 This is a LibriVox recording. Candide by Voltaire. Introduction by Philip Littel. Ever since 1759, when Voltaire wrote Candide in ridicule of the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds, this world has been a gayer place for readers. Voltaire wrote it in three days, and five or six generations have found that its laughter does not grow old. Candide has not aged. Yet how different the book would have looked if Voltaire had written it a hundred and fifty years later than 1759. It would have been, among other things, a book of sights and sounds. A modern writer would have tried to catch and fix in words some of those Atlantic changes which broke the Atlantic monotony of that voyage from Cadiz to Buenos Aires. When Martin and Candide were sailing the length of the Mediterranean, we should have had a contrast between naked, scarped, balearic cliffs and headlands of Calabria in their mists. We should have had quarter distances, far horizons, the altering silhouettes of an Ionian island. Colored birds would have filled Paraguay with their silver or acid cries. Dr. Pangloss, to prove the existence of design in the universe, says that noses were made to carry spectacles, and so we have spectacles. A modern satirist would not try to paint with Voltaire's quick brush the doctrine that he wanted to expose. And he would choose a more complicated doctrine than Dr. Pangloss's optimism, would study it more closely, feel his destructive way about it with a more learned and caressing malice. His attack, stealthier, more flexible and more patient than Voltaire's, would call upon us, especially when his learning got a little out of control, to be more than patient. Now and then he would bore us. Candide never bored anybody, except William Wordsworth. Voltaire's men and women point his case against optimism by starting high and falling low. A modern could not go about it after this fashion. He would not plunge his people into an unfamiliar misery. He would just keep them in the misery they were born to, but such an account of Voltaire's procedure is as misleading as the plaster cast of a dance. Look at his procedure again. Madame Ozil Cunaganda, the illustrious Westphalian, sprung from a family that could prove seventy-one quarterings, descends and descends until we find her earning her keep by washing dishes in the propontus. The aged faithful attendant, victim of a hundred acts of rape by Negro pirates, remembers that she is the daughter of a pope, and that in honor of her approaching marriage with a prince of Massa Carara, all Italy wrote sonnets of which not one was passable. We do not need to know French literature before Voltaire in order to feel, although the lurking parody may escape us, that he is poking fun at us and at himself. His laughter at his own methods grows more unmistakable at the last when he caricatures them by casually assembling six fallen monarchs in and in at Venice. A modern assailant of optimism would arm himself with social pity. There is no social pity in Candide. Voltaire, whose light touch on familiar institutions opens them and reveals their absurdity, likes to remind us that the slaughter and pillage and murder which Candide witnessed among the Bulgarians was perfectly regular, having been conducted according to the laws and usages of war. Had Voltaire lived today, he would have done to poverty what he did to war. Pitying the poor, he would have shown us poverty as a ridiculous anachronism, and both the ridicule and the pity would have expressed his indignation. Almost any modern essaying a philosophic tale would make it long. Candide is only a hamlet and a half long. It would hardly have been shorter if Voltaire had spent three months on it instead of those three days. A conciseness to be matched in English by nobody except Pope, who can say a plagiarizing enemy steals much, spends little, and has nothing left. A conciseness which Pope toiled and sweated for came as easy as wit to Voltaire. He can afford to be witty parenthetically by the way, prodigly, without saving, because he knows there is more wit where that came from. One of Max Bierbaum's cartoons shows us the young 20th century going at top speed and watched by two of his predecessors. Underneath is this legend. The grave misgivings of the 19th century and the wicked amusement of the 18th in watching the progress, or whatever it is, of the 20th. This 18th century snuff-taking and maliciousness is like Voltaire, who nevertheless must know, if he happens to think of it, not yet in the 20th century, not for all its speed mania, has anyone come near to equaling the speed of a prose tale by Voltaire. Candide is a full book. It is filled with mockery, with inventiveness, with things as concrete as things to eat and coins. It has time for the neatest intellectual clikings. It is never hurried, and it moves with the most amazing rapidity. It has the rapidity of high spirits playing a game. The dry high spirits of this destroyer of optimism make most optimists look damp and depressed. Contemplation of the stupidity which deems happiness possible almost made Voltaire happy. His attack on optimism is one of the gayest books in the world. Gayety has been scattered everywhere up and down its pages by Voltaire's lavish hand by his thin fingers. Many propagandist satirical books have been written with Candide in mind, but not too many. Today especially when new fates are changing the structure of the world, fates which are still plastic enough to be deformed by every disciple, each disciple for himself, and which have not yet received the final deformation known as universal acceptance, today Candide is an inspiration to every narrative satirist who hates one of these new fates, or hates every interpretation of it but his own. Either hatred will serve as a motive to satire. That is why the present is one of the right moments to republish Candide. I hope it will inspire younger men and women, the only ones who can be inspired, to have a try at Theodore or militarism, Jane or pacifism, and so and so the pragmatist or the Freudian, and I hope too that they will, without trying, hold their pins with an eighteenth century lightness, not inappropriate to a philosophic tale. In Voltaire's fingers, as Anatole France has said, the pen runs and laughs. End of the introduction to Candide by Philip LaTelle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Ted DeLorm and Fort Mill, South Carolina, in January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candide by Voltaire. How Candide was brought up in a magnificent castle, and how he was expelled thence. In a castle of Westphalia, belonging to the barren, thunder-tin trunk, lived a youth whom nature had endowed with the most gentle manners. His countenance was a true picture of his soul. He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide. The old servants of the family suspected him to have been the son of the barren's sister by a good honest gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that young lady would never marry because he had been able to prove only seventy-one quarterings, the rest of his genealogical tree having been lost through the injuries of time. The barren was one of the most powerful lords in Westphalia, for his castle had not only a gate but windows. His great hall even was hung with tapestry. All the dogs of his farm yards formed a pack of hounds at need. His grooms were his huntsmen, and the curate of the village was his grand almaner. They called him my lord, and laughed at all his stories. The barren's lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration, and she did the honors of the house with a dignity that commanded still greater respect. The daughter, Kunaganda, was seventeen years of age, fresh-colored, comely, plump, and desirable. The barren's son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father. The preceptor, Pangloss, was the oracle of the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character. Pangloss was professor of metaphysicotheological cosmolonegology. He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the barren's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible barrenesses. It is demonstrable, said he, that things cannot be otherwise than as they are. For all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end. Observe that the nose has been formed to bear spectacles. Thus we have spectacles. Legs are visibly designed for stockings, and we have stockings. Stones were made to be hewn, and to construct castles. Therefore my lord has a magnificent castle, for the greatest barren in the province ought to be the best lodged. Pigs were made to be eaten. Therefore we eat pork all the year round. Consequently, they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing. They should have said, all is for the best. Candide listened attentively and believed innocently, for he thought Miss Cunaganda extremely beautiful, though he never had the courage to tell her so. He concluded that after the happiness of being born of barren-thunder-tin-trunk, the second degree of happiness was to be Miss Cunaganda, the third that of seeing her every day, and the fourth that of hearing Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the whole province, and consequently of the whole world. One day Cunaganda, while walking near the castle, in a little wood which they called a park, saw between the bushes Dr. Pangloss giving a lesson in experimental natural philosophy to her mother's chambermaid, a little brown winch very pretty and very docile. As Miss Cunaganda had a great disposition for the sciences, she breathlessly observed the repeated experiments of which she was a witness. She clearly perceived the force of the doctor's reasons, the effects and the causes. She turned back greatly flurried, quite pensive and filled with the desire to be learned, dreaming that she might well be a sufficient reason for young Candide and he for her. She met Candide on reaching the castle and blushed. Candide blushed also. She wished him good morrow in a faltering tone and Candide spoke to her without knowing what he said. The next day after dinner, as they went from table, Cunaganda and Candide found themselves behind a screen. Cunaganda let fall her handkerchief. Candide picked it up. She took him innocently by the hand. The youth has innocently kissed the young lady's hand with particular vivacity, sensibility and grace. Their lips met. Their eyes sparkled. Their knees trembled. Their hands strayed. Baron Thunder Tin Tronk passed near the screen and, beholding this cause and effect, chased Candide from the castle with great kicks on the backside. Cunaganda fainted away. She was boxed on the ears by the Baroness as soon as she came to herself and all was consternation in this most magnificent and most agreeable of all possible castles. End Chapter 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina in January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candide by Voltaire. Chapter 2 What Became of Candide Among the Bulgarians Candide, driven from terrestrial paradise, walked a long while without knowing where, weeping, raising his eyes to heaven, turning them often towards the most magnificent of castles which imprisoned the purest of noble young ladies. He lay down to sleep without supper in the middle of a field between two furrows. The snow fell in large flakes. Next day Candide, all benumbed, dragged himself towards the neighboring town which was called Waldberghof-Trarbdiktorf. Having no money, dying of hunger and fatigue, he stopped sorrowfully at the door of an inn. Two men dressed in blue observed him. Comrade said one, Here is a well-built young fellow and of proper height. They went up to Candide and very civilly invited him to dinner. Gentlemen, replied Candide, with a most engaging modesty, You do me great honor, but I have not wherewithal to pay my share. Oh, sir, said one of the blues to him. People of your appearance and of your merit never pay anything. Are you not five feet five inches high? Yes, sir, that is my height, answered he, making a low bow. Come, sir, seat yourself. Not only will we pay your reckoning, but we will never suffer such a man as you to want money. Men are only born to assist one another. You are right, said Candide. This is what I was always taught by Dr. Pangloss, and I see plainly that all is for the best. They begged of him to accept a few crowns. He took them and wished to give them his note. They refused. They seated themselves at table. Love you not deeply? Oh, yes, answered he. I deeply love Miss Cunaganda. No, said one of the gentlemen. We ask you if you do not deeply love the king of the Bulgarians. Not at all, said he, for I have never seen him. What? He is the best of kings, and we must drink his health. Oh, very willingly, gentlemen, and he drank. That is enough, they tell him. Now you are the help, the support, the defender, the hero of the Bulgarians. Your fortune is made, and your glory is assured. Instantly they fettered him and carried him away to the regiment. There he was made to wheel about to the right and to the left, to draw his rammer, to return his rammer, to present, to fire, to march, and they gave him thirty blows with a cudgel. The next day he did his exercise a little less badly, and he received but twenty blows. The day following they gave him only ten, and he was regarded by his comrades as a prodigy. Candid, all stupefied, could not yet very well realize how he was a hero. He resolved one fine day in spring to go for a walk, marching straight before him, believing that it was a privilege of the human, as well as of the animal species, to make use of their legs as they pleased. He had advanced two leagues when he was overtaken by four others, heroes of six feet who bound him and carried him to a dungeon. He was asked which he would like the best, to be whipped six and thirty times through all the regiment, or to receive at once twelve balls of lead in his brain. He vainly said that human will is free, and that he chose neither the one nor the other. He was forced to make a choice. He determined in virtue of that gift of God called liberty to run the gauntlet six and thirty times. He bore this twice. The regiment was composed of two thousand men that composed for him four thousand strokes, which laid bare all his muscles and nerves from the nape of his neck quite down to his rump. As they were going to proceed to a third whipping, Candid, able to bear no more, begged as a favor that they would be so good as to shoot him. He obtained this favor, they bandaged his eyes, and bade him kneel down. The king of the Bulgarians passed at this moment, and ascertained the nature of the crime. As he had great talent, he understood from all that he learned of Candid, that he was a young metaphysician, extremely ignorant of the things of this world, and he accorded him his pardon with a clemency which will bring him praise in all the journals and throughout all ages. An able surgeon cured Candid in three weeks by means of emollients taught by Dioscorides. He had already a little skin, and was able to march when the king of the Bulgarians gave battle to the king of the Abbares. End Chapter 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Candid by Voltaire. Chapter 2, read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina, during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candid by Voltaire. Chapter 3 How Candid made his escape from the Bulgarians, and what afterwards became of him? There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well-disposed as the two armies. Trumpets, fiefs, hot boys, drums, and cannon made music such as hell itself had never heard. The cannons, first of all, laid flat about six thousand men on each side. The muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candid, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery. At length, while the two kings were causing Ted DeLorm to be sung each in his own camp, Candid resolved to go and reason elsewhere on effects and causes. He passed over heaps of dead and dying, and first reached a neighboring village. It was in Cinders. It was an Abare village, which the Bulgarians had burnt according to the laws of war. Here old men covered with wounds beheld their wives hugging their children to their bloody breasts, massacred before their faces, there their daughters disemboweled and breathing their last after having satisfied the natural wants of Bulgarian heroes, while others half burnt in the flames, begged to be dispatched. The earth was strewn with brains, arms, and legs. Candid fled quickly to another village. It belonged to the Bulgarians, and the Abarian heroes had treated it in the same way. Candid, walking always over palpitating limbs or across ruins, arrived at last beyond the seat of war with a few provisions in his knapsack and Miss Kunaganda always in his heart. His provisions failed him when he arrived in Holland, but having heard that everybody was rich in that country and that they were Christians, he did not doubt that he should meet with the same treatment from them as he had met with in the Baron's Castle, before Miss Kunaganda's bright eyes were the cause of his expulsion thence. He asked arms of several grave-looking people who all answered him that if he continued to follow this trade they would confine him to the House of Correction, where he should be taught to get a living. The next he addressed was a man who had been haranguing a large assembly for a whole hour on the subject of charity, but the orator looking askew said, What are you doing here? Are you for the good cause? There can be no effect without a cause, modestly answered Candid. The whole is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best. It was necessary for me to have been banished from the presence of Miss Kunaganda to have afterwards run the gauntlet, and now it is necessary I should beg my bread until I learn to earn it. All this cannot be otherwise. My friend said the orator to him, Do you believe the Pope to be the anti-Christ? I have not heard it, answered Candid, but whether he be or whether he be not, I want bread. Now does not deserve to eat, said the other. Be gone, rogue, be gone, wretch! Do not come near me again. The orator's wife, putting her head out of the window and spying a man that doubted whether the Pope was the 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 unfethered 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 stuff which they make in Holland. Candid, 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. End Chapter 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Ted Delorme in Fort Mill, South Carolina, during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candid by Voltaire. Chapter 4 How Candid found his old Master Pangloss and what happened to them? Candid, 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. Candid 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 Kunaganda, the pearl of girls and nature's masterpiece? I am so weak that I cannot stand, said Pangloss, upon which Candid 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 Candid, Kunaganda? She is dead, replied the other. Candid fainted at this word. His friend recalled his senses with a little bad vinegar, which he found by chance in the stable. Candid reopened his eyes. Kunaganda is dead. Oh, 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, but as for the castles they have not left one stone upon another, not a barn, not a sheep, nor a duck, nor a tree. But we have had our revenge, for the Abare's have done the very same thing to a neighbouring barony, which belonged to a Bulgarian lord. At this discourse Candid 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 things. Love, tender love. Alas, said Candid, 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 Candid, 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 gray 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 marcherness 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. For my part I shall give it to nobody. I am dying. Oh, Pangloss, cried Candid, 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 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 poxed on each side. Well, this is wonderful, said Candid, 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 Candid. 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 eye 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. This is a LibriVox recording. Candid by Voltaire. Chapter 5 Tempest, Shipwreck, Earthquake and what became of Dr. Pangloss, Candid and James the Anabaptist. Half dead of that inconceivable anguish which the rolling of a ship produces, one half of the passengers would not even sensible of the danger. The other half shuddered 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 assistants, hold him up and from the effort he made was precipitated into the sea in sight of the sailor who left him to perish without daining to look at him. Candid drew near and saw his benefactor who rose above the water one moment and was then swallowed up forever. 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, Candid, and that brutal sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to the shore while Pangloss and Candid were born thither upon a plank. As soon as they recovered themselves a little they walked towards 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 harbor and beat to pieces the vessels riding at anchor. Whirlwinds of fire and ashes covered the streets and public places, houses fell, the flung upon the pavements and the pavements were scattered. Thirty thousand inhabitants of all ages and sexes were crushed under the ruins. 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 Candid. The sailor ran among the ruins chasing death to find money. Finding it he took it, got drunk and having slept himself sober purchased the favors of the first good-natured winch 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, he said, this is not right. You sin against a universal reason. You choose your time badly. Splod and fury, answered the other. I'm a sailor and born in Batavia. Four times have I trampled upon the crucifix in four voyages to Japan, a fig for our universal reason. Some falling stones had wounded Candid. He lay stretched in the street covered with rubbish. Alas, he said 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 sulfur underground from Lima to Lisbon. Nothing more probable, said Candid. But for the love of God, a little oil and wine? How probable, replied the philosopher. He maintained that the point is capable of being demonstrated. Candid 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 suckered 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, he said, 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 been neither fall nor punishment. I humbly ask your excellencies 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 footmen, who gave him a glass of wine from Porto or Oporto. End Chapter 5 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Candid by Voltaire, read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina, in January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candid by Voltaire. Chapter 6 How the Portuguese made a beautiful Autodafé to prevent any further earthquakes, and how Candid 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 Autodafé, 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 bis caner convicted of having married his godmother and on two Portuguese for rejecting the bacon which larded a chicken they were eating. After dinner they came and secured Dr. Pangloss and his disciple Candid, 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 incommodated by the sun. Eight days after they were dressed in San Benito's and their heads ornamented with paper mitres. The mitre and San Benito belonging to Candid 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. Candid was whipped in cadence while they were singing. The bis caner 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. Candid, 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 Ana Baptist, thou best of men that thou shouldst have been drowned in the very harbour. Oh, Miss Kunaganda, thou pearl of girls that thou shouldst 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. Candid by Voltaire recorded by Ted Lorne in Fort Mill, South Carolina, during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candid by Voltaire. Chapter 7 How the old woman took care of Candid and how he found the object he loved. Candid did not take courage, but followed the old woman to a decayed house and gave him a part 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 Atotcia, the great Saint Anthony of Padua, and the great Saint James of Compostela received you under their protection. I shall be back tomorrow. Candid 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 tomorrow. Anoint yourself with the pomatum. Eat and sleep. Candid, 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 Candid. 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 see 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 Candid up a private staircase into a small apartment, richly furnished. She left him on a brocaded sofa, shut the door, and went away. Candid 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 Candid. The young man approaches. He raises the veil with a timid hand. Oh, what a moment! What surprise! He believes he beholds Miss Kunaganda? He really sees her. It is herself. His strength fails him. He cannot utter a word but drops at her feet. Kunaganda 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 Candid, you live? I find you again in Portugal. Then you have not been ravished, then they did not rip open your belly as Dr. Pangloss informed me. Yes, they did, said the beautiful Kunaganda, but those two accidents are not always mortal. But were your father and mother killed? It is but true, answered Kunaganda in tears. And your brother? My brother was also 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 in the kicks which you received, Candid 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. Kunaganda 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 Candid, who did not lose a word and devoured her with his eyes. End Chapter 7 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Candid by Voltaire Read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candid by Voltaire Chapter 8 The History of Kunaganda I was in bed fast asleep when it pleased God to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunderton Trunk. 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 Candid. You shall, said Kunaganda, but let us continue. Do so, replied Candid. 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 that 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 Dr. 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 Issacar 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 his country house. Hitherto, I had imagined that nothing could equal the beauty of Thunder Tintronk 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 Issacar that he should resign me to my lord. Don Issacar, being the court banker and man of credit, would hear nothing of it. The inquisitor threatened him with an auto-defe. 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 disagreement was made. Quarrels have not been wanting, for they could not decide whether the night from Saturday to Sunday belong 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 Issacar, my lord inquisitor was pleased to celebrate an auto-defe. 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 Miss Caner 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. And I recovered my senses that 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 no 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 Issacar, with my abominable inquisitor, with the execution of Dr. 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. Oh, 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 Senior Don Issacar arrived. It was the Jewish Sabbath and Issacar had come to enjoy his rights to explain his tender love. Chapter 9 What became of Kunaganda candied the grand Inquisitor and the Jew? This Issacar 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 poignard which he always carried about him and not imagining that his adversary had any arms. He threw himself upon candied 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 Kunaganda'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 Panglas been hanged, said Candied, he would have given 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 Candied sword in hand, a dead man on the floor, Kunaganda aghast and the old woman giving counsel. At this moment the following is what passed in the soul of Candied and how he reasoned. If this holy man call in assistance he will surely have me burnt and Kunaganda 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. He yet again said Kunaganda, 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 apprelet in two minutes. My beautiful young lady responded Candied 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 Adelucian horuses in the stable with bridles and saddles. Let the brave Candied get them ready. Madam 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 Candied saddled the three horses and Kunaganda, the old woman and he travelled 30 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 Issacar's body was thrown upon a dung hill. Candied, Kunaganda 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. End Chapter 9 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Candied by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candied by Voltaire. Chapter 10 In what distress Candied, Kunaganda and the old woman arrived at Cadiz and of their embarkation. Who was it that robbed me of my money and jewels? said Kunaganda, 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 gray friar who stayed last night in the same inn with us at Padachos. God preserved me from judging Reshli but he came into our room twice and he set out upon his germany long before us. Alas, said Candied, 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 gray friar ought to have left us enough to carry us through our journey. Have you nothing at all left, my dear Kunaganda? Not farthing, said she. What then must we do? said Candied. Sailed one of the horses, replied the old woman. I will ride behind Miss Kunaganda, although I can hold myself only on one buttec and we shall reach Kadiz. In the same inn there was a Benedictine friar who bought the horse for a cheap price. Candied, Kunaganda and the old woman, having passed through Lucena, Chilas and Lebrixa, arrived at length in Kadiz. The 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. Candied, 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 given the command of a company of foot. Now he was a captain. He set sail with Miss Kunaganda, 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 Panglas. We are going into another world, said Candied, 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 Kunaganda, but my soul is still full of fright at that which I have seen and experienced. All will be well replied, Candied. 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 Kunaganda, 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. Kunaganda almost broke out laughing, finding the good woman very amusing for pretending to have been as unfortunate as she. Alas, said Kunaganda, 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-defe. I do not conceive how you could be more unfortunate than I. I had that I was born a barrenness 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 Kunaganda and Candide, the old woman spoke to them as follows. Chapter 11 History of the Old Woman I hate not always blear dyes 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 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 barrens 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, 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 Massacarara, 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 feats, carousels, continual opera booth, 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 begot tale. 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 neighborhood of Gaeta. We embarked on board a galley of a country which was gilded like the great altar of St. Peter's at Rome. A cellet 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 honor, and myself were all served in the same manner. It is amazing with what expedition those gentry underest 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 learned that it was to try whether we had concealed any diamonds. This is the practice established from time immemorial among civilized 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 honor 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 Masa Karara, was plucked by the Corsair captain. He was an abominable negro and yet believed that he did me a great deal of honor. Certainly the princess of Palestrina and myself must have been very strong to go through all that we experienced until our arrival in 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 Mule Ismail had each their adherents. This produced fifty civil wars of blacks against blacks and blacks against Tonys and Tonys against Tonys 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 climate. The northern nations have not that heat in their blood nor that raging lust for women so common in Africa. It seems that your 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 neighboring countries. They fought with the fury of the lions, tigers and serpents of the country to see who should have us. Amour seized my mother by the right arm while my captain's lieutenant hailed her by the left. Amour's soldier had hold of her by one leg and one of our core sails 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 Mohammed. 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 rebulet 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 Oce siagura de sere senza coglioni. CHAPTER 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 on me, consoled me, flattered me. He told me that he had never seen anyone 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 galed 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. This operation was performed on me with great success and I was chapel musician to madame 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 hints 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 the honest eunuch. I go to embark for Guetta and I will take you to Italy. Marches yagura de serie sins are called your name. 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 day. Scarcely was I sold and 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 me, have you ever seen the plague? Never, answered Kunagonda. 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 15 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 day and almost a whole surroglio of Algiers perished. As soon as the first fury of this terrible pestilence was over, a sale was made of the day'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 defense of Ezov, then besieged by the Russians. The aga, who was a very gallant man, took his whole surroglio with him and lodged us in a small fort on the palace Miltides, guarded by two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers. The Turks killed prodigious numbers of the Russians, but the latter had their revenge. Ezov 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 your relief. He had the 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 then the Russians came in flat bottom 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 chair 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. It was a long time an in-holder servant at Riga the same at Rostock, at Vismar, at Lipsig, at Kassel, at Utrecht at Leiden, 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 pubes' 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 Robeck. I ended by being servant to the Jew Don Isakar 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 peaked 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 Kunagonda, 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 head foremost into the sea. End Chapter 12 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candide by Voltaire, Chapter 13 How Candide was forced away from his fair Kunagonda and the Old Woman. The beautiful Kunagonda, having heard the Old Woman's history, paid her all the civilities due to a person of her rank and merit. She likewise accepted her proposal and engaged all the passengers one after the other to relate their adventures and then both she and Candide allowed that the Old Woman was in the right. It is a great pity, said Candide, that the sage Pangloss was hanged contrary to custom at an auto-defei. He would tell us most amazing things in regard to the physical and moral evils that overspread the earth and sea and I should be able with due respect to make a few objections. While each passenger was recounting his story, the ship made her way. They landed at Buenos Aires. Kunagonda, Captain Candide and the Old Woman waited on the governor. Don Fernando de Barra y Figueroa y Mascarena y Lampordos y Sousa. This nobleman had a stateliness becoming a person who bore so many names. He spoke to men with so noble a disdain, carried his nose so loftily, raised his voice so unmercifully, assumed so imperious an air and stalked with such intolerable pride that those who saluted him were strongly inclined to give him a good drubbing. Kunagonda appeared to him the most beautiful he had ever met. The first thing he did was to ask whether she was not the captain's wife. The manner in which he asked the question He durst not say she was his wife, because indeed she was not. Neither durst he say she was his sister, because it was not so. And although this obliging lie had been formally much in favour among the ancients, and although it could be useful to the moderns, his soul was too pure to betray the truth. Miss Kunagonda said he is to do me the honour to marry me, and we beseech your Excellency to deign to sanction our marriage. Don Fernando Diabara y Figueroa y Mascarena y Lampurdos y Susa, turning up his mustachios, smiled mockingly, and ordered Captain Candid to go and review his company. Candid obeyed, and the governor remained alone with Miss Kunagonda. He declared his passion, protesting he would marry her the next day in the face of the church, or otherwise just as should be agreeable to herself. Kunagonda asked a quarter of an hour to consider of it, to consult the old woman, and to take her resolution. The old woman spoke thus to Kunagonda, Miss, you have 72 quarterings and not a farthing. It is now in your power to be wife to the greatest lord in South America, and has very beautiful mustachios. Is it for you to peak yourself upon inviolable fidelity? You have been ravished by Bulgarians. A Jew and an inquisitor have enjoyed your favors. Miss Fortune gives sufficient excuse. I own that if I were in your place, I should have no scruple in marrying the governor, and in making the fortune of Captain Candid. As the old woman spoke with all the prudence which age and experience gave, a small ship entered the port on board of which were an Al-Kald and his Al-Guaziz. And this was what had happened. As the old woman had shrewdly guessed, it was a gray fryer who stole Kunagonda's money and jewels in the town of Badahos, when she and Candid were escaping. The fryer wanted to sell some of the diamonds to a jeweler. The jeweler knew them to be the grand inquisitors. The fryer, before he was hanged, confessed he had stolen them. He described the persons and the route they had taken. The flight of Kunagonda and Candid was already known. They were traced to Kadiz. A vessel was immediately sent in pursuit of them. The vessel was already in the port of Buenos Aires. The report spread that the Al-Kald was going to land and that he was in pursuit of the murderers of my lord, the grand inquisitor. The prudent old woman saw at once what was to be done. You cannot run away, she said to Kunagonda, and you have nothing to fear, for it was not you that killed my lord. Besides the governor who loves you will not suffer you to be ill-treated. Therefore, stay. She then ran immediately to Candid. Fly, said she, or in an hour you will be burnt. There was not a moment to lose. But how could he part from Kunagonda and where could he flee for shelter? End Chapter 13 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Candid by Voltaire. Read by Ted DeLorm and Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candid by Voltaire. Chapter 14 How Candid and Kakambo were received by the Jesuits of Paraguay. Candid had brought such a valet with him from Cadiz as one often meets with on the coasts of Spain and in the American colonies. He was a quarter Spaniard, born of a mongrel in Tucumán. He had been singing-boy, Cacriston, sailor, monk, peddler, soldier and lackey. His name was Kakambo and he loved his master because his master was a very good man. He quickly saddled the two Andalusian horses. Come master, let us follow the old woman's advice. Let us start and run without looking behind us. Candid shed tears. Oh, my dear Kunagonda, must I leave you just at a time when the governor was going to sanction our nuptials? Kunagonda brought to such a distance. What will become of you? She will do as well as she can, said Kakambo. The woman are never at a loss. God provides for them. Let us run. Wither are thou carrying me. Where shall we go? What shall we do without Kunagonda, said Candid? By St. James of Campostela, said Kakambo. You were going to fight against the Jesuits. Let us go to fight for them. I know the road well. I'll conduct you to their kingdom where they will be charmed to have a captain that understands the Bulgarian exercise. You'll make a prodigious fortune. If we cannot find our account in one world, we shall in another. It is a great pleasure to see and do new things. You have before been in Paraguay then, said Candid. I sure, answered Kakambo. I was servant in the College of the Assumption and am acquainted with the government of the good fathers as well as I am with the streets of Cadiz. It is an admirable government. The kingdom is upwards of 300 leagues and diameter and divided into 30 provinces. There the fathers possess all and the people nothing. It is a masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part I see nothing so divine as the fathers who here make war upon the kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe confess those kings who here kill Spaniards and in Madrid send them to heaven. This delights me. Let us push forward. You are going to be the happiest of mortals. What pleasure will it be to those fathers to hear that a captain who knows the Bulgarian exercise has come to them. As soon as they reached the first barrier Kakambo told the advanced guard that a captain wanted to speak with my lord the commandant. Notice was given to the main guard and immediately a Paraguayan officer ran and laid himself at the feet of the commandant to impart this news to him. Candid and Kakambo were disarmed and their two Andalusian horses seized. The strangers were introduced between two files of musketeers. The commandant was at the further end with the three-cornered cap on his head, his gown tucked up, a sword by his side and a spun tune in his hand. He beckoned and straight away the newcomers were encompassed by four and twenty soldiers. A sergeant told them they must wait that the commandant could not speak to them and that the Reverend Father Provincial does not suffer any Spaniard to open his mouth but in his presence or to stay above three hours in the province. Isn't where is the Reverend Father Provincial? said Kakambo. He is upon the parade just after celebrating mass, answered the sergeant, and you cannot kiss his spares till three hours hence. However, said Kakambo, the captain is not a Spaniard but a German. He is ready to perish with hunger as well as myself. Cannot we have something for breakfast while we wait for his reverence? The sergeant went immediately to acquaint the commandant with what he had heard. God be praised, said the Reverend Commandant. Since he is a German, I may speak to him. Take him to my arbor. Candide was at once conducted to a beautiful summer house, ornamented with a very pretty colonnade of green and gold marble and with trellises, enclosing parakeets, hummingbirds, flybirds, guinea hens, and all other rare birds. An excellent breakfast was provided in vessels of gold, and while the Paraguayans were eating maize out of wooden dishes in the open fields and exposed to the heat of the sun, the Reverend Father Commandant retired to his arbor. He was a very handsome young man with a full face, white skin, but high in color. He had an arched eyebrow, a lively eye, red ears, the million lips, a bold air, but such a boldness as neither belonged to a Spaniard nor a Jesuit. They returned their arms to Candide and Cacombo and also the two Andalusian horses to whom Cacombo gave some oats to eat just by the arbor, having an eye upon them all the while for fear of a surprise. Candide first kissed the hymn of the Commandant's robe, then they sat down to table. You are, then, a German, said the Jesuit to him in that language. Yes, Reverend Father, answered Candide. As they pronounced these words, they looked at each other with great amazement and with such an emotion as they could not conceal. And from what part of Germany do you come? said the Jesuit. I am from the dirty province of Westphalia, answered Candide. I was born in the castle of Thunder Tyndronk. Oh, heavens! Is it possible? cried the Commandant. What a miracle! cried Candide. Is it really you? said the Commandant. It is not possible, said Candide. They drew back. They embraced. They shed rivulets of tears. What! is it you, Reverend Father? You, the brother of the fair Kunaganda? You that was slain by the Bulgarians? You, the barren son? You, a Jesuit in Paraguay? I must confess this is a strange world that we live in. Oh, Pangloss, Pangloss, how glad you would be if you had not been hanged. The Commandant sent away the Negro slaves and the Paraguayans who served them with liquors in goblets of rock crystal. He thanked God and St. Ignatius a thousand times. He clasped Candide in his arms and their faces were all bathed in tears. You will be more surprised, more affected and transported, said Candide, when I tell you that Kunaganda, your sister whom you believe to have been ripped open, is in perfect health. Where? in your neighborhood with the Governor of Buenos Aires, and I was going to fight against you. Every word which they uttered in this long conversation but added wonder to wonder. Their souls fluttered on their tongues, listened in their ears, and sparkled in their eyes. As they were Germans, they sat a good while at table waiting for the Reverend Father Provincial and the Commandant spoke to his dear Candide as follows. By Voltaire Read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording. Candide by Voltaire Chapter 15 How Candide killed the brother of his dear Kunaganda? I shall have ever present to my memory the dreadful day on which I saw my father and mother killed and my sister ravished. When the Bulgarians retired, my dear sister could not be found. But my mother, my father, and myself with two maidservants and three little boys all of whom had been slain were put in a hearse to be conveyed for interment to a chapel belonging to the Jesuit within two leagues of our family seat. A Jesuit sprinkled us with some holy water. It was horribly salt. A few drops of it fell into my eyes. The father perceived that my eyelid stirred a little. He put his hand upon my heart and felt it beat. I received assistance, and at the end of three weeks I recovered. You know, my dear Candide, I was very pretty, but I grew much prettier, and the Reverend Father Didrier, superior of that house, conceived the tenderest friendship for me. He gave me the habit of the order some years after I was sent to Rome. The father-general needed new levies of young German Jesuits. The sovereigns of Paraguay admit as few Spanish Jesuits as possible. They prefer those of other nations as being more subordinate to their commands. I was judged fit by the Reverend Father-general to go and work in this vineyard. We set out a pole, a tear-release, and myself. Upon my arrival I was honored with a sub-deaconship and a lutenancy. I am today colonel and priest. We shall give a warm reception to the king of Spain's troops. I will answer for it that they shall be excommunicated and well beaten. Providence sends you here to assist us. But is it indeed true that my dear sister Cunaganda is in the neighborhood with the governor of Buenos Aires? Candide assured him on oath that nothing was more true and their tears began afresh. The Baron could not refrain from embracing Candide. He called him his brother, his savior. Ah, perhaps, said he, we shall together, my dear Candide, enter the town as conquerors and recover my sister Cunaganda. That is all I want, said Candide, for I intend to marry her and I still hope to do so. Insolent replied the Baron, would you have the impudence to marry my sister who has 72 quarterings? I find thou hast the most consummate effrontery to dare to mention so presumptuous a design. Candide, petrified at this speech, made answer, Reverend Father, all the quarterings in the world signify nothing. I rescued your sister from the arms of a Jew and of an inquisitor. She has great obligations to me. She wishes to marry me. Master Pangloss always told me that all men are equal and certainly I will marry her. We shall see that thou scoundrel, said the Jesuit Baron, doth thunder tin tronk and that instant struck him across the face with the flat of his sword. Candide in an instant drew his rapier and plunged it up to the hilt in the Jesuit's belly, but in pulling it out wreaking heart he burst into tears. Good God, said he, I have killed my old master, my friend, my brother-in-law. I am the best-natured creature in the world and yet I have already killed three men and of these three two were priests. Kakamba, who stood sentry by the door of the arbor, ran to him. We have nothing more for it than to sell our lives as dearly as we can, said his master to him. Without someone will soon enter the arbor and we must die sword in hand. Kakamba, who had been in a great many scrapes in his lifetime, did not lose his head. He took the Baron's Jesuit habit, put it on Candide, gave him the square cap and made him mount on horseback. All this was done in the twinkling of an eye. Let us gallop fast, master. Everybody will take you for a Jesuit going to give directions to your men and have passed the frontiers before they will be able to overtake us. He flew as he spoke these words, crying aloud in Spanish, Make way, make way for the Reverend Father Colonel! End Chapter 15. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Candide by Voltaire. Read by Ted Delorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candide by Voltaire. Chapter 16. Adventures of the two travellers with two girls, two monkeys and the savages called O'rylon's. Candide and his valet had got beyond the barrier before it was known in the camp that the German Jesuit was dead. The wary Kakambo had taken care to fill his wallet with bread, chocolate, bacon, fruit and a few bottles of wine. With their Andalusian horses they penetrated into an unknown country where they perceived no beaten track. At length they came to a beautiful meadow intersected with pearling rills. Here our two adventurers fed their horses. Kakambo proposed to his master to take some food and he set him an example. How can you ask me to eat ham, said Candide, after killing the barren sun and being doomed never more to see the beautiful Kunaganda? What will it avail me to spin out my wretched days and drag them far from her in remorse and despair? And what will the Journal of Trevose say? While he was thus lamenting his fate he went on eating. The sun went down. The two wanderers heard some little cries which seemed to be uttered by women. They did not know whether they were cries of pain or joy but they started up precipitately with that inquietude and alarm which every little thing inspires in an unknown country. The noise was made by two naked girls who tripped along the mead while two monkeys were pursuing them and biting their buttocks. Candide was moved with pity. He had learned to fire a gun in the Bulgarian service and he was so clever at it that he could hit a filbert in a hedge without touching a leaf of the tree. He took up his double-barrelled Spanish fusel, let it off, and killed the two monkeys. God be praised, my dear Kakambo! I have rescued those two poor creatures from a most perilous situation. If I have committed a sin in killing an inquisitor and a Jesuit I have made ample amends by saving the lives of these girls. Perhaps they are young ladies of family and this adventure may procure us great advantages in this country. He was continuing but stopped short when he saw the two girls tenderly embracing the monkeys, bathing their bodies in tears and rinding the air with the most dismal lamentations. Little did I expect to see such good nature, said he at length to Kakambo, who made answer, Master, you have done a fine thing now. You have slain the sweethearts of those two young ladies. The sweethearts? Is it possible? You are jesting, Kakambo. I can never believe it. Dear Master, replied Kakambo, you are surprised at everything. Why should you think it so strange that in some countries there are monkeys which insinuate themselves into the good graces of the ladies? They are a fourth part human as I am a fourth part Spaniard. Alas, replied Candide, I remember to have heard Master Pangloss say that formerly such accidents used to happen that these mixtures were productive of centaurs, fawns and satyrs and that many of the ancients had seen such monsters. I looked upon the whole as fabulous. You ought now to be convinced, said Kakambo, that it is the truth and you see what use is made of those creatures by persons that have not had a proper education. All I fear is that those ladies will play a some ugly trick. These sound reflections induced Candide to leave the meadow and to plunge into a wood. He sucked there with Kakambo and after cursing the Portuguese Inquisitor, the Governor of Buenos Aires and the Baron, they fell asleep on moss. On awakening they felt that they could not move for during the night the Orylons who inhabited that country and to whom the ladies had denounced them had bound them with cords made of the bark of trees. They were encompassed by fifty naked Orylons armed with bows and arrows with clubs and flint hatchets. Some were making a large cauldron boil, others were preparing spits and all cried, A Jesuit! A Jesuit! We shall be revenged! We shall have excellent cheer! Let us eat the Jesuit! Let us eat him up! I told you, my dear master, cried Kakambo sadly, that those two girls would play a some ugly trick. Candide, seeing the cauldron and the spits cried, we are certainly going to be either roasted or boiled. What would Master Pangloss say? Were he to see how pure nature is formed? Everything is right, maybe, but I declare it is very hard to have lost Miss Kunaganda and to be put on a spit by Orylons. Kakambo never lost his head. Do not despair, said he to the disconsulate Candide. I understand a little of the jargon of these people. I will speak to them. Be sure, said Candide, to represent to them how frightfully inhuman it is to cook men and how very un-christian. Gentlemen, said Kakambo, you reckon you are today going to feast upon a Jesuit? It is all very well. Nothing is more unjust than thus to treat your enemies. Indeed, the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbor and such is to practice all over the world. If we do not accustom ourselves to eating them, it is because we have better fare. But you have not the same resources as we. Certainly it is much better to devour your enemies than to resign to the crows and rooks the fruits of your victory. But gentlemen, surely you would not choose to eat your friends. You believe that you are going to spit a Jesuit and he is your defender. It is the enemy of your enemies that you are going to roast. As for myself, I was born in your country. This gentleman is my master and far from being a Jesuit he has just killed one whose spoils he wears. And thence comes your mistake to convince you of the truth of what I say, take his habit and carry it to the first barrier of the Jesuit kingdom and inform yourselves whether my master did not kill a Jesuit officer. It will not take you long and you can always eat us if you find that I have lied to you. But I have told the truth. Too well acquainted with the principles of public law, humanity and justice, not to pardon us. The Orailons found this speech very reasonable. They deputed two of their principal people with all expedition to inquire into the truth of the matter. These executed their commission like men of since and soon returned with good news. The Orailons untied their prisoners showed them all sorts of civilities offered them girls, fresh mint and reconducted them to the confines of their territories proclaiming with great joy he is no Jesuit! He is no Jesuit! Candide could not help being surprised at the cause of his deliverance. What people said he! What men! What manners! If I had not been so lucky as to run Miss Cunaganda's brother through the body, I should have been devoured without redemption. But after all, your nature is good, since these people instead of feasting upon my flesh have shown me a thousand civilities when then I was not a Jesuit. End Chapter 16 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. Candide by Voltaire Chapter 17 A rival of Candide and his valet at El Dorado and what they saw there. You'll see, said Kakambo to Candide as soon as they had reached the frontiers of the Oralons that this hemisphere is not better than the others. Take my word for it. Let us go back to Europe by the shortest way. How go back said Candide and where shall we go to my own country? The Bulgarians and the Abares are slaying all to Portugal there I shall be burnt and if we abide here we are every moment in danger of being spitted but how can I resolve to quit a part of the world where my dear Kunagonda resides. Let us turn towards Cayenne, said Kakambo. There we shall find Frenchmen who wander all over the world. They may assist us. God will perhaps have pity on us. It was not easy to get to Cayenne. They knew vaguely in which direction to go but rivers, precipices, robbers, savages obstructed them all the way. Their horses died of fatigue. Their provisions were consumed. They fed a whole month upon wild fruits and found themselves at last near a little river bordered with cocoa trees which sustained their lives and their hopes. Kakambo, who was as good a counselor as the old woman said to Candide, we are able to hold out no longer. We have walked enough. I see an empty canoe near the riverside. Let us fill it with coconuts, throw ourselves into it and go with the current. A river always leads to some inhabited spot. If we do not find pleasant things we shall at least find new things. With all my heart said Candide, let us recommend ourselves to Providence. They rode a few leagues between banks, in some places flowery, in others barren, in some parts smooth, in others rugged. The stream ever widened and at length lost itself under an arch of frightful rocks which reached to the sky. The two travelers had the courage to commit themselves to the current. The river, suddenly contracting at this place, whirled them along with a dreadful noise and rapidity. At the end of four and twenty hours they saw daylight again but their canoe was dashed to pieces against the rocks. For a league they had to creep from rock to rock until at length they discovered an extensive plain bounded by inaccessible mountains. The country was cultivated as much for pleasure as for necessity. On all sides the youthful was also the beautiful. The roads were covered or rather adorned with carriages of a glittering form and substance in which were men and women of surprising beauty drawn by large red sheep who were passed in fleetness the finest courses in Andalusia, Taitwan and Mekines. Here, however, is a country, said Candide, which is better than Westphalia. He stepped out with Kakambo towards the first village which he saw. Some children dressed in tattered brocades played at coys on the outskirts. Our travelers from the other world amused themselves by looking on. The coys were large round pieces yellow, red and green which cast a singular luster. The travelers picked a few of them off the ground. This was of gold, that of emeralds, the other of rubies. The least of them would have been the greatest ornament on the mogul's throne. Without doubt, said Kakambo, these children must be the king's sons that are playing at coys. The village schoolmaster appeared at this moment and called them to school. There, said Candide, is the preceptor of the royal family. The little truants immediately quitted their game, leaving the coys on the ground with all their other playthings. Candide gathered them up, ran to the master and presented them to him in a most humble manner, giving him to understand by signs that their royal highnesses had forgotten their gold and jewels. The schoolmaster, smiling, flung them upon the ground. Then, looking at Candide with a good deal of surprise, went about his business. The travelers, however, took care to gather up the gold, the rubies, and the emeralds. Where are we? cried Candide. The king's children in this country must be well brought up since they are taught to despise gold and precious stones. Kakambo was as much surprised as Candide. At length, they drew near the first house in the village. It was built like a European palace. A crowd of people pressed about the door and there was still more in the house. They heard most agreeable music and were aware of a delicious odor of cooking. Kakambo went up to the door and heard they were talking Peruvian. It was his mother tongue for it is well known that Kakambo was born in Tucumán in a village where no other language was spoken. I will be your interpreter here said he to Candide. Let us go in. It is a public house. Immediately two waiters and two girls dressed in cloth of gold and their hair tied up with ribbons invited them to sit down to table with the landlord. They served four dishes of soup each garnished with two young parrots, a boiled condor which weighed two hundred pounds, two roasted monkeys of excellent flavor three hundred hummingbirds in one dish and six hundred fly birds in another. Exquisite rock oats delicious pastries. The whole served up in dishes of a kind of rock crystal. The waiters and girls poured out several liqueurs drawn from the sugar cane. Most of the company were Chapman and Wagoners all extremely polite. They asked Tucumbo a few questions with the greatest circumspection and answered his in the most obliging manner. As soon as dinner was over, Tucumbo believed as well as Candide that they might well pay their reckoning by laying down two of those large gold pieces which they had picked up. The landlord and lad lady shouted with laughter and held their hands. When the fit was over gentlemen said the landlord it is plain you are strangers and such guests we are not accustomed to see. Pardon us therefore for laughing when you offered us the pebbles from our high roads in payment of your reckoning. You doubtless have not the money of the country but it is not necessary to have any money at all to dine in this house. All hostelries established for the convenience are paid by the government. You have fared but very indifferently because this is a poor village. But everywhere else you will be received as you deserve. Tucumbo explained this whole discourse with great astonishment to Candide who was as greatly astonished to hear it. What sort of a country then is this? Said they to one another. A country unknown to all the rest of the world in nature is of a kind so different from ours. It is probably the country where all is well for there absolutely must be one such place and whatever Master Pangloss might say I often found that things went very ill in Westphalia. Is it LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 18 What they saw in the country of El Dorado Tucumbo expressed his curiosity to the landlord who made answer I am very ignorant but not the worse on that account However we have in this neighborhood an old man retired from court who is the most learned and most communicative person in the kingdom At once he took Tucumbo to the old man Candide acted now only a second character and accompanied his valet They entered a very plain house for the door was only a silver and the ceilings were only of gold but and so elegant a taste as to vie with the richest The ante-chamber indeed was only encrusted with rubies and emeralds but the order in which everything was arranged made amends for this great simplicity The old man received the strangers on his sofa which was stuffed with hummingbirds feathers and ordered his servants to present them with liqueurs in diamond goblets after which he satisfied their curiosity following terms I am now one hundred and seventy-two years old and I learnt of my late father master of the horse to the king the amazing revolutions of Peru of which he had been an eyewitness The kingdom we now inhabit is the ancient country of the incurs who quitted it very quickly to conquer another part of the world and were at length destroyed by the Spaniards more wise by far were the princes of their family who remained in their native country and they ordained with the consent of the whole nation that none of the inhabitants should ever be permitted to quit this little kingdom and this has preserved our innocence and happiness. The Spaniards have had a confused notion of this country they have called it El Dorado and an Englishman whose name was Sir Walter Rale came very near it about a hundred years ago but being surrounded by inaccessible rocks and precipices we have hitherto been sheltered from the rapaciousness of European nations who have an inconceivable passion for the pebbles and dirt of our land for the sake of which they would murder us to the last man the conversation was long it turned chiefly on their form of government their manners, their women their public entertainments and the arts at length candied having always had a taste for metaphysics made Cacombo ask whether there was any religion in that country the old man reddened a little how then said he can you doubt it do you take us for ungrateful wretches Cacombo humbly asked what was the religion in El Dorado the old man reddened again can there be two religions said he we have I believe the religion of all the world we worship God and mourning do you worship but one God said Cacombo who still acted as interpreter in representing candied's doubts surely said the old man there are not two nor three nor four I must confess the people from your side of the world ask very extraordinary questions candied was not yet tired of interrogating the good old man he wanted to know in what manner we worship God in El Dorado we do not pray to him said the worthy sage we have nothing to ask of him he has given us all we need and we return him thanks without ceasing candied having a curiosity to see the priests asked where they were the good old man smiled my friend said he we are all priests the king and all the heads of families all of them canticles of thanksgiving every morning accompanied by five or six thousand musicians what have you no monks who teach, who dispute, who govern who cabal and who burn people that are not of their opinion we must be mad indeed if that were the case said the old man here we are all of one opinion and we know not what you mean by monks during this whole discourse he was in raptures and he said to himself this is vastly different from westphalia and the baron's castle had our friend Pangloss seen El Dorado he would no longer have said that the castle of thunder was the finest upon earth it is evident that one must travel after this long conversation the old man ordered a coach and six sheep to be got ready and twelve of his domestics to conduct were used to court excuse me said he if my age deprives me of the honor of accompanying you the king will receive you in a manner that cannot displease you and no doubt you will make an allowance for the customs of the country if something should not be to your liking candied and cacombo got into the coach the six sheep flew and in less than four hours they reached the king's palace situated at the extremity of the capital the portal was two hundred and twenty feet high and one hundred wide but words are wanting to express the materials of which it was built it is plain such materials must have prodigious superiority over those pebbles and sand which we call gold and precious stones twenty beautiful damsels of the king's guard received candied and cacombo as they alighted from the coach conducted them to the bath and dressed them in robes woven of the down of hummingbirds after which the great crown officers of both sexes led them to the king's apartment between two files of musicians a thousand on each side when they drew near to the audience chamber cacombo asked one of the great officers in what way he should pay his essence to his majesty whether they should throw themselves upon their knees or on their stomachs whether they should put their hands upon their heads or behind their backs whether they should lick the dust off the floor in a word what was the ceremony the custom said the great officer is to embrace the king and to kiss him on each cheek candied and cacombo threw themselves round his majesty's neck he received them with all the goodness imaginable and politely invited them to supper while waiting they were shown the city and saw the public edifices raised as high as the clouds the market places ornamented with a thousand columns the fountains of spring water those of rose water those of liqueurs drawn from sugarcane incessantly flowing into the great squares which were paved with a kind of precious stone which gave off a delicious frequency like that of cloves and cinnamon candied asked to see the court of justice the parliament they told him they had none and that they were strangers to lawsuits he asked if they had any prisons and they answered no but what surprised him most and gave him the greatest pleasure was the palace of sciences where he saw a gallery two thousand feet long and filled with instruments employed in mathematics and physics after rambling about the city the whole afternoon and seeing but a thousandth part of it they were reconducted to the royal palace where candied sat down to table with his majesty his valet, cacombo and several ladies never was there a better entertainment and never was more wit shown at table than that which fell from his majesty cacombo explained the king's bonmots to candied and notwithstanding they were translated they still appeared to be bonmots of all the things that surprised candied this was not the least they spent a month in this hospitable place candied frequently said to cacombo I own my friend once more that the castle where I was born nothing in comparison with this but after all miss cunagonda is not here and you have without doubt some mistress in Europe if we abide here we shall only be upon a footing with the rest whereas if we return to our old world only with twelve sheep laden with the pebbles of eldorado we shall be richer than all the kings in Europe we shall have no more inquisitors to fear and we may easily recover miss cunagonda this speech was agreeable to cacombo mankind are so fond of roving of making a figure in their own country and of boasting of what they have seen in their travels that the two happy ones resolved to be no longer so but to ask his majesty's leave to quit the country you are foolish said the king I am sensible that my kingdom is but a small place but when a person is comfortably settled in any part he should abide there I have not the right to detain strangers it is a tyranny which neither our manners nor our laws permit all men are free go when you wish but the going will be very difficult it is impossible to ascend that rapid river on which you came as by a miracle and which runs under vaulted rocks the mountains which surround my kingdom are ten thousand feet high and as steep as walls they are each over ten leagues in breadth and there is no other way to descend them than by precipices however since you absolutely wish to depart I shall give orders to my engineers to construct a machine that will convey you very safely when we have conducted you over the mountains no one can accompany you further for my subjects have made a vow never to quit the kingdom and they are too wise to break it ask me besides anything that you please we desire nothing of your majesty said kandid but a few sheep laden with provisions pebbles and the earth of this country the king laughed I cannot conceive said he what pleasure you Europeans find in our yellow clay but take as much as you like and great good may it do you at once he gave directions that his engineers should construct a machine to hoist up these two extraordinary men out of the kingdom three thousand good mathematicians went to work it was ready in fifteen days and did not cost more than twenty million sterling in the specie of that country they placed kandid and kakambo on the machine there were two great red sheep all to ride upon as soon as they were beyond the mountains twenty pack sheep laden with provisions thirty with presence of the curiosities of the country and fifty with gold diamonds and precious stones the king embraced the two wanderers very tenderly their departure with the ingenious manner in which they and their sheep were hoisted over the mountains was a splendid spectacle the mathematicians took their leave after conveying them to a place of safety and kandid had no other desire no other aim than to present his sheep to miss kunaganda now said he we are able to pay the governor of Buenos Aires if miss kunaganda can be ransomed let us journey towards cayenne let us embark and we will afterwards see what kingdom we shall be able to purchase end chapter eighteen this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Kandid by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 this is a LibriVox recording Kandid by Voltaire chapter nineteen what happened to them at Suriname and how Kandid got acquainted with Martin our travellers spent the first day very agreeably they were delighted with possessing more treasure than all Asia, Europe and Africa could scrape together Kandid in his raptures cut Kunaganda's name on the trees the second day two of their sheep plunged into a morass and again their burdens were lost two more died of fatigue a few days after seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert and others subsequently fell down precipices at length after travelling a hundred days only two sheep remained said Kandid to Kakambo my friend you'll see how perishable are the riches of this world there is nothing solid happiness of seeing Kunaganda once more I grant all you say said Kakambo but we have still two sheep remaining with more treasure than the king of Spain will ever have and I see a town which I take to be Suriname belonging to the Dutch we are at the end of all our troubles and at the beginning of happiness as they drew near the town they saw a negro stretched upon the ground with only one weighty in his clothes that is of his blue linen drawers the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand good god said Kandid in Dutch what art thou doing here friend in that shocking condition I am waiting for my master my near Vanderdender the famous merchant answered the negro was it my near Vanderdender said Kandid that treated thee thus sir said the negro it is the custom they give us a pair of linen drawers for our whole garment vice a year when we work at the sugar canes and the mill snatches hold of a finger they cut off the hand and when we attempt to run away they cut off the leg both cases have happened to me this is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe yet when my mother sold me the sugar canes on the coast of Guinea she said to me my dear child bless our fetishes adore them forever for they will make thee live happily thou hast the honor of being the slave of our lord the white which is making the fortune of thy father and mother alas I know not whether I have made their fortunes this I know that they have not made mine they have made their fortunes and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than I the Dutch fetishes who have converted me declare every Sunday that we are all of us children of Adam blacks as well as whites I am not a genealogist but if these preachers tell truth we are all second cousins now you must agree that it is impossible to treat one's relations in a more barbarous manner oh Pangloss cried Candide thou hadst not guessed at this abomination it is the end I must at last renounce thy optimism what is this optimism said Kakambo alas said Candide it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong looking at the negro he shed tears and weeping he entered Suriname the first thing they inquired after was whether there was a vessel in the harbor which could be sent to Buenos Aires the person to whom they applied was a Spanish sea captain who offered to agree with them upon reasonable terms he appointed to meet them at a public house with their Candide and the faithful Kakambo went with their two sheep and awaited his coming Candide who had his heart upon his lips told the Spaniard all his adventures and avowed that he intended to elope with Miss Kunagonda that I will take care not to carry you to Buenos Aires said the seaman I should be hanged and so would you the fair Kunagonda is my lord's favorite mistress this was a thunder clap for Candide he wept for a long while at last he drew Kakambo aside here my dear friend said he to him this thou must do we have each of us in his pocket five or six millions in diamonds if you are more clever than I you must go and bring Miss Kunagonda from Buenos Aires if the governor makes any difficulty give him a million if he will not relinquish her give him two as you have not killed an inquisitor they will have no suspicion of you I'll get another ship and go and wait for you at Venice that's a free country where there is no danger either from Bulgarians Abares Jews or inquisitors Kakambo applauded this wise conclusion he despaired at parting from so good a master who had become his intimate friend but the pleasure of serving him prevailed over the pain of leaving him they embraced with tears Candide charged him not to forget the good old woman Kakambo set out that very same day this Kakambo was a very honest fellow Candide stayed some time longer in Suriname waiting for another captain to carry him and the two remaining sheep to Italy after he had hired domestics and purchased everything necessary for a long voyage my near van der Dinder captain of a large vessel came and offered his services how much will you charge said he to this man to carry me straight to Venice me my servants my baggage and these two sheep the skipper asked ten thousand piastes Candide did not hesitate oh oh said the prudent van der Dinder to himself this train jugg gives ten thousand piastes unhesitatingly he must be very rich returning a little while after he let him know that upon second consideration he could not undertake the voyage for less than twenty thousand piastes well you shall have them said Candide I said the skipper to himself this man agrees to pay twenty thousand piastes with as much ease as ten hmmm he went back to him again and declared that he could not carry him to Venice for less than thirty thousand piastes then you shall have thirty thousand replied Candide oh oh said the Dutch skipper once more to himself thirty thousand piastes are a trifle to this man surely these sheep must be laden by his treasure let us say no more about it first of all let him pay down the thirty thousand piastes then we shall see Candide sold two small diamonds the least of which was worth more than what the skipper asked for his freight he paid him in advance the two sheep were put on board Candide followed in a little boat to join the vessel in the roads the skipper seized this opportunity set sail and put out to sea the wind favouring him Candide dismayed and stupefied soon lost sight of the vessel alas said he this is a trick worthy of the old world he put back overwhelmed with sorrow for indeed he had lost sufficient to make the fortune of twenty monarchs he waited upon the Dutch magistrate and in his distress he knocked over loudly at the door he entered and told his adventure raising his voice with unnecessary vehemence the magistrate began by finding him ten thousand piastes for making a noise then he listened patiently promised to examine into his affair at the skipper's return and ordered him to pay ten thousand piastes for the expense of the hearing this drove Candide to despair the fortunes a thousand times worse the coolness of the magistrate and of the skipper who had robbed him roused his collar and flung him into a deep melancholy the villainy of mankind presented itself before his imagination in all its deformity and his mind was filled with gloomy ideas at length hearing that a French vessel was ready to set sail for Bordeaux as he had no sheep laden with diamonds to take along with him he hired a cabin at the usual price he made it known in the town that he would pay the passage and board and give two thousand piastes to any honest man who would make the voyage with him upon condition that this man was the most dissatisfied with his state and the most unfortunate in the whole province such a crowd of candidates presented themselves that a fleet of ships could hardly have held them Candide, being desirous of selecting from among the best marked out about one twentieth of them who seemed to be sociable men and who all pretended to merit his preference he assembled them at his inn and gave them a supper on condition that each took an oath to relate his history faithfully promising to choose him who appeared to be most justly discontented with his state and to bestow some presence upon the rest they sat until four o'clock in the morning Candide, in listening to all their adventures was reminded of what the old woman had said to him in their voyage to Buenos Aires and of her wager that there was not a person on board the ship but had met with very great misfortunes he dreamed of pan gloss at every adventure told to him this pan gloss said he would be puzzled to demonstrate his system I wish that he were here if all things are good it is in El Dorado and not in the rest of the world at length he made choice of a poor man of letters who had worked ten years for the booksellers of Amsterdam he judged that there was not in the whole world a trade which could disgust one more this philosopher was an honest man but he had been robbed by his wife beaten by his son and abandoned by his daughter who got a Portuguese to run away with her he had just been deprived of a small employment on which he subsisted and he was persecuted by the preachers of Suriname who took him for a Sosinian we must allow that the others were at least as wretched as he but Candide hoped that the philosopher would entertain him during the voyage all the other candidates complained that Candide had done them great injustice but he appeased them by giving one hundred piastres to each and chapter 19 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 this is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire chapter 20 what happened at sea to Candide and Martin the old philosopher whose name was Martin embarked then with Candide for Bordeaux they had both seen and suffered a great deal and at the vessel had sailed from Suriname to Japan by the Cape of Good Hope the subject of moral and natural evil would have enabled them to entertain one another during the whole voyage Candide however had one great advantage over Martin in that he always hoped to see Miss Cunaganda whereas Martin had nothing at all to hope besides Candide was possessed of money and jewels and though he had lost one hundred large red sheep laden with the greatest treasure upon earth though the navery of the Dutch skipper still sat heavy on his mind yet when he reflected upon what he had still left and when he mentioned the name of Cunaganda especially towards the later end of a repast he inclined to Pangloss's doctrine but you Mr. Martin said he to the philosopher what do you think of all this what are your ideas on moral and natural evil sir answered Martin our priests accused me of being a Sosinian but the real fact is I am a Manichaean you just said Candide there are no longer Manichaeans in the world I am one said Martin I cannot help it I know not how to think otherwise surely you must be possessed by the devils said Candide he is so deeply concerned in the affairs of this world answered Martin that he may very well be in me as well as in everybody else but I own to you that when I cast an eye on this globe or rather on this little ball I cannot help thinking that God has abandoned it to some malignant being I accept always Eldorado I scarcely ever knew a city that did not desire the destruction of a neighboring city nor a family that did not wish to exterminate some other family everywhere the weak execrate the powerful before whom they cringe the powerful beat them like sheep whose wool and flesh they sell a million regimented assassins from one extremity of Europe to the other get their bread by disciplined depredation and murder for want of more honest employment even in those cities which seem to enjoy peace and where the arts flourish the inhabitants are devoured by more envy and easiness than are experienced by a besieged town secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities in a word I have seen so much and experienced so much that I am a mannequin there are however some things good said Candide that may be said Martin but I know them not in the middle of this dispute it redoubled every instant each took out his glass they saw two ships in close fight about three miles off the wind brought both so near to the French vessel that our travelers had the pleasure of seeing the fight at their ease at length one let off a broadside so low and so truly aimed that the other sank to the bottom Candide and Martin could plainly perceive a hundred men on the deck of the sinking vessel they raised their hands to heaven and uttered terrible outcries and the next moment was swallowed up by the sea well said Martin this is how men treat one another it is true said Candide there is something diabolical in this affair while speaking he saw he knew not what of a shining red swimming close to the vessel they put out the longboat to see what it could be it was one of his sheep Candide was more rejoiced at the recovery of this one sheep and he had been grieved at the loss of the hundred laden with the large diamonds of El Dorado the French captain soon saw that the captain of the victorious vessel was a Spaniard and that the other was a Dutch pirate and the very same one who had robbed Candide the immense plunder which this villain had amassed was buried with him in the sea and out of the hole only one sheep was saved you see said Candide to Martin that crime is sometimes punished this rogue of a Dutch skipper has met with the fate he deserved yes said Martin but why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction God has punished the nave and the devil has drowned the rest the French and Spanish ships continued their course and Candide continued his conversation with Martin they disputed fifteen successive days and on the last of those fifteen days they were as far advanced as on the first but however they chatted they communicated ideas they consoled each other Candide caressed his sheep since I have found thee again said he I may likewise chance my cune ganda End Chapter Twenty this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill South Carolina during January 2007 this is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter Twenty One Candide and Martin reasoning draw near the coast of France at length they described the coast of France were you ever in France Mr. Martin said Candide yes said Martin I have been in several provinces in some one half of the people are fools in others they are too cunning in some they are weak and simple in others they affect to be witty in all the principal occupation is love the next is slander and the third is talking nonsense but Mr. Martin have you seen Paris yes I have all these kinds are found there it is a chaos a confused multitude where everybody seeks pleasure and scarcely anyone finds it at least as it appeared to me I made a short stay there on my arrival I was robbed of all I had by pickpockets at the fair of Saint Germain I myself was taken for a robber and was imprisoned for eight days after which I served as corrector of the press to gain the money necessary for my return to Holland on foot the whole scribbling rabble the party rabble the fanatic rabble it is said that there are very polite people in that city and I wish to believe it for my part I have no curiosity to see France said Candide you may easily imagine that after spending a month at El Dorado I can desire to behold nothing upon earth but Miss Cunagonda I go to await her at Venice we shall pass through France will you bear me company with all my heart said Martin it is said that Venice is fit only for its own nobility but that strangers meet with a very good reception if they have a good deal of money I have none of it you have therefore I will follow you all over the world but do you believe said Candide that the earth was originally a sea as we find it asserted in that large book belonging to the captain I do not believe a word of it said Martin any more than I do of the many ravings which have been published lately but for what in then has this world been formed said Candide to plague us to death and said Martin are you not greatly surprised continued Candide at the love which these two girls of the orylons had for those monkeys of which I have already told you not at all said Martin do you not see that that passion was strange I have seen so many extraordinary things and I have ceased to be surprised do you believe said Candide that men have always massacred each other as they do today that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors ingrates, brigands idiots, thieves scoundrels, glutton drunkards, misers envious, ambitious bloody-minded, columniators debauches, fanatics hypocrites and fools do you believe said Martin that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them yes without doubt said Candide well then said Martin if hawks have always had the same character why should you imagine that men may have changed theirs oh said Candide there is a vast deal of difference for free will and reasoning thus they arrived at Bordeaux End chapter 21 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 this is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire chapter 22 what happened in France to Candide and Martin Candide stayed in Bordeaux no longer than was necessary for the selling of a few of the pebbles of El Dorado and for hiring a good chaise to hold two passengers for he could not travel without his philosopher Martin he was only vexed at parting with his sheep and she left to the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences who set as a subject for that year's prize to find why this sheep's wool was red and the prize was awarded to a learned man of the north who demonstrated by A plus B minus C divided by Z that the sheep must be red and die of the rot meanwhile all the travelers whom Candide met in the ins along his route said to him, we go to Paris this general eagerness at length gave him too a desire to see this capital and it was not so very great a detour from the road to Venice he entered Paris by the suburb of Saint Marceau and fancied that he was in the dirtiest village of Westphalia scarcely was Candide arrived at his inn then he found himself attacked by a slight illness caused by fatigue as he had a very large diamond on his finger and the people of the inn had taken notice of a prodigiously heavy box among his baggage there were two physicians to attend him though he had never sent for them and two devotees who warmed his brats I remember, Martin said also to have been sick at Paris in my first voyage I was very poor thus I had neither friends, devotees nor doctors and I recovered however what with physics and bleeding Candide's illness became serious a person of the neighbourhood came with great meekness to ask for a bill for the other world payable to the bearer Candide would do nothing for him but the devotees assured him it was the new fashion he answered that he was not a man of fashion Martin wished to throw the priest but they would not bury Candide Martin swore that he would bury the priest if he continued to be troublesome the quarrel grew heated Martin took him by the shoulders and roughly turned him out of doors which occasioned great scandal and a lawsuit Candide got well again and during his convalescence he had very good company to sup with him they played high Candide wondered why it was never came to him but Martin was not at all astonished among those who did him the honours of the town was a little abbey of Perigord one of those busy bodies who are ever alert officious forward fawning and complacent who watch for strangers in their passage through the capital tell them the scandalous history of the town and offer them pleasure at all prices Martin to La Comedie where they played a new tragedy Candide happened to be seated near some of the fashionable wits this did not prevent his shedding tears at the well acted scenes one of these critics at his side said to him between the acts your tears are misplaced that is a shocking actress the actor who plays with her is yet worse and the play is still worse than the actors the author does not know a word of Arabic yet the scene is in Arabia moreover he is a man that does not believe in innate ideas and I will bring you tomorrow twenty pamphlets written against him how many dramas have you in France sir said Candide to the abbey five or six thousand what a number said Candide how many good fifteen or sixteen replied the other what a number said Martin Candide was very pleased with an actress who played Queen Elizabeth in a somewhat insipid tragedy sometimes acted that actress said he to Martin pleases me much she has a likeness to Miss Cunaganda I should be very glad to wait upon her the Perigordian abbey offered to introduce him Candide brought up in Germany what was the etiquette and how they treated Queens of England in France it is necessary to make distinction said the abbey in the provinces one takes them to the inn in Paris one respects them when they are beautiful and throws them on the highway when they are dead Queens on the highway said Candide yes truly said Martin the abbey is right I was in Paris when Miss Monime passed as she's saying is this life to the other she was refused what people call the honors of sepulcher that is to say of rotting with all the beggars of the neighbourhood in an ugly cemetery she was interred all alone by her company at the corner of the Rue de Bougogne which ought to trouble her much for she thought nobly that was very uncivil said Candide what would you have said Martin these people are made thus imagine all contradictions all possible incompatibilities you will find them in the government in the law court in the churches in the public shows of this droll nation is it true that they always laugh in Paris said Candide yes said the abbey but it means nothing for they complain of everything with great fits of laughter they even do the most detestable things while laughing who said Candide is that great pig who spoke so ill of the piece at which I wept and of the actors who gave me so much pleasure he is a bad character answered the abbey who gains his livelihood by saying evil of all plays and of all books he hates whatever succeeds as the eunuchs hate those who enjoy he is one of the serpents of literature who nourish themselves on dirt and spite is a folliculaire what is a folliculaire said Candide it is said the abbey a pamphleteer a frérone thus Candide Martin and the perigodian conversed on the staircase while watching everyone go out after the performance although I am eager to see cunagonda again said Candide I should like to sup with Miss Clairon she is to me admirable the abbey was not the man to approach Miss Clairon who saw only good company she is engaged for this evening he said but I shall have the honor to take you to the house of a lady of quality and there you will know Paris as if you had lived in it for years Candide who was naturally curious let himself be taken to this lady's house at the end of the Fauburg St. Honore the company was occupied in playing pharaoh a dozen melancholy punters held each in his hand a little pack of cards a bad record of his misfortunes profound silence reigned pallor was on the faces of the punters anxiety on that of the banker and the hostess sitting near the unpitying banker noticed with Link's eyes all the doubled other increased stakes as each player dogs eared his cards she made them turn down the edges again with severe but polite attention she showed no vexation for fear of losing her customers the lady insisted upon being called the Marchioness of Parolignac her daughter aged 15 was among the punters and notified with a covert glance the cheatings of the poor people who tried to repair the cruelties of fate the Perigordian Abbey Candide and Martin entered no one rose, no one saluted them no one looked at them all were profoundly occupied with their cards the barrenness of thunder-tinned trunk was more polite said Candide however the Abbey whispered to the Marchioness who half-rose honored Candide with a gracious smile and with a condescending nod she gave a seat and a pack of cards to Candide who lost 50,000 francs in two deals after which they subbed very gaily and everyone was astonished that Candide was not moved by his loss the servants said among themselves in the language of servants some English lord is here this evening the supper passed at first like most Parisian suppers in silence ordered by a noise of words which could not be distinguished then with pleasantries of which most were insipid with false news with bad reasoning a little politics and much evil speaking they also discussed new books have you seen said the Perigordian Abbey the romance of Siergauchin doctor of divinity yes said one of the guests but I have not been able to finish it but all together do not approach the impertinence of Gauchat doctor of divinity I am so satiated with the great number of detestable books with which we are inundated but I am reduced to punting at Pharaoh and the Melanges of Archdeacon Troublet what do you say of that said the Abbey oh said the Marchioness of Paroleignac the weiris of Martel how curiously he repeats to you how heavily he discusses that which is not worth the trouble of lightly remarking upon how without wit he appropriates the wit of others how he spoils what he steals how he disgusts me but he will disgust me no longer it is enough to have read a few of the Archdeacon's pages there was at table a wise man of taste who supported the Marchioness they spoke afterwards of tragedies the lady asked why there were tragedies which were sometimes played and which could not be read the man of taste explained very well how a piece could have some interest and have almost no merit he proved in a few words that it was not enough to introduce one or two of those situations which one finds in all romances and which always seduced the spectator but that it was necessary to be new without being odd often sublime and always natural to know the human heart and to make it speak to be a great poet without allowing any person in the piece to appear to be a poet to know language perfectly to speak it with purity with continuous harmony and without rhythm making anything from since whoever, added he does not observe all these rules can produce one or two tragedies applauded at a theatre but he will never be counted in the ranks of good writers there are very few good tragedies some are idols in dialogue well written and well rhymed others political reasonings which lull to sleep or amplifications which repel others demoniac dreams in barbarous style interrupted in sequence with long apostrophes to the gods because they do not know how to speak to men with false maxims with bombastic common places Candide listened with attention to this discourse and conceived a great idea of the speaker and as the Marchioness had taken care of Candide, he leaned towards her and took the liberty of asking who was the man who had spoken so well he is a scholar said the lady who does not play whom the abbess sometimes brings to supper he is perfectly at home among tragedies and books and he has written a tragedy which was haste and a book of which nothing has ever been seen outside his booksellers shop accepting the copy which he dedicated to me the great man said Candide he is another pangloss then turning towards him he said sir you think doubtless that all is for the best in the moral and physical world and that nothing could be otherwise than it is I, sir, answered the scholar I know nothing of all that I find that all goes awry with me that no one knows either what is his rank nor what is his condition what he does nor what he ought to do and that accepts supper which is always gay and where there appears to be enough concord all the rest of the time is passed in impertinent quarrels jansenist against molonist parliament against the church men of letters against men of letters courtesans against hortesans financiers against the people wives against husbands relatives against relatives it is eternal war I have seen the worst Candide replied but a wise man who since has had the misfortune to be hanged taught me that all is marvelously well these are but the shadows on a beautiful picture your hanged man mocked the world said Morton the shadows are horrible blots they are men who make the blots and they cannot be dispensed with it is not their fault then said Morton most of the punters who understood nothing of this language drank and Morton reasoned with the scholar and Candide related some of his adventures to his hostess after supper the marginist took Candide into her boudoir and made him sit upon a sofa oh well said she to him you love desperately Miss Cunagonda of thunder tin trunk yes madam answered Candide the marginist replied to him with a tender smile you answer me like a young man from Westphalia a Frenchman would have said it is true that I have loved Miss Cunagonda but seeing you madame I think I no longer love her alas madame said Candide I will answer you as you wish your passion for her said the marginist commenced by picking up her handkerchief I wish that you would pick up my garter with all my heart said Candide and he picked it up but I wish that you would put it on said the lady and Candide put it on you see said she you are a foreigner I sometimes make my Parisian lovers languish for 15 days but I give myself to you the first night because one must do the honors of one's country to a young man from Westphalia the lady having perceived two enormous diamonds upon the hands of the young foreigner praised them with such good faith that from Candide's fingers they passed to her own Candide returning with the Perigordian Abbey felt some remorse in having been unfaithful to Miss Cunagonda the Abbey sympathized in his trouble he had had but a light part of the 50,000 francs lost at play and of the value of the two brilliance half given half extorted his design was to profit as much as he could by the advantages which the acquaintance of Candide could procure for him he spoke much of Cunagonda and Candide told him that he should ask forgiveness of that beautiful one for his infidelity when he should see her in Venice the Abbey redoubled his politeness and took a tender interest in all that Candide said in all that he did in all that he wished to do and so, sir, you have a rendezvous at Venice? Yes, Monsieur Abbey answered Candide it is absolutely necessary that I go to meet Miss Cunagonda and then the pleasure of talking of that which he loved induced him to relate, according to his custom, part of his adventures with the fair Westphalian I believe, said the Abbey that Miss Cunagonda has a great deal of wit and that she writes charming letters I have never received any from her, said Candide for being expelled from the castle on her account I had not an opportunity for writing to her soon after that I heard she was dead then I found her alive then I lost her again and last of all I sent an express to her 500 leagues from here and I wait for an answer the Abbey listened attentively and seemed to be in a brown study he soon took his leave of the two foreigners after a most tender embrace the following day Candide received on awaking a letter couched in these terms My very dear love for eight days I have been ill in this town I learned that you are here I would fly with arms if I could but move I was informed of your passage at Bordeaux where I left faithful Chacombo and the old woman who are to follow me very soon the governor of Buenos Aires has taken all but there remains to me your heart come your presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure this charming this unhoped for letter transported Candide with an inexpressible joy and the illness of his dear Cunaganda overwhelmed him with grief divided between those two passions he took his gold and his diamonds and hurried away with Martin to the hotel where Miss Cunaganda was lodged he entered her room trembling his heart palpitating his voice sobbing he wished to open the curtains of the bed and asked for a light take care what you do said the servant made the light hurts her and immediately she drew the curtain again my dear Cunaganda said Candide weeping how are you if you cannot see me at least speak to me she cannot speak said the maid the lady then put a plump hand out from the bed and Candide bathed it with his tears and afterwards filled it with diamonds leaving a bag of gold upon the easy chair in the midst of these sports in came an officer followed by the abbey and a file of soldiers there said he are the two suspected foreigners and at the same time he ordered them to be seized and carried to prison travelers are not treated thus in El Dorado said Candide I am more a mannequin now than ever said Martin but pray sir where are you going to carry us said Candide toward Dungeon answered the officer Martin having recovered himself a little judged that the lady who acted the part of Cunaganda was a cheat that the Perigordian abbey was a naïve who had imposed upon the honest simplicity of Candide and that the officer was another naïve whom they might easily silence Candide advised by Martin an impatient to see the real Cunaganda rather than expose himself before a court of justice proposed to the officer to give him three small diamonds each worth about three thousand pistoles ah sir said the man with the ivory baton had you committed all the imaginable crimes you would be to me the most honest man in the world three diamonds each worth three thousand pistoles sir instead of carrying you to jail I would lose my life to serve you there are orders for arresting foreigners but leave it to me I have a brother at Dieppe Normande I'll conduct you thither and if you have a diamond to give him he'll take us much care of you as I would and why said Candide should all foreigners be arrested it is the Perigordian abbey then made answer because a poor beggar of the country of Aterbete heard some foolish things said this induced him to commit a parasite not such as that of 1610 in the month of May but such as that of 1594 in the month of December and such as others which have been committed in other years and other months by other poor devils who had heard nonsense spoken the officer then explained what the abbey meant ah the monsters cried Candide what horrors among a people who dance and sing is there no way of getting quickly out of this country where monkeys provoke tigers I have seen no bears in my country but men I have beheld nowhere except in El Dorado in the name of God sir conduct me to Venice where I am to await Miss Cunagonda I can conduct you no further than Loa Normande said the officer immediately he ordered his irons to be struck off acknowledged himself mistaken sent away his men set out with Candide in Martin for Dieppe and left them in the care of his brother there was then a small Dutch ship in the harbor the Norman who by the virtue of three more diamonds had become the most subservient of men put Candide and his attendants on board a vessel that was just ready to set sail for Portsmouth in England this was not the way to Venice but Candide thought he had made his way out of hell and reckoned that he would soon have an opportunity for resuming his journey End Chapter 22 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire recorded by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 23 Candide and Martin touched upon the coast of England and what they saw there Oh, Panglos, Panglos Oh, Martin, Martin Oh, my dear Cunagonda what sort of a world is this said Candide on board the Dutch ship something very foolish and abominable said Martin You know, England are they as foolish there as in France? It is another kind of folly said Martin You know that these two nations are at war for a few acres of snow in Canada and that they spend over this beautiful war much more than Canada is worth to tell you exactly whether there are more people fit to send to a madhouse in one country than the other my imperfect intelligence will not permit I only know in general that the people we are going to see are very atrobilious talking thus they arrived at Portsmouth the coast was lined with crowds of people whose eyes were fixed on a fine man kneeling with his eyes bandaged on board one of the men of war in the harbour four soldiers stood opposite to this man each of them fired balls at his head with all the calmness in the world and the whole assembly went away very well satisfied What is all this? said Candide and what demon is it that exercises his empire in this country he then asked who was that fine man who had been killed with so much ceremony they answered he was an admiral and why kill this admiral it is because he did not kill a sufficient number of men himself he gave battle to a French admiral and it has been proved that he was not near enough to him but replied Candide the French admiral was as far from the English admiral there is no doubt of it but in this country it is found good from time to time to kill one admiral to encourage the others Candide was so shocked and bewildered by what he saw and heard that he would not set foot on shore and he made a bargain with the Dutch skipper where he even to rob him like the Suriname captain to conduct him without delay to Venice the skipper was ready in two days they coasted France they passed in sight of Lisbon and Candide trembled they passed through the straits and entered the Mediterranean at last they landed at Venice God be praised said Candide embracing Martin it is here that I shall see again my beautiful Cunaganda I trust Cacombo as myself all is well all will be well all goes as well as possible End Chapter 23 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 24 of Pocket and Friar Giroffoli Upon their arrival at Venice, Candide went to search for Cacombo at every inn and coffee house all the ladies of pleasure but to no purpose he sent every day to inquire on all ships that came in but there was no news of Cacombo What he said to Martin I have had time to voyage from Suriname to Bordeaux to go from Bordeaux to Paris from Paris to Dieppe from Dieppe to Portsmouth to coast along Portugal and Spain to cross the whole Mediterranean to spend some months yet the beautiful Cunaganda has not arrived instead of her I have only met a Parisian wince and a Périgordian abbey Cunaganda is dead without doubt and there is nothing for me but to die alas how much better it would have been for me to have remained in the paradise of Eldorado than to come back to this cursed Europe You are in the right my dear Martin all is misery and illusion he fell into a deep melancholy and neither went to see the opera nor any of the other diversions of the carnival nay he was proof against the temptations of all the ladies You are in truth very simple said Martin to him if you imagine that a mongrel valet who has five or six million in his pocket will go to the other end of the world to seek your mistress and bring her to you to Venice if he finds her he will keep her to himself if he do not find her he will get another I advise you to forget your valet cacombo and your mistress Cunaganda Martin was not consoling Candid's melancholy increased and Martin continued to prove to him that there was very little virtue or happiness upon earth except perhaps in Eldorado where nobody could gain admittance while they were disputing on this important subject and waiting for Cunaganda Candid saw a young Theaton friar in Saint Mark's piazza holding a girl on his arm the Theaton looked fresh colored plump and vigorous his eyes were sparkling his air assured his look lofty and his step bold the girl was very pretty and sang she looked amorously at her Theaton pinched his fat cheeks at least you will allow me said Candid to Martin that these two are happy hitherto I have met with none but unfortunate people in the whole habitable globe except in Eldorado but as to this pair I would venture to lay a wager that they are very happy I lay you they are not said Martin we need only ask them to dine with us said Candid and you will see whether I am mistaken immediately he accosted them presented his compliments and invited them to his inn to eat some macaroni with lombard partridges and caviar and to drink some Montepulsiano Lacrimé Christi Cyprus and Samos wine the girl blushed the Theaton accepted the invitation and she followed him casting her eyes on Candid with confusion and surprise and dropping a few tears no sooner had she set foot in Candid's apartment when she cried out Mr. Candid does not know Paquette again Candid had not viewed her as yet with attention his thoughts being entirely taken up with Cunaganda but recollecting her as she spoke alas said he my poor child it is you who reduced Dr. Pangloss to the beautiful condition in which I saw him alas it was I said indeed answered Paquette I see that you have heard all you have been informed of the frightful disasters that befell the family of my Lady Baroness and the fair Cunaganda I swear to you that my fate has been scarcely less sad I was very innocent when you knew me a grey friar who was my confessor easily seduced me the consequences were terrible I was obliged to quit the castle sometime after the Baron had sent you away with kicks on the backside if a famous surgeon had not taken compassion on me I should have died for sometime I was this surgeon's mistress merely out of gratitude his wife who was mad with jealousy beat me every day unmercifully she was a fury the surgeon was one of the ugliest of men and I the most wretched of women to be continually beaten for a man I did not love you know sir what a dangerous thing it is for an ill-natured woman to be married to a doctor incensed at the behaviour of his wife he one day gave her so effectual a remedy to cure her of a slight cold that she died two hours after in most horrid convulsions the wife's relations prosecuted the husband he took flight and I was thrown into jail my innocence would not have saved me if I had not been good looking the judge set me free on condition that he succeeded the surgeon I was soon supplanted by a rival turned out of doors quite destitute and obliged to continue this abominable trade which appears so pleasant to you men while to us women it is the utmost abyss of misery I have come to exercise the profession at Venice ah sir if you could only imagine what it is to be obliged to caress indifferently an old merchant a lawyer a monk a gondolier an abbey to be exposed to abuse and insults to be often reduced to borrowing a petticoat only to go and have it raised by a disagreeable man to be robbed by one of what one has earned from another to be subject to the extortions of the officers of justice and to have in prospect only a frightful old age a hospital and a dung hill you would conclude that I am one of the most unhappy creatures in the world Paquette thus opened her heart to honest Candide in the presence of Martin who said to his friend you see that already I have won half the wager Friar Garofale stayed in the dining room and drank a glass or two of wine while he was waiting for dinner but said Candide to Paquette you looked so gay and content when I met you you sang and you behaved so lovingly to the theatre that you seemed to me as happy as you pretend to be now the reverse ah sir answered Paquette this is one of the miseries of the trade yesterday I was robbed and beaten by an officer yet today I must put on good humour to please a Friar Candide wanted no more convincing he owned that Martin was in the right they sat down to table with Paquette in the theatre the repast was entertaining and towards the end they conversed with all confidence Father said Candide to the Friar you appear to me to enjoy a state that all the world might envy the flower of health shines in your face your expression makes plain your happiness you have a very pretty girl for your recreation and you seem well satisfied with your state as a theatre my faith sir said Friar Gruffley I wish that all the theatres were at the bottom of the sea I have been tempted a hundred times to set fire to the convent and go and become a Turk my parents forced me at the age of fifteen to put on this detestable habit to increase the fortune of a cursed elder brother whom God confound jealousy, discord and fury dwell in the convent it is true I have preached a few bad sermons that have brought me in a little money of which the Friar stole half while the rest serves to maintain my girls but when I return at night to the monastery I am ready to dash my head against the walls of the dormitory and all my fellows are in the same case Martin turned towards Candide with his usual coolness well said he have I not won the whole wager Candide gave two thousand piastres to Parquet and one thousand to Friar Gruffley I'll answer for it said he that with this they will be happy I do not believe it at all said Martin you will perhaps with these piastres only render them the more unhappy let that be as it may said Candide but one thing consoles me I see that we often meet with those who we expect it never to see more so that perhaps as I have found my red sheep and Parquet it may well be that I shall also find Cunagonda I wish said Martin she may one day make you very happy but I doubt it very much you are very hard of belief said Candide I have lived said Martin you see those gondoliers said Candide are they not perpetually singing you do not see them said Martin at home with their wives and brats the doge has his troubles the gondoliers have theirs it is true that all things considered the life of a gondolier is preferable to that of a doge but I believe the difference to be so trifling that it is not worth the trouble of examining people talk said Candide of the senator Pococurante who lives in that fine palace on the Brenta where he entertains foreigners in the politest manner they pretend that this man has never felt any uneasiness I should be glad to see such a rarity said Martin Candide immediately sent to ask the lord Pococurante permission to wait upon him the next day End Chapter 24 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 25 The Visit to Lord Pococurante a noble Venetian Candide and Martin went in a gondola on the Brenta and arrived at the palace of the noble senior Pococurante the gardens laid out with taste were adorned with fine marble statues the palace was beautifully built the master of the house was a man of sixty and very rich he received the two travelers with polite indifference which put Candide a little out of countenance but was not at all disagreeable to Martin first two pretty girls very neatly dressed served them with chocolate which was frothed exceedingly well Candide could not refrain from commending their beauty, grace and address they are good enough creatures said the senator I make them lie with me sometimes for I am very tired of the ladies of the town of their coquettries, of their jealousies of their quarrels, of their humours of their pettinesses of their prides, of their follies and of the sonnets which one must make or have made for them but after all these two girls begin to weary me after breakfast Candide walking into a long gallery was surprised by the beautiful pictures he asked by what master were the two first they are by Raphael said the senator I bought them at a great price out of vanity some years ago they are said to be the finest things in Italy but they do not please me at all the colours are too dark the figures are not sufficiently rounded nor in good relief the draperies in no way resemble stuffs in a word whatever may be said I cannot find there a true imitation of nature I only care for a picture when I think I see nature itself and there are none of this sort I have a great many pictures but I prize them very little while they were waiting for dinner Poca Curante ordered a concert Candide found the music delicious this noise said the senator may abuse one for half an hour but if it were to last longer it would grow tiresome to everybody though they durst not own it music today is only the art of executing difficult things and that which is only difficult cannot please long perhaps I should be fonder of the opera if they had not found the secret of making of it a monster which shocks me let who will go to see bad tragedy set to music where the scenes are contrived for no other end than to introduce two or three songs ridiculously out of place to show off an actress's voice let who will or who can die away with pleasure at the sight of a eunuch quavering the rule of Caesar or of Cato and strutting awkwardly upon the stage for by part I have long since renounced those paltry entertainments which constitute the glory of modern Italy and are purchased so dearly by sovereigns Candide disputed the point a little but with discretion Martin was entirely of the senator's opinion they sat down to table and after an excellent dinner they went into the library Candide seeing a Homer magnificently bound commended the virtuoso on his good taste there said he is a book that was once the delight of the great pangloss the best philosopher in Germany it is not mine answered Pococorante Cooley they used it one time to make me believe that I took a pleasure in reading him but what continual repetition of battle so extremely like one another those gods that are always active without doing anything decisive that Helen who is the cause of the war and who yet scarcely appears in the piece that Troy so long besieged without being taken all these together caused me great weariness I have sometimes asked learned men whether they were not as weary as I of that work those who were sincere have owned to me that the poem made them fall asleep yet it was necessary to have it in their library as a monument of antiquity or like those rusty medals which are no longer of use in commerce but your excellency does not think thus of Virgil said Candide I grant said the senator that the second fourth and sixth books of his anid are excellent but as for his pious Anais his strong Cloanthus his friend Akatis is little asenius his silly King Latinus is bourgeois amata his insipid Lavenia I think there can be nothing more flat and disagreeable I prefer Tasso a good deal or even the superrific tales of Ariostro May I presume to ask you sir said Candide whether you do not receive a great deal of pleasure from reading Horace there are maxims in this writer answered Poco curante from which a man of the world may reap great benefit and being written in energetic verse they are more easily impressed upon the memory but I care little for this journey to Brundusium and his account of a bad dinner or of his low quarrel between one Rupilius whose words he says were full of poisonous filth and another whose language was imbued with vinegar I have read with much distaste his indelicate verses against old women and witches nor do I see any merit in telling his friend May Cenas that if he will but rank him in the choir of lyric poets his lofty head shall touch the stars fools admire everything in an author of reputation for my part I read only to please myself I like only that which serves my purpose Candide having been educated never to judge for himself was much surprised at what he heard Martin found there was a good deal of reason in Poco curante's remarks oh here is Cicero said Candide here is the great man whom I fancy you are never tired of reading I never read him replied the Venetian what is it to me whether he pleads for Rupilius or Cluintius I try causes enough myself his philosophical work seemed to me better but when I found that he doubted of everything I concluded that I knew as much as he and that I had no need of a guide to learn ignorance ah here are four score volumes of the Academy of Sciences cried Martin perhaps there is something valuable in this collection there might be said Poco curante if only one of those rakers of rubbish had shown how to make pins but in all these volumes there is nothing but chimerical systems and not a single useful thing and what dramatic works I see here said Candide in Italian, Spanish and French yes replied the senator there are three thousand and not three dozen of them good for anything as to those collections of sermons which altogether are not worth a single page of Seneca and those huge volumes of theology you may well imagine that neither I nor anyone else ever opens them Martin saw some shelves filled with English books I have a notion said he that a republican must be greatly pleased with most of these books which are written with a spirit of freedom yes answered Poco curante it is noble to write as one thinks this is the privilege of humanity in all our Italy we write only what we do not think those who inhabit the country of the Caesars and the Antoninuses dare not acquire a single idea without the permission of a Dominican friar I should be pleased with the liberty which inspires the English genius if passion and party spirit did not corrupt all that is estimable in this precious liberty indeed observing a Milton asked whether he did not look upon this author as a great man who said Poco curante that barbarian who writes a long commentary in ten books of harsh verse on the first chapter of Genesis that coarse imitator of the Greeks who disfigures a creation and who while Moses represents the eternal producing the world by a word makes the Messiah take a great pair of compasses from the armory of heaven to circumscribe his work how can I have any esteem for a writer who has spoiled Tasso's hell and the devil who transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad and other times into a pygmy who makes him repeat the same things a hundred times who makes him dispute on theology who by a serious imitation of Ariosto's comic invention of firearms represents the devil's canon nodding in heaven neither I nor any man in Italy could take pleasure in those melancholy extravagances and the marriage of sin and death and the snakes brought forth by sin are enough to turn the stomach of anyone with the least taste and his long description of a pest house is good only for a grave digger this obscure whimsical and disagreeable poem was despised upon its first publication and I only treat it now as it was treated in its own country by contemporaries for the matter of that I say what I think and I care very little whether others think as I do Candide was grieved at this speech for he had a respect for Homer and was fond of Milton alas, said he softly to Martin I am afraid that this man holds out German poets in very great contempt there would not be much harm in that said Martin oh what a superior man said Candide below his breath what a great genius is this Poca Curante nothing can please him after their survey of the library they went down into the garden where Candide praised its several beauties I know of nothing in so bad a taste said the master all you see here is merely trifling after tomorrow I will have it planted with a no-blood design well said Candide to Martin when they had taken their leave you will agree that this is the happiest of mortals for he is above everything he possesses but do you not see answered Martin that he is disgusted with all he possesses Plato observed a long while ago that those stomachs are not the best that reject all sorts of food but is there not a pleasure said Candide in criticizing everything in pointing out faults where others see nothing but beauties that is to say replied Martin that there is some pleasure in having no pleasure well said Candide I find that I shall be the only happy man when I am blessed with the sight of my dear Cunagonda it is always well to hope said Martin however the days and the weeks passed Cacombo did not come and Candide was so overwhelmed with grief that he did not even reflect that Paquette and Friar Garofle did not return to thank him End Chapter 25 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 26 of a supper which Candide and Martin took with six strangers and who they were One evening that Candide and Martin were going to sit down to supper with some foreigners who lodged in the same inn a man whose complexion was as black as soot came behind Candide and taking him by the arm said get yourself ready to go along with us do not fail upon this he turned round and saw Cacombo nothing but the sight of Cunagonda could have astonished and delighted him more he was on the point of going mad with joy he embraced his dear friend Cunagonda is here without doubt where is she take me to her that I may die of joy in her company Cunagonda is not here said Cacombo she is at Constantinople Oh heavens at Constantinople but were she in China I would fly thither let us be off we shall set out after supper replied Cacombo I can tell you nothing more I am a slave my master awaits me I must serve him at table speak not a word eat and then get ready Candide distracted between joy and grief delighted at seeing his faithful agent again astonished at finding him a slave filled with the fresh hope of recovering his mistress his heart palpitating his understanding confused sat down to table with Martin who saw all these scenes quite unconcerned and with six strangers who had come to spend the carnival at Venice Cacombo waited at table upon one of the strangers towards the end of the entertainment he drew near his master and whispered in his ear Sire your majesty may start when you please the vessel is ready on saying these words he went out the company in great surprise looked at one another without speaking a word when another domestic approached his master and said to him Sire your majesty's chase is at Padua and the boat is ready the master gave a nod and the servant went away the company all stared at one another again and their surprise redoubled a third valet came up to a third stranger saying Sire, leave me your majesty ought not to stay here any longer I am going to get everything ready and immediately he disappeared Candide and Martin did not doubt that this was a masquerade of the carnival then a fourth domestic said to a fourth master your majesty may depart when you please saying this he went away like the rest the fifth valet said the same thing to the fifth master but the sixth valet spoke differently to the sixth stranger who sat near Candide he said to him Sire they will no longer give credit to your majesty nor to me and we may perhaps both of us be put in jail this very night therefore I will take care of myself adieu the servants being all gone the six strangers with Candide and Martin remained in a profound silence at length Candide broke in the gentleman said he this is a very good joke indeed but why should you all be kings for me I own neither Martin nor I as a king Kakambos master then gravely answered in Italian I am not joking my name is Okmet the third I was a great sultan many years I dethroned my brother my nephew dethroned me my viziers were beheaded and I am condemned to end my days and the old Seraglio my nephew the great sultan permit me to travel sometimes for my health and I am come to spend the carnival at Venice a young man who sat next to Okmet spoke then as follows my name is Ivan I was once emperor of all the rushes but was dethroned in my cradle my parents were confined in prison and I was educated there yet I am sometimes allowed to travel in company with persons who act as guards and I am come to spend the carnival at Venice the third said I am Charles Edward king of England my father has resigned all his legal rights to me I have fought in defense of them and above 800 of my adherents have been hanged drawn and quartered I have been confined in prison I am going to Rome to pay a visit to the king my father who was dethroned as well as myself and my grandfather and I am come to spend carnival at Venice the fourth spoke thus in his turn I am the king of Poland the fortune of war has stripped me of my hereditary dominions my father underwent the same vicissitudes I resigned myself to providence in the same manner as Sultan Ahmed the Emperor Ivan and King Charles Edward whom God long preserve and I am come to the carnival at Venice the fifth said I am king of Poland also I have been twice dethroned both providence has given me another country where I have done more good than all the Sarmatian kings whatever capable of doing on the banks of the Vistula I resigned myself likewise to providence and am come to past a carnival at Venice it was now the sixth monarch's turn to speak gentlemen said he I am not so great a prince as any of you however I am a king I am Theodore elected king of Corsica I had the title of Majesty and now I am scarcely treated as a gentleman I have coined money and now I am not worth a farthing I have had two secretaries of state and now I have scarce a valet I have seen myself on a throne and I have seen myself upon straw in a common jail in London I am afraid that I shall meet with the same treatment here though like your majesties I am come to see the carnival at Venice the other five kings listen to this speech with generous compassion each of them gave twenty sequins to King Theodore to buy him clothes and linen and Candide made him a present of a diamond worth two thousand sequins who can this private person be said the five kings to one another who is able to give and really has given a hundred times as much as any of us just to say rose from the table in came four serene highnesses who had also been stripped of their territories by the fortune of war and were come to spend the carnival at Venice but Candide paid no regard to these newcomers his thoughts were entirely employed on his voyage to Constantinople in search of his beloved cunaganda End Chapter 26 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire Read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 27 Candide's voyage to Constantinople The faithful Cacombo had already prevailed upon the Turkish skipper who was to conduct the Sultan Akmet to Constantinople to receive Candide and Martin on his ship They both embarked after having made their obeisance to his miserable highness You see said Candide to Martin on the way We supped with six dethroned kings and of those six there was one to whom I gave charity Perhaps there are many other princes yet more unfortunate For my part I have only lost a hundred sheep and now I am flying into Cunaganda's arms My dear Martin, yet once more Pangloss was right All is for the best I wish it, answered Martin But said Candide it was a very strange adventure It has never before been seen or heard that six dethroned kings have supped together at a public inn It is not more extraordinary, said Martin than most of the things that have happened to us It is a very common thing for kings to be dethroned and as for the honour we have had of supping in their company it is a trifle not worth our attention No sooner had Candide got on board the vessel than he flew to his old valet and friend Cacombo and tenderly embraced him Well, said he, what news of Cunaganda Is she still a prodigy of beauty? Does she love me still? How is she? Thou hast doubtless bought her a palace at Constantinople My dear master, answered Cacombo Cunaganda washes dishes on the banks of the propontis in the service of a prince who has very few dishes to wash She is a slave in the family of an ancient sovereign named Rogotsky to whom the grand Turk allows three crowns a day in his exile But what is worse still is that she has lost her beauty and has become horribly ugly Well, handsome or ugly, replied Candide I am a man of honour and it is my duty to love her still But how came she to be reduced to so abject estate The five or six millions that you took to her Ah, said Cacombo Was I not to give two millions to Sr. Don Fernando de Barad Ifiguroa and Mascarenes and Lampordos and Susa Governor of Buenos Aires for permitting Miss Cunaganda to come away and did not a corsair bravely rob us of all the rest did not this corsair carry us to Cape Matapan to Milo, to Nicaria, to Samos, to Petra to Dardanales, to Marmora, to Scutari Ah, Cunaganda and the old woman serve the prince I now mention to you and I am slave to the dethroned Sultan What a series of shocking calamities, cried Candide But after all, I have some diamonds left and I may easily pay Cunaganda's ransom yet it is a pity that she has grown so ugly Then, turning towards Martin Who do you think, said he, is most to be pitied Sultan Ahmed, the Emperor Ivan, King Charles Edward, or I? How should I know, answered Martin I must see into your hearts to be able to tell Ah, said Candide If Pangloss were here, he could tell I know not, said Martin In what sort of scales your Pangloss would weigh the misfortunes of mankind and set a just estimate on their sorrows All that I can presume to say is that there are millions of people upon earth who have a hundred times more to complain of than King Charles Edward, the Emperor Ivan or the Sultan Ahmed That may well be, said Candide In a few days they reached the Bosphorus and Candide began by paying a very high ransom for Kakambo Then without losing time he and his companions went on board a galley in order to search on the banks of the prepontis for his Kunaganda, however ugly she might have become Among the crew there were two slaves who rode very badly and to whose bare shoulders the leventine captain would now and then apply blows from a bull's pistol Candide, from a natural impulse, looked at these two slaves more attentively than at the other oarsmen and approached them with pity Their features, though greatly disfigured had a slight resemblance to those of Pangloss and the unhappy Jesuit and Westphalian Baron brother to Miss Kunaganda This moved and saddened him He looked at them still more attentively Indeed, said he to Kakambo If I had not seen Master Pangloss hanged and if I had not had the misfortune to kill the Baron I should think it was they that were rowing At the names of the Baron and of Pangloss the two galley slaves uttered a loud cry held fast by the seat and let dropped their oars The captain ran up to them and redoubled his blows with the bull's pistol Stop, stop, sir, cried Candide I will give you what money you please What? It is Candide, said one of the slaves What? It is Candide, said the other Do I dream, cried Candide, or am I awake or am I on board a galley Is this the Baron whom I killed Is this Master Pangloss whom I saw hanged It is we, it is we, answered they Well, is this a great philosopher? said Martin Ah, captain, said Candide What ransom will you take for matured a thunder-tin trunk one of the first barons of the empire and for matured Pangloss the profoundest master physician in Germany Dog of a Christian, answered the leventine captain Since these two dogs of Christian slaves are barons and metaphysicians which I doubt not are high dignities in their country you shall give me 50,000 sequins You shall have them, sir Carry me back at once to Constantinople and you shall receive the money directly but no, carry me first to Miss Cunagonda Upon the first proposal made by Candide, however the leventine captain had already tacked him out and made the crew ply their oars quicker than a bird cleaves the air Candide embraced the Baron and Pangloss a hundred times and how happened it, my dear Baron, that I did not kill you and, my dear Pangloss, how came you to life again after being hanged and why are you both in a Turkish galley And it is true that my dear sister is in this country said the Baron Yes, answered Kocombo My behold, once more, my dear Candide, cried Pangloss Candide presented Martin and Kocombo to them they embraced each other and all spoke at once The galley flew, they were already in the port instantly Candide sent for a Jew to whom he sold for 50,000 sequins a diamond worth a hundred thousand though the fellow swore to him by Abraham that he could give him no more He immediately paid the ransom for the Baron and Pangloss the latter threw himself at the feet of his deliverer and bathed them with his tears The former thanked him with a nod and promised to return him the money on the first opportunity But it is indeed possible that my sister can be in Turkey said he Nothing is more possible said Kocombo since she scours the dishes in the service of a Transylvanian prince Candide sent directly for two Jews and sold them some more diamonds and then they all set out together in another galley to deliver Kunagonda from slavery End Chapter 27 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire Read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 28 What happened to Candide, Kunagonda, Pangloss, Martin, etc. I ask your pardon once more said Candide to the Baron Your pardon, Reverend Father, for having run you through the body Say no more about it, answered the Baron I was a little too hasty, I own but since you wish to know by what fatality I came to be a galley slave I will inform you After I had been cured by the surgeon of the College of the Wound you gave me I was attacked and carried off by a party of Spanish troops who confined me in prison at Buenos Aires at the very time my sister was setting out thence I asked Leave to return to Rome to the general of my order I was appointed chaplain to the French ambassador at Constantinople I had not been eight days in this employment when one evening I met with a young Itoglan who was a very handsome fellow the weather was warm the young man wanted to bathe and I took this opportunity of bathing also I did not know that it was a capital crime for a Christian to be found naked with a young musulman Akadi ordered me a hundred blows on the soles of the feet and condemned me to the galleys I do not think there ever was a greater act of injustice but I should be glad to know how my sister came to be a scullion to a Transylvanian prince who has taken shelter among the Turks But you, my dear Panglos, said Candide how can it be that I behold you again? It is true, said Panglos, that you saw me hanged I should have been burnt but may remember it rained exceedingly hard when they were going to roast me the storm was so violent that they despaired of lighting the fire so I was hanged because they could do no better a surgeon purchased my body carried me home and dissected me he began with making a crucial incision on me from the naval to the clavicular one could not have been worse hanged than I was the executioner of the holy inquisition was a sub-deacon and knew how to burn people marvelously well but he was not accustomed to hanging the cord was wet and did not slip properly and besides it was badly tied in short I still drew my breath when the crucial incision made me give such a frightful scream that my surgeon fell flat upon his back and imagining that he had been dissecting the devil he ran away dying with fear and fell down the staircase in his flight his wife hearing the noise flew from the next room she saw me stretched out upon the table with my crucial incision she was seized with yet greater fear than her husband fled and tumbled over him when they came to themselves a little I heard the wife say to her husband my dear how could you take it into your head to dissect a heretic do you not know that these people always have the devil in their bodies I will go and fetch a priest this minute to exercise him at this proposal I shuddered and mustering up what little courage I had still remaining I cried out aloud have mercy on me at length the Portuguese barber plucked up his spirits he sewed up my wounds his wife even nursed me I was upon my legs at the end of fifteen days the barber found me a place as lackey to a knight of Malta who was going to Venice but finding that my master had no money to pay me my wages I entered the service of a Venetian merchant and went with him to Constantinople one day I took it into my head to step into a mosque where I saw an old Iman with a very pretty young devotee who was saying her Peter Noster her bosom was uncovered and between her breasts she had a beautiful bouquet of tulips, roses, anemones ranunculus, hyacinths and auriculas she dropped her bouquet I picked it up and presented it to her with a profound reverence I was so long in delivering it that the Iman began to get angry and seeing that I was a Christian he called out for help they carried me before the caddy who ordered me a hundred lashes on the soles of the feet and sent me to the galleys I was chained to the very same galley and the same bench as the young baron on board this galley there were four young men from Marseille, five Neapolitan priests and two monks from Corfu who told us similar adventures happened daily the baron maintained that he had suffered greater injustice and I insisted that it was far more innocent to take up a bouquet and place it again on a woman's bosom and to be found stark naked with a nature-glaan we were continually disputing and received twenty lashes with a bull's-pizzle when the concatenation of universal events brought you to our galley and you were good enough to ransom us well my dear Pangloss said Candide to him when you had been hanged, dissected, whipped and were tugging at the oar did you always think that everything happens for the best? I am still of my first opinion answered Pangloss for I am a philosopher and I cannot retract especially as Leibniz could never be wrong and besides the pre-established harmony is the finest thing in the world and so is his plenum and materious subtilis during January 2007 this is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 29 How Candide found Kunaganda and the Old Woman Again While Candide, the Baron, Pangloss, Martin and Kakamba were relating their several adventures were reasoning on the contingent or non-contingent events of the universe computing on effects and causes on moral and physical evil on liberty and necessity and on the consolations a slave may feel even on a Turkish galley they arrived at the house of the Transylvanian Prince on the banks of the propontus the first objects which met their sight were Kunaganda and the Old Woman hanging towels out to dry the Baron paled at this sight the tender loving Candide seeing his beautiful Kunaganda in brown with bloodshot eyes withered neck wrinkled cheeks and rough red arms recoiled three paces seized with horror and then advanced out of good manners she embraced Candide and her brother they embraced the Old Woman and Candide ransomed them both there was a small farm in the neighborhood which the Old Woman proposed to Candide to make a shift with till the company could be provided for in a better manner Kunaganda did not know she had grown ugly for nobody had told her of it and she reminded Candide of his promise in so positive a tone that the good man durst not refuse her he therefore intimated to the Baron that he intended marrying his sister I will not suffer, said the Baron such meanness on her part and such insolence on yours I will never be reproached with this scandalous thing my sister's children would never be able to enter the church in Germany no my sister shall only marry a Baron of the Empire Kunaganda flung herself at his feet and bathed them with her tears still he was inflexible thou foolish fellow said Candide I have delivered thee out of the galleys I have paid thy ransom and thy sister's also she was a scullion and is very ugly yet I am so condescending as to marry her and dost thou pretend to oppose the match I should kill thee again were I only to consult my anger now mayest kill me again, said the Baron but thou shalt not marry my sister at least whilst I am living End Chapter 29 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire Read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 This is a LibriVox recording Candide by Voltaire Chapter 30 The Conclusion At the bottom of his heart Candide had no wish to marry Cunaganda but the extreme impertinence of the Baron determined him to conclude the match and Cunaganda pressed him so strongly that he could not go from his word He consulted Pangloss, Martin, and the faithful Kakambo Pangloss drew up an excellent memorial wherein he proved that the Baron had no right over his sister and that according to all the laws of the empire she might marry Candide with her left hand Martin was for throwing the Baron into the sea Kakambo decided that it would be better to deliver him up again to the captain of the galley after which they thought to send him back to the general father of the order at Rome by the first ship This advice was well received The old woman approved it They said not a word to his sister The thing was executed for a little money and they had the double pleasure of entrapping a Jesuit and punishing the pride of a German Baron It is natural to imagine that after so many disasters Candide married and living with the philosopher Pangloss the philosopher Martin the prudent Kakambo and the old woman having besides brought so many diamonds from the country of the ancient Incas must have led a very happy life But he was so much imposed upon by the Jews that he had nothing left except his small farm His wife became uglier every day more peevish and unsupportable The old woman was infirm and even more fretful than Kunaganda Kakambo who worked in the garden and took vegetables for a sale to Constantinople was fatigued with hard work and cursed his destiny Pangloss was in despair at not shining in some German university For Martin he was firmly persuaded that he would be as badly off elsewhere and therefore bore things patiently Candide, Martin and Pangloss sometimes disputed about morals and metaphysics They often saw passing under the windows of their farm boats full of Effendi's, Pashas and Khadis who were going into banishment to Lemnos, Mitalin or Erzurum And they saw other Khadis, Pashas and Effendi's coming to supply the place of the exiles and afterwards exiled in their turn They saw heads decently impaled for presentation to the sublime port Such spectacles as these increased the number of their dissertations and when they did not dispute time hung so heavily upon their hands that one day the old woman ventured to say to them I want to know which is worse to be ravished a hundred times by Negro pirates to have a buttock cut off to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians to be whipped and hanged at an auto-defei to be dissected to row in the galleys in short to go through all the miseries we have undergone or to stay here and have nothing to do It is a great question said Candide This discourse gave rise to new reflections and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquiritude or of lethargic disgust Candide did not quite agree to that but he affirmed nothing Pangloss owned that he had always suffered horribly but as he had once asserted that everything went wonderfully well he asserted it still though he no longer believed it What helped to confirm Martin in his detestable principles to stagger Candide more than ever and to puzzle Pangloss was that one day they saw paquette and friar garuffelé land at the farm in extreme misery They had soon squandered their 3,000 piastres parted, were reconciled, quarreled again were thrown into jail had escaped and friar garuffelé had at length become turk Paquette continued her trade wherever she went but made nothing of it I foresaw, said Martin to Candide that your presence would soon be dissipated but only make them the more miserable You have rolled in millions of money you and Cacombo and yet you are not happier than friar garuffelé and paquette Ha! said Pangloss to Paquette Providence has then brought you amongst us again my poor child Do you know that you cost me the tip of my nose and eye and an ear as you may see What a world this is And now this new adventure set them philosophizing more than ever In the neighborhood they lived a very famous dervish who was esteemed the best philosopher in all turkey and they went to consult him Pangloss was the speaker Master, said he We come to beg you to tell why so strange an animal as man was made With what medallist thou? said the dervish Is it thy business? But Reverend Father said Candide There is horrible evil in this world What signifies it? said the dervish Whether there be evil or good when his highness sends a ship to Egypt Does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not? What then must we do? said Pangloss Hold your tongue answered the dervish I was in hopes, said Pangloss that I should reason with you a little about causes and effects about the best of possible worlds the origin of evil the nature of the soul and the pre-established harmony that these words the dervish shut the door in their faces During this conversation the news was spread that two viziers and the Mufti had been strangled at Constantinople and that several of their friends had been impaled This catastrophe made a great noise for some hours Pangloss, Candide and Martin returning to the little farm saw a good old man taking the fresh air at his door under an orange bower Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was argumentative asked the old man what was the name of the strangled Mufti I do not know answered the worthy man and I have not known the name of any Mufti nor of any vizier I am entirely ignorant of the event you mention I presume in general they who meddle with the administration of public affairs die sometimes miserably and that they deserve it but I never trouble my head about what is transacting at Constantinople I content myself with sending there for sale the fruits of the garden which I cultivate Having said these words he invited the strangers into his house his two sons and two daughters presented them with several sorts of sherbet which they made themselves with kymak enriched with the candied peel of citrons with oranges, lemons, pineapples, pistachio nuts and mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia or the American islands after which the two daughters of the honest musulman perfumed the strangers' beards you must have a vast and magnificent estate said candied to the Turk I have only twenty acres replied the man I and my children cultivate them our labour preserves us from three great evils weariness, vice and want Candied on his way home made profound reflections on the old man's conversation dishonest Turk said he to Panglas and Martin seems to be in a situation far preferable to that of the six kings with whom we had the honour of supping Grandger said Panglas is extremely dangerous according to the testimony of philosophers for in short a glon king of Moab was assassinated by Ehud Absalom was hung by his hair and pierced with three darts King Nadab son of Jeroboam was killed by Basa King Ela by Zimri Ahaziah by Jehu Ahaliah by Jehoada the king's Jehoachim Jeconiah and Zedekiah were led into captivity you know how perished creases Astiages, Darius, Deneisius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Sposius, Hannibal, Jugurta, Ariovistus, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England, Edward II Henry VI, Richard III Mary Stuart, Charles I the three Henry's of France the Emperor Henry IV you know I also know, said Candide that we must cultivate our garden you are right, said Pangloss for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden he was put there out-operatorium that he might cultivate it which shows that man was not born to be idle said Martin without disputing it it is the only way to render life tolerable the whole little society entered into this laudable design according to their different abilities their little plot of land produced plentiful crops Cunaganda was indeed very ugly but she became an excellent pastry cook Paquette worked at embroidery the old woman looked after the linen they were all not accepting Friar Garofle of some service or other for he made a good joiner and became a very honest man Pangloss sometimes said to Candide there is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunaganda if you had not been put into acquisition if you had not walked over America if you had not stabbed the Baron if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio nuts all that is very well answered Candide but let us cultivate our garden end chapter 30 and end of the book Candide by Voltaire this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during January 2007 thank you for listening