Candide (4 page)

My Lady Baroness weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, and consequently was a person of no small consideration; and she did the honours of the house with a dignity that commanded universal respect. Her daughter, Cunégonde, was about seventeen years of age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump and amiable. The baron’s son seemed to be a youth in every respect worthy of his father. Pangloss,
^ǂ
the tutor, was the oracle of the family, and little Candide listened to his instructions with all the simplicity natural to his age and disposition.

Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology.
^b
He could prove admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and in this best of all possible worlds the baron’s castle was the most magnificent of all castles, and my lady the best of all possible baronesses.

“It is demonstrable,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles; therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings; accordingly we wear stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles; therefore my lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be eaten; therefore we eat pork all year round. And they who assert that everything is
right
, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best.”
¹

Candide listened attentively, and believed implicitly; for he thought Miss Cunégonde excessively handsome though he never had the courage to tell her so. He concluded that after the happiness of being Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, the next was that of being Miss Cunégonde, the next that of seeing her every day, and the last that of hearing the doctrine of Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the whole province, and consequently of the whole world.

One day when Miss Cunégonde went to take a walk in the little neighbouring woods, which was called a park, she saw through the bushes the sage Dr. Pangloss giving a lecture in experimental philosophy to her mother’s chambermaid, a little brown wench, very pretty and very tractable. As Miss Cunégonde had a natural disposition toward the sciences, she observed with the utmost attention the experiments which were repeated before her eyes; she perfectly well understood the force of the doctor’s reasoning upon causes and effects. She returned home greatly flurried, quite pensive and filled with the desire of knowledge, imagining that she might be a sufficing reason for young Candide, and he for her.

On her way back she happened to meet Candide. She blushed; he blushed also. She wished him a good morning in a flattering tone; he returned the salute without knowing what he said. The next day. as they were rising from the dinner table, Cunégonde and Candide slipped behind a screen; Miss dropped her handkerchief; the young man picked it up. She innocently took hold of his hand, and he as innocently kissed hers with a warmth, a sensibility, a grace—all very particular: their lips met; their eyes sparkled; their knees trembled; their hands strayed. The baron chanced to come by; he took note of the cause and effect, and without hesitation saluted Candide with some notable kicks on the rear, and drove him out of the castle. Miss Cunégonde, the tender, the lovely Miss Cunégonde, fainted away, and, as soon as she came to herself, the baroness boxed her ears. Thus a general consternation was spread over this most magnificent and most agreeable of all possible castles.

C
andide, driven out of this earthly paradise, wandered a long time without knowing where he went; sometimes he raised his eyes, all wet with tears, towards heaven, and sometimes he cast a melancholy look towards the magnificent castle, where the fairest of young baronesses lived. He laid himself down to sleep in a furrow, heart-broken, and supperless. The snow fell in great flakes and in the morning, when he awoke, he was almost frozen to death; however, he dragged himself to the next town, which was called Walds-berghoff-trarbk-dikdorff, without a penny in his pocket, and half dead with hunger and fatigue. He took up his stand at the door of an inn. He had not been long there, before two men dressed in blue
^c
fixed their eyes steadfastly upon him. “Faith, comrade,” said one of them to the other, “there is a well-made young fellow, and of the right size”; upon which they approached Candide, and with the greatest civility and politeness invited him to dine with them. “Gentlemen,” replied Candide, with a most engaging modesty, “you do me much honour; but I really don’t have enough money to pay my share.” “Money, sir,” said one of the blues to him, “young persons of your appearance and merit never pay anything; why, are not you five feet five inches tall?” “Yes, gentlemen, that is really my size,” replied he, with a low bow. “Come then, sir, sit down with us; we will not only pay your bill, but we will never allow such a clever young fellow as you to be short on money. Mankind were born to assist one another.” “You are perfectly right, gentlemen,” said Candide, “this is precisely the doctrine of Master Pangloss ; and I am convinced that everything is for the best.” His generous companions next begged him to accept a few crowns, which he readily complied with, at the same time offering them an I.O.U. for the payment, which they refused, and then sat down at the table together. “Have you not a great affection for———?” “O yes; I have a great affection for the lovely Miss Cunégonde.” “Maybe so,” replied one of the blues; “but that is not the question. We are asking you whether you have not a great affection for the King of the Bulgarians?” “For the King of the Bulgarians?” said Candide. “Oh, Lord! not at all; why, I never saw him in my life.” “Is it possible! Oh, he is a most charming king. Come, we must drink his health.” “With all my heart, gentlemen,” says Candide, and he drinks his glass. “That will do!” cry the blues; “you are now the support, the defender, the hero of the Bulgarians; your fortune is made; your future is assured.” So saying, they handcuff him, and carry him away to the regiment. There he is made to wheel about to the right, to the left, to draw his rammer, to return his rammer, to present, to fire, to march; and they give him thirty blows with a cane. The next day he performs his exercise a little better, and they give him but twenty. The day after he comes off with ten, and is looked upon as a young fellow of surprising genius by all his comrades.

Candide was struck with amazement and really could not conceive how he came to be a hero. One fine spring morning he took it into his head to take a walk, and he marched straight forward, conceiving it to be a privilege of the human species, as well as of animals in general, to make use of their legs how and when they pleased. He had not gone above two leagues when he was overtaken by four other heroes, six feet high, who bound him neck and heels and carried him to a dungeon. At the court-martial, he was asked which he preferred: to be flogged thirty-six times by the whole regiment, or to have his brains blown out with a dozen musket balls. In vain did he remonstrate with them, that the human will is free, and that he chose neither. They pressed him to make a choice, and he determined, in virtue of that divine gift called free-will, to be flogged thirty-six times. He had gone through two floggings, and the regiment being composed of 2,000 men, that made for him exactly 4,000 strokes, which lay bare all his muscles and nerves from the nape of his neck to his rump. As they were preparing to make him set out the third time our young hero, unable to support it any longer, begged as a favour they would be so obliging as to shoot him through the head. The favour being granted, a bandage was tied over his eyes, and he was made to kneel down. At that very instant the King of the Bulgars, happening to pass by, made a stop and enquired into the delinquent’s crime, and being a prince of great genius, he found, from what he heard of Candide, that he was a young metaphysician, entirely ignorant of the world; and therefore, out of his great clemency, he condescended to pardon him, for which his name will be celebrated in every journal and in every age. A skilful surgeon cured the flagellated Candide in three weeks, by means of emollient unguents prescribed by Dioscorides.
^d
His sores were now skinned over, and he was able to march, when the King of the Bulgarians gave battle to the King of the Abares.
³

N
ever was anything so gallant, so well accoutred, so brilliant, and so finely disposed as the two armies. The trumpets, fifes, oboes, drums and cannon made such harmony as never was heard in hell itself. The entertainment began by a discharge of the cannon, which in the twinkling of an eye lay flat about 6,000 men on each side. The musket balls swept away, out of the best of all possible worlds, nine or ten thousand scoundrels that infected its surface. The bayonet was next the
sufficient reason
^e
of the deaths of several thousands more. The whole might amount to 30,000 souls. Candide trembled like a philosopher, and concealed himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.

At length, while the two kings were causing “Te Deum”
^Ɨ
to be sung in each of their camps, Candide decided to go and reason somewhere else upon causes and effects. After passing over heaps of dead or dying men, the first place he came to was a neighbouring village in the Abarian territories which had been burnt to the ground by the Bulgarians, in accordance with the laws of war. Here lay a number of old men covered with wounds, who beheld their wives dying with their throats cut, and hugging their children to their breasts, all stained with blood. There several young virgins whose bodies had been ripped open, after they had satisfied the natural necessities of the Bulgarian heroes, breathed their last; while others, half burnt in the flames, begged to be despatched out of the world. The ground about them was covered with the brains, arms and legs of dead men.

Candide made haste to another village, which belonged to the Bulgarians, and there he found that the heroic Abares had enacted the same tragedy. From there, continuing to walk over palpitating limbs, or through ruined buildings, at length he arrived beyond the theatre of war, with a little provision in his budget and Miss Cunégonde’s image in his heart. When he arrived in Holland, his provisions ran out; but having heard that the inhabitants of that country were all rich and Christians, he made himself sure of being treated by them in the same manner as at the baron’s castle, before he had been driven from there through the power of Miss Cunégonde’s bright eyes.

He asked charity of several grave-looking people, who one and all answered him, that if he continued to beg, they would have him sent to the house of correction, where he would be taught to earn his bread.

He next addressed himself to a person
^f
who was just come from haranguing a numerous assembly for a whole hour on the subject of charity. The orator, squinting at him under his broad-brimmed hat, asked him sternly what brought him there, and whether he was for the good cause? “Sir,” said Candide in a submissive manner, “I conceive there can be no effect without a cause; everything is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best. It was necessary that I should be banished from the presence of Miss Cunégonde; that I should afterwards be flogged; and it is necessary that I should beg for my bread, till I am able to get it: all this could not have been otherwise.” “Hark ye, friend,” said the orator, “do you think the Pope is Antichrist?” “Truly, I never heard anything about it,” said Candide; “but whether he is or not I am in want of something to eat.” “Thou deservest not to eat or to drink,” replied the orator, “wretch, monster that you are! Away with you! Out of my sight, never come near me again as long as you live.” The orator’s wife happened to put her head out of the window at that instant, when, seeing a man who doubted whether the Pope was Antichrist, she emptied on his head a chamber-pot full of——Good heavens! to what excess does religious zeal transport the female kind.

A man who had never been christened, an honest Anabaptist
^g
named James, was witness to the cruel and ignominious treatment inflicted on one of his brethren, to a rational, two-footed, unfledged being.
^h
Moved with pity, he carried Candide to his own house, washed him, gave him meat and drink, and presented him with two florins, at the same time proposing to instruct him in his own trade of weaving Persian silks, which are manufactured in Holland. Candide, moved by so much goodness, threw himself at his feet, crying: “Now I am convinced that my master Pangloss told me truth when he said that everything was for the best in this world; for I am infinitely more touched by your extraordinary generosity than with the inhumanity of that gentleman in the black coat, and his wife.” The next day, as Candide was walking out, he met a beggar all covered with scabs, his eyes were sunk in his head, the end of his nose eaten off, his mouth drawn on one side, his teeth as black as a cloak, snuffling and coughing most violently, and every time he attempted to spit, out dropped a tooth.