his contemporaries."
Candide was sensibly grieved at this speech, as he had a great
respect for Homer, and was fond of Milton.
"Alas!" said he softly to Martin, "I am afraid this man holds our
German poets in great contempt."
"There would be no such great harm in that," said Martin.
"O what a surprising man!" said Candide, still to himself; "what a
prodigious genius is this Pococurante! nothing can please him."
After finishing their survey of the library, they went down into the
garden, when Candide commended the several beauties that offered
themselves to his view.
"I know nothing upon earth laid out in such had taste," said
Pococurante; "everything about it is childish and trifling; but I
shall have another laid out tomorrow upon a nobler plan."
As soon as our two travelers had taken leave of His Excellency,
Candide said to Martin, "Well, I hope you will own that this man is
the happiest of all mortals, for he is above everything he possesses."
"But do not you see," answered Martin, "that he likewise dislikes
everything he possesses? It was an observation of Plato, long since,
that those are not the best stomachs that reject, without distinction,
all sorts of aliments."
"True," said Candide, "but still there must certainly be a
pleasure in criticising everything, and in perceiving faults where
others think they see beauties."
"That is," replied Martin, "there is a pleasure in having no
pleasure."
"Well, well," said Candide, "I find that I shall be the only happy
man at last, when I am blessed with the sight of my dear Cunegund."
"It is good to hope," said Martin.
In the meanwhile, days and weeks passed away, and no news of
Cacambo. Candide was so overwhelmed with grief, that he did not
reflect on the behavior of Pacquette and Friar Giroflee, who never
stayed to return him thanks for the presents he had so generously made
them.
CHAPTER 26
Candide and Martin Sup with Six Sharpers-Who They Were

One evening as Candide, with his attendant Martin, was going to
sit down to supper with some foreigners who lodged in the same inn
where they had taken up their quarters, a man with a face the color of
soot came behind him, and taking him by the arm, said, "Hold
yourself in readiness to go along with us; be sure you do not fail."
Upon this, turning about to see from whom these words came, he
beheld Cacambo. Nothing but the sight of Miss Cunegund could have
given him greater joy and surprise. He was almost beside himself,
and embraced this dear friend.
"Cunegund!" said he, "Cunegund is come with you doubtless! Where,
where is she? Carry me to her this instant, that I may die with joy in
her presence."
"Cunegund is not here," answered Cacambo; "she is in
Constantinople."
"Good heavens! in Constantinople! but no matter if she were in
China, I would fly thither. Quick, quick, dear Cacambo, let us be
gone."
"Soft and fair," said Cacambo, "stay till you have supped. I
cannot at present stay to say anything more to you; I am a slave,
and my master waits for me; I must go and attend him at table: but
mum! say not a word, only get your supper, and hold yourself in
readiness."
Candide, divided between joy and grief, charmed to have thus met
with his faithful agent again, and surprised to hear he was a slave,
his heart palpitating, his senses confused, but full of the hopes of
recovering his dear Cunegund, sat down to table with Martin, who
beheld all these scenes with great unconcern, and with six
strangers, who had come to spend the Carnival at Venice.
Cacambo waited at table upon one of those strangers. When supper was
nearly over, he drew near to his master, and whispered in his ear:
"Sire, Your Majesty may go when you please; the ship is ready";
and so saying he left the room.
The guests, surprised at what they had heard, looked at each other
without speaking a word; when another servant drawing near to his
master, in like manner said, "Sire, Your Majesty's post-chaise is at
Padua, and the bark is ready." The master made him a sign, and he
instantly withdrew.
The company all stared at each other again, and the general
astonishment was increased. A third servant then approached another of
the strangers, and said, "Sire, if Your Majesty will be advised by me,
you will not make any longer stay in this place; I will go and get
everything ready"; and instantly disappeared.
Candide and Martin then took it for granted that this was some of
the diversions of the Carnival, and that these were characters in
masquerade. Then a fourth domestic said to the fourth stranger,
"Your Majesty may set off when you please"; saying which, he went away
like the rest. A fifth valet said the same to a fifth master. But
the sixth domestic spoke in a different style to the person on whom he
waited, and who sat near to Candide.
"Troth, sir," said he, "they will trust Your Majesty no longer,
nor myself neither; and we may both of us chance to be sent to jail
this very night; and therefore I shall take care of myself, and so
adieu."
The servants being all gone, the six strangers, with Candide and
Martin, remained in a profound silence. At length Candide broke it
by saying:
"Gentlemen, this is a very singular joke upon my word; how came
you all to be kings? For my part I own frankly, that neither my friend
Martin here, nor myself, have any claim to royalty."
Cacambo's master then began, with great gravity, to deliver
himself thus in Italian:
"I am not joking in the least, my name is Achmet III. I was Grand
Sultan for many years; I dethroned my brother, my nephew dethroned me,
my viziers lost their heads, and I am condemned to end my days in
the old seraglio. My nephew, the Grand Sultan Mahomet, gives me
permission to travel sometimes for my health, and I am come to spend
the Carnival at Venice."
A young man who sat by Achmet, spoke next, and said:
"My name is Ivan. I was once Emperor of all the Russians, but was
dethroned in my cradle. My parents were confined, and I was brought up
in a prison, yet I am sometimes allowed to travel, though always
with persons to keep a guard over me, and I come to spend the Carnival
at Venice."
The third said:
"I am Charles Edward, King of England; my father has renounced his
right to the throne in my favor. I have fought in defense of my
rights, and near a thousand of my friends have had their hearts
taken out of their bodies alive and thrown in their faces. I have
myself been confined in a prison. I am going to Rome to visit the
King, my father, who was dethroned as well as myself; and my
grandfather and I have come to spend the Carnival at Venice."
The fourth spoke thus:
"I am the King of Poland; the fortune of war has stripped me of my
hereditary dominions. My father experienced the same vicissitudes of
fate. I resign myself to the will of Providence, in the same manner as
Sultan Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, and King Charles Edward, whom God
long preserve; and I have come to spend the Carnival at Venice."
The fifth said:
"I am King of Poland also. I have twice lost my kingdom; but
Providence has given me other dominions, where I have done more good
than all the Sarmatian kings put together were ever able to do on
the banks of the Vistula; I resign myself likewise to Providence;
and have come to spend the Carnival at Venice."
It now came to the sixth monarch's turn to speak. "Gentlemen,"
said he, "I am not so great a prince as the rest of you, it is true,
but I am, however, a crowned head. I am Theodore, elected King of
Corsica. I have had the title of Majesty, and am now hardly treated
with common civility. I have coined money, and am not now worth a
single ducat. I have had two secretaries, and am now without a
valet. I was once seated on a throne, and since that have lain upon
a truss of straw, in a common jail in London, and I very much fear I
shall meet with the same fate here in Venice, where I came, like
Your Majesties, to divert myself at the Carnival."
The other five Kings listened to this speech with great attention;
it excited their compassion; each of them made the unhappy Theodore
a present of twenty sequins, and Candide gave him a diamond, worth
just a hundred times that sum.
"Who can this private person be," said the five Kings to one
another, "who is able to give, and has actually given, a hundred times
as much as any of us?"
Just as they rose from table, in came four Serene Highnesses, who
had also been stripped of their territories by the fortune of war, and
had come to spend the remainder of the Carnival at Venice. Candide
took no manner of notice of them; for his thoughts were wholly
employed on his voyage to Constantinople, where he intended to go in
search of his lovely Miss Cunegund.
CHAPTER 27
Candide's Voyage to Constantinople

The trusty Cacambo had already engaged the captain of the Turkish
ship that was to carry Sultan Achmet back to Constantinople to take
Candide and Martin on board. Accordingly they both embarked, after
paying their obeisance to his miserable Highness. As they were going
on board, Candide said to Martin:
"You see we supped in company with six dethroned Kings, and to one
of them I gave charity. Perhaps there may be a great many other
princes still more unfortunate. For my part I have lost only a hundred
sheep, and am now going to fly to the arms of my charming Miss
Cunegund. My dear Martin, I must insist on it, that Pangloss was in
the right. All is for the best."
"I wish it may be," said Martin.
"But this was an odd adventure we met with at Venice. I do not think
there ever was an instance before of six dethroned monarchs supping
together at a public inn."
"This is not more extraordinary," said Martin, "than most of what
has happened to us. It is a very common thing for kings to be
dethroned; and as for our having the honor to sup with six of them, it
is a mere accident, not deserving our attention."
As soon as Candide set his foot on board the vessel, he flew to
his old friend and valet Cacambo and, throwing his arms about his
neck, embraced him with transports of joy.
"Well," said he, "what news of Miss Cunegund? Does she still
continue the paragon of beauty? Does she love me still? How does she
do? You have, doubtless, purchased a superb palace for her at
Constantinople."
"My dear master," replied Cacambo, "Miss Cunegund washes dishes on
the banks of the Propontis, in the house of a prince who has very
few to wash. She is at present a slave in the family of an ancient
sovereign named Ragotsky, whom the Grand Turk allows three crowns a
day to maintain him in his exile; but the most melancholy circumstance
of all is, that she is turned horribly ugly."
"Ugly or handsome," said Candide, "I am a man of honor and, as such,
am obliged to love her still. But how could she possibly have been
reduced to so abject a condition, when I sent five or six millions
to her by you?"
"Lord bless me," said Cacambo, "was not I obliged to give two
millions to Seignor Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y
Lampourdos y Souza, the Governor of Buenos Ayres, for liberty to
take Miss Cunegund away with me? And then did not a brave fellow of
a pirate gallantly strip us of all the rest? And then did not this
same pirate carry us with him to Cape Matapan, to Milo, to Nicaria, to
Samos, to Petra, to the Dardanelles, to Marmora, to Scutari? Miss
Cunegund and the old woman are now servants to the prince I have
told you of; and I myself am slave to the dethroned Sultan."
"What a chain of shocking accidents!" exclaimed Candide. "But
after all, I have still some diamonds left, with which I can easily
procure Miss Cunegund's liberty. It is a pity though she is grown so
ugly."
Then turning to Martin, "What think you, friend," said he, "whose
condition is most to be pitied, the Emperor Achmet's, the Emperor
Ivan's, King Charles Edward's, or mine?"
"Faith, I cannot resolve your question," said Martin, "unless I
had been in the breasts of you all."
"Ah!" cried Candide, "was Pangloss here now, he would have known,
and satisfied me at once."
"I know not," said Martin, "in what balance your Pangloss could have
weighed the misfortunes of mankind, and have set a just estimation
on their sufferings. All that I pretend to know of the matter is
that there are millions of men on the earth, whose conditions are a
hundred times more pitiable than those of King Charles Edward, the
Emperor Ivan, or Sultan Achmet."
"Why, that may be," answered Candide.
In a few days they reached the Bosphorus; and the first thing
Candide did was to pay a high ransom for Cacambo; then, without losing
time, he and his companions went on board a galley, in order to search
for his Cunegund on the banks of the Propontis, notwithstanding she
was grown so ugly.
There were two slaves among the crew of the galley, who rowed very
ill, and to whose bare backs the master of the vessel frequently
applied a lash. Candide, from natural sympathy, looked at these two
slaves more attentively than at any of the rest, and drew near them
with an eye of pity. Their features, though greatly disfigured,
appeared to him to bear a strong resemblance with those of Pangloss
and the unhappy Baron Jesuit, Miss Cunegund's brother. This idea
affected him with grief and compassion: he examined them more
attentively than before.
"In troth," said he, turning to Martin, "if I had not seen my master
Pangloss fairly hanged, and had not myself been unlucky enough to
run the Baron through the body, I should absolutely think those two
rowers were the men."
No sooner had Candide uttered the names of the Baron and Pangloss,
than the two slaves gave a great cry, ceased rowing, and let fall
their oars out of their hands. The master of the vessel, seeing
this, ran up to them, and redoubled the discipline of the lash.
"Hold, hold," cried Candide, "I will give you what money you shall
ask for these two persons."
"Good heavens! it is Candide," said one of the men.
"Candide!" cried the other.
"Do I dream," said Candide, "or am I awake? Am I actually on board
this galley? Is this My Lord the Baron, whom I killed? and that my
master Pangloss, whom I saw hanged before my face?"
"It is I! it is I!" cried they both together.
"What! is this your great philosopher?" said Martin.
"My dear sir," said Candide to the master of the galley, "how much
do you ask for the ransom of the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, who
is one of the first barons of the empire, and of Monsieur Pangloss,
the most profound metaphysician in Germany?"
"Why, then, Christian cur," replied the Turkish captain, "since
these two dogs of Christian slaves are barons and metaphysicians,
who no doubt are of high rank in their own country, thou shalt give me
fifty thousand sequins."
"You shall have them, sir; carry me back as quick as thought to
Constantinople, and you shall receive the money immediately-No!
carry me first to Miss Cunegund."
The captain, upon Candide's first proposal, had already tacked
about, and he made the crew ply their oars so effectually, that the
vessel flew through the water, quicker than a bird cleaves the air.
Candide bestowed a thousand embraces on the Baron and Pangloss. "And
so then, my dear Baron, I did not kill you? and you, my dear Pangloss,
are come to life again after your hanging? But how came you slaves
on board a Turkish galley?"
"And is it true that my dear sister is in this country?" said the
Baron.
"Yes," said Cacambo.
"And do I once again behold my dear Candide?" said Pangloss.
Candide presented Martin and Cacambo to them; they embraced each
other, and all spoke together. The galley flew like lightning, and
soon they were got back to port. Candide instantly sent for a Jew,
to whom he sold for fifty thousand sequins a diamond richly worth
one hundred thousand, though the fellow swore to him all the time by
Father Abraham that he gave him the most he could possibly afford.
He no sooner got the money into his hands, than he paid it down for
the ransom of the Baron and Pangloss. The latter flung himself at
the feet of his deliverer, and bathed him with his tears; the former
thanked him with a gracious nod, and promised to return him the
money the first opportunity.
"But is it possible," said he, "that my sister should be in Turkey?"
"Nothing is more possible," answered Cacambo, "for she scours the
dishes in the house of a Transylvanian prince."
Candide sent directly for two Jews, and sold more diamonds to
them; and then he set out with his companions in another galley, to
deliver Miss Cunegund from slavery.
CHAPTER 28
What Befell Candide, Cunegund, Pangloss, Martin, etc.

Pardon," said Candide to the Baron; "once more let me entreat your
pardon, Reverend Father, for running you through the body."
"Say no more about it," replied the Baron. "I was a little too hasty
I must own; but as you seem to be desirous to know by what accident
I came to be a slave on board the galley where you saw me, I will
inform you. After I had been cured of the wound you gave me, by the
College apothecary, I was attacked and carried off by a party of
Spanish troops, who clapped me in prison in Buenos Ayres, at the
very time my sister was setting out from there. I asked leave to
return to Rome, to the general of my Order, who appointed me
chaplain to the French Ambassador at Constantinople. I had not been
a week in my new office, when I happened to meet one evening a young
Icoglan, extremely handsome and well-made. The weather was very hot;
the young man had an inclination to bathe. I took the opportunity to
bathe likewise. I did not know it was a crime for a Christian to be
found naked in company with a young Turk. A cadi ordered me to receive
a hundred blows on the soles of my feet, and sent me to the galleys. I
do not believe that there was ever an act of more flagrant
injustice. But I would fain know how my sister came to be a scullion
to a Transylvanian prince, who has taken refuge among the Turks?"
"But how happens it that I behold you again, my dear Pangloss?" said
Candide.
"It is true," answered Pangloss, "you saw me hanged, though I
ought properly to have been burned; but you may remember, that it
rained extremely hard when they were going to roast me. The storm
was so violent that they found it impossible to light the fire; so
they hanged me because they could do no better. A surgeon purchased my
body, carried it home, and prepared to dissect me. He began by
making a crucial incision from my navel to the clavicle. It is
impossible for anyone to have been more lamely hanged than I had been.
The executioner was a subdeacon, and knew how to burn people very
well, but as for hanging, he was a novice at it, being quite out of
practice; the cord being wet, and not slipping properly, the noose did
not join. In short, I still continued to breathe; the crucial incision
made me scream to such a degree, that my surgeon fell flat upon his
back; and imagining it was the Devil he was dissecting, ran away,
and in his fright tumbled down stairs. His wife hearing the noise,
flew from the next room, and seeing me stretched upon the table with
my crucial incision, was still more terrified than her husband, and
fell upon him. When they had a little recovered themselves, I heard
her say to her husband, 'My dear, how could you think of dissecting
a heretic? Don't you know that the Devil is always in them? I'll run
directly to a priest to come and drive the evil spirit out.' I
trembled from head to foot at hearing her talk in this manner, and
exerted what little strength I had left to cry out, 'Have mercy on
me!' At length the Portuguese barber took courage, sewed up my
wound, and his wife nursed me; and I was upon my legs in a fortnight's
time. The barber got me a place to be lackey to a Knight of Malta, who
was going to Venice; but finding my master had no money to pay me my
wages, I entered into the service of a Venetian merchant and went with
him to Constantinople.
"One day I happened to enter a mosque, where I saw no one but an old
man and a very pretty young female devotee, who was telling her beads;
her neck was quite bare, and in her bosom she had a beautiful
nosegay of tulips, roses, anemones, ranunculuses, hyacinths, and
auriculas; she let fall her nosegay. I ran immediately to take it
up, and presented it to her with a most respectful bow. I was so
long in delivering it that the man began to be angry; and,
perceiving I was a Christian, he cried out for help; they carried me
before the cadi, who ordered me to receive one hundred bastinadoes,
and sent me to the galleys. I was chained in the very galley and to
the very same bench with the Baron. On board this galley there were
four young men belonging to Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and
two monks of Corfu, who told us that the like adventures happened
every day. The Baron pretended that he had been worse used than
myself; and I insisted that there was far less harm in taking up a
nosegay, and putting it into a woman's bosom, than to be found stark
naked with a young Icoglan. We were continually whipped, and
received twenty lashes a day with a heavy thong, when the
concatenation of sublunary events brought you on board our galley to
ransom us from slavery."
"Well, my dear Pangloss," said Candide to him, "when You were
hanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging at the oar, did you continue
to think that everything in this world happens for the best?"
"I have always abided by my first opinion," answered Pangloss; "for,
after all, I am a philosopher, and it would not become me to retract
my sentiments; especially as Leibnitz could not be in the wrong: and
that preestablished harmony is the finest thing in the world, as
well as a plenum and the materia subtilis."
CHAPTER 29 In
What Manner Candide Found Miss Cunegund and the Old Woman Again

While Candide, the Baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo, were
relating their several adventures, and reasoning on the contingent
or noncontingent events of this world; on causes and effects; on moral
and physical evil; on free will and necessity; and on the
consolation that may be felt by a person when a slave and chained to
an oar in a Turkish galley, they arrived at the house of the
Transylvanian prince on the shores of the Propontis. The first objects
they beheld there, were Miss Cunegund and the old woman, who were
hanging some tablecloths on a line to dry.
The Baron turned pale at the sight. Even the tender Candide, that
affectionate lover, upon seeing his fair Cunegund all sunburned,
with bleary eyes, a withered neck, wrinkled face and arms, all covered
with a red scurf, started back with horror; but, not withstanding,
recovering himself, he advanced towards her out of good manners. She
embraced Candide and her brother; they embraced the old woman, and
Candide ransomed them both.
There was a small farm in the neighborhood which the old woman
proposed to Candide to make shift with till the company should meet
with a more favorable destiny. Cunegund, not knowing that she was
grown ugly, as no one had informed her of it, reminded Candide of
his promise in so peremptory a manner, that the simple lad did not
dare to refuse her; he then acquainted the Baron that he was going
to marry his sister.
"I will never suffer," said the Baron, "my sister to be guilty of an
action so derogatory to her birth and family; nor will I bear this
insolence on your part. No, I never will be reproached that my nephews
are not qualified for the first ecclesiastical dignities in Germany;
nor shall a sister of mine ever be the wife of any person below the
rank of Baron of the Empire."
Cunegund flung herself at her brother's feet, and bedewed them
with her tears; but he still continued inflexible.
"Thou foolish fellow, said Candide, "have I not delivered thee
from the galleys, paid thy ransom, and thy sister's, too, who was a
scullion, and is very ugly, and yet condescend to marry her? and shalt
thou pretend to oppose the match! If I were to listen only to the
dictates of my anger, I should kill thee again."
"Thou mayest kill me again," said the Baron; "but thou shalt not
marry my sister while I am living."
CHAPTER 30
Conclusion

Candide had, in truth, no great inclination to marry Miss
Cunegund; but the extreme impertinence of the Baron determined him
to conclude the match; and Cunegund pressed him so warmly, that he
could not recant. He consulted Pangloss, Martin, and the faithful
Cacambo. Pangloss composed a fine memorial, by which he proved that
the Baron had no right over his sister; and that she might,
according to all the laws of the Empire, marry Candide with the left
hand. Martin concluded to throw the Baron into the sea; Cacambo
decided that he must be delivered to the Turkish captain and sent to
the galleys; after which he should be conveyed by the first ship to
the Father General at Rome. This advice was found to be good; the
old woman approved of it, and not a syllable was said to his sister;
the business was executed for a little money; and they had the
pleasure of tricking a Jesuit, and punishing the pride of a German
baron.
It was altogether natural to imagine, that after undergoing so
many disasters, Candide, married to his mistress and living with the
philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the prudent Cacambo, and
the old woman, having besides brought home so many diamonds from the
country of the ancient Incas, would lead the most agreeable life in
the world. But he had been so robbed by the Jews, that he had
nothing left but his little farm; his wife, every day growing more and
more ugly, became headstrong and insupportable; the old woman was
infirm, and more ill-natured yet than Cunegund. Cacambo, who worked in
the garden, and carried the produce of it to sell in Constantinople,
was above his labor, and cursed his fate. Pangloss despaired of making
a figure in any of the German universities. And as to Martin, he was
firmly persuaded that a person is equally ill-situated everywhere.
He took things with patience.
Candide, Martin, and Pangloss disputed sometimes about metaphysics
and morality. Boats were often seen passing under the windows of the
farm laden with effendis, bashaws, and cadis, that were going into
banishment to Lemnos, Mytilene and Erzerum. And other cadis,
bashaws, and effendis were seen coming back to succeed the place of
the exiles, and were driven out in their turns. They saw several heads
curiously stuck upon poles, and carried as presents to the Sublime
Porte. Such sights gave occasion to frequent dissertations; and when
no disputes were in progress, the irksomeness was so excessive that
the old woman ventured one day to tell them:
"I would be glad to know which is worst, to be ravished a hundred
times by Negro pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the
gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an
auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and,
in short, to experience all the miseries through which every one of us
hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?"
"This," said Candide, "is a grand question."
This discourse gave birth to new reflections, and Martin
especially concluded that man was born to live in the convulsions of
disquiet, or in the lethargy of idleness. Though Candide did not
absolutely agree to this, yet he did not determine anything on that
head. Pangloss avowed that he had undergone dreadful sufferings; but
having once maintained that everything went on as well as possible, he
still maintained it, and at the same time believed nothing of it.
There was one thing which more than ever confirmed Martin in his
detestable principles, made Candide hesitate, and embarrassed
Pangloss, which was the arrival of Pacquette and Brother Giroflee
one day at their farm. This couple had been in the utmost distress;
they had very speedily made away with their three thousand piastres;
they had parted, been reconciled; quarreled again, been thrown into
prison; had made their escape, and at last Brother Giroflee had turned
Turk. Pacquette still continued to follow her trade; but she got
little or nothing by it.
"I foresaw very well," said Martin to Candide "that your presents
would soon be squandered, and only make them more miserable. You and
Cacambo have spent millions of piastres, and yet you are not more
happy than Brother Giroflee and Pacquette."
"Ah!" said Pangloss to Pacquette, "it is Heaven that has brought you
here among us, my poor child! Do you know that you have cost me the
tip of my nose, one eye, and one ear? What a handsome shape is here!
and what is this world!"
This new adventure engaged them more deeply than ever in
philosophical disputations.
In the neighborhood lived a famous dervish who passed for the best
philosopher in Turkey; they went to consult him: Pangloss, who was
their spokesman, addressed him thus:
"Master, we come to entreat you to tell us why so strange an
animal as man has been formed?"
"Why do you trouble your head about it?" said the dervish; "is it
any business of yours?"
"But, Reverend Father," said Candide, "there is a horrible deal of
evil on the earth."
"What signifies it," said the dervish, "whether there is evil or
good? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble his head
whether the rats in the vessel are at their ease or not?"
"What must then be done?" said Pangloss.
"Be silent," answered the dervish.
"I flattered myself," replied Pangloss, "to have reasoned a little
with you on the causes and effects, on the best of possible worlds,
the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and a pre-established
harmony."
At these words the dervish shut the door in their faces.
During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two viziers of
the bench and the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and
several of their friends impaled. This catastrophe made a great
noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were
returning to the little farm, met with a good-looking old man, who was
taking the air at his door, under an alcove formed of the boughs of
orange trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was
disputative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who was lately
strangled.
"I cannot tell," answered the good old man; "I never knew the name
of any mufti, or vizier breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the event
you speak of; I presume that in general such as are concerned in
public affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they
deserve it: but I never inquire what is doing at Constantinople; I
am contented with sending thither the produce of my garden, which I
cultivate with my own hands."
After saying these words, he invited the strangers to come into
his house. His two daughters and two sons presented them with divers
sorts of sherbet of their own making; besides caymac, heightened
with the peels of candied citrons, oranges, lemons, pineapples,
pistachio nuts, and Mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee
of Batavia or the American islands. After which the two daughters of
this good Mussulman perfumed the beards of Candide, Pangloss, and
Martin.
"You must certainly have a vast estate," said Candide to the Turk.
"I have no more than twenty acres of ground," he replied, "the whole
of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and our
labor keeps off from us three great evils-idleness, vice, and want."
Candide, as he was returning home, made profound reflections on
the Turk's discourse.
"This good old man," said he to Pangloss and Martin, "appears to
me to have chosen for himself a lot much preferable to that of the six
Kings with whom we had the honor to sup."
"Human grandeur," said Pangloss, "is very dangerous, if we believe
the testimonies of almost all philosophers; for we find Eglon, King of
Moab, was assassinated by Aod; Absalom was hanged by the hair of his
head, and run through with three darts; King Nadab, son of Jeroboam,
was slain by Baaza; King Ela by Zimri; Okosias by Jehu; Athaliah by
Jehoiada; the Kings Jehooiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led
into captivity: I need not tell you what was the fate of Croesus,
Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal,
Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian,
Richard II of England, Edward II, Henry VI, Richard Ill, Mary
Stuart, Charles I, the three Henrys of France, and the Emperor Henry
IV."
"Neither need you tell me," said Candide, "that we must take care of
our garden."
"You are in the right," said Pangloss; "for when man was put into
the garden of Eden, it was with an intent to dress it; and this proves
that man was not born to be idle."
"Work then without disputing," said Martin; "it is the only way to
render life supportable."
The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design
and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little
piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. Cunegund indeed was
very ugly, but she became an excellent hand at pastrywork: Pacquette
embroidered; the old woman had the care of the linen. There was
none, down to Brother Giroflee, but did some service; he was a very
good carpenter, and became an honest man. Pangloss used now and then
to say to Candide:
"There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible
worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle
for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the
Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not
run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep,
which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not
have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts."
"Excellently observed," answered Candide; "but let us cultivate
our garden."

-THE END-
.