The Portable Voltaire (Portable Library)

by Francois Voltaire

  CHAPTER XV

  How Candide Killed His Dear Cunegonde’s Brothe?

  “I shall remember all my life the horrible day when I saw my father and mother killed and my sister raped. When the Bulgarians had gone, my adorable sister could not be found, and my mother, my father and I, two maid-servants and three little murdered boys were placed in a cart to be buried in a Jesuit chapel two leagues from the castle of my fathers. A Jesuit sprinkled us with holy water; it was horribly salt; a few drops fell in my eyes; the father noticed that my eyelids trembled, he put his hand on my heart and felt that it was still beating; I was attended to and at the end of three weeks was as well as if nothing had happened. You know, my dear Candide, that I was a very pretty youth, and I became still prettier; and so the Reverend Father Croust, the Superior of the house, was inspired with a most tender friendship for me; he gave me the dress of a novice and some time afterwards I was sent to Rome. The Father General wished to recruit some young German Jesuits. The sovereigns of Paraguay take as· few Spanish Jesuits as they can; they prefer foreigners, whom they think they can control better. The Reverend Father General thought me apt to labor in his vineyard. I set off with a Pole and a Tyrolese. When I arrived I was honored with a subdeaconship and a lieutenancy; I am now colonel and priest. We shall give the King of Spain’s troops a warm reception; I guarantee they will be excommunicated and beaten. Providence has sent you to help us. But is it really true that my dear sister Cunegonde is in the neighborhood with the governor of Buenos Aires?” Candide assured him on oath that nothing could be truer. Their tears began to flow once more. The Baron seemed never to grow tired of embracing Candide; he called him his brother, his savior. “Ah! My dear Candide,” said he, “perhaps we shall enter the town together as conquerors and regain my sister Cunegonde.” “I desire it above all things,” said Candide, “for I meant to marry her and I still hope to do so.” “You, insolent wretch!” replied the Baron. “Would you have the impudence to marry my sister who has seventy-two quarterings ! I consider you extremely impudent to dare to speak to me of such a foolhardy intention!” Candide, petrified at this speech, replied: “Reverend Father, all the quarterings in the world are of no importance; I rescued your sister from the arms of a Jew and an Inquisitor; she is under considerable obligation to me and wishes to marry me. Dr. Pangloss always said that men are equal and I shall certainly marry her.” “We shall see about that, scoundrel!” said the Jesuit Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, at the same time hitting him violently in the face with the flat of his sword. Candide promptly drew his own and stuck it up to the hilt in the Jesuit Baron’s belly; but, as he drew it forth smoking, he began to weep. “Alas! My God,” said he, “I have killed my old master, my friend, my brother-in-law; I am the mildest man in the world and I have already killed three men, two of them priests.” Cacambo, who was acting as sentry at the door of the arbor, ran in. “There is nothing left for us but to sell our lives dearly,” said his master. “Somebody will certainly come into the arbor and we must die weapon in hand.” Cacambo, who had seen this sort of thing before, did not lose his head; he took off. the Baron’s Jesuit gown, put it on Candide, gave him the dead man’s square bonnet, and made him mount a horse. All this was done in the twinkling of an eye. “Let us gallop, master; everyone will take you for a Jesuit carrying orders and we shall have passed the frontiers before they can pursue us.” As he spoke these words he started off at full speed and shouted in Spanish: “Way, way for the Reverend Father Colonel ...”

  CHAPTER XVI

  What Happened to the Two Travelers with Two Girls, Two Monkeys, and the Savages Called Oreillons

  Candide and his valet were past the barriers before anybody in the camp knew of the death of the German Jesuit. The vigilant Cacambo had taken care to fill his saddlebag with bread, chocolate, ham, fruit, and several bottles of wine. On their Andalusian horses they plunged into an unknown country where they found no road. At last a beautiful plain traversed by streams met their eyes. Our two travelers put their horses to grass. Cacambo suggested to his master that they should eat and set the example. “How can you expect me to eat ham,” said Candide, “when I have killed the son of My Lord the Baron and find myself condemned never to see the fair Cunegonde again in my life? What is the use of prolonging my miserable days since I must drag them out far from her in remorse and despair? And what will the Journal de Trévoux say?” Speaking thus, he began to eat. The sun was setting. The two wanderers heard faint cries which seemed to be uttered by women. They could not tell whether these were cries of pain or of joy; but they rose hastily with that alarm and uneasiness caused by everything in an unknown country. These cries came from two completely naked girls who were running gently along the edge of the plain, while two monkeys pursued them and bit their buttocks. Candide was moved to pity; he had learned to shoot among the Bulgarians and could have brought down a nut from a tree without touching the leaves. He raised his doublebarreled Spanish gun, fired, and killed the two monkeys. “God be praised, my dear Cacambo, I have delivered these two poor creatures from a great danger; if I committed a sin by killing an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I have atoned for it by saving the lives of these two girls. Perhaps they are young ladies of quality and this adventure may be of great advantage to us in this country.” He was going on, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth when he saw the two girls tenderly kissing the two monkeys, shedding tears on their bodies and filling the air with the most piteous cries. “I did not expect so much human kindliness,” he said at last to Cacambo, who replied: “You have performed a wonderful masterpiece; you have killed the two lovers of these young ladies.” “Their lovers! Can it be possible? You are jesting at me, Cacambo; how can I believe you?” “My dear master,” replied Cacambo, “you are always surprised by everything; why should you think it so strange that in some countries there should be monkeys who obtain ladies’ favors? They are quarter men, as I am a quarter Spaniard.” “Alas!” replied Candide, “I remember to have heard Dr. Pangloss say that similar accidents occurred in the past and that these mixtures produce Aigypans, fauns, and satyrs; that several eminent persons of antiquity have seen them; but I thought they were fables.” “You ought now to be convinced that it is true,” said Cacambo, “and you see how people behave when they have not received a proper educa. tion; the only thing I fear is that these ladies may get us into difficulty.” These wise reflections persuaded Candide to leave the plain and to plunge into the woods. He ate supper there with Cacambo and, after having cursed the Inquisitor of Portugal, the governor of Buenos Aires and the Baron, they went to sleep on the moss. When they woke up they found they could not move; the reason was that during the night the Oreillons, the inhabitants of the country, to whom they had been denounced by the two ladies, had bound them with ropes made of bark. They were surrounded by fifty naked Oreillons, armed with arrows, clubs, and stone hatchets. Some were boiling a large cauldron, others were preparing spits and they were all shouting: “Here’s a Jesuit, here’s a Jesuit! We shall be revenged and have a good dinner; let us eat the Jesuit, let us eat the Jesuit!” “I told you so, my dear master,” said Cacambo sadly. “I knew those two girls would play us a dirty trick.” Candide perceived the cauldron and the spits and exclaimed : “We are certainly going to be roasted or boiled. Ah! What would Dr. Pangloss say if he saw what the pure state of nature is? All is well, granted; but I confess it is very cruel to have lost Mademoiselle Cunegonde and to be spitted by the Oreillons.” Cacambo never lost his head. “Do not despair,” he said to the wretched Candide. “I understand a little of their dialect and I will speak to them.” “Do not fail,” said Candide, “to point out to them the dreadful inhumanity of cooking men and how very unchristian it is.” “Gentlemen,” said Cacambo, “you mean to eat a Jesuit today? ‘Tis a good deed; nothing could be more just than to treat one’s enemies in this fashion. Indeed the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbor and this is how people behave all over the world. If we do not exert the right of eating
our neighbor, it is because we have other means of making good cheer; but you have not the same resources as we, and it is certainly better to eat our enemies than to abandon the fruits of victory to ravens and crows. But, gentlemen, you would not wish to eat your friends. You believe you are about to place a Jesuit on the spit, and ’tis your defender, the enemy of your enemies you are about to roast. I was born in your country; the gentleman you see here is my master and, far from being a Jesuit, he has just killed a Jesuit and is wearing his clothes; which is the cause of your mistake. To verify what I say, take his gown, carry it to the first barrier of the kingdom of Los Padres and inquire whether my master has not killed a Jesuit officer. It will not take you long and you will have plenty of time to eat us if you find I have lied. But if I have told the truth, you are too well acquainted with the principles of public law, good morals and discipline, not to pardon us.” The Oreillons thought this a very reasonable speech; they deputed two of their notables to go with all diligence and find out the truth. The two deputies acquitted themselves of their task like intelligent men and soon returned with the good news. The Oreillons unbound their two prisoners, overwhelmed them with civilities, offered them girls, gave them refreshment, and accompanied them to the frontiers of their dominions, shouting joyfully: “He is not a Jesuit, he is not a Jesuit!” Candide could not cease from wondering at the cause of his deliverance. “What a nation,” said he. “What men! What manners! If I had not been so lucky as to stick my sword through the body of Mademoiselle Cunegonde’s brother I should infallibly have been eaten. But, after all, there is something good in the pure state of nature, since these people, instead of eating me, offered me a thousand civilities as soon as they knew I was not a jesuit.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Arrival of Candide and His Valet in the Country of Eldorado and What They Saw There

  When they reached the frontiers of the Oreillons, Cacambo said to Candide: “You see this hemisphere is no better than the other; take my advice, let us go back to Europe by the shortest road.” “How can we go back,” said Candide, “and where can we go? If I go to my own country, the Bulgarians and the Abares are murdering everybody; if I return to Portugal I shall be burned; if we stay here, we run the risk of being spitted at any moment. But how can I make up my mind to leave that part of the world where Mademoiselle Cunegonde is living?” “Let us go to Cayenne,” said Cacambo, “we shall find Frenchmen there, for they go all over the world; they might help us. Perhaps God will have pity on us.” It was not easy to go to Cayenne. They knew roughly the direction to take, but mountains, rivers, precipices, brigands, and savages were everywhere terrible obstacles. Their horses died of fatigue; their provisions were exhausted; for a whole month they lived on wild fruits and at last found themselves near a little river fringed with cocoanut-trees which supported their lives and their hopes. Cacambo, who always gave advice as prudent as the old woman‘s, said to Candide: “We can go no farther, we have walked far enough; I can see an empty canoe in the bank, let us fill it with cocoanuts, get into the little boat and drift with the current; a river always leads to some inhabited place. If we do not find anything pleasant, we shall at least find something new.” “Come on then,” said Candide, “and let us trust to Providence.” They drifted for some leagues between banks which were sometimes flowery, sometimes bare, sometimes flat, sometimes steep. The river continually became wider; finally it disappeared under an arch of frightful rocks which towered up to the very sky. The two travelers were bold enough to trust themselves to the current under this arch. The stream, narrowed between walls, carried them with horrible rapidity and noise. After twenty-four hours they saw daylight again; but their canoe was wrecked on reefs; they had to crawl from rock to rock for a whole league and at last they discovered an immense horizon, bordered by inaccessible mountains. The country was cultivated for pleasure as well as for necessity; everywhere the useful was agreeable. The roads were covered or rather ornamented with carriages of brilliant material and shape, carrying men and women of singular beauty, who were rapidly drawn along by large red sheep whose swiftness surpassed that of the finest horses of Andalusia, Tetuan, and Mequinez. “This country,” said Candide, “is better than Westphalia.” He landed with Cacambo near the first village he came to. Several children of the village, dressed in tom gold brocade, were playing quoits outside the village. Our two men from the other world amused themselves by looking on; their quoits were large round pieces, yellow, red, and green which shone with peculiar luster. The travelers were curious enough to pick up some of them; they were of gold, emeralds, and rubies, the least of which would have been the greatest ornament in the Mogul’s throne. “No doubt,” said Cacambo, “these children are the sons of the King of this country playing at quoits.” At that moment the village schoolmaster appeared to call them into school. “This,” said Candide, “is the tutor of the Royal Family.” The little beggars immediately left their game, abandoning their quoits and everything with which they had been playing. Candide picked them up, ran to the tutor, and presented them to him humbly, giving him to understand by signs that their Royal Highnesses had forgotten their gold and their precious stones. The village schoolmaster smiled, threw them on the ground, gazed for a moment at Candide’s face with much surprise and continued on his way. The travelers did not fail to pick up the gold, the rubies and the emeralds. “Where are we?” cried Candide. “The children of the King must be well brought up, since they are taught to despise gold and precious stones.” Cacambo was as much surprised as Candide. At last they reached the first house in the village, which was built like a European palace. There were crowds of people round the door and still more inside; very pleasant music could be heard and there was a delicious smell of cooking. Cacambo went up to the door and heard them speaking Peruvian; it was his maternal tongue, for everyone knows that Cacambo was born in a village of Tucuman where nothing else is spoken. “I will act as your interpreter,” he said to Candide, “this is an inn, let us enter.” Immediately two boys and two girls of the inn, dressed in cloth of gold, whose hair was bound up with ribbons, invited them to sit down to the table d’hôte. They served four soups each garnished with two parrots, a boiled condor which weighed two hundred pounds, two roast monkeys of excellent flavor, three hundred colibris in one dish and six hundred hummingbirds in another, exquisite ragouts and delicious pastries, all in dishes of a sort of rock-crystal. The boys and girls brought several sorts of drinks made of sugar-cane. Most of the guests were merchants and coachmen, all extremely polite, who asked Cacambo a few questions with the most delicate discretion and answered his in a satisfactory manner. When the meal was over, Cacambo, like Candide, thought he could pay the reckoning by throwing on the table two of the large pieces of gold he had picked up; the host and hostess laughed until they had to hold their sides. At last they recovered themselves. “Gentlemen,” said the host, “we perceive you are strangers; we are not accustomed to seeing them. Forgive us if we began to laugh when you offered us in payment the stones from our highways. No doubt you have none of the money of this country, but you do not need any to dine here. All the hotels established for the utility of commerce are paid for by the government. You have been ill-entertained here because this is a poor village; but everywhere else you will be received as you deserve to be.” Cacambo explained to Candide all that the host had said, and Candide listened in the same admiration and disorder with which his friend Cacambo interpreted. “What can this country be,” they said to each other, “which is unknown to the rest of the world and where all nature is so different from ours? Probably it is the country where everything is for the best; for there must be one country of that sort. And, in spite of what Dr. Pangloss said, I often noticed that everything went very ill in Westphalia.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  What They Saw in the Land of Eldorado

  Cacambo informed the host of his curiosity, and the host said: “I am a very ignorant man and am all the better for it; but we have here an old m
an who has retired from the court and who is the most learned and most communicative man in the kingdom.” And he at once took Cacambo to the old man. Candide now played only the second part and accompanied his valet. They entered a very simple house, for the door was only of silver and the paneling of the apartments in gold, but so tastefully carved that the richest decorations did not surpass it. The antechamber indeed was only encrusted with rubies and emeralds; but the order with which everything was arranged atoned for this extreme simplicity. The old man received the two strangers on a sofa padded with colibri feathers, and presented them with drinks in diamond cups; after which he satisfied their curiosity in these words: “I am a hundred and seventy-two years old and I heard from my late father, the King’s equerry, the astonishing revolutions of Peru of which he had been on eye-witness. The kingdom where we now are is the ancient country of the Incas, who most imprudently left it to conquer part of the world and were at last destroyed by the Spaniards. The princes of their family who remained in their native country had more wisdom; with the consent of the nation, they ordered that no inhabitants should ever leave our little kingdom, and this it is that has preserved our innocence and our felicity. The Spaniards had some vague knowledge of this coun. try, which they called Eldorado, and about a hundred years ago an Englishman named Raleigh came very near to it; but, since we are surrounded by inaccessible rocks and precipices, we have hitherto been exempt from the rapacity of the nations of Europe who have an incon. ceivable lust for the pebbles and mud of our land and would kill us to the last man to get possession of them.” The conversation was long; it touched upon the form of the government, manners, women, public spectacles and the arts. Finally Candide, who was always interested in metaphysics, asked through Cacambo whether the coun try had a religion. The old man blushed a little. “How can you doubt it?” said he. “Do you think we are ingrates?” Cacambo humbly asked what was the religion of Eldorado. The old man blushed again. “Can there be two religions?” said he. “We have, I think, the religion of everyone else; we adore God from evening until morning.” “Do you adore only one God?” said Cacambo, who continued to act as the interpreter of Candide’s doubts. “Manifestly,” said the old man, “there are not two or three or four. I must confess that the people of your world ask very extraordinary questions.” Candide continued to press the old man with questions; he wished to know how they prayed to God in Eldorado. “We do not pray,” said the good and respectable sage, “we have nothing to ask from him; he has given us everything necessary and we continually give him thanks.” Candide was curious to see the priests; and asked where they were. The good old man smiled. “My friends,” said he, “we are all priests; the King and all the heads of families solemnly sing praises every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand musicians.” “What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?” “For that, we should have to become fools,” said the old man; “here we are all of the same opinion and do not understand what you mean with your monks.” At all this Candide was in an ecstasy and said to himself: “This is very different from Westphalia and the castle of His Lordship the Baron; if our friend Pangloss had seen Eldorado, he would not have said that the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh was the best of all that exists on the earth; certainly, a man should travel.” After this long conversation the good old man ordered a carriage to be harnessed with six sheep and gave the two travelers twelve of his servants to take them to court. “You will excuse me,” he said, “if my age deprives me of the honor of accompanying you. The King will receive you in a manner which will not displease you and doubtless you will pardon the customs of the country if any of them disconcert you.” Candide and Cacambo entered the carriage; the six sheep galloped off and in less than four hours they reached the King’s palace, which was situated at one end of the capital. The portal was two hundred and twenty feet high and a hundred feet wide; it is impossible to describe its material. Anyone can see the prodigious superiority it must have over the pebbles and sand we call gold and gems. Twenty beautiful maidens of the guard received Candide and Cacambo as they alighted from the carriage, conducted them to the baths and dressed them in robes woven from the down of colibris; after which the principal male and female officers of the Crown led them to his Majesty’s apartment through two files of a thousand musicians each, according to the usual custom. As they approached the throne-room, Cacambo asked one of the chief officers how they should behave in his Majesty’s presence; whether they should fall on their knees or flat on their faces, whether they should put their hands on their heads or on their backsides; whether they should lick the dust of the throne-room; in a word, what was the ceremony? “The custom,” said the chief officer, “is to embrace the King and to kiss him on either cheek.” Candide and Cacambo threw their arms round his Majesty’s neck; he received them with all imaginable favor and politely asked them to supper. Meanwhile they were carried to see the town, the public buildings rising to the very skies, the marketplaces ornamented with thousands of columns, the fountains of rosewater and of liquors distilled from sugar-cane, which played continually in the public squares paved with precious stones which emitted a perfume like that of cloves and cinnamon. Candide asked to see the law courts; he was told there were none, and that nobody ever went to law. He asked if there were prisons and was told there were none. He was still more surprised and pleased by the palace of sciences, where he saw a gallery two thousand feet long, filled with instruments of mathematics and physics. After they had explored all the afternoon about a thousandth part of the town, they were taken back to the King. Candide sat down to table with his Majesty, his valet Cacambo and several ladies. Never was better cheer, and never was anyone wittier at supper than His Majesty. Cacambo explained the Kings’ witty remarks to Candide and even when translated they still appeared witty. Among all the things which amazed Candide, this did not amaze him the least. They enjoyed this hospitality for a month. Candide repeatedly said to Cacambo: “Once again, my friend, it is quite true that the castle where I was born cannot be compared with this country; but then Mademoiselle Cunegonde is not here and you probably have a mistress in Europe. If we remain here, we shall only be like everyone else; but if we return to our own world with only twelve sheep laden with Eldorado pebbles, we shall be richer than all the kings put together; we shall have no more Inquisitors to fear and we can easily regain Mademoiselle Cunegonde.” Cacambo agreed with this; it is so pleasant to be on the move, to show off before friends, to make a parade of the things seen on one’s travels, that these two happy men resolved to be so no longer and to ask his Majesty’s permission to depart. “You are doing a very silly thing,” said the King. “I know my country is small; but when we are comfortable anywhere we should stay there; I certainly have not the right to detain foreigners, that is a tyranny which does not exist either in our manners or our laws; all men are free, leave when you please, but the way out is very difficult. It is impossible to ascend the rapid river by which you miraculously came here and which flows under arches of rock. The mountains which surround the whole of my kingdom are ten thousand feet high and are perpendicular like walls; they are more than ten leagues broad, and you can only get down from them by way of precipices. However, since you must go, I will give orders to the directors of machinery to make a machine which will carry you comfortably. When you have been taken to the other side of the mountains, nobody can proceed any farther with you; for my subjects have sworn never to pass this boundary and they are too wise to break their oath. Ask anything else of me you wish.” “We ask nothing of your Majesty,” said Cacambo, “except a few sheep laden with provisions, pebbles, and the mud of this country.” The King laughed. “I cannot understand,” said he, “the taste you people of Europe have for our yellow mud; but take as much as you wish, and much good may it do you.” He immediately ordered his engineers to make a machine to hoist these two extraordinary men out of his kingdom. Three thousand learned scientists
worked at it; it was ready in a fortnight and only cost about twenty million pounds sterling in the money of that country. Candide and Cacambo were placed on the machine; there were two large red sheep saddled and bridled for them to ride on when they had passed the mountains, twenty sumpter sheep laden with provisions, thirty carrying presents of the most curious productions of the country, and fifty laden with gold, precious stones, and diamonds. The King embraced the two vagabonds tenderly. Their departure was a splendid sight and so was the ingenious manner in which they and their sheep were hoisted onto the top of the mountains. The scientists took leave, of them after having landed them safely, and Candide’s only desire and object was to go and present Mademoiselle Cunegonde with his sheep. “We have sufficient to pay the governor of Buenos Aires,” said he, “if Mademoiselle Cunegonde can be bought. Let us go to Cayenne, and take ship, and then we will see what kingdom we will buy.”