The Portable Voltaire (Portable Library)

by Francois Voltaire

  “Oh! ohl” said the lucky girl, “you wear the same garters as the queen! Do you buy them from the same maker?”

  The wife of The Envious thought deeply, answered nothing, and went to consult her husband.

  And Zadig noticed that when he was giving audiences and when he was judging cases he was always preoccupied. His only trouble was that he did not know to what to attribute his preoccupation.

  He had a dream. He seemed at first to be reclining on some dry grasses of which some of the stems pricked and disturbed him. When afterwards he was reposing comfortably on a bed of rose-leaves a snake came out of the flowers and struck him in the heart with its sharp, poisonous tongue. “Alas!” he said. “I rested on these dry and prickly plants for a long time.... But who will be the snake?”

  VIII. JEALOUSY

  Zadig’s bad luck was due really to his good luck and, above all, to his merit. Every day he talked with the king and with Astarte, the king’s august spouse. The charm of his conversation was heightened by that desire to please which is to the mind what jewels are to beauty. His youth and attractiveness gradually made an impression on Astarte which at first she did not notice. Her passion grew without her in her innocence realizing it. Without fear or scruple Astarte gave herself up to the pleasure of seeing and hearing a young man dear to her husband and to the state. She never ceased praising him to the king; she talked of him to her ladies-in-waiting, who surpassed her in their panegyrics. Everything helped to drive into her heart the arrow she did not feel. She gave Zadig presents in which there was more tender coquetry than she guessed. She thought she spoke to him merely as a queen content with his services, and yet sometimes her utterances were those of a woman sensible to emotion.

  Astarte was much more beautiful than that Sémire, who had such a hatred of one-eyed men, and that other woman who had wanted to cut off her husband’s nose. Her friendliness; the tenderness with which she spoke, and at which she was beginning to blush; her eyes, which she wanted to turn away but which fixed themselves on his: all lit in Zadig’s heart a fire which bewildered him. He fought against it and summoned to his aid that philosophy which hitherto had always aided him; but now he extracted from it only wisdom and no relief. Duty, gratitude, sovereign majesty outraged—all these things appeared before his eyes like avenging gods. He fought and he triumphed, but this victory had to be repeated every moment, and it cost him many groans and tears. No longer did he dare speak to the queen with that easy freedom that had been so charming for them both. His eyes were covered with a mist, his words were stiff and inconsequent. He kept his eyes on the ground and when, in spite of himself, they turned toward Astarte, they found the queen’s eyes wet with tears but kindling with passion. They seemed to be saying: “We love each other and we fear to love: we are both burning with a fire we condemn.”

  Zadig left her bewildered and distracted, his heart weighed down with a burden he could bear no longer. In the violence of his emotion he let his friend Cador penetrate his secret, like a man who after long suffering attacks of sharp pain proclaims his ill by a cry wrenched from him in a moment of more than ordinary agony, and by the cold sweat on his forehead.

  “Love shows signs that cannot be mistaken,” said Cador. “I have already fathomed the passion you yourself wished to hide. Do you think, my dear Zadig, seeing that I have read your heart, that the king will not discover a sentiment which is an offense against him? His only fault is that he is the most jealous of men. You resist your passion more strongly than the queen because you are a philosopher and because you are Zadig. Astarte is a woman: she lets her face speak with all the more imprudence because she still believes herself to be innocent. Reassured unfortunately as to her freedom from guilt, she neglects necessary appearances. I shall tremble for her so long as she has no reason for self reproach. If there is an understanding between you, you will know how to gull everyone. A budding passion which is resisted proclaims itself: satisfied love knows how to hide.”

  Zadig shuddered at the idea of playing the king false, of deceiving his benefactor, and he was never more loyal to his prince than when he was guilty of an involuntary crime against him. The queen, however, pronounced Zadig’s name so often, her face flushed so much in pronouncing it when she spoke to him in the king’s presence, she was at times so animated and at others so abashed, she fell into such profound reveries after he had gone, that the king was troubled. He considered all he saw, and imagined all he did not see. He noticed particularly that his wife’s slippers were blue and that Zadig’s slippers were also blue, that her ribbons were yellow and that Zadig’s cap was also yellow. These were indeed terrible portents for a prince of delicate sensibilities. In his embittered state of mind suspicion became certainty.

  The slaves who serve kings and queens also spy on their hearts. They soon fathomed that Astarte was in love and that Moabdar was jealous. The Envious prevailed on his wife to send the king her garter, which resembled the queen’s. As a crowning misfortune this garter was blue. The king thought of nothing but how he should be revenged. He resolved one night to poison the queen, and have Zadig strangled at dawn. The order for Zadig’s death was given to a pitiless eunuch, the executor of the king’s vengeance. It chanced that there was in the king’s room a little dwarf who was dumb but not deaf. He was always allowed to be present, and witnessed the most secret happenings, like a domestic animal. This little dumb fellow was very attached to the queen and Zadig, and he heard with as much surprise as horror the order given for their death. But how to stop this terrible order, which would be executed before so few hours had elapsed? He did not know how to write but he had learned to paint, and knew especially how to draw likenesses. He spent a part of the night penciling what he wanted the queen to understand. His picture showed the king in a fury in one comer, giving orders to the eunuch: a blue cord and a bowl on a table, with blue garters and yellow ribbons: the queen in the middle dying in her women’s arms, and Zadig lying strangled at her feet. On the horizon was a rising sun, to show that this horrible execution was to take place at the first sign of day. As soon as he had finished this work, he ran to one of Astarte’s women, waked her, and made her understand she must take this picture to the queen at once.

  In the middle of the night someone knocked on Zadig’s door, waked him and gave him a note from the queen. He wondered if he was dreaming, and opened the letter with trembling hands. What was his surprise, and who could express his consternation and despair, when he read these words: “Fly at once, or your life will be forfeit! Fly, Zadig! In the name of our love and my yellow ribbons I command you. Fly! Up to now I have been innocent, but I feel I shall die guilty.”

  Zadig had barely the strength to speak. He ordered Cador to be fetched, and without saying a word gave him the note. Cador forced him to obey and take the road to Memphis at once. “If you dare go to find the queen,” he said, “you hasten her death. If you speak to the king, you lose her equally. I charge myself with her fate: look after your own. I will spread a rumor that you have taken the road to India. I will soon come to find you and let you know what has happened in Babylon.”

  Cador gave the order at once to bring two of the fleetest dromedaries to a secret door of the palace. He had Zadig, who was at the point of giving up the ghost, hoisted on to the back of one of them. Only one servant accompanied him, and soon Cador, plunged in grief and amazement, lost his friend from sight.

  The illustrious fugitive, reaching the side of a hill whence he could look back on Babylon, turned his eyes to the queen’s palace, and fainted. He regained consciousness only to weep and pray for death. At last, after brooding on the calamitous fate of the most lovable of women and the greatest queen in the world, he made an effort to collect himself, and cried—“What, then, is human life? O virtue, how have you served me? Two women have deceived me infamously: the third, who is not guilty at all and is more beautiful than the others, is about to die! All the good in me has never been productive of anything but curses, and I have rise
n to the height of splendor only to fall into the most terrible abyss of misfortune. If like so many others I had been a miscreant, I should be as happy as they arel”

  Worn out by these sad reflections, his eyes veiled with sorrow, the pallor of death on his face, he continued on the road to Egypt.

  IX. THE WOMAN WHO WAS FLOGGED

  Zadig set his course by the stars. The constellation of Orion and the brilliant star Sirius guided him toward the pole of Canopus. He admired these vast globes of light which to our eyes seem only feeble sparks, whereas the earth which is only an imperceptible point in nature appears to our self-importance something so great and so splendid. He pictured men as they really are, insects devouring each other on a little patch of mud. This image of the truth seemed to annihilate his misfortunes as he reviewed his own complete unimportance and Babylon’s. His soul fled. into the infinite and, detached from his senses, contemplated the unchanging order of the universe. But when, later, he returned to himself and, probing his heart, thought that perhaps Astarte was dead on his account, the universe disappeared altogether, and in the whole of nature he saw nothing but Astarte dying and Zadig luckless.

  Giving himself up to this flux and reflux of sublime philosophy and overwhehning grief, he moved on toward the frontiers of Egypt. His faithful servant was already in the first small town, where he sought lodging, while Zadig wandered toward the gardens on its outskirts. Not far from the high road he saw a woman in distress who called on heaven and earth for help, and a man who was pursuing her in fury. He had already caught up with her, and she was clasping his knees. This man loaded her with reproaches and blows. Zadig judged from the Egyptian’s violence and the pardon which the woman repeatedly begged, that she was unfaithful and he jealous; but when he looked more closely at her—she had a pathetic beauty, and resembled Astarte somewhat —he felt himself filled with pity for her and horror for the Egyptian.

  “Save me!” she cried to Zadig, sobbing. “Take me away from this savage! Save me! Save me!”

  At these cries Zadig rushed to throw himself between her and the savage. He had some knowledge of Egyptian, and spoke in that language. “If you have any humanity in you,” he said, “I implore you to respect beauty and weakness. Can you thus defile one of nature’s masterpieces who lies at your feet with nothing for her defense but tears?”

  “Ho! Ho!” cried the frenzied Egyptian. “So you’re in love with her tool You’re just the man I’m looking for to get my own back! Ho! Ho!”

  With these words he let go of the lady whose hair he held in one hand, and seizing his spear lunged at the stranger. Zadig, who had a cool head, easily escaped the madman’s spear, and seized it close to the iron tip. One tried to keep the spear, the other to tear it away, and it snapped in their hands. The Egyptian drew his sword, Zadig did likewise, and they attacked. With a rush the Egyptian struck a hundred blows which Zadig parried easily. The lady, seated on a patch of grass, put her hair straight and watched the fight. The Egyptian was the stronger, but Zadig was more skillful and fought like a man whose hand is guided by his head, whereas the other was like a madman whose blind rage guides his movements by chance. Zadig made a thrust and disarmed him. The Egyptian, madder than ever, tried to throw himself on Zadig. Zadig seized him, crushed him in his arms, and forced him to the ground, his sword at the Egyptian’s breast: he then offered to spare his life. The Egyptian, beside himself with rage, drew a dagger and wounded Zadig at the very moment his conqueror was offering him mercy. Exasperated, Zadig plunged his sword into the Egyptian’s bosom. The Egyptian died, writhing.

  Zadig turned to the lady. “He forced me to kill him,” he said humbly. “I have avenged you: you are delivered from the most violent man I have ever seen. What do you desire of me now, Madam?”

  “That you die, dog!” she shrieked. “That you die! You have killed my lover. I wish I could tear your heart out, you scoundrell”

  “Really, Madam,” replied Zadig, “you had a very strange man for a lover. He beat you as hard as he could, and wanted to kill me because you begged my help.”

  “I wish he would beat me again!” screamed the lady. “I deserved it, I made him jealous. Oh! God! if only he would beat me! If only you were in his place!”

  “Beautiful as you are,” said Zadig, more surprised and angry than he had ever been in his life, “you are so preposterous that you deserve a good beating from me in my turn; but I won’t take the trouble.”

  Whereupon he mounted his camel again and set off toward the town. Hardly had he started than he turned again at the noise made by four couriers from Babylon. They came along at full speed. One of them, seeing the woman, cried out: “That’s her! She’s just like the picture they made for us.” They did not bother about the dead man, but seized the woman forthwith. She did not stop crying to Zadig: “Save me once more, generous strangerl I beg your pardon for having been cross with you. Save me, and I am yours till death!”

  The desire to do any more fighting for her had left Zadig. “Let someone else save you,” he answered. “You won’t catch me again.” Besides, he was wounded, his blood was flowing, he needed help himself, and the sight of the four Babylonians, sent probably by Moabdar, filled him with disquiet. He moved on to the town with all speed, not guessing why four couriers from Babylon should carry off this Egyptian woman, but still very astonished at the lady’s nature.

  X. SLAVERY

  As he entered the Egyptian town he was surrounded by the townsmen.

  “That’s the man who carried off beautiful Missouf!” they all cried. “That’s the man who has just murdered Clétofis!”

  “Gentlemen,” said Zadig, “God preserve me from ever carrying off your beautiful Missouf—she is too capricious: and as regards Clétofis, I did not murder him at all; I merely defended myself against him. He wanted to kill me because I had very meekly asked mercy for beautiful Missouf whom he was beating cruelly. I am a stranger seeking asylum in Egypt, and it is unlikely that in coming to ask your protection I should begin by carrying off a woman and murdering a man.”

  The Egyptian people were at that time humane and just. The townsmen led Zadig to the town hall. They started by dressing his wound, and then questioned him and his servant separately in order to learn the truth. They recognized that Zadig was not in the least a murderer, but he had shed a man’s blood. The law condemned him to be a slave. His two camels were sold for the benefit of the town, and all the gold he had brought with him was distributed among the townsmen. His person, with that of his traveling companion, was offered for sale in the marketplace.

  An Arab merchant named Sétoc bid for them, but the servant, who was more suited to manual labor, fetched a much better price than the master. The individual qualities of each man were not taken into consideration, and so Zadig was a slave subordinate to his servant. They were tied together with a chain round their feet, and in this state followed the Arab merchant home. On the way Zadig consoled his servant and exhorted him to patience, but as was his habit made some observations on human life.

  “I see,” he said, “that the misfortunes of my destiny spread themselves over yours. Everything up to now has moved me about in the strangest fashion. I have been condemned to a fine for seeing a bitch pass by; I thought I was going to be impaled for the sake of a griffon; I have been sentenced to death for writing a poem praising the king; I have just missed being strangled because the queen had yellow ribbons, and here I am a slave with you because a brute beat his mistress. Comel let us not lose heart! Maybe there will be an end to all this. Arab merchants must have slaves, and why should not I be a slave like another, seeing that I am a man like another? This merchant will not be pitiless, and he must treat his slaves well if he wishes to get any work out of them.” These were the words on his lips, but in his heart he was thinking of the fate of the queen of Babylon.

  Sétoc, the merchant, left two days later for Arabia Deserta with his slaves and camels. His tribe dwelt near the desert of Horeb. The road was long and diffic
ult. On the journey Sétoc showed much more esteem for the servant than for the master, because the former looked after the camels well: all the little marks of favor, therefore, were his.

  A camel died when they were still two days’ journey away from Horeb, and its burden was distributed on the slaves’ backs: Zadig had his share. Sétoc started laughing when he saw all his slaves marching with bent backs. Zadig took the liberty of explaining the reason to him, and of teaching him the laws of equilibrium. The astonished merchant began to look at him from a different angle. Zadig, seeing the merchant’s curiosity stirred, stimulated it by telling him many things not irrelevant to his business, such as the specific gravities of metals and commodities of equal bulk, the characteristics of various useful animals, the means of making useful such as were not: with result that the merchant thought him a very learned man, and gave him preference over his comrade whom previously he had esteemed so much. He treated Zadig well, and had no cause to repent thereof.

  The first thing Sétoc did when he reached his tribe was to ask a Hebrew for the return of five hundred ounces of silver he had lent him in the presence of two witnesses. The two witnesses, however, had died, and the Hebrew, whose guilt could not be proved, appropriated the merchant’s money, thanking God for giving him the means of cheating an Arab. Sétoc confided his trouble to Zadig, who had become his adviser.

  “In what place,” asked Zadig, “did you lend your five hundred ounces to this infidel?”

  “On a large stone,” replied the merchant, “near Mount Horeb.”

  “What sort of man is your debtor?” asked Zadig.

  “He’s a rogue,” answered Sétoc.

  “But I want to know what sort of man he is. Is he sharp-witted or dull, wary or rash?”