CHAPTER XXVIII
What Happened to Candide, to Cunegonde, to Pangloss, to Martin, Etc.
“Pardon once more,” said Candide to the Baron, “pardon me, reverend father, for having thrust my sword through your body.” “Let us say no more about it,” said the Baron. “I admit I was a little too sharp; but since you wish to know how it was you saw me in a galley, I must tell you that after my wound was healed by the brother apothecary of the college, I was attacked and carried off by a Spanish raiding party; I was imprisoned in Buenos Aires at the time when my sister had just left. I asked to return to the Vicar-General in Rome. I was ordered to Constantinople to act as almoner to the Ambassador of France. A week after I had taken up my office I met toward evening a very handsome young page of the Sultan. It was very hot; the young man wished to bathe; I took the opportunity to bathe also. I did not know that it was a most serious crime for a Christian to be found naked with a young Mohammedan. A cadi sentenced me to a hundred strokes on the soles of my feet and condemned me to the galley. I do not think a more horrible injustice has ever been committed. But I should very much like to know why my sister is in the kitchen of a Transylvanian sovereign living in exile among the Turks.” “But, my dear Pangloss,” said Candide, “how does it happen that I see you once more?” “It is true,” said Pangloss, “that you saw me hanged; and in the natural course of events I should have been burned. But you remember, it poured with rain when they were going to roast me; the storm was so violent that they despaired of lighting the fire; I was hanged because they could do nothing better; a surgeon bought my body, carried me home, and dissected me. He first made a crucial incision in me from the navel to the collar-bone. Nobody could have been worse hanged than I was. The executioner of the holy Inquisition, who was a subdeacon, was marvelously skillful in burning people, but he was not accustomed to hang them; the rope was wet and did not slide easily and it was knotted; in short, I still breathed. The crucial incision caused me to utter so loud a scream that the surgeon fell over back wards and, thinking he was dissecting the devil, fled away in terror and fell down the staircase in his flight. His wife ran in from another room at the noise; she saw me stretched out on the table with my crucial incision; she was still more frightened than her husband, fled, and fell on top of him. When they had recovered themselves a little, I heard the surgeon’s wife say to the surgeon: ‘My dear, what were you thinking of, to dissect a heretic? Don’t you know the devil always possesses them? I will go and get a priest at once to exorcise him.’ At this I shuddered and collected the little strength I had left to shout: ‘Have pity on me!’ At last the Portuguese barber grew bolder; he sewed up my skin; his wife even took care of me, and at the end of a fortnight I was able to walk again. The barber found me a situation and made me lackey to a Knight of Malta who was going to Venice; but, as my master had no money to pay me wages, I entered the service of a Venetian merchant and followed him to Constantinople. One day I took it into my head to enter a mosque; there was nobody there except an old Imam and a very pretty young devotee who was reciting her prayers; her breasts were entirely uncovered; between them she wore a bunch of tulips, roses, anemones, ranunculus, hyacinths, and auriculas; she dropped her bunch of flowers; I picked it up and returned it to her with a most respectful alacrity. I was so long putting them back that the Imam grew angry and, seeing I was a Christian, called for help. I was taken to the cadi, who sentenced me to receive a hundred strokes on the soles of my feet and sent me to the galleys. I was chained on the same seat and in the same galley as My Lord the Baron. In this galley there were four young men from Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests and two monks from Corfu, who assured us that similar accidents occurred every day. His Lordship the Baron claimed that he had suffered a greater injustice than I; and I claimed that it was much more permissible to replace a bunch of flowers between a woman’s breasts than to be naked with one of the Sultan’s pages. We argued continually, and every day received twenty strokes of the bull’s pizzle, when the chain of events of this universe led you to our galley and you ransomed us.” “Well! my dear Pangloss,” said Candide, “when you were hanged, dissected, stunned with blows and made to row in the galleys, did you always think that everything was for the best in this world?” “I am still of my first opinion,” replied Pangloss, “for after all I am a philosopher; and it would be unbecoming for me to recant, since Leibnitz could not be in the wrong and preestablished harmony is the finest thing imaginable like the plenum and subtle matter.”
CHAPTER XXIX
How Candide Found Cunegonde and the Old Woman Again
While Candide, the Baron, Pangloss, Martin and Cacambo were relating their adventures, reasoning upon contingent or noncontingent events of the universe, arguing about effects and causes, moral and physical evil, free will and necessity, and the consolations to be found in the Turkish galleys, they came to the house of the Transylvanian prince on the shores of Propontis. The first objects which met their sight were Cunegonde and the old woman hanging out towels to dry on the line. At this sight the Baron grew pale. Candide, that tender lover, seeing his fair Cunegonde sunburned, blear-eyed, Rat-breasted, with wrinkles round her eyes and red, chapped arms, recoiled three paces in horror, and then advanced from mere politeness. She embraced Candide and her brother. They embraced the old woman; Can dide bought them both. In the neighborhood was a little farm; the old woman suggested that Candide should buy it, until some better fate befell the group. Cunegonde did not know that she had become ugly, for nobody had told her so; she reminded Candide of his promises in so peremptory a tone that the good Candide dared not refuse her. He therefore informed the Baron that he was about to marry his sister. “Never,” said the Baron, “will, I endure such baseness on her part and such insolence on yours; nobody shall ever reproach me with this infamy; my sister’s children could never enter the chapters of Germany. No, my sister shall never marry anyone but a Baron of the Empire.” Cunegonde threw herself at his feet and bathed them in tears; but he was infiexible. “Madman,” said Candide, “I rescued you from the galleys, I paid your ransom and your sister’s ; she was washing dishes here, she is ugly, I am so kind as to make her my wife, and you pretend to oppose mel I should kill you again if I listened to my anger.” “You may kill me again,” said the Baron, “but you shall never marry my sister while I am alive.”
CHAPTER XXX
Conclusion
At the bottom of his heart Candide had not the least wish to marry Cunegonde. But the Baron’s extreme impertinence determined him to complete the marriage, and Cunegonde urged it so warmly that he could not retract. He consulted Pangloss, Martin and the faithful Cacambo. Pangloss wrote an excellent memorandum by which he proved that the Baron had no rights over his sister and that by all the laws of the empire she could make a left-handed marriage with Candide. Martin advised that the Baron should be thrown into the sea; Cacambo decided that he should be returned to the Levantine captain and sent back to the galleys, after which he would be returned by the first ship to the Vicar-General at Rome. This was thought to be very good advice; the old woman approved it; they said nothing to the sister; the plan was carried out with the aid of a little money and they had the pleasure of duping a Jesuit and punishing the pride of a German Baron. It would be natural to suppose that when, after so many disasters, Candide was married to his mistress, and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the prudent Cacambo and the old woman, having brought back so many diamonds from the country of the ancient Incas, he would lead the most pleasant life imaginable. But he was so cheated by the Jews that he had nothing left but his little farm; his wife, growing uglier every day, became shrewish and unendurable; the old woman was ailing and even more bad-tempered than Cunegonde. Cacambo, who worked in the garden and then went to Constantinople to sell vegetables, was overworked and cursed his fate. Pangloss was in despair because he did not shine in some German university. As for Martin, he was firmly convinced that people are equally uncomfortab
le everywhere; he accepted things patiently. Candide, Martin, and Pangloss sometimes argued about metaphysics and morals. From the windows of the farm they often watched the ships going by, filled with effendis, pashas, and cadis, who were being exiled to Lemnos, to Mitylene and Erzerum. They saw other cadis, other pashas, and other effendis coming back to take the place of the exiles and to be exiled in their turn. They saw the neatly impaled heads which were taken to the Sublime Porte. These sights redoubled their discussions; and when they were not arguing, the boredom was so excessive that one day the old woman dared to say to them: “I should like to know which is worse, to be raped a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and flogged in an auto-da-fé. to be dissected, to row in a galley, in short, to endure all the miseries through which we have passed, or to remain here doing nothing?” “ ’Tis a great question,” said Candide. These remarks led to new reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live in the convulsions of distress or in the lethargy of boredom. Candide did not agree, but he asserted nothing. Pangloss confessed that he had always suffered horribly; but, having once maintained that everything was for the best, he had continued to maintain it without believing it. One thing confirmed Martin in his detestable principles, made Candide hesitate more than ever, and embarrassed Pangloss. And it was this. One day there came to their farm Paquette and Friar Giroflée, who were in the most extreme misery; they had soon wasted their three thousand piastres, had left each other, made it up, quarreled again, been put in prison, escaped, and finally Friar Giroflée had turned Turk. Paquette continued her occupation everywhere and now earned nothing by it. “I foresaw,” said Martin to Candide, “that your gifts would soon be wasted and would only make them the more miserable. You and Cacambo were once bloated with millions of piastres and you are no happier than Friar Giroflée and Paquette.” “Ah! Hal” said Pangloss to Paquette, “so Heaven brings you back to us, my dear child? Do you know that you cost me the end of my nose, an eye, and an earl What a plight you are in! Ah! What a world this is!” This new occurrence caused them to philosophize more than ever. In the neighborhood there lived a very famous Dervish, who was supposed to be the best philosopher in Turkey; they went to consult him; Pangloss was the spokesman and said: “Master, we have come to beg you to tell us why so strange an animal as man was ever created.” “What has it to do with you?” said the Dervish. “Is it your business?” “But, reverend father,” said Candide, “there is a horrible amount of evil in the world.” “What does it matter,” said the Dervish, “whether there is evil or good? When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he worry about the comfort or discomfort of the rats in the ship?” “Then what should we do?” said Pangloss. “Hold your tongue,” said the Dervish. “I flattered myself,” said Pangloss, “that I should discuss with you effects and causes, this best of all possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul and pre-established harmony.” At these words the Dervish slammed the door in their faces. During this conversation the news went round that at Constantinople two viziers and the mufti had been strangled and several of their friends impaled. This catastrophe made a prodigious noise everywhere for several hours. As Pangloss, Candide, and Martin were returning to their little farm, they came upon an old man who was taking the air under a bower of orange-trees at his door. Pangloss, who was as curious as he was argumentative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who had just been strangled. “I do not know,” replied the old man. “I have never known the name of any mufti or of any vizier. I am entirely ignorant of the occurrence you mention; I presume that in general those who meddle with public affairs sometimes perish miserably and that they deserve it; but I never inquire what is going on in Constantinople; I content myself with sending there for sale the produce of the garden I cultivate.” Having spoken thus, he took the strangers into his house. His two daughters and his two sons presented them with several kinds of sherbet which they made themselves, caymac flavored with candied citron peel, oranges, lemons, limes, pineapples, dates, pistachios, and Mocha coffee which had not been mixed with the bad coffee of Batavia and the Isles. After which this good Mussulman’s two daughters perfumed the beards of Candide, Pangloss, and Martin “You must have a vast and magnificent estate?” said Candide to the Turk. “I have only twenty acres,” replied the Turk. “I cultivate them with my children; and work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice and need.” As Candide returned to his farm he reflected deeply on the Turk’s remarks. He said to Pangloss and Martin: “That good old man seems to me to have chosen an existence preferable by far to that of the six kings with whom we had the honor to sup.” “Exalted rank,” said Pangloss, “is very dangerous, according to the testimony of all philosophers; for Eglon, King of the Moabites, was murdered by Ehud; Absalom was hanged by the hair and pierced by three darts; King Nadab, son of Jeroboam, was killed by Baasha; King Elah by Zimri; Ahaziah by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the Kings Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah were made slaves. You know in what manner died Croesus, Astyages, Darius, Denys of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England, Edward II, Henry VI, Richard III, Mary Stuart, Charles I, the three Henrys of France, the Emperor Henry IV. You know . . .” “I also know,” said Candide, “that we should cultivate our gardens.” “You are right,” said Pangloss, “for, when man was placed in the Garden of Eden, he was placed there ut operaretur eum, to dress it and to keep it; which proves that man was not born for idleness.” “Let us work without theorizing,” said Martin; “ ’tis the only way to make life endurable.” The whole small fraternity entered into this praiseworthy plan, and each started to make use of his talents. The little farm yielded well. Cunegonde was indeed very ugly, but she became an excellent pastrycook; Paquette embroidered; the old woman took care of the linen. Even Friar Giroflée performed some service; he was a very good carpenter and even became a man of honor; and Pangloss sometimes said to Candide: “All events are linked up in this best of all possible worlds; for, if you had not been expelled from the noble castle by hard kicks in your backside for love of Mademoiselle Cunegonde, if you had not been clapped into the Inquisition, if you had not wandered about America on foot, if you had not stuck your sword in the Baron, if you had not lost all your sheep from the land of Eldorado, you would not be eating candied citrons and pistachios here.” “ ’Tis well said,” replied Candide, “but we must cultivate our gardens.”
Translation by Richard Aldington
Zadig
I. THE ONE-EYED MAN
IN THE reign of King Moabdar there lived in Babylon a young man named Zadig, of naturally charming disposition reinforced by education. Although young and rich, he knew how to control his passions, was unaffected, did not want always to be in the right, and was considerate to human frailty. People were astonished to observe that despite his good sense he never derided the loose, scrappy, noisy tittle-tattle, the reckless backbiting, the ignorant conclusions, the coarse quips, the empty tumult of words, which in Babylon were called “conversation.” He had learned in the first book of Zarathustra that self-esteem is a balloon swollen with wind, whence tempests issue when it is pricked. Above all, Zadig did not boast of his scorn for and power over women. He was generous and, in accordance with Zarathustra’s great precept—“When thou dost eat, give to eat to the dogs, even though they bite thee”—he did not fear to oblige ingrates. He was as wise as a man can be, for he sought to live with the wise.
Although learned in ancient Chaldean science, he was not ignorant of such physical laws of nature as were then known, and knew of metaphysics what has been known in all ages, that is to say, precious little. Despite the new philosophy of his time, he was strongly persuaded there were three-hundred-and-sixty-five-and-a-quarter days in the year, and that the sun was the center of the world, and when the chief Magi told him with insolent arrogance that he had a sinful heart, that to
believe the sun revolved on its own axis and the year had twelve months was to be an enemy of the state, he kept silence without anger or contempt.
With his great wealth (and consequently many friends), his health and pleasant face, his just and modest mind, his sincere and magnanimous nature, Zadig thought he could be happy. He was to be married to Sémire whose birth, beauty and fortune made her the most desirable match in Babylon. For Sémire he had a deep and virtuous attachment, and she loved him passionately. They were nearing the happy moment of their union when, as they walked together toward one of the gates of the city, beneath the palm-trees which adorn the banks of the Euphrates, they saw approaching them some men armed with sabers and arrows. They were retainers of young Orcan, nephew of one of the ministers, who had been led by his uncle’s courtiers to believe he could do anything he pleased. He had none of Zadig’s graces or charms, but as he thought himself a far finer fellow, he was annoyed at not being deemed more desirable. This jealousy, which was the result solely of his vanity, made Orcan think he was madly in love with Sémire. He was determined to abduct her. His kidnapers seized her and in an outburst of violence wounded her and shed the blood of a person the sight of whom would have melted the hearts of the tigers on Mount Imaus. She pierced the sky with her screams. “Husband! dear husband!” she cried. “They are tearing me from him I adore!” She was not at all troubled by her danger. She thought only of her dear Zadig, who was defending her with all the strength that love and courage give. With only two slaves to help him he routed the kidnapers, and carried Sémire home. She had swooned and was bleeding. On opening her eyes she saw her deliverer. “O Zadig!” she whispered. “I loved you before as my husband; I love you now as the man to whom I owe life and honor!” Never was heart more thrilled than Sénrlre’s; never did a lovelier mouth express more affectionate feelings in words of fire inspired by the sense of the greatest service and the warmest raptures of genuine love.
The Portable Voltaire (Portable Library) Page 30