Part 7

Then turning toward him, he said: "Sir, you think, no doubt, that all is for the best in the physical and moral world, and that nothing could be otherwise?" "I, sir," answered the scholar, "think none of that; I find that everything goes wrong among us; that no one knows either his rank, or his office, or what he does, or what he ought to do, and that except supper, which is merry enough, and where there appears a fair amount of harmony, all the rest of the time is spent in impertinent quarrels; Jansenists against Molinists, parliament men against church men, men of letters against men of letters, courtiers against courtiers, financiers against the people, wives against husbands, relations against relations; it is an eternal war."

Candide replied: "I have seen worse; but a sage, who since has had the misfortune to be hanged, taught me that all this is marvelous; these are shadows in a fine picture." "Your hanged man was mocking the world," said Martin; "your shadows are horrible blotches." "It is men who make the blotches," said Candide, "and they cannot help it." "Then it is not their fault," said Martin. Most of the gamblers, who understood nothing of this language, drank; and Martin reasoned with the scholar, while Candide related part of his adventures to the lady of the house.

After supper, the marchioness led Candide into her cabinet, and made him sit down on a sofa. "Well!" said she, "you still love Miss Cunégonde of Thunder-ten-tronckh desperately, then?" "Yes, madam," answered Candide. The marchioness replied with a tender smile: "You answer like a young man of Westphalia; a Frenchman would have said: 'It is true that I loved Miss Cunégonde; but in seeing you, madam, I fear I love her no longer.'" "Alas! madam," said Candide, "I will answer as you wish." "Your passion for her," said the marchioness, "began by picking up her handkerchief; I would have you pick up my garter." "With all my heart," said Candide; and he picked it up. "But I would have you give it back to me," said the lady; and Candide gave it back to her. "You see," said the lady, "you are a stranger; I sometimes keep my Paris lovers languishing for a fortnight, but I yield to you the first night, because one must do the honors of one's country to a young man of Westphalia." The beauty having noticed two enormous diamonds on the two hands of her young stranger, praised them so sincerely, that from the fingers of Candide they passed to the fingers of the marchioness.

Candide, returning with his Perigord abbot, felt some remorse at having been unfaithful to Miss Cunégonde. The abbot entered into his trouble; he had only a slight share in the fifty thousand livres lost at play by Candide, and in the value of the two brilliants half given, half extorted. His design was to profit, as much as he could, from the advantages that the acquaintance of Candide might procure him. He spoke to him much of Cunégonde; and Candide told him that he would gladly ask pardon of that beauty for his infidelity, when he saw her at Venice.

The Perigordin redoubled his politeness and attentions, and took a tender interest in all Candide said, in all he did, in all he wished to do.

"You have then, sir," said he to him, "a rendezvous at Venice?" "Yes, sir abbot," said Candide, "I must absolutely go to find Miss Cunégonde." Then, engaged by the pleasure of speaking of what he loved, he recounted, according to his custom, part of his adventures with that illustrious Westphalian.

"I believe," said the abbot, "that Miss Cunégonde is very witty, and writes charming letters." "I have never received any," said Candide; "for, imagine, having been driven from the castle for her sake, I could not write to her; that soon after I learned she was dead, that next I found her again, and that I lost her, and that I have sent an express to her two thousand five hundred leagues from here, whose answer I await."

The abbot listened attentively, and appeared somewhat dreamy. He soon took leave of the two strangers, after tenderly embracing them. The next day Candide received on waking a letter conceived in these terms:

"My very dear lover, I have been ill in this city for eight days; I learn that you are here. I would fly into your arms if I could move. I knew of your passing through Bordeaux; I left there the faithful Cacambo and the old woman, who are soon to follow me. The governor of Buenos Ayres has taken everything, but he leaves me your heart. Come; your presence will restore me to life or make me die of pleasure."

This charming letter, this unexpected letter, transported Candide with inexpressible joy; and the illness of his dear Cunégonde overwhelmed him with grief. Divided between these two sentiments, he takes his gold and his diamonds, and has himself conducted with Martin to the hotel where Miss Cunégonde lodged. He enters trembling with emotion, his heart palpitates, his voice sobs; he wishes to open the bed curtains; he wishes to have a light brought. "Beware of doing so," said the attendant; "the light kills her"; and straightway she closed the curtain again. "My dear Cunégonde," said Candide weeping, "how are you? if you cannot see me, at least speak to me." "She cannot speak," said the attendant. Then the lady drew from the bed a plump hand which Candide bathed long with his tears, and which he then filled with diamonds, leaving a bag full of gold on the armchair.

In the midst of his transports arrives a constable followed by the Perigord abbot and a squad. "So here," said he, "are these two suspicious strangers?" He has them immediately seized, and orders his brave fellows to drag them to prison. "It is not thus that travelers are treated in Eldorado," said Candide. "I am more Manichaean than ever," said Martin. "But, sir, where are you taking us?" said Candide. "Into a dungeon," said the constable.

Martin, having recovered his coolness, judged that the lady who pretended to be Cunégonde was a cheat, the abbot Perigordin a cheat, who had made the most of the innocence of Candide, and the constable another cheat of whom one might easily rid oneself.

Rather than expose himself to the proceedings of justice, Candide, enlightened by his counsel, and besides always impatient to see the true Cunégonde again, offers the constable three small diamonds of about three thousand pistoles each. "Ah! sir," said the man with the ivory baton, "though you had committed all the imaginable crimes, you are the most honest man in the world; three diamonds! each of three thousand pistoles! Sir! I would let myself be killed for you, instead of taking you to a dungeon. They arrest all strangers, but leave it to me; I have a brother at Dieppe in Normandy; I will take you there; and if you have some diamond to give him, he will take care of you as myself."

"And why are all strangers arrested?" said Candide. The Perigord abbot then spoke, and said: "It is because a wretch from the country of Artois heard some foolishness spoken; that alone made him commit a parricide, not such as that of May 1610, but such as that of December 1594, and such as several others committed in other years and in other months by other wretches who had heard foolishness spoken."

The constable then explained what it was about. "Ah! the monsters!" cried Candide; "what! such horrors among a people that dances and sings! Shall I not get out of this country as fast as possible, where monkeys tease tigers? I saw bears in my country; I saw men only in Eldorado. For the love of God, Mr. Constable, take me to Venice, where I am to await Miss Cunégonde." "I can only take you to Lower Normandy," said the bailiff. Straightway he has his irons taken off, says he was mistaken, dismisses his men, takes Candide and Martin to Dieppe, and leaves them in the hands of his brother. There was a small Dutch vessel in the roads. The Norman, with the help of three more diamonds, become the most obliging of men, embarks Candide and his people in the vessel which was to set sail for Portsmouth in England. This was not the road to Venice; but Candide believed himself delivered from hell; and he counted on taking up the road to Venice at the first opportunity.

CHAPTER XXIII. Candide and Martin go on the coasts of England; what they see there.

"Ah! Pangloss! Pangloss! Ah! Martin! Martin! Ah! my dear Cunégonde! what is this world?" said Candide on the Dutch vessel. "Something very mad and very abominable," answered Martin. "You know England; are they as mad there as in France?" "It is another kind of madness," said Martin. "You know that these two nations are at war for a few acres of snow near Canada, and that they spend for this fine war much more than all Canada is worth. To tell you precisely whether there are more people to be locked up in one country than in another, is what my weak lights do not permit me; I know only that in general the people we are going to see are very splenetic."

Thus conversing they landed at Portsmouth; a multitude of people covered the shore, and looked attentively at a rather stout man who was on his knees, blindfolded, on the deck of one of the fleet's vessels; four soldiers, posted opposite this man, each fired three balls into his skull, most peacefully in the world; and the whole assembly returned extremely satisfied. "What then is all this?" said Candide; "and what demon exercises his empire everywhere?" He asked who was that stout man they had just killed in ceremony. "It is an admiral," he was answered. "And why kill this admiral?" "It is," he was told, "because he did not have enough people killed; he fought a battle with a French admiral, and it was found he was not close enough to him." "But," said Candide, "the French admiral was as far from the English admiral as this one was from the other!" "That is incontestable," he was replied; "but in this country it is well to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others."

Candide was so stunned and so shocked at what he saw and heard, that he would not even set foot on shore, and made his bargain with the Dutch master (though he should rob him like the one at Surinam) to take him without delay to Venice.

The master was ready at the end of two days. They coasted France; they passed in sight of Lisbon, and Candide trembled. They entered the strait and the Mediterranean, finally they landed at Venice. "God be praised!" said Candide, embracing Martin; "here it is that I shall see the beautiful Cunégonde again. I count on Cacambo as on myself. All is well, all goes well, all goes as well as possible."

CHAPTER XXIV. Of Paquette, and brother Giroflée.

As soon as he was at Venice, he had Cacambo sought in all the taverns, in all the coffeehouses, at all the loose women's, and found him not. He sent every day to scout all the vessels and all the boats: no news of Cacambo. "What!" said he to Martin, "I have had time to pass from Surinam to Bordeaux, to go from Bordeaux to Paris, from Paris to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Portsmouth, to coast Portugal and Spain, to cross all the Mediterranean, to spend some months at Venice; and the beautiful Cunégonde is not come! I met in her place only a strumpet and a Perigord abbot! Cunégonde is dead, no doubt; I have only to die. Ah! it was better to stay in the paradise of Eldorado than to return to this accursed Europe. How right you are, my dear Martin! all is but illusion and calamity."

He fell into a black melancholy, and took no part in the opera alla moda, nor in the other diversions of the carnival; not a single lady gave him the least temptation. Martin said to him: "You are very simple, truly, to imagine that a half-breed valet, who has five or six millions in his pockets, will go seek your mistress at the end of the world, and bring her to you at Venice. He will take her for himself, if he finds her; if he finds her not, he will take another: I advise you to forget your valet Cacambo and your mistress Cunégonde." Martin was not consoling. Candide's melancholy increased, and Martin ceased not to prove to him that there was little virtue and little happiness on earth; except perhaps in Eldorado, where no one could go.

While disputing on this important matter, and waiting for Cunégonde, Candide noticed a young Theatin in Saint Mark's square, who held a girl under his arm. The Theatin appeared fresh, plump, vigorous; his eyes were bright, his air assured, his bearing high, his step proud. The girl was very pretty, and sang; she looked lovingly at her Theatin, and from time to time pinched his fat cheeks. "You will at least admit," said Candide to Martin, "that these people are happy. I have found until now in all the habitable earth, except in Eldorado, only unfortunates; but as for this girl and this Theatin, I wager these are very happy creatures." "I wager not," said Martin. "We have only to invite them to dinner," said Candide, "and you will see if I am mistaken."

Thereupon he accosts them, makes his compliment, and invites them to come to his inn to eat macaroni, Lombardy partridges, sturgeon roe, and to drink Montepulciano wine, lacryma-christi, cyprus, and samos. The young lady blushed, the Theatin accepted the party, and the girl followed him looking at Candide with eyes of surprise and confusion, which were darkened by some tears. Scarcely had she entered Candide's room, than she said to him: "What! Mr. Candide does not know Paquette again!" At these words Candide, who had not considered her until then with attention, because he was occupied only with Cunégonde, said to her: "Alas! my poor child, is it then you who put doctor Pangloss in the fine state in which I saw him?"

"Alas! sir, it is myself," said Paquette; "I see you are informed of all. I knew the frightful misfortunes that befell the whole house of my lady baroness and the beautiful Cunégonde. I swear to you that my destiny has scarce been less sad. I was very innocent when you saw me. A Cordelier, who was my confessor, easily seduced me. The consequences were terrible; I was obliged to leave the castle some time after the baron had sent you away with great kicks on the behind. If a famous physician had not taken pity on me, I had died. I was for some time, out of gratitude, the mistress of this physician. His wife, who was furiously jealous, beat me every day impitiously; she was a fury. This physician was the ugliest of all men, and I the most unhappy of all creatures to be continually beaten for a man I did not love. You know, sir, how dangerous it is for a shrewish woman to be the wife of a physician. This one, exasperated by his wife's behavior, gave her one day, to cure her of a slight cold, a medicine so efficacious, that she died of it in two hours' time in horrible convulsions. The lady's relations brought a criminal suit against the gentleman; he fled, and I was put in prison. My innocence would not have saved me, if I had not been a little pretty. The judge released me on condition that he should succeed the physician. I was soon supplanted by a rival, turned away without reward, and obliged to continue that abominable trade which appears so pleasant to you men, and which is for us but an abyss of misery. I went to exercise the profession at Venice. Ah! sir, if you could imagine what it is to be obliged to caress indifferently an old merchant, a lawyer, a monk, a gondolier, an abbot; to be exposed to all insults, to all affronts; to be often reduced to borrowing a petticoat to go have it lifted by a disgusting man; to be robbed by one of what one has earned with another; to be ransomed by the officers of justice, and to have in prospect only a frightful old age, a hospital, and a dungheap, you would conclude that I am one of the most unhappy creatures in the world."

Paquette thus opened her heart to good Candide, in a cabinet, in presence of Martin, who said to Candide: "You see that I have already won half the wager."

Brother Giroflée had remained in the dining room, and drank a cup while waiting for dinner. "But," said Candide to Paquette, "you had such a gay, contented air, when I met you; you sang, you caressed the Theatin with a natural complaisance; you appeared to me as happy as you pretend to be unfortunate." "Ah! sir," answered Paquette, "that is yet another of the miseries of the trade. I was robbed and beaten yesterday by an officer, and today I must appear in good humor to please a monk."

Candide would hear no more; he acknowledged that Martin was right. They sat down to table with Paquette and the Theatin; the meal was amusing enough, and toward the end they spoke with some confidence. "My father," said Candide to the monk, "you seem to me to enjoy a destiny that all must envy; the flower of health shines on your face, your physiognomy announces happiness; you have a very pretty girl for your recreation, and you seem very content with your state of Theatin."

"My faith, sir," said brother Giroflée, "I wish all the Theatins were at the bottom of the sea. I was tempted a hundred times to set fire to the convent, and go make myself a Turk. My parents forced me, at the age of fifteen, to put on this detestable robe, to leave more fortune to a cursed elder brother, whom God confound! Jealousy, discord, rage, dwell in the convent. It is true that I preached some bad sermons which earned me a little money, of which the prior steals me half; the rest serves to keep girls: but when I return in the evening to the monastery, I am ready to break my head against the walls of the dormitory; and all my brethren are in the same case."

Martin, turning toward Candide with his ordinary coolness: "Well," said he to him, "have I not won the whole wager?" Candide gave two thousand piastres to Paquette, and a thousand piastres to brother Giroflée. "I promise you," said he, "with that they will be happy." "I do not believe it at all," said Martin; "you will perhaps render them with these piastres much more unhappy still." "Come what may," said Candide; "but one thing consoles me, I see that one often finds again people one never thought to find again; it may well happen that having met my red sheep and Paquette, I shall also meet Cunégonde." "I wish," said Martin, "that she may one day make your happiness; but that is what I much doubt." "You are very hard," said Candide. "It is that I have lived," said Martin. "But look at those gondoliers," said Candide; "do they not sing continually?" "You do not see them in their households, with their wives and their brats of children," said Martin. "The doge has his griefs, the gondoliers have theirs. It is true that on the whole the lot of a gondolier is preferable to that of a doge; but I think the difference so slight, that it is not worth the trouble of being examined."

"They speak," said Candide, "of the senator Pococurante, who lives in that fine palace on the Brenta, and receives strangers pretty well. They pretend he is a man who never had any grief. I should like to see so rare a species," said Martin. Candide thereupon sent to ask the lord Pococurante permission to come see him the next day.

CHAPTER XXV. Visit to the lord Pococurante, noble Venetian.

Candide and Martin went in a gondola on the Brenta, and arrived at the palace of the noble Pococurante. The gardens were well laid out, and adorned with fine marble statues; the palace of a fine architecture. The master of the house, a man of sixty years, very rich, received the two curious persons very politely, but with very little eagerness, which disconcerted Candide, and displeased not Martin.

First two pretty and neatly dressed girls served chocolate, which they made foam very well. Candide could not help praising them for their beauty, their good grace, and their skill. "They are tolerably good creatures," said the senator Pococurante; "I sometimes have them sleep in my bed; for I am very weary of the city ladies, of their coquetries, their jealousies, their quarrels, their humors, their pettiness, their pride, their follies, and the sonnets one must make or order for them; but, after all, these two girls begin greatly to bore me."

Candide, after the collation, walking in a long gallery, was surprised at the beauty of the pictures. He asked of what master were the two first. "They are by Raphael," said the senator; "I bought them very dear out of vanity, some years ago; they say it is the finest in Italy, but they please me not at all: the coloring is very dark, the figures are not rounded enough, and do not stand out enough; the draperies resemble no stuff at all: in short, whatever is said, I find there no true imitation of nature. I should love a picture only when I should believe I see nature itself: there is none of that kind. I have many pictures, but I look at them no more."

Pococurante, while waiting for dinner, had a concerto played. Candide found the music delicious. "This noise," said Pococurante, "may amuse for half an hour; but if it lasts longer, it fatigues everyone, though no one dares avow it. Music today is no longer but the art of executing difficult things, and what is only difficult pleases not in the long run."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”