The Portable Voltaire (Portable Library)

by Francois Voltaire

  “Alas!” said Zadig, “must I put a still greater distance between myself and beautiful Astarte? However, I cannot refuse to serve my benefactor.” After which observation, he wept and set forth.

  He was not long in Serendib before he was looked upon as a remarkable man. He became the arbiter of all the differences between the merchants, the friend of the wise, the adviser of the small number of people who accept advice. The king wished to see and hear him and soon recognized all Zadig’s worth. He had confidence in Zadig’s wisdom, and made him his friend. The king’s intimacy and esteem made Zadig tremble. Night and day he thought of the misfortune Moabdar’s goodness had brought him. “I please the king,” he said to himself. “Shall I not be lost?” However, he could not escape His Majesty’s blandishments, for it must be admitted that Nabussan, King of Serendib, son of Nussanab, son of Nabassun, son of Sanbunas, was one of the finest princes in Asia; and when one spoke to him it was difficult not to like him.

  This good prince was praised, deceived, and robbed: it was a competition as to who should despoil him of the most treasure. The Lord High Tax-Collector of the Isle of Serendib always set the example which was faithfully followed by the others. The king was well aware of it. He had changed his comptroller many times, but had not managed to change the established fashion of dividing his revenues into two unequal parts, of which the smaller invariably went to His Majesty and the larger to his administrators.

  King Nabussan confided his trouble to Zadig. “You who know so many wonderful things,” he said, “do you not know a way of finding me a comptroller who will not rob me?”

  “Certainly I do,” answered Zadig. “I know an infallible method of finding you a man with clean hands.”

  The king was delighted and, embracing him, asked how he should set about it.

  “All that needs be done,” said Zadig, “is to make each man who offers himself for the dignity of comptroller dance: he who dances the most lightly will be infallibly the most honest man.”

  “You are laughing at me,” protested the king. “That would be a nice way to choose a comptroller of my finances. What! you claim that the man who can best do an entrechat will make the most upright and competent treasurerl”

  “I do not promise he will be the most competent,” replied Zadig, “but I do assure you he will undoubtedly be the most honest.”

  Zadig spoke so confidently that the king thought he had some supernatural secret for recognizing comptrollers.

  “I am not fond of the supernatural,” said Zadig. “Claimants to magical powers, whether they be men or books, have always displeased me. If Your Majesty will permit me to make the test I propose, you will be quite convinced that my secret is the simplest and easiest thing in the world.”

  Nabussan, King of Serendib, was far more astonished to learn that the secret was so simple than if he had been told it was a miracle. “Very well then,” he said, “do as you think fit.”

  “Leave it to me,” returned Zadig. “By this test you will gain more than you think.”

  The same day he announced in the king’s name that all those who claimed the high office of Comptroller of the Pence of His Gracious Majesty Nabussan, son of Nussanab, were to present themselves, clad in light silk clothes, in the king’s antechamber on the first day of the moon of the Crocodile. Sixty-four applicants arrived. Violin-players had been stationed in an apartment nearby, and everything was ready for the ball. The door of this apartment remained closed, however, and to enter it was necessary to pass through a little gallery in semi-obscurity. An usher sought and presented the candidates one after the other. Each was left alone in this passage for a few minutes. The king, who had had the word, had spread all his treasures in this gallery. When all the claimants had passed into the apartment where the fiddlers were, the king commanded them to dance. Never did anyone trip it on the light fantastic toe more heavily or with less grace. All the dancers kept their heads bowed, their backs bent, their hands glued to their sides. “What a lot of rogues!” murmured Zadig under his breath.

  Only one of them stepped out nimbly, his head held high, a look of assurance in his eyes, his arms outstretched, body erect, firm on his legs. “Ah! the honest fellow,” said Zadig, “the good chap!”

  The king embraced this good dancer and declared him comptroller. All the others were punished and taxed with the greatest justice in the world, for each during the time he was in the gallery had filled his pockets, and could scarcely walk. The king was sorry for human nature that out of sixty-four dancers sixty-three were thieves. The dark gallery was called “The Corridor of Temptation.” In Persia these sixty-three gentlemen would have been impaled; in some countries a court of justice would have been constituted, which would have absorbed three times the amount of the money stolen and brought nothing back to the king’s coffers; in another kingdom the robbers would have vindicated themselves and had such a light dancer disgraced; in Serendib they were condemned merely to add to the public funds, for Nabussan was very lenient.

  He was also very grateful, and gave Zadig a greater sum of money than any treasurer had ever stolen from a royal master. Zadig used it to send the fleetest courier to Babylon to obtain information about Astarte’s fate. His voice trembled as he gave the order, the blood ebbed in his heart, his eyes clouded, his spirit was near leaving him. The courier set off, Zadig saw him embark, and then returned to the palace seeing nobody, thinking he was in his own room, with the word “love” on his lips.

  “Ah! love!” said the king. “That’s just the trouble. What a great man you are! You have guessed what’s bothering me! I hope you will teach me how to recognize a faithful woman as successfully as you have shown me how to find a disinterested treasurer!”

  Zadig came to himself and promised to serve the king in love as he had in finance, although this seemed still more difficult.

  XV. BLUE EYES

  “My body,” said the king to Zadig, “and my heart . . .”

  “I’m glad you didn’t say ‘my heart and my mind,’” broke in Zadig, who could not restrain himself from interrupting his majesty. “Those are the only words one hears in Babylonian conversation, and there’s not a book that doesn’t deal with the heart and the mind, written by persons who have neither. But I pray you, Sire, continue.”

  “My body and my heart,” resumed Nabussan, “are born to love. The first of these two sovereign powers has every chance of satisfaction for I have at my disposal a hundred wives, all beautiful, complaisant, attentive, voluptuous even—or at least pretending to be so with me. My heart is not anywhere near so happy. I have found only too often that the King of Serendib has most of the kisses, and Nabussan precious few. Not that I think my wives unfaithful, but I want to find a soul to call my own. I would give all the charms I own in my hundred beauties for one such treasure. See if among these hundred sultanesses you can find one who I can be sure will love me.”

  Zadig answered as he had in the case of the treasurers —“Sire, leave it to me, but first of all let me dispose of what you have spread out in the Gallery of Temptation: I will render you a good account of it, and you shall lose nothing.”

  The king gave him absolute control. He picked in Serendib thirty-three of the ugliest little hunchbacks he could find, thirty-three of the handsomest pages, and thirty-three of the sturdiest and most eloquent bonzes. He gave all of them liberty to enter the sultanesses’ apartments. Each little hunchback had four thousand pieces of gold to bestow, and from the first day all the hunchbacks were lucky. The pages, who had but themselves to offer, triumphed after two or three days only. The bonzes had a little more trouble still, but thirty-three pious ladies finished by yielding to them. The king watched all these tests through blinds which allowed him to see into the apartments, and he was amazed. Of his hundred wives ninety-nine succumbed before his eyes. There remained but one young girl, a new arrival, to whom his majesty had never had access. One, two, three hunchbacks were separated from the rest, and they offered her as much as
twenty thousand pieces: she was incorruptible, and could not refrain from laughing at the hunchbacks’ idea that money made them a better shape. The two handsomest pages were presented to her, and she said she thought the king more handsome. The most eloquent bonze was left with her, and later, the boldest. She found the first a chatterbox, and did not deign even to suspect the second had any merit.

  “The heart is all that counts,” she said, “I shall neves give myself to a hunchback’s gold, a youth’s graces or a bonze’s seducements. I shall love Nabussan, son of Nussanab, only, and wait until he deigns to love me.”

  The king was in transports of delight, astonishment and love. He took back all the money that had made the hunchbacks successful and presented it to beautiful Falide, which was the name of the young person. He gave her his heart, and she was indeed worthy of it. Never was the flower of youth more radiant, never were beauty’s charms more entrancing. As this story is true, the fact must not be suppressed that she curtsyed badly, but she danced like the fairies, sang like the sirens, and spoke like the Graces: she brimmed with talents and virtues.

  Nabussan, loved at last, adored her. Unfortunately she had blue eyes, and they were the source of the greatest misfortunes. There happened to be a law which forbade kings to love one of those women whom the Greeks have called βoπς. The chief bonze had decreed this law more than five thousand years before. It was so that he might get the first king of Serendib’s mistress for himself that this chief bonze had incorporated in the constitution of the state a ban on blue eyes. All classes in the empire came to Nabussan to protest. It was said openly that the last days of the kingdom were at hand, that this abomination was the last word, that the whole of nature was threatened by a disastrous event—in short, that Nabussan, son of Nussanab, loved two big blue eyes. The hunchbacks, the treasurers, the bonzes, and the ladies with brown eyes, filled the kingdom with their lamentations.

  The savage races which dwelt in the north of Serendib profited by the general discontent. They invaded the country of good Nabussan, who asked his people for supplies. The bonzes owned half the revenues of the state, and they contented themselves with raising their hands to heaven and refusing to put them in their coffers to help the king. They chanted nice tuneful prayers, and left the country a prey to the barbarians.

  “O my dear Zadig,” sighed Nabussan sadly, “will you help me once more out of my terrible distress?”

  “With the greatest of pleasure,” answered Zadig. “You shall have as much of the bonzes’ money as you want. Abandon the lands where their castles are, and defend only your own.”

  Nabussan followed this advice, and the bonzes came and fell at his feet begging his help. The king answered them with beautiful songs of which the words were prayers to heaven for the preservation of their lands. In the end the bonzes gave up some money, and the king finished the war happily.

  In this way Zadig, by his wise and excellent counsel, attracted to himself the irreconcilable enmity of the most powerful people in the state. The bonzes and the brown-eyed women swore his ruin; the treasurers and the hunchbacks did not spare him: good Nabussan was led to suspect him. As Zarathustra says—Services rendered often remain in the antechamber, while suspicions enter the cabinet. Every day fresh accusations were made against him. The first is repulsed, the second blossoms, the third wounds, the fourth kills.

  Zadig was dismayed, and as he had completed his friend Sétoc’s business satisfactorily and had forwarded him his money, he thought of nothing but leaving the island. He resolved to go to seek news of Astarte himself, “for,” he said, “if I stay in Serendib the bonzes will have me impaled—but where shall I go? I shall be a slave in Egypt, burned alive in Arabia so far as I can tell, strangled in Babylon. However, I must know what has happened to Astarte. Let me away, and see what my sad destiny has in store for me.”

  XVI. THE BRIGAND

  On reaching the frontier which separates Arabia Petraea from Syria, as he was passing near a fairly well fortified castle, some armed Arabs came out. He saw he was surrounded. “All you have belongs to us!” cried his aggressors, “and your person belongs to our masterl” In reply, Zadig drew his sword, as did his body-servant who was a brave fellow. They killed the first Arabs who touched them. The number increased, but Zadig and his servant were not taken by surprise. They resolved to die fighting. Two men’s struggle against a multitude could not last long. The owner of the castle, seeing Zadig’s prodigies of valor from a window, took a liking to him. He came down in haste from his window, dispersed his men, and freed the two travelers.

  “Everything that passes over my land,” he told them, “belongs to me, as well as everything I find on other people’s land; but you seem such a brave chap that I exempt you from the common law.” He made Zadig enter his castle, and ordered his men to treat him well. That evening Arbogad had a fancy to sup with Zadig.

  The lord of this castle was one of those Arabs whom we call “brigands,” but amid the multitude of his bad actions he sometimes did a good one. He robbed with furious rapacity, and gave liberally; fearless in battle, he was pleasant enough in social intercourse; a debauchee at table, and gay in his debauchery; and remarkable for his frankness. Zadig pleased him very much; his conversation grew lively and made the meal draw out.

  “Well,” said Arbogad at last, “I advise you to enlist in my service. You won’t do better! This trade isn’t toe bad! And one day you may even become what I am.”

  “May I ask,” queried Zadig, “how long you have practiced this noble profession?”

  “Ever since I was a boy,” answered the chieftain. “I was body-slave to a fairly intelligent Arab, but I found my job unbearable. It made me despair to see that fate had not reserved me my bit of the earth which belongs equally to all men. I confided my troubles to an old Arab who said to me—‘My son, do not despair. Once upon a time there was a grain of sand which lamented that it was one unknown speck in the desert. After some years it became a diamond, and now it is the finest jewel in the crown of the Emperor of the Indies.’

  “This speech made an impression on me: I was the grain of sand, and I resolved to become a diamond. I started by stealing two horses. I surrounded myself with comrades and prepared to rob small caravans. In this way did I reduce the initial disproportion between myself and other men. I had my share of the good things of this world, I had even usurious compensation. I was much esteemed, I became brigand chief, I acquired this castle by force. The Satrap of Syria wanted to dispossess me of it, but I was already too rich to have anything to fear. I gave money to the satrap, in consideration of which I kept my castle, and I increased my domains. I was even named collector of the tribute which Arabia Petraea paid to the king of kings. I did my work of collection well, and that of payment not at all.

  “The Grand Destur of Babylon, in the name of King Moabdar, sent a little satrap here to have me strangled. This man arrived with his troop; I was well-informed about everything and had strangled in his presence the four persons he had brought with him to pull the cord tight: after which I asked him how much he was getting for strangling me. He said his fees might amount to three hundred pieces of gold. I let him see clearly that he would have more to gain with me, and made him under-brigand: today he is one of my best officers and one of the richest. Believe me, you will do as well as he has. The robbing season has never been better, now that Moabdar has been killed and confusion reigns in Babylon.”

  “Moabdar killed!” exclaimed Zadig. “And what has become of Queen Astarte?”

  “I don’t know at all,” answered Arbogad. “All I know is that Moabdar went mad and was killed, that Babylon is one big nest of cutthroats, that the empire is laid waste, that there are still some nice little jobs to pull off, and that so far as I am concerned I have already done some excellent ones.”

  “But the queen . . . !” repeated Zadig. “I beg you ... do you know nothing of the queen’s fate?”

  “I have heard speak of a Prince of Hyrcania,” answered th
e other. “She’s probably become one of his concubines... if she wasn’t killed in the general riot. But I’m more interested in loot than news. In the course of my raids I’ve taken plenty of women, but I haven’t kept one: I sell ’em dear when they’re pretty without even finding out what they are like. Nobody buys rank. An ugly queen wouldn’t find a bidder. Maybe I sold Queen Astarte, maybe she’s dead, but it’s all the same to me, and I don’t think you ought to worry about it any more than I do.” Talking like this, he drank with so much zeal that he confused all his ideas, and Zadig could get no enlightenment.

  He remained dumbfounded, overwhelmed, motionless. Arbogad was drinking all the time, telling stories, repeating over and over again that he was the happiest of men, and exhorting Zadig to be as happy as he was. At last, getting drowsy with the fumes of the wine, he went off to enjoy a peaceful sleep. Zadig passed the night in the most violent agitation. “What!” he cried, “the king has gone mad, has been killed! I cannot help pitying him. The empire is destroyed! ... and this brigand is happy! O fortune! O destiny! A brigand is happy, and the most lovable creature nature ever made has perhaps died an awful death, or lives in a state worse than death! O Astartel What has become of you?”

  As soon as day broke he questioned all the men he came across in the castle, but they were all busy, and no one answered him. During the night they had made fresh conquests and were dividing the spoils. All he could obtain in the tumult and confusion was permission to depart. He took advantage of the permission without delay, plunged deeper than ever in his sorrowful reflections.

  He walked along worried and restless, his mind filled with the thought of unhappy Astarte, of the king, of Babylon and of his faithful Cador, of Arbogad the happy brigand, of that capricious woman whom the Babylonians had carried off on the borders of Egypt, of—in short, of all the mishaps and adversities he had experienced.