Candide
The orator's wife, putting her head out of the window, and spying a man
that doubted whether the Pope was Anti-Christ, poured over him a
full.... Oh, heavens! to what excess does religious zeal carry the
ladies.
A man who had never been christened, a good Anabaptist, named James,
beheld the cruel and ignominious treatment shown to one of his
brethren, an unfeathered biped with a rational soul, he took him home,
cleaned him, gave him bread and beer, presented him with two florins,
and even wished to teach him the manufacture of Persian stuffs which
they make in Holland. Candide, almost prostrating himself before him,
cried:
"Master Pangloss has well said that all is for the best in this world,
for I am infinitely more touched by your extreme generosity than with
the inhumanity of that gentleman in the black coat and his lady."
The next day, as he took a walk, he met a beggar all covered with scabs,
his eyes diseased, the end of his nose eaten away, his mouth distorted,
his teeth black, choking in his throat, tormented with a violent cough,
and spitting out a tooth at each effort.
IV
HOW CANDIDE FOUND HIS OLD MASTER PANGLOSS, AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM.
Candide, yet more moved with compassion than with horror, gave to this
shocking beggar the two florins which he had received from the honest
Anabaptist James. The spectre looked at him very earnestly, dropped a
few tears, and fell upon his neck. Candide recoiled in disgust.
"Alas!" said one wretch to the other, "do you no longer know your dear
Pangloss?"
"What do I hear? You, my dear master! you in this terrible plight! What
misfortune has happened to you? Why are you no longer in the most
magnificent of castles? What has become of Miss Cunegonde, the pearl of
girls, and nature's masterpiece?"
"I am so weak that I cannot stand," said Pangloss.
Upon which Candide carried him to the Anabaptist's stable, and gave him
a crust of bread. As soon as Pangloss had refreshed himself a little:
"Well," said Candide, "Cunegonde?"
"She is dead," replied the other.
Candide fainted at this word; his friend recalled his senses with a
little bad vinegar which he found by chance in the stable. Candide
reopened his eyes.
"Cunegonde is dead! Ah, best of worlds, where art thou? But of what
illness did she die? Was it not for grief, upon seeing her father kick
me out of his magnificent castle?"
"No," said Pangloss, "she was ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers,
after having been violated by many; they broke the Baron's head for
attempting to defend her; my lady, her mother, was cut in pieces; my
poor pupil was served just in the same manner as his sister; and as for
the castle, they have not left one stone upon another, not a barn, nor a
sheep, nor a duck, nor a tree; but we have had our revenge, for the
Abares have done the very same thing to a neighbouring barony, which
belonged to a Bulgarian lord."
At this discourse Candide fainted again; but coming to himself, and
having said all that it became him to say, inquired into the cause and
effect, as well as into the _sufficient reason_ that had reduced
Pangloss to so miserable a plight.
"Alas!" said the other, "it was love; love, the comfort of the human
species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sensible beings,
love, tender love."
"Alas!" said Candide, "I know this love, that sovereign of hearts, that
soul of our souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty
kicks on the backside. How could this beautiful cause produce in you an
effect so abominable?"
Pangloss made answer in these terms: "Oh, my dear Candide, you remember
Paquette, that pretty wench who waited on our noble Baroness; in her
arms I tasted the delights of paradise, which produced in me those hell
torments with which you see me devoured; she was infected with them, she
is perhaps dead of them. This present Paquette received of a learned
Grey Friar, who had traced it to its source; he had had it of an old
countess, who had received it from a cavalry captain, who owed it to a
marchioness, who took it from a page, who had received it from a Jesuit,
who when a novice had it in a direct line from one of the companions of
Christopher Columbus.[3] For my part I shall give it to nobody, I am
dying."
"Oh, Pangloss!" cried Candide, "what a strange genealogy! Is not the
Devil the original stock of it?"
"Not at all," replied this great man, "it was a thing unavoidable, a
necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not in
an island of America caught this disease, which contaminates the source
of life, frequently even hinders generation, and which is evidently
opposed to the great end of nature, we should have neither chocolate nor
cochineal. We are also to observe that upon our continent, this
distemper is like religious controversy, confined to a particular spot.
The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, the
Japanese, know nothing of it; but there is a sufficient reason for
believing that they will know it in their turn in a few centuries. In
the meantime, it has made marvellous progress among us, especially in
those great armies composed of honest well-disciplined hirelings, who
decide the destiny of states; for we may safely affirm that when an army
of thirty thousand men fights another of an equal number, there are
about twenty thousand of them p-x-d on each side."
"Well, this is wonderful!" said Candide, "but you must get cured."
"Alas! how can I?" said Pangloss, "I have not a farthing, my friend, and
all over the globe there is no letting of blood or taking a glister,
without paying, or somebody paying for you."
These last words determined Candide; he went and flung himself at the
feet of the charitable Anabaptist James, and gave him so touching a
picture of the state to which his friend was reduced, that the good man
did not scruple to take Dr. Pangloss into his house, and had him cured
at his expense. In the cure Pangloss lost only an eye and an ear. He
wrote well, and knew arithmetic perfectly. The Anabaptist James made him
his bookkeeper. At the end of two months, being obliged to go to Lisbon
about some mercantile affairs, he took the two philosophers with him in
his ship. Pangloss explained to him how everything was so constituted
that it could not be better. James was not of this opinion.
"It is more likely," said he, "mankind have a little corrupted nature,
for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves; God has
given them neither cannon of four-and-twenty pounders, nor bayonets; and
yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. Into this
account I might throw not only bankrupts, but Justice which seizes on
the effects of bankrupts to cheat the creditors."
"All this was indispensable," replied the one-eyed doctor, "for private
misfortunes make the general good, so that the more private misfortunes
there are the greater is the general good."
While he reasoned, the sky darkened, the winds blew from the four
quarters, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest within
sight of the port of Lisbon.
V
TEMPEST, SHIPWRECK, EARTHQUAKE, AND WHAT BECAME OF DOCTOR PANGLOSS,
CANDIDE, AND JAMES THE ANABAPTIST.
Half dead of that inconceivable anguish which the rolling of a ship
produces, one-half of the passengers were not even sensible of the
danger. The other half shrieked and prayed. The sheets were rent, the
masts broken, the vessel gaped. Work who would, no one heard, no one
commanded. The Anabaptist being upon deck bore a hand; when a brutish
sailor struck him roughly and laid him sprawling; but with the violence
of the blow he himself tumbled head foremost overboard, and stuck upon a
piece of the broken mast. Honest James ran to his assistance, hauled him
up, and from the effort he made was precipitated into the sea in sight
of the sailor, who left him to perish, without deigning to look at him.
Candide drew near and saw his benefactor, who rose above the water one
moment and was then swallowed up for ever. He was just going to jump
after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who
demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on purpose for
the Anabaptist to be drowned. While he was proving this _a priori_, the
ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal
sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to
the shore, while Pangloss and Candide were borne thither upon a plank.
As soon as they recovered themselves a little they walked toward Lisbon.
They had some money left, with which they hoped to save themselves from
starving, after they had escaped drowning. Scarcely had they reached the
city, lamenting the death of their benefactor, when they felt the earth
tremble under their feet. The sea swelled and foamed in the harbour, and
beat to pieces the vessels riding at anchor. Whirlwinds of fire and
ashes covered the streets and public places; houses fell, roofs were
flung upon the pavements, and the pavements were scattered. Thirty
thousand inhabitants of all ages and sexes were crushed under the
ruins.[4] The sailor, whistling and swearing, said there was booty to be
gained here.
"What can be the _sufficient reason_ of this phenomenon?" said Pangloss.
"This is the Last Day!" cried Candide.
The sailor ran among the ruins, facing death to find money; finding it,
he took it, got drunk, and having slept himself sober, purchased the
favours of the first good-natured wench whom he met on the ruins of the
destroyed houses, and in the midst of the dying and the dead. Pangloss
pulled him by the sleeve.
"My friend," said he, "this is not right. You sin against the _universal
reason_; you choose your time badly."
"S'blood and fury!" answered the other; "I am a sailor and born at
Batavia. Four times have I trampled upon the crucifix in four voyages to
Japan[5]; a fig for thy universal reason."
Some falling stones had wounded Candide. He lay stretched in the street
covered with rubbish.
"Alas!" said he to Pangloss, "get me a little wine and oil; I am dying."
"This concussion of the earth is no new thing," answered Pangloss. "The
city of Lima, in America, experienced the same convulsions last year;
the same cause, the same effects; there is certainly a train of sulphur
under ground from Lima to Lisbon."
"Nothing more probable," said Candide; "but for the love of God a little
oil and wine."
"How, probable?" replied the philosopher. "I maintain that the point is
capable of being demonstrated."
Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a
neighbouring fountain. The following day they rummaged among the ruins
and found provisions, with which they repaired their exhausted strength.
After this they joined with others in relieving those inhabitants who
had escaped death. Some, whom they had succoured, gave them as good a
dinner as they could in such disastrous circumstances; true, the repast
was mournful, and the company moistened their bread with tears; but
Pangloss consoled them, assuring them that things could not be
otherwise.
"For," said he, "all that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at
Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be
other than they are; for everything is right."
A little man dressed in black, Familiar of the Inquisition, who sat by
him, politely took up his word and said:
"Apparently, then, sir, you do not believe in original sin; for if all
is for the best there has then been neither Fall nor punishment."
"I humbly ask your Excellency's pardon," answered Pangloss, still more
politely; "for the Fall and curse of man necessarily entered into the
system of the best of worlds."