Candide (5 page)

C
andide, divided between compassion and horror, but giving way to the former, bestowed on this shocking figure the two florins which the honest Anabaptist James had just before given to him. The spectre looked at him very earnestly, shed tears and threw his arms about his neck. Candide started back aghast. “Alas!” said the one wretch to the other, “don’t you know your dear Pangloss?” “What are you saying? Is it you, my dear master—you I behold in this piteous plight? What dreadful misfortune has befallen you? What has made you leave the most magnificent and delightful of all castles? What has become of Miss Cunégonde, the mirror of young ladies, and Nature’s masterpiece?” “Oh, Lord!” cried Pangloss, “I am so weak I cannot stand”; upon which Candide instantly led him to the Anabaptist’s stable, and found him something to eat. As soon as Pangloss had refreshed himself a little Candide began to repeat his inquiries concerning Miss Cunégonde. “She is dead,” replied the other. “Dead!” cried Candide, and immediately fainted. His friend recovered him by the help of a little bad vinegar, which he found by chance in the stable. Candide opened his eyes, and again repeated: “Dead! Is Miss Cunégonde dead? Ah, what has become of the best of worlds now? But how did she die? Was it for grief upon seeing her father kick me out of his magnificent castle?” “No,” replied Pangloss. “Her body was ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers after they had ravished her as much as it was possible for damsel to be ravished. They smashed her father’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. They have destroyed all the ducks and the sheep, the barns and the trees; we have had our revenge, for the Abares have done the very same thing in a neighbouring barony, which belonged to a Bulgarian lord.”

At hearing this, Candide fainted a second time, but, having come to himself again, he said all that was appropriate to the occasion. He asked about the cause and effect, as well as about the
sufficing reason
, that had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a condition. “Alas,” replied the tutor, “it was love; love, the comfort of the human species; love, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sensible beings; love, tender love!” “Alas,” replied Candide, “I have had some knowledge of love myself, this sovereign of hearts, this soul of souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks in the rear. But how could this beautiful cause produce in you so hideous an effect?”

Pangloss replied as follows: “Oh, my dear Candide, you must remember Pacquette, that pretty wench who waited on our noble baroness; in her arms I tasted the pleasures of paradise, which produced these hell-torments with which you see me devoured. She was infected with disease,
ⁱ
and perhaps is since dead of it. She received this present of a learned cordelier, who traced it back to its source. He was indebted for it to an old countess, who caught it from a captain of cavalry, who caught it from a marchioness, who caught it from a page, the page received it from a Jesuit, who during his noviciate got it directly from one of the fellow adventurers of Christopher Columbus. For my part, I shall give it to nobody. I am a dying man.”

“O sage Pangloss,” cried Candide, “what a strange genealogy is this. Is not the devil at the root of it?” “Not at all,” replied the great man; “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which is evidently opposite to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal.
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It is also to be observed that, even to the present time, in this continent of ours,
this malady. like our religious controversies, has been confined to us. The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, and the Japanese are entirely unacquainted with it; but there is a sufficing reason for them to know it in a few centuries. In the meantime it is creating prodigious havoc among us, especially in those armies composed of well-disciplined hirelings,
^k
who determine the fate of nations; for we may safely affirm that, when an army of 30,000 men fights another equal in number, there are about 20,000 of them so diseased on each side.”

“Very surprising indeed,” said Candide, “but you must get cured.” “Lord help me! how can I?” cried Pangloss. “My dear friend, I have not a penny in the world; and you know one cannot be bled or have an enema without a fee.”

This last speech had its effect on Candide. He flew to the charitable Anabaptist James. He flung himself at his feet, and gave him so striking a picture of the miserable situation of his friend, that the good man, without any further hesitation, agreed to take Dr. Pangloss into his house and to pay for his cure. During the course of the cure Pangloss lost only one eye and one ear. Since his handwriting was good and he understood accounts tolerably well, the Anabaptist 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 the same ship. Pangloss during the course of the voyage explained to him how everything was so constituted that it could not be better. James did not quite agree with him on this point. “Mankind,” said he, “must in some things have deviated from their original innocence; for they were not born wolves, and yet they worry one another like those beasts of prey. God never gave them twenty-four pounders nor bayonets, and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. To this list I might add not only bankruptcies, but the law which seizes on the effects of bankrupts, only to cheat the creditors.”
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“All this was indispensably necessary,” replied the one-eyed doctor; “for private misfortunes are public benefits; so that the more private misfortunes there are the greater is the general good.” While he was arguing in this manner the sky was overcast, the winds blew from the four quarters of the compass, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest within sight of the port of Lisbon.

O
ne-half of the passengers, weakened and half-dead with the inconceivable anxiety and sickness which the rolling of a vessel at sea occasions through the whole human frame, were incapable of noticing the danger that surrounded them. The other half made loud outcries, or fell to their prayers. The sails were ripped to shreds, and the masts were toppled. The vessel was a perfect wreck. Everyone was busily employed, but nobody could be either heard or obeyed. The Anabaptist, being upon deck, lent a helping hand as well as the rest, when a brutish sailor struck him and knocked him to the deck; but from the violence of the blow the sailor himself tumbled headfirst overboard, and fell upon a piece of the broken mast, which he immediately grasped. Honest James, forgetting the injury he had just received from him, flew to his assistance, and with great difficulty hauled him in again, but in the attempt was, by a sudden jerk of the ship, thrown overboard himself, in sight of the very fellow whom he had risked his life to save, and who took not the least notice of him in this distress. Candide, who saw everything that had happened, and saw his benefactor one moment rising above water and the next swallowed up by the merciless waves, was preparing to jump in after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the coast of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned there. While he was proving his argument
à priori
,
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the ship foundered, and the whole crew perished, except Pangloss, Candide, and the sailor who had caused the drowning of the good Anabaptist. The villain swam ashore, but Pangloss and Candide got to land upon a plank.

As soon as they had recovered themselves from their surprise and fatigue, they walked towards Lisbon. With what little money they had left they hoped to save themselves from starving after having escaped drowning.

Scarcely had they finished lamenting the loss of their benefactor and set foot in the city, when they felt the earth tremble under their feet, and the sea, swelling and foaming in the harbour, dash in pieces the vessels that were anchored. Large sheets of flame and cinders covered the streets and public places. The houses tottered, and were tumbled, even to their foundations, which were themselves destroyed; and thirty thousand inhabitants of both sexes, young and old, were buried beneath the ruins.
⁵
The sailor, whistling and swearing, cried: “Damn it, there’s something to be got here!” “What can be the ‘sufficient reason’ of this phenomenon?” said Pangloss. “It is certainly the Day of Judgment,” said Candide. The sailor, defying death in the pursuit of plunder, rushed into the midst of the ruin, where he found some money, with which he got drunk, and after he had slept off the alcohol, he purchased the favours of the first good-natured wench that came his way, amidst the ruins of demolished houses and the groans of half-buried and expiring persons. Pangloss pulled him by the sleeve: “Friend,” said he, “this is not right; you trespass against the
universal reason
, and your behavior is untimely.” “Bloody Hell!” answered the other, “I am a sailor and born at Batavia, and have trampled four times upon the crucifix in as many voyages to Japan;
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get out of here with your
universal reason
.”

In the meantime, Candide, who had been wounded by some pieces of stone that fell from the houses, lay stretched in the street, almost covered with rubbish. “For God’s sake,” said he to Pangloss, “get me a little wine and oil; I am dying.” “This earthquake is nothing new,” replied Pangloss; “the city of Lima in America experienced the same last year:
^m
the same cause, the same effect; there is certainly a train of sulphur all the way underground from Lima to Lisbon.“
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”Nothing more probable,” said Candide; ”but for the love of God a little oil and wine.” “Probable!” replied the philosopher. ”I maintain that the thing is demonstrable.” Candide fainted, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a neighbouring spring.

The next day, in searching among the ruins, they found a little food, with which restored their exhausted strength. After this they assisted the inhabitants in helping the distressed and wounded. Some whom they had humanely assisted gave them as good a dinner as could be expected under such terrible circumstances. The meal, indeed, was mournful, and the company moistened their bread with their tears; but Pangloss endeavoured to comfort them by affirming that things could not be otherwise than they were: “for,” said he, “all this is for the very best end, for if there is a volcano
^o
at Lisbon, it could be in no other spot; for it is impossible but things should be as they are, for everything is for the best.”