Candide - Voltaire (world of reading txt) 📗

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 learn that you are here. I would fly to your arms if I could but move. I was informed of your passage at Bordeaux, where I left faithful Cacambo 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 Cunégonde 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 Cunégonde 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-maid; “the light hurts her,” and immediately she drew the curtain again.

“My dear Cunégonde,” 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 transports in came an officer, followed by the Abbé 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.

“Travellers are not treated thus in El Dorado,” said Candide.

“I am more a Manichean now than ever,” said Martin.

“But pray, sir, where are you going to carry us?” said Candide.

“To a dungeon,” answered the officer.

Martin, having recovered himself a little, judged that the lady who acted the part of Cunégonde was a cheat, that the Perigordian Abbé was a knave who had imposed upon the honest simplicity of Candide, and that the officer was another knave whom they might easily silence.

Candide, advised by Martin and impatient to see the real Cunégonde, 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 all foreigners, but leave it to me. I have a brother at Dieppe in Normandy! I’ll conduct you thither, and if you have a diamond to give him he’ll take as much care of you as I would.”

“And why,” said Candide, “should all foreigners be arrested?”

“It is,” the Perigordian Abbé then made answer, “because a poor beggar of the country of Atrébatie28 heard some foolish things said. This induced him to commit a parricide, not such as that of 1610 in the month of May,29 but such as that of 1594 in the month of December,30 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 Abbé 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 Cunégonde.”

“I can conduct you no further than lower Normandy,” said the officer.

Immediately he ordered his irons to be struck off, acknowledged himself mistaken, sent away his men, set out with Candide and Martin for Dieppe, and left them in the care of his brother.

There was then a small Dutch ship in the harbour. 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.

XXIII Candide and Martin Touched Upon the Coast of England, and What They Saw There

“Ah, Pangloss! Pangloss! Ah, Martin! Martin! Ah, my dear Cunégonde, 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,31 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, is what my imperfect intelligence will not permit. I only know in general that the people we are going to see are very atrabilious.”

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 three 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