The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Voltaire
• Publisher’s Preface.
• Oliver H. G. Leigh., Introduction.
• Oliver Goldsmith On Voltaire.
• Victor Hugo On Voltaire.
• Candide; Or, the Optimist. Part I.
• Chapter I.: How Candide Was Brought Up In a Magnificent Castle and How He Was Driven Thence.
• Chapter II.: What Befell Candide Among the Bulgarians.
• Chapter III.: How Candide Escaped From the Bulgarians, and What Befell Him Afterwards.
• Chapter IV.: How Candide Found His Old Master Pangloss Again and What Happened to Him.
• Chapter V.: A Tempest, a Shipwreck, an Earthquake; and What Else Befell Dr. Pangloss, Candide, and James the Anabaptist.
• Chapter VI.: How the Portuguese Made a Superb Auto-da-fé to Prevent Any Future Earthquakes, and How Candide Underwent Public Flagellation.
• Chapter VII.: How the Old Woman Took Care of Candide, and How He Found the Object of His Love.
• Chapter VIII.: Cunegund’s Story.
• Chapter IX.: What Happened to Cunegund, Candide, the Grand Inquisitor, and the Jew.
• Chapter X.: In What Distress Candide, Cunegund, and the Old Woman Arrive At Cadiz; and of Their Embarkation.
• Chapter XI.: The History of the Old Woman.
• Chapter XII.: The Adventures of the Old Woman Continued.
• Chapter XIII.: How Candide Was Obliged to Leave the Fair Cunegund and the Old Woman.
• Chapter XIV.: The Reception Candide and Cacambo Met With Among the Jesuits In Paraguay.
• Chapter XV.: How Candide Killed the Brother of His Dear Cunegund.
• Chapter XVI.: What Happened to Our Two Travellers With Two Girls, Two Monkeys, and the Savages, Called Oreillons.
• Chapter XVII.: Candide and His Valet Arrive In the Country of El Dorado—what They Saw There.
• Chapter XVIII.: What They Saw In the Country of El Dorado.
• Chapter XIX.: What Happened to Them At Surinam, and How Candide Became Acquainted With Martin.
• Chapter XX.: What Befell Candide and Martin On Their Passage.
• Chapter XXI.: Candide and Martin, While Thus Reasoning With Each Other, Draw Near to the Coast of France.
• Chapter XXII.: What Happened to Candide and Martin In France.
• Chapter XXIII.: Candide and Martin Touch Upon the English Coast—what They See There.
• Chapter XXIV.: Of Pacquette and Friar Giroflée.
• Chapter XXV.: Candide and Martin Pay a Visit to Seignor Pococuranté, a Noble Venetian.
• Chapter XXVI.: Candide and Martin Sup With Six Sharpers—who They Were.
• Chapter XXVII.: Candide’s Voyage to Constantinople.
• Chapter XXVIII.: What Befell Candide, Cunegund, Pangloss, Martin, Etc.
• Chapter XXIX.: In What Manner Candide Found Miss Cunegund and the Old Woman Again.
• Chapter XXX.: Conclusion.
• Part II.
• Chapter I.: How Candide Quitted His Companions, and What Happened to Him.
• Chapter II.: What Befell Candide In This House—how He Got Out of It.
• Chapter III.: Candide’s Reception At Court and What Followed.
• Chapter IV.: Fresh Favors Conferred On Candide; His Great Advancement.
• Chapter V.: How Candide Became a Very Great Man, and Yet Was Not Contented.
• Chapter VI.: The Pleasures of Candide.
• Chapter VII.: The History of Zirza.
• Chapter VIII.: Candide’s Disgusts—an Unexpected Meeting.
• Chapter IX.: Candide’s Disgraces, Travels, and Adventures.
• Chapter X.: Candide and Pangloss Arrive At the Propontis—what They Saw There—what Became of Them.
• Chapter XI.: Candide Continues His Travels.
• Chapter XII.: Candide Still Continues His Travels—new Adventures.
• Chapter XIII.: The History of Zenoida—how Candide Fell In Love With Her.
• Chapter XIV.: Continuation of the Loves of Candide.
• Chapter XV.: The Arrival of Wolhall—a Journey to Copenhagen.
• Chapter XVI.: How Candide Found His Wife Again and Lost His Mistress.
• Chapter XVII.: How Candide Had a Mind to Kill Himself, and Did Not Do It—what Happened to Him At an Inn.
• Chapter XVIII.: Candide and Cacambo Go Into a Hospital—whom They Meet There.
• Chapter XIX.: New Discoveries.
• Chapter XX.: Consequence of Candide’s Misfortune—how He Found His Mistress Again—the Fortune That Happened to Him.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

how candide quitted his companions, and what happened to him.

We soon become tired of everything in life; riches fatigue the possessor; ambition, when satisfied, leaves only remorse behind it; the joys of love are but transient joys; and Candide, made to experience all the vicissitudes of fortune, was soon disgusted with cultivating his garden. “Mr. Pangloss,” said he, “if we are in the best of possible worlds, you will own to me, at least, that this is not enjoying that portion of possible happiness; but living obscure in a little corner of the Propontis, having no other resource than that of my own manual labor, which may one day fail me; no other pleasures than what Mrs. Cunegund gives me, who is very ugly; and, which is worse, is my wife; no other company than yours, which is sometimes irksome to me; or that of Martin, which makes me melancholy; or that of Giroflée, who is but very lately become an honest man; or that of Pacquette, the danger of whose correspondence you have so fully experienced; or that of the hag who has but one buttock, and is constantly repeating old wives’ tales.

To this Pangloss made the following reply: “Philosophy teaches us that monads, divisible in infinitum, arrange themselves with wonderful sagacity in order to compose the different bodies which we observe in nature. The heavenly bodies are what they should be; they are placed where they should be; they describe the circles which they should describe; man follows the bent he should follow; he is what he should be; he does what he should do. You bemoan yourself, O Candide, because the monad of your soul is disgusted; but disgust is a modification of the soul; and this does not hinder, but everything is for the best, both for you and others. When you beheld me covered with sores, I did not maintain my opinion the less for that; for if Miss Pacquette had not made me taste the pleasures of love and its poison, I should not have met with you in Holland; I should not have given the anabaptist James an opportunity of performing a meritorious act; I should not have been hanged in Lisbon for the edification of my neighbor; I should not have been here to assist you with my advice, and make you live and die in Leibnitz’s opinion. Yes, my dear Candide, everything is linked in a chain, everything is necessary in the best of possible worlds. There is a necessity that the burgher of Montauban should instruct kings; that the worm of Quimper-Corentin should carp, carp, carp; that the declaimer against philosophers should occasion his own crucifixion in St. Denis street; that a rascally recollet and the archdeacon of St. Malo should diffuse their gall and calumny through their Christian journals; that philosophy should be accused at the tribunal of Melpomene; and that philosophers should continue to enlighten human nature, notwithstanding the croakings of ridiculous animals that flounder in the marshes of learning; and should you be once more driven by a hearty kicking from the finest of all castles, to learn again your exercise among the Bulgarians; should you again suffer the dirty effects of a Dutchwoman’s zeal; be half drowned again before Lisbon; to be unmercifully whipped again by order of the most holy Inquisition; should you run the same risks again among Los Padres, the Oreillons, and the French; should you, in short, suffer every possible calamity and never understand Leibnitz better than I myself do, you will still maintain that all is well; that all is for the best; that a plenum, the materia subtilis, a pre-established harmony, and monads, are the finest things in the world; and that Leibnitz is a great man, even to those who do not comprehend him.”

To this fine speech, Candide, the mildest being in nature, though he had killed three men, two of whom were priests, answered not a word; but weary of the doctor and his society, next morning at break of day, taking a white staff in his hand, marched off, without knowing whither he was going, but in quest of a place where one does not become disgusted, and where men are not men, as in the good country of El Dorado.

Candide, so much the less unhappy as he had no longer a love for Miss Cunegund, living upon the bounty of different people, who were not Christians, but yet give alms, arrived after a very long and very tiresome journey, at Tauris, upon the frontiers of Persia, a city noted for the cruelties which the Turks and Persians have by turns exercised therein.

Half dead with fatigue, having hardly more clothes than what were necessary to cover that part which constitutes the man, and which men call shameful, Candide could not well relish Pangloss’ opinion when a Persian accosted him in the most polite manner, beseeching him to ennoble his house with his presence. “You make a jest of me,” cried Candide to him; “I am a poor devil who has left a miserable dwelling I had in Propontis because I had married Miss Cunegund; because she is grown very ugly, and because I was disgusted; I am not, indeed, able to ennoble anybody’s house; I am not noble myself, thank God. If I had the honor of being so, Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh should have paid very dearly for the kicks on the backside with which he favored me, or I should have died of shame for it, which would have been pretty philosophical; besides, I have been whipped ignominiously by the executioners of the most holy Inquisition, and by two thousand heroes at three pence halfpenny a day. Give me what you please, but do not insult my distress with taunts which would deprive you of the whole value of your beneficence.” “My lord,” replied the Persian, “you may be a beggar, and this appears pretty plainly; but my religion obliges me to use hospitality; it is sufficient that you are a man and under misfortunes; that the apple of my eye should be the path for your feet; vouchsafe to ennoble my house with your radiant presence.” “I will, since you desire it,” answered Candide. “Come then, enter,” said the Persian. They went in accordingly, and Candide could not forbear admiring the respectful treatment shown him by his host. The slaves anticipated his desires; the whole house seemed to be busied in nothing but contributing to his satisfaction. “Should this last,” said Candide to himself, “all does not go so badly in this country.” Three days were passed, during which time the kindness of the Persian still continued; and Candide already cried out: “Master Pangloss, I always imagined you were in the right, for you are a great philosopher.”

CHAPTER II.

what befell candide in this house—how he got out of it.

Candide, being well fed, well clothed, and free from chagrin, soon became again as ruddy, as fresh, and as gay as he had been in Westphalia. His host, Ismael Raab, was pleased to see this change; he was a man six feet high, adorned with two small eyes extremely red, and a large nose full of pimples, which sufficiently declared his infraction of Mahomet’s law; his whiskers were the most famous in the country, and mothers wished their sons nothing so much as a like pair. Raab had wives, because he was rich; but he thought in a manner that is but too common in the East and in some of our colleges in Europe. “Your excellence is brighter than the stars,” said the cunning Persian to the brisk Candide one day, half smiling and half suppressing his words. “You must have captivated a great many hearts; you are formed to give and receive happiness.” “Alas!” answered our hero, “I was happy only by halves, behind a screen, where I was but half at my ease. Mademoiselle Cunegund was handsome then—Mademoiselle Cunegund; poor innocent thing!” “Follow me, my lord,” said the Persian. And Candide followed accordingly. They came to a very agreeable retreat, where silence and pleasure reigned. There Ismael Raab tenderly embraced Candide, and in a few words made a declaration of love like that which the beautiful Alexis expresses with so much pleasure in Virgil’s Eclogues. Candide could not recover from his astonishment. “No,” cried he, “I can never suffer such infamy! what cause and what horrible effect! I had rather die.” “So you shall,” replied Ismael, enraged. “How, thou Christian dog! because I would politely give you pleasure—resolve directly to satisfy me, or to suffer the most cruel death.” Candide did not long hesitate. The cogent reason of the Persian made him tremble; for he feared death like a philosopher.

We accustom ourselves to everything in time. Candide, well fed, well taken care of, but closely watched, was not absolutely disgusted with his condition. Good cheer and the different diversions performed by Ismael’s slaves gave some respite to his chagrin; he was unhappy only when he thought; and thus it is with the greatest part of mankind.

At that time one of the most stanch supporters of the monkish crew in Persia, the most learned of the Mahometan doctors, who understood Arabic perfectly, and even Greek, as spoken at that day in the country of Demosthenes and Sophocles, the Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk, returned from Constantinople, where he had conversed with the Reverend Mamoud-Abram on a very delicate point of doctrine; namely, whether the prophet had plucked from the angel Gabriel’s wing the pen which he used for the writing of the Koran; or if Gabriel had made him a present of it. They had disputed for three days and three nights with a warmth worthy of the noblest sages of controversy; and the doctor returned home persuaded, like all the disciples of Ali, that Mahomet had plucked the quill; while Mamoud-Abram remained convinced, like the rest of Omar’s followers, that the prophet was incapable of committing any such rudeness, and that the angel had very politely made him a present of this quill for his pen.

It is said that there was at Constantinople a certain free-thinker who insinuated that it was necessary to examine first whether the Koran was really written with a pen taken from the wing of the angel Gabriel; but he was stoned.

Candide’s arrival had made a noise in Tauris; many who had heard him speak of contingent and non-contingent effects imagined he was a philosopher. The Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk was told of him; he had the curiosity to come and see him; and Raab, who could hardly refuse a person of such consequence, sent for Candide to make his appearance. He seemed to be well pleased with the manner in which Candide spake of bad physics, bad morals, of agent and effect. “I understand that you are a philosopher, and that’s all. But it is enough, Candide,” said the venerable recluse. “It is not right that so great a man as you are should be treated with such indignity, as I am told, in the world. You are a stranger; Ismael Raab has no right over you. I propose to conduct you to court, there you shall meet with a favorable reception; the sophi loves the sciences. Ismael, you must put this young philosopher into my hands, or dread incurring the displeasure of the prince and drawing upon yourself the vengeance of heaven; but especially of the monks.” These last words frightened the otherwise undaunted Persian, and he consented to everything; Candide, blessing heaven and the monks, went the same day out of Tauris with the Mahometan doctor. They took the road to Ispahan, where they arrived loaded with the blessings and favors of the people.

CHAPTER III.

candide’s reception at court and what followed.

The Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk made no delay in presenting Candide to the king. His majesty took a particular pleasure in hearing him; he made him dispute with several learned men of his court, who looked upon him as a fool, an ignoramus, and an idiot; which much contributed to persuade his majesty that he was a great man. “Because,” said he to them, “you do not comprehend Candide’s reasonings, you abuse him; but I, who also comprehend nothing at all of them, assure you that he is a great philosopher, and I swear to it by my whisker.” Upon these words the literati were struck dumb.

Candide had apartments assigned him in the palace; he had slaves to wait on him; he was dressed in magnificent clothes, and the sophi commanded that whatever he should say, no one should dare to assert that he was wrong. His majesty did not* stop here. The venerable monk was continually soliciting him in favor of his guest, and his majesty at length resolved to rank him among the number of his most intimate favorites.

“God be praised and our holy prophet,” said the imam, addressing himself to Candide. “I am come to tell you an agreeable piece of news; that you are happy, my dear Candide; that you are going to raise the envy of the world; you shall swim in opulence; you may aspire to the most splendid posts in the empire. But do not forget me, my friend; think that it is I who have procured you the favor you are just on the point of enjoying; let gayety reign over the horizon of your countenance. The king grants you a favor which has been sought by many, and you will soon exhibit a sight which the court has not enjoyed these two years past.” “And what are these favors?” demanded Candide, “with which the prince intends to honor me?” “This very day,” answered the monk, quite overjoyed, “this very day you are to receive fifty strokes with a leathern lash on the soles of your feet, in the presence of his majesty. The eunuchs named for perfuming you for the occasion are to be here directly; prepare yourself to go cheerfully through this little trial and thereby render yourself worthy of the king of kings.” “Let the king of kings,” cried Candide in a rage, “keep his favors to himself, if I must receive fifty blows with a lash in order to merit them.” “It is thus,” replied the doctor coldly, “that he deals with those on whom he means to pour down his benefits. I love you too much to regard the little temper which you show on this occasion, and I will make you happy in spite of yourself.”

He had not done speaking when the eunuchs arrived, preceded by the executor of his majesty’s private pleasures, who was one of the greatest and most robust lords of the court. Candide in vain remonstrated against their proceedings. They perfumed his legs and feet, according to custom. Four eunuchs carried him to the place appointed for the ceremony through the midst of a double file of soldiers, while the trumpets sounded, the cannon fired, and the bells of all the mosques* of Ispahan jingled; the sophi was already there, accompanied by his principal officers and most distinguished personages of his court. In an instant they stretched out Candide upon a little form finely gilded, and the executor of the private pleasures put himself in a posture for entering upon his office. “O! Master Pangloss, Master Pangloss, were you but here!” said Candide, weeping and roaring out with all his force; a circumstance which would have been thought very indecent if the monk had not given the people to understand that his guest had put himself into such violent agitations only the better to divert his majesty. This great king, it is true, laughed like a fool; he even took such delight in the affair that after the fifty blows had been given, he ordered fifty more to be added. But his first minister having represented to him, with a firmness not very common, that such an unheard of favor with regard to a stranger might alienate the hearts of his subjects, he revoked that order, and Candide was carried back to his apartments.

They put him to bed, after having bathed his feet with vinegar. The grandees came round him in order to congratulate him on his good fortune. The sophi then came to assist him in person, and not only gave him his hand to kiss, according to the custom, but likewise honored him with a great blow of his fist on his mouth. Whence the politicians conjectured that Candide would arrive at extraordinary preferment, and what is very uncommon, though politicians, they were not deceived.

CHAPTER IV.

fresh favors conferred on candide; his great advancement.

As soon as our hero was cured, he was introduced to the king, to return him his thanks. The monarch received him very graciously. He gave him two or three hearty boxes on the ear during their conversation, and conducted him back as far as the guard-room, with several sound kicks on the posterior; at which the courtiers were ready to burst for envy. Since his majesty had been in a drubbing humor, no person had ever received such signal marks of his majesty’s favor in this way as did Candide.

Three days after this interview, our philosopher, who was enraged at the favors he had received, and thought that everything went very bad, was nominated governor of Chusistan, with an absolute power. He was decorated with a fur cap, which is a grand mark of distinction in Persia. He took his leave of the sophi and departed for Sus, the capital of his province. From the moment that Candide made his appearance at court the grandees had plotted his destruction. The excessive favors which the sophi had heaped on him served but to increase the storm ready to burst upon his head. He, however, applauded himself on his good fortune; and especially his removal from court; he enjoyed in prospect the pleasures of supreme rank, and he said from the bottom of his heart:

“How blest the subject from his lord removed!”

He had not gone quite twenty miles from Ispahan before five hundred horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, came up with him and his attendants and discharged a volley of firearms upon them. Candide imagined at first that this was intended to do him an honor; but the ball which broke his leg soon gave him to know what was going on. His people laid down their arms, and Candide, more dead than alive, was carried to a castle remote from any other dwelling. His baggage, camels, slaves, white and black eunuchs, with thirty-six women which the sophi had given him for his use, all became the prey of the conqueror. Our hero’s leg was cut off for fear of mortification, and care was taken of his life, that a more cruel death might be inflicted on him.

“O Pangloss! Pangloss! what would now become of your optimism if you saw me short of one leg in the hands of my cruelest enemies; just as I was entering upon the path of happiness, and was governor, or king, as one may say, of one of the most considerable provinces of the empire of ancient Media; when I had camels, slaves, black and white eunuchs, and thirty-six women for my own use, and of which I had not made any?” Thus Candide spoke as soon as he was able to speak.

But while he was thus bemoaning himself, everything was going for the best for him. The ministry, informed of the outrages committed against him, had detached a body of well-disciplined troops in pursuit of the mutineers, and the monk Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk took care to publish by means of others of his fraternity that Candide, being the work of the monks, was consequently the work of God. Such as had any knowledge of this atrocious attempt were so much the more ready to discover it, as the ministers of religion gave assurance on the part of Mahomet that every one who had eaten pork, drank wine, omitted bathing for any number of days together, or had conversed with women at the time of their impurity, against the express prohibitions of the Koran, should be, ipso facto, absolved, upon declaring what they knew concerning the conspiracy. They soon discovered the place of Candide’s confinement, which they broke open; and as it was a religious affair the party worsted were exterminated to a man, agreeably to custom in that case. Candide, marching over a heap of dead bodies, made his escape, triumphed over the greatest peril he had hitherto encountered, and with his attendants resumed the road to his government. He was received there as a favorite who had been honored with fifty blows of a lash on the soles of his feet in the presence of the king of kings.

CHAPTER V.

how candide became a very great man, and yet was not contented.

The good of philosophy is its inspiring us with a love for our fellow-creatures. Paschal is almost the only philosopher who seems desirous to make us hate our neighbors. Luckily Candide had not read Paschal, and he loved the poor human race very cordially. This was soon perceived by the upright part of the people. They had always kept at a distance from the pretended legates of heaven, but made no scruple of visiting Candide and assisting him with their counsels. He made several wise regulations for the encouragement of agriculture, population, commerce, and the arts. He rewarded those who had made any useful experiments; and even encouraged such as had produced some essays on literature.

“When the people in my province are in general content,” said he with a charming candor, “possibly I shall be so myself.” Candide was a stranger to mankind; he saw himself torn to pieces in seditious libels and calumniated in a work entitled “The Friend to Mankind.” He found that while he was laboring to make people happy he had only made them ungrateful. “Ah,” cried Candide, “how hard it is to govern these beings without feathers, which vegetate on the earth! Why am I not still in Propontis, in the company of Master Pangloss, Miss Cunegund, the daughter of Pope Urban X., with only one cushion, Brother Giroflée, and the most luscious Pacquette!”

CHAPTER VI.

the pleasures of candide.

Candide, in the bitterness of his grief, wrote a very pathetic letter to the Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk. He painted to him in such lively colors the present state of his soul, that Ed-Ivan, greatly affected with it, obtained permission of the sophi that Candide should resign his employments. His majesty, in recompense of his services, granted him a very considerable pension. Eased from the weight of grandeur, our philosopher immediately sought after Pangloss’ optimism, in the pleasures of a private life. He till then had lived for the benefit of others, and seemed to have forgotten that he had a seraglio.

He now called it to remembrance with that emotion which the very name inspires. “Let everything be got ready,” said he to his first eunuch, “for my visiting my women.” “My lord,” answered the shrill-piped slave, “it is now that your excellency deserves the title of wise. The men for whom you have done so much were not worthy of employing your thoughts, but the women—” “That may be,” said Candide modestly.

At the bottom of a garden, where art had assisted nature to unfold her beauties, stood a small house of simple and elegant structure, very different from those which are to be seen in the suburbs of the finest city in Europe. Candide could not approach it without blushing; the air round this charming retreat diffused a delicious perfume; the flowers, amorously intermingled, seemed here to be guided by the instinct of pleasure, and preserved, for a long time, their various beauties. Here the rose never lost its lovely hue; the view of a rock, from which the waters precipitated themselves with a murmuring and confused noise, invited the soul of that soft melancholy which is ever the forerunner of pleasure. Candide entered trembling into a chamber, where taste and magnificence were united; his senses were drawn by a secret charm; he cast his eyes on young Telemachus, who breathed on the canvas in the midst of the nymphs of Calypso’s court. He next turned them to Diana, half-naked, flying into the arms of the tender Endymion; his agitation increased at the sight of a Venus, faithfully copied from that of Medici; his ears were struck with a divine harmony; a company of young Circassian females appeared, covered with their veils; they formed round him a sort of dance, agreeably designed, and more graceful than those trifling jigs that are performed on as trifling stages, after the representation of the death of Cæsar and Pompey.

At a signal given they threw off their veils and discovered faces full of expression, that lent new life to the diversion. These beauties studied the most seducing attitudes, without appearing to intend it; one expressed in her looks a passion without bounds; another a soft languor which waits for pleasures without seeking them; this fair one stooped and raised herself precipitately to disclose to view those enchanting charms which the fair sex display in such full scope at Paris; another threw aside a part of her cymar to show a form, which alone is capable of inflaming a mortal of any delicacy. The dance ceased and they remained in profound silence.

This pause recalled Candide to himself. The fire of love took possession of his breast; he darted the most ardent looks on all around him; imprinted warm kisses on lips as warm, and eyes that swam in liquid fire; he passed his hand over globes whiter than alabaster, whose palpitating motion repelled the touch; admired their proportion; perceived little vermilion protuberances like those rosebuds which only wait the genial rays of the sun to unfold them; he kissed them with rapture, and his lips for some time remained glued thereon.

Our philosopher next admired for a while a majestic figure of a fine and delicate shape. Burning with desires, he at length threw the handkerchief to a young person whose eyes he had observed to be always fixed upon him, and which seemed to say, “Teach me the meaning of a trouble I am ignorant of”; and who, blushing at the secret avowal, became a thousand times more charming. The eunuch then opened the door of a private chamber consecrated to the mysteries of love, into which the lovers entered; and the eunuch, addressing his master, said: “Here it is, my lord, you are going to be truly happy.” “Oh!” answered Candide, “I am in great hopes of it.”

The ceiling and walls of this little retreat were covered with mirrors; in the midst was placed a divan of black satin, on which Candide threw the young Circassian and caressed her in silent ecstasy. The fair one gave him no other interruption but to imprint kisses, full of fire, on his lips. “My lord,” said she to him in the Turkish language, which she spoke perfectly, “how fortunate is your slave, to be thus honored with your transports!” An energy of sentiment can be expressed in every language by those who truly feel it. These few words enchanted our philosopher; he was no longer himself; all he saw, all he heard, was new to him. What difference between Miss Cunegund, grown ugly, and violated by Bulgarian freebooters, and a Circassian girl of eighteen, till then a stranger to man. This was the first time the wise Candide enjoyed her. The objects which he devoured were repeated in the mirrors; wherever he cast his eyes he saw upon the black satin the most beautiful and fairest body possible, and the contrast of colors lent it new lustre, with round, firm, and plump thighs, an admirable fall of loins, a—but I am obliged to have a regard to the false delicacy of our language. It is sufficient for me to say that our philosopher tasted, by frequent repetitions, of that portion of happiness he was capable of receiving, and that the young Circassian in a little while proved his sufficing reason.

“O master, my dear master!” cried Candide, almost beside himself, “everything here is as well as in El Dorado; a fine woman can alone complete the wishes of man. I am as happy as it is possible to be. Leibnitz is in the right, and you are a great philosopher. For instance, I engage that you, my lovely girl, have always had a bias towards optimism, because you have always been happy.” “Alas! no,” answered she. “I do not know what optimism is; but I swear to you that your slave has not known happiness till to-day. If my lord is pleased to give me leave, I will convince him of it by a succinct recital of my adventures.” “I am very willing,” said Candide. “I am in a position to hear an historical detail.” Upon which the fair slave began as follows:

CHAPTER VII.

the history of zirza.

“My father was a Christian, and so likewise am I, as far as I have been told. He had a little hermitage near Cotatis, where, by his fervent devotion and practising austerities shocking to human nature, he acquired the veneration of the faithful. Crowds of women came to pay him their homage and took a particular satisfaction in bathing his posteriors, which he lashed every day with several smart strokes of discipline; doubtless it was to one of the most devout of these visitants that I owe my being. I was brought up in a cave in the neighborhood of my father’s little cell. I was twelve years of age and had not yet left this kind of grave, when the earth shook with a dreadful noise; the arch of the vault fell in, and I was drawn out from under the rubbish half dead when light struck my eyes for the first time. My father took me into his hermitage as a predestined child. The whole of this adventure appeared strange to the people; my father declared it a miracle, and so did they.

“I was called Zirza, which in Persian signifies ‘child of providence.’ Notice was soon taken of my poor charms; the women already came but seldom to the hermitage and the men much oftener. One of them told me that he loved me. ‘Villain,’ said my father to him, ‘hast thou substance sufficient to love her? This is a great gift which God has intrusted to me; He has made His appearance to me this night, under the shape of a venerable hermit, and He forbade me to give up the possession thereof for less than a thousand sequins. Get thee gone, poor devil, lest thine impure breath should blast her charms.’ ‘I have,’ answered he, ‘only a heart to offer her. But say, barbarian, dost thou not blush to make sport of the Deity, for the gratification of thine avarice? With what front, vile wretch, darest thou pretend that God has spoken to thee? This is throwing the greatest contempt upon the Author of beings, to represent Him conversing with such men as thou art.’ ‘O blasphemy!’ cried my father in a rage, ‘God Himself has commanded me to stone blasphemers.’ As he spoke these words, he fell upon my lover, and with repeated blows laid him dead on the ground, and his blood flew in my face. Though I had not yet known what love was, this man had interested me, and his death shocked me, and rendered the sight of my father insufferable to me. I took a resolution to leave him; he perceived it. ‘Ungrateful,’ said he to me, ‘it is to me thou owest thy being. Thou are my daughter—and thou hatest me; but I am going to deserve thy hatred, by the most rigorous treatment.’ He kept his word but too well with me, cruel man! During five years, which I spent in tears and groans, neither my youth nor my clouded beauty could in the least abate his wrath. Sometimes he stuck a thousand pins into all the parts of my body; at other times, with his discipline, he made the blood trickle down my body.” “This,” said Candide, “gave you less pain than the pins.” “True, my lord,” answered Zirza. “At last,” continued she, “I fled from my father’s habitation; and not daring to trust myself to anybody, I flung myself into the thickest part of the woods, where I was three days without food, and should have died were it not for a tiger which I had the happiness to please, and who was willing to share with me the prey he caught. But I had many horrors to encounter from this formidable beast; and the brute had moods as changeable and dangerous as those which render men, in certain conditions, the prey of brutal passions which degrade their humanity. Bad food gave me the scurvy. Scarcely was I cured, when I followed a merchant of slaves, who was going to Tiflis. The plague was there then, and I took it. These various misfortunes did not absolutely affect my features, nor hinder the sophi’s purveyor from buying me for your use. I have languished in tears these three months that I have been among the number of your women. My companions and I imagined ourselves to be the objects of your contempt; and if you knew, my lord, how disagreeable eunuchs are, and how little adapted for comforting young girls who are despised—in short, I am not yet eighteen years of age; and of these I have spent twelve in a frightful cavern; undergone an earthquake; been covered with the blood of the first good man I had hitherto seen; endured, for the space of four years, the most cruel tortures, and have had the scurvy, and the plague. Consumed with desires, amidst a crew of black and white monsters, still preserving that which I have saved from the fury of an awkward tiger; and, cursing my fate, I have passed three months in this seraglio; where I should have died of the jaundice, had not your excellency honored me at last with your embraces.” “O heavens!” cried Candide, “is it possible that you have experienced such great misfortunes at so tender an age? What would Pangloss say could he hear you? But your misfortunes are at an end, as well as mine. Everything does not go badly now; is not this true?” Upon that Candide resumed his caresses, and was more than ever confirmed in the belief of Pangloss’ system.

CHAPTER VIII.

candide’s disgusts—an unexpected meeting.

Our philosopher, in the midst of his seraglio, dispensed his favors equally. He tasted the pleasures of variety, and always returned to the “child of providence” with fresh ardor. But this did not last long; he soon felt violent pains in his loins, and an excruciating colic. He dried up, as he grew happy. Then Zirza’s breast appeared no longer so white, or so well placed; her thighs not so hard, nor so plump; her eyes lost all their vivacity in those of Candide; her complexion, its lustre; and her lips that pure vermilion which had enchanted him at first sight. He now perceived that she walked badly, and had an offensive smell: he saw, with the greatest disgust, a spot upon the “mount of Venus,” which he had never observed before to be tainted with any blemish: the vehement ardor of Zirza became burdensome to him: he could see, with great coolness, the faults of his other women, which had escaped him in his first transports of passion; he saw nothing in them but a bare-faced impudence; he was ashamed to have walked in the steps of the wisest of men; and he found women more bitter than death.

Candide, always cherishing Christian sentiments, spent his leisure time in walking over the streets of Sus; when one day a cavalier, in a superb dress, came up to him suddenly and called him by his name. “Is it possible!” cried Candide, “my lord, that you are — it is not possible; otherwise you are so very like the abbé of Périgord.” “I am the very man,” answered the abbé. Upon this Candide started back, and, with his usual ingenuousness, said, “Are you happy, Mr. Abbé?” “A fine question,” replied the abbé; “the little deceit which I have put upon you has contributed not a little to gain me credit. The police had employed me for some time; but, having fallen out with them, I quitted the ecclesiastical habit, which was no longer of any service to me. I went over into England, where persons of my profession are better paid. I said all I knew, and all I did not know, about the strength and weakness of the country I had lately left. I especially gave bold assurances that the French were the dregs of the world, and that good sense dwelt nowhere but in London. In short, I made a splendid fortune, and have just concluded a treaty at the court of Persia which will exterminate all the Europeans who come for cotton and silk into the sophi’s dominions, to the detriment of the English.” “The object of your mission is very commendable,” said our philosopher; “but, Mr. Abbé, you are a cheat; I like not cheats, and I have some credit at court. Tremble now, your happiness has arrived at its utmost limits; you are just upon the point of suffering the fate you deserve.” “My lord Candide,” cried the abbé, throwing himself on his knees, “have pity on me. I feel myself drawn to evil by an irresistible force, as you find yourself necessitated to the practice of virtue. This fatal propensity I have perceived from the moment I became acquainted with Mr. Wasp, and worked at the Feuilles.” “What do you call Feuilles?” said Candide. “Feuilles,” answered the abbé, “are sheets of seventy-two pages in print, in which the public are entertained in the strain of calumny, satire, and dulness. An honest man who can read and write, and who is not able to continue among the Jesuits, has set himself to compose this pretty little work, that he may have wherewithal to give his wife some lace, and bring up his children in the fear of God; and there are certain honest people, who for a few pence, and some bottles of bad wine, assist the man in carrying on his scheme. This Mr. Wasp is, besides, a member of a curious club, who divert themselves by making poor, ignorant people drunk, and causing them to blaspheme; or in bullying a poor simple devil, breaking his furniture, and afterwards challenging him. Such pretty little amusements these gentry call ‘mystifications,’ and richly deserve the attention of the police. In fine, this very honest man, Mr. Wasp, who boasts he never was in the galleys, is troubled with a disposition which renders him insensible to the clearest truths; and from which position he can be drawn only by certain violent means, which he sustains with a resignation and courage above conception. I have worked for some time under this celebrated genius; I have become an eminent writer in my turn, and I had but just quitted Mr. Wasp, to do a little for myself, when I had the honor of paying you a visit at Paris.” “Though you are a very great cheat, Mr. Abbé, yet your sincerity in this point makes some impression on me. Go to court; ask for the Rev. Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk; I shall write to him in your behalf, but upon express condition that you promise me to become an honest man; and that you will not be the occasion of some thousands having their throats cut, for the sake of a little silk and cotton.” The abbé promised all that Candide requested, and they parted good friends.

CHAPTER IX.

candide’s disgraces, travels, and adventures.

No sooner had the abbé got access to court than he employed all his skill in order to ingratiate himself with the minister, and ruin his benefactor. He spread a report that Candide was a traitor, and that he had spoken disrespectfully of the hallowed whiskers of the king of kings. All the courtiers condemned him to be burned in a slow fire; but the sophi, more favorable, only sentenced him to perpetual banishment, after having previously kissed the sole of his accuser’s foot, according to the usage among the Persians. The abbé went in person to put the sentence in execution: he found our philosopher in pretty good health, and disposed to become happy again. “My friend,” said the English ambassador to him, “I come with regret to let you know that you must quit this kingdom with all expedition, and kiss my feet, with a true repentance for your horrid crimes.” “Kiss your feet, Mr. Abbé! certainly you are not in earnest, and I do not understand joking.” Upon which some mutes, who had attended the abbé, entered and took off his shoes, letting poor Candide know, by signs, that he must submit to this piece of humiliation, or else expect to be empaled. Candide, by virtue of his free will, kissed the abbé’s feet. They put on him a sorry linen robe, and the executioner drove him out of the town, crying all the time, “Behold a traitor! who has spoken irreverently of the sophi’s whiskers! irreverently of the imperial whiskers!”

What did the officious monk, while his friend, whom he protected, was treated thus? I know nothing of that. It is probable that he was tired of protecting Candide. Who can depend on the favor of kings, and especially that of monks?

In the meantime our hero went sadly on. “I never spoke,” said he to himself, “about the king of Persia’s whiskers. I am cast in an instant from the pinnacle of happiness into the abyss of misery; because a wretch, who has violated all laws, accuses me of a pretended crime which I have never committed; and this wretch, this monster, this persecuter of virtue—he is happy.”

Candide, after travelling for some days, found himself upon the frontiers of Turkey. He directed his course towards the Propontis, with a design to settle there again, and pass the rest of his days in the cultivation of his garden. He saw, as he entered a little village, a great multitude of people tumultuously assembled; he inquired into the cause of it. “This,” said an old man to him, “is a singular affair. It is some time ago since the wealthy Mahomet demanded in marriage the daughter of the janissary Zamoud; he found her not to be a virgin; and in pursuance of a principle quite natural and authorized by the laws, he sent her home to her father, after having branded her in the face. Zamoud, exasperated at the disgrace brought on his family, in the first transports of a fury that is very natural, with one stroke of his scimitar clove the disfigured visage of his daughter. His eldest son, who loved his sister passionately, which is very frequent in nature, flew upon his father and plunged a sharp poniard to his heart. Afterwards, like a lion who grows more enraged at seeing his own blood flow, the furious Zamoud ran to Mahomet’s house; and, after striking to the ground some slaves who opposed his passage, murdered Mahomet, his wives, and two children then in the cradle; all of which was very natural, considering the violent passion he then was in. At last, to crown all, he killed himself with the same poniard, reeking with the blood of his father and his enemies, which is also very natural.” “What a scene of horrors!” cried Candide. “What would you have said, Master Pangloss, had you found such barbarities in nature? Would not you acknowledge that nature is corrupted, that all is not—” “No,” said the old man, “for the pre-established harmony—” “O heavens! do ye not deceive me? Is this Pangloss?” cried Candide, “whom I again see?” “The very same,” answered the old man. “I knew you, but I was willing to find out your sentiments before I would discover myself. Come, let us discourse a little on contingent effects, and see if you have made any progress in the art of wisdom.” “Alas!” said Candide, “you choose your time ungenerously; rather let me know what has become of Miss Cunegund; tell me where are Brother Giroflée, Pacquette, and Pope Urban’s daughter.” “I know nothing of them,” replied Pangloss; “it is now two years since I left our habitation in order to find you out. I have travelled over almost all Turkey; I was upon the point of setting out for the court of Persia, where I heard you made a great figure, and I only tarried in this little village, among these good people, till I should gather strength to continue my journey.” “What is this I see?” answered Candide, quite surprised. “You want an arm, my dear doctor.” “That is nothing,” replied the one-handed and the one-eyed doctor; “nothing is more common in the best of worlds than to see persons who want one eye and one arm. This accident befell me in a journey from Mecca. Our caravan was attacked by a troop of Arabs; our guard attempted to make resistance, and, according to the rules of war, the Arabs, who found themselves to be the strongest side, massacred us all without mercy. There perished about five hundred persons in this attack, among whom were about a dozen pregnant women. For my part I had only my skull split and an arm cut off; I did not die, for all this, and I still found that everything went for the best. But as to yourself, my dear Candide, why is it that you have a wooden leg?” Upon this Candide began and gave an account of his adventures. Our philosophers turned together towards the Propontis and enlivened their journey by discoursing on physical and moral evil, free will and predestination, monads and pre-established harmony.

CHAPTER X.

candide and pangloss arrive at the propontis—what they saw there—what became of them.

O Candide!” said Pangloss, “why were you tired of cultivating your garden? Why did we not still continue to eat citrons and pistachio nuts? Why were you weary of your happiness? Because everything is necessary in the best of worlds, there was a necessity that you should undergo the bastinado in the presence of the king of Persia; have your leg cut off, in order to make Chusistan happy, to experience the ingratitude of men, and draw down upon the heads of some atrocious villains the punishment which they had deserved.” With such talk as this they arrived at their old habitation. The first objects that presented themselves were Martin and Pacquette in the habit of slaves. “Whence,” said Candide to them, “is this metamorphosis?” after embracing them tenderly. “Alas!” answered they, sobbing, “you have no more a habitation; another has undertaken the labor of cultivating your garden; he eats your preserved citrons, and pistachios, and we are treated like negroes.” “Who,” said Candide, “is this other?” “The high admiral,” answered they, “a mortal the least humane of all mortals. The sultan, willing to recompense his services without putting himself to any expense, has confiscated all your goods under pretext that you had gone over to his enemies, and condemned us to slavery.” “Be advised by me, Candide,” added Martin, “and continue your journey. I always told you everything is for the worst; the sum of evil exceeds by much that of good. Begone, and I do not despair but you may become a Manichæan, if you are not so already.” Pangloss would have begun an argument in form, but Candide interrupted him to ask about Miss Cunegund, the old woman, Brother Giroflée, and Cacambo. “Cacambo,” answered Martin, “is here; he is at present employed in emptying slops. The old woman is dead from a kick given her by a eunuch in the breast. Brother Giroflée has entered among the janissaries. Miss Cunegund has recovered her plumpness and former beauty; she is in our master’s seraglio.” “What a chain of misfortunes,” said Candide. “Was there a necessity for Miss Cunegund to become handsome only to make me a cuckold?” “It matters little,” said Pangloss, “whether Miss Cunegund be beautiful or ugly, in your arms or those of another; that is nothing to the general system. For my part, I wish her a numerous progeny. Philosophers do not perplex themselves by whom women have children, provided they have them. Population—” “Alas!” exclaimed Martin, “philosophers might much better employ themselves in rendering a few individuals happy, than engaging them to multiply the number of sufferers.” While they were thus arguing, a great noise was heard on a sudden; it was the admiral diverting himself by causing a dozen slaves to be whipped. Pangloss and Candide, both frightened, with tears in their eyes, parted from their friends, and in all haste took the road to Constantinople.

There they found all the people in a great stir. A fire had broken out in the suburb of Pera; five or six hundred houses were already consumed, and two or three thousand persons perished in the flames. “What a horrible disaster,” cried Candide! “All is well,” said Pangloss, “these little accidents happen every year. It is entirely natural for the fire to catch houses built of wood, and for those who are in them to be burned. Besides, this procures some resources to honest people, who languish in misery.” “What is this I hear?” said an officer of the sublime porte. “How, wretch, darest thou say that all is well when half Constantinople is in flames. Dog, be cursed of our prophet, receive the punishment due to thy impudence!” And as he uttered these words he took Pangloss by the middle and flung him headlong into the flames. Candide, half dead with fright, crept on all fours as well as he could to a neighboring quarter, where all was more quiet; and we shall see what became of him in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XI.

candide continues his travels.

“I have nothing left,” said our philosopher, “but to make myself either a slave or a Turk. Happiness has forsaken me forever. A turban would corrupt all my pleasures. I shall be incapable of tasting tranquillity of soul in a religion full of imposture, into which I enter merely from a motive of vile interest. No, I shall never be content if I cease to be an honest man; let me make myself then a slave.” Candide had no sooner taken this resolution than he set about putting it into execution. He chose an Armenian merchant for his master, who was a man of a very good character, and passed for virtuous, as much as an Armenian can be. He gave Candide two hundred sequins as the price of his liberty. The Armenian was upon the point of departing for Norway; he took Candide with him, in the hope that a philosopher would be of use to him in his traffic. They embarked, and the wind was so favorable for them that they were not above half the usual time in their passage. They even had no occasion for buying a wind from the Lapland witches, and contented themselves with giving them some stock-fish, that they might not disturb their good fortune with their enchantments; which sometimes happens, if we may believe Moréri’s dictionary on this head.

The Armenian no sooner landed than he provided a stock of whale-blubber and ordered our philosopher to go over all the country to buy him some dried salt fish; Candide acquitted himself of his commission in the best manner possible, returned with several reindeer loaded with this merchandise, and made profound reflections on the astonishing difference which is to be found between the Laplanders and other men. A very diminutive female Laplander, whose head was a little bigger than her body, her eyes red and full of fire, a flat nose and very wide mouth, wished him a good day with an infinite grace. “My little lord,” said this being (a foot and ten inches high) to him, “I think you very handsome; do me the favor to love me a little.” So saying, she flew to him and caught him round the neck. Candide pushed her away with horror. She cried out, when her husband came in with several other Laplanders. “What is the meaning of all this uproar?” said they. “It is,” answered the little thing, “that this stranger—Alas! I am choked with grief; he despises me.” “So, then,” said the Lapland husband, “thou impolite, dishonest, brutal, infamous, cowardly rascal, thou bringest disgrace upon my house; thou dost me the most sensible injury; thou refusest to embrace my wife.” “Lo! here’s a strange custom,” cried our hero; “what would you have said, then, if I had embraced her?” “I would have wished thee all sort of prosperity,” said the Laplander to him in wrath; “but thou only deservest my indignation.” At uttering this he discharged on Candide’s back a volley of blows with a cudgel. The reindeer were seized by the relatives of the offended husband, and Candide, for fear of worse, was forced to betake himself to flight and renounce forever his good master; for how dared he present himself before him without money, whaleblubber, or reindeer?

CHAPTER XII.

candide still continues his travels—new adventures.

Candide travelled a long time without knowing whither he was going. At length he resolved to go to Denmark, where he had heard that everything went pretty well. He had a few pieces of money about him, which the Armenian had made him a present of; and this sum, though inconsiderable, he hoped would carry him to the end of his journey. Hope rendered his misery supportable to him, and he still passed some happy moments. He found himself one day in an inn with three travellers, who talked to him with great warmth about a plenum and the materia subtilis. “This is well,” said Candide to himself, “these are philosophers. Gentlemen,” said he to them, “a plenum is incontestable; there is no vacuum in nature, and the materia subtilis is a well-imagined hypothesis.” “You are then a Cartesian?” cried the three travellers. “Yes,” answered Candide, “and a Leibnitzian, which is more.” “So much the worse for you,” replied the philosophers. “Descartes and Leibnitz had not common sense. We are Newtonians, and we glory in it; if we dispute, it is only the better to confirm ourselves in our opinions, and we all think the same. We search for truth in Newton’s tract, because we are persuaded that Newton is a very great man.” “And Descartes, too, and Leibnitz and Pangloss likewise,” said Candide; “these great men are worth a thousand of yours.” “You are a fool, friend,” answered the philosophers; “do you know the laws of refraction, attraction, and motion? Have you read the truths which Dr. Clarke has published in answer to the vagaries of your Leibnitz? Do you know what centrifugal and centripetal force is? and that colors depend on their density? Have you any notion of the theory of light and gravitation? Do you know the period of twenty-five thousand nine hundred and twenty years, which unluckily do not agree with chronology? No, undoubtedly, you have but false ideas of all these things; peace then, thou contemptible monad, and beware how you insult giants by comparing them to pygmies.” “Gentlemen,” answered Candide, “were Pangloss here, he would tell you very fine things; for he is a great philosopher; he has a sovereign contempt for your Newton; and, as I am his disciple, I likewise make no great account of him.” The philosophers, enraged beyond measure, fell upon poor Candide and drubbed him most philosophically.

Their wrath subsiding, they asked our hero’s pardon for their too great warmth. Upon this one of them began a very fine harangue on mildness and moderation.

While they were talking they saw a grand funeral procession pass by; our philosophers thence took occasion to descent on the foolish vanity of man. “Would it not be more reasonable,” said one of them, “that the relatives and friends of the deceased should, without pomp and noise, carry the bier themselves? would not this funeral act, by presenting to them the idea of death, produce an effect the most salutary, the most philosophical? This reflection, which would offer itself, namely, ‘the body I carry is that of my friend, my relative; he is no more; and, like him, I must cease to be in this world;’ would not this, I say, be a means of lessening the number of crimes in this vile world, and of bringing back to virtue beings who believe in the immortality of the soul? Men are too much inclined to remove from them the thoughts of death, for fear of presenting too strong images of it. Whence is it that people keep at a distance from such a spectacle as a mother and a wife in tears? The plaintive accents of nature, the piercing cries of despair, would do much greater honor to the ashes of the dead, than all these individuals clad in black from head to foot, together with useless female mourners, and that crowd of ministers who sing funeral orations which the deceased cannot hear.”

“This is extremely well spoken,” said Candide; “and did you always speak thus well, without thinking proper to beat people, you would be a great philosopher.”

Our travellers parted with expressions of mutual confidence and friendship. Candide still continued travelling towards Denmark. He plunged into the woods; where, musing deeply on all the misfortunes which had happened to him in the best of worlds, he turned aside from the road and lost himself. The day began to draw towards the evening, when he perceived his mistake; he was seized with dismay, and raising his eyes to heaven, and leaning against the trunk of a tree, our hero spoke in the following terms: “I have gone over half the world; seen fraud and calumny triumphant; have only sought to do service to mankind, and I have been persecuted. A great king honors me with his favor and fifty blows. I arrive with a wooden leg in a very fine province; there I taste pleasures after having drunk deep of mortifications. An abbé comes; I protect him; he insinuates himself at court through my means, and I am obliged to kiss his feet. I meet with my poor Pangloss only to see him burned. I find myself in company with philosophers, the mildest and most sociable of all the species of animals that are spread over the face of the earth, and they give me an unmerciful drubbing. All must necessarily be for the best, since Pangloss has said it; but nevertheless I am the most wretched of all possible beings.” Here Candide stopped short to listen to the cries of distress which seemed to come from a place near him. He stepped forward out of curiosity, when he beheld a young woman who was tearing her hair as if in the greatest despair. “Whoever you are,” said she to him, “if you have a heart, follow me.” He went with her, but they had not gone many paces before Candide perceived a man and a woman stretched out on the grass. Their faces declared the nobleness of their souls and origin; their features, though distorted by pain, had something so interesting that Candide could not forbear informing himself with a lively eagerness about the cause which reduced them to so miserable a situation. “It is my father and mother whom you see,” explained the young woman; “yes, these are the authors of my wretched being,” continued she, throwing herself into their arms. “They fled to avoid the rigor of an unjust sentence; I accompanied them in their flight, happy to share in their misfortune, thinking that in the deserts where we were going to hide ourselves my feeble hands might procure them a necessary subsistence. We have stopped here to take some rest; I discovered that tree which you see, whose fruit has deceived me—alas! sir, I am a wretch to be detested by the world and myself. Arm your hand to avenge offended virtue, and to punish the parricide! Strike! This fruit I presented to my father and mother; they ate of it with pleasure; I rejoiced to have found the means of quenching the thirst with which they were tormented—unhappy wretch! it was death I presented to them; this fruit is poison.”

This tale made Candide shudder; his hair stood on end and a cold sweat ran over all his body. He was eager, as much as his present condition could permit, to give some relief to this unfortunate family; but the poison had already made too much progress; and the most efficacious remedies would not have been able to stop its fatal effect.

“Dear child, our only hope!” cried the two unhappy parents, “God pardon thee as we pardon thee; it was the excess of thy tenderness which has robbed us of our lives. Generous stranger, vouchsafe to take care of her; her heart is noble and formed to virtue; she is a trust which we leave in your hands that is infinitely more precious to us than our past fortune. Dear Zenoida, receive our last embraces; mingle thy tears with ours. Heavens! how happy are these moments to us! Thou hast opened to us the dreary cave in which we languished for forty years past. Tender Zenoida, we bless thee; mayest thou never forget the lessons which our prudence hath dictated to thee; and may they preserve thee from the abyss which we see ready to swallow thee.”

They expired as they pronounced these words. Candide had great difficulty to bring Zenoida to herself. The moon enlightened the affecting scene; the day appeared, and Zenoida, plunged in sorrow, had not as yet recovered the use of her senses. As soon as she opened her eyes she entreated Candide to dig a hole in the ground in order to inter the bodies; she assisted in the work with an astonishing courage. This duty fulfilled, she gave free scope to her tears. Our philosopher drew her from this fatal place; they travelled a long time without observing any certain route. At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress. These old people were such as Philemon and Baucis are described to us. For fifty years they had tasted the soft endearments of marriage, without ever experiencing its bitterness; an unimpaired health, the fruit of temperance and tranquillity of mind, mild and simple manners; a fund of inexhaustible candor in their character; all the virtues which man owes to himself, formed the glorious and only fortune which heaven had granted them. They were held in veneration in the neighboring villages, the inhabitants of which, full of a happy rusticity, might have passed for honest people, had they been Catholics. They looked upon it as a duty not to suffer Agaton and Sunama (for so the old couple were called) to want for anything. Their charity extended to the newcomers. “Alas!” said Candide, “it is a great loss, my dear Pangloss, that you were burned; you were master of sound reason; but yet in all the parts of Europe and Asia which I have travelled over in your company, everything is not for the best. It is only in El Dorado, whither no one can go, and in a little cottage situated in the coldest, most barren, and frightful region in the world. What pleasure should I have to hear you harangue about the pre-established harmony and monads! I should be very willing to pass my days among these honest Lutherans; but I must renounce going to mass, and resolve to be torn to pieces in the Journal Chrétien.”

Candide was very inquisitive to learn the adventures of Zenoida, but compassion withheld him from speaking to her about it; she perceived the respectful constraint he put upon himself, and satisfied his impatience in the following terms:

CHAPTER XIII.

the history of zenoida—how candide fell in love with her.

“I am come of one of the most ancient families in Denmark; one of my ancestors perished at that horrid feast which the wicked Christiern prepared for the destruction of so many senators. The riches and dignities with which our family has been distinguished have hitherto served only to make them more eminently unfortunate. My father had the presumption to displease a great man in power by boldly telling him the truth; he was presently accused by suborned witnesses of a number of crimes which had no foundation. His judges were deceived. Alas! where is that judge who can always discover those snares which envy and treachery lay for unguarded innocence? My father was sentenced to be beheaded. He had no way left to avoid his fate but by flight; accordingly he withdrew to the house of an old friend, whom he thought deserving of that truly noble appellation; we remained some time concealed in a castle belonging to him on the seaside; and we might have continued there to this day, had not the base wretch with whom we had taken refuge attempted to repay himself for the services rendered us in a manner that gave us all reason to detest him. This infamous monster had conceived a most unnatural passion for my mother and myself at the same time; he attempted our virtue by methods the most unworthy of a man of honor; and we were obliged to expose ourselves to the most dreadful dangers to avoid the effects of his brutal passion. In a word, we took to flight a second time, and you know the rest.”

In finishing this short narrative, Zenoida burst into tears afresh. Candide wiped them from her eyes, and said to her, by way of consolation, “Madam, everything is for the best; if your father had not died by poison he would infallibly have been discovered, and then his head would have been cut off. The good lady, your mother, would in all probability have died of grief, and we should not have been in this poor hut, where everything is as comfortable as in the finest of possible castles.” “Alas! sir,” replied Zenoida, “my father never told me that everything was for the best; but he has often said, ‘We are all children of the same divine father, who loves us, but who has not exempted us from sorrows, the most grievous maladies, and an innumerable tribe of miseries that afflict the human race. Poison grows by the side of the efficacious quinquina in America. The happiest of all mortals has some time or other shed tears. What we call life is a compound of pleasure and pain; it is the passing away of a certain stated portion of time that always appears too long in the sight of the wise man, and which every one ought to employ in doing good to the community in which he is placed; in the enjoyment of the works of Providence, without idly seeking after hidden causes; in squaring his conduct by the rules of conscience; and, above all, in showing a due respect to religion. Happy is he who can follow this unerringly!’

“These things my ever-respected father has frequently inculcated in me. ‘Ill betide those wretched scribblers,’ he would often say, ‘who attempt to pry into the hidden ways of Providence. From the principle that God will be honored from thousands of atoms, mankind has blended the most absurd chimeras with respectable truths. The Turkish dervish, the Persian brahmin, the Chinese bonze, and the Indian talapoin, all worship the Deity in a different manner; but they enjoy a tranquillity of soul amidst the darkness in which they are plunged; and he who would endeavor to enlighten them, does them but ill service. It is not loving mankind to tear the bandage of prejudice from their eyes.’ ”

“Why, you talk like a philosopher,” said Candide; “may I ask you, my pretty young lady, of what religion you are?” “I was brought up in the Lutheran profession,” answered Zenoida. “Every word you have spoken,” said Candide, “has been like a ray of light that has penetrated to my heart, and I find a sort of esteem and admiration for you, that—but how, in the name of wonder, came so bright an understanding to be lodged in so beautiful a form? Upon my word, Miss, I esteem and admire you, as I said before, so much that—” Candide stammered out a few words more, when Zenoida, perceiving his confusion, quitted him, and from that moment carefully avoided all occasions of being alone with him; and Candide, on his part, sought every opportunity of being alone with her, or else remained alone. He was buried in a melancholy that to him had charms; he was deeply enamored of Zenoida; but endeavored to conceal his passion from himself. His looks, however, too plainly evinced the feelings of his heart. “Alas!” would he often say to himself, “if Master Pangloss was here, he would give me good advice; for he was a great philosopher.”

CHAPTER XIV.

continuation of the loves of candide.

The only consolation that Candide felt was in conversing with Zenoida in the presence of their hosts. “How happens it,” said he to her one day, “that the monarch to whom you have access has suffered such injustice to be done to your family? Assuredly you have sufficient reason to hate him?” “How!” said Zenoida, “who can hate their king? who can do otherwise than love that person to whose hand is consigned the keen-edged sword of the laws? Kings are the living images of the Deity, and we ought never to arraign their conduct; obedience and respect is the duty of a subject.” “I admire you more and more,” said Candide; “indeed, madam, I do; pray, do you know the great Leibnitz, and the great Pangloss, who was burned, after having escaped a hanging? are you acquainted with the monads, the materia subtilis, and the vortices?” “No, sir,” replied Zenoida; “I never heard my father mention any of these; he only gave me a slight tincture of experimental philosophy, and taught me to hold in contempt all those kinds of philosophy that do not directly tend to make mankind happy; that give him false notions of his duty to himself and his neighbor; that do not teach him to regulate his conduct, and fill his mind only with uncouth terms, or ill-founded conjectures; that do not give him a clearer idea of the author of nature than what he may acquire from his works, and the wonders that are every day passing before our sight.” “Once again, Miss, you enchant me; you ravish me; you are an angel that heaven has sent to remove from before my eyes the mist of Master Pangloss’ sophistical arguments. Poor wretch that I was! After having been so heartily kicked, flogged, and bastinadoed; after having been in an earthquake; having seen Doctor Pangloss once hanged, and very lately burned; after having been outraged by a villainous Persian, who put me to the most excruciating torture; after having been robbed by a decree of the divan, and soundly drubbed by the philosophers; after all these things, I say, to think that everything was for the best! but now, thank heaven! I am disabused. But, truly speaking, nature never appeared half so charming to me as since I have been blessed with the sight of you. The melody of the rural choristers charms my ears with a harmony to which they were till now utter strangers; I breathe a new soul, and the glow of sentiment that enchants me seems imprinted on every object; I do not feel that effeminate languor which I did in the gardens of Sus; the sensation with which you inspire me is wholly different.” “Let us stop here,” said Zenoida; “you seem to be running to lengths that may, perhaps, offend my delicacy, which you ought to respect.” “I will be silent, then,” said Candide; “but my passion will only burn with the more force.” On saying these words, he looked steadfastly at Zenoida; he perceived that she blushed, and, as a man who was taught by experience, conceived the most flattering hopes from those appearances.

The beautiful Dane continued a long time to shun the presence of Candide. One day, as he was walking hastily to and fro in the garden, he cried out in an amorous ecstasy, “Ah! why have I not now my El Dorado sheep! why have I not the power to purchase a small kingdom! ah! were I but a king!” “What should I be to you?” said a voice which pierced the heart of our philosopher. “Is it you, lovely Zenoida?” cried he, falling on his knees. “I thought myself alone. The few words I heard you just now utter seem to promise me the felicity to which my soul aspires. I shall, in all probability, never be a king, nor ever possessed of a fortune; but, if you love me—do not turn from me those lovely eyes, but suffer me to read in them a declaration which is alone capable of confirming my happiness. Beauteous Zenoida, I adore you; let your heart be open to compassion—what do I see! you weep! Ah! my happiness is too great.” “Yes, you are happy,” said Zenoida; “nothing can oblige me to disguise my tenderness for a person I think deserving of it: hitherto you have been attached to my destiny only by the bands of humanity; it is now time to strengthen those by ties most sacred; I have consulted my heart, reflect maturely in your turn; but remember, that if you marry me, you become obliged to be my protector; to share with me those misfortunes that fate may yet have in store for me, and to soothe my sorrows.” “Marry you!” said Candide; “those words have shown me all the folly of my conduct. Alas! dear idol of my soul, I am not deserving of the goodness you show towards me. Cunegund is still living—” “Cunegund! who is that?” “She is my wife,” answered Candide, with his usual frankness.

Our two lovers remained some moments without uttering a word; they attempted to speak, but the accents died away on their lips; their eyes were bathed in tears. Candide held the fair Zenoida’s hands in his; he pressed them to his breast, and devoured them with kisses; he had even the boldness to carry his to the bosom of his mistress; he found her breath grew short; his soul flew to his lips, and fixing his mouth with ardor to that of Zenoida, he brought the fair one back to those senses which she had nearly lost. Candide thought he read his pardon in her eyes. “Dearest lover,” said she to him, “anger would but ill suit with the liberty which I myself have given. Yet hold, you will ruin me in the opinion of the world; and you yourself would soon cease to have an affection for me, when once I was become the object of contempt. Forbear, therefore, and spare my weakness.” “How!” cried Candide, “because the ill-judging vulgar say that a woman loses her honor by bestowing happiness on a being whom she loves, by following the tender bent of nature, that in the first happy ages of the world—” But I will forbear to relate the whole of the interesting conversation, and content myself with saying that the eloquence of Candide, heightened by the warmth of amorous expression, had all the effect that may be imagined on a young, sensible, female philosopher.

The lovers, who till then had passed their days in tedious melancholy, now counted every hour by a fresh succession of amorous joys. Pleasure flowed through their veins in an uninterrupted current. The gloomy woods, the barren mountains, surrounded by horrid precipices, the icy plains and dreary fields, covered with snow on all sides, were so many continual mementoes to them of the necessity of loving. They determined never to quit that dreadful solitude, but fate was not yet weary of persecuting them, as we shall see in the ensuing chapter.

CHAPTER XV.

the arrival of wolhall—a journey to copenhagen.

Candide and Zenoida amused themselves with discoursing on the works of the Deity, the worship which mankind ought to pay Him, the mutual duties they owe to each other, especially that of charity, the most useful of all virtues. They did not confine themselves to frivolous declamations. Candide taught the young men the respect due to the sacred restraints of the laws; Zenoida instructed the young women in the duties they owed their parents; both joined their endeavors to sow the hopeful seeds of religion in their young hearts. One day, as they were busied in those pious offices, Sunama came to tell Zenoida that an old gentleman with several servants was just alighted at their house; and that, by the description he had given her of a person of whom he was in search, she was certain it could be no other than Zenoida herself. This stranger had followed Sunama close at her heels, and entered, before she had done speaking, into the room where were Candide and Zenoida.

At sight of him Zenoida instantly fainted away; but Wolhall, not in the least affected with the condition he saw her in, took hold of her hand, and, pulling her to him, with violence, brought her to her senses; which she had no sooner recovered than she burst into a flood of tears. “So, niece,” said he, with a sarcastic smile, “I find you in very good company. I do not wonder you prefer this habitation to the capital, to my house, and the company of your family.” “Yes, sir,” replied Zenoida, “I do prefer this place, where dwell simplicity and truth, to the mansions of treason and imposture. I can never behold but with horror that place where first began my misfortunes; where I have had so many proofs of your black actions, and where I have no other relative but yourself.” “Come, madam,” said Wolhall, “follow me, if you please; for you must accompany me, even if you should faint again.” Saying this, he dragged her to the door of the house, and made her get into a post-chaise, which was waiting for him. She had only time to tell Candide to follow, and to bestow her blessing on her hosts, with promises of rewarding them amply for their generous cares.

A domestic of Wolhall was moved with pity at the grief in which he saw Candide plunged; he imagined that he felt no other concern for the fair Dane than what unfortunate virtue inspires: he proposed to him taking a journey to Copenhagen, and he facilitated the means for his doing it. He did more; he insinuated to him that he might be admitted as one of Wolhall’s domestics, if he had no other resources than going to service. Candide liked his proposal; and had no sooner arrived than his future fellow-servant presented him as one of his relatives, for whom he would be answerable. “Rascal,” said Wolhall to him, “I consent to grant you the honor of approaching a person of such rank as I am: never forget the profound respect which you owe to my commands; execute them if you have sufficient sagacity for it: think that a man like me degrades himself in speaking to a wretch such as you.” Our philosopher answered with great humility to this impertinent discourse; and from that day he was clad in his master’s livery.

It is easy to imagine the joy and surprise that Zenoida felt when she recognized her lover among her uncle’s servants. She threw several opportunities in the way of Candide, who knew how to profit by them: they swore eternal constancy. Zenoida had some unhappy moments. She sometimes reproached herself on account of her love for Candide; she vexed him sometimes by a few caprices: but Candide idolized her; he knew that perfection is not the portion of man, and still less so of woman. Zenoida resumed her good humor. The kind of constraint under which they lay rendered their pleasures the more lively; they were still happy.

CHAPTER XVI.

how candide found his wife again and lost his mistress.

Our hero had only to bear with the haughty humors of his master, and that was purchasing his mistress’ favors at no dear rate. Happy love is not so easily concealed as many imagine. Our lovers betrayed themselves. Their connection was no longer a mystery, but to the short-sighted eyes of Wolhall; all the domestics knew it. Candide received congratulations on that head which made him tremble; he expected the storm ready to burst upon his head, and did not doubt but a person who had been dear to him was upon the point of accelerating his misfortune. He had for some days perceived a face resembling Miss Cunegund; he again saw the same face in Wolhall’s courtyard: the object which struck him was poorly clothed, and there was no likelihood that a favorite of a great Mahometan should be found in the courtyard of a house at Copenhagen. This disagreeable object, however, looked at Candide very attentively: when, coming up to him, and seizing him by the hair, she gave him the smartest blow on the face with her open hand that he had received for some time. “I am not deceived!” cried our philosopher. “O, heavens! who would have thought it? what do you do here, after having suffered yourself to be violated by a follower of Mahomet? Go, perfidious spouse, I know you not.” “Thou shalt know me,” replied Cunegund, “by my outrageous fury. I know the life thou leadest, thy love for thy master’s niece, and thy contempt for me. Alas! it is now three months since I quitted the seraglio, because I was there good for nothing further. A merchant has bought me to mend his linen, he takes me along with him when he makes a voyage to this country; Martin, Cacambo, and Pacquette, whom he has also bought, are with me; Doctor Pangloss, through the greatest chance in the world, was in the same vessel as a passenger; we were shipwrecked some miles from here; I escaped the danger with the faithful Cacambo, who, I swear to thee, has a skin as firm as thy own: I behold thee again, and find thee false. Tremble then, and fear everything from a provoked wife.”

Candide was quite stupefied at this affecting scene; he had suffered Cunegund to depart, without thinking of the proper measures which are always to be taken with those who know our secrets, when Cacambo presented himself to his sight. They embraced each other with tenderness. Candide informed him of the conversation he had just had; he was very much affected by the loss of the great Pangloss, who, after having been hanged and burned, was at last unhappily drowned. They spoke with that free effusion of heart which friendship inspires. A little billet thrown in at the window by Zenoida put an end to the conversation. Candide opened it, and found in it these words:

“Fly, my dear lover, all is discovered. An innocent propensity which nature authorizes, and which hurts no one, is a crime in the eyes of credulous and cruel men. Wolhall has just left my chamber, and has treated me with the utmost inhumanity: he is gone to obtain an order for thee to be clapped into a dungeon, there to perish. Fly, my ever dear lover; preserve a life which thou canst not pass any longer near me. Those happy moments are no more, in which we gave proofs of our reciprocal tenderness. Ah! my beloved, how hast thou offended heaven, to merit so harsh a fate? But I wander from the purpose: remember always thy precious, dear Zenoida, and thou, my dear lover, shalt live eternally within my heart—thou hast never thoroughly understood how much I loved thee—canst thou receive upon my inflamed lips my last adieu! I find myself ready to join my unhappy father in the grave; the light is hateful to me; it serves only to reveal crimes.”

Cacambo, always wise and prudent, drew Candide, who no longer was himself, along with him; they made the best of their way out of the city. Candide opened not his mouth, and they were already a good way from Copenhagen, before he was roused from that lethargy in which he was buried. At last he looked at his faithful Cacambo, and spoke in these terms:

CHAPTER XVII.

how candide had a mind to kill himself, and did not do it—what happened to him at an inn.

“Dear Cacambo, formerly my valet, now my equal, and always my friend, thou hast borne a share in my misfortunes; thou hast given me salutary advice; and thou hast been witness to my love for Miss Cunegund—” “Alas! my old master,” said Cacambo, “it is she who has served you this scurvy trick; it is she who, after having learned from your fellow-servants, that your love for Zenoida was as great as hers for you, revealed the whole to the barbarous Wolhall.” “If this is so,” said Candide, “I have nothing further to do but die.” Our philosopher pulled out of his pocket a little knife, and began whetting it with a coolness worthy of an ancient Roman or an Englishman. “What do you mean to do?” cried Cacambo. “To cut my throat,” answered Candide. “A most noble thought!” replied Cacambo; “but the philosopher ought not to take any resolution but upon reflection: you will always have it in your power to kill yourself, if your mind does not alter. Be advised by me, my dear master; defer your resolution till to-morrow; the longer you delay it, the more courageous will the action be.” “I perceive the strength of thy reasoning,” said Candide; “besides, if I should cut my throat immediately, the Gazetteer of Trévoux would insult my memory: I am determined, therefore, that I will not kill myself till two or three days hence.” As they talked thus they arrived at Elsinore, a pretty considerable town, not far from Copenhagen; there they lay that night, and Cacambo hugged himself for the good effect which sleep had produced upon Candide. They left the town at daybreak. Candide, still the philosopher, (for the prejudices of childhood are never effaced) entertained his friend Cacambo on the subject of physical good and evil, the discourses of the sage Zenoida, and the striking truths which he had learned from her conversation. “Had not Pangloss been dead,” said he, “I should combat his system in a victorious manner. God keep me from becoming a Manichæan. My mistress taught me to respect the impenetrable veil with which the Deity envelopes His manner of operating upon us. It is perhaps man who precipitates himself into the abyss of misfortunes under which he groans. From a frugivorous animal he has made himself a carnivorous one. The savages whom we have seen, eat only Jesuits, and do not live upon bad terms among themselves. These savages, if there be one scattered here and there in the woods, only subsisting on acorns and herbs, are, without doubt, still more happy. Society has given birth to the greatest crimes. There are men in society, who are necessitated by their condition to wish the death of others. The shipwreck of a vessel, the burning of a house, and the loss of a battle, cause sadness in one part of society, and give joy to another. All is very bad! my dear Cacambo, and there is nothing left for a philosopher but to cut his own throat with all imaginable calmness.” “You are in the right,” answered Cacambo; “but I perceive an inn; you must be very dry. Come, my old master! let us drink one draught, and we will after that continue our philosophical disquisitions.”

When they entered the inn they saw a company of country lads and lassies dancing in the midst of the yard, to the sound of some wretched instruments. Gayety and mirth sat in every countenance; it was a scene worthy the pencil of Watteau. As soon as Candide appeared a young woman took him by the hand, and entreated him to dance. “My pretty maid,” answered Candide, “when a person has lost his mistress, found his wife again, and heard that the great Pangloss is dead, he can have little or no inclination to cut capers. Moreover, I am to kill myself to-morrow morning; and you know that a man who has but a few hours to live, ought not to lose them in dancing.” Cacambo, hearing Candide talk thus, addressed him in these terms: “A thirst for glory has always been the characteristic of great philosophers. Cato of Utica killed himself after having taken a sound nap. Socrates drank the hemlock potion, after discoursing familiarly with his friends. Many of the English have blown their brains out with a pistol, after coming from an entertainment. But I never yet heard of a great man who cut his own throat after a dancing bout. It is for you, my dear master, that this honor is reserved. Take my advice, let us dance our fill, and we will kill ourselves to-morrow.” “Have you not remarked,” answered Candide, “this young country girl? Is she not a very pretty brunette?” “She has something very taking in her countenance,” said Cacambo. “She has squeezed my hand,” replied the philosopher. “Did you notice,” said Cacambo, “how that in the hurry of the dance, her handkerchief falling aside, disclosed two admirable little rosebuds? I took particular notice of them.” “Look you,” said Candide, “had I not my heart filled with Miss Zenoida—.” The little brunette interrupted him, by begging him to take one dance with her. Our hero at length consented, and danced with the best grace in the world. The dance finished, he kissed his smart country girl, and retired to his seat, without calling out the queen of the ring. Upon this a murmuring arose; everyone, performers as well as spectators, appeared greatly incensed at so flagrant a piece of disrespect. Candide never dreamed he had been guilty of any fault, and consequently did not attempt to make any reparation. A rude clown came up to him, and gave him a blow with his fist upon the nose. Cacambo returned it to the peasant with a kick in the belly. In an instant the musical instruments were all broken, the girls lost their caps; Candide and Cacambo fought like heroes, but at length were obliged to take to their heels, after a very hearty drubbing.

“Everything is embittered to me,” said Candide, giving his arm to his friend Cacambo; “I have experienced a great many misfortunes, but I did not expect to be thus beaten to a mummy for dancing with a country girl at her own request.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

candide and cacambo go into a hospital—whom they meet there.

Cacambo and his old master were quite dispirited. They began to fall into that sort of malady of the mind which extinguishes all the faculties. They fell into a depression of spirits and despair, when they perceived a hospital which was built for strangers. Cacambo proposed going into it; Candide followed him. There they met with the most obliging reception, and charitable treatment. In a little time they were cured of their wounds, but they caught the itch. The cure of this malady did not appear to be the work of a day, the idea of which filled the eyes of our philosopher with tears; and he said, scratching himself, “Thou wouldst not let me cut my throat, my dear Cacambo; thy unwise counsels have brought me again into disgrace and misfortune; and yet, should I cut my throat now, it will be published in the journal of Trévoux, and it will be said this man was a poltroon, who killed himself only for having the itch. See what thou hast exposed me to, by the mistaken compassion thou hadst for my fate.” “Our disasters are not without remedy,” answered Cacambo. “If you will but please to listen to me. Let us settle here as friars; I understand a little surgery, and I promise you to alleviate and render supportable our wretched condition.” “Ah!” cried Candide, “may all asses perish, and especially asses of surgeons, who are so dangerous to mankind. I will never suffer that thou shouldst give out thyself to be what thou art not: this is a treachery, the consequences of which I dread. Besides, if thou didst but conceive how hard it is, after having been viceroy of a fine province, after having seen myself rich enough to purchase kingdoms, and after having been the favorite lover of Zenoida, to resolve to serve in quality of friar in a hospital.” “I concede all that you say,” replied Cacambo; “but I also realize that it is very hard to die of hunger. Think, moreover, that the expedient which I propose to you is perhaps the only one which you can take to elude the inquiries of the bloody-minded Wolhall, and avoid the punishment which he is preparing for you.”

One of the friars was passing along as they talked in this manner. They put some questions to him, to which he gave satisfactory answers: he assured them that the brothers wanted for nothing, and enjoyed a reasonable liberty. Candide thereupon determined to acquiesce in Cacambo’s counsels. They took the habit together, which was granted them upon the first application; and our two poor adventurers now became underlings to those whose duty it was to perform the most servile offices.

One day, as Candide was serving the patients with some wretched broth, an old man fixed his eye earnestly upon him. The visage of this poor wretch was livid, his lips were covered with froth, his eyes half turned in his head, and the image of death strongly imprinted on his lean and sunken cheeks. “Poor man,” said Candide to him, “I pity you; your sufferings must be horrible.” “They are very great indeed,” answered the old man, with a hollow voice like a ghost; “I am told that I am hectic, phthisicky, asthmatic, and poxed to the bone. If that be the case, I am indeed very ill; yet all does not go so badly, and this gives me comfort.” “Ah!” exclaimed Candide, “none but Dr. Pangloss, in a case so deplorable, can maintain the doctrine of optimism, when all others besides would preach up pessim—” “Do not pronounce that abominable word,” cried the poor man; “I am the Pangloss you speak of. Wretch that I am, let me die in peace. All is well, all is for the best.” The effort which he made in pronouncing these words cost him the last tooth, which he spit out with a great quantity of corrupted matter, and expired a few moments after.

Candide lamented him greatly, for he had a good heart. His obstinate perseverance was a source of reflection to our philosopher; he often called to mind all his adventures. Cunegund remained at Copenhagen; Candide learned that she exercised there the occupation of a mender of old clothes, with all possible distinction. The humor of travelling had quite left him. The faithful Cacambo supported him with his counsels and friendship. Candide did not murmur against Providence. “I know,” said he, at times, “that happiness is not the portion of man; happiness dwells only in the good country of El Dorado, where it is impossible for anyone to go.”

CHAPTER XIX.

new discoveries.

Candide was not so unhappy, as he had a true friend. He found in a mongrel valet what the world vainly looks for in our quarter of the globe. Perhaps nature, which gives origin to herbs in America that are proper for the maladies of bodies on our continent, has also placed remedies there for the maladies of our hearts and minds. Possibly there are men in the new world of a quite different conformation from us, who are not slaves to personal interests, and are worthy to burn with the noble fire of friendship. How desirable would it be, that instead of bales of indigo and cochineal, all covered with blood, some of these men were imported among us! This sort of traffic would be of vast advantage to mankind. Cacambo was of greater value to Candide than a dozen of red sheep loaded with the pebbles of El Dorado. Our philosopher began again to taste the pleasure of life. It was a comfort to him to watch for the conservation of the human species, and not to be a useless member of society. God blessed such pure intentions, by giving him, as well as Cacambo, the enjoyment of health. They had got rid of the itch, and fulfilled with cheerfulness the painful functions of their station; but fortune soon deprived them of the security which they enjoyed. Cunegund, who had set her heart upon tormenting her husband, left Copenhagen to follow his footsteps. Chance brought her to the hospital; she was accompanied by a man, whom Candide knew to be Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh. One may easily imagine what must have been his surprise. The baron, who saw him, addressed him thus: “I did not tug long at the oar in the Turkish galleys; the Jesuits heard of my misfortune, and redeemed me for the honor of their society. I have made a journey into Germany, where I received some favors from my father’s heirs. I omitted nothing to find my sister; and having learned at Constantinople, that she had sailed from there in a vessel which was shipwrecked on the coasts of Denmark, I disguised myself, took letters of recommendation to Danish merchants, who have correspondence with the society, and, in fine, I found my sister, who still loves you, base and unworthy as you are of her regard; and since you have had the impudence to lie with her, I consent to the ratification of the marriage, or rather a new celebration of it, with this express proviso, that my sister shall give you only her left hand; which is very reasonable, since she has seventy-one quarters, and you have never a one.” “Alas!” said Candide, “all the quarters of the world without beauty—Miss Cunegund was very ugly when I had the imprudence to marry her; she afterwards became handsome again, and another has enjoyed her charms. She is once more grown ugly, and you would have me give her my hand a second time. No, upon my word, my reverend father, send her back to her seraglio at Constantinople; she has done me too much injury in this country.” “Ungrateful man,” screamed Cunegund, with the most frightful contortions; “be persuaded, and relent in time; do not provoke the baron, who is a priest, to kill us both, to wipe out his disgrace with our blood. Dost thou believe me capable of having failed in intention to the fidelity which I owed thee? What wouldst thou have had me do against a man who found me handsome? Neither my tears nor my cries could have softened his brutal insensibility. Seeing there was nothing to be done, I disposed myself in such a manner as to be violated with the least brutality possible, and every other woman would have done the same. This is all the crime I have committed, and does not merit thy displeasure. But I know my greatest crime with thee is having deprived thee of thy mistress; and yet this action ought to convince thee of my love. Come, my dear spouse, if ever I should again become handsome; if ever my breasts, now lank and withered, should recover their roundness and elasticity; if—it will be only for thee, my dear Candide. We are no longer in Turkey, and I swear faithfully to thee never to suffer any violation for the future.”

This discourse did not make much impression upon Candide; he desired a few hours to make his resolution how to proceed. The baron granted him two hours; during which time he consulted his friend Cacambo. After having weighed the reasons, pro and contra, they determined to follow the Jesuit and his sister into Germany. They accordingly left the hospital and set out together on their travels, not on foot, but on good horses hired by the baron. They arrived on the frontiers of the kingdom. A huge man, of a very villainous aspect, surveyed our hero with close attention. “It is the very man,” said he, casting his eyes at the same time upon a little bit of paper he had in his hand. “Sir, if I am not too inquisitive, is not your name Candide?” “Yes, sir, so I have always been called.” “Sir, I flatter myself you are the very same; you have black eyebrows, eyes level with your head, ears not prominent, of a middling size, and a round, flesh-colored visage; to me you plainly appear to be five feet five inches high.” “Yes, sir, that is my stature; but what have you to do with my ears and stature?” “Sir, we cannot use too much circumspection in our office. Permit me further to put one single question more to you: Have you not formerly been a servant to Lord Wolhall?” “Sir, upon my word,” answered Candide, quite disconcerted, “I know nothing of what you mean.” “Maybe so, sir, but I know for certain that you are the person whose description has been sent me. Take the trouble then to walk into the guard-house, if you please. Here, soldiers, take care of this gentleman; get the black hole ready, and let the armorer be sent for, to make him a pretty little set of fetters of about thirty or forty pounds weight. Mr. Candide, you have a good horse there; I am in want of such a one, and I fancy he will answer my purpose. I shall make free with him.”

The baron was afraid to say the horse was his. They carried off poor Candide, and Miss Cunegund wept for a whole quarter of an hour. The Jesuit seemed perfectly unconcerned at this accident. “I should have been obliged to have killed him, or to have made him marry you over again,” said he to his sister; “and all things considered, what has just happened is much the best for the honor of our family.” Cunegund departed with her brother, and only the faithful Cacambo remained, who would not forsake his friend.

CHAPTER XX.

consequence of candide’s misfortune—how he found his mistress again—the fortune that happened to him.

“O Pangloss,” said Candide, “what a pity it is you perished so miserably! You have been witness only to a part of my misfortunes; and I had hoped to prevail on you to forsake the ill-founded opinion which you maintained to your last breath. No man ever suffered greater calamities than I have done; but there is not a single individual who has not cursed his existence, as the daughter of Pope Urban warmly expressed herself. What will become of me, my dear Cacambo?” “Faith, I cannot tell,” said Cacambo; “all I know is, that I will not forsake you.” “But Miss Cunegund has forsaken me,” said Candide. “Alas! a wife is of far less value than a menial servant who is a true friend.”

Candide and Cacambo discoursed thus in the black hole. From there they were taken out to be carried back to Copenhagen. It was there that our philosopher was to know his doom: he expected it to be dreadful, and our readers, doubtless, expect so, too; but Candide was mistaken, as our readers will be, likewise. It was at Copenhagen that happiness waited to crown all his sufferings: he was hardly arrived, when he understood that Wolhall was dead. This barbarian had no one to regret him, while everybody interested themselves in Candide. His irons were knocked off, and his freedom gave him so much the more joy as it was immediately followed by the sight of his dear Zenoida. He flew to her with the utmost transport. They were a long time without speaking a word; but their silence was infinitely more expressive than words. They wept, they embraced each other, they attempted to speak, but tears stopped their utterance. Cacambo was a pleased spectator of this scene, so truly interesting to a sensible being; he shared in the happiness of his friend, and was almost as much affected as Candide himself. “Dear Cacambo! adorable Zenoida!” cried Candide; “you efface from my heart the deep traces of my misfortunes. Love and friendship prepare for me future days of serenity and uninterrupted delight. Through what a number of trials have I passed to arrive at this unexpected happiness! But they are all forgot, dear Zenoida; I behold you once more! you love me; everything is for the best in regard to me; all is good in nature.”

By Wolhall’s death, Zenoida was left at her own disposal. The court had given her a pension out of her father’s fortune which had been confiscated; she shared it with Candide and Cacambo; she appointed them apartments in her own house, and gave out that she had received several considerable services from these two strangers, which obliged her to procure them all the comforts and pleasures of life, and to repair the injustice which fortune had done them. There were some who saw through the motive of her beneficence; which was no very hard matter to do, considering the great talk her connection with Candide had formerly occasioned. The greater part blamed her, and her conduct was only approved by some few who knew how to reflect. Zenoida, who set a proper value on the good opinion even of fools, was nevertheless too happy to repent the loss of it. The news of the death of Miss Cunegund, which was brought by the correspondents of the Jesuit merchants in Copenhagen, procured Zenoida the means of conciliating the minds of people. She ordered a genealogy to be drawn up for Candide. The author, who was a man of ability in his way, derived his pedigree from one of the most ancient families in Europe; he even pretended his true name was Canute, which was that of one of the former kings of Denmark; which appeared very probable, as “dide” into “ute” is not such a great metamorphosis: and Candide by means of this little change, became a very great lord. He married Zenoida in public; they lived with as much tranquillity as it is possible to do. Cacambo was their common friend; and Candide said often, “All is not so well as in El Dorado; but all does not go so badly.”

[* ]If this would induce philosophers who lose their time in barking in Procopius’s cottage, to take a short trip into Persia, this frivolous work would be of great service to messieurs the Parisians.—Ralph.

[* ]There never was a bell in any mosque since the beginning of the world. This little impropriety puts us in mind of the puppet show in Don Quixote, in which the showman having introduced bells in the city of Saragossa, while it was in possession of the Moors, the knight very gravely assures master Peter he must be mistaken; porque entre Moros no se usan campanas (for bells are never used among the Moors).