1759 2026
This is an AI modernization of Candide into contemporary English. The original is available on Project Gutenberg. A beautiful edition of the original is available from Standard Ebooks.
In a castle in Westphalia, belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, there lived a young man blessed with the sweetest disposition you ever saw. His face was a perfect mirror of his soul. He had solid judgment combined with a total lack of guile, which is why, I believe, everyone called him Candide. The old servants of the household had long suspected he was actually the son of the Baron's sister by a decent, respectable gentleman from the neighborhood — a man the young lady had flatly refused to marry because he could only prove seventy-one noble ancestors on his coat of arms. The rest of his family tree had been lost to the ravages of time.
The Baron was one of the most powerful lords in all of Westphalia, because his castle had not only a gate but also windows. His great hall was even decorated with tapestries. The dogs in his farmyard could double as a hunting pack when needed; his stable boys served as his huntsmen; and the village priest was his personal chaplain. They all called him "My Lord" and laughed at all his jokes.
The Baroness weighed roughly three hundred and fifty pounds, which naturally made her a person of enormous importance. She presided over the household with a dignity that commanded even greater respect. Her daughter Cunegonde was seventeen, rosy-cheeked, good-looking, plump, and thoroughly appealing. The Baron's son appeared to be worthy of his father in every possible way. The tutor Pangloss — whose name literally means "all tongue" — was the oracle of the family, and young Candide absorbed his lessons with all the innocent trust that his age and character could provide.
Pangloss was the professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. He proved brilliantly that there is no effect without a cause, and that in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of all castles and the Baroness the best of all possible Baronesses.
"It's perfectly obvious," he said, "that things could not possibly be any different than they are. Since everything was created for a purpose, everything is necessarily created for the best possible purpose. Notice that noses were designed to support spectacles — and so we have spectacles. Legs were clearly made to wear stockings — and so we have stockings. Stones were formed to be carved and used to build castles — and therefore my lord has a magnificent castle, because the greatest baron in the province naturally deserves the finest house. Pigs were made to be eaten — and therefore we eat pork year-round. And so, those who have said that 'all is well' were talking nonsense. What they should have said is that all is for the best."
Candide listened carefully and believed every word, because he thought Miss Cunegonde was extremely beautiful, though he never quite worked up the nerve to tell her so. He figured that after the supreme happiness of being born Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, the second-greatest happiness in the world was being Miss Cunegonde, the third was seeing her every day, and the fourth was listening to Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher in the entire province — and therefore the greatest in the entire world.
One day, Cunegonde was taking a walk near the castle in the little wood they generously called "the park" when she spotted something through the bushes: Dr. Pangloss was giving a private lesson in experimental natural philosophy to her mother's chambermaid, a petite brunette who was very pretty and very eager to learn. Since Miss Cunegonde had a tremendous aptitude for the sciences, she watched breathlessly as the Doctor conducted his repeated experiments. She clearly grasped the force of his reasoning, the effects, and the causes. She hurried away, thoroughly flushed, deeply thoughtful, and burning with the desire to be educated herself — imagining that she might very well serve as a sufficient reason for young Candide, and he for her.
She ran into Candide on her way back to the castle. She blushed. Candide blushed too. She stammered a hello. Candide said something back without having the faintest idea what it was. The next day, after dinner, as everyone was leaving the table, Cunegonde and Candide found themselves behind a screen. Cunegonde dropped her handkerchief. Candide picked it up. She innocently took him by the hand. He innocently kissed her hand with remarkable energy, tenderness, and grace. Their lips met. Their eyes sparkled. Their knees trembled. Their hands wandered.
Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh happened to walk past the screen, and upon witnessing this particular demonstration of cause and effect, he kicked Candide out of the castle with several vigorous boots to the backside. Cunegonde fainted. The Baroness slapped her across the face the moment she came to. And there was general chaos in the most magnificent and most delightful of all possible castles.
Candide, driven out of his earthly paradise, walked for a long time without knowing where he was going — weeping, raising his eyes to heaven, and turning them back again and again toward the most magnificent of castles, which held the purest of noble young ladies. He lay down to sleep without supper in the middle of a field, between two furrows. Snow fell in fat flakes. The next day, frozen stiff, Candide dragged himself toward the nearest town, which was called Waldberghofftrarbk-dikdorff. He had no money and was dying of hunger and exhaustion. He stopped miserably at the door of an inn. Two men dressed in blue noticed him.
"Hey, comrade," said one, "there's a well-built young fellow, and just the right height."
They walked up to Candide and very politely invited him to dinner.
"Gentlemen," Candide replied, with the most charming modesty, "you do me a great honor, but I don't have the money to pay my share."
"Oh, sir," said one of the men in blue, "people of your appearance and your merit never pay for anything. Aren't you five foot five?"
"Yes, sir, that's my height," he answered, with a low bow.
"Come, sit down! Not only will we cover your tab, but we'll make sure a man like you never lacks for money. After all, men were only born to help one another."
"You're absolutely right," said Candide. "That's exactly what Dr. Pangloss always taught me, and I can see clearly that all is for the best."
They asked him to accept a few crowns. He took them and tried to write them an IOU; they refused it. Everyone sat down at the table.
"Tell us — do you not deeply love...?"
"Oh, yes," Candide answered. "I deeply love Miss Cunegonde."
"No," said one of the gentlemen, "we're asking whether you deeply love the King of the Bulgarians."
"Not at all," said Candide. "I've never even met him."
"What! He's the finest king in the world, and we must drink to his health."
"Oh, gladly, gentlemen!" And he drank.
"That's all we needed," they told him. "You are now the support, the defender, the hero of the Bulgarians. Your fortune is made and your glory is guaranteed."
They immediately clapped him in irons and marched him off to the regiment. There he was drilled in right-face, left-face, draw the ramrod, return the ramrod, present arms, fire, and march — and they gave him thirty blows with a stick. The next day he performed his drills a little less badly and received only twenty blows. The day after that, they gave him just ten, and his fellow soldiers regarded him as a prodigy.
Candide, completely dazed, couldn't quite figure out how he'd become a hero. One fine spring day he decided to go for a walk, marching straight ahead, on the assumption that using your own legs however you pleased was a basic right shared by humans and animals alike. He hadn't gone two leagues before four other heroes — each six feet tall — caught up with him, bound him, and dragged him to a dungeon. He was asked which he'd prefer: to be flogged thirty-six times by the entire regiment, or to receive twelve bullets in his brain all at once. He protested that the human will is free and that he chose neither option. But they forced him to make a choice, so he decided, exercising that gift of God called free will, to run the gauntlet thirty-six times. He managed it twice. The regiment had two thousand men, which meant four thousand strokes — enough to lay bare every muscle and nerve from the back of his neck to his backside. As they were about to start a third round, Candide, unable to take any more, begged them as a special favor to just go ahead and shoot him. They granted his request. They blindfolded him and ordered him to kneel. At that exact moment, the King of the Bulgarians happened to pass by and inquired about the crime. Being a man of great insight, the King gathered from everything he heard about Candide that the prisoner was a young philosopher, profoundly ignorant of the ways of the world, and pardoned him with a mercy that would be praised in every newspaper and in every age to come.
A skilled army surgeon healed Candide in three weeks using ointments first prescribed by the ancient Greek physician Dioscorides. He'd already grown back a little skin and was able to walk when the King of the Bulgarians declared war on the King of the Abares.
There was never anything so splendid, so sharp, so brilliant, and so well-organized as those two armies. Trumpets, fifes, oboes, drums, and cannons made a music that Hell itself had never heard. First, the cannons knocked down about six thousand men on each side. Then the muskets swept from this best of all possible worlds nine or ten thousand scoundrels who cluttered up its surface. The bayonet also turned out to be a sufficient reason for the death of several thousand more. The grand total came to around thirty thousand souls. Candide, trembling like a philosopher, hid as best he could during this heroic slaughter.
Finally, while the two kings were each having a Te Deum sung in their respective camps — victory hymns for both sides, naturally — Candide decided to go somewhere else and think about cause and effect. He picked his way over heaps of the dead and dying, and came first to a neighboring village. It was in ashes — an Abare village that the Bulgarians had burned to the ground according to the rules of war. Here, old men riddled with wounds watched their wives die, clutching their children to their bloody breasts, throats slit before their eyes. There, young women who had been raped lay disemboweled and gasping their last. Others, half-burned in the flames, begged for someone to finish them off. The ground was littered with brains, severed arms, and legs.
Candide fled as fast as he could to another village. It belonged to the Bulgarians, and the Abare heroes had treated it exactly the same way. Candide, always walking over twitching limbs or through ruins, finally made it beyond the war zone with a little food in his knapsack and Miss Cunegonde always in his heart. His food ran out by the time he reached Holland, but he'd heard that everyone in that country was rich and that they were Christians, so he had no doubt they'd treat him as well as he'd been treated in the Baron's castle — before Miss Cunegonde's bright eyes had been the cause of his getting kicked out.
He begged for charity from several respectable-looking people, all of whom told him that if he kept this up, they'd lock him in a workhouse and teach him how to earn a living.
Next he approached a man who'd been lecturing a large crowd for a solid hour on the subject of charity. This orator looked at him sideways and said:
"What are you doing here? Are you for the good cause?"
"There can be no effect without a cause," Candide answered modestly. "Everything is necessarily linked together and arranged for the best. It was necessary that I be banished from Miss Cunegonde's presence, and that I then run the gauntlet, and now it's necessary that I beg for bread until I can learn to earn it. All of this couldn't be any other way."
"My friend," said the orator, "do you believe the Pope is the Antichrist?"
"I've never heard that one way or the other," replied Candide. "But whether he is or isn't, I need bread."
"You don't deserve to eat," said the other. "Get lost, you scoundrel! Get out of here, you wretch! Don't come near me ever again!"
The orator's wife, poking her head out of the window and spotting a man who wasn't sure whether the Pope was the Antichrist, dumped the contents of a full chamber pot on his head. Good heavens — the lengths to which religious zeal will drive some people!
A man who had never been baptized — a good Anabaptist named James — witnessed this cruel and humiliating treatment of a fellow human being, a featherless biped possessing a rational soul. He took Candide home, cleaned him up, gave him bread and beer, handed him two florins, and even offered to teach him the manufacture of those Persian-style fabrics they make in Holland. Candide, practically falling at his feet, cried:
"Dr. Pangloss was right — all is for the best in this world! Your incredible generosity moves me a thousand times more than the cruelty of that gentleman in the black coat and his wife."
The next day, while out for a walk, he came across a beggar covered in sores, his eyes half-rotted, the tip of his nose eaten away, his mouth twisted to one side, his teeth black, choking on every word, racked by a violent cough, and spitting out a tooth with every spasm.
Candide, moved more by compassion than by horror, gave this appalling beggar the two florins he'd received from the honest Anabaptist James. The wreck of a man stared at him intently, shed a few tears, and threw his arms around Candide's neck. Candide recoiled in disgust.
"Oh God," said one miserable creature to the other, "don't you recognize your dear Pangloss?"
"What? You — my dear teacher! You, in this horrible state? What happened to you? Why aren't you still in the most magnificent of castles? What's become of Miss Cunegonde — the pearl of young women, nature's masterpiece?"
"I'm too weak to stand," said Pangloss.
Candide immediately brought him to the Anabaptist's stable and gave him a crust of bread. As soon as Pangloss had recovered a little:
"Well?" said Candide. "Cunegonde?"
"She's dead," replied the other.
Candide fainted on the spot. His friend revived him with a little bad vinegar he happened to find in the stable. Candide opened his eyes again.
"Cunegonde is dead! Oh, best of all possible worlds, where are you now? But what illness did she die of? Was it from the grief of seeing her father kick me out of his magnificent castle?"
"No," said Pangloss. "She was gutted by Bulgarian soldiers after they'd raped her repeatedly. They bashed the Baron's head in when he tried to defend her. The Baroness was hacked to pieces. My poor student was given exactly the same treatment as his sister. As for the castle, not one stone was left standing on another — not a barn, not a sheep, not a duck, not a tree. But we got our revenge, because the Abares did the exact same thing to a neighboring estate that belonged to a Bulgarian lord."
At this account, Candide fainted again. When he came to, and had said everything that the occasion required, he asked about the cause and effect — and, more specifically, the sufficient reason — that had brought Pangloss to such a wretched state.
"Alas," said the other, "it was love. Love — the comfort of the human race, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all feeling beings — love, tender love."
"I know something about love," said Candide. "That ruler of hearts, that soul of our souls — but the most it ever cost me was one kiss and twenty kicks in the rear end. How could this beautiful cause produce such a hideous effect in you?"
Pangloss answered as follows: "My dear Candide, you remember Paquette — that pretty girl who waited on our noble Baroness? In her arms I tasted the joys of paradise, and those joys produced in me the hellish torments you now see consuming me. She was infected, and she may well be dead of it by now. Paquette received this gift from a very learned Franciscan friar, who had traced it back to its source: he'd gotten it from an old countess, who'd received it from a cavalry captain, who owed it to a marchioness, who'd caught it from a page, who'd gotten it from a Jesuit, who — when he was still a novice — had caught it in a direct line from one of the shipmates of Christopher Columbus. As for me, I won't be giving it to anyone. I'm dying."
"Pangloss!" cried Candide. "What an incredible chain of transmission! Isn't the Devil the root of the whole thing?"
"Not at all," replied the great man. "It was absolutely unavoidable — a necessary ingredient in the best of all possible worlds. Because if Columbus hadn't caught this disease on an island in the Americas — a disease that poisons the wellspring of life, that frequently prevents reproduction entirely, and that clearly runs counter to nature's grand design — well, then we wouldn't have chocolate or cochineal dye. It's also worth noting that on our continent, this affliction is like a religious controversy: confined to certain areas. The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, and the Japanese know nothing of it yet — but there's sufficient reason to believe they'll get acquainted with it in a few centuries. In the meantime, it's made marvelous progress among us, especially in those great armies made up of well-disciplined hired soldiers who decide the fate of nations. You can safely bet that when an army of thirty thousand men goes up against another of equal size, about twenty thousand on each side are infected."
"Amazing," said Candide. "But you need to get yourself cured."
"And how would I do that?" said Pangloss. "I haven't got a penny, my friend, and nowhere on the entire globe can you get a bloodletting or an enema without paying for it — or having someone pay for you."
These last words gave Candide an idea. He threw himself at the feet of the charitable Anabaptist James and painted such a moving picture of his friend's condition that the good man didn't hesitate to take Dr. Pangloss into his home and have him treated at his own expense. During the cure, Pangloss lost only an eye and an ear. He could write a clean hand and knew his arithmetic perfectly, so the Anabaptist James made him his bookkeeper. Two months later, when business required James to travel to Lisbon, he took the two philosophers along on his ship. The whole way there, Pangloss explained to him how everything in the world was arranged so that it couldn't possibly be any better. James was not convinced.
"It seems more likely to me," he said, "that human beings have somewhat corrupted their nature. They weren't born wolves, but they've become wolves. God didn't give them twenty-four-pound cannons or bayonets, yet they've manufactured cannons and bayonets to destroy each other. I could also mention bankruptcies, and the courts that seize bankrupt people's assets only to cheat their creditors."
"All that was absolutely necessary," replied the one-eyed doctor. "Individual misfortunes create the general good, so the more individual misfortunes there are, the greater the general good."
While he was making this argument, the sky went dark, winds blew from every direction, and the ship was hit by a terrifying storm — right within sight of the port of Lisbon.
Half the passengers were so wrecked by seasickness that they couldn't even register the danger they were in. The other half screamed and prayed. The sails were torn to shreds, the masts snapped, the hull split open. Everyone scrambled, but no one could hear and no one was in charge. The Anabaptist was up on deck, trying to help, when a savage sailor punched him hard and knocked him flat. But the force of his own blow sent the sailor tumbling headfirst overboard, where he caught on a piece of the broken mast. Good James rushed to help him, managed to haul him back up — and in the effort was thrown into the sea himself, right before the sailor's eyes. The sailor watched him drown without bothering to even glance his way. Candide ran to the rail and saw his benefactor surface one last time before being swallowed up by the waves forever. He was about to jump in after him when the philosopher Pangloss stopped him, demonstrating that the Bay of Lisbon had been formed specifically so that the Anabaptist could drown in it. While Pangloss was proving this a priori, the ship went down. Everyone perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brute of a sailor who'd let the good Anabaptist die. The villain swam easily to shore, while Pangloss and Candide drifted in on a plank.
Once they'd recovered a little, they walked toward Lisbon. They still had some money, and they hoped it would keep them from starving — now that they'd managed not to drown. They had barely entered the city, still mourning their benefactor, when they felt the ground shake beneath their feet. The sea rose and boiled in the harbor, smashing the ships at anchor to splinters. Whirlwinds of fire and ash swept through the streets and public squares. Buildings collapsed. Roofs crashed down onto foundations, and foundations crumbled to rubble. Thirty thousand people of every age and sex were crushed beneath the ruins. (This was the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, one of the deadliest natural disasters in European history.) The sailor whistled through his teeth, swore, and said there was loot to be had.
"What could possibly be the sufficient reason for this phenomenon?" said Pangloss.
"This is the end of the world!" cried Candide.
The sailor dashed into the ruins, risking death to find money. He found it, grabbed it, got drunk, and — once he'd slept it off — bought the favors of the first willing woman he came across amid the wreckage, the dying, and the dead. Pangloss tugged at his sleeve.
"My friend," he said, "this is not right. You're sinning against universal reason. Your timing is terrible."
"Blood and guts!" the sailor shot back. "I'm a sailor, born in Batavia. I've trampled on the crucifix four times on four different voyages to Japan" — Dutch traders were forced to step on Christian images to prove they weren't missionaries — "so to hell with your universal reason!"
Falling stones had wounded Candide. He lay in the street, half-buried in rubble.
"Please," he groaned to Pangloss, "get me some wine and oil. I'm dying."
"This earthquake is nothing new," Pangloss replied. "The city of Lima in South America had the exact same convulsions just last year. Same causes, same effects. There's certainly an underground vein of sulfur running all the way from Lima to Lisbon."
"That's very possible," said Candide, "but for the love of God, a little oil and wine."
"Possible?" said the philosopher. "I submit that the point can be rigorously demonstrated."
Candide passed out, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a nearby fountain. The next day, picking through the ruins, they found some food and managed to rebuild their strength a little. After that, they pitched in to help the other survivors. Some of the people they'd rescued gave them the best dinner that could be managed under the circumstances. True, the meal was grim, and the diners wept into their bread — but Pangloss consoled them, assuring them that things could not possibly be otherwise.
"Because," he said, "all that is, is for the best. If there's a volcano at Lisbon, it couldn't be anywhere else. It's impossible for things to be other than they are, because everything is as it should be."
A small man dressed in black — a Familiar of the Inquisition, which is to say an informer for the religious authorities — who was sitting nearby, politely interrupted him.
"So apparently, sir, you don't believe in original sin? Because if all is for the best, then there was no Fall and no punishment."
"I humbly beg Your Excellency's pardon," replied Pangloss, even more politely. "The Fall of man and the curse that followed necessarily entered into the design of the best of all possible worlds."
"Then you don't believe in free will?" said the Familiar.
"Your Excellency will forgive me," said Pangloss, "but free will is perfectly consistent with absolute necessity, because it was necessary that we should be free — for, you see, the determinate will —"
Pangloss was in the middle of his sentence when the Familiar nodded to his servant, who poured him a glass of port wine.
After the earthquake had destroyed three-quarters of Lisbon, the wisest minds in the country could think of no more effective way to prevent total ruin than to put on a beautiful auto-da-fe for the people. (An auto-da-fe was a grand public ceremony in which the Inquisition punished heretics — often by burning them alive.) The University of Coimbra had officially determined that burning a few people alive over a slow fire, with great ceremony, was a foolproof way to stop earthquakes.
So they rounded up a man from Biscay who'd been convicted of marrying his own godmother, and two Portuguese men who'd been caught picking the bacon out of their chicken — a dead giveaway that they were secretly Jewish. After dinner, they came for Dr. Pangloss and his student Candide: one for speaking his mind, the other for listening with an air of agreement. They were taken to separate cells that were extremely cool, since the prisoners were never troubled by sunlight. Eight days later, they were dressed in san-benitos — the ceremonial robes that condemned prisoners had to wear — and their heads were decorated with paper mitres. Candide's mitre and san-benito were painted with upside-down flames and with devils that had neither tails nor claws; but Pangloss's devils had both claws and tails, and his flames pointed upward. Dressed like this, they marched in procession and listened to a very moving sermon, followed by beautiful church music. Candide was flogged in time with the hymns. The man from Biscay and the two men who hadn't wanted to eat their bacon were burned alive. And Pangloss was hanged, even though hanging wasn't the usual method.
That very same day, the earth shook again with tremendous force.
Candide, terrified, stunned, desperate, bleeding all over, trembling in every limb, said to himself:
"If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like? Getting flogged — fine, I went through that with the Bulgarians. But oh, my dear Pangloss! The greatest philosopher who ever lived — that I had to watch you hanged, without even knowing why! Oh, my dear James, best of men — drowned in the harbor! Oh, Miss Cunegonde, pearl among women — that they ripped you open!"
He was stumbling along in this state — barely able to stand, having been preached at, flogged, absolved, and blessed — when an old woman came up to him and said:
"Take courage, my son, and follow me."
Candide did not take courage, but he followed the old woman anyway. She brought him to a run-down house, gave him a jar of ointment for his wounds, showed him a tidy little bed with a suit of clothes laid out, and left him something to eat and drink.
"Eat, drink, sleep," she said, "and may Our Lady of Atocha, the great Saint Anthony of Padua, and the great Saint James of Compostela watch over you. I'll be back tomorrow."
Candide, astonished by everything he'd been through and even more by the old woman's kindness, tried to kiss her hand.
"It's not my hand you need to kiss," said the old woman. "I'll be back tomorrow. Put on the ointment, eat, and sleep."
Candide, despite so many disasters, ate and slept. The next morning the old woman brought him breakfast, examined his back, and rubbed it with a different ointment herself. That afternoon she brought him lunch. That evening she came back with dinner. The day after that, she did exactly the same thing.
"Who are you?" Candide asked. "What inspired you to be so kind to me? How can I ever repay you?"
The good woman didn't answer. She came back that evening but brought no supper.
"Come with me," she said, "and don't say a word."
She took him by the arm and walked with him about a quarter of a mile into the countryside. They arrived at an isolated house surrounded by gardens and canals. The old woman knocked at a small door. It opened. She led Candide up a private staircase and into a small, richly furnished room. She left him on a brocade sofa, closed the door, and disappeared. Candide felt like he was dreaming — and really, his whole life up to now had been a nightmare. This moment was the only pleasant part of it.
The old woman returned shortly, supporting a trembling woman of regal bearing, glittering with jewels and covered by a veil.
"Lift the veil," the old woman told Candide.
The young man stepped forward. With a trembling hand, he raised the veil. What a moment! What a shock! He thought he was looking at Miss Cunegonde — and he was! It was really her! His legs gave out. He couldn't speak. He collapsed at her feet. Cunegonde fell back onto the sofa. The old woman produced smelling salts. They came to their senses and found their voices again. At first there were only broken words, questions and answers tumbling over each other, mixed with sighs and tears and cries. The old woman told them to keep it down, and left them alone.
"Is it really you?" said Candide. "You're alive? I've found you in Portugal? So you weren't raped? So they didn't rip open your belly, like Dr. Pangloss told me?"
"Oh, they absolutely did," said the beautiful Cunegonde. "But those two things aren't always fatal."
"But were your father and mother killed?"
"That's all too true," Cunegonde answered, in tears.
"And your brother?"
"My brother was killed too."
"And why are you in Portugal? How did you find out I was here? And how on earth did you arrange to have me brought to this house?"
"I'll tell you everything," the lady replied, "but first you have to tell me your story, starting from that innocent kiss you gave me and the kicks you got for it."
Candide obeyed respectfully. Even though he was still in shock, even though his voice was weak and shaking, even though his back still hurt terribly, he gave her a completely honest account of everything that had happened to him since the moment they were separated. Cunegonde raised her eyes to heaven. She shed tears at the death of good James the Anabaptist and of Pangloss. Then she told her own story to Candide, who didn't miss a word and devoured her with his eyes.
"I was in bed, fast asleep, when God saw fit to send the Bulgarians to our lovely castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh. They killed my father and brother and hacked my mother to pieces. A tall Bulgarian soldier, six feet high, saw that I'd fainted at the sight of all this and started to rape me. That brought me around. I came to my senses and screamed, struggled, bit, scratched — I tried to claw the tall Bulgarian's eyes out. I didn't realize that what was happening in my father's castle was standard wartime procedure. The brute slashed me across the left side with his short sword, and the scar is still there."
"Oh! I hope I'll get to see it," said honest Candide.
"You will," said Cunegonde, "but let me go on."
"Please do," said Candide.
So she picked up the thread of her story:
"A Bulgarian captain walked in and found me covered in blood, with the soldier not the least bit bothered. The captain flew into a rage at this disrespectful behavior from the brute and killed him right there on top of me. He had my wounds bandaged and took me back to his quarters as a prisoner of war. I washed the few shirts he owned and did his cooking. He thought I was very pretty — he said so openly. And I have to admit, he was well built, with soft, fair skin. But he had very little intelligence or education, and you could tell he'd never studied under Dr. Pangloss. After three months, having gambled away all his money and gotten bored with me, he sold me to a Jewish merchant named Don Issachar, who did business in Holland and Portugal, and who had an intense appetite for women. This Don Issachar took a great liking to me personally, but he couldn't get what he wanted. I resisted him more successfully than I had the Bulgarian soldier. A decent woman might be raped once, but it only strengthens her resolve after that. To make me more cooperative, he brought me to this country house. Until then, I'd imagined that nothing in the world could match the beauty of Castle Thunder-ten-Tronckh. I was wrong.
"The Grand Inquisitor noticed me one day at Mass. He stared at me for a long time, then sent word that he wished to speak with me privately. I was escorted to his palace, where I told him the story of my family. He pointed out how far beneath my rank it was to belong to a Jewish merchant. A suggestion was made to Don Issachar that he should hand me over to His Lordship. Don Issachar, being the court banker and a man of considerable influence, refused to hear of it. The Inquisitor threatened him with an auto-da-fe. Finally my Jew, intimidated, struck a deal: the house and I would be shared between them. The Jew would get Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays; the Inquisitor would get the rest of the week. This arrangement has been in place for six months now. It hasn't been without its quarrels — they've never been able to agree on whether Saturday night belongs to the old religion or the new one. As for me, I've managed to hold both of them off so far, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason they're both still interested.
"Finally, to ward off the threat of more earthquakes — and to intimidate Don Issachar — my Lord the Grand Inquisitor decided to celebrate an auto-da-fe. He did me the honor of inviting me. I had an excellent seat, and refreshments were served to the ladies between the Mass and the execution. I was genuinely horrified when they burned those two Jewish men and the honest fellow from Biscay who'd married his godmother. But imagine my shock, my terror, my anguish, when I saw a figure in a san-benito and mitre who looked exactly like Pangloss! I rubbed my eyes. I stared. I watched him hang. I fainted. I'd barely come to my senses when I saw you stripped completely naked — and that was the absolute peak of my horror, my dismay, my grief, and my despair. I'll tell you honestly: your skin is even fairer and more perfectly toned than the Bulgarian captain's. The sight of you multiplied every feeling that was already tearing me apart. I tried to scream, I wanted to shout, 'Stop, you barbarians!' but my voice wouldn't come, and my screams would have been useless anyway, after they'd already flogged you raw. How is it possible, I asked myself, that my beloved Candide and the wise Pangloss are both here in Lisbon — one getting a hundred lashes, the other being hanged by order of the Grand Inquisitor, whose mistress I am? Pangloss lied to me terribly when he said that everything in the world is for the best.
"Shattered, overwhelmed, half out of my mind, half ready to collapse — my head was spinning with everything: the massacre of my father, my mother, my brother; the brutality of that ugly Bulgarian soldier and the scar he gave me; my slavery; my life as a cook; my Bulgarian captain; my revolting Don Issachar; my loathsome Inquisitor; the hanging of Dr. Pangloss; that grand Miserere hymn they sang while they flogged you; and above all, the kiss I gave you behind the screen on the last day I ever saw you. I thanked God for bringing you back to me through so many ordeals, and I told my old woman to take care of you and bring you here as soon as she could. She's done her job perfectly. I've had the indescribable joy of seeing you again, hearing your voice, talking with you. But you must be starving — I know I am. Let's eat."
They both sat down at the table, and after supper they settled back onto the sofa — which is where they were when Signor Don Issachar arrived. It was the Sabbath, and Issachar had come to enjoy his rights and express his tender love.
This Issachar was the most hot-tempered man the nation of Israel had seen since the Babylonian Captivity.
"What!" he shouted. "You Galilean slut — the Inquisitor wasn't enough for you? Now I have to share with this lowlife too?"
As he said this, he pulled out a long dagger that he always carried on him. Not imagining that his opponent might be armed, he threw himself at Candide. But our honest Westphalian had been given a fine sword by the old woman along with the suit of clothes. He drew it, and despite his gentle nature, laid the merchant out stone dead on the cushions at Cunegonde's feet.
"Holy Mother of God!" Cunegonde cried. "What's going to happen to us? A man killed in my house! If the police come, we're done for!"
"If Pangloss hadn't been hanged," said Candide, "he'd have excellent advice for us right now — he was a profound philosopher. Since he's not here, let's ask the old woman."
The old woman was very sensible and had just started to give her opinion when another little door opened. It was one o'clock in the morning. It was the start of Sunday. This day belonged to my Lord the Inquisitor. He walked in and found Candide — the one who'd been flogged — standing there with a sword in his hand, a dead man on the floor, Cunegonde in a panic, and the old woman dispensing advice.
Here is what went through Candide's mind at that moment, and how he reasoned it out:
If this holy man calls for help, he'll definitely have me burned alive. He'll probably do the same to Cunegonde. He's the one who had me flogged. He's my rival. I've already started killing. There's no time to hesitate.
This reasoning was crystal clear and instantaneous. Without giving the Inquisitor a moment to recover from his surprise, Candide ran him straight through and dumped him on the floor next to the Jew.
"Oh no, not again!" said Cunegonde. "Now there's no mercy for us — we're excommunicated, our last hour has come. How could you? You, the gentlest person alive — killing a Jew and a church official in two minutes flat!"
"My beautiful lady," Candide replied, "when a man is in love, jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he's capable of anything."
The old woman spoke up:
"There are three Andalusian horses in the stable, all saddled and bridled. Let brave Candide get them ready. Madame has money and jewels. Let's mount up right now. I can only ride on one buttock, but never mind that. Let's head for Cadiz. The weather is gorgeous, and there's nothing like traveling in the cool of the night."
Candide immediately saddled the three horses. He, Cunegonde, and the old woman rode thirty miles without stopping. While they were galloping away, the Holy Brotherhood arrived at the house. His Lordship the Inquisitor was buried in a beautiful church. Issachar's body was thrown on a garbage heap.
Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman had by now reached the little town of Avacena, in the middle of the Sierra Morena mountains, and the following conversation took place at a roadside inn.
"Who stole my money and my jewels?" said Cunegonde, sobbing. "How are we going to live? What are we going to do? Where will I find more Inquisitors or Jewish merchants to give me more?"
"I'm afraid," said the old woman, "I have a strong suspicion about a certain Franciscan friar who slept at the same inn as us last night in Badajos. God forbid I should judge anyone unfairly, but he did come into our room twice, and he left the inn long before we did."
"Ah!" said Candide. "Dear Pangloss often proved to me that the goods of this world belong equally to all people, and that everyone has an equal right to them. By that logic, the Franciscan should have left us enough to finish our journey. You really have nothing left at all, my dear Cunegonde?"
"Not a penny," she said.
"What do we do?" said Candide.
"Sell one of the horses," replied the old woman. "I'll ride behind Miss Cunegonde — even if I can only hang on with one buttock — and we'll make it to Cadiz."
There happened to be a Benedictine prior at the same inn, and he bought the horse at a bargain price. Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman passed through Lucena, Chillas, and Lebrixa, and finally arrived at Cadiz. A fleet was being assembled there, and troops were gathering to go teach a lesson to the Jesuit fathers in Paraguay, who had been accused of inciting a native tribe near San Sacramento to rebel against the kings of Spain and Portugal. Candide, having served in the Bulgarian army, performed the military drills in front of the commanding general with such grace, such confidence, such speed and precision, that he was given command of an infantry company. Just like that, he was a captain! He set sail with Miss Cunegonde, the old woman, two servants, and the two Andalusian horses that had belonged to the Grand Inquisitor of Portugal.
During the voyage, they spent a good deal of time discussing the philosophy of poor Pangloss.
"We're heading to a new world," said Candide, "and surely that's where everything really is for the best. Because I have to admit, there's reason to complain about how things work in our world — both in terms of nature and in terms of human behavior."
"I love you with all my heart," said Cunegonde, "but my soul is still haunted by everything I've seen and been through."
"Everything will be fine," Candide replied. "The ocean in this new world is already better than our European seas — it's calmer, the winds are steadier. The New World is clearly the best of all possible worlds."
"God, I hope so," said Cunegonde. "But I've been so terribly unhappy in this world that my heart is almost closed to hope."
"You're complaining?" said the old woman. "Please. You have no idea what real misfortune looks like."
Cunegonde almost laughed at that, finding it amusing that this old woman would claim to have suffered more than she had.
"My dear woman," said Cunegonde, "unless you've been raped by two Bulgarians, been stabbed twice in the belly, had two of your castles demolished, watched two of your mothers get hacked to pieces before your eyes, and seen two of your lovers flogged at an auto-da-fe, I really don't see how you could possibly have it worse than me. Not to mention that I was born a baroness with seventy-two generations of noble blood — and I've been reduced to working as a cook!"
"My dear girl," replied the old woman, "you don't know the first thing about my background. And if I showed you my backside, you'd think twice before talking like that."
This remark sparked intense curiosity in both Cunegonde and Candide, and the old woman told them her story as follows.
"I haven't always had bloodshot eyes and red-rimmed eyelids. My nose hasn't always touched my chin. And I wasn't always a servant. I am the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina. Until I was fourteen, I grew up in a palace so grand that all the castles of your German barons put together would barely have served as its stables — and a single one of my dresses was worth more than all the finery in Westphalia. I blossomed with beauty, wit, and every graceful talent, surrounded by pleasures, admirers, and hopeful suitors. I was already inspiring love. And my neck — what a neck! White, firm, and sculpted like the Venus de' Medici. And my eyes! My eyelids! My jet-black eyebrows! The fire that blazed from my dark pupils outshone the stars themselves — or so the local poets told me. My maids, dressing and undressing me, would practically swoon whether they saw me from the front or the back. How happy the gentlemen would have been to do that job instead!
"I was engaged to the most magnificent Prince of Massa Carara. What a prince! As handsome as I was beautiful, sweet-tempered, charming, brilliantly witty, and burning with love. I loved him the way you love for the first time — with worship, with abandon. The wedding preparations were underway. The pomp and splendor were extraordinary; there were feasts, tournaments, and nonstop opera, and all of Italy composed sonnets in my honor — though not a single one of them was any good. I was on the verge of reaching the absolute peak of happiness when an old marchioness, who had been my prince's former mistress, invited him over for hot chocolate. He died less than two hours later in the most horrible convulsions. But that's a minor detail. My mother, in despair and nearly as devastated as I was, decided we should get away from that cursed place for a while. She owned a beautiful estate near Gaeta. We set sail on a local galley, gilded like the high altar of Saint Peter's in Rome. And then a Moroccan pirate ship swooped down and boarded us. Our soldiers defended themselves the way the Pope's soldiers always do — they fell to their knees, threw down their weapons, and begged the pirates for a last-rites absolution.
"They were immediately stripped naked as the day they were born. My mother, our ladies-in-waiting, and I got the same treatment. It's remarkable how quickly those people can undress you. But what surprised me most was that they stuck their fingers into a part of our bodies where we women generally don't allow anything but — well, medical instruments. It seemed like an awfully strange ceremony to me, but that's how you think when you haven't seen the world. I later learned they were checking whether we'd hidden any diamonds. It's a time-honored practice among civilized nations that roam the seas. I was told that the very devout Knights of Malta never fail to conduct this same search whenever they capture Turkish prisoners of either sex. It's an international law they follow without exception.
"I won't bother telling you what a hardship it was for a young princess and her mother to be made slaves and shipped off to Morocco. You can imagine what we endured aboard that pirate vessel. My mother was still very beautiful; our ladies-in-waiting, even our maids, had more charm than you could find in all of Africa. As for me, I was ravishing, exquisite, grace itself — and I was a virgin. Not for long, though. The flower that had been reserved for the handsome Prince of Massa Carara was plucked by the pirate captain. He was a revolting brute who still believed he was doing me a tremendous honor. The Princess of Palestrina and I must have been remarkably tough to survive everything we went through before reaching Morocco. But let's move on — these things happen so often they're hardly worth mentioning.
"Morocco was drowning in blood when we arrived. The Emperor Muley Ishmael had fifty sons, each with his own followers. This had produced fifty simultaneous civil wars — faction against faction, all across the empire. It was nonstop carnage from one end of the country to the other.
"The moment we landed, soldiers from a rival faction tried to steal my captain's plunder. After jewels and gold, we women were the most valuable things he had. I witnessed a battle the likes of which you never see in your mild European climates. Northerners don't have that heat in their blood, that raging desire, so common in Africa. You Europeans seem to have milk in your veins, but in the people of the Atlas Mountains and the surrounding lands, it's fire, it's acid. They fought with the fury of lions and tigers and serpents, all to determine who would get to keep us. One soldier grabbed my mother by the right arm while my captain's lieutenant held her by the left. Another soldier seized one of her legs and one of our pirates grabbed the other. Nearly all our women were being torn apart the same way, pulled in four directions by four men. My captain kept me hidden behind him, slashing with his scimitar at anyone who challenged him. But in the end, I saw every one of our Italian women — and my mother — torn to pieces, butchered by the monsters fighting over them. The captives, my companions, the men who had captured them, soldiers, sailors — everyone of every color — and finally my captain himself — all were killed. I lay dying on a heap of corpses. Scenes like this were playing out across three hundred leagues of countryside — and yet they never missed the five daily prayers required by their prophet.
"I somehow pulled myself free of that pile of slaughtered bodies and dragged myself to a large orange tree on the bank of a nearby stream, where I collapsed from terror, exhaustion, horror, despair, and hunger. Moments later, my overwhelmed senses gave way to a sleep that was more like unconsciousness than rest. I was hovering between life and death in that state of half-conscious weakness when I felt something moving on top of me. I opened my eyes and saw a white man with a kind face, who was sighing and muttering through his teeth: 'Oh, what a tragedy it is to have no testicles!'"
"Astonished and delighted to hear someone speaking my native language — and no less surprised by what he'd said — I told him there were far greater misfortunes than the one he was complaining about. I gave him a quick summary of the horrors I'd been through, and then I fainted again. He carried me to a nearby house, put me to bed, fed me, looked after me, comforted me, and flattered me. He told me he'd never seen anyone as beautiful as I was, and that he'd never so deeply regretted the loss of something he could never get back.
"'I was born in Naples,' he said. 'Every year they castrate two or three thousand boys there. Some of them die from the procedure; others develop voices more beautiful than any woman's; and others go on to run entire governments. The operation was performed on me with great success, and I became the music director for Her Highness the Princess of Palestrina.'
"'My mother!' I cried.
"'Your mother!' he cried, bursting into tears. 'What — can you really be that little princess I raised until she was six years old, the one who already promised to grow up as beautiful as you are now?'
"'It's me,' I said. 'But my mother is lying four hundred yards from here, torn to pieces under a heap of corpses.'
"I told him everything that had happened to me, and he told me his own story. He'd been sent to Morocco by a Christian government to negotiate a treaty with the emperor — a deal to supply him with gunpowder, cannons, and ships so he could help destroy the trade of rival Christian nations.
"'My mission is complete,' said this honest eunuch. 'I'm about to set sail from Ceuta, and I'll take you back to Italy. Oh, what a tragedy it is to have no testicles!'
"I thanked him with tears of gratitude. But instead of taking me to Italy, he brought me to Algiers, where he sold me to the local ruler, the Dey. I'd barely been sold before the plague — which had already swept through Africa, Asia, and Europe — erupted with terrible force in Algiers. You've seen earthquakes, but tell me, miss — have you ever had the plague?"
"Never," said Cunegonde.
"Well, if you had," said the old woman, "you'd admit it's far worse than an earthquake. It's extremely common in Africa, and I caught it. Picture this: the daughter of a Pope, barely fifteen years old, who in less than three months had experienced poverty, slavery, being raped almost daily, watching her mother torn to pieces, surviving war and famine — and now was dying of the plague in Algiers. I didn't die, though. But my eunuch died, and so did the Dey, and nearly the entire household of Algiers perished.
"As soon as the worst of the plague had passed, the Dey's slaves were put up for sale. A merchant bought me and took me to Tunis. He sold me to another merchant, who sold me to another in Tripoli. From Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Smyrna, from Smyrna to Constantinople. Eventually I ended up the property of an Aga of the Janissaries — an officer of the elite Turkish soldiers — who was soon ordered to the defense of Azov, which the Russians were besieging.
"The Aga, who was quite the ladies' man, took his entire household of women along and installed us in a little fort on the shores of the Sea of Azov, guarded by two Black eunuchs and twenty soldiers. The Turks slaughtered enormous numbers of Russians, and the Russians returned the favor. Azov was burned to the ground, the inhabitants put to the sword without regard for age or sex, until only our little fort remained — and the enemy was determined to starve us out. The twenty Janissaries had sworn an oath never to surrender. The extreme hunger they were driven to forced them to eat our two eunuchs rather than break their word. After a few more days, they decided to eat the women too.
"Fortunately, we had a very devout and compassionate imam among us, who preached them an excellent sermon and talked them out of killing us outright.
"'Just cut off one buttock from each of these ladies,' he said, 'and you'll have a fine meal. If you need to come back for more, you can have the same course again in a few days. Heaven will look favorably on such a merciful act, and surely send you relief.'
"He was very persuasive. They were convinced. We underwent this horrible operation. The imam applied the same healing balm he used on boys after circumcision. We all nearly died.
"The Janissaries had barely finished their meal — the meal we'd provided — when the Russians arrived in flat-bottomed boats. Not a single Janissary survived. The Russians paid no attention whatsoever to the condition we were in. But there are French surgeons everywhere in the world, and one of them, who happened to be very skilled, took care of us. He patched us up, and as long as I live I will remember that the moment my wounds healed, he propositioned me. He told us all to cheer up — this kind of thing happened in lots of sieges, he said, and it was perfectly consistent with the laws of war.
"As soon as my companions could walk, they were marched off to Moscow. I was given to a Russian nobleman who made me his gardener and gave me twenty lashes a day. Two years later, this nobleman was broken on the wheel along with thirty other Russian lords over some court intrigue. I made the most of the opportunity and fled. I crossed the whole of Russia. I spent years as a barmaid in Riga, then did the same in Rostock, Wismar, Leipzig, Kassel, Utrecht, Leiden, The Hague, and Rotterdam. I grew old in misery and humiliation, with only half a backside, but always remembering that I was a Pope's daughter. A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but I always found I still loved being alive. This absurd weakness is perhaps our most self-destructive trait. Is there anything more ridiculous than wanting to keep carrying a burden you could set down at any moment? To despise your own existence and yet cling to it desperately? To pet the snake that's devouring you, right up until it's eaten your heart?
"In the various countries I passed through, and the countless inns where I worked as a servant, I noticed vast numbers of people who hated their own lives — and yet I only ever met twelve who actually put an end to their misery: three Africans, four Englishmen, four Swiss, and a German professor named Robeck. I ended up working for the Jewish merchant Don Issachar, and he placed me in your service, my fair lady. I've attached myself to your fate, and I've been far more moved by your misfortunes than by my own. I would never even have told you my story if you hadn't provoked me a little, and if it weren't the custom to pass the time on a long sea voyage by telling stories. So here's my challenge, Miss Cunegonde: I've lived and I know the world. Amuse yourself by asking every passenger on this ship to tell you their life story. And if you find a single one of them who hasn't cursed their existence a thousand times over, who hasn't told themselves they were the unluckiest person alive — then you have my permission to throw me headfirst into the sea."
The beautiful Cunegonde, having heard the old woman's story, treated her with all the respect due to a person of her rank and experience. She also took up the old woman's challenge, and persuaded every passenger on the ship to tell their life story, one by one. By the end, both she and Candide had to admit the old woman was right.
"It's a real shame," said Candide, "that the great Pangloss was hanged — against the usual custom — at an auto-da-fe. He would have had the most brilliant things to say about the physical and moral evils that plague the earth and sea, and I might have found the nerve, with all due respect, to raise a few objections."
While each passenger was telling their story, the ship sailed on. They landed at Buenos Aires. Cunegonde, Captain Candide, and the old woman went to call on the Governor, Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueroa y Mascarenas y Lampourdos y Souza. This nobleman carried himself with a grandeur befitting a man with that many names. He spoke to everyone with a magnificently haughty disdain, tilted his nose to such a lofty angle, projected his voice so mercilessly, struck such an overbearing pose, and strutted with such insufferable arrogance that everyone who met him was strongly tempted to punch him in the face. He loved women with a passion. Cunegonde struck him as the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on. The first thing he asked was whether she was the captain's wife. The way he asked the question made Candide nervous. He didn't dare say she was his wife, because she wasn't. He didn't dare say she was his sister, because she wasn't that either. And although this convenient lie had been very popular among the biblical patriarchs, and might have been useful to modern people too, Candide's soul was too honest to betray the truth.
"Miss Cunegonde," he said, "has done me the honor of agreeing to marry me, and we humbly beg Your Excellency to perform the ceremony."
Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueroa y Mascarenas y Lampourdos y Souza twirled his mustache, smiled with barely concealed contempt, and ordered Captain Candide to go review his troops. Candide obeyed. The Governor was left alone with Miss Cunegonde. He declared his passionate love for her, swore he would marry her the next day — in church or otherwise, however she preferred. Cunegonde asked for fifteen minutes to think it over, consult the old woman, and make up her mind.
The old woman said this to Cunegonde:
"Miss, you have seventy-two generations of noble blood and not a penny to your name. You now have the chance to become the wife of the most powerful lord in all of South America — a man with very handsome mustache. Is this really the moment to insist on perfect fidelity? You've been raped by Bulgarian soldiers. A Jewish merchant and a Grand Inquisitor have both enjoyed your charms. Suffering earns you certain allowances. If I were in your position, I wouldn't think twice about marrying the Governor — and securing Captain Candide's fortune in the process."
While the old woman was dispensing this wisdom — born of age and hard experience — a small ship sailed into the harbor carrying a magistrate and his officers. Here is what had happened:
The old woman had guessed correctly: it was a Franciscan friar who had stolen Cunegonde's money and jewels in the town of Badajos, when she and Candide were fleeing Spain. The friar tried to sell some of the diamonds to a jeweler. The jeweler recognized them as belonging to the Grand Inquisitor. Before he was hanged, the friar confessed that he'd stolen them, and he described the thieves and the route they'd taken. The flight of Cunegonde and Candide was already known. They were traced to Cadiz. A ship was immediately sent after them. That ship was now in the port of Buenos Aires. Word spread that the magistrate was about to come ashore, and that he was hunting for the murderers of His Lordship the Grand Inquisitor. The shrewd old woman instantly saw what had to be done.
"You can't run," she said to Cunegonde. "And you have nothing to fear — you're not the one who killed His Lordship. Besides, the Governor is in love with you. He won't let anyone lay a hand on you. Stay here."
Then she ran straight to Candide.
"Run," she said. "In one hour, you'll be burned alive."
There wasn't a moment to lose. But how could Candide leave Cunegonde? And where on earth could he go?
Candide had brought a valet with him from Cadiz — the kind of man you ran into all the time on the coasts of Spain and in the colonies. He was one-quarter Spanish, the son of a mixed-race father from Tucuman. He'd been a choirboy, a church caretaker, a sailor, a monk, a traveling salesman, a soldier, and a servant. His name was Cacambo, and he loved his master — because his master was a genuinely good man. He quickly saddled the two Andalusian horses.
"Come on, master — let's take the old woman's advice. Let's ride, and not look back."
Candide burst into tears.
"Oh, my dear Cunegonde! Do I really have to leave you just when the Governor was about to let us get married? Cunegonde, taken so far away — what's going to become of you?"
"She'll manage," said Cacambo. "Women always figure things out. God looks after them. Let's go."
"But where are you taking me? Where can we go? What can we do without Cunegonde?" said Candide.
"By Saint James of Compostela!" said Cacambo. "You were on your way to fight against the Jesuits — so let's go fight for them instead. I know the roads. I'll take you to their territory. They'll be thrilled to have a captain who knows the Bulgarian military drills. You'll make an incredible fortune. When you can't get what you want in one part of the world, you find it in another. And besides, there's nothing like seeing new places and doing new things."
"So you've been to Paraguay before?" said Candide.
"You bet I have," said Cacambo. "I used to work at the College of the Assumption, and I know how the good Fathers run things just as well as I know the streets of Cadiz. Their setup is remarkable. The territory is over three hundred leagues across, divided into thirty provinces. The Fathers own everything, and the people own nothing — it's a masterpiece of reason and justice. Personally, I can't think of anything more divine than the Fathers: here in the Americas they wage war against the kings of Spain and Portugal, and back in Europe they serve as those same kings' confessors. Here they kill Spaniards, and in Madrid they send Spaniards to heaven. It's wonderful — let's keep moving. You're about to become the happiest man alive. Think how delighted the Fathers will be when they find out a captain trained in the Bulgarian military system has come to join them!"
As soon as they reached the first checkpoint, Cacambo told the advance guard that a captain wished to speak with the Commandant. Word was sent to the main guard, and immediately a Paraguayan officer ran to lay himself at the Commandant's feet with this news. Candide and Cacambo were disarmed, and their two Andalusian horses were confiscated. The strangers were marched between two lines of soldiers. The Commandant stood at the far end, wearing a three-cornered hat, his robes tucked up, a sword at his side, and a short pike in his hand. He gave a signal, and twenty-four soldiers instantly surrounded the newcomers. A sergeant informed them they would have to wait — the Commandant could not see them, and the Reverend Father Provincial did not permit any Spaniard to speak except in his presence, or to remain in the province for more than three hours.
"And where is the Reverend Father Provincial?" asked Cacambo.
"He's on the parade ground, right after saying Mass," the sergeant replied. "And you won't be able to kiss his spurs for another three hours."
"Well," said Cacambo, "the captain isn't Spanish — he's German. And he's starving to death, same as me. Can't we get some breakfast while we wait for His Reverence?"
The sergeant went immediately to report this to the Commandant.
"God be praised!" said the Reverend Commandant. "Since he's German, I can talk to him. Bring him to my garden house."
Candide was promptly led to a beautiful pavilion decorated with an elegant colonnade of green and gold marble, and surrounded by trellises full of parrots, hummingbirds, and every other kind of rare tropical bird. An excellent breakfast was laid out in golden dishes. And while the ordinary Paraguayans ate corn from wooden bowls out in the open fields under the blazing sun, the Reverend Father Commandant retired to the shade of his pavilion.
He was a very handsome young man — round-faced, fair-skinned but with high color in his cheeks. He had arched eyebrows, bright eyes, red-tipped ears, rosy lips, and a bold bearing that was neither quite Spanish nor quite Jesuit. Candide's and Cacambo's weapons were returned to them, along with their two Andalusian horses. Cacambo fed the horses oats right beside the pavilion, keeping a watchful eye on them in case of any surprises.
Candide first kissed the hem of the Commandant's robe, and then they sat down to eat.
"So — you're German?" said the Jesuit, in that language.
"Yes, Reverend Father," answered Candide.
As they spoke these words, they stared at each other with growing astonishment and an emotion neither one could hide.
"And which part of Germany are you from?" asked the Jesuit.
"From the miserable province of Westphalia," answered Candide. "I was born in the Castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh."
"Good heavens! Is it possible?" cried the Commandant.
"It's a miracle!" cried Candide.
"Is it really you?" said the Commandant.
"It can't be!" said Candide.
They stepped back from each other. They embraced. They wept rivers of tears.
"What — is it you, Reverend Father? You, the brother of the beautiful Cunegonde! You, who was killed by the Bulgarians! You, the Baron's son! You, a Jesuit in Paraguay! I have to say, this is one strange world we live in. Oh, Pangloss, Pangloss! How happy you would be right now if you hadn't been hanged!"
The Commandant dismissed the servants and the Paraguayan attendants who had been pouring drinks into crystal goblets. He thanked God and Saint Ignatius a thousand times over. He clasped Candide in his arms. Their faces were streaming with tears.
"You'll be even more amazed," said Candide, "when I tell you that your sister Cunegonde — the one you thought had been ripped open — is alive and perfectly well."
"Where?"
"Right here in the area — with the Governor of Buenos Aires. And I was on my way to fight against you."
Every word in this long conversation piled wonder upon wonder. Their souls seemed to flutter on their tongues, listen through their ears, and sparkle in their eyes. Since they were Germans, they lingered a good long while at the table, waiting for the Reverend Father Provincial. And the Commandant told his dear Candide the following story.
"I will never forget that terrible day when I saw my father and mother murdered and my sister raped. When the Bulgarian soldiers pulled out, my dear sister was nowhere to be found. But my mother, my father, myself, two maidservants, and three little boys — all of whom had been killed — were loaded onto a cart and taken for burial at a Jesuit chapel about two leagues from our family estate. A Jesuit sprinkled holy water on us. It was horribly salty. A few drops fell into my eyes, and the priest noticed my eyelids twitch slightly. He put his hand on my chest and felt my heart beating. I was given medical care, and after three weeks I'd recovered. You remember, my dear Candide, how good-looking I was. Well, I became even better-looking, and the Reverend Father Didrie, the Superior of that house, developed the most tender friendship for me. He gave me the robes of the order. A few years later, I was sent to Rome. The Father General needed a fresh batch of young German Jesuits. You see, the rulers of Paraguay take as few Spanish Jesuits as possible — they prefer foreign ones, who are easier to control. The Reverend Father General judged me fit to go work in this particular vineyard. So off we went — a Pole, a man from the Tyrol, and myself. When I arrived, I was given a position as both sub-deacon and lieutenant. Today I'm a colonel and a priest. We're going to give the King of Spain's troops a very warm reception. I guarantee they'll be excommunicated and thoroughly beaten. Providence has sent you here to help us. But is it really true that my dear sister Cunegonde is right here in the area, living with the Governor of Buenos Aires?"
Candide swore on his honor that nothing was more true. Their tears started flowing all over again.
The Baron couldn't stop himself from embracing Candide. He called him his brother, his savior.
"Maybe," he said, "we can march into the city together as conquerors, my dear Candide, and rescue my sister Cunegonde."
"That's exactly what I want," said Candide. "I was planning to marry her, and I still hope to."
"You — what?" the Baron snapped. "You'd have the nerve to marry my sister, who has seventy-two generations of noble blood? I find it absolutely staggering that you would dare mention such an outrageous idea to my face!"
Candide, stunned by this outburst, replied:
"Reverend Father, all the noble bloodlines in the world don't mean a thing. I rescued your sister from a Jewish merchant and a Grand Inquisitor. She owes me quite a lot, and she wants to marry me. Dr. Pangloss always taught me that all people are equal, and I absolutely intend to marry her."
"We'll see about that, you wretch!" said the Jesuit Baron de Thunder-ten-Tronckh — and he slapped Candide across the face with the flat of his sword. In an instant, Candide drew his own sword and plunged it up to the hilt in the Baron's stomach. But as he pulled it out, still steaming, he burst into tears.
"Oh, God!" he cried. "I've killed my old master's son, my friend, my future brother-in-law! I'm the gentlest person in the world, and yet I've already killed three men — and two of those three were priests."
Cacambo, who had been standing guard at the door of the pavilion, ran in.
"There's nothing left for us to do but sell our lives as dearly as we can," said Candide. "Someone's bound to come in here any minute, and we'll have to die with swords in our hands."
Cacambo, who had been through more than his share of tight spots, didn't panic. He stripped the dead Baron of his Jesuit robes, dressed Candide in them, put the square cap on his head, and got him on a horse. All of this was done in the blink of an eye.
"Let's ride, master — fast. Everyone will think you're a Jesuit going to give orders to your men, and we'll be across the border before anyone can catch up."
He was already galloping as he said this, shouting in Spanish:
"Make way! Make way for the Reverend Father Colonel!"
Candide and his servant had gotten well past the border before anyone in the camp realized the German Jesuit was dead. The quick-thinking Cacambo had made sure to fill his bag with bread, chocolate, bacon, fruit, and a few bottles of wine. On their Andalusian horses, they pushed deep into unknown territory where there wasn't a road or even a trail to be found. Eventually they came to a beautiful meadow crisscrossed by babbling streams. Here our two adventurers let their horses graze. Cacambo suggested they eat something, and led by example.
"How can you ask me to eat ham," said Candide, "when I've just killed the Baron's son, and I'm doomed never to see the beautiful Cunegonde again? What's the point of dragging out my miserable existence, far from her, drowning in remorse and despair? And what will the Journal de Trevoux say?" (This was a Jesuit literary magazine — even in crisis, Candide worried about the press.)
While he was lamenting his fate, he kept on eating. The sun went down. The two wanderers heard faint cries that seemed to come from women. They couldn't tell if they were cries of pain or pleasure, but they leapt up immediately with that nervous alarm that everything inspires when you're in unknown territory. The noise was coming from two naked girls running along the meadow, pursued by two monkeys who were biting at their backsides. Candide was overcome with pity. He'd learned to shoot during his time in the Bulgarian army, and he was such a crack shot that he could knock a hazelnut off a bush without touching a single leaf. He raised his double-barreled Spanish rifle, fired, and killed both monkeys.
"Thank God! My dear Cacambo, I've rescued those two poor creatures from a terrible situation. If I committed a sin by killing an Inquisitor and a Jesuit, I've more than made up for it by saving these girls' lives. Maybe they're young ladies of good family — and this little adventure might win us some powerful friends in this country."
He was about to say more, but stopped cold when he saw the two girls tenderly embracing the monkeys, sobbing over their bodies, and filling the air with the most heartbreaking wails.
"I didn't exactly expect this reaction," he said at last to Cacambo, who replied:
"Nice work, sir. You just killed those two young ladies' boyfriends."
"Their boyfriends! That's impossible! You're joking, Cacambo — I can't believe it!"
"Dear sir," replied Cacambo, "you're always so surprised by everything. Why should you find it so strange that in some countries monkeys manage to win the affections of the ladies? They're a quarter human, after all — just as I'm a quarter Spanish."
"Oh no," replied Candide. "I do remember Dr. Pangloss once saying that this sort of thing used to happen in ancient times, and that these mixtures produced centaurs, fauns, and satyrs — that many people in antiquity claimed to have seen such creatures. But I always thought it was all just mythology."
"Well, now you can see it's true," said Cacambo. "And you can see what these creatures mean to people who haven't had a European education. My only worry now is that those ladies are going to make trouble for us."
These sensible reflections convinced Candide to leave the meadow and push deeper into the woods. He ate supper there with Cacambo, and after cursing the Portuguese Inquisitor, the Governor of Buenos Aires, and the Baron, they fell asleep on a bed of moss. When they woke up, they found they couldn't move — because during the night the Oreillons, the people who lived in that region and to whom the two girls had reported them, had tied them up with ropes made from tree bark. They were surrounded by fifty naked Oreillons, armed with bows and arrows, clubs, and stone hatchets. Some were heating a large cauldron to a boil, others were sharpening spits, and they were all chanting:
"A Jesuit! A Jesuit! We'll have our revenge — we'll eat well tonight! Let's eat the Jesuit! Eat him up!"
"I told you, sir," said Cacambo sadly, "that those two girls would make trouble for us."
Candide, seeing the cauldron and the spits, cried out:
"We're definitely going to be either roasted or boiled. What would Dr. Pangloss say if he could see human nature in its raw state? Everything may be for the best, sure, but I have to say it's pretty rough to have lost Cunegonde and then end up on a spit surrounded by Oreillons."
Cacambo never lost his head.
"Don't give up," he said to the despairing Candide. "I speak a little of these people's language. I'll talk to them."
"Just make sure," said Candide, "to point out how incredibly inhumane it is to cook people, and how very un-Christian."
"Gentlemen," said Cacambo, "so you're planning to eat a Jesuit today. Excellent — nothing could be fairer. Nothing is more just than treating your enemies this way. The law of nature tells us to kill our neighbors, and that's common practice all over the world. If we Europeans don't eat ours, it's only because we have plenty of other food options. But you don't have the same resources, and it's certainly better to eat your enemies than to leave the spoils of victory for the crows and vultures. But, gentlemen, you surely wouldn't want to eat your friends. You think you're about to roast a Jesuit, but this man is actually your defender. It's the enemy of your enemies that you're about to put on the spit. As for me, I was born in your country. This gentleman is my master, and far from being a Jesuit, he's just killed one — he's wearing the dead man's clothes. That's the source of your misunderstanding. To prove I'm telling the truth, take his robe and bring it to the nearest Jesuit outpost. Ask them whether my master killed one of their officers or not. It won't take long, and you can always eat us if you find out I've lied. But I have told you the truth. You're far too well acquainted with the principles of international law, justice, and basic decency to refuse us this courtesy."
The Oreillons found this speech very reasonable. They sent two of their leading men to verify the story as quickly as possible. The delegates carried out their mission like sensible people, and soon came back with good news. The Oreillons untied their prisoners, treated them with every courtesy, offered them girls, gave them food and drink, and escorted them to the border of their territory, shouting joyfully:
"He's not a Jesuit! He's not a Jesuit!"
Candide couldn't get over the cause of his rescue.
"What people!" he said. "What a culture! What customs! If I hadn't been lucky enough to run Cunegonde's brother through with a sword, I would have been eaten alive, no question about it. But when you think about it, unspoiled human nature isn't so bad after all — these people, instead of eating me, showed me every possible kindness the moment they found out I wasn't a Jesuit."
"You see," said Cacambo to Candide, as soon as they'd crossed out of Oreillon territory, "this hemisphere is no better than the other one. Take my word for it — let's go back to Europe by the shortest route."
"Go back how?" said Candide. "And where would we go? To my own country? The Bulgarians and the Abares are butchering everyone. To Portugal? I'd be burned alive. And if we stay here, we're in constant danger of being put on a spit. But how can I bring myself to leave the part of the world where my dear Cunegonde is?"
"Let's head for Cayenne," said Cacambo. "We'll find French people there — the French wander all over the world. They might help us. Maybe God will take pity on us."
Getting to Cayenne was not easy. They had a vague idea which direction to go, but rivers, cliffs, bandits, and hostile tribes blocked them at every turn. Their horses died of exhaustion. Their supplies ran out. They survived for a whole month on nothing but wild fruit, and finally found themselves near a small river bordered by coconut palms, which sustained both their lives and their hopes.
Cacambo, who always gave advice as good as the Old Woman's, said to Candide:
"We can't go on like this. We've walked far enough. I see an empty canoe by the riverbank — let's fill it with coconuts, float downstream, and see where the current takes us. A river always leads to some settlement. If we don't find anything pleasant, at least we'll find something new."
"I'm with you," said Candide. "Let's trust in Providence."
They paddled for several leagues between banks that were sometimes lush with flowers and sometimes bare, sometimes smooth and sometimes craggy. The stream kept widening, until finally it disappeared under an arch of terrifying rocks that seemed to reach the sky. The two travelers were brave enough to surrender themselves to the current. The river, suddenly narrowing at this point, swept them along with a deafening roar and dizzying speed. After twenty-four hours, they saw daylight again — but their canoe had been smashed to pieces against the rocks. For a full league they had to crawl from boulder to boulder, until at last they came upon a vast open plain, bordered by mountains too steep to climb. The land was cultivated as much for beauty as for practical use. Everywhere, the useful and the beautiful were one and the same. The roads were lined — or rather, decorated — with carriages made of some glittering material, carrying men and women of astonishing beauty, pulled by large red animals that were faster than the finest racehorses in Andalusia. (These "large red sheep," as Candide and Cacambo called them, were actually llamas — but neither of our travelers had ever seen one.)
"Well," said Candide, "this place is definitely better than Westphalia."
He and Cacambo walked toward the first village they could see. Some children dressed in tattered gold brocade were playing a ring-toss game at the edge of town. Our travelers from the other side of the world stopped to watch. The rings they were tossing were large, round discs — yellow, red, and green — that gave off an extraordinary shine. The travelers picked up a few from the ground. They were made of gold, emeralds, and rubies. The smallest of them would have been the most magnificent jewel on the throne of the Mughal Emperor.
"No question," said Cacambo, "these children must be princes playing a game!"
Just then the village schoolmaster appeared and called the children back to class.
"There," said Candide, "is the tutor of the royal family."
The little truants immediately abandoned their game, leaving the rings and all their other toys on the ground. Candide gathered them up, ran to the schoolmaster, and presented them to him with a respectful bow, trying to communicate through gestures that their Royal Highnesses had forgotten their gold and jewels. The schoolmaster smiled, tossed them on the ground, gave Candide a rather puzzled look, and went about his business.
The travelers, of course, made sure to pick up the gold, the rubies, and the emeralds.
"Where are we?" cried Candide. "The royal children in this country must get one incredible education, since they're taught to treat gold and precious stones like nothing."
Cacambo was just as astonished as Candide. Eventually they approached the first house in the village. It was built like a European palace. A crowd of people was gathered at the door, and even more were inside. The most wonderful music could be heard, and the air was filled with a mouthwatering smell of cooking. Cacambo went up to the door and heard people speaking Peruvian — which happened to be his mother tongue, since Cacambo had been born in Tucuman, in a village where no other language was spoken.
"I'll be your interpreter," he told Candide. "Let's go in — it's a restaurant."
Immediately two waiters and two waitresses, all dressed in cloth of gold with their hair tied up in ribbons, invited them to sit down at the communal table with the owner. They were served four different soups, each garnished with two young parrots; a boiled condor that weighed about two hundred pounds; two roasted monkeys with an excellent flavor; three hundred hummingbirds on one platter and six hundred smaller birds on another; exquisite stews; and delicious pastries — all served on dishes made of a kind of rock crystal. The waitstaff poured several different liqueurs distilled from sugar cane.
Most of the other diners were merchants and wagon drivers, all extremely polite. They asked Cacambo a few questions with the utmost discretion and answered his with the greatest courtesy.
When dinner was over, Cacambo — and Candide too — assumed they could pay their bill by putting down two of those large gold pieces they'd picked up off the ground. The owner and his wife burst out laughing and had to hold their sides. When they finally recovered:
"Gentlemen," said the owner, "it's obvious you're foreigners, and we don't get many of those around here. Please forgive us for laughing when you offered us some pebbles from our highway as payment. You clearly don't have any of this country's currency, but you don't need money to eat here. All restaurants established for the convenience of trade are funded by the government. You've had a fairly modest meal, because this is a poor village, but everywhere else you'll be treated as you deserve."
Cacambo translated this entire speech for Candide, who was every bit as astonished to hear it as Cacambo was to explain it.
"What kind of country is this?" they said to each other. "A country unknown to the rest of the world, where nature works by completely different rules than ours? This must be the place where everything really is good — because there absolutely has to be such a place somewhere. And whatever Dr. Pangloss might have said, I often noticed that things were going pretty badly in Westphalia."
Cacambo peppered the restaurant owner with questions. The man replied:
"I'm not very educated, and I'm none the worse for it. But we have an old man in this neighborhood who retired from the royal court — he's the most learned and most talkative person in the kingdom."
He immediately brought Cacambo to the old man. Candide, now playing second fiddle, tagged along with his servant. They entered a very plain house — the door was only silver, and the ceilings were only gold, though worked with such exquisite taste that they could rival the richest craftsmanship anywhere. The front hall, it's true, was merely encrusted with rubies and emeralds, but the elegant arrangement of everything made up for this "extreme simplicity."
The old man received his visitors on a sofa stuffed with hummingbird feathers and had his servants bring them drinks in diamond goblets. Then he satisfied their curiosity:
"I'm a hundred and seventy-two years old, and I learned from my late father — who was Master of the Horse to the King — about the astonishing history of Peru, which he'd witnessed firsthand. The kingdom we now live in is the ancient homeland of the Incas, who very unwisely left it to go conquer another part of the world, only to be destroyed by the Spanish.
"The wiser members of the royal family stayed behind, and with the consent of the entire nation, they decreed that no inhabitant would ever be allowed to leave this little kingdom. That decision is what has preserved our innocence and our happiness. The Spanish had vague rumors about this country and called it El Dorado — 'the golden land.' An Englishman named Sir Walter Raleigh actually came quite close to finding us about a hundred years ago, but since we're surrounded by impassable cliffs and mountains, we've been shielded so far from the greed of European nations — who have an unbelievable craving for the pebbles and dirt of our land, and who would happily murder every last one of us to get it."
The conversation went on for a long time, covering their form of government, their customs, their women, their public entertainments, and the arts. Eventually Candide, who always had a taste for big philosophical questions, had Cacambo ask whether the country had a religion.
The old man blushed slightly.
"How can you even doubt it?" he said. "Do you take us for ungrateful wretches?"
Cacambo humbly asked what the religion of El Dorado was.
The old man blushed again.
"Can there possibly be two religions?" he said. "We have, I believe, the religion of the entire world: we worship God morning and night."
"Do you worship only one God?" asked Cacambo, still translating Candide's questions.
"Obviously," said the old man. "There aren't two, or three, or four. I have to say, the people from your part of the world ask the most extraordinary questions."
Candide still wasn't done interrogating the good old man. He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado.
"We don't pray to Him," said the wise old sage. "We have nothing to ask Him for. He's given us everything we need. We simply thank Him — constantly."
Candide was curious to see the priests, and asked where they were. The good old man smiled.
"My friends," he said, "we are all priests. The King and all the heads of families sing hymns of thanksgiving every morning, accompanied by five or six thousand musicians."
"What! You have no monks who teach, and argue, and scheme, and burn people alive for disagreeing with them?"
"We'd have to be insane," said the old man. "Here we're all of one mind, and we have no idea what you mean by 'monks.'"
Through all of this, Candide was in ecstasy. He said to himself:
"This is completely different from Westphalia and the Baron's castle. If our friend Pangloss had seen El Dorado, he'd never have said that the castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh was the finest place on earth. It just goes to show: you have to travel."
After this long conversation, the old man ordered a coach drawn by six of the red llamas and assigned twelve of his servants to escort the travelers to the royal court.
"Forgive me," he said, "if my age prevents me from having the honor of accompanying you myself. The King will receive you in a way that I'm sure won't disappoint, and I hope you'll make allowances for our customs if anything strikes you as odd."
Candide and Cacambo climbed into the coach. The six llamas practically flew, and in less than four hours they reached the King's palace at the far end of the capital. The entrance gate was two hundred and twenty feet high and a hundred feet wide, but words can't describe what it was made of. Whatever the material was, it obviously had a staggering superiority over those pebbles and grains of sand that we call gold and precious stones.
Twenty beautiful young women of the King's guard welcomed Candide and Cacambo as they stepped out of the coach, led them to the baths, and dressed them in robes woven from hummingbird down. After that, the senior officials of the court, both men and women, led them to the King's chambers between two rows of musicians — a thousand on each side. As they approached the throne room, Cacambo asked one of the senior officials what the proper protocol was for greeting His Majesty: Should they drop to their knees? Lie face-down on the ground? Put their hands on their heads? Behind their backs? Lick the dust off the floor? In short — what was the ceremony?
"The custom," said the official, "is to hug the King and kiss him on both cheeks."
Candide and Cacambo threw their arms around His Majesty's neck. He received them with perfect graciousness and politely invited them to dinner.
While they waited, they were given a tour of the city. They saw public buildings that soared to the clouds; market squares decorated with thousands of columns; fountains flowing with spring water, rose water, and sugar-cane liqueur, all running continuously through the great plazas, which were paved with a kind of gemstone that gave off a delicious fragrance like cloves and cinnamon. Candide asked to see the courts of law and the parliament. They told him they had neither — they had no lawsuits. He asked if they had prisons. They said no. But what astonished him most and gave him the greatest pleasure was the Palace of Sciences, where he saw a gallery two thousand feet long, filled with instruments for mathematics and physics.
After spending the entire afternoon wandering through the city and seeing barely a thousandth of it, they were brought back to the royal palace. Candide sat down to dinner with His Majesty, his servant Cacambo, and several ladies of the court. Never was a better meal served, and never was a host wittier than the King. Cacambo translated the King's jokes for Candide, and even in translation they were still funny. Of all the things that amazed Candide, this was not the least.
They spent a month in this extraordinary place. Candide kept saying to Cacambo:
"I'll say it again, my friend — the castle where I was born is nothing compared to this. But then again, Cunegonde isn't here, and you must have some girl of your own back in Europe. If we stay, we'll just be like everyone else. But if we go back to the old world with even a dozen of these llamas loaded up with El Dorado pebbles, we'll be richer than all the kings of Europe put together. We won't have to worry about Inquisitors anymore, and we can easily get Cunegonde back."
This reasoning appealed to Cacambo. People are so fond of roaming, of showing off back home, and of bragging about what they've seen on their travels, that these two happy men decided to stop being happy — and to ask the King's permission to leave.
"You're being foolish," said the King. "I know my kingdom is a small place, but when you're comfortable somewhere, you should stay put. I certainly don't have the right to keep foreigners here against their will — that would be tyranny, and tyranny goes against both our customs and our laws. All people are free. Leave whenever you like, but I should warn you: getting out is going to be very difficult. It's impossible to go back up the river that brought you here — the one that runs through those mountain tunnels by some miracle. The mountains surrounding my kingdom are ten thousand feet high and as steep as walls, each one more than ten leagues across, and the only way down the other side is by sheer cliff. However, since you're determined to go, I'll order my engineers to build a machine to carry you out safely. Once we've gotten you over the mountains, no one can go any further with you — my subjects have all sworn never to leave the kingdom, and they're too wise to break that vow. But ask me for anything else you'd like."
"All we ask of Your Majesty," said Candide, "is a few of these llamas loaded up with supplies, some pebbles, and some of the local dirt."
The King laughed.
"I can't imagine," he said, "what you Europeans see in our yellow clay. But take as much as you like, and much good may it do you."
He immediately ordered his engineers to build a machine to hoist these two extraordinary men out of the kingdom. Three thousand of the country's top mathematicians got to work. It was ready in fifteen days and cost no more than twenty million pounds in local currency. They placed Candide and Cacambo on the machine, along with two large red llamas saddled and bridled for riding once they were past the mountains, twenty pack-llamas loaded with supplies, thirty loaded with presents of the country's most remarkable curiosities, and fifty loaded with gold, diamonds, and precious stones. The King embraced both travelers tenderly.
Their departure was quite a spectacle — the ingenious contraption hoisting them and all their llamas over the mountains. The mathematicians said goodbye once they'd brought them to safety on the other side, and Candide had no other desire, no other goal in life, than to go lay his llamas at the feet of Cunegonde.
"Now," he said, "we can afford to pay off the Governor of Buenos Aires — if that's what it takes to get Cunegonde back. Let's head for Cayenne, find a ship, and then we'll figure out what kingdom to buy."
Our travelers spent their first day in high spirits. They were thrilled to possess more treasure than all of Asia, Europe, and Africa could scrape together. Candide, overflowing with joy, carved Cunegonde's name on the trees. On the second day, two of their llamas stumbled into a swamp, and they and their loads were lost. Two more died of exhaustion a few days later. Seven or eight starved to death in a desert. Others fell off cliffs along the way. After a hundred days of traveling, they had only two llamas left. Candide said to Cacambo:
"My friend, you can see how fleeting the riches of this world are. Nothing is truly solid except virtue — and the hope of seeing Cunegonde again."
"I can't argue with that," said Cacambo, "but we still have two llamas carrying more treasure than the King of Spain will ever see in his life. And I can make out a town up ahead that I'm pretty sure is Surinam — it's a Dutch colony. We're at the end of our troubles and the beginning of our happiness."
As they approached the town, they saw a man lying on the ground — a Black man, wearing nothing but half a pair of ragged blue linen shorts. The man was missing his left leg and his right hand.
"My God!" said Candide in Dutch. "What happened to you, friend? How did you end up in this terrible state?"
"I'm waiting for my master, Mr. Vanderdendur, the famous merchant," the man answered.
"Was it Mr. Vanderdendur who did this to you?" said Candide.
"Yes, sir," said the man. "It's standard practice. Twice a year they give us a pair of linen shorts — that's our entire wardrobe. When we're working at the sugar mills and the grinder catches a finger, they cut off the whole hand. When we try to run away, they cut off a leg. Both things happened to me. This is the price you pay for the sugar you eat in Europe. And yet, when my mother sold me for ten patagons on the coast of Guinea, she said: 'My dear child, give thanks to our gods, worship them always — they will bring you a happy life. You have the honor of being a slave to our lords the white men, and that will be the making of your father and mother's fortune.' I don't know whether I made their fortune. What I do know is that they didn't make mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than I am. The Dutch missionaries who converted me tell us every Sunday that we're all children of Adam — Black and white alike. I'm no genealogist, but if those preachers are telling the truth, then we're all at least second cousins. And you have to admit, it's impossible to treat your own relatives in a more barbaric way."
"Oh, Pangloss!" cried Candide. "This is one horror you never imagined. That's it — I'm done. I have to finally give up your optimism."
"What's optimism?" asked Cacambo.
"It's the delusion," said Candide, "that everything is wonderful when everything is terrible."
And looking at the man, he wept. Still weeping, he walked into Surinam.
The first thing they asked about was whether there was a ship in the harbor that could be sent to Buenos Aires. The man they spoke to happened to be a Spanish sea captain, who offered them a fair deal. He arranged to meet them at a tavern, where Candide and the faithful Cacambo went with their two llamas to wait for him.
Candide, who always wore his heart on his sleeve, told the Spaniard his entire life story and confessed that he planned to run off with Cunegonde.
"Then I'll be very careful not to take you to Buenos Aires," said the captain. "I'd be hanged, and so would you. The lovely Cunegonde is the Governor's favorite mistress."
This hit Candide like a thunderbolt. He cried for a long time. Finally he pulled Cacambo aside.
"Here's what we have to do, my dear friend," he said. "We've each got five or six million in diamonds in our pockets. You're smarter than I am — go to Buenos Aires and get Cunegonde. If the Governor makes trouble, give him a million. If he still won't hand her over, give him two. You've never killed an Inquisitor, so nobody will suspect you. I'll get another ship and wait for you in Venice — it's a free country where we'll have nothing to fear from Bulgarians, Abares, Jews, or Inquisitors."
Cacambo applauded this sensible plan. He was heartbroken at the thought of parting from such a good master, who had become a true friend, but his devotion to serving Candide outweighed the pain of leaving him. They embraced in tears. Candide told him not to forget the Old Woman. Cacambo set out that very day. He really was an exceptionally good man.
Candide stayed on in Surinam for a while, waiting for another captain to take him and his two remaining llamas to Italy. He hired some servants and bought everything he needed for a long voyage. Then Mr. Vanderdendur — captain of a large ship — came along and offered his services.
"How much will you charge," Candide asked, "to take me directly to Venice — me, my servants, my luggage, and these two llamas?"
The captain asked for ten thousand piastres. Candide agreed without hesitation.
"Well, well!" Mr. Vanderdendur said to himself. "This stranger hands over ten thousand piastres just like that! He must be incredibly rich."
Coming back a little later, he informed Candide that, on second thought, he couldn't make the voyage for less than twenty thousand piastres.
"Fine, you'll have them," said Candide.
"Hmm!" the captain said to himself. "This man agrees to twenty thousand as easily as ten."
He came back again and declared he couldn't possibly take Candide to Venice for less than thirty thousand piastres.
"Then thirty thousand it is," said Candide.
"My, my!" the Dutch captain said to himself. "Thirty thousand piastres means nothing to this man. Those llamas must be carrying an unbelievable fortune. Let's not push it any further — for now. Get the thirty thousand up front, and then we'll see."
Candide sold two small diamonds, the least valuable of which was worth more than the captain's entire fare. He paid in advance. The two llamas were loaded on board. Candide followed in a small boat to meet the ship where it was anchored offshore. The captain saw his chance, set sail, and caught the wind. Candide, dismayed and stupefied, quickly lost sight of the vessel.
"That," he said, "is exactly the kind of trick you'd expect from the old world."
He went back to shore, overwhelmed with grief — for he'd just lost enough wealth to make twenty kings rich. He went straight to the Dutch magistrate, and in his distress, he pounded on the door a bit too loudly. He went in and told his story, raising his voice more than was strictly necessary. The magistrate started by fining him ten thousand piastres for making a disturbance. Then he listened patiently, promised to look into the matter when the captain returned, and charged Candide another ten thousand piastres to cover the costs of the hearing.
This drove Candide to despair. He'd endured misfortunes a thousand times worse, true, but the cold indifference of the magistrate and the brazenness of the captain who'd robbed him stirred up a deep bitterness and plunged him into black depression. The wickedness of humanity appeared before his mind in all its ugliness, and his thoughts turned relentlessly dark. Finally, hearing that a French ship was about to sail for Bordeaux, he booked a cabin at the regular price — since he no longer had any diamond-laden llamas to bring along. He then announced throughout the town that he would pay the passage and meals, plus two thousand piastres, to any honest man who would travel with him, on one condition: the man had to be the most dissatisfied with his life and the most miserable person in the entire province.
So many candidates showed up that a whole fleet of ships could barely have held them. Candide, wanting to narrow the field, selected about a twentieth of the most promising applicants — the ones who seemed the most sociable and who all claimed to deserve his preference above the rest. He gathered them at his inn and gave them dinner, on the condition that each one would swear to tell his life story truthfully. He promised to choose the man who seemed most justifiably miserable, and to give consolation prizes to the runners-up.
They sat there until four in the morning. As Candide listened to one tale of misery after another, he kept thinking of what the Old Woman had said on their voyage to Buenos Aires — her bet that there wasn't a person on the ship who hadn't suffered enormous misfortunes. With every new story, he thought of Pangloss.
"That Pangloss," he said, "would have a hard time proving his theory now. I wish he were here. One thing's for certain: if everything is good somewhere, it's in El Dorado and nowhere else in the world."
In the end, he chose a poor scholar who had spent ten years working for the publishers of Amsterdam. He figured there was no profession on earth more likely to make a person utterly miserable.
This philosopher was an honest man — but he'd been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and abandoned by his daughter, who'd run off with a Portuguese sailor. He'd just been fired from the small job he'd been scraping by on, and he was being persecuted by the Calvinist preachers of Surinam, who accused him of being a Socinian (a free-thinking heretic). Admittedly, the other candidates were at least as wretched as he was, but Candide hoped the philosopher would be good company on the voyage. All the other candidates complained bitterly that Candide had treated them unfairly, but he smoothed things over by giving each of them a hundred piastres.
The old philosopher, whose name was Martin, set sail with Candide for Bordeaux. They'd both seen and suffered a great deal; and if the ship had been sailing from Surinam to Japan by way of the Cape of Good Hope, they'd have had enough material on the subjects of moral and natural evil to keep the conversation going the entire trip.
Candide, however, had one great advantage over Martin: he still hoped to see Cunegonde again. Martin had nothing at all to hope for. Besides, Candide still had money and jewels, and though he'd lost a hundred large red llamas loaded with the greatest treasure on earth, and though the swindle by the Dutch captain still weighed heavily on his mind, when he thought about what he still had left in his pockets — and especially when he mentioned Cunegonde's name, particularly toward the end of a good meal — he found himself leaning back toward Pangloss's philosophy.
"But you, Mr. Martin," he said to the philosopher, "what do you make of all this? What's your theory about moral and natural evil?"
"Sir," answered Martin, "the preachers back in Surinam accused me of being a Socinian, but the truth is I'm a Manichean." (Manicheans believed the world was governed by two equal forces — one good, one evil — locked in eternal struggle.)
"You're joking," said Candide. "There aren't any Manicheans left in the world."
"Well, there's me," said Martin. "I can't help it. I don't know how to think any other way."
"You must be possessed by the devil," said Candide.
"He's so deeply involved in the affairs of this world," replied Martin, "that he may very well be in me — same as he is in everybody else. But I'll tell you honestly: when I look at this globe — or rather, this little ball — I can't help thinking that God has abandoned it to some malicious force. I make an exception, always, for El Dorado. I've hardly ever seen a city that didn't want to destroy its neighboring city, or a family that didn't want to wipe out some other family. Everywhere the weak despise the powerful while groveling before them, and the powerful treat them like sheep — shearing their wool and selling their flesh. A million soldiers in uniform march from one end of Europe to the other, earning their bread through organized looting and murder, because there's no more honest work available. And even in the cities that seem to be at peace, where the arts are flourishing, the citizens are eaten alive by more envy, anxiety, and misery than a city under siege ever suffers. Private sorrows are crueler than public disasters. In short, I've seen so much and lived through so much that I am a Manichean."
"But surely there are some good things in the world," said Candide.
"Maybe," said Martin. "But I haven't found them."
In the middle of this debate, they heard the boom of cannon fire. It grew louder every second. Each of them pulled out a spyglass. They could see two ships locked in battle about three miles off. The wind brought both ships close enough to the French vessel that our travelers had a front-row seat for the fight. Finally one ship fired a broadside so low and so perfectly aimed that the other ship sank. Candide and Martin could clearly see a hundred men on the deck of the sinking vessel. They raised their hands toward heaven and let out terrible cries — and the next moment the sea swallowed them all.
"Well," said Martin, "that's how human beings treat each other."
"It's true," said Candide. "There's something diabolical about this."
As he was speaking, he noticed something bright red floating in the water near their ship. They lowered the longboat to investigate. It was one of his llamas. Candide was more overjoyed at recovering this one llama than he'd been devastated at losing the hundred that had been loaded with the great diamonds of El Dorado.
The French captain soon determined that the winning ship was Spanish and the loser was a Dutch pirate — the very same captain who had robbed Candide. The immense plunder that the villain had accumulated went down to the bottom of the sea with him. Out of all of it, only one llama was saved.
"You see," said Candide to Martin, "crime is sometimes punished. That Dutch swindler got exactly what he deserved."
"Yes," said Martin, "but did the passengers on his ship deserve to drown too? God punished the crook, and the devil drowned everyone else."
The French and Spanish ships went on their separate ways, and Candide went on with his conversation with Martin. They debated for fifteen straight days, and at the end of those fifteen days, they were no closer to agreement than they'd been at the start. But they talked, they exchanged ideas, they kept each other company. Candide stroked his llama.
"Since I've found you again," he said to it, "maybe there's a chance I'll find my Cunegonde too."
At last they spotted the coast of France.
"Have you ever been to France, Martin?" asked Candide.
"Yes," said Martin. "I've been to several provinces. In some, half the people are idiots. In others, they're too clever for their own good. In some they're weak and gullible, in others they fancy themselves witty. In all of them, the main occupation is love, the second is gossip, and the third is talking nonsense."
"But, Martin, have you been to Paris?"
"I have. All those types are there at once. It's chaos — a confused mob where everyone chases pleasure and almost no one finds it, at least from what I could tell. I didn't stay long. The moment I arrived, I was robbed of everything by pickpockets at the Saint-Germain fair. Then I was mistaken for a thief and thrown in jail for eight days, after which I worked as a proofreader to earn enough money to walk back to Holland. I got to know the whole scribbling crowd, the political crowd, and the religious fanatic crowd. They say there are some very polite people in that city. I'd like to believe it."
"As for me, I have no interest in seeing France," said Candide. "You can easily imagine that after spending a month in El Dorado, I don't care about seeing anything on earth except Cunegonde. I'm going to wait for her in Venice. We'll just pass through France on our way to Italy. Will you keep me company?"
"Gladly," said Martin. "They say Venice is really only good for the Venetian nobility, but that foreigners are treated very well there — as long as they have plenty of money. I don't have any. You do. So I'll follow you anywhere."
"But do you think," said Candide, "that the earth was originally a sea, as that big book belonging to the captain claims?"
"I don't believe a word of it," said Martin, "any more than I believe any of the other nonsense that's been published lately."
"But then what was this world created for?" said Candide.
"To drive us insane," answered Martin.
"Weren't you amazed," Candide continued, "by the love those two Oreillon girls had for those monkeys — the story I told you about?"
"Not at all," said Martin. "I don't see anything strange about it. I've seen so many extraordinary things that nothing surprises me anymore."
"Do you think," said Candide, "that human beings have always slaughtered each other the way they do today? That they've always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunks, misers, social climbers, cutthroats, slanderers, perverts, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?"
"Do you think," said Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons whenever they found them?"
"Yes, of course," said Candide.
"Well then," said Martin, "if hawks have always had the same nature, why would you think human beings have changed theirs?"
"Oh!" said Candide, "there's a huge difference, because free will —"
And arguing like this, they arrived at Bordeaux.
Candide stayed in Bordeaux only long enough to sell a few of those El Dorado pebbles and hire a good two-seat carriage, because he simply couldn't travel without his philosopher Martin. He was sorry to part with his llama, though, which he donated to the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences. The Academy made its prize question for that year: "Why is this llama's wool red?" The prize was awarded to a learned man from the North, who proved through a formula of A plus B minus C divided by Z that the llama had to be red, and would inevitably die of the mange.
Meanwhile, every traveler Candide met at the inns along his route said the same thing: "We're going to Paris." This universal eagerness eventually gave him the desire to see the capital too, and it wasn't really that far out of the way to Venice.
He entered Paris through the suburb of Saint-Marceau, and thought he was in the filthiest village in Westphalia.
Candide had barely checked into his inn when he came down with a minor illness, brought on by exhaustion. Since he had a very large diamond on his finger, and the inn staff had noticed a suspiciously heavy box among his luggage, two doctors appeared at his bedside — though he'd never sent for them — along with two devout women who helpfully warmed his broths.
"I remember," said Martin, "being sick in Paris on my first visit too. But I was dead broke, so I had no friends, no devout nurses, and no doctors — and I recovered."
Between the medicine and the bloodletting, however, Candide's illness became serious. A local priest came around with great humility to request a bill of exchange payable to the bearer in the next world. (This was a confession certificate — the clergy required the dying to obtain one, or they'd refuse to bury you.) Candide wanted nothing to do with it, but the devout women assured him it was the latest thing. He replied that he wasn't a man of fashion. Martin wanted to throw the priest out the window. The priest swore they wouldn't bury Candide without the certificate. Martin swore he'd bury the priest if he didn't stop being a nuisance. The argument escalated. Martin grabbed the priest by the shoulders and shoved him out the door — which caused a tremendous scandal and a lawsuit.
Candide recovered, and during his convalescence he had very good company for dinner. They played cards for high stakes. Candide couldn't understand why the ace never turned up in his hand. Martin wasn't surprised in the least.
Among those who showed Candide the sights of the town was a little Abbe from Perigord — one of those busybodies who are always on the alert, pushy, eager to please, fawning and accommodating. They hang around waiting for wealthy foreigners passing through the capital, feed them the latest scandals, and offer them entertainment at every price point. This one first took Candide and Martin to the Comedie-Francaise, where they were performing a new tragedy. Candide happened to be seated near some of the fashionable critics. This didn't stop him from weeping at the well-acted scenes. One of the critics beside him said during intermission:
"Your tears are completely misplaced. That actress is dreadful. The actor opposite her is even worse. And the play is worse than both of them. The author doesn't know a word of Arabic, yet the scene is set in Arabia. What's more, he's a man who doesn't believe in innate ideas. Tomorrow I'll bring you twenty pamphlets written against him."
"How many plays are there in France, sir?" Candide asked the Abbe.
"Five or six thousand."
"That's a lot!" said Candide. "How many are good?"
"Fifteen or sixteen," replied the other.
"That's a lot!" said Martin.
Candide was quite taken with an actress playing Queen Elizabeth in a somewhat mediocre tragedy that was revived now and then.
"That actress," he said to Martin, "really appeals to me. She looks a bit like Cunegonde. I'd love to pay her my respects."
The Abbe from Perigord offered to introduce him. Candide, having been raised in Germany, asked what the proper etiquette was, and how queens of England were treated in France.
"It depends," said the Abbe. "In the provinces, you take them to an inn. In Paris, you worship them when they're beautiful, and throw them in the gutter when they're dead."
"Queens in the gutter!" exclaimed Candide.
"It's absolutely true," said Martin. "The Abbe is right. I was in Paris when Mademoiselle Monime — an actress famous for playing that role — passed from this life to the next. She was refused what they call 'the honors of burial,' which is to say the honor of rotting alongside all the beggars of the neighborhood in a shabby cemetery. Instead, her theater company had to bury her alone at the corner of the Rue de Bourgogne — which must have distressed her greatly, because she had a noble spirit."
"That's barbaric," said Candide.
"What can you do?" said Martin. "That's how these people are. Imagine every contradiction, every possible absurdity — you'll find them all in the government, the courts, the churches, and the public entertainments of this ridiculous nation."
"Is it true that people in Paris are always laughing?" asked Candide.
"Yes," said the Abbe, "but through clenched teeth. They complain about everything with great bursts of laughter. They even commit the most detestable acts while laughing."
"Who," said Candide, "is that big pig who was saying such horrible things about the play that made me cry, and about the actors who gave me so much pleasure?"
"He's a professional hater," answered the Abbe, "who makes his living by trashing every play and every book. He despises anything that succeeds, the way a eunuch despises those who can enjoy themselves. He's one of those literary serpents who feed on dirt and venom — a hack critic."
"What's a hack critic?" said Candide.
"It's a pamphleteer," said the Abbe. "A Freron." (Freron was a real critic whom Voltaire loathed.)
And so Candide, Martin, and the Abbe from Perigord chatted on the staircase, watching the audience file out after the performance.
"Even though I'm dying to see Cunegonde again," said Candide, "I wouldn't mind having supper with Mademoiselle Clairon. She seems absolutely wonderful."
The Abbe was not the kind of person who could get an introduction to Mademoiselle Clairon, who only kept the best company.
"She's engaged for the evening," he said, "but I'd be honored to take you to the home of a lady of quality, where you'll get to know Paris as if you'd lived here for years."
Candide, who was naturally curious, let himself be taken to this lady's house at the far end of the Faubourg Saint-Honore. The company was occupied with a game of faro. A dozen gloomy gamblers each held a small hand of cards — the sad ledger of their losses. A deep silence reigned. The gamblers' faces were pale with tension, the banker's face tight with anxiety. The hostess, seated near the merciless banker, watched with hawk's eyes every doubled bet and every raised stake, noting each player who bent the corner of his cards to signal a higher wager. She made them straighten the bent edges again with strict but polite insistence, showing no irritation for fear of losing her customers. The lady insisted on being called the Marchioness of Parolignac. (The name suggests "parolling" — a gambling term for doubling down.) Her daughter, fifteen years old, sat among the gamblers and silently tipped off her mother with a glance whenever some poor player tried to cheat to recover from his bad luck. The Abbe from Perigord, Candide, and Martin walked in. Nobody stood up, nobody greeted them, nobody even looked at them. Everyone was completely absorbed in their cards.
"The Baroness of Thunder-ten-Tronckh had better manners than this," said Candide.
The Abbe whispered to the Marchioness, who half rose, honored Candide with a gracious smile, gave Martin a condescending nod, and handed Candide a seat and a deck of cards. He lost fifty thousand francs in two hands. After that they had a very cheerful supper, and everyone was astonished that Candide didn't seem the least bit bothered by his losses. The servants whispered among themselves, in the way servants do:
"He must be some English lord."
Supper began the way most Parisian suppers do — in silence — followed by a jumble of indistinguishable chatter, then jokes that mostly fell flat, false news, bad arguments, a little politics, and a great deal of malicious gossip. They also discussed new books.
"Have you read," said the Abbe from Perigord, "the novel by that fellow Gauchat, the so-called doctor of theology?"
"Yes," answered one of the guests, "but I couldn't finish it. We're drowning in stupid books, but all of them put together can't match the sheer idiocy of Gauchat. I'm so overwhelmed by the flood of terrible books that I've been reduced to gambling at faro."
"And what about the collected essays of Archdeacon Trublet?" said the Abbe. "What do you think of those?"
"Oh!" said the Marchioness of Parolignac. "That insufferable bore! How tediously he tells you what everyone already knows! How ploddingly he discusses things that aren't worth mentioning in passing! How gracelessly he steals other people's wit! How he ruins what he plagiarizes! How he disgusts me! — But he won't disgust me anymore. Reading a few pages of the Archdeacon was quite enough."
There was a man of taste at the table who backed up the Marchioness. The conversation turned to tragedies. The lady asked why there were certain tragedies that were occasionally performed but were unreadable. The man of taste explained very clearly how a play could hold your interest on stage and yet have almost no literary merit. He proved in a few words that it wasn't enough to throw in one or two of those dramatic situations you find in every novel, the kind that always hook an audience. You had to be original without being bizarre, often profound and always natural. You had to understand the human heart and make it speak. You had to be a great poet without making any character in the play sound like a poet. You had to know the language perfectly — speak it with purity and flow, without ever letting the rhythm overwhelm the meaning.
"Anyone who ignores these rules," he added, "might produce a play or two that gets applause in the theater, but he'll never be counted among good writers. There are very few good tragedies. Some are just pastoral poems in dialogue form — well written and nicely rhymed. Others are political lectures that put you to sleep, or overblown rants that drive you away. Others are the fever dreams of a lunatic, written in barbaric style, full of long speeches addressed to the gods because the author doesn't know how to speak to human beings — stuffed with false wisdom and pompous cliches!"
Candide listened to this speech with great attention and formed a high opinion of the speaker. Since the Marchioness had taken care to seat Candide next to her, he leaned over and took the liberty of asking who that eloquent man was.
"He's a scholar," said the lady, "who doesn't gamble. The Abbe sometimes brings him to supper. He's an expert on tragedies and books, and he's written a tragedy that was booed off the stage, and a book that's never been seen outside his publisher's shop — except for the copy he dedicated to me."
"A great man!" said Candide. "He's another Pangloss!"
Then, turning to the scholar, he said:
"Sir, you no doubt believe that everything is for the best in the physical and moral world, and that nothing could be otherwise than it is?"
"Me, sir?" answered the scholar. "I believe nothing of the sort. I find that everything goes wrong for me. Nobody knows his proper station in life, or his duty, or what he's doing, or what he should be doing. And except at supper — which is always pleasant enough, and where people seem to get along — the rest of the time is spent in pointless feuds: Jansenists against Molinists, Parliament against the Church, writers against writers, courtiers against courtiers, financiers against the people, wives against husbands, relatives against relatives. It's eternal war."
"I've seen worse," replied Candide. "But a wise man — who later had the misfortune of being hanged — taught me that all of this is wonderful. These are just shadows in a beautiful painting."
"Your hanged man was pulling everyone's leg," said Martin. "Those shadows are hideous stains."
"They're stains made by human beings," said Candide, "and you can't have a world without them."
"Then it's not their fault," said Martin.
Most of the gamblers, who understood none of this philosophical talk, were drinking. Martin continued his debate with the scholar, and Candide told some of his adventures to the hostess.
After supper, the Marchioness took Candide into her private sitting room and seated him on a sofa.
"So then!" she said. "You're desperately in love with Cunegonde of Thunder-ten-Tronckh?"
"Yes, madame," answered Candide.
The Marchioness replied with a tender smile:
"You answer like a young man from Westphalia. A Frenchman would have said, 'It's true that I once loved Cunegonde, but now that I see you, madame, I fear I love her no longer.'"
"Alas, madame," said Candide, "I'll say whatever you'd like me to say."
"Your passion for her," said the Marchioness, "began when you picked up her handkerchief. I'd like you to pick up my garter."
"With all my heart," said Candide. And he picked it up.
"But I'd like you to put it on me," said the lady.
And Candide put it on.
"You see," she said, "you're a foreigner. I sometimes make my Parisian lovers wait two whole weeks, but I'm giving myself to you on the very first night, because one must do the honors of one's country for a young man from Westphalia."
The lady, having noticed two enormous diamonds on the young foreigner's hands, praised them with such sincere admiration that they somehow migrated from Candide's fingers to hers.
On the way home with the Abbe from Perigord, Candide felt a pang of guilt for being unfaithful to Cunegonde. The Abbe was very sympathetic about his troubles. After all, the Abbe had only gotten a small cut of the fifty thousand francs Candide lost at cards, plus a share of the two diamond rings — half-given, half-swindled. His plan was to milk the acquaintance of Candide for everything it was worth. He talked at length about Cunegonde, and Candide told him that when he saw her again in Venice, he would beg that beautiful woman's forgiveness for his infidelity.
The Abbe redoubled his politeness and his attentions, taking a tender interest in everything Candide said, everything he did, and everything he planned to do.
"So, sir, you have a rendezvous in Venice?"
"Yes, Monsieur Abbe," answered Candide. "I absolutely must go there to meet Cunegonde."
The pleasure of talking about the woman he loved led Candide to share, as was his habit, a good part of his adventures with the fair Westphalian.
"I imagine," said the Abbe, "that Cunegonde is a woman of great wit, and that she writes charming letters?"
"I've never received any from her," said Candide, "because after I was kicked out of the castle on her account, I had no way of writing to her. Then I heard she was dead. Then I found her alive. Then I lost her again. And now I've sent a messenger to her, two thousand five hundred leagues from here, and I'm waiting for an answer."
The Abbe listened attentively, and seemed lost in thought. He soon took his leave of the two foreigners, after the most affectionate goodbye.
The next morning, Candide received, upon waking, a letter that read as follows:
"My dearest love, I have been ill in this city for a week. I have learned that you are here. I would fly into your arms if I could move. I heard about your passing through Bordeaux, where I left faithful Cacambo and the old woman, who are to follow me soon. The Governor of Buenos Aires took everything, but I still have your heart. Come! Your presence will either give me new life or kill me with joy."
This charming, unhoped-for letter sent Candide into a frenzy of joy. The illness of his dear Cunegonde, on the other hand, crushed him with grief. Torn between these two emotions, he grabbed his gold and his diamonds and hurried with Martin to the hotel where Cunegonde was supposedly staying. He entered the room trembling, his heart pounding, his voice choked with sobs. He tried to open the bed curtains and called for a candle.
"Be careful!" said the maid. "The light hurts her eyes." And she immediately pulled the curtain shut again.
"My dear Cunegonde," said Candide, weeping, "how are you? If you can't see me, at least speak to me."
"She can't speak," said the maid.
The lady then extended a plump hand from behind the curtain. Candide bathed it with his tears, then filled it with diamonds, leaving a bag of gold on the armchair.
In the middle of this emotional scene, in burst a police officer, followed by the Abbe and a squad of soldiers.
"Those are the two suspicious foreigners," the officer said. And he immediately ordered them seized and hauled off to prison.
"This is not how travelers are treated in El Dorado," said Candide.
"I'm more of a Manichean now than ever," said Martin.
"But please, sir — where are you taking us?" said Candide.
"To a dungeon," answered the officer.
Martin, having recovered his composure, figured out what had happened. The woman pretending to be Cunegonde was a fraud. The Abbe from Perigord was a con man who had exploited Candide's trusting nature at the first opportunity. And the officer was another crook who could easily be bought off.
Candide, taking Martin's advice and eager to get to the real Cunegonde rather than risk appearing before a judge, offered the officer three small diamonds, each worth about three thousand pistoles.
"Ah, sir!" said the man with the ivory baton. "Even if you'd committed every crime imaginable, you'd still be the most honorable man in the world to me. Three diamonds! Each worth three thousand pistoles! Sir, instead of dragging you off to jail, I'd lay down my life for you. There are orders to arrest all foreigners, but leave it to me. I have a brother in Dieppe, in Normandy. I'll take you there, and if you have a diamond for him, he'll take as good care of you as I would."
"And why," said Candide, "are all foreigners being arrested?"
"Because," the Abbe from Perigord chimed in, "some poor wretch from Artois heard some foolish talk, and it drove him to attempt an assassination — not like the one in May of 1610, but like the one in December of 1594, and like various other attempts committed in various other years by various other wretches who'd listened to too much nonsense." (These were references to real assassination attempts on French kings — the kind of thing that made the authorities paranoid about all outsiders.)
The officer explained what the Abbe meant.
"Monsters!" cried Candide. "What horrors, from a people who supposedly dance and sing all the time! Is there no way to get out of this country quickly — this place where monkeys provoke tigers? I've seen bears in my homeland, but real human beings? Nowhere except El Dorado. In the name of God, sir, get me to Venice, where I'm supposed to meet Cunegonde."
"I can only take you as far as Lower Normandy," said the officer.
He immediately had Candide's handcuffs removed, admitted his mistake, dismissed his men, and set off with Candide and Martin for Dieppe, where he left them in his brother's care.
There was a small Dutch ship in the harbor. The brother from Normandy, who had been transformed by three more diamonds into the most obliging man alive, put Candide and his companion on board a vessel about to sail for Portsmouth, England.
This was not the way to Venice, but Candide felt he'd escaped from hell, and figured he'd find a way to get back on course to Venice soon enough.
"Oh, Pangloss! Pangloss! Oh, Martin! Martin! Oh, my dear Cunegonde — what kind of world is this?" said Candide aboard the Dutch ship.
"A deeply foolish and abominable one," said Martin.
"You know England. Are they as crazy there as in France?"
"It's a different kind of crazy," said Martin. "You know these two nations are at war over a few acres of snow in Canada, and that they're spending far more on this lovely war than all of Canada is worth. As for telling you precisely whether one country has more people who belong in a madhouse than the other — that's beyond my limited intelligence. All I can tell you is that the people we're about to visit are extremely gloomy."
Chatting like this, they arrived at Portsmouth. The shore was packed with crowds of people, all staring intently at a well-dressed man kneeling on the deck of a warship in the harbor, his eyes blindfolded. Four soldiers stood facing him. Each one calmly fired three bullets into his head, and the whole crowd went home perfectly satisfied.
"What on earth is going on?" said Candide. "And what demon rules this country?"
He asked who the well-dressed man was who'd just been killed with so much ceremony. They told him it was an admiral. (This was Admiral Byng, executed by the British navy in 1757 for failing to engage the French fleet aggressively enough at the Battle of Minorca.)
"And why kill this admiral?"
"Because he didn't kill enough people himself. He fought a battle against a French admiral, and it was determined that he hadn't gotten close enough to the enemy."
"But," said Candide, "the French admiral was just as far from the English admiral as the English admiral was from the French!"
"Undeniably true," they told him. "But in this country, it's considered useful to shoot an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others."
Candide was so stunned and horrified by what he'd seen and heard that he wouldn't even set foot on shore. He struck a deal with the Dutch skipper — even at the risk of being robbed the way the Surinam captain had robbed him — to take him straight to Venice without delay.
The skipper was ready in two days. They sailed along the coast of France, passed within sight of Lisbon — and Candide shuddered. They passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, entered the Mediterranean, and at last arrived in Venice.
"Thank God!" said Candide, embracing Martin. "This is where I'll see my beautiful Cunegonde again. I trust Cacambo like I trust myself. All is well, all will be well, everything is going as well as it possibly can."
When they arrived in Venice, Candide searched for Cacambo in every inn, every coffeehouse, and among all the ladies of pleasure — but came up empty. Every day he sent inquiries to every ship that came into port. There was no news of Cacambo.
"What!" he said to Martin. "I've had time to sail from Surinam to Bordeaux, travel from Bordeaux to Paris, from Paris to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Portsmouth, coast along Portugal and Spain, cross the entire Mediterranean, and spend months doing it — and still the beautiful Cunegonde hasn't arrived! Instead of her, all I've met is a Parisian hustler and an Abbe from Perigord. Cunegonde is dead, no doubt about it, and there's nothing left for me but to die too. Oh, how much better it would have been to stay in the paradise of El Dorado than to come back to this cursed Europe! You're right, my dear Martin — everything is misery and illusion."
He sank into a deep melancholy. He didn't go to the opera or any of the other entertainments of Carnival season. He was impervious to the charms of every woman in Venice.
"You really are naive," Martin told him, "if you think a mixed-race servant with five or six million in diamonds in his pocket is going to travel to the far end of the world to fetch your girlfriend and bring her to you in Venice. If he finds her, he'll keep her for himself. If he doesn't find her, he'll find someone else. My advice? Forget your servant Cacambo and your girlfriend Cunegonde."
Martin was not exactly a comfort. Candide's gloom deepened, and Martin kept right on proving that there was very little virtue or happiness anywhere on earth — except maybe in El Dorado, where nobody could actually get in.
While they were debating this important question and waiting for Cunegonde, Candide noticed a young Theatine friar (the Theatines were a Catholic religious order) in Saint Mark's Square, walking arm in arm with a girl. The friar looked rosy-cheeked, plump, and full of energy. His eyes sparkled, his manner was confident, his gaze was proud, and his stride was bold. The girl was very pretty and was singing. She gazed adoringly at her Theatine and kept pinching his chubby cheeks.
"At least you'll admit," Candide said to Martin, "that those two are happy. Everywhere I've gone in the whole inhabited world — except El Dorado — I've met nothing but miserable people. But I'd bet anything that couple over there is perfectly content."
"I'll bet they're not," said Martin.
"We just need to invite them to dinner," said Candide, "and you'll see whether I'm wrong."
He went right up to them, paid his respects, and invited them back to his inn to eat some macaroni with Lombard partridge and caviar, washed down with Montepulciano, Lacrimae Christi, and wines from Cyprus and Samos. The girl blushed. The Theatine accepted the invitation, and she followed him, glancing at Candide with confusion and surprise, her eyes brimming with tears. No sooner had she set foot in Candide's room than she cried out:
"What! Doesn't Monsieur Candide recognize Paquette?"
Candide hadn't looked at her closely until now — his thoughts had been entirely on Cunegonde. But when she spoke, the memory flooded back.
"My poor girl!" he said. "So you're the one who gave Doctor Pangloss that lovely condition I found him in?"
"I'm afraid so, sir," answered Paquette. "I see you've heard all about it. I was told about the terrible disasters that struck my lady the Baroness's household, and the beautiful Cunegonde. I swear to you that my own fate has been almost as miserable. I was perfectly innocent when you knew me. A Franciscan friar who was my confessor had no trouble seducing me. The consequences were horrible. I was forced to leave the castle not long after the Baron kicked you out. If a famous surgeon hadn't taken pity on me, I would have died. For a while I became the surgeon's mistress — purely out of gratitude. His wife, who was insane with jealousy, beat me mercilessly every single day. She was a terror. The surgeon was one of the ugliest men alive, and I was the most miserable woman on earth — being beaten every day on account of a man I didn't love. You understand, sir, how dangerous it is for a vicious woman to be married to a doctor. One day, fed up with his wife's behavior, he gave her a remedy for a slight cold that was so effective she died two hours later in the most horrible convulsions. The wife's family pressed charges against him. He fled, and I was thrown in prison. My innocence wouldn't have saved me if I hadn't been good-looking. The judge set me free — on the condition that he replace the surgeon. I was soon kicked out in favor of a rival, left completely destitute, and forced to continue this awful profession, which seems so entertaining to you men but is the absolute depths of misery for us women. I came to Venice to practice the trade. Oh, sir, if you could only imagine what it's like to be required to act affectionate with one man after another — a merchant, a lawyer, a monk, a gondolier, an abbe — to be subjected to every kind of insult and abuse. To be reduced to borrowing a skirt, only to have some disgusting man hike it up. To be robbed by one client of what you earned from the last. To be shaken down by corrupt police. And to have nothing to look forward to but a horrifying old age, a hospital bed, and a garbage heap. You'd have to agree that I'm one of the most wretched creatures in the world."
Paquette poured out her heart like this to honest Candide, with Martin right there listening. Martin turned to his friend and said:
"You see? I've already won half the wager."
Friar Giroflee had stayed in the dining room, drinking a glass or two of wine while waiting for dinner.
"But," Candide said to Paquette, "you looked so cheerful and happy when I ran into you. You were singing, and you were acting so affectionate with the friar — you seemed just as happy as you now claim to be miserable."
"Ah, sir," answered Paquette, "that's one of the miseries of the trade. Yesterday I was robbed and beaten by a client, and today I have to put on a happy face to keep a friar interested."
Candide needed no more convincing. He admitted that Martin was right. They sat down to dinner with Paquette and the Theatine. The meal was pleasant, and toward the end they were all talking openly.
"Father," Candide said to the friar, "you seem to me to be living a life the whole world would envy. You're the picture of health. Your face radiates happiness. You have a very pretty girl for companionship, and you seem perfectly content as a Theatine."
"Honestly, sir," said Friar Giroflee, "I wish every Theatine were at the bottom of the sea. I've been tempted a hundred times to set fire to the monastery and go become a Muslim. My parents forced me to put on this miserable robe when I was fifteen, just to fatten the inheritance of my cursed older brother — may God strike him down. Jealousy, infighting, and rage are all you'll find in the monastery. It's true that I've preached a few bad sermons that brought in a little money, half of which the prior stole. The rest goes to keeping my girlfriends. But when I go back to the monastery at night, I'm ready to bash my head against the dormitory walls — and every single one of my brother monks feels the same way."
Martin turned to Candide with his usual cool expression.
"Well?" he said. "Haven't I won the whole bet?"
Candide gave two thousand piastres to Paquette and one thousand to Friar Giroflee.
"I guarantee you," he said, "that this will make them happy."
"I don't believe that for a second," said Martin. "With those piastres, you'll probably just make them even more miserable."
"Whatever happens, happens," said Candide. "But one thing gives me comfort: I keep running into people I thought I'd never see again. Since I found my llama and Paquette, maybe I'll find Cunegonde too."
"I hope," said Martin, "that she makes you happy someday. But I seriously doubt it."
"You're awfully hard to convince," said Candide.
"I've lived," said Martin.
"Look at those gondoliers," said Candide. "Aren't they always singing?"
"You don't see them at home," said Martin, "with their wives and screaming children. The Doge has his troubles, the gondoliers have theirs. It's true that, all things considered, a gondolier's life is probably better than a Doge's. But the difference is so small it's not worth worrying about."
"People talk," said Candide, "about a Senator Pococurante who lives in that beautiful palace on the Brenta and entertains foreigners in the most gracious style. They say this man has never known a moment's unhappiness."
"I'd love to meet such a rare creature," said Martin.
Candide immediately sent a message asking Lord Pococurante's permission to visit him the following day.
Candide and Martin took a gondola down the Brenta and arrived at the palace of the noble Signor Pococurante. (The name means "caring little" in Italian — which tells you everything you need to know.) The gardens were laid out with exquisite taste and adorned with fine marble statues. The palace itself was beautifully built. The master of the house was about sixty years old and very rich. He received his two visitors with polite indifference — which made Candide a little uncomfortable but didn't bother Martin in the least.
First, two pretty girls, very neatly dressed, served them cups of chocolate, frothed to perfection. Candide couldn't help complimenting their beauty, grace, and skill.
"They're decent enough," said the Senator. "I have them sleep with me sometimes, because I'm so tired of the ladies of the town — their flirting, their jealousy, their quarrels, their moods, their pettiness, their vanity, their stupidity, and the sonnets you have to write for them, or have someone else write. But honestly, even these two girls are starting to bore me."
After breakfast, Candide strolled through a long gallery and was struck by the beautiful paintings. He asked who had painted the first two.
"They're by Raphael," said the Senator. "I bought them years ago, at a great price, out of vanity. They're supposed to be the finest paintings in Italy, but they don't do anything for me. The colors are too dark. The figures aren't rounded enough, and they don't really pop off the canvas. The fabric in the draperies looks nothing like real cloth. In short — say what you will — I don't find anything in them that truly imitates nature. I only like a painting when it makes me think I'm looking at nature itself, and there are none of that kind. I own a great many paintings, but I don't care about any of them."
While they waited for dinner, Pococurante ordered a concert. Candide thought the music was exquisite.
"This noise," said the Senator, "is diverting for about half an hour. If it goes on any longer, it becomes tiresome to everyone — though nobody dares admit it. Music these days is just the art of performing difficult things, and whatever is merely difficult can't hold your interest for long. I might actually enjoy opera if they hadn't figured out how to turn it into a monstrosity that offends me. Let whoever wants to go watch bad tragedies set to music, where the scenes exist for no purpose except to shoehorn in two or three ridiculous songs that show off a soprano's voice. Let whoever wants to — or can stand it — swoon with delight at the sight of a castrato warbling his way through the role of Caesar or Cato, strutting awkwardly around the stage. As for me, I gave up these pathetic entertainments long ago — these things that are supposedly the glory of modern Italy and that cost sovereigns a fortune."
Candide pushed back a little, but tactfully. Martin was entirely on the Senator's side.
They sat down to dinner, and after an excellent meal they went into the library. Candide, spotting a magnificently bound copy of Homer, complimented the connoisseur on his good taste.
"There," he said, "is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss, the finest philosopher in Germany."
"It's not one of mine," replied Pococurante coolly. "People used to try to convince me that I enjoyed reading him. But those endless repetitive battles, all exactly alike. Those gods who are constantly busy without ever accomplishing anything decisive. That Helen who starts the whole war and then barely appears in the story. That Troy, besieged forever without ever being captured — all of it bored me to tears. I've sometimes asked scholars whether they found the poem as tedious as I did. The honest ones admitted it put them to sleep. Yet they all said you had to have it in your library as a monument of antiquity — like those rusty old coins that are no longer good for anything in trade."
"But surely Your Excellency doesn't feel the same way about Virgil?" said Candide.
"I'll grant you," said the Senator, "that the second, fourth, and sixth books of the Aeneid are excellent. But as for his pious Aeneas, his stalwart Cloanthes, his sidekick Achates, his little boy Ascanius, that idiot King Latinus, that bourgeois Amata, and that insipid Lavinia — I can't think of anything more flat and tedious. I'd much rather read Tasso, or even the sleep-inducing tales of Ariosto."
"May I ask, sir," said Candide, "whether you don't get great pleasure from reading Horace?"
"There are certain maxims in Horace," answered Pococurante, "from which a man of the world can learn a great deal, and since they're written in punchy verse, they stick in the memory. But I couldn't care less about his trip to Brindisi, or his description of a lousy dinner, or his petty quarrel between some Rupilius — whose words, he says, were 'dripping with poison' — and some other fellow whose insults were 'soaked in vinegar.' I found his crude verses about old women and witches truly distasteful. And I don't see any particular merit in telling his patron Maecenas that if only he'd rank him among the great lyric poets, his lofty head would touch the stars. Fools worship everything a famous author writes. I read only for my own pleasure. I only like what's actually useful to me."
Candide, who had been raised never to form his own opinions, was astonished by all of this. Martin thought Pococurante's views were quite reasonable.
"Oh! Here's Cicero," said Candide. "Now there's a great man you must never get tired of reading."
"I never read him," replied the Venetian. "What do I care whether he argued for Rabirius or Cluentius? I have enough legal cases of my own. His philosophical works seemed more promising, but when I realized he doubted everything, I concluded I already knew as much as he did, and didn't need a guide to teach me ignorance."
"Look — eighty volumes of the Academy of Sciences!" exclaimed Martin. "Maybe there's something worthwhile in this collection."
"There might be," said Pococurante, "if even one of these data-grubbers had actually invented something useful. But every volume is full of nothing but crackpot theories, and not a single practical discovery."
"What a lot of plays I see here," said Candide, "in Italian, Spanish, and French!"
"Yes," replied the Senator. "Three thousand of them, and not three dozen worth reading. As for those collections of sermons — which all put together aren't worth a single page of Seneca — and those massive volumes of theology? You can imagine that neither I nor anyone else ever opens them."
Martin noticed some shelves filled with English books.
"I'd think," he said, "that a free-thinking man would take great pleasure in most of these, since they were written with such a spirit of liberty."
"Yes," answered Pococurante, "it's a noble thing to write as one thinks. That's the privilege of being human. In all of Italy, we write only what we don't think. The people who live in the land of the Caesars and the Antonines don't dare have a single original idea without permission from a Dominican friar. I'd be delighted by the freedom that inspires English writers — if only political passion and party spirit didn't corrupt everything that's worthwhile in that precious liberty."
Candide, noticing a copy of Milton, asked whether he didn't consider this author a great man.
"Who?" said Pococurante. "That barbarian who wrote a ten-book commentary in clunky verse on the first chapter of Genesis? That crude imitator of the Greeks who mangles the Creation story? While Moses shows us the Eternal bringing the world into existence with a word, Milton has the Messiah pull out a giant pair of compasses from heaven's tool shed to sketch out the universe. You expect me to admire a writer who ruined Tasso's Hell and his devil? Who turns Lucifer into a toad one minute and a pygmy the next? Who has him repeat the same speeches a hundred times? Who makes him debate theology? Who — in a painfully serious ripoff of Ariosto's comic invention of firearms — has the devils firing cannons in heaven? Neither I nor anyone in Italy could enjoy these dreary extravagances. And the marriage of Sin and Death, and the snakes that Sin gives birth to — it's enough to make anyone with the slightest taste physically ill. And his long description of a hospital is fit only for a gravedigger. This obscure, bizarre, and repulsive poem was despised when it was first published, and I'm only treating it now the way his own countrymen treated it at the time. Anyway, I say what I think, and I don't much care whether anyone else agrees."
Candide was upset by this speech. He had a respect for Homer and was rather fond of Milton.
"I'm afraid," he whispered to Martin, "that this man has nothing but contempt for our German poets."
"That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world," said Martin.
"Oh, what a superior mind!" Candide murmured under his breath. "What a genius this Pococurante is! Nothing can please him."
After their tour of the library, they went down into the garden. Candide praised its many beauties.
"I don't know of anything in worse taste," said the master. "Everything here is just trinkets and trifles. Tomorrow I'm going to have it replanted with a nobler design."
"Well," said Candide to Martin when they had taken their leave, "you'll have to agree that there goes the happiest man alive. He's above everything he owns."
"Don't you see," answered Martin, "that he's disgusted by everything he owns? Plato observed a long time ago that the best stomachs are not the ones that reject every kind of food."
"But isn't there some pleasure," said Candide, "in criticizing everything? In finding faults where other people see only beauty?"
"Which is to say," replied Martin, "that there's a certain pleasure in having no pleasure at all."
"Well, fine," said Candide. "Then I suppose I'll be the only truly happy man — when I finally see my dear Cunegonde again."
"It's always good to hope," said Martin.
But the days and weeks passed. Cacambo didn't come. And Candide was so crushed by grief that he didn't even notice that Paquette and Friar Giroflee had never come back to thank him.
One evening, just as Candide and Martin were sitting down to supper with some foreigners staying at the same inn, a man with a face as dark as soot came up behind Candide, grabbed him by the arm, and said:
"Get yourself ready to leave with us. Don't be late."
Candide turned around and saw — Cacambo! Nothing short of the sight of Cunegonde herself could have astonished and delighted him more. He nearly went mad with joy. He threw his arms around his dear friend.
"Cunegonde is here, no doubt! Where is she? Take me to her so I can die of happiness!"
"Cunegonde isn't here," said Cacambo. "She's in Constantinople."
"Constantinople! But even if she were in China, I'd fly there — let's go!"
"We'll leave after supper," replied Cacambo. "I can't tell you anything more right now. I'm a slave — my master is waiting for me. I have to serve him at dinner. Don't say a word, eat your meal, and then get ready."
Candide, torn between joy and grief, thrilled to see his faithful friend again, stunned to find him a slave, and filled with fresh hope of getting Cunegonde back — his heart racing, his mind reeling — sat down at the table with Martin, who observed all this drama with perfect indifference, and with six strangers who had come to spend Carnival in Venice.
Cacambo was waiting on one of these strangers. Toward the end of the meal, he leaned close to his master's ear and whispered:
"Sire, Your Majesty may leave whenever you like. The ship is ready."
With that, he walked out. The rest of the company stared at each other in amazement, not saying a word. Then another servant approached his master and said:
"Sire, Your Majesty's carriage is waiting in Padua, and the boat is ready."
The master nodded, and the servant left. Everyone stared at each other again, their astonishment doubled. A third valet came up to a third stranger and said:
"Sire, believe me, Your Majesty shouldn't stay here any longer. I'm going to get everything ready."
And he instantly disappeared. By now Candide and Martin were sure this had to be some kind of Carnival prank. Then a fourth servant said to a fourth master:
"Your Majesty may depart whenever you please."
And he left like the rest. The fifth valet said the same thing to the fifth master. But the sixth valet spoke rather differently to the sixth stranger, who was sitting near Candide. He said:
"Honestly, Sire, nobody will extend credit to Your Majesty anymore — or to me, for that matter. We could both end up in jail tonight. So I'm going to look out for myself. Goodbye."
Once all the servants were gone, the six strangers, along with Candide and Martin, sat in a profound silence. Finally Candide broke it.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this is a very funny joke, but why are you all kings? I can tell you that neither Martin nor I is one."
Cacambo's master then answered gravely, in Italian:
"This is no joke. My name is Achmet III. I was Grand Sultan for many years. I dethroned my brother; my nephew dethroned me; my viziers were beheaded; and I was condemned to live out my days in the old Seraglio. My nephew, the great Sultan Mahmoud, sometimes lets me travel for my health — and I've come to spend Carnival in Venice."
A young man sitting next to Achmet spoke next:
"My name is Ivan. I was once Emperor of all the Russias, but I was dethroned in my cradle. My parents were locked up in prison, and I was raised there. I'm occasionally allowed to travel, with guards, of course — and I've come to spend Carnival in Venice."
The third said:
"I am Charles Edward, King of England. My father gave up all his legal rights to me. I fought to defend them, and more than eight hundred of my supporters were hanged, drawn, and quartered. I've been thrown in prison. Now I'm on my way to Rome to visit the King, my father, who was dethroned just like me and my grandfather — and I've come to spend Carnival in Venice."
The fourth spoke in his turn:
"I am the King of Poland. The fortunes of war stripped me of my hereditary lands. My father suffered the same fate. I resign myself to Providence, just like Sultan Achmet, Emperor Ivan, and King Charles Edward — may God preserve them all — and I've come to spend Carnival in Venice."
The fifth said:
"I'm also the King of Poland. I've been dethroned twice. But Providence gave me another country, where I've done more good than all the Sarmatian kings ever managed along the banks of the Vistula. I, too, resign myself to Providence — and I've come to spend Carnival in Venice."
It was now the sixth monarch's turn to speak.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I'm not as great a prince as any of you. But I am a king, all the same. I am Theodore, elected King of Corsica. I once had the title of 'Majesty,' and now I'm barely treated as a gentleman. I once coined my own money, and now I'm not worth a cent. I once had two secretaries of state, and now I barely have a servant. I sat on a throne once, and then I found myself lying on straw in a London jail. I'm afraid I'll get the same treatment here, though — like Your Majesties — I've come to spend Carnival in Venice."
The other five kings listened to this speech with generous compassion. Each of them gave King Theodore twenty sequins to buy himself some clothes. And Candide gave him a diamond worth two thousand sequins.
"Who is this ordinary citizen," the five kings said to one another, "who can afford to give — and actually does give — a hundred times more than any of us?"
Just as they were rising from the table, four more Serene Highnesses arrived at the inn. They, too, had been stripped of their territories by the fortunes of war, and they, too, had come to spend Carnival in Venice. But Candide paid no attention to these newcomers. His mind was entirely consumed with one thing: his voyage to Constantinople, and finding his beloved Cunegonde.
The faithful Cacambo had already convinced the Turkish captain — the one hired to transport Sultan Achmet back to Constantinople — to take Candide and Martin aboard as well. They all embarked after paying their respects to His Miserable Highness.
"You see," said Candide to Martin as they sailed, "we just had supper with six dethroned kings, and one of them was so broke that I had to give him charity. Maybe there are other princes out there even more unfortunate. But as for me, I've only lost a hundred llamas, and now I'm flying straight into Cunegonde's arms. My dear Martin, once again Pangloss was right: all is for the best."
"I wish that were true," said Martin.
"But you have to admit," said Candide, "that was a pretty strange adventure back in Venice. Nobody has ever seen or heard of six dethroned kings eating supper together at a public inn."
"That's no more extraordinary than most of the things that have happened to us," said Martin. "It's actually quite common for kings to be dethroned. And as for the honor of dining in their company — that's really not worth thinking about."
As soon as Candide got on board the ship, he rushed to his old servant and friend Cacambo, and threw his arms around him.
"Well!" he said. "What's the news about Cunegonde? Is she still a stunning beauty? Does she still love me? How is she? You've bought her a palace in Constantinople, I'm sure."
"My dear master," replied Cacambo, "Cunegonde is washing dishes on the shore of the Sea of Marmara, working for a prince who has very few dishes to wash. She's a slave in the household of a former king named Ragotsky, who the Grand Turk allows three crowns a day in his exile. But what's worse is that she's lost her beauty and become horribly ugly."
"Well, beautiful or ugly," replied Candide, "I'm a man of honor, and it's my duty to love her no matter what. But how did she end up in such a miserable state? I sent five or six million with you!"
"Ah!" said Cacambo. "Didn't I have to give two million to Senor Don Fernando d'Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, the Governor of Buenos Aires, just to get permission for Cunegonde to leave? And then didn't a pirate rob us of everything else? This pirate dragged us to Cape Matapan, to Milos, to Nicaria, to Samos, to Petra, to the Dardanelles, to Marmara, to Scutari. Cunegonde and the Old Woman are now servants of the prince I just mentioned, and I'm a slave to the dethroned Sultan."
"What an unbelievable chain of disasters!" cried Candide. "But I still have some diamonds left, and I should be able to buy Cunegonde's freedom easily enough. Though it is a shame she's gotten so ugly."
Then, turning to Martin, he said: "Who do you think has more reason to complain — Sultan Achmet, Emperor Ivan, King Charles Edward, or me?"
"How should I know?" said Martin. "I'd have to see inside your hearts to answer that."
"Ah," said Candide, "if Pangloss were here, he'd know the answer."
"I have no idea," said Martin, "what kind of scale your Pangloss would use to weigh human misery and calculate everyone's sorrows. All I'll say is that there are millions of people on this earth with a hundred times more to complain about than King Charles Edward, Emperor Ivan, or Sultan Achmet."
"That may well be," said Candide.
Within a few days they reached the Bosphorus. Candide started by paying a steep ransom for Cacambo. Then, wasting no time, he and his companions boarded a galley and headed along the shore of the Sea of Marmara to search for Cunegonde, however ugly she might have become.
Among the galley slaves, there were two who rowed extremely badly, and the captain — a Levantine — would periodically crack a leather whip across their bare shoulders. Out of instinct, Candide found himself staring at these two slaves more intently than at the other rowers, and he moved closer with a sense of pity. Their faces, though badly disfigured, bore a faint resemblance to Pangloss and to that unfortunate Jesuit — the Westphalian Baron, Cunegonde's brother. This thought moved and saddened him. He looked at them even more carefully.
"Honestly," he said to Cacambo, "if I hadn't seen Dr. Pangloss hanged with my own eyes, and if I hadn't had the misfortune of running the Baron through with a sword, I'd swear those two were rowing in this galley."
At the names "the Baron" and "Pangloss," the two galley slaves let out a tremendous cry, froze in their seats, and dropped their oars. The captain rushed over and redoubled the lashes from his whip.
"Stop! Stop, sir!" cried Candide. "I'll pay you whatever you want!"
"What! It's Candide!" said one of the slaves.
"What! It's Candide!" said the other.
"Am I dreaming?" cried Candide. "Am I awake? Am I really on a galley? Is that the Baron I killed? Is that Dr. Pangloss I saw hanged?"
"It's us! It's us!" they cried.
"Well, well!" said Martin. "So this is the great philosopher?"
"Captain," said Candide, "how much ransom do you want for Monsieur de Thunder-ten-Tronckh, one of the foremost barons of the Holy Roman Empire, and for Monsieur Pangloss, the most profound metaphysician in all of Germany?"
"You dog of a Christian," replied the Levantine captain, "since these two dogs of Christian slaves are barons and metaphysicians — which I have no doubt are very distinguished titles in their country — you'll pay me fifty thousand sequins."
"You'll have them, sir. Take me back to Constantinople at once and you'll get the money immediately. Actually — no, take me to Cunegonde first."
But at Candide's very first offer, the Levantine captain had already turned the ship around and ordered the crew to row faster than a bird can fly.
Candide embraced the Baron and Pangloss a hundred times over.
"How is it possible, my dear Baron, that I didn't kill you? And my dear Pangloss, how are you alive after being hanged? And why are you both rowing in a Turkish galley?"
"Is it true that my dear sister is in this country?" asked the Baron.
"Yes," said Cacambo.
"So I see my dear Candide once more!" cried Pangloss.
Candide introduced Martin and Cacambo. They all embraced, they all talked at once. The galley flew across the water. They were already pulling into port.
Candide immediately sent for a diamond merchant, and sold him a gem worth a hundred thousand sequins for fifty thousand — the man swearing by Abraham that he couldn't possibly pay a cent more. Candide promptly paid the ransom for both the Baron and Pangloss. Pangloss threw himself at his rescuer's feet and wept all over them. The Baron thanked him with a stiff nod and promised to pay him back at the first opportunity.
"But is it really possible that my sister is in Turkey?" he said.
"Absolutely," said Cacambo. "She's scrubbing dishes for a Transylvanian prince."
Candide immediately sent for two more diamond dealers, sold them some more gems, and then they all set off together in another galley to rescue Cunegonde.
"Once again, I beg your pardon," said Candide to the Baron, "reverend father, for running you through with a sword."
"Let's not talk about it," said the Baron. "I was a little too hasty myself, I'll admit. But since you want to know how I ended up as a galley slave, here's the story. After the college surgeon patched up the wound you gave me, I was attacked and kidnapped by a squad of Spanish soldiers, who threw me into a prison in Buenos Aires — right around the same time my sister was leaving. I applied to be sent back to Rome to the head of my Order. Instead, I was appointed chaplain to the French Ambassador in Constantinople. I'd been in that position barely a week when, one evening, I ran into a young ichoglan — a page in the Sultan's household — who happened to be a very handsome young man. The weather was hot. The young man decided to take a bath, and I took the opportunity to bathe as well. I had no idea it was a capital crime for a Christian to be found naked with a young Muslim. A judge sentenced me to a hundred blows on the soles of my feet and condemned me to the galleys. I don't think there has ever been a greater act of injustice. But I'd very much like to know how my sister ended up as a kitchen maid for a Transylvanian prince living in exile among the Turks."
"But you, my dear Pangloss," said Candide, "how is it possible that I'm looking at you right now?"
"It's true," said Pangloss, "that you saw me hanged. I was supposed to be burned, actually, but you may recall that it was raining extremely hard when they were about to roast me. The storm was so violent that they gave up trying to light the fire, so they hanged me instead, for lack of a better option. A surgeon bought my body, brought me home, and began to dissect me. He started by making a long incision from my navel to my collarbone. Now, it would be hard to find anyone who'd been more poorly hanged than I was. The executioner of the Holy Inquisition was a sub-deacon who was excellent at burning people but had no experience with hanging. The rope was wet and didn't slide properly, and on top of that, the knot was badly tied. In short, I was still breathing when the incision made me let out such a bloodcurdling scream that the surgeon fell flat on his back. Thinking he'd been dissecting the devil himself, he ran away in a panic and nearly killed himself falling down the stairs. His wife, hearing the commotion, came running from the next room. She saw me stretched out on the table with the incision gaping open. She was even more terrified than her husband, fled screaming, and tripped right over him. When they'd both calmed down a little, I heard the wife say to her husband: 'My dear, what were you thinking, trying to dissect a heretic? Don't you know these people always have the devil inside them? I'm going to fetch a priest to perform an exorcism this instant!' At that, I shuddered, and gathering what little strength I had left, I cried out: 'Have mercy on me!'
"Eventually the Portuguese barber — because that's what the surgeon really was — pulled himself together. He sewed up my wounds. His wife even nursed me. I was back on my feet in two weeks. The barber found me a position as a servant to a Knight of Malta who was heading to Venice. But when it turned out my master couldn't pay my wages, I switched to working for a Venetian merchant and followed him to Constantinople.
"One day I happened to step into a mosque, where I found nobody but an old imam and a very pretty young woman saying her prayers. Her neckline was quite low, and tucked between her breasts was a lovely bouquet of tulips, roses, anemones, buttercups, hyacinths, and primroses. She dropped her bouquet. I picked it up and placed it back with the deepest reverence. But I took so long about it that the imam got angry, and seeing that I was a Christian, he called for help. They dragged me before a judge, who sentenced me to a hundred lashes on the soles of my feet and sent me to the galleys. And by an extraordinary coincidence, I was chained to the very same galley and the very same bench as the Baron. On that galley there were also four young men from Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and two monks from Corfu, who told us that this sort of thing happened all the time. The Baron insisted that he'd suffered a greater injustice than I had. I maintained that it was far more innocent to put a bouquet back on a woman's chest than to be found stark naked with a Sultan's page. We argued about it constantly, and got twenty lashes with a leather whip apiece, until the great chain of universal events brought you to our galley and you were kind enough to pay our ransom."
"Well, my dear Pangloss," said Candide, "when you'd been hanged, dissected, beaten, and chained to an oar — did you still think that everything happens for the best?"
"I stand by my original position," replied Pangloss. "After all, I'm a philosopher, and it wouldn't be right for me to contradict myself. Leibniz couldn't possibly have been wrong. Besides, pre-established harmony is the most beautiful idea in the world — along with the plenum and subtle matter."
While Candide, the Baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo were all telling their stories, debating whether the events of the universe were contingent or inevitable, arguing about causes and effects, about moral evil and physical evil, about free will and necessity, and about what consolation a person could possibly find while chained to an oar in a Turkish galley — they arrived at the house of the Transylvanian prince on the shores of the Sea of Marmara.
The first thing they saw was Cunegonde and the Old Woman hanging towels out to dry.
The Baron went pale. Candide — that tender, loving soul — looked at his beautiful Cunegonde and saw that she was sun-scorched, her eyes were bloodshot, her neck was shriveled, her cheeks were wrinkled, and her arms were rough and red. He recoiled three steps in horror, then stepped forward again out of basic courtesy. She embraced Candide and her brother. They embraced the Old Woman. Candide paid to free them both.
There was a small farm nearby, and the Old Woman suggested that Candide rent it as a temporary arrangement until the group could figure out something better. Cunegonde had no idea she'd become ugly — nobody had told her — and she reminded Candide of his promise to marry her in such a forceful tone that the poor man didn't dare refuse. He therefore informed the Baron that he intended to marry his sister.
"I will not tolerate," said the Baron, "such a disgrace on her part and such an insult on yours. I will never live with that scandal. My sister's children would never be admitted to the noble chapters of Germany. No — my sister shall marry nothing less than a baron of the Empire."
Cunegonde threw herself at his feet and soaked them with tears. He was unmoved.
"You idiot," said Candide. "I rescued you from the galleys. I paid your ransom, and your sister's too. She was scrubbing dishes, and she's very ugly, and yet I'm generous enough to still marry her — and you're going to try to stop me? If I listened to my anger, I'd kill you all over again."
"You can kill me again if you like," said the Baron, "but you will not marry my sister as long as I'm alive."
Deep down, Candide had no real desire to marry Cunegonde. But the Baron's outrageous stubbornness made him determined to go through with it, and Cunegonde was pressing him so hard that he couldn't go back on his word. He consulted Pangloss, Martin, and the faithful Cacambo. Pangloss drafted an elegant legal brief proving that the Baron had no authority over his sister, and that under all the laws of the Empire, she was entitled to marry Candide in a left-handed marriage (that is, a marriage where a noblewoman weds a commoner without her husband gaining her rank). Martin's suggestion was to throw the Baron into the sea. Cacambo proposed sending him back to the galley captain and then shipping him off to the Father General of the Jesuit Order in Rome on the first available vessel. This plan was unanimously approved. The Old Woman endorsed it. They didn't breathe a word to his sister. The whole thing was carried out for a modest sum, and they had the double satisfaction of trapping a Jesuit and punishing the arrogance of a German baron.
You'd naturally think that after so many disasters, Candide — now married and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the resourceful Cacambo, and the Old Woman, and still in possession of a good many diamonds from the land of the ancient Incas — would be leading a perfectly happy life. But the diamond merchants had cheated him so thoroughly that he had almost nothing left except his little farm. His wife grew uglier by the day and became more shrewish and impossible to live with. The Old Woman was falling apart physically and was even more irritable than Cunegonde. Cacambo, who worked in the garden and hauled vegetables to sell in Constantinople, was exhausted from the labor and cursed his fate. Pangloss was miserable because he couldn't shine at some German university. As for Martin, he was firmly convinced that a person would be equally miserable anywhere, so he bore it all with patience.
Candide, Martin, and Pangloss would sometimes argue about morals and metaphysics. From the windows of the farm, they often watched boats sail past carrying government officials — Effendis, Pashas, and judges — on their way to exile in Lemnos, Mytilene, or Erzurum. And they'd see other officials — fresh judges, Pashas, and Effendis — arriving to replace the exiles, only to be exiled themselves in turn. They saw severed heads, neatly impaled on stakes, being transported for display at the Sublime Porte. These spectacles fueled even more philosophical debates. And when they weren't arguing, time hung so heavily on their hands that one day the Old Woman dared to say:
"I'd like to know which is worse: to be raped a hundred times by pirates, to have a buttock sliced off, to run the gauntlet in a Bulgarian regiment, to be flogged and hanged at an auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to row in the galleys — in short, to go through every misery we've all suffered — or to just sit here with nothing to do?"
"That," said Candide, "is a very good question."
This remark sparked a new round of reflections. Martin, in particular, concluded that human beings were born to live in either a state of constant anxiety or one of deadening boredom. Candide didn't entirely agree, but he didn't offer an alternative. Pangloss admitted that he'd suffered horribly his whole life, but since he'd once declared that everything was going wonderfully, he continued to declare it — even though he no longer believed it.
Something happened that confirmed Martin in his grim philosophy, left Candide more bewildered than ever, and stumped even Pangloss. One day, Paquette and Friar Giroflee showed up at the farm, absolutely destitute. They'd burned through their three thousand piastres in no time, broken up, gotten back together, fought again, been thrown in jail, escaped, and Friar Giroflee had eventually converted to Islam. Paquette had gone on plying her trade wherever she went, but it no longer earned her anything.
"I told you so," said Martin to Candide. "I knew your gifts would be squandered and would only make them more miserable. You and Cacambo once rolled in millions, and you're no happier than Friar Giroflee and Paquette."
"Ha!" said Pangloss to Paquette. "So Providence has brought you back to us, my poor girl! Do you realize you cost me the tip of my nose, one eye, and an ear? Just look at you. Just look at me. What a world this is!"
And this new development set them all philosophizing more than ever.
In the neighborhood there lived a very famous Dervish, widely considered the wisest philosopher in all of Turkey. They decided to go consult him. Pangloss was the spokesman.
"Master," he said, "we've come to ask you why such a strange creature as man was ever created."
"Why are you asking me?" said the Dervish. "Is that any of your business?"
"But reverend father," said Candide, "there is a terrible amount of evil in this world."
"What difference does it make," said the Dervish, "whether there's evil or good? When the Sultan sends a ship to Egypt, do you think he worries about whether the mice in the hold are comfortable?"
"Then what should we do?" asked Pangloss.
"Shut your mouth," said the Dervish.
"I was hoping," said Pangloss, "to discuss with you the nature of cause and effect, the best of all possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and pre-established harmony."
At these words, the Dervish slammed the door in their faces.
While this conversation was taking place, word spread that two Viziers and the Grand Mufti had just been strangled in Constantinople, and that several of their associates had been impaled. This catastrophe was the talk of the town for a few hours. On their way back to the little farm, Pangloss, Candide, and Martin passed a kindly old man who was enjoying the fresh air at his front door, sitting in the shade of an orange grove. Pangloss, who was as curious as he was talkative, asked the old man the name of the Mufti who'd just been strangled.
"I have no idea," said the old man. "I've never known the name of any Mufti, or any Vizier, for that matter. The event you're describing means nothing to me. I generally assume that people who get involved in public affairs sometimes come to a bad end, and that they deserve it. But I never concern myself with what's happening in Constantinople. I'm satisfied with sending the fruits of my garden there to sell."
Having said this, he invited the strangers into his home. His two sons and two daughters served them several kinds of sherbet they'd made themselves, along with kaimak flavored with candied citrus peel, oranges, lemons, pineapples, pistachios, and Mocha coffee — real Mocha coffee, not the watered-down stuff from Batavia or the Caribbean. After the meal, the old man's two daughters perfumed the visitors' beards.
"You must have a magnificent estate," said Candide to the old Turk.
"I have only twenty acres," replied the old man. "My children and I work them ourselves. And our labor keeps us free from three great evils: boredom, vice, and poverty."
On the walk home, Candide reflected deeply on the old man's words.
"That honest Turk," he said to Pangloss and Martin, "seems to have made himself a life far better than anything those six kings we dined with could dream of."
"Greatness," said Pangloss, "is extremely dangerous, according to all the philosophers. After all, Eglon, King of Moab, was assassinated by Ehud. Absalom was hanged by his hair and stabbed with three spears. King Nadab, son of Jeroboam, was killed by Baasha. King Elah was killed by Zimri. Ahaziah was killed by Jehu. Athaliah was killed by Jehoiada. Kings Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah were all dragged off into captivity. And you know what happened to Croesus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England, Edward II, Henry VI, Richard III, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles I, the three King Henrys of France, and Emperor Henry IV! You know —"
"I also know," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden."
"You're right," said Pangloss, "because when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum — to work it. Which proves that man was not born to sit around doing nothing."
"Let's work," said Martin, "without arguing about it. It's the only way to make life bearable."
The whole little community embraced this worthy plan, and everyone contributed according to their abilities. The small plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde was, admittedly, very ugly — but she turned out to be an excellent pastry cook. Paquette took up embroidery. The Old Woman handled the laundry. Everyone was useful, even Friar Giroflee — he became a fine carpenter and, eventually, a genuinely decent person.
From time to time, Pangloss would say to Candide:
"There is a chain of events in this best of all possible worlds: because if you hadn't been kicked out of a magnificent castle for the love of Cunegonde, and if you hadn't been arrested by the Inquisition, and if you hadn't wandered across the Americas, and if you hadn't run the Baron through with your sword, and if you hadn't lost all your llamas from the wonderful land of El Dorado — you wouldn't be sitting here right now, eating candied citrus and pistachios."
"All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden."