No More Learning

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. "

"Sir," said the Familiar, "you do not then believe in liberty? "

"Your Excellency will excuse me," said Pangloss; "liberty is consistent
with absolute necessity, for it was necessary we should be free; for, in
short, the determinate will----"

Pangloss was in the middle of his sentence, when the Familiar beckoned
to his footman, who gave him a glass of wine from Porto or Opporto.




VI

HOW THE PORTUGUESE MADE A BEAUTIFUL AUTO-DA-FE, TO PREVENT ANY FURTHER
EARTHQUAKES; AND HOW CANDIDE WAS PUBLICLY WHIPPED.


After the earthquake had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of
that country could think of no means more effectual to prevent utter
ruin than to give the people a beautiful _auto-da-fe_[6]; for it had
been decided by the University of Coimbra, that the burning of a few
people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible
secret to hinder the earth from quaking.

In consequence hereof, they had seized on a Biscayner, convicted of
having married his godmother, and on two Portuguese, for rejecting the
bacon which larded a chicken they were eating[7]; after dinner, they
came and secured Dr. Pangloss, and his disciple Candide, the one for
speaking his mind, the other for having listened with an air of
approbation. They were conducted to separate apartments, extremely cold,
as they were never incommoded by the sun. Eight days after they were
dressed in _san-benitos_[8] and their heads ornamented with paper
mitres. The mitre and _san-benito_ belonging to Candide were painted
with reversed flames and with devils that had neither tails nor claws;
but Pangloss's devils had claws and tails and the flames were upright.
They marched in procession thus habited and heard a very pathetic
sermon, followed by fine church music. Candide was whipped in cadence
while they were singing; the Biscayner, and the two men who had refused
to eat bacon, were burnt; and Pangloss was hanged, though that was not
the custom. The same day the earth sustained a most violent concussion.

Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, all bloody, all palpitating, said
to himself:

"If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? Well,
if I had been only whipped I could put up with it, for I experienced
that among the Bulgarians; but oh, my dear Pangloss! thou greatest of
philosophers, that I should have seen you hanged, without knowing for
what! Oh, my dear Anabaptist, thou best of men, that thou should'st have
been drowned in the very harbour! Oh, Miss Cunegonde, thou pearl of
girls! that thou should'st have had thy belly ripped open! "

Thus he was musing, scarce able to stand, preached at, whipped,
absolved, and blessed, when an old woman accosted him saying:

"My son, take courage and follow me. "




VII

HOW THE OLD WOMAN TOOK CARE OF CANDIDE, AND HOW HE FOUND THE OBJECT HE
LOVED.


Candide did not take courage, but followed the old woman to a decayed
house, where she gave him a pot of pomatum to anoint his sores, showed
him a very neat little bed, with a suit of clothes hanging up, and left
him something to eat and drink.

"Eat, drink, sleep," said she, "and may our lady of Atocha,[9] the great
St. Anthony of Padua, and the great St. James of Compostella, receive
you under their protection. I shall be back to-morrow. "

Candide, amazed at all he had suffered and still more with the charity
of the old woman, wished to kiss her hand.

"It is not my hand you must kiss," said the old woman; "I shall be back
to-morrow. Anoint yourself with the pomatum, eat and sleep. "

Candide, notwithstanding so many disasters, ate and slept. The next
morning the old woman brought him his breakfast, looked at his back, and
rubbed it herself with another ointment: in like manner she brought him
his dinner; and at night she returned with his supper. The day following
she went through the very same ceremonies.

"Who are you? " said Candide; "who has inspired you with so much
goodness? What return can I make you? "

The good woman made no answer; she returned in the evening, but brought
no supper.

"Come with me," she said, "and say nothing. "

She took him by the arm, and walked with him about a quarter of a mile
into the country; they arrived at a lonely house, surrounded with
gardens and canals. The old woman knocked at a little door, it opened,
she led Candide up a private staircase into a small apartment richly
furnished. She left him on a brocaded sofa, shut the door and went away.
Candide thought himself in a dream; indeed, that he had been dreaming
unluckily all his life, and that the present moment was the only
agreeable part of it all.

The old woman returned very soon, supporting with difficulty a trembling
woman of a majestic figure, brilliant with jewels, and covered with a
veil.

"Take off that veil," said the old woman to Candide.

The young man approaches, he raises the veil with a timid hand. Oh!
what a moment! what surprise! he believes he beholds Miss Cunegonde? he
really sees her! it is herself! His strength fails him, he cannot utter
a word, but drops at her feet. Cunegonde falls upon the sofa. The old
woman supplies a smelling bottle; they come to themselves and recover
their speech. As they began with broken accents, with questions and
answers interchangeably interrupted with sighs, with tears, and cries.
The old woman desired they would make less noise and then she left them
to themselves.

"What, is it you? " said Candide, "you live? I find you again in
Portugal? then you have not been ravished? then they did not rip open
your belly as Doctor Pangloss informed me? "

"Yes, they did," said the beautiful Cunegonde; "but those two accidents
are not always mortal. "

"But were your father and mother killed? "

"It is but too true," answered Cunegonde, in tears.

"And your brother? "

"My brother also was killed. "

"And why are you in Portugal? and how did you know of my being here? and
by what strange adventure did you contrive to bring me to this house? "

"I will tell you all that," replied the lady, "but first of all let me
know your history, since the innocent kiss you gave me and the kicks
which you received. "

Candide respectfully obeyed her, and though he was still in a surprise,
though his voice was feeble and trembling, though his back still pained
him, yet he gave her a most ingenuous account of everything that had
befallen him since the moment of their separation. Cunegonde lifted up
her eyes to heaven; shed tears upon hearing of the death of the good
Anabaptist and of Pangloss; after which she spoke as follows to Candide,
who did not lose a word and devoured her with his eyes.




VIII

THE HISTORY OF CUNEGONDE.


"I was in bed and fast asleep when it pleased God to send the Bulgarians
to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh; they slew my father and
brother, and cut my mother in pieces. A tall Bulgarian, six feet high,
perceiving that I had fainted away at this sight, began to ravish me;
this made me recover; I regained my senses, I cried, I struggled, I bit,
I scratched, I wanted to tear out the tall Bulgarian's eyes--not knowing
that what happened at my father's house was the usual practice of war.
The brute gave me a cut in the left side with his hanger, and the mark
is still upon me. "

"Ah! I hope I shall see it," said honest Candide.

"You shall," said Cunegonde, "but let us continue. "

"Do so," replied Candide.

Thus she resumed the thread of her story:

"A Bulgarian captain came in, saw me all bleeding, and the soldier not
in the least disconcerted. The captain flew into a passion at the
disrespectful behaviour of the brute, and slew him on my body. He
ordered my wounds to be dressed, and took me to his quarters as a
prisoner of war. I washed the few shirts that he had, I did his cooking;
he thought me very pretty--he avowed it; on the other hand, I must own
he had a good shape, and a soft and white skin; but he had little or no
mind or philosophy, and you might see plainly that he had never been
instructed by Doctor Pangloss. In three months time, having lost all his
money, and being grown tired of my company, he sold me to a Jew, named
Don Issachar, who traded to Holland and Portugal, and had a strong
passion for women. This Jew was much attached to my person, but could
not triumph over it; I resisted him better than the Bulgarian soldier. A
modest woman may be ravished once, but her virtue is strengthened by it.
In order to render me more tractable, he brought me to this country
house. Hitherto I had imagined that nothing could equal the beauty of
Thunder-ten-Tronckh Castle; but I found I was mistaken.

"The Grand Inquisitor, seeing me one day at Mass, stared long at me, and
sent to tell me that he wished to speak on private matters. I was
conducted to his palace, where I acquainted him with the history of my
family, and he represented to me how much it was beneath my rank to
belong to an Israelite. A proposal was then made to Don Issachar that he
should resign me to my lord. Don Issachar, being the court banker, and a
man of credit, would hear nothing of it. The Inquisitor threatened him
with an _auto-da-fe_. At last my Jew, intimidated, concluded a bargain,
by which the house and myself should belong to both in common; the Jew
should have for himself Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and the
Inquisitor should have the rest of the week. It is now six months since
this agreement was made. Quarrels have not been wanting, for they could
not decide whether the night from Saturday to Sunday belonged to the old
law or to the new. For my part, I have so far held out against both, and
I verily believe that this is the reason why I am still beloved.
"At length, to avert the scourge of earthquakes, and to intimidate Don
Issachar, my Lord Inquisitor was pleased to celebrate an _auto-da-fe_.
He did me the honour to invite me to the ceremony. I had a very good
seat, and the ladies were served with refreshments between Mass and the
execution. I was in truth seized with horror at the burning of those two
Jews, and of the honest Biscayner who had married his godmother; but
what was my surprise, my fright, my trouble, when I saw in a
_san-benito_ and mitre a figure which resembled that of Pangloss! I
rubbed my eyes, I looked at him attentively, I saw him hung; I fainted.
Scarcely had I recovered my senses than I saw you stripped, stark naked,
and this was the height of my horror, consternation, grief, and despair.
I tell you, truthfully, that your skin is yet whiter and of a more
perfect colour than that of my Bulgarian captain. This spectacle
redoubled all the feelings which overwhelmed and devoured me. I screamed
out, and would have said, 'Stop, barbarians! ' but my voice failed me,
and my cries would have been useless after you had been severely
whipped. How is it possible, said I, that the beloved Candide and the
wise Pangloss should both be at Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred
lashes, and the other to be hanged by the Grand Inquisitor, of whom I am
the well-beloved? Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that
everything in the world is for the best.

"Agitated, lost, sometimes beside myself, and sometimes ready to die of
weakness, my mind was filled with the massacre of my father, mother, and
brother, with the insolence of the ugly Bulgarian soldier, with the stab
that he gave me, with my servitude under the Bulgarian captain, with my
hideous Don Issachar, with my abominable Inquisitor, with the execution
of Doctor Pangloss, with the grand Miserere to which they whipped you,
and especially with the kiss I gave you behind the screen the day that I
had last seen you. I praised God for bringing you back to me after so
many trials, and I charged my old woman to take care of you, and to
conduct you hither as soon as possible. She has executed her commission
perfectly well; I have tasted the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you
again, of hearing you, of speaking with you. But you must be hungry, for
myself, I am famished; let us have supper. "

They both sat down to table, and, when supper was over, they placed
themselves once more on the sofa; where they were when Signor Don
Issachar arrived. It was the Jewish Sabbath, and Issachar had come to
enjoy his rights, and to explain his tender love.




IX

WHAT BECAME OF CUNEGONDE, CANDIDE, THE GRAND INQUISITOR, AND THE JEW.


This Issachar was the most choleric Hebrew that had ever been seen in
Israel since the Captivity in Babylon.

"What! " said he, "thou bitch of a Galilean, was not the Inquisitor
enough for thee? Must this rascal also share with me? "

In saying this he drew a long poniard which he always carried about him;
and not imagining that his adversary had any arms he threw himself upon
Candide: but our honest Westphalian had received a handsome sword from
the old woman along with the suit of clothes. He drew his rapier,
despite his gentleness, and laid the Israelite stone dead upon the
cushions at Cunegonde's feet.

"Holy Virgin! " cried she, "what will become of us? A man killed in my
apartment! If the officers of justice come, we are lost! "

"Had not Pangloss been hanged," said Candide, "he would give us good
counsel in this emergency, for he was a profound philosopher. Failing
him let us consult the old woman. "

She was very prudent and commenced to give her opinion when suddenly
another little door opened. It was an hour after midnight, it was the
beginning of Sunday. This day belonged to my lord the Inquisitor. He
entered, and saw the whipped Candide, sword in hand, a dead man upon the
floor, Cunegonde aghast, and the old woman giving counsel.

At this moment, the following is what passed in the soul of Candide, and
how he reasoned:

If this holy man call in assistance, he will surely have me burnt; and
Cunegonde will perhaps be served in the same manner; he was the cause of
my being cruelly whipped; he is my rival; and, as I have now begun to
kill, I will kill away, for there is no time to hesitate. This reasoning
was clear and instantaneous; so that without giving time to the
Inquisitor to recover from his surprise, he pierced him through and
through, and cast him beside the Jew.

"Yet again! " said Cunegonde, "now there is no mercy for us, we are
excommunicated, our last hour has come. How could you do it? you,
naturally so gentle, to slay a Jew and a prelate in two minutes! "

"My beautiful young lady," responded Candide, "when one is a lover,
jealous and whipped by the Inquisition, one stops at nothing. "

The old woman then put in her word, saying:

"There are three Andalusian horses in the stable with bridles and
saddles, let the brave Candide get them ready; madame has money, jewels;
let us therefore mount quickly on horseback, though I can sit only on
one buttock; let us set out for Cadiz, it is the finest weather in the
world, and there is great pleasure in travelling in the cool of the
night. "

Immediately Candide saddled the three horses, and Cunegonde, the old
woman and he, travelled thirty miles at a stretch. While they were
journeying, the Holy Brotherhood entered the house; my lord the
Inquisitor was interred in a handsome church, and Issachar's body was
thrown upon a dunghill.

Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman, had now reached the little town
of Avacena in the midst of the mountains of the Sierra Morena, and were
speaking as follows in a public inn.




X

IN WHAT DISTRESS CANDIDE, CUNEGONDE, AND THE OLD WOMAN ARRIVED AT CADIZ;
AND OF THEIR EMBARKATION.


"Who was it that robbed me of my money and jewels? " said Cunegonde, all
bathed in tears. "How shall we live? What shall we do? Where find
Inquisitors or Jews who will give me more? "

"Alas! " said the old woman, "I have a shrewd suspicion of a reverend
Grey Friar, who stayed last night in the same inn with us at Badajos.
God preserve me from judging rashly, but he came into our room twice,
and he set out upon his journey long before us. "

"Alas! " said Candide, "dear Pangloss has often demonstrated to me that
the goods of this world are common to all men, and that each has an
equal right to them. But according to these principles the Grey Friar
ought to have left us enough to carry us through our journey. Have you
nothing at all left, my dear Cunegonde? "

"Not a farthing," said she.

"What then must we do? " said Candide.

"Sell one of the horses," replied the old woman. "I will ride behind
Miss Cunegonde, though I can hold myself only on one buttock, and we
shall reach Cadiz. "

In the same inn there was a Benedictine prior who bought the horse for a
cheap price. Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman, having passed
through Lucena, Chillas, and Lebrixa, arrived at length at Cadiz. A
fleet was there getting ready, and troops assembling to bring to reason
the reverend Jesuit Fathers of Paraguay, accused of having made one of
the native tribes in the neighborhood of San Sacrament revolt against
the Kings of Spain and Portugal. Candide having been in the Bulgarian
service, performed the military exercise before the general of this
little army with so graceful an address, with so intrepid an air, and
with such agility and expedition, that he was given the command of a
company of foot. Now, he was a captain! He set sail with Miss Cunegonde,
the old woman, two valets, and the two Andalusian horses, which had
belonged to the grand Inquisitor of Portugal.

During their voyage they reasoned a good deal on the philosophy of poor
Pangloss.

"We are going into another world," said Candide; "and surely it must be
there that all is for the best. For I must confess there is reason to
complain a little of what passeth in our world in regard to both
natural and moral philosophy. "

"I love you with all my heart," said Cunegonde; "but my soul is still
full of fright at that which I have seen and experienced. "

"All will be well," replied Candide; "the sea of this new world is
already better than our European sea; it is calmer, the winds more
regular. It is certainly the New World which is the best of all possible
worlds. "

"God grant it," said Cunegonde; "but I have been so horribly unhappy
there that my heart is almost closed to hope. "

"You complain," said the old woman; "alas! you have not known such
misfortunes as mine. "

Cunegonde almost broke out laughing, finding the good woman very
amusing, for pretending to have been as unfortunate as she.

"Alas! " said Cunegonde, "my good mother, unless you have been ravished
by two Bulgarians, have received two deep wounds in your belly, have had
two castles demolished, have had two mothers cut to pieces before your
eyes, and two of your lovers whipped at an _auto-da-fe_, I do not
conceive how you could be more unfortunate than I. Add that I was born a
baroness of seventy-two quarterings--and have been a cook! "

"Miss," replied the old woman, "you do not know my birth; and were I to
show you my backside, you would not talk in that manner, but would
suspend your judgment. "

This speech having raised extreme curiosity in the minds of Cunegonde
and Candide, the old woman spoke to them as follows.




XI

HISTORY OF THE OLD WOMAN.


"I had not always bleared eyes and red eyelids; neither did my nose
always touch my chin; nor was I always a servant. I am the daughter of
Pope Urban X,[10] and of the Princess of Palestrina. Until the age of
fourteen I was brought up in a palace, to which all the castles of your
German barons would scarcely have served for stables; and one of my
robes was worth more than all the magnificence of Westphalia. As I grew
up I improved in beauty, wit, and every graceful accomplishment, in the
midst of pleasures, hopes, and respectful homage. Already I inspired
love. My throat was formed, and such a throat! white, firm, and shaped
like that of the Venus of Medici; and what eyes! what eyelids! what
black eyebrows! such flames darted from my dark pupils that they
eclipsed the scintillation of the stars--as I was told by the poets in
our part of the world. My waiting women, when dressing and undressing
me, used to fall into an ecstasy, whether they viewed me before or
behind; how glad would the gentlemen have been to perform that office
for them!

"I was affianced to the most excellent Prince of Massa Carara. Such a
prince! as handsome as myself, sweet-tempered, agreeable, brilliantly
witty, and sparkling with love. I loved him as one loves for the first
time--with idolatry, with transport. The nuptials were prepared. There
was surprising pomp and magnificence; there were _fetes_, carousals,
continual _opera bouffe_; and all Italy composed sonnets in my praise,
though not one of them was passable. I was just upon the point of
reaching the summit of bliss, when an old marchioness who had been
mistress to the Prince, my husband, invited him to drink chocolate with
her. He died in less than two hours of most terrible convulsions. But
this is only a bagatelle. My mother, in despair, and scarcely less
afflicted than myself, determined to absent herself for some time from
so fatal a place. She had a very fine estate in the neighbourhood of
Gaeta. We embarked on board a galley of the country which was gilded
like the great altar of St. Peter's at Rome. A Sallee corsair swooped
down and boarded us. Our men defended themselves like the Pope's
soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, and threw down their
arms, begging of the corsair an absolution _in articulo mortis_.

"Instantly they were stripped as bare as monkeys; my mother, our maids
of honour, and myself were all served in the same manner. It is amazing
with what expedition those gentry undress people. But what surprised me
most was, that they thrust their fingers into the part of our bodies
which the generality of women suffer no other instrument but--pipes to
enter. It appeared to me a very strange kind of ceremony; but thus one
judges of things when one has not seen the world. I afterwards learnt
that it was to try whether we had concealed any diamonds. This is the
practice established from time immemorial, among civilised nations that
scour the seas. I was informed that the very religious Knights of Malta
never fail to make this search when they take any Turkish prisoners of
either sex. It is a law of nations from which they never deviate.

"I need not tell _you_ how great a hardship it was for a young princess
and her mother to be made slaves and carried to Morocco. You may easily
imagine all we had to suffer on board the pirate vessel. My mother was
still very handsome; our maids of honour, and even our waiting women,
had more charms than are to be found in all Africa. As for myself, I was
ravishing, was exquisite, grace itself, and I was a virgin! I did not
remain so long; this flower, which had been reserved for the handsome
Prince of Massa Carara, was plucked by the corsair captain. He was an
abominable negro, and yet believed that he did me a great deal of
honour. Certainly the Princess of Palestrina and myself must have been
very strong to go through all that we experienced until our arrival at
Morocco. But let us pass on; these are such common things as not to be
worth mentioning.

"Morocco swam in blood when we arrived. Fifty sons of the Emperor
Muley-Ismael[11] had each their adherents; this produced fifty civil
wars, of blacks against blacks, and blacks against tawnies, and tawnies
against tawnies, and mulattoes against mulattoes. In short it was a
continual carnage throughout the empire.

"No sooner were we landed, than the blacks of a contrary faction to that
of my captain attempted to rob him of his booty. Next to jewels and gold
we were the most valuable things he had. I was witness to such a battle
as you have never seen in your European climates. The northern nations
have not that heat in their blood, nor that raging lust for women, so
common in Africa. It seems that you Europeans have only milk in your
veins; but it is vitriol, it is fire which runs in those of the
inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighbouring countries. They fought
with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of the country, to see
who should have us. A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my
captain's lieutenant held her by the left; a Moorish soldier had hold of
her by one leg, and one of our corsairs held her by the other. Thus
almost all our women were drawn in quarters by four men. My captain
concealed me behind him; and with his drawn scimitar cut and slashed
every one that opposed his fury. At length I saw all our Italian women,
and my mother herself, torn, mangled, massacred, by the monsters who
disputed over them. The slaves, my companions, those who had taken them,
soldiers, sailors, blacks, whites, mulattoes, and at last my captain,
all were killed, and I remained dying on a heap of dead. Such scenes as
this were transacted through an extent of three hundred leagues--and yet
they never missed the five prayers a day ordained by Mahomet.

"With difficulty I disengaged myself from such a heap of slaughtered
bodies, and crawled to a large orange tree on the bank of a neighbouring
rivulet, where I fell, oppressed with fright, fatigue, horror, despair,
and hunger. Immediately after, my senses, overpowered, gave themselves
up to sleep, which was yet more swooning than repose. I was in this
state of weakness and insensibility, between life and death, when I
felt myself pressed by something that moved upon my body. I opened my
eyes, and saw a white man, of good countenance, who sighed, and who said
between his teeth: '_O che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni! _'"[12]




XII

THE ADVENTURES OF THE OLD WOMAN CONTINUED.


"Astonished and delighted to hear my native language, and no less
surprised at what this man said, I made answer that there were much
greater misfortunes than that of which he complained. I told him in a
few words of the horrors which I had endured, and fainted a second time.
He carried me to a neighbouring house, put me to bed, gave me food,
waited upon me, consoled me, flattered me; he told me that he had never
seen any one so beautiful as I, and that he never so much regretted the
loss of what it was impossible to recover.

"'I was born at Naples,' said he, 'there they geld two or three thousand
children every year; some die of the operation, others acquire a voice
more beautiful than that of women, and others are raised to offices of
state. [13] This operation was performed on me with great success and I
was chapel musician to madam, the Princess of Palestrina. '

"'To my mother! ' cried I.

"'Your mother! ' cried he, weeping. 'What! can you be that young
princess whom I brought up until the age of six years, and who promised
so early to be as beautiful as you? '

"'It is I, indeed; but my mother lies four hundred yards hence, torn in
quarters, under a heap of dead bodies. '

"I told him all my adventures, and he made me acquainted with his;
telling me that he had been sent to the Emperor of Morocco by a
Christian power, to conclude a treaty with that prince, in consequence
of which he was to be furnished with military stores and ships to help
to demolish the commerce of other Christian Governments.

"'My mission is done,' said this honest eunuch; 'I go to embark for
Ceuta, and will take you to Italy. _Ma che sciagura d'essere senza
coglioni! _'

"I thanked him with tears of commiseration; and instead of taking me to
Italy he conducted me to Algiers, where he sold me to the Dey. Scarcely
was I sold, than the plague which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and
Europe, broke out with great malignancy in Algiers. You have seen
earthquakes; but pray, miss, have you ever had the plague? "

"Never," answered Cunegonde.

"If you had," said the old woman, "you would acknowledge that it is far
more terrible than an earthquake. It is common in Africa, and I caught
it. Imagine to yourself the distressed situation of the daughter of a
Pope, only fifteen years old, who, in less than three months, had felt
the miseries of poverty and slavery, had been ravished almost every day,
had beheld her mother drawn in quarters, had experienced famine and war,
and was dying of the plague in Algiers. I did not die, however, but my
eunuch, and the Dey, and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers perished.

"As soon as the first fury of this terrible pestilence was over, a sale
was made of the Dey's slaves; I was purchased by a merchant, and carried
to Tunis; this man sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to
another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from
Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. At length I
became the property of an Aga of the Janissaries, who was soon ordered
away to the defence of Azof, then besieged by the Russians.

"The Aga, who was a very gallant man, took his whole seraglio with him,
and lodged us in a small fort on the Palus Meotides, guarded by two
black eunuchs and twenty soldiers. The Turks killed prodigious numbers
of the Russians, but the latter had their revenge. Azof was destroyed by
fire, the inhabitants put to the sword, neither sex nor age was spared;
until there remained only our little fort, and the enemy wanted to
starve us out. The twenty Janissaries had sworn they would never
surrender. The extremities of famine to which they were reduced, obliged
them to eat our two eunuchs, for fear of violating their oath. And at
the end of a few days they resolved also to devour the women.

"We had a very pious and humane Iman, who preached an excellent sermon,
exhorting them not to kill us all at once.

"'Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he, 'and you'll
fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same
entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an
action, and send you relief. '

"He had great eloquence; he persuaded them; we underwent this terrible
operation. The Iman applied the same balsam to us, as he does to
children after circumcision; and we all nearly died.

"Scarcely had the Janissaries finished the repast with which we had
furnished them, than the Russians came in flat-bottomed boats; not a
Janissary escaped. The Russians paid no attention to the condition we
were in. There are French surgeons in all parts of the world; one of
them who was very clever took us under his care--he cured us; and as
long as I live I shall remember that as soon as my wounds were healed he
made proposals to me. He bid us all be of good cheer, telling us that
the like had happened in many sieges, and that it was according to the
laws of war.

"As soon as my companions could walk, they were obliged to set out for
Moscow. I fell to the share of a Boyard who made me his gardener, and
gave me twenty lashes a day. But this nobleman having in two years' time
been broke upon the wheel along with thirty more Boyards for some broils
at court, I profited by that event; I fled. I traversed all Russia; I
was a long time an inn-holder's servant at Riga, the same at Rostock, at
Vismar, at Leipzig, at Cassel, at Utrecht, at Leyden, at the Hague, at
Rotterdam. I waxed old in misery and disgrace, having only one-half of
my posteriors, and always remembering I was a Pope's daughter. A hundred
times I was upon the point of killing myself; but still I loved life.
This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics;
for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a
burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to
cling to one's existence? in brief, to caress the serpent which devours
us, till he has eaten our very heart?

"In the different countries which it has been my lot to traverse, and
the numerous inns where I have been servant, I have taken notice of a
vast number of people who held their own existence in abhorrence, and
yet I never knew of more than eight who voluntarily put an end to their
misery; three negroes, four Englishmen, and a German professor named
Robek. [14] I ended by being servant to the Jew, Don Issachar, who placed
me near your presence, my fair lady. I am determined to share your fate,
and have been much more affected with your misfortunes than with my own.
I would never even have spoken to you of my misfortunes, had you not
piqued me a little, and if it were not customary to tell stories on
board a ship in order to pass away the time. In short, Miss Cunegonde, I
have had experience, I know the world; therefore I advise you to divert
yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story; and if
there be one of them all, that has not cursed his life many a time, that
has not frequently looked upon himself as the unhappiest of mortals, I
give you leave to throw me headforemost into the sea.