Candide
a loud cry, held fast by the seat, and let drop their oars. The captain
ran up to them and redoubled his blows with the bull's pizzle.
"Stop! stop! sir," cried Candide. "I will give you what money you
please."
"What! it is Candide!" said one of the slaves.
"What! it is Candide!" said the other.
"Do I dream?" cried Candide; "am I awake? or am I on board a galley? Is
this the Baron whom I killed? Is this Master Pangloss whom I saw
hanged?"
"It is we! it is we!" answered they.
"Well! is this the great philosopher?" said Martin.
"Ah! captain," said Candide, "what ransom will you take for Monsieur de
Thunder-ten-Tronckh, one of the first barons of the empire, and for
Monsieur Pangloss, the profoundest metaphysician in Germany?"
"Dog of a Christian," answered the Levantine captain, "since these two
dogs of Christian slaves are barons and metaphysicians, which I doubt
not are high dignities in their country, you shall give me fifty
thousand sequins."
"You shall have them, sir. Carry me back at once to Constantinople, and
you shall receive the money directly. But no; carry me first to Miss
Cunegonde."
Upon the first proposal made by Candide, however, the Levantine captain
had already tacked about, and made the crew ply their oars quicker than
a bird cleaves the air.
Candide embraced the Baron and Pangloss a hundred times.
"And how happened it, my dear Baron, that I did not kill you? And, my
dear Pangloss, how came you to life again after being hanged? And why
are you both in a Turkish galley?"
"And it is true that my dear sister is in this country?" said the Baron.
"Yes," answered Cacambo.
"Then I behold, once more, my dear Candide," cried Pangloss.
Candide presented Martin and Cacambo to them; they embraced each other,
and all spoke at once. The galley flew; they were already in the port.
Instantly Candide sent for a Jew, to whom he sold for fifty thousand
sequins a diamond worth a hundred thousand, though the fellow swore to
him by Abraham that he could give him no more. He immediately paid the
ransom for the Baron and Pangloss. The latter threw himself at the feet
of his deliverer, and bathed them with his tears; the former thanked him
with a nod, and promised to return him the money on the first
opportunity.
"But is it indeed possible that my sister can be in Turkey?" said he.
"Nothing is more possible," said Cacambo, "since she scours the dishes
in the service of a Transylvanian prince."
Candide sent directly for two Jews and sold them some more diamonds, and
then they all set out together in another galley to deliver Cunegonde
from slavery.
XXVIII
WHAT HAPPENED TO CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, PANGLOSS, MARTIN, ETC.
"I ask your pardon once more," said Candide to the Baron, "your pardon,
reverend father, for having run you through the body."
"Say no more about it," answered the Baron. "I was a little too hasty, I
own, but since you wish to know by what fatality I came to be a
galley-slave I will inform you. After I had been cured by the surgeon of
the college of the wound you gave me, I was attacked and carried off by
a party of Spanish troops, who confined me in prison at Buenos Ayres at
the very time my sister was setting out thence. I asked leave to return
to Rome to the General of my Order. I was appointed chaplain to the
French Ambassador at Constantinople. I had not been eight days in this
employment when one evening I met with a young Ichoglan, who was a very
handsome fellow. The weather was warm. The young man wanted to bathe,
and I took this opportunity of bathing also. I did not know that it was
a capital crime for a Christian to be found naked with a young
Mussulman. A cadi ordered me a hundred blows on the soles of the feet,
and condemned me to the galleys. I do not think there ever was a greater
act of injustice. But I should be glad to know how my sister came to be
scullion to a Transylvanian prince who has taken shelter among the
Turks."
"But you, my dear Pangloss," said Candide, "how can it be that I behold
you again?"
"It is true," said Pangloss, "that you saw me hanged. I should have been
burnt, but you may remember it rained exceedingly hard when they were
going to roast me; the storm was so violent that they despaired of
lighting the fire, so I was hanged because they could do no better. A
surgeon purchased my body, carried me home, and dissected me. He began
with making a crucial incision on me from the navel to the clavicula.
One could not have been worse hanged than I was. The executioner of the
Holy Inquisition was a sub-deacon, and knew how to burn people
marvellously well, but he was not accustomed to hanging. The cord was
wet and did not slip properly, and besides it was badly tied; in short,
I still drew my breath, when the crucial incision made me give such a
frightful scream that my surgeon fell flat upon his back, and imagining
that he had been dissecting the devil he ran away, dying with fear, and
fell down the staircase in his flight. His wife, hearing the noise,
flew from the next room. She saw me stretched out upon the table with my
crucial incision. She was seized with yet greater fear than her husband,
fled, and tumbled over him. When they came to themselves a little, I
heard the wife say to her husband: 'My dear, how could you take it into
your head to dissect a heretic? Do you not know that these people always
have the devil in their bodies? I will go and fetch a priest this minute
to exorcise him.' At this proposal I shuddered, and mustering up what
little courage I had still remaining I cried out aloud, 'Have mercy on
me!' At length the Portuguese barber plucked up his spirits. He sewed up
my wounds; his wife even nursed me. I was upon my legs at the end of
fifteen days. The barber found me a place as lackey to a knight of Malta
who was going to Venice, but finding that my master had no money to pay
me my wages I entered the service of a Venetian merchant, and went with
him to Constantinople. One day I took it into my head to step into a
mosque, where I saw an old Iman and a very pretty young devotee who was
saying her paternosters. Her bosom was uncovered, and between her
breasts she had a beautiful bouquet of tulips, roses, anemones,
ranunculus, hyacinths, and auriculas. She dropped her bouquet; I picked
it up, and presented it to her with a profound reverence. I was so long
in delivering it that the Iman began to get angry, and seeing that I was
a Christian he called out for help. They carried me before the cadi, who
ordered me a hundred lashes on the soles of the feet and sent me to the
galleys. I was chained to the very same galley and the same bench as the
young Baron. On board this galley there were four young men from
Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and two monks from Corfu, who told
us similar adventures happened daily. The Baron maintained that he had
suffered greater injustice than I, and I insisted that it was far more
innocent to take up a bouquet and place it again on a woman's bosom than
to be found stark naked with an Ichoglan. We were continually disputing,
and received twenty lashes with a bull's pizzle when the concatenation
of universal events brought you to our galley, and you were good enough
to ransom us."
"Well, my dear Pangloss," said Candide to him, "when you had been
hanged, dissected, whipped, and were tugging at the oar, did you always
think that everything happens for the best?"
"I am still of my first opinion," answered Pangloss, "for I am a
philosopher and I cannot retract, especially as Leibnitz could never be
wrong; and besides, the pre-established harmony is the finest thing in
the world, and so is his _plenum_ and _materia subtilis_."
XXIX
HOW CANDIDE FOUND CUNEGONDE AND THE OLD WOMAN AGAIN.
While Candide, the Baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo were relating
their several adventures, were reasoning on the contingent or
non-contingent events of the universe, disputing on effects and causes,
on moral and physical evil, on liberty and necessity, and on the
consolations a slave may feel even on a Turkish galley, they arrived at
the house of the Transylvanian prince on the banks of the Propontis. The
first objects which met their sight were Cunegonde and the old woman
hanging towels out to dry.
The Baron paled at this sight. The tender, loving Candide, seeing his
beautiful Cunegonde embrowned, with blood-shot eyes, withered neck,
wrinkled cheeks, and rough, red arms, recoiled three paces, seized with
horror, and then advanced out of good manners. She embraced Candide and
her brother; they embraced the old woman, and Candide ransomed them
both.
There was a small farm in the neighbourhood which the old woman
proposed to Candide to make a shift with till the company could be
provided for in a better manner. Cunegonde did not know she had grown
ugly, for nobody had told her of it; and she reminded Candide of his
promise in so positive a tone that the good man durst not refuse her. He
therefore intimated to the Baron that he intended marrying his sister.
"I will not suffer," said the Baron, "such meanness on her part, and
such insolence on yours; I will never be reproached with this scandalous
thing; my sister's children would never be able to enter the church in
Germany. No; my sister shall only marry a baron of the empire."
Cunegonde flung herself at his feet, and bathed them with her tears;
still he was inflexible.
"Thou foolish fellow," said Candide; "I have delivered thee out of the
galleys, I have paid thy ransom, and thy sister's also; she was a
scullion, and is very ugly, yet I am so condescending as to marry her;
and dost thou pretend to oppose the match? I should kill thee again,
were I only to consult my anger."
"Thou mayest kill me again," said the Baron, "but thou shalt not marry
my sister, at least whilst I am living."
XXX
THE CONCLUSION.
At the bottom of his heart Candide had no wish to marry Cunegonde. But
the extreme impertinence of the Baron determined him to conclude the
match, and Cunegonde pressed him so strongly that he could not go from
his word. He consulted Pangloss, Martin, and the faithful Cacambo.
Pangloss drew up an excellent memorial, wherein he proved that the Baron
had no right over his sister, and that according to all the laws of the
empire, she might marry Candide with her left hand. Martin was for
throwing the Baron into the sea; Cacambo decided that it would be better
to deliver him up again to the captain of the galley, after which they
thought to send him back to the General Father of the Order at Rome by
the first ship. This advice was well received, the old woman approved
it; they said not a word to his sister; the thing was executed for a
little money, and they had the double pleasure of entrapping a Jesuit,
and punishing the pride of a German baron.
It is natural to imagine that after so many disasters Candide married,
and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the
prudent Cacambo, and the old woman, having besides brought so many
diamonds from the country of the ancient Incas, must have led a very
happy life. But he was so much imposed upon by the Jews that he had
nothing left except his small farm; his wife became uglier every day,
more peevish and unsupportable; the old woman was infirm and even more
fretful than Cunegonde. Cacambo, who worked in the garden, and took
vegetables for sale to Constantinople, was fatigued with hard work, and
cursed his destiny. Pangloss was in despair at not shining in some
German university. For Martin, he was firmly persuaded that he would be
as badly off elsewhere, and therefore bore things patiently. Candide,
Martin, and Pangloss sometimes disputed about morals and metaphysics.