Candide (6 page)

By the side of the preceptor sat a little man dressed in black, who was one of the
familiars
of the Inquisition.
⁷
This person, taking him up with great complaisance, said: “Possibly, my good sir, you do not believe in original sin; for if everything is best, there could have been no such thing as the fall or punishment of men.”
^p

“I humbly ask your excellency’s pardon,” answered Pangloss, still more politely; “for the fall of man, and the consequent curse, necessarily entered into the system of the best of worlds.” “That is as much as to say, sir,” rejoined the familiar, “you do not believe in free-will.”
⁸
“Your excellency will be so good as to excuse me,” said Pangloss; “free-will is consistent with absolute necessity; for it was necessary we should be free, for in that the will—”

Pangloss was in the midst of his proposition when the Inquisitor beckoned to his attendant to help him to a glass of port wine.

How the Portuguese made a superb auto-da-fé
⁹
to prevent any future Earthquakes, and how
Candide was publicly whipped

A
fter the earthquake, which had destroyed three-fourths of the city of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means more effectual to preserve the kingdom from utter ruin than to entertain the people with an
auto-da-fé
, it having been decided by the University of Coimbra that burning a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.

In consequence, they had rounded up a Biscayner for marrying his godmother,
¹⁰
and two Portuguese who while eating a chicken had set aside a piece of bacon used for seasoning;
¹¹
after dinner, they came and secured Dr. Pangloss and his pupil Candide, the one for speaking his mind, and the other for seeming to approve what he said. They were taken separately to extremely cool apartments where they were never bothered by the glare of the sun.
^q
Eight days afterwards they were each dressed in a
san-benito
,
^r
and their heads were adorned with paper mitres.
^s
The mitre and
san-benito
worn by Candide were painted with upside-down flames and with devils that had neither tails nor claws; but Dr. Pangloss’s devils had both tails and claws, and his flames were upright.
¹²
In these costumes they marched in procession, and heard a very pathetic sermon, which was followed by an anthem accompanied by bagpipes. Candide was flogged to the cadence of the anthem; the Biscayner and the two men who would not eat bacon were burnt; and Pangloss was hanged, though hangings were not a common custom at these solemnities. The same day there was another earthquake, which caused most dreadful havoc.
^t

Candide, amazed, terrified, confounded, astonished, all bloody and trembling from head to foot, said to himself: “If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like? If I had only been whipped, I could have put up with it, as I did among the Bulgarians; but oh my dear Pangloss! my beloved master! thou greatest of philosophers ! that ever I should live to see thee hanged, for no reason I can see! O my dear Anabaptist, thou best of men, that it should be your fate to be drowned in the harbour! O Miss Cunégonde, you mirror of young ladies! that it should be your fate to be ripped open!”

He was making the best of his way from the place where he had been preached to, whipped, absolved, and received benediction, when an old woman approached him and said: “Take courage, child, and follow me.”

C
andide followed the old woman, though without taking courage, to a decayed house, where she gave him a jar of ointment for his sores, showed him a very neat bed with a suit of clothes hanging up by it, and set some food and drink before him. “There,” she said, “eat, drink, and sleep; and may our Blessed Lady of Atocha,
^u
and the great St. Anthony of Padua,
^v
and the illustrious St. James of Compostella
^w
take you under their protection. I will be back to-morrow.” Candide, struck with amazement at what he had seen, at what he had suffered, and still more with the charity of the old woman, would have shown his acknowledgment by kissing her hand. “It is not my hand you ought to kiss,” said the old woman; “I will be back to-morrow. Rub your back with the ointment, eat, and take your rest.”

Candide, in spite of his sufferings, ate and slept. The next morning the old woman brought him breakfast, examined his back, and rubbed it herself with another ointment. She returned at the proper time and brought him lunch, and at night she visited him again with supper. The next day she repeated the routine. “Who are you?” said Candide to her. “What God has inspired you with so much goodness? How can I repay you for this charitable assistance?” The good old woman kept a profound silence. In the evening she returned, but without his supper. “Come along with me,” said she, “but do not speak a word.” She took him under her arm, and walked with him about a quarter of a mile into the country, till they came to a lonely house surrounded with moats and gardens. The old woman knocked at a little door, which was immediately opened, and she took him up a pair of back-stairs into a small but richly furnished apartment. There she made him sit down on a brocaded sofa; she closed the door, and left him. Candide thought he was in a trance; he looked upon his whole life up to this point as a frightful dream, and the present moment a very agreeable one.

The old woman soon returned, supporting, with great difficulty, a young lady, who appeared scarcely able to stand. She was of a majestic mein and stature, her dress was rich and glittering with diamonds, and her face was covered with a veil. “Take off that veil,” said the old woman to Candide. The young man approached, and with a trembling hand took off her veil. What a happy moment! What surprise! He thought he beheld Miss Cunégonde. He did behold her: it was she herself! His strength failed him, he could not utter a word, he fell at her feet. Cunégonde fainted upon the sofa. The old woman revived them with alcohol; they recovered; they began to speak. At first they could express themselves only in broken accents; their questions and answers were alternately interrupted with sighs, tears, and exclamations. The old woman warned them to make less noise, and after this prudent admonition, left them together. “Good heavens!” cried Candide, “is it you? Is it Miss Cunégonde I see before me, alive? Do I find you again in Portugal? Then you have not been ravished? They did not rip you open as the philosopher Pangloss informed me?” “Indeed, but they did,” replied Miss Cunégonde; “but these two accidents do not always prove mortal.” “But were your father and mother killed?” “Alas!” answered she, “it is but too true!” and she wept. “And your brother?” “And my brother also.” “And why are you in Portugal? And how did you know I was here? And by what strange adventure did you contrive to have me brought in to this house? And how—” “I will tell you all,” replied the lady; “but first you must tell me about everything that has happened to you since the innocent kiss you gave me, and the rude kicking you received because of it.”

Candide, with the greatest submission, prepared to obey the commands of his fair mistress, and though he was still wrapt in amazement, though his voice was low and tremulous, though his back pained him, yet he gave her a most ingenious account of everything that had happened to him since the moment of their separation. Cunégonde, with her eyes lifted to heaven, shed tears when he related the death of the good Anabaptist James, and of Pangloss; after which she related her adventures to Candide, who lost not one syllable she uttered, and seemed to devour her with his eyes all the time she was speaking.
¹³

I
was in bed and fast asleep when heaven chose to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh, where they murdered my father and brother, and cut my mother in pieces. A tall Bulgarian soldier, six feet high, seeing that I had fainted at this sight, attempted to ravish me. At that I recovered my senses. I cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I would have torn the tall Bulgarian’s eyes out, not knowing that what had happened at my father’s castle was a customary thing. The brutal soldier, enraged at my resistance, gave me a cut in the left groin with his knife, the mark of which I still carry.“nities.” “I long to see it,“ said Candide, with all imaginable simplicity. ”You shall,” said Cunégonde; ”but let me proceed.” “Please do,” replied Candide.

She continued: “A Bulgarian captain came in, and saw me covered in my blood, and the soldier still as busy as if no one had been present. The officer, enraged at the fellow’s lack of respect to him, killed him with one stroke of his sabre. This captain took care of me, had me cured, and carried me as a prisoner of war to his quarters. I washed what little linen he owned and prepared his food. He was very fond of me, that was certain; neither can I deny that he was handsome, and had a white soft skin; but he was very stupid, and knew nothing of philosophy. It was evident that he had not been educated under Dr. Pangloss. After three months, having lost all his money, and being tired of me, he sold me to a Jew named Don Issachar, who traded in Holland and Portugal, and was passionately fond of women. This Jew showed me great kindness, in hopes to gain my favours; but this got him nowhere with me. A modest woman may be once violated, but her virtue is greatly strengthened as a result. In order to keep me hidden, he brought me to this country house you now see. I have hitherto believed that nothing could equal the beauty of the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh, but I found I was mistaken.

“The Grand Inquisitor saw me one day at mass, ogled me all the time of service, and when it was over sent to let me know he wanted to speak with me about some private business. I was taken to his palace, where I told him all my story. He pointed out that it was beneath a person of my birth to belong to an Israelite. A suggestion was then made to Don Issachar, that he should turn me over to his lordship. Don Issachar, being the court banker and a man of credit, did not want to go along with it. His lordship threatened him with an
auto-da-fé
; in short, my Jew was frightened into a bargain, and it was agreed between them that the house and myself should belong to both of them; that the Jew should have Monday, Wednesday, and the Sabbath to himself, and the Inquisitor the other four days of the week. This agreement has existed almost six months, but not without several quarrels about whether the space from Saturday night to Sunday morning belonged to the old or the new law. For my part, I have so far withstood them both, and truly I believe that this is the very reason why they are both so fond of me.

“Finally, to avert further earthquakes, and to intimidate Don Issachar, my Lord Inquisitor chose to celebrate an
auto-da-fé
. He did me the honour of inviting me to the ceremony. I had a very good seat; and refreshments of all kinds were offered the ladies between mass and the execution. I was dreadfully shocked at the burning of the two Jews and the honest Biscayner who married his godmother; but how great was my surprise, my consternation and concern, when I beheld a figure so like Pangloss, dressed in a
san-benito
and mitre! I rubbed my eyes, I looked at him attentively. I saw him hanged and I fainted. Scarcely had I recovered my senses when I saw you, stark naked: this was the peak of horror, grief and despair. I must confess to you for a truth, that your skin is far whiter and more delicate than that of the Bulgarian captain. This spectacle worked me up to a pitch of distraction. I screamed out, and would have said, ‘Hold, barbarians!’ but my voice failed me; and indeed my cries would have been useless. After you had been severely whipped, ‘How is it possible,’ I said to myself, ‘that the lovely Candide and the sage Pangloss should be in Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred lashes, and the other to be hanged, by order of my Lord Inquisitor, whose mistress I am?’ Pangloss deceived me most cruelly in saying that everything is fittest and best.

“Thus agitated and perplexed, now distracted and lost, now half-dead with grief, I revolved in my mind the murder of my father, mother, and brother, committed before my eyes; the insolence of the villainous Bulgarian soldier; the wound he gave me in the groin; my servitude; my being a cook wench to my Bulgarian captain; my subjection to the dirty Jew and my cruel Inquisitor; the hanging of Doctor Pangloss; the
Miserere
^x
sung while you were being whipped; and particularly the kiss I gave you behind the screen the last day I ever saw you. I returned thanks to God for having brought you back to me after so many trials. I charged the old woman who attends me to bring you here as soon as was convenient. She has punctually followed my orders, and I now enjoy the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing you, hearing you, and speaking to you. But you must certainly be half dead with hunger; I myself am very hungry; and so let us sit down to supper.”

Upon this the two lovers immediately placed themselves at table, and after having eaten, they returned to the magnificent sofa already mentioned, where they were when Signor Don Issachar, one of the masters of the house, entered unexpectedly. It was the Sabbath-day, and he came to enjoy his privilege, and sigh forth his passion at the feet of the fair Cunégonde.

T
his same Issachar was the most choleric little Hebrew that had ever been in Israel since the captivity of Babylon.
^y
“What’s this,” said he, “you Galilean wretch? The Inquisitor was not enough for you, but this rascal must come in for a share with me!” In uttering these words he drew out a long sword which he always carried about with him, and, supposing his adversary defenseless, he attacked him furiously; but our honest Westphalian had received a handsome sword from the old woman with his suit of clothes. Candide drew his sword, and though he was the most gentle, sweet-tempered young man breathing, he whipped it into the Israelite, and laid him sprawling on the floor at the fair Cunegonde’s feet.