Through prodigies of vice
Established on his throne,
Amidst the public peace
He is the foe alone.
For the first time in his life The Envious was happy. He held in his hand the means of getting rid of a good and charming man. Filled with this cruel joy, he arranged for this satire in Zadig’s writing to reach the king himself. Zadig was thrown into prison with his two friends and the lady. His trial was soon over without the judges condescending to hear him. When he came up for sentence, The Envious waylaid him and told him at the top of his voice that the verses were worthless. Zadig did not plume himself on being a good poet, but he was in despair at being condemned as guilty of lèse-majesté, and at seeing a beautiful woman and two friends kept in jail for a crime they had not committed. He was not allowed to speak because his tablets spoke for him. Such was the law of Babylon. He was made to pass to punishment before a curious crowd of which no member dared sympathize with him, but of which all rushed to look at him to see if he would die with a good grace. Only his relations were distressed, for they inherited nothing. Three quarters of his fortune were confiscated for the king, and the remaining quarter for The Envious.
While Zadig was preparing himself for death, the king’s parrot flew from its balcony and swooped down on a rosebush in Zadig’s garden. A peach had been carried there from a neighboring tree by the wind, and had fallen on a piece of the writing tablet to which it had stuck. The bird picked up the peach and the tablet, and dropped them in the monarch’s lap. The prince, curious, read some words which made no sense and looked like the last syllables of some verses. He liked poetry, and there is always hope for princes who like poetry. His parrot’s adventure set him thinking. The queen, remembering what had been written on a piece of Zadig’s tablet, had it brought to her. The two pieces were put together, and arranged themselves perfectly. The verses then read as Zadig had written them:
Through prodigies of vice great this earth’s troubles are.
Established on his throne the king brooks no abuse.
Amidst the public peace Love only wages war:
He is the foe alone who needs stir fear in us.
The king at once ordered Zadig to be brought before him, and his two friends and the beautiful lady to be released. Zadig threw himself on the ground at the feet of the king and queen, and very humbly begged their pardon for having written some bad verse. He spoke with so much grace, wit and sense that the king and queen had a fancy to see him again. He returned, and pleased them still more. They awarded him all the goods of The Envious, who had accused him unjustly. But Zadig gave everything back, and The Envious was touched by nothing but his joy at not losing his belongings.
Day by day the king’s esteem for Zadig grew. He made him a participant in all his pleasures, and consulted him in all his affairs. From that time the queen looked on him with a graciousness that might become dangerous for her, for her august husband the king, and for the kingdom. Zadig began to think that it was not so difficult to be happy.
V. THE GENEROUS MAN
The time approached for celebrating the great quinquennial feast. It was the custom in Babylon to proclaim solemnly every five years the citizen who had performed the most generous action. The grandees and the Magi were the judges. The chief satrap, who was charged with the care of the town, announced the finest actions which had taken place during his tenure of office. The vote was put, and then the king pronounced judgment. To this solemn ceremony people came from the ends of the earth. The winner received from the monarch’s hands a golden goblet studded with precious stones, and the king said these words to him: “Receive this prize for generosity, and may the gods send me many more subjects like youl”
When the memorable day arrived, the king appeared on his throne surrounded by grandees, Magi, and delegates of all the nations, who came to these games where glory was won not by the fleetness of horses, or physical strength, but by virtue. The chief satrap announced in a loud voice the actions which might earn for their authors this priceless prize. He did not mention the magnanimity with which Zadig had returned to The Envious all his fortune: that was not an action that deserved to compete for the prize.
He presented first of all a judge who, having made a citizen lose an important lawsuit by a mistake for which he was not even responsible, had given him his entire wealth, which was equal in value to what the other had lost.
Then he produced a young man who, in spite of his love for the girl he was going to marry, had ceded her to a friend who was almost dying of love for her, and in addition had even paid her dowry.
His next was a soldier who in the Hircanian war had given an even greater example of generosity. Some enemy soldiers were carrying off his mistress, and he was defending her against them, when he learned that other Hircanians a few steps away were carrying off his mother. In tears, he left his mistress and rushed to deliver his mother. He returned later to his beloved, and found her dying. He wanted to kill himself, but his mother protested that he was her sole support, and he had the courage to endure living.
The judges favored this soldier. The king spoke. “His action,” he said, “and these other actions are fine, but they do not astonish me. Yesterday Zadig did something that amazed me. A. few days ago I disgraced Coreb, my minister and favorite. I had a bitter complaint against him, and all my courtiers assured me I was too lenient: it was a competition to see who could say the worst of Coreb. I asked Zadig what he thought, and he dared speak well of the man. I have seen in history examples of men who have paid for an error with their wealth, of men who ceded their mistresses, or who have put their mothers before the objects of their adoration, but I have never read of a courtier who spoke well of a disgraced minister who had incurred his king’s wrath. I give twenty thousand pieces of gold to each of those whose generous actions have just been told me, but I give the goblet to Zadig.”
“Sire,” said Zadig, “it is Your Majesty alone deserves the goblet, it is he who has performed the most unheard of action in not letting his royal wrath rise against the slave who opposed his passion.”
Both the king and Zadig were accounted splendid. The judge who had given his wealth, the lover who had married his mistress to his friend, the soldier who had preferred his mother’s safety to his mistress’s, received the king’s gifts and saw their names inscribed in the Book of Generosity: Zadig had the goblet. The king acquired the reputation of being a good prince, the which he did not keep long. The day was sanctified by merry-making longer than the law stipulated. The memory of it still remains in Asia.
“At last I am happyl” said Zadig. But he was mistaken.
VI. THE MINISTER
The king had lost his prime minister. He chose Zadig to fill the post. All the beautiful ladies of Babylon applauded this choice, for since the foundation of the empire they had never had so young a minister. All the courtiers were vexed. The Envious had an attack of bloodspitting when he heard the news, and his nose swelled up prodigiously.
Having thanked the king and queen, Zadig went to thank the parrot also. “Beautiful bird,” he said, “it is you who have saved my life and made me prime minister. Their majesties’ horse and bitch did me much harm, but you have done me good. Behold on what a man’s fate depends! But,” he added, “so strange a piece of good fortune will perhaps soon disappear.”
“Yes,” answered the parrot.
This word struck Zadig. As, however, he was a good natural philosopher and did not believe that parrots were prophets, he reassured himself and set about his duties as a minister to the best of his ability.
He made everybody feel the sacred power of the law, and nobody the weight of his importance. He did not muzzle the council of state, and let each vizier have an opinion without being affronted. When he judged a case it was not he who judged, but the law. When, however, the law was too severe he made it more lenient: and when there were no laws, his equity invented such as might have been taken for those of Zarathustra.
It is from him that the nations possess the great principle that it is better to try to save a guilty man than to condemn an innocent. He believed that the laws were made as much to help citizens as to intimidate them. His principal gift was that of deciphering the truth which all men try to obscure, and from the earliest days of his administration he put this great gift to use.
A famous Babylonian merchant had died in the Indies. He had bequeathed his fortune to his two sons equally, after they had given their sister in marriage, and he left a present of thirty thousand pieces of gold to the son who should be judged to love him most. The elder son built his father a tomb, the younger increased his sister’s dowry by a part of his own heritage. Everyone said: “The elder loves his father best, the other thinks more of his sister: the elder should have the thirty thousand pieces of gold.”
Zadig had them brought before him separately. “Your father is not dead,” he said to the elder son. “He has recovered from his last illness, and is returning to Babylon.”
“God be praised!” replied the young man, “but there’s a tomb which has cost me a pretty penny.”
Zadig made the same remark to the second son.
“God be praised!” he answered. “I shall return to my father all I have, but I hope he will leave my sister what I have given her.”
“You will return nothing,” said Zadig, “and you shall have the thirty thousand pieces of gold. You love your father best.”
A very rich girl had promised to marry two Magi, and after being trained by them both for some months, found herself pregnant. They both wished to marry her.
“I will take for my husband,” she said, “the one who has put me in the way of giving a citizen to the empire.”
“Without question I am the author of this good work,” said one.
“Not at all,” said the other, “the privilege is mine.”
“Well,” she conceded, “I recognize as father of my child the man who will give him the better education.”
She gave birth to a son. Both the Magi wished to rear him. The case was brought before Zadig. He sent for the two Magi. “What will you teach your ward?” he asked the first.
“I shall teach him,” answered the doctor, the eight parts of speech, logic, astrology, demonology; what is substance and what is quality, the abstract and the concrete, monads and pre-established harmony.”
“I,” said the second, “shall teach him to be just and worthy of having friends.”
“Whether you be the father or not,” declared Zadig, “you shall marry the mother.”
Every day complaints were received at court against Irax, the Ilimadod-Dowlet of Media. Irax was a great lord who at bottom was not bad but who had been corrupted by vanity and luxurious pleasure. He rarely allowed anyone to speak to him, and never did anyone dare contradict him. The peacocks are not more vain, the doves not more voluptuous, the tortoises less lazy. He thirsted for false glory and false pleasure only, and Zadig undertook to reform him.
He sent in the king’s name a bandmaster with twelve singers and twenty-four fiddlers, a steward with six cooks, and four chamberlains, who were not to leave him for a moment. The king’s orders were that the following etiquette was to be strictly observed: and this is what happened.
On the first day, as soon as the voluptuary was awake, the bandmaster entered his room followed by the orchestra and choir. They sang a cantata, lasting two hours, the refrain of which, recurring every three minutes, was as follows:
The merit of my lord is great!
Ah! what charms! what qualities !
He must be glad to contemplate
What a splendid man he is!
After the execution of the cantata a chamberlain ha rangued him for three-quarters of an hour, praising expressly all the good qualities the voluptuary lacked. The harangue over, he was conducted to table to the sound of instruments. The dinner lasted three hours. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, the chief chamberlain said: “He’s sure to be right Hardly had he pronounced four words than the second chamberlain said: ”He is right.” The other two chamberlains laughed loudly at the witticisms which Irax made or ought to have made. After dinner they repeated the cantata.
This first day seemed delightful to him. He thought the king of kings was honoring him according to his merit. The second day was less agreeable. The third was tiresome, the fourth unbearable, the fifth a torture. Finally, incensed at hearing the perpetual cry:
He must be glad to contemplate
What a splendid man he isl
at hearing he was always right, and at being harangued every day at the same time, he wrote to the court beg ging the king to deign to recall his chamberlains, musicians, and steward. He promised thenceforward to be less vain and more industrious. He arranged to have less flattery and fewer feasts, and was all the happier: for, as the Sadder says: Constant pleasure is not pleasure.
VII. DISPUTES AND AUDIENCES
In this wise did Zadig show every day the subtlety of his genius and the goodness of his soul. In spite of being accounted a marvel, he was loved. He passed for the luckiest of men. The whole empire swelled with his name. He was ogled by all the women and praised by all citizens for his fairness. The scholars looked on him as their oracle, and even the priests admitted he knew more than Yébor, the aged Archmagus. They were far from prosecuting him about griffons: they believed only what he thought credible.
For fifteen hundred years there had been in Babylon a great dispute which had split the empire into two stubborn sects. The first claimed that one should always enter the temple of Mithra with the left foot: the other held this custom in abomination, and never entered but with the right foot. They awaited the day of the Festival of the Sacred Fire to see which sect Zadig would favor. The universe had its eyes on his two feet, and the whole city was in a state of agitated suspense. Zadig entered the temple by jumping with his feet together, and proved later in an eloquent speech that the God of heaven and earth, who has no respect of persons, does not esteem the left leg more than the right, or the right more than the left.
The Envious and his wife maintained that there were not enough figures of speech in his discourse, and that he had not made the hills and mountains dance enough. “He is too dry,” they said. “He has no genius. When he talks one does not see the ocean take to flight, or the stars fall, or the sun melt like wax. He lacks the good flowery Asiatic style.”
Zadig was content to have the style of good sense. Everyone was on his side, not because he was what a man should be, not because he was wise, not because he was lovable, but just because he was grand vizier.
He wound up equally happily the great quarrel between the white Magi and the black Magi. The whites maintained that it was impious, when offering prayer to God, to turn toward the east in winter: the blacks were certain that God held in abomination the prayers of men who turned toward the west in summer. Zadig’s order was that people might turn as they pleased.
He learned thus the secret of disposing of particular and general business in the morning: for the rest of the day he occupied himself in improving Babylon. He arranged for tragedies to be presented that made the people cry, and comedies that made them laugh: this had been long out of fashion, and he revived the custom because he was a man of taste. He did not claim to know more about the plays than the players; he rewarded them with favors and distinctions, and did not envy their talents in secret. In the evening he entertained the king and queen very much, particularly the queen. The king spoke of “Our great ministerl” The queen of “Our amiable ministerl” And both added: “It would have been a great pity if he had been hanged.”
Never was a man of high position compelled to give so many audiences to the ladies. Most of them came to talk about affairs of state in which they had no interest so as to have a love-affair with him in which they had much. The wife of The Envious presented herself among the first. She swore to him by Bithra, by the Zend-Avesta, and by the sacred fire, that she had
detested her husband’s conduct. She then confided that her husband was jealous and brutal to her. She let Zadig understand that the gods were punishing him by refusing him the precious gifts of that sacred fire which alone makes man like the gods. She finished by letting her garter fall. With his usual courtesy Zadig picked it up but did not fasten it on the lady’s knee again, and this slight omission—if indeed it be one—was the cause of the most dreadful troubles. Zadig thought no more about it, but the wife of The Envious thought about it a great deal.
Other ladies came every day. The secret annals of Babylon maintain that Zadig succumbed on one occasion, but that he was quite astonished to find himself possessing his paramour without pleasure, and kissing her absent-mindedly. She to whom he gave, almost without perceiving it, the marks of his favor, was one of Queen Astarte’s chambermaids. This affectionate Babylonian girl sought to console herself for Zadig’s preoccupation by saying to herself: “This man must have a vast number of things in his head seeing that he thinks about them even when he is loving me.” At one of those moments when many people are completely silent, and others pronounce only the most sacred words, Zadig, forgetting himself, cried out suddenly: “The queen.” The Babylonian girl thought that at last he had come to his senses, and at an appropriate moment, and had said to her: “My queen.” But Zadig, still very preoccupied, uttered the name of Astarte. The lady, who at these joyous moments interpreted everything in her own favor, thought he meant—You are more beautiful than Queen Astarte.
She left Zadig’s harem with some very fine presents, and went off to narrate her adventure to the wife of The Envious, who was her close friend. The latter was cruelly piqued by Zadig’s preference. “He did not even deign,” she said, “to put my garter on for me. Here it is: I do not care to wear it any more.”
The Portable Voltaire (Portable Library) Page 32