 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Fox and the Stars of ShiningHalf.com. Candide by Voltaire. Introduction by Philip Littell. 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, baliorific 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 dries. 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 bore anybody except William Wordsworth. Voltaire's men and women point his case against optimism by starting high and falling low. A modern would 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. Mademoiselle Cunegonda, 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 propontis. 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 honour of her approaching marriage with the prince of Massacarara, 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 an inn 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 assaying 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, quote, steals much, spends little, and has nothing left, unquote, 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, prodigally without saving, because he knows there is more wit where that came from. One of Max Bierbaum's cartoons shows us the young twentieth century going at top speed, and watched by two of his predecessors. Underneath is this legend, quote, the grave misgivings of the nineteenth century, and the wicked amusement of the eighteenth, in watching the progress, or whatever it is, of the twentieth, unquote. This eighteenth century, snuff-taking and malicious, is like Voltaire, who nevertheless must know, if he happens to think of it, that not yet in the twentieth 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 clickings. 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 faiths are changing the structure of the world, faiths 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 faiths, 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, at so and so the pragmatist or the Freudian. And I hope, too, that they will, without trying, hold their pens with an eighteenth-century lightness not inappropriate to a philosophic tale. In Voltaire's fingers, as Anatoly France has said, the pen runs and laughs. Voltaire's Candide, chapter one. How Candide was brought up in a magnificent castle, and how he was expelled thence. I find 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 baron'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 baron 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 farmyards formed a pack of hounds at need. His grooms were his huntsmen, and the curate of the village was his grand almoner. They called him, my lord, and laughed at all his stories. The baron'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. Her daughter, Kunagond, was seventeen years of age, fresh-colored, comely, plump, and desirable. The baron's son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father. The preceptor, Panglas, was the oracle of the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character. Panglas was a professor of metaphysical, theological, cosmolonicology. He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that in this best of all possible worlds the baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible baronesses. 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 baron 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. Kandid listened attentively and believed innocently, for he thought Miss Kunagand, extremely beautiful, though he never had the courage to tell her so. He concluded that after the happiness of being born of baron of thunder-tentronk, the second degree of happiness, was to be Miss Kunagand. The third that have seen her every day, and the fourth that have hearing Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the whole province, and consequently of the whole world. One day Kunagand, 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 wench, very pretty and very docile. As Miss Kunagand 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 Kandid and he for her. She met Kandid on reaching the castle and blushed. Kandid blushed also. She wished him good-morrow in a faltering tone, and Kandid spoke to her without knowing what he said. The next day after dinner, as they went from table, Kunagand and Kandid found themselves behind a screen. Kunagand let fall her handkerchief. Kandid picked it up. She took him innocently by the hand. The youth as 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 Thunderton Trunk passed near the screen and, beholding this cause and effect, chased Kandid from the castle with great kicks on the backside. Kunagand 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 of Chapter 1 Read by Denny Sayers for LibriVox in Modesto, California, spring 2006. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Voltaire's Kandid Chapter 2 What became of Kandid among the Bulgarians? Kandid, 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 flicks. Next day Kandid, all benumbed, dragged himself towards the neighboring town, which was called Waldberg Haftarabdiktorf, and, 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 in of proper height. They went up to Kandid, and very civilly invited him to dinner. Gentlemen replied Kandid 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 Kandid. This is what I was always taught by Mr. 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 Kunagond. No, said one of the gentlemen, we asked 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. Khandid, 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 down to his rump. As they were going to proceed to a third whipping, Khandid, 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 learnt of Khandid that he was a young metaphysician, extremely ignorant of the things of this world, and he accorded him his pardon with the clemency, which will bring him praise in all the journals and throughout all ages. An able surgeon cured Khandid in three weeks by means of a mulliance, taught by discordies. He had already a little skin, and was able to march when the king of the Bulgarians gave battle to the king of the Abyres. End of Chapter 2 Read by Denny Sayers for LibriVox in Modesto, CA 2006 There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies. Trumpets, vifes, hopboys, 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 sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Khandid, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery. At length, while the two kings were causing Tidam to be sung each in his own camp, Khandid resolved to go in reason elsewhere on effects and causes. He passed over the heaps of dead and dying, and first reached a neighboring village. It was in Cinders. It was an Abari 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 strewed with brains, arms, and legs. Khandid fled quickly to another village. It belonged to the Bulgarians, and the Abarian heroes had treated it in the same way. Khandid, 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 Kunagand always in his heart. His provisions failed him when he arrived in Holland's, 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 Barrens Castle before Miss Kunagand's bright eyes were the cause of his expulsion thence. He asked alms 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, whence 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 Khandid. The whole is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best. It was necessary for me to have been banished from the presence of Miss Kunagand, to have afterwards been the gauntlets, and now it is necessary I should beg my bread until I learn to earn it. All this cannot be otherwise. My friends, in the order to him, do you believe the Pope to be anti-Christ? I have not heard it, answered Khandid, but whether he be or whether he be not, I want bread. That 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 anti-Christ, poured over him with a full, oh heavens, to what excess does religious zeal carry the ladies? A man who had never been Christian, a good Anabaptist named James, beheld the cruel and anomious treatment shown to one of his brethren. An unfettered biped with a rational soul, he took him home, cleaned him, gave him bread and beer, and presented him with two florins, and even wished to teach him the manufacture of Persian stuff, which they make in Holland. Khandid, almost prostrating himself before him, cried, Mr. Pangloss has well said that all is for the best in this world, for I am infinitely more attached by your extreme generosity than with the inhumanity of that gentleman in the black coat and his lady. The next day, as he took 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 in each effort. End of Chapter This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recorded by Justine Young. Khandid by Voltaire. Chapter 4 How Khandid found his old master Pangloss, and what happened to them? Khandid, 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 specter looked at him very earnestly, dropped a few tears, and fell upon his neck. Khandid recoiled and disgust. Alas! said one wretched 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 Kunaghan, the pearl of girls, of nature's masterpiece? I am so weak that I cannot stand, said Pangloss. Upon which Khandid carried him to the Anabaptist's stable, and gave him a crust of bread. As soon as Pangloss had repressed himself a little, well, said Khandid. Kunaghan? She is dead, replied the other. Khandid fainted at this word. His friend recalled his senses with a little bad vinegar which he found by chance in the stable. Khandid reopened his eyes. Kunaghan is dead! Best of worlds were art, though! 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 barren's head for attempting to defend her. My lady, her mother, was cut in pieces. My poor pupil was served just in the same manner as his sister. And, as for the castle, they have not left one stone upon another. Not a barn, nor a sheep, nor a duck, nor a tree. But we have had a revenge for the aberrations of them the very same thing to a neighbouring barony which belonged to a Bulgarian lord. At this discourse Khandid fainted again. But, coming to himself, and having said all that it became him to say, inquired into the cause and effect, as well as into the sufficient reason that had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a plight. Alas! said the other. It was love. Love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sensible beings. Love, tender love. Alas! said Khandid! I know this love, that sovereign of our 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 Khandid, 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 these hell-torments with which you see me devoured. She was infected with them. She's perhaps dead of them. This present Paquette received a learned gray fryer 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 marquioness, who took it from a page, who had received it from a Jesuit, who when a novice had 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 Khandid, 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 another chocolate and a cocconeal. We are also to observe that upon our consonants, 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 a 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 Candide, but you must get cured. Alas! how can I, said Pangloss? I have not a farthing, my friend, and all over the globe there is no letting of blood or taking of a glister without paying, or somebody paying for you. These last words determined Candide. He went and flung himself at the feet of the charitable Anabaptist James, and gave him so touching a picture of the state to which his friend was reduced, that the good man did not scruple to take Dr. Pangloss into his house, and had him cured at his expense. In the cure Pangloss lost only an eye and an ear. He wrote well and knew arithmetic perfectly. The Anabaptist James made him his bookkeeper. At the end of two months, being obliged to go to Lisbon about some mercantile affairs, he took the two philosophers with him in his ship. Pangloss explained to him how everything was so constituted that it could not be better. James was not of this opinion. It is more likely, said he, mankind have a little corrupted nature, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves. God has given them neither cannon of four and twenty pounders, nor bayonets, and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. Into this count I might throw not only bankrupts, but justice, which seizes on the effects of bankrupts to cheat the creditors. All this was indispensable, replied the one-eyed doctor, for private misfortunes make the general good, so that the more private misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good. While he reasoned the sky darkens, the winds blew from the four quarters, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest within sight of the port of Lisbon. Crack, earthquake, and what became of Dr. Pangloss, kindied, and James the Anabaptist. Half dead of that inconceivable anguish which the rolling of a ship produces, one half of the passengers were not even sensible of the danger. The other half shrieked and prayed. The sheets were rents, 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 British sailor struck him roughly and laid him sprawling. But with the violence of the blow he himself tumbled, head of foremost overboard, and struck upon a piece of broken mast. Honest James ran to his assistants, hauled him up, and from the effort he made was precipitated into the sea, inside of the sailor, who left him to Paris without dating to look at him. Candide 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, Candide, and that brutal sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villains swam safely to the shore, while Pangloss and Candide were born thither upon a plank. As soon as they recovered themselves a little, they walked toward Lisbon. They had some money left, with which they hoped to save themselves from starving, after they'd escaped drowning. Scarcely had they reached the city, lamenting the death of their benefactor, when they felt the earth tremble under their feet, the seas welled and foamed in the harbour, and beat to pieces the vessels riding at anchor. Whirlwinds of fire and ashes covered the streets in public places, houses fell, roofs were flung upon the pavements, and the pavements were scattered. Thirty thousand inhabitants of all ages and sexes were crushed under the ruins. The sailor, whistling and swearing, said there was booty to be gained here. What can be the sufficient reason of this phenomenon, said Pangloss? This is the last day, cried Candide. The sailor ran among the ruins, facing death to find money. Finding it, he took it, got drunk, and, having slept himself sober, purchased the favours of the first good-natured wench whom he met in the ruins of the destroyed houses, and in the midst of the dying and the dead. Pangloss pulled him by the sleeve. My friend said he, this is not right. You sin against the universal reason. You choose your time badly. Splod and fury answered the other. I am a sailor and born at Batavia. Four times have I trampled upon the crucifix and four voyages to Japan. A fig for that universal reason. Some falling stones had wounded Candide. 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 Lepid Elizabeth. Nothing more probable, said Candide, but if the love of God, a little oil and wine. How probable, replied the philosopher, I maintain that the point is capable of being demonstrated. Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a neighbouring mountain. The following day they rummaged among the ruins and found provisions, with which they repaired their exhausted supply. After this they joined the 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. Four, said he, all that is for the best. If there is 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 with 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, entered Pangloss, still more politely, for the fallen cursive men necessarily entered into the system of the best of worlds. Sir, said the familiar, you do not then believe in liberty? Your excellence will excuse me. Said Pangloss, liberty is consistent with absolute necessity, for it was necessary we should be free. Four, 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 Opridor. Candide by Voltaire, Chapter 6 How the Portuguese made a beautiful Autodafé to prevent any further earthquakes, and how Candide was publicly whipped. After the earthquake had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the people a beautiful 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 Biscayne air, convicted of having married his godmother, and on two Portuguese for rejecting the bacon which larded a chicken that they were eating. After dinner they came and secured Dr Pangloss and his disciple Candide, the one for speaking his mind, the other for having listened with an air of approbation. They were conducted to separate apartments, extremely cold as they were never incommodated by the sun. Eight days after they were dressed in San Benitos and their heads ornamented with paper mitres. The mitre and San Benito belonging to Candide were painted with reversed flames and with devils that had neither tails nor claws. But Pangloss' devils had claws and tails and the flames were upright. They marched in procession thus habited and heard a very pathetic sermon, followed by fine church music. Candide was whipped in cadence while they were singing. The Biscayne air and the two men who had refused to eat bacon were burnt, and Pangloss was hanged, though that was not the custom. The same day the earth sustained a most violent concussion. Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, all bloody, all palpitating, said to himself, If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? Well, if I had been only whipped I could put up with it, for I experienced that among the Bulgarians. But oh, my dear Pangloss, thou greatest of philosophers, that I should have seen you hanged without knowing for what? Oh, my dear Anna Baptist, thou best of men, that thou shouldst have been drowned in the very harbour. Oh, Miss Cunygonde, 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. End of chapter 6 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. Chapter 7. How the Old Woman took care of Candide and how he found the object he loved. Candide did not take courage, but followed the old woman to a decayed house, where she gave him a pot of pomatum to anoint his sores, showed him a very neat little bed, with a suit of clothes hanging up, and left him something to eat and drink. Eat, drink, and sleep, said she, and may our Lady of Antocha and Great St. Anthony of Padua and the Great St. James of Compostela receive you under their protection. I shall be back to-morrow. Candide, amazed at all he had suffered and still more with the charity of the old woman, wished to kiss her hand. It is not my hand you must kiss, said the old woman. I shall be back to-morrow. Anoint yourself with the pomatum, eat, and sleep. Candide, notwithstanding, saw many disasters, ate and slept. The next morning the old woman brought him his breakfast, looked at his back, and rubbed it herself with another ointment. In like manner she brought him his dinner, and at night she returned with his supper. The day following she went through the very same ceremonies. Who are you, said Candide? Who has inspired you with so much goodness? What return can I make you? The good woman made no answer. She returned in the evening, but brought no supper. Come with me, she said, and say nothing. She took him by the arm, and walked with him a quarter of a mile into the country. They arrived at a lonely house surrounded with gardens and canals. The old woman knocked at a little door. It opened. She led Candide up a private staircase into a small apartment, richly furnished. She left him on a procaded sofa, shut the door, and went away. Candide thought himself in a dream. Indeed, that he had been dreaming unluckily all his life, and that the present moment was the only agreeable part of it all. The old woman returned very soon, supporting with difficulty a trembling woman of a majestic figure, brilliant with jewels, and covered with a veil. Take off that veil, said the old woman to Candide. The young man approaches. He raises the veil with a timid hand. Oh, what a moment, what a surprise! He believes he beholds Miss Cunigond. He really sees her, it is herself. His strength fails him. He cannot utter a word, but drops at her feet. Cunigond 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 that they would make less noise, and then she left them to themselves. What, is it you, said Candide, you live? I find you again in Portugal. Then you have not been ravished. Then you did not rip open your belly, as Dr. Pangloss informed me. Yes, they did, said the beautiful Cunigond, but those two accidents are not always mortal. But were your father and mother killed? It is but too true, answered Cunigond in tears. And your brother? Cunigond also was killed. And why are you here in Portugal, and how did you know of my being here, and by what strange adventure did you contrive to bring me to this house? I will tell you all that, replied the lady, but first of all let me know your history, since the innocent kiss you gave me and the kicks which you received. Candide respectfully obeyed her, and though he was still in a surprise, though his voice was feeble and trembling, though his back still paint him, yet he gave her a most ingenious account of everything that had befallen him . Cunigond lifted up her eyes to heaven, shed tears upon hearing of the death of the good Anabaptist and of Pangloss, after which she spoke as follows to Candide, who did not lose a word and devoured her with his eyes. End of 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 Candide Bill Tehr Chapter 8 The History of Cunigond I was in bed and fast asleep, and it pleased God to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunderten 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 root gave me a cut in the left side with his hanger and the mark is still upon me. Ah, I hope I shall see it, said Honest Candide. You shall, said Cunigond, but let us continue. Do so, replied Candide. Thus she resumed the thread of her story. A Bulgarian captain came in, saw me all bleeding and the soldier not in the least is concerted. 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 vowed it. On the other hand, I must own he had a good shape and a soft and white skin, but he had little or no mind or philosophy and you might see plainly that he had never been instructed by 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 Honest Kerr who traded to Holland in Portugal and had a strong passion for women. This Jew was much attached to my person and could not triumph over it. I resisted him better than the Bulgarian soldier. A modest woman may be ravished once, but her virtue is strengthened by it. In order to render me more tractable, he brought me to this country house. Heather, too, I had imagined that nothing could equal the beauty of Thunderton Tron Castle, but I found I was mistaken. The Grand Inquisitor, seeing me one day at Mass, stared long at me and sent me 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 Honest Kerr that he should resign me to my lord. Honest Kerr being the court banker and a man of credit, would hear nothing of it. The Inquisitor threatened him with an auto-defe. And it 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 his agreement was made. Quirls have not been wanting for they could not decide whether the night from Saturday to Sunday belong to the old law or the new. For my part, I have so far held out so beloved. At length, to avert the scourge of earthquakes and to intimidate Honest Kerr, 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, ceased with horror at the burning of those two Jews who was my surprise, my fright, my trouble. When I saw in a San Monito in Mitra a figure which resembled that of pangloss, I rubbed my eyes. I looked at him attentively. I saw him hung. I fainted. Scarcely had I recovered my senses then I saw you stripped, sark-naked. And this was the height of my horror, 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 stalk barbarians, but my voice failed me and my cries would have been useless after you'd been severely whipped. How is it possible, that pangloss should both be at Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred lashes and the other to be hanged by the grand inquisitor whom I am the well-beloved? The pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best. Agitated, lost, sometimes beside to myself and sometimes ready to die of weakness my mind was filled with the massacre of my father, with a stab that he gave me with my servitude under the Bulgarian captain with my hideous doneness occur with my unbominable inquisitor with the execution of Dr. Pangloss with the grand misery to which they whipped you and especially with the kiss I gave you behind the screen that 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 well. She has executed her commission perfectly well. I have tasted the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you again of hearing you, of speaking with you but you must be hungry for myself I am famished with a sad supper they both sat down to table and when supper was over they placed themselves once more on the sofa where they were once in your dawn Iskur arrived it was the Jewish Sabbath and Iskur had come to enjoy his rights and to explain his tender love End of Chapter 8 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 9 What became of Cunigond, Candid the grand inquisitor and the Jew This Iskur was the most cholera quibru 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 cared about him and not imagining that his adversary had any arms he threw himself upon Candid but our honest Westphalian had received a handsome sword from the old woman along with a suit of clothes he drew his rapier despite his gentleness and laid the Israelite stone dead upon the cushions at Cunigond's feet Holy Virgin, cried she what will become of us a man kills in my apartment if the officers of justice come we are lost had not pangloss been hanged he would give us good counsel in this emergency for he was a profound philosopher failing him let us consult the old woman she was very prudent and commenced to give her opinion when suddenly another little door opened it was an hour after midnight it was the beginning of Sunday this day belonged to my lord the inquisitor he entered and saw the whipped Candid sword in hand, a dead man upon the floor Cunigond aghast and the old woman giving counsel at this moment the following is what passed in the soul of Candid and how he reasoned if this holy man call an assistance he will surely have me burnt and Cunigond 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 from there is no time to hesitate he was clear and instantaneous so that without giving time to the inquisitor to recover from his surprise he pierced him through and through and cast him beside the Jew yet again said Cunigond now there is no mercy for us we are excommunicated our last hour has come how could you do it you naturally so gentle to slay a Jew and a prelate in two minutes Cunigond responded Candid and 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 and illusion horses in the stable with bridles and saddles let the brave Candid get them ready Madame has money 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 traveling in the cool of night immediately Candid saddled the three horses and Cunigond the old woman traveled 30 miles at a stretch while they were journeying the holy brother had entered the house my lord the inquisitor was interred and a handsome church and Issacre's body was thrown upon the tongue Candid, Cunigond and the old woman had now reached the little town of Avicina in the midst of the mountains and we are from Morena and we are speaking as follows in a public inn end of 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 Candid by Voltaire chapter 10 in what distress Candid, Cunigond and the old woman arrived at Cadiz for their embarkation who was it that robbed me of my money in jewels said Cunigond all bathed in tears how shall we live what shall we do where find inquisitors or Jews who'll give me more alas said the old woman I have a shrewd suspicion of a reverent grave friar who stayed last night in the same inn with us at Badahos God preserved me from judging rationally but he came into our room twice and he set out upon his journey long before us alas said Candid dear pan gloss 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 grave friar ought to have left us enough to carry us through our journey have you nothing at all left my dear Cunigond not a farthing said she what then must we do said Candid sell one of the horses replied the old woman I will ride behind Miss Cunigond though I can hold myself only on one body and we shall reach Cadiz in the same inn there was a Benedictine friar who bought the horse for a cheap price Candid, Cunigond and the old woman arrived at length at Cadiz a fleet was there getting ready and troops assembling to bring to reason the Reverend Jesuit Fathers of Paraguay accused of having made one of the native tribes in the neighborhood of San Sacramento revolt against the king of Spain in Portugal Candid 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 in there and with such agility and expedition he was given the command of a company of foot now he was a captain he set sail with Miss Cunigond the old woman, two valets and the two and illusion horses which had belonged to the grand inquisitor of Portugal during their voyage they reasoned a good deal on the philosophy of four pan gloss we are going into another world said Candid and surely it must be there that all is for the best or I must confess there is reason to complain a little of what patheth in our world in regard to both natural and moral philosophy I love you with all my heart said Cunigond but my soul is still full of fright at that which I have seen and experienced all will be well replied Candid the sea of this new world is already better than our European sea it is calmer it is certainly the new world which is the best of all possible worlds God grant it said Cunigond 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 Cunigond almost broke out laughing finding the good woman very amusing for pretending to have been as unfortunate as she alas said Cunigond my good mother alas you have been ravished by two Bulgarians have received two deep wounds in the belly have had two castles demolished have had two mothers cut into pieces before your eyes and two of your lovers whipped in an angel de feu I do not conceive how you could be more unfortunate than I had that I was born a bairiness of 72 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 Cunigond and Candid the old woman spoke to them as follows end of chapter 10 this is a liver folks recording all liver folks recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit livervox.org Candid by Voltaire chapter 11 history of the old woman I had not always bleared eyes and red lids neither did my nose always such my chin nor was I always a servant I am the daughter of Pope Urban Ten and a princess of Pelstrina until the age of 14 I was brought up in a palace to which all the castles of your German barons would scarcely have served for stables and one of my robes was worth more than all of 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 my throat white, firm, shaped like the Venus of Medici and what eyes what eyelids what black eyebrows such flames started 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 woman 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 a fiance to the most excellent prince of Masakarara such a prince as handsome as myself sweet tempered agreeable, brilliantly witty sparkling with love I loved him as one loves for the first time with idolatry, with transport the nuptials were prepared with surprising pomp and magnificence there were fets, carousels continual opera-bouf and all idly composed sonnets in my praise they're not one of them was passable I was just upon the point of reaching the summit of bliss when an old marquioness who had been mistress to the prince my husband invited him to drink chocolate with her he died in less than two hours of most terrible convulsions but this is only a bagatelle my mother in despair and scarcely less afflicted than myself determined to absent herself for some time from so fatal a place she had a very finest state in the neighborhood of Gaeta we embarked on board a galley of the country which was gilded like the great altar of St. Peter's at room a sali corsairs whooped down and boarded us our men defended themselves like the Pope soldiers they flung themselves upon their knees and threw down their arms begging of the corsair an absolution and articular morty instantly they were stripped as bears monkeys my mother our maids of honor and myself were all served in the same manner this amazing with what expedition those gentry undressed people they thrust their fingers into the part of our bodies which the generality of women suffer no other instruments but pipes enter it appeared to me a very strange kind of ceremony but this one judges of things when one is not seen in the world I afterwards learned that it was to try whether we had concealed any diamonds this is a practice established from the immemorial among civilized nations the Mualta never failed to make this search when they take any Turkish prisoners of either sex it is a law of nations from where they deviate I need not tell you how great a hardship it was for a young princess and her mother to be maids 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 woman herself I was ravishing was exquisite grace itself and I was a virgin I did not remain so for 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 Belestrina 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 is not to be worth mentioning Morocco swam in blood when we arrived 50 sons of the emperor Mule Ismail had each their adherence this produced 50 civil wars of blacks against blacks and blacks against taunis and taunis against taunis and muladas against mulados and short it was a continual carnage throughout the empire no sooner were we landed next of a contrary fashion 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 witnessed as such a battle as you have never seen in your European climates the northern nations have not that heat in their blood nor that raging lust for women so common in Africa it seems that you Europeans have only milk in your veins but it is vitriol it is fire which runs of mount atlas and the neighboring countries they fought with a fury of lions tigers and serpents of the country to see who should have us Amor sees my mother by the right arm while my captain's lieutenant held her by the left Amor's soldier had hold of her by one leg and one of our corsairs held her by the other thus almost all our women were drawn in quarters by four men my captain concealed me behind him and with his drawn scimitar cut and slashed everyone that opposes 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 300 leagues and yet I never missed the five prayers a day ordained by Muhammad with difficulty I disengaged myself from such a heap of slaughtered bodies and crawled to a large orange tree on the bank of a neighboring rivulet where I fell oppressed with fright, fatigue horror, despair and hunger immediately after I set myself up to sleep which was yet more swooning than repose I was in this state a weakness and insensibility between life and death when I felt myself pressured 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 oh what did I hear end of chapter 11 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Khandid by Voltaire chapter 12 the adventures of the old woman continued astonished and delighted to hear my native language and no less surprised at what this man said I made answer that there were much greater misfortunes than that of which he complained I told him in a few words of the horrors which I had endured and fainted a second time he carried me to a neighbouring house put me to bed, gave me food waited upon me, consoled me flattered me he told me that he had never seen anyone so beautiful as I and that he never so much regretted the loss of what it was impossible to recover I was born in Naples he said there they gelled 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 Palestine to my mother cried I your mother cried he weeping what can you be that young princess whom I brought up until the age of six years and who promised so early to be as beautiful as you it is I indeed but my mother lies four hundred yards hence torn in quarters under a heap of dead bodies I told him all my adventures and he made me acquainted with his telling me that he had been sent to the emperor of Morocco by 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 the other Christian governments my mission is done said this honest eunuch I go to embark for cuta and will take you to Italy I thank him with tears of commiseration and instead of taking me to Italy he conducted me to Algiers where he sold me to the day I guess it was I sold on the plague which had made the tour of Africa Asia and Europe broke out with great malignancy in Algiers you have seen earthquakes but pray miss have you ever had the plague never answered cunigonde 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 I had been a prisoner of the plague and the day and almost the whole suraglio of Algiers perished as soon as the first fury of this terrible pestilence was over a sail was made of the day's slaves I was purchased by a merchant and carried to tuners 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 from Smyrna to Constantinople at length I became the property of an agar of the Janissaries then besieged by the Russians the agar who was a very gallant man took his whole suraglio with him and lodged us in a small fort on the palace Mayotides guarded by two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers the Turks killed prodigious numbers of the Russians but the latter had their revenge as off 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 that 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 caught off a buttock of each of those ladies said he and you'll fare extremely well if you must go to it again for a few days hence heaven will accept of so charitable an action and send you relief he had great eloquence he persuaded them we underwent this terrible operation the iman applied the same balsam to us as he does to children after circumcision and we all nearly died guess they had the Janissaries finished the repost which we had furnished them and the Russians came in flat bottomed boats not a Janissary escaped the Russians paid no attention to the condition we were in 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 like had happened in many sieges and that it was according to the laws of war as soon as my companions could walk they were obliged to set out for Moscow I fell to the share of a boyard who made me his gardener and gave me 20 lashes a day but this nobleman having in two years time been broke upon the wheel along with 30 more boyards for some broils at court I profited by that event I fled I traversed all Russia I was a long time an in-holder servant in Riga the same at Rostock and Vismar at Leipzig, at Kassel, at Utrecht at Leiden, at the Hague, at Rotterdam I waxed old and misery and disgraced having only one half of my posterior and always remembering I was a Pope's daughter a hundred times I was upon the point of killing myself but I still loved life this ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics for it is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down the detest existence and yet to cling to one's own 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 Robach I ended by being servant to the Jew Don Isherha 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 misfortune 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 Cunyguns 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 all of them that has not cursed his life many a time that has not frequently looked upon himself as the unhappiest of mortals I head foremost into the sea End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 How Candide was forced away from his fair Cunigonde and the Old Woman The beautiful Cunigonde 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 Panclos was hanged contrary to custom at an alter-de-fait he would tell us most amazing things in regard to the physical and moral evils that overspread 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 Cunigonde, Captain Candide and the Old Woman waited on the governor Don Fernando de Barra y Figueroa y Mascarenes y Lampordos y Suso This nobleman had a statelyness becoming a person who bore so many names He spoke to men with so noble a disdain carried his nose 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 drumming Cunigonde 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 this question alarmed Candide that 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 formerly much in favour among the ancients and although it could be useful to the moderns his soul was too pure to betray the truth This Cunigonde said he is to do me the honour to marry me and we beseech your excellency to deem to sanction our marriage Don Fernando de Ibarra y Figueroa y Mascarenes y Lempordos y Sousa turning up his massachios smiled mockingly and ordered Captain Candide to go and review his company Candide obeyed and the governor remained alone with Miss Cunigonde 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 Cunigonde 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 Cunigonde Miss, you have seventy two quarterings and not a farthing It is now in your power to be wife to the greatest lord of America who has very beautiful massachios Is it for you to peak yourself upon inviolable fidelity You have been ravished by Bulgarians a Jew and an inquisitor have enjoyed your favours 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 Candide While the old woman spoke about the crudence which age and experience gave a small ship entered the port on board of which were an Alcalde and his Algozils and this was what had happened As the old woman had shrewdly guessed it was a grey friar who stole Cunigonde's money and jewels in the town of Badahos when she and Candide were escaping The friar wanted to sell some of the diamonds to a jeweler The jeweler knew them to be the grand inquisitors The friar before he was hanged confessed he had stolen them He described the persons and the route they had taken The flight of Cunigonde and Candide was already known They were traced to Cadiz A vessel was immediately sent in pursuit of them The vessel was already in the port of Buenos Aires The report spread that the Alcalde was going to land 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 said she to Cunigonde 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 Candide Fly said she however you will be burnt There was not a moment to lose but how could he part from Cunigonde and where could he flee for shelter End of 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 Recording by Kelly Boucher and Ada Poicit Massachusetts Candide by Voltaire Chapter 14 How Candide and Cacombo were received by the Jesuits of Paraguay Candide 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 and he had been singing boy, sacristan, sailor, monk, peddler, soldier and lackey His name was Cacombo and he loved his master because his master was a very good man He quickly saddled the two Analyzian horses Come master let us follow the old woman's advice let us start and run without looking behind us Candide shed tears Oh my dear Cunigonde must I leave you just at a time when the governor was going to sanction our nuptials Cunigonde brought to such a distance what will become of you she will do as well as she can said Cacombo the woman are never at a loss God provides for them let us run with her art thou carrying me where shall we go what shall we do without Cunigonde said Candide by Saint James of Compostella said Cacombo you were going to fight against the Jesuits let us go 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 Ben and Paraguay then said Candide I sure answered Cacombo I was servant in the College of the Assumption and am acquainted with the governor 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 in 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 pleasure will it be to those fathers who here that a captain who knows the Bulgarian exercise has come to them as soon as they reached the first barrier Cacombo told the advance 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 Candide and Cacombo were disarmed and their two and elusional 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 spontaneous 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 say above three hours in the province and where is the reverend father provincial as Cacombo he is upon the parade just after celebrating mass answered the sergeant and you cannot kiss his spurs till three hours hence however said Cacombo 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 closing 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 at 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 white ears for million lips a bold air with such a boldness as neither belonged to a Spaniard nor a Jesuit they returned their arms to Candide and Kakambo and also the two Andalusian horses to whom Kakambo 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 hem of the commandant's robe then they sat down to the table you are then a German 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 10 Tronk Oh! heavens! it is not 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 Kinagond you that was slain by the Bulgarians 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 pereguines who served them with liquors and goblets of rock crystal he thanked God in Saint Ignatius a thousand times he clasped Candide in his arms and their faces were all bathed with tears you will be more surprised more affected and transported said Candide when I tell you that Kinagond your sister whom you believe to have been ripped open is in perfect health where? in your neighborhood with the governor 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 they sat a good while at table waiting for the Reverend Father Provincial and the commandant spoke to his dear Candide as follows end of chapter 14 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Kelly Boucher of Matapoisit, Massachusetts Candide by Voltaire chapter 15 how Candide killed the brother of his dear Kinagond 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 maid servants 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 Jesuits within two leagues of our family seat a Jesuit sprinkled us with some holy water and was horribly salty 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 Deidre 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 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 at Hyrolyse and myself upon my arrival I was honored with a sub-deaconship and a lieutenancy 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 Kinagond 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 Kinagond that is all I want said Candide for I intended to marry her and I still hope to do so you insolent replied the Baron would you have the impudence to marry my sister who has 72 quarterings I find thou hast the most consummate of frontry 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 did thunder tend 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 freaking hot he burst into tears good god said he I've killed my old master my friend my brother-in-law I'm the best-natured creature in the world and yet I have already killed three men and of these three two were priests Kokombo who stood sentry by the door of the arbor ran to him we have nothing more fort than to sell our lives as dearly as we can said his master to him without doubt someone will soon enter the arbor and we must die sword in hand Kokombo 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 we shall have passed the frontiers before they will be able to overtake us he flew as he spoke these words crying out aloud in Spanish make way make way for the Reverend Father Colonel end of 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 recording by Dmitri Fetopoulos chapter 16 what happened to our two travelers with two girls two monkeys and two savages called Orillons Candide by Voltaire Candide and his volet had already passed the frontier before it was known that the German Jesuit was dead the way Kokombo had taken care to fill his wallet with bread chocolate, some ham some fruit and a few bottles of wine they penetrated with their andelusion horses into a strange country where they could discover no beaten path at length a beautiful meadow intersected with pearling reels open to their view Kokombo proposed to his master to take some nourishment and he set him an example how can you desire me to feast upon ham when I have killed the barren sun and am doomed never more to see the beautiful Cunegond what will it avail me to prolong a wretched life that must be spent far from her in remorse and despair and then what will the journal of Travucse was Candide's reply while he was making these reflections he still continued eating the sun was now on the point of setting when the ears of our two wanderers were assaulted with cries which seemed to be uttered by a female voice they could not tell whether these were cries of grief or joy however they instantly started up full of their inequity and apprehension which a strange place naturally inspires the crisis proceeded from two young women who were tipping disrobed along the mean while two monkeys followed close at their heels biting at their limbs Candide was touched with compassion he had learned to shoot while he was among the Bulgarians and could hit a filbert in a hedge without touching a leaf accordingly he took up his double-barreled Spanish gun pulled the trigger and laid the two monkeys lifeless on the ground God be praised my dear Cucumbo I have rescued two poor girls from a most perilous situation if I have committed a sin in killing a lackwister and a Jesuit I have made ample amends by saving the lives of these two distressed damsels who knows but that they may be young ladies of a good family and that the assistance I have been so happy to give them may procure us great advantage in the country he was about to continue when he felt himself stuck, speechless at seeing the two girls embracing the dead bodies of the monkeys in the tenderest manner baiting their wounds with their tears and rendering the air with the most dreadful lamentations really said he to Cucumbo I should not have expected to see such a prodigious share of a good nature master reply the knowing valet you have made a precious piece of work of it do you know that you have killed the lovers of those two ladies they're lovers Cucumbo you are jesting it cannot be I can never believe it dear sir replied Cucumbo you are surprised at everything why should you think it's so strange that there should be a country where monkeys institute themselves into the good graces of the ladies they are the fourth part of a man as I am the fourth part of a Spaddiard alas replied Candide I remember to have heard my master tank loss say that such accidents as these frequently cannot pass in former times and that these com fixtures are productive of centaurs fawns and satyrs and then many of the ancients had been such monsters but I looked upon the whole as fabulous now you are convinced said Cucumbo that is very true and you see what use is made of these creatures by persons who have not had a proper education all I am afraid of is that these same ladies may play us some ugly trick these judicious reflections operated so far on Candide as to make him quit the meadow and strike into a thicket there he and Cucumbo stopped and after partly cursing the Grand Inquisitor the governor of Buenos Aires and the Baron they fell asleep on the ground when they awoke they were surprised to find that they could not move the reason was that the Orillians who inhabit that country and to whom the ladies had given information of these two strangers had bound them with cords made of the bark of trees they saw themselves surrounded by fifty naked Orillians armed with bows and arrows clubs and hatchets a flint some were making a fire under a large cauldron and the others were preparing splints crying out one and all a Jesuit a Jesuit changed we shall have excellent cheer let us eat this Jesuit let us eat him up I told you master cried Cucumbo mournfully that these two wretches could pay us some scurvy trick Candide seeing the cauldron and the splints cried out I suppose they are going either to boil or roast us ah if he were to see how pure nature is formed everything is right it may be so but I must confess it is something hard to be benefit of dear Miss Cunegond and to be spitted like a rabbit by those barbarous Orillian Cucumbo who never lost his patience of mind in distress said to the disconsonant Candide do not despair I understand a little of the jargon of these people I will speak to them I pray do said Candide and be sure to make them sensible of the horrid barbarity of boiling and roasting human creatures and how little of Christianity there is in such practices gentlemen said Cucumbo you think perhaps you are going to feast upon a Jesuit if so it is mighty well nothing can be more agreeable to justice than thus to treat your enemies indeed the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbor and accordingly we find this practice all over the world and if we do not indulge ourselves in eating human flesh it is because we have much better fare but for your parts who have not such resources as we it is certainly much better judged to feast upon your enemies than to throw our bodies to the fowls of the air and thus lose all the fruit of your victory but surely gentlemen you would not choose to eat your friends you imagine you are going to roast a Jesuit whereas my master is your friend your defender the very man who has so far from being a Jesuit gives me leave to tell you that he has very lately killed one of that order who spoils he now wears and which have probably occasioned your mistake to convince you of the truth of what I say take the habit he has on and carry it to the first barrier of the Jesuits kingdom and inquire whether my master did not kill one of these officers there will be little or no time lost by this and you may still reserve our bodies in your power to feast on if you should find what we have told you to be false but on the contrary if you find it to be true I am persuaded to be well acquainted with the principles of the laws of society humanity and justice not to use us courteously and suffer us to depart unhurt this speech appear to be very reasonable to the Aurelians they deputed two of their people with all expedience to inquire into the truth of this affair who acquitted themselves of their commission like men of sense and soon returned with good tidings for our distressed adventurers upon this they were loosed and those who were so lately going to roast and boil them now showed them all sorts of civilities offered them girls gave them refreshments and reconducted them to the confines of their country crying before them all the way in token of joy he is no Jesuit he is no Jesuit Candide could not help admiring the cause of his deliverance what men what manners cried he if I had not unfortunately run my sword up to the hilt in the body of Miss Cunigan's brother I should have certainly been eaten alive but after all pure nature is an excellent thing since these people instead of eating me showed me a thousand civilities as soon as they knew I was not a Jesuit end of chapter 16 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Candide by Voltaire Chapter 17 arrival of Candide and his valet at El Dorado and what they saw there UC said Kacambo to Candide as soon as they had reached the frontiers of Auriland 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 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 Conegond resides let us turn towards Cayenne said Kacambo there we shall find Frenchman 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 Kacambo who was as good a counselor as the old woman said to Candide we are able to hold out no longer 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 useful 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 which surpassed in fleetness the finest coarsers of Andalusia Taituan and Mekiniess here, however is a country said Kandid which is better than Westphalia he stepped out with Kakambo towards the first village which he saw the children dressed in tattered brocades played at coits on the outskirts our travelers from the other world amused themselves by looking on the coits 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 coits the village schoolmaster appeared at this moment and called them to school there said Kandid is the preceptor of the royal family the little truants immediately quitted their game leaving the coits on the ground with all their other playthings Kandid 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 Kandid 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 Kandid the king's children in this country must be well brought up since they are taught to despise Kakambo was as much surprised as Kandid 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 were 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 that they were talking Peruvian it was his mother tongue for it is well known that Kakambo was born in Tukuman in a village where no other language was spoken I will be your interpreter here said he to Kandid let us go in it is a public house immediately 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 flybirds in another exquisite ragu delicious pastries and 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 they asked Kakambo a few questions with the greatest circumspection and answered his in the most obliging manner as soon as dinner was over Kakambo believed as well as Kandid that they might well pay their reckoning by laying down two of those large gold pieces which they had picked up the landlord and landlady shouted with laughter and held their sides when the fit was over gentlemen said the landlord it is plain that 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 for 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 of commerce 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 Kakambo explained this whole course with great astonishment to Kandid 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 and where 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 Ponglos might say I often found that things went very ill in Westphalia end of chapter 17 read by Dennis Sayers in Modesto, California for LibriVox fall