SUMMARY OF CANDIDE WITH COMMENTARY
(Realising that the book will offend the authorities both of church and state, Voltaire uses the pseudonym of a so-called German, “Doctor Ralph” denying authorship of the book; although the style of the book clearly reveals that the author is Voltaire).
The story begins:
Candide lived in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh. He was an innocent gentle mannered youth: Candide’s character
Page 5 --Sa physionomie annonçait son âme. Il avait le jugement assez droit, avec l'esprit le plus simple; c'est je crois, pour cette raison qu'on le nommait Candide.
It was suspected he was the bastard son of the Baron's sister and a nobleman of the area, whom she could not marry as his coat of arms bore only 71 quarterings and the rest of his family tree had been lost through the ravages of time. Page 55
cette demoiselle ne voulut jamais épouser parce qu'il n'avait pu prouver que soixante et onze quartiers, et que le reste de son arbre généalogique avait été perdu par l'injure du temps
Voltaire’s irony is directed at the arrogance of the German nobility
The Baron was the great Lord of the area because his castle had a door and windows:.
Monsieur le baron était un des plus puissants seigneurs de la Vestphalie, car son château avait une porte et des fenêtres
Everyone called him "My Lord" and laughed at his jokes.
The Baroness weighed 350 pounds. His daughter Cunégonde (N.B. sexually suggestive name) was 17, well-rounded and alluring. Sensuous Cunégonde
There was a son. There was also a tutor for the children, whose name was Pangloss.
Pangloss taught the philosophy of Optimism:
Page 56 - il prouvait admirablement qu'il n'y a point d'effet sans cause, et que, dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles, le château de monseigneur le baron était le plus beau des châteaux, et madame la meilleure des baronnes possibles. Parody of Philosophical Optimism
il est démontré, disait-il, que les choses ne peuvent être autrement: car tout étant fait pour une fin, tout est nécessairement pour la meilleure fin.
Pangloss was a fervent advocate of the theory of final causes (that everything has been made by God for a specific purpose). Noses were made for wearing spectacles therefore we have spectacles; legs were made for wearing trousers, and so we have trousers. Page 56
Remarquez bien que les nez ont été faits pour porter des lunettes; aussi avons-nous des lunettes. Les jambes sont visiblement instituées pour être chaussées, et nous avons des chausses. (Comic style : Voltaire reduces the argument to absurdity.)
Candide admired Pangloss as a great philosopher Page 57
… le plus grand philosophe de la province et par conséquent le monde
He loved Miss Cunégonde though he was too timid to tell her.
One day Cunégonde came across Pangloss engaged in experiments in experimental physics in the bushes with a chambermaid. Having observed the philosopher put into practice sufficient reason seen the effects and causes, she was excited to try the same with Candide. Bawdy humour
The next day after dinner Cunégonde dropped her handkerchief when she and Candide were hidden behind a screen. Candide picked it up and a passionate embrace followed. The Baron caught them and drove Candide from his castle with hefty kicks up the backside.
Humorous repetition -we are reminded about these kicks up the backside at other places in the book.
Chapter 2
Weeping, penniless; Candide wanders aimlessly in the cold until he takes shelter in an Inn. Here two men in blue uniforms (Prussian recruiting officers) offer to treat him to dinner if he is 5ft. 5 inches tall. Candide innocently accepts, recognising Pangloss was speaking truly that everything is the best possible. The men give him a number or crowns, bid him drink the health of the King of the Bulgares. Then they clap him in irons and tell him he has enlisted as a hero of the Bulgares. He is drilled remorselessly and at the end of the day given 30 strokes of the stick Two days later his companions regard him as a prodigy as he needs only 10 strokes.
Page 59 On le fait tourner à droite, à gauche, hausser la baguette, remettre la baguette, coucher en joue, tirer, doubler le pas, et on lui donne trente coups de bâton; le lendemain, il fait l'exercice un peu moins mal, et il ne reçoit que vingt coups; le surlendemain, on ne lui en donne que dix, et il est regardé par ses camarades comme un prodige.
Brutality of army life
One day Candide deserted. He was captured and was asked in accordance with the law whether he would prefer to be shot or flogged to death.
Page 59- On lui demanda juridiquement ce qu'il aimait le mieux d'être fustigé trente-six fois par tout le régiment, ou de recevoir à la fois douze balles de plomb dans la cervelle.
Candide exercising his God given freedom of choice, decided on the flogging. He had to pass along the regiment each soldier striking him (In fact Voltaire knew of a French nobleman who had received the same punishment in the same circumstances). After going through the regiment only twice, Candide asked to be put out of his agony with a blow on the head, but before he could be granted this act of mercy, the King of the Bulgares (is this Frederick the Great?) came and pardoned him. (Voltaire makes an ironical comment):
Pao 60 -- Il lui accorda sa grâce avec une clémence qui sera louée dans tous les journaux et dans tous les siècles.
Candide has almost recovered when is involved in the war which the Bulgares are waging against the Abares. (This would be according to many commentators the Seven Years War between the Prussians and the French).
Chapter 3
Nothing was so fine, so smart, so brilliant, so well ordered as the two armies lined up for battle. With the din of trumpets, fifes, drums and cannons, they formed a harmony unheard of in hell. Comic style of the incongruous end of the description
The canons killed 6,000 on each side; the muskets killed 9,000 to 10,000 men, and the bayonets a few more thousand. Page 60
Les canons renversèrent d'abord à peu près six mille hommes de chaque côté; ensuite la mousqueterie ôta du meilleur des mondes environ neuf à dix mille coquins qui en infectaient la surface. La baïonnette fut aussi la raison suffisante de la mort de quelques milliers d'hommes. Le tout pouvait bien se monter à une trentaine de mille âmes.
The horrors of war
Candide hid as best he could from this heroic butchery.
At the end of it all, each side sang a hymn of praise to God. Candide decides to philosophise elsewhere. A way of saying that Candide deserted!
Enfin, tandis que les deux rois faisaient chanter des Te Deum, chacun dans son camp, il prit le parti d'aller raisonner ailleurs des effets et des causes.
He passes through an Abare village and sees the effects of massacre, pillage and rape, done in accordance with international law.
Page 60 - c'était un village Abare que les Bulgares avaient brûlé, selon les lois du droit public. Ici des vieillards criblés de coups regardaient mourir leurs femmes égorgées, qui tenaient leurs enfants a leurs mamelles sanglantes: là des filles, éventrées après avoir assouvi les besoins naturels de quelques héros, rendaient les derniers soupirs.
Candide goes through a Bulgare village and finds that the Abare heroes have done the same.
Candide makes off, with hopes still remaining in his memory of Cunégonde. He arrives in the rich Christian country of Holland and finds it is forbidden to beg.
Candide approaches a Calvinist minister. To him Candide makes a full statement of his Optimist belief in spite of all the sufferings he has endured:
Il n'y a point d'effet sans cause, répondit modestement Candide (tout est enchaîné nécessairement, et arrangé pour le mieux. Il a fallu que je fusse chassé, d'auprès de mademoiselle Cunégonde, que j'aie passé par les baguettes, et il faut que je demande mon pain, jusqu'à ce que je puisse en gagner; tout cela ne pouvait être autrement.
The minister has just preached for an hour on charity. When Candide is not able to agree that the pope is the Antichrist, the Minister drives him off and his wife empties a chamber pot over him. Page 61
Mon ami, lui dit l'orateur, croyez-vous que le pape soit l'Antéchrist?
— Je ne l'avais pas encore entendu dire, répondit Candide; mais, qu'il le soit ou qu'il ne le soit pas, je manque de pain. — Tu ne mérites pas d'en manger, dit l'autre; va, coquin; va, misérable, ne m'approche de ta vie.»
Religious bigotry of the Calvinist. Theology matters more than feeding a starving man
An Anabaptist called Jacques seeing him thus maltreated, takes him home, gives him food and shelter and offers him employment.
Candide is thus able to revive his faith in Optimist philosophy encouraged by this experience of generosity.
Page 62 - Candide, se prosternant presque devant lui s'écriait; Maître Pangloss me l'avait bien dit que tout est au mieux dans ce monde car je suis infiniment plus touché de votre extrême générosité que de la dureté de ce monsieur à manteau noir, et de madame son épouse. Candide still an Optimist
The next day Candide came across a beggar covered in sores, blind, spitting out a tooth every time he coughed. Page 62;
Le lendemain, en se promenant, il rencontra un gueux tout couvert de pustules, les yeux morts, le bout du nez rongé, la bouche de travers, les dents noires, et parlant de la gorge, tourmenté d'une toux violente, et crachant une dent à chaque effort. Comic exaggeration in this grim description
Chapter 4-
The kindly Candide gives the beggar his last two florins. And then recognises him to be Doctor Pangloss.
The first of numerous incredible recognition scenes found in this book. Voltaire is parodying this feature found in Picaresque novels.
He takes Pangloss to the Anabaptist’s house.
Candide faints when he is told that Cunégonde is dead. Now his optimism wavers for the first time.
Page 63 - Cunégonde est morte Ah meilleur des mondes, ou êtes-vous.
Pangloss tells how Cunégonde had been disembowelled after having been raped by the Bulgare soldiers as much as anyone can be raped.
The rest of the family had been butchered. Pangloss is pleased that the Abares avenged themselves similarly on the neighbouring Bulgare nobleman. Barbarity of war
Candide having recovered consciousness again puts his doubts to his tutor, asking him for the cause and effect and sufficient reason for illness inflicted on Pangloss. Pangloss says love was the cause:-
Page 63 - Hélas dit l'autre, c'est l'amour, le consolateur du genre humain, le conservateur de l'univers, l’âme de tous les êtres sensibles, le tendre amour.
Irony: love brings a dreadful disease
Paquette the chambermaid had given him the pox. She had caught it from a Franciscan monk- who had traced it back through an old Countess a cavalry captain - a marchioness, a pageboy - a Jesuit priest - Immoral clergy to a crewman of Christopher Columbus.
Page 64 : Paquette tenait ce présent d'un cordelier très savant qui avait remonté à la source, car il l'avait eu d'une vieille comtesse, qui l'avait reçu d'un capitaine de cavalerie, qui le devait à une marquise, qui le tenait d'un page, qui l'avait reçu d'un jésuite qui, étant novice, l'avait eu en droite ligne d'un des compagnons de Christophe Colomb. Humour in this mock biblical style genealogy
Pangloss maintains that the disease is an ingredient necessary in the best of all possible worlds because if Columbus hadn't brought the disease back from the New World, he wouldn't have brought back cocoa and cochineal either. The justification of the extreme sufferings of Pangloss in his best of possible worlds
He attributes the spread of the disease in the West to the noble soldiers, two thirds of whom are infected. Ironical reference to “noble” soldiers
The Anabaptist pays for Pangloss's cure and he only loses an eye and an ear.
Two months later they have to go on business to Lisbon. On the voyage Pangloss expounds that everything is for the best, but Jacques expresses the view that humankind is born good but is corrupted by Society. Voltaire lets the admirable Jacques express an idea of Rousseau, of whom Voltaire did not normally approve.
Page 65 - Il faut bien, disait-il, que les hommes aient un peu corrompu la nature, car ils ne sont point nés loups, et ils sont devenus loups.
Pangloss gives the Optimist explanation that particular misfortunes form part of the general good, and with comic exaggeration says the more particular misfortunes there are the more everything is good.
Page 65 Tout cela était indispensable, répliquait le docteur borgne, et les malheurs particuliers font le bien général; de sorte que plus il y a de malheurs particuliers, et plus tout est bien.»
Satirical representation of the Philosophy of Optimism, followed by events to show its absurdity
While discussing how all events are good, they run into a terrible storm off Lisbon.
Chapter 5
The ship is in great distress, tossed by the gigantic storm. Half the passengers are too terrified to move, half are screaming and praying Page 65:
La moitié des passagers affaiblis, expirants de ces angoisses inconcevables que le roulis d'un vaisseau porte dans les nerfs et dans toutes les humeurs du corps agitées en sens contraires, n'avait pas même la force de s'inquiéter du danger. L'autre moitié jetait des cris et faisait des prières; les voiles étaient déchirées, les mâts brisés, le vaisseau entr'ouvert.
A shipwreck was a standard feature of the Picaresque novel. Style; The rapid narrative
Chaos reigns among the crew.
Jacques makes an effort to control the ship. A sailor strikes him and in so doing the sailor falls in the sea. Jacques pulls him out but in so doing falls in himself. The sailor lets him drown. Candide wants to jump into the sea, but Pangloss prevents him.
Page 66 - Pangloss l'en empêche, en lui prouvant que la rade de Lisbonne avait été formée exprès pour que cet anabaptiste s'y noyât.
The determinism of the Optimists leads to a fatalism that impedes humanitarian intervention
The ship sinks and all are drowned except for Pangloss and Candide and the wicked sailor who make it to land.
Scarcely have they set foot on land when the ground begins to tremble under their feet. (Voltaire is writing of the Great Lisbon earthquake of 1755). The buildings of the city are destroyed. 30,000 people are crushed beneath the ruins.
A peine ont-ils mis le pied dans la ville, en pleurant la mort de leur bienfaiteur, qu'ils sentent la terre trembler sous leurs pas, la mer s'élève en bouillonnant dans le port, et brise les vaisseaux qui sont à l'ancre. Des tourbillons de flammes et de cendres couvrent les rues et les places publiques; les maisons s'écroulent, les toits sont renversés sur les fondements, et les fondements se dispersent; trente mille habitants de tout âge et de tout sexe sont écrasés sous des ruines.
Style: Swift narrative
The wicked sailor regards it as an opportunity for looting. Pangloss tells him he is failing in his duty to Universal Reason and is told by the sailor what kind of a man he's dealing with.
Candide, lying injured under a pile of debris, begs for wine and oil - but Pangloss is deaf to his pleas, absorbed in speculation about the cause of the earthquake. Chapter 15 Page 67
«Hélas! procure-moi un peu de vin et d'huile; je meurs.
« Ce tremblement de terre n'est pas une chose nouvelle, répondit Pangloss; la ville de Lima éprouva les mêmes secousses en Amérique l'année passée; mêmes causes, mêmes effets Pangloss is not in the real world
Voltaire paints in a few simple words the sombre morrow of the earthquake.
Page 67 - il est vrai que le repas était triste; les convives arrosaient leur pain de leurs larmes Voltaire’s style is concise but very effective
While Pangloss, with convoluted logic, states that things could not be otherwise. Chapter 5 page 67
mais Pangloss les consola, en les assurant que les choses ne pouvaient être autrement: «Car, dit-il, tout ceci est ce qu'il y a de mieux; car s'il y a un volcan à Lisbonne, il ne pouvait être ailleurs; car il est impossible que les choses ne soient pas où elles sont; car tout est bien.
A little man sitting beside him, who is a familiar of the Inquisition, begins to suspect Pangloss of holding ideas heretical to the teaching of the Catholic Church. Page 67
«Apparemment que monsieur ne croit pas au péché originel; car si tout est au mieux, il n'y a donc eu ni chute ni punition.
He asks Pangloss how he reconciles his view with the doctrine of Original Sin and Free Will. Pangloss is in the process of doing this, when this officer of the Inquisition has him arrested. Intolerant Church Dogma
Chapter Six
After the earthquake the theologians of the university decided that the way to prevent a recurrence was to burn a few heretics over a slow fire. The heretics chosen were a Basque who had married his Godmother, two Jews, Pangloss and Candide.
Religious intolerance – The Inquisition. Intolerant Church Dogma:The church forbad marriage to your godmother
Page 68 On avait en conséquence saisi un Biscayen convaincu d'avoir épousé sa commère, et deux Portugais qui en mangeant un poulet en avaient arraché le lard.
They were each kept in isolation for a week in a freezing dungeon:
Page 68 - tous deux furent menés séparément dans des appartements d'une extrême fraîcheur, dans lesquels on n'était jamais incommodé du soleil.
They were then dressed in penitential garb and taken out for execution. There was a solemn procession, a touching sermon, some fine counterpoint singing, to the rhythm of which Candide was flogged. The Basque, and the Jews were burnt and Pangloss was hanged - although it was not the custom! Page 69:
Ils marchèrent en procession ainsi vêtus, et entendirent un sermon très pathétique, suivi d'une belle musique en faux-bourdon. Candide fut fessé en cadence, pendant qu'on chantait; le Biscayen et les deux hommes qui n'avaient point voulu manger de lard furent brûlés, et Pangloss fut pendu, quoique ce ne soit pas la coutume. Religious brutality
The same day there was another earthquake (N.B. An Auto-Da-Fé and a second earthquake did not follow the first earthquake. This is Voltaire’s invention).
Candide shocked and bleeding, has doubts about Optimism.
Page 69 - Si c'est ici le meilleur des mondes possibles que sont donc les autres?
He lists the misfortunes he has undergone with finally the greatest, which is the loss of Cunégonde.
As he is staggering away an old women tells him to follow her.
N.B. The comic style of Voltaire - the accumulation of disparate past participles.
Page 69 - Il s'en retournait, se soutenant à peine, prêché, fessé, absous et béni.
Chapter 7
The old woman shows him to a hovel where there is food, clothes and a bed. She prays for the saints’ protection for him. (The old woman is a devout catholic - daughter of a Pope - see later).
For two days she looks after him, and then takes him to an isolated house in the country. The luxury of the furnishings is so sumptuous that Candide thinks he is dreaming. The old woman brings to him a veiled woman covered in brilliant jewels. Candide removes the veil and sees Cunégonde. (N.B. Second incredible recognition scene of the book.). Candide and Cunégonde faint and are smothered in smelling salts by the old woman, and as they chatter, sigh, weep and shout, she tells them to make less noise). The old woman is certainly not over-emotional
Cunégonde asks Candide for the full story of what happened to him after the kiss and the kicks (up the backside) Comic refrain. She sheds some tears as he relates the death of Jacques and Pangloss.
Chapter 8
Cunégonde tells her story. After her family had been butchered, a tall Bulgare started to rape her. She struggled and screamed - not knowing that rape was the accepted general practice (N.B. Ironical humour: Voltaire's mockery of international law).
Page 72 – j’égratignai, je voulais arracher les yeux à ce grand Bulgare, ne sachant pas que tout ce qui arrivait dans le château de mon père était une chose d'usage.
Then the soldier stabbed her in the side. A Bulgare Officer came in and saw Cunégonde bleeding, and killed the Bulgare soldier for not coming to attention when he entered the room. Military priorities!
«Un capitaine bulgare entra, il me vit toute sanglante et le soldat ne se dérangeait pas. Le capitaine se mit en colère du peu de respect qu’il lui témoignait ce brutal, et le tua sur mon corps.
The Officer took her as a prisoner of war and she did his laundry and cooking. Cunégonde humorously gives the show away about their true relationship when she says that the Captain found her very pretty and that she can't deny he was handsome and had nice white skin - but to reassure Candide she says he was not schooled in philosophy.
Sensual Cunégonde has known a number of men. She is not very discreet in her confessions
After three months, the Captain, all his money gone and weary of her, sold her to a Jewish merchant, Don Issachar. Cunégonde would not yield herself to him and so to tame her he set her up in this country house. Cunégonde shows her admiration of its magnificence. Materialistic Cunégonde
One day the Grand Inquisitor eyed her at Mass.
Chapter 8 – Page 72 «Le grand inquisiteur m'aperçut à la messe; --i1 me lorgna beaucoup, et me fit dire qu'il avait à me parler pour des affaires secrètes.
An immoral senior church dignitary
This senior man of the Church wanted her for his mistress. He could not take her away completely as the Jew was influential at court but under threat of being burnt on a slow fire, the Jew agreed to share Cunégonde with the Inquisitor: three days to the Jew - four days to Monseigneur. In a matter of fact way Cunégonde describes the main problem of the arrangement, which was deciding to whom she belonged on Saturday nights
Page 73- Il y a six mois que cette convention subsiste Ce n'a pas été sans querelles; car souvent il a été indécis si la nuit du samedi au dimanche appartenait à l'ancienne loi ou à la nouvelle.
Comic detail
She maintains that she has resisted both men for six months thus retaining their affection.
The Grand Inquisitor had decided on the Auto-da-fé to prevent earthquakes and to intimidate the Jew. Don Issachar. Cunégonde had the honour to be invited to the execution and got a good seat:
Page 73 - Il me fit l'honneur de m'y inviter. Je fus très bien placée; on servit aux dames des rafraîchissements entre la messe et l'exécution. Things of the flesh are very important to Cunégonde
She was horrified to see the burning of the Basque and the Jews. She fainted with shock to see Pangloss appear in penitent garb and his hanging.
She had just come round in time to see Candide stripped naked - she describes her horror but at the same time she noticed that his skin was whiter and pinker that her Bulgare Officers!
As her cries would be of no avail, Cunégonde began to philosophise on how it could come about that Pangloss and Candide were suffering at the hands of the man who loved her.
Page 73-74 - Pangloss m'a donc bien cruellement trompée, quand il me disait que tout va le mieux du monde.
She lists all the tribulations she has suffered and finishes by saying that she thanked God for bringing Candide back to her.
Page 74 - Je louai Dieu, qui vous ramenait à moi par tant d'épreuves.
She therefore sent her old servant to Candide. Cunégonde ends her matter of fact account of these dramatic events because her stomach calls. She is famished and suggests they have supper.
When they were on the settee after dinner, Don Issachar arrived, it being the Sabbath, to enjoy his rights and explain his love. An ironical way of putting it!
Chapter 9
Furious to share Cunégonde with a third man, the Jew drew a long dagger and attacked Candide. The latter had a sword however, and in spite of his gentle manners killed Don Issachar. Page 75
Il tire son épée, quoiqu'il eût les mœurs fort douces, et vous étend l'israélite roide mort sur le carreau, aux pieds de la belle Cunégonde.
The lovers are at a loss to know what to do when at one hour after midnight the changeover occurs and the grand Inquisitor arrives and finds them together.
A comic situation that Candide should happen to be there at the changeover of Cunégonde’s lovers
Voltaire humorously gives an account of a very lucid sequence of reasoning which took place in the mind of the philosophical Candide, all in a flash before he ran the priest through with his sword: Page 75
Voici dans ce moment ce qui se passa dans l'âme de Candide, et comment il raisonna: «Si ce saint homme appelle du secours, il me fera infailliblement brûler, il pourra en faire autant de Cunégonde; il m'a fait fouetter impitoyablement: il est mon rival : je suis en train de tuer; il n'y a pas à balancer.»
Cunégonde says “Now you've done it again” and asks how someone as gentle as Candide can kill a Jew and a prelate. In a gloriously incongruous reply combining sentimentality, realistic explanations and colloquial cliché Candide replies:
Page 75 - Ma belle demoiselle, répondit Candide, quand on est amoureux, jaloux, et fouetté par l'Inquisition, on ne se connaît plus.
Humour -the surprise of the trite end phrase
The old woman advises escape to Cadiz on horseback -though she has only one buttock- taking money and jewels. With humorous incongruity she says it’s a nice cool night for travelling:
An intriguing, apparently gratuitous remark about the old lady having just one buttock. It becomes another example of humour of a repeated refrain.
The militia of Sainte Hermandad find the bodies. They respectfully lay the priest to rest in a fine church and then throw the Jew on a dunghill.
The three fugitives reach an inn 30 miles in the mountains.
Chapter 10
Cunégonde is crying because her money and diamonds have been stolen. She asks where will she find Jews and Inquisitors to give her more. Mercenary Cunégonde
The old woman suspects the thief to be the reverend Franciscan friar who had slept at the same inn. Dishonest clergy
Candide says Pangloss had always taught that the things of the earth were the property of all men, but the Franciscan should therefore have left them a share. (Voltaire is satirizing Rousseau's ideas on property, by using them as an excuse for theft).
At the old woman's suggestion they sell one horse and she sits behind Cunégonde - on one buttock:
In Cadiz they find the Spanish preparing an expedition to Paraguay (This was to put down a revolt by the Jesuits who were resisting an agreement by the Spanish government to give a part of Paraguay at that time under Jesuit control to Portugal. Both countries thought the Jesuits were becoming too rich and powerful. True History; Jesuit uprising of 1756 .)
Candide demonstrates the drill he had learnt with the Bulgare army and is enlisted as a captain. He is able to take on board Cunégonde, the old woman, two valets and the horses.
During the whole crossing to South America they argued over the philosophy of Pangloss.
Candide said that they are doubtless going to a world where everything is well. (The Optimist philosophers taught that although Existence itself was a form of perfection, in any one world certain links may be missing from the chain of being, however these might well exist in other worlds).
Page 77- Nous allons dans un autre univers, disait Candide; c'est dans celui-là, sans doute, que tout est bien. Car il faut avouer qu'on pourrait gémir un peu de ce qui se passe dans le notre en physique et en morale.
Cunégonde questions his Optimism due to her experiences: she herself has almost lost hope. She said that no-one could suffer twice her misfortunes. Cunégonde is more realistic
The old woman claims she has suffered worse. If Cunégonde knew her birth and was shown her behind! She would not say that. Comedy- Another cryptic mention of the old lady’s buttock. Bawdy humour
Chapter 11
(In the previous chapter Cunégonde has said that no-one could suffer twice her misfortunes, the old woman now disproves this).
The old woman says she has not always been ugly and a servant. She is the daughter of Pope Urbain X and the Princess of Palestrina (In an earlier edition Voltaire made her the daughter of a real Pope - Clement XII).
Up to the age of 14 she lived in wealth, far surpassing that of Cunégonde’s childhood.
She describes her previous immense beauty. This description is sensuous and has a touch of sauciness.
She was engaged to a handsome prince and they loved each other passionately.
She describes the end of this idyll, in a sharp matter of fact statement. A former mistress of her lover invited him for a drink of cocoa and he died in agony two hours later - but “that was nothing” she says:
Page 79 - une vieille marquise oui avait été maîtresse de mon prince l'invita à prendre du chocolat chez elle. Il mourut en moins de deux heures avec des convulsions épouvantables. Mais ce n'est qu'une bagatelle. The way human love works
In despair she and her mother set off for their country house but their rich ship was taken by Moroccan pirates.
Everyone was stripped and their private parts searched for hidden diamonds. Bawdy detail
At the time the old lady said she found this surprising, because she had never travelled before. Comic style the deflationary end statement
Now she knows it’s the standard practice in accordance with human rights law which has always been observed. The Knights Templar of Malta do the same to the Turks.
Page 79 - C'est une loi du droit des gens à laquelle on n'a jamais dérogé. Voltaire’s contempt for international law that accepts pillage and slavery
The women were raped throughout the whole voyage to Morocco. (The account of this rape ordeal ends with another incongruousl deflationary statement). She says these things are so common they're not worth talking about.
Their ship arrived in Morocco at the time of a bloody civil war following the death of Emperor Ismael. Historical event: The Moroccan Civil War of 1720
«Maroc nageait dans le sang quand nous arrivâmes cinquante fils de l'empereur Mulei Ismaël avaient chacun leur parti: ce qui produisait en effet cinquante guerres civiles……..:c'était un carnage continuel dans toute l'étendue de l'empire.
They were set upon by an opposing faction who tried to steal the booty from the pirates. The fighting was much bloodier than in Europe. The women were torn apart:-
Page 81 - Enfin je vis toutes nos Italiennes et ma mère déchirées, coupées, massacrées par les monstres qui se les disputaient.
Their pirate captors were also slaughtered. While such massacres took place over the length and breadth of Morocco these devout Muslims never failed in their religious devotions.:
Page 81 - Des scènes pareilles se passaient, comme on sait, dans l'étendue de plus de trois cents lieues, sans qu'on manquât aux cinq prières par jour ordonnées par Mahomet. Religion. The devout can be savage and inhumane
She dragged herself from the pile of dead to a stream and lost consciousness. She awoke to find a white man moving upon her and sighing at his misfortune to be a eunuch and lamenting his organs cut away. Page 81 Bawdy humour to end a bloody episode
J'étais dans cet état de faiblesse et d'insensibilité, entre la mort et la vie, quand je me sentis pressée de quelque chose qui s'agitait sur mon corps; j'ouvris les yeux, je vis un homme blanc et de bonne mine qui soupirait, et qui disait entre ses dents: 0 che sciagura d'essere senza c...!
(N.B. The old woman’s story demonstrates that whatever one has suffered, there is always someone who has suffered worse: the old woman had fallen from a much higher position of vastly superior wealth and had experienced more rape - more butchery and more physical suffering than Cunégonde and even more is to come).
Chapter 12
She is delighted to hear the Italian language. He takes her to his house and tends her, never regretting his incapacity more than now. He explains that he was born in Naples where 2,000 - 3,000 children are castrated each year and those who survive have fine voices. He has been in the choir of her mother the Princess of Palestrina.
He has been sent as envoy to Morocco to arrange a treaty to supply the Muslims with arms to attack their Christian enemies.
(True history – An ironical fact from the War of Spanish Succession 1701-1713.
Christian countries accepted Muslim help against their Christian enemies in the War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1713)
Now he is ready to return to Italy and will take her with him. He sings his sad (rude!) ode again. Treacherously, the Italian took her to Algiers instead and sold her to the Sultan.
Now the old woman describes her experience of a natural disaster to surpass Cunégonde's experience of the earthquake. In a great plague the Sultan, the Eunuch, and almost the whole of his harem died.
Page 82 Vous avez vu des tremblements de terre; mais, mademoiselle, avez-vous jamais eu la peste? — Jamais, répondit la baronne.
— Si vous l'aviez eue, reprit la vieille, vous avoueriez qu'elle est bien au-dessus d'un tremblement de terre. Elle est fort commune en Afrique; j'en fus attaquée. A major natural horror: the plague
After her recovery, she was sold from merchant to merchant until she reached Constantinople. (Cunégonde became a servant - the old woman had become a slave)
Finally she became the slave of a captain of the Turkish infantry. They were besieged by the Russians in the fort of Palus-Meotides.
True history: Siege of the Turks at Palus-Meotides by the Russian army. 1695 -1696
Dying of hunger the Turks decided to eat their women rather than break their vow not to surrender. A compassionate Muslim priest recommended them instead to eat a buttock of each woman instead. This is ironically presented as a charitable action, finding favour in heaven. Page 83
Il fit un beau sermon par lequel il leur persuada de ne nous pas tuer tout à fait. «Coupez, dit-il, seulement une fesse à chacune de ces dames, vous ferez très bonne chère; s'il faut y revenir, vous en aurez encore autant dans quelques jours; le ciel vous saura gré d'une action si charitable, et vous serez secourus.»
Immediately after the mutilation, the Russians took the fort and a French doctor cured her. He reassured her that what they had suffered was in accordance with the law of battle.
Page 84 - Au reste, il nous dit à toutes de nous consoler; il nous assura que dans plusieurs sièges pareille chose était arrivée, et que c'était la loi de la guerre. Voltaire’s contempt for international law
She was gardener to a Russian nobleman and then fled across Russia. She was a barmaid for a long time. She grew old in abject poverty and shame. Bitterly she reproaches that fateful weakness which makes one still love life when one could end one’s misery by suicide. (N.B. The force of her despair).
Page 84 - je voulus cent fois me tuer, mais j'aimais encore la vie. Cette faiblesse ridicule est peut-être un de nos penchants les plus funestes; car y a-t-il rien de plus sot que de vouloir porter continuellement un fardeau qu'on veut toujours jeter par terre? d'avoir son être en horreur, et de tenir à son être? Enfin de caresser le serpent qui nous dévore, jusqu'à ce qu'il nous ait mange le cœur?
She has seen many who detest their existence but few who took their lives. The old woman had known:
…..un nombre prodigieux de personnes qui avaient leur existence en exécration; mais je n'en ai vu que douze qui aient mis volontairement fin à leur misère: trois nègres, quatre Anglais, quatre Genevois, et un professeur allemand nommé Robeck.
(The last name in this comic list, Robeck, wrote a treatise about the futility of human life and then in 1739, with German thoroughness, drowned himself.)
Finally she finished as the servant of the Jew. She apologises for telling of her misfortunes, but says Cunégonde had needled her and it’s the practice to tell stories on journeys.(Humour: An anti-climactic reason for telling a tragic tale of epic proportions)
She says everyone on the ship will have often cursed his life and called himself the most miserable of men. If it is not so she tells them to throw her overboard head first.
Chapter 13
Cunégonde accepts the challenge and questions the passengers, only to discover that the old woman is in fact right. Candide regrets that Pangloss is not there to talk about the moral evil and physical evil of the earth, so that he can raise some objections to him.
On arrival in Buenos-Aires they go to the house of the governor - who has one of the fine multiple names of the Spanish nobility.
don Fernando d'Ibaraa, y Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza.
There is a comic description of this proud man.
Page 85 - Il parlait aux hommes avec le dédain le plus noble, portant le nez si haut, élevant si impitoyablement la voix, prenant un ton si imposant, affectant une démarche si altière, que tous ceux qui le saluaient étaient tentés de le battre. Comic mockery of the pompous vanity of the Spanish nobility
A great womaniser, he is attracted to Cunégonde. Candide tells him they are to be married. He sends Candide away and offers Cunégonde marriage. She asks a quarter of an hour to make her mind up. (Cunégonde is not troubled by virtuous moral principle)
The old woman advises her to marry the governor, the grandest nobleman in South America who has a fine moustache, and it will make Candide's fortune.Page 86
il ne tient qu'à vous d'être la femme du plus grand seigneur de l'Amérique méridionale, qui a une très belle moustache - Comic incongruity of the two reasons to accept a new lover.
At that moment a ship arrived with police looking for Candide - the Franciscan monk had been caught with the Grand Inquisitor’s jewels upon him and had set the police on their tracks before his execution. The old woman hears of the arrival and advises Cunégonde to stay under the governor’s protection but advises Candide to flee. (N.B. a similar situation is found in Manon Lescaut - the novel of Abbé Prevost published in 1731).Page 87
….le gouverneur, qui vous aime, ne souffrira pas qu'on vous maltraite; demeurez.» Elle court sur-le-champ à Candide: «Fuyez, dit-elle, ou dans une heure vous allez être brûlé»
Chapter 14
Candide had brought from Spain a valet, quarter Spanish - born from half caste parents in South America. He had played many different roles in life.
Page 87 - Il avait été enfant de chœur, sacristain, matelot, moine, facteur, soldat, laquais. Il s'appelait Cacambo, et aimait fort son maître, parce que son maître était un fort bon homme.
Cacambo (practical and resourceful) saddles the horses. Candide, naive as ever, weeps to abandon Cunégonde but Cacambo knows she will not be at a loss. This episode tells of the character of Cacambo and also of Candide
Cacambo had been at a Jesuit college when he was in Paraguay previously and he gets Candide to join the Jesuits, whom they had come to fight. Cacambo is an adaptable character. If things are not going well somewhere, try something else:
Page 88 - quand on n'a pas son compte dans un monde, on le trouve dans un autre. Cacambo is pragmatic not Optimistic
Cacambo knows Paraguay well. With irony he compares the poverty of the people with the wealth of the Jesuits.
Page 88 - Los Padres y ont tout, et les peuples rien; c’est le chef-d'oeuvre de la raison et de la justice. Irony Wealth of the priests/ poverty of the people
He enjoys the irony of the Jesuits who are confessors to the Kings of Europe waging war on the Kings of Spain and Portugal. (Voltaire might have had more sympathy for the Jesuits’ cause than for that of the Kings of Spain & Portugal, but the idea of the military priests greatly amused him).
The two men reach the Jesuit camp. Voltaire enjoys the mixture of the church and the army.
Page 89 - Il est à la parade après avoir dit sa messe, répondit le sergent, et vous ne pourrez baiser ses éperons que dans trois heures. Comic irony of priests waging war
When Cacambo says his master is German, they are led immediately into the luxurious quarters of the Jesuit commander - a handsome young man.
Candide discovers he is the brother of Cunégonde and they kiss and shed streams of tears. The third incredible sentimental recognition scene in his book
He is delighted how kindly fortune is shining on them. «Quoi! serait-ce vous, mon révérend père? vous, le frère de la belle Cunégonde! vous, qui fûtes tué par les Bulgares! vous, le fils de monsieur le baron! vous, jésuite au Paraguai! Il faut avouer que ce monde est une étrange chose. O Pangloss! Pangloss! que vous seriez aise si vous n'aviez pas été pendu!» Note another statement ending in comic anti-climax.
Chapter 15
The Baron, Cunégonde's brother tells how he was carried off as dead after the Bulgare massacre, but revived. He was a pretty boy and the superior of the Jesuit monastery took a tender liking to him.
Page 91 « Vous savez, mon cher Candide, que j'étais fort joli ; je le devins encore davantage; aussi le révérend père Croust,, supérieur de la maison, prit pour moi la plus tendre amitié : il me donna l'habit de novice;
Hypocritical clergy : The oath of celibacy flouted
He went to Rome. Later he was sent to Paraguay for the war.
Page 91 - Nous recevons vigoureusement les troupes du roi d'Espagne; je vous réponds qu'elles seront excommuniées et battues. (An incongruous comic statement based on the irony of soldier priests).
When Candide re-affirms that Cunégonde is alive, the two men again embrace and weep. Style Sentimentality quickly deflated But when Candide says he hopes to marry her, the Baron yells "Insolent fellow." She is too noble to marry some-one of his low rank.
Page 92
— Vous, insolent! répondit le baron, vous auriez l'impudence d'épouser ma soeur, qui a soixante et douze quartiers! Je vous trouve bien effronté d'oser me parler d'un dessein si téméraire!»
Candide objects that according to Pangloss's teaching (Pangloss is a disciple of Rousseau as well of Leibnitz) all men are equal. The Baron draws his sword and Candide runs him through. Candide laments that he, the best man in the world, has killed three men including two priests.
Page 92 - je suis le meilleur homme du monde, et voilà déjà trois hommes que je tue; et dans ces trois il y a deux prêtres.
Comedy of situation in the extreme crimes that the mild Candide is guilty of
Cacambo rushes in, dresses Candide in the Baron's robes, they take horses and they escape. Cacambo is resourceful and practical
Chapter 16
After a time in their escape, Cacambo suggests that they stop to eat. He has packed plenty of food.
Candide sentimentally sees no point in prolonging his days away from Cunégonde but he has a good appetite none the less,
Page 91 - A quoi me servira de prolonger mes misérables jours, puisque je dois les trainer loin d'elle dans les remords et dans le désespoir? Et que dira le Journal de Trévoux?
(N.B. This Jesuit newspaper had often attacked Voltaire. Comedy of the incongruous)
En parlant ainsi, il ne laissa pas de manger. As the old woman said: we express despair but still love life.
They see two naked girls, shrieking, chased by two monkeys. Candide shoots the two monkeys thinking it a praiseworthy act of pity. However, the girls weep over the dead bodies.Love: Depraved passion
Page 94
……il vit ces deux filles embrasser tendrement les deux singes, fondre en larmes sur leurs corps, et remplir l'air des cris les plus douloureux
Cacambo explains that the monkeys were their lovers and he fears revenge.
They awaken to find themselves tied up by Oreillons (a savage tribe of Paraguay) crying "Let’s eat a bit of Jesuit."
Page 95 - mangeons du jésuite, mangeons du jésuite; (by 1759 this was a catch phrase in France).
Cacambo says the girls have denounced them and that they are going to be eaten. Candide again attributes a view expounded by Rousseau to Pangloss and asks what the latter would say to see how pure nature is made:
Page 95 Nous allons certainement être rôtis ou bouillis. Ah! que dirait maître Pangloss, s'il voyait comme la pure nature est faite? Tout est bien; soit, mais j'avoue qu'il est bien cruel d'avoir perdu mademoiselle Cunégonde et d'être mis à la broche par des Oreillons.»
(Voltaire satirises Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage- Rousseau had said man is in his pure natural state is good).
Cacambo agrees with the natives that it is right to eat Jesuits; - natural law teaches us to kill our neighbour.
Page 95 - Messieurs, dit Cacambo, vous comptez donc manger aujourd’hui un jésuite? C'est très bien fait ; rien n'est plus juste que de traiter ainsi ses ennemis, En effet le droit naturel nous enseigne à tuer notre prochain, et c'est ainsi qu'on en agit dans toute la terre. Cacambo refutes a tenet of Optimism that if we have a world view, we see that good prevails over evil. Western man is not superior merely because he doesn't eat his victims - this is merely because he has a better food supply.
Resourceful Cacambo saves both their lives: He explains to the natives that he and Candide are their friends. In fact Candide has just killed their true enemy - a Jesuit. The cannibals take back the body of the Baron to check the truth. On confirmation of this, they return to release Candide and Cacambo. This is enough to restore Candide's faith that pure nature is good.
Page 96 - Mais, après tout, la pure nature est bonne, puisque ces gens-ci, au lieu de me manger, m'ont fait mille honnêtetés dès qu'ils ont su que je n'étais pas jésuite. Comic irony in Candide’s naïve faith.
Chapter l7
Cacambo tells Candide that the best of worlds does not exist in this hemisphere either. He wants to return to Europe. Page 96
Quand ils furent aux frontières des Oreillons: «Vous voyez, dit Cacambo à Candide, que cet hémisphère-ci ne vaut pas mieux que l'autre; croyez-moi, retournons en Europe par le plus court.
They set off for Cayenne the capital of French Guiana. They go through mountains, their horses die, their supplies run out, they live on fruit.
Cacambo resourceful as ever, seeing they are exhausted, suggests they take a boat. Suddenly the river narrows and they are swept rapidly downwards into a cavern for 24 hours.
Their boat is smashed. They drag themselves from rock to rock until they see a cultivated land surrounded by inaccessible mountains. On the roads are rich strange carriages drawn by red llamas.
Style: Concise, dramatic narrative describes their discovery of the land of El Dorado
The children of the village wear gold brocade and play with golden quoits. The two men pick up precious jewels strewn on the highway.
The last building like a palace is the village inn. They have a magnificent feast - free - paid for by the government.
Candide believes he has at last found the country where everything is right.
(N.B. The Eldorado episode should not be taken as proof of the Optimistic teaching that if we saw the full world picture, we would accept the prevalence of Good over Evil. - Voltaire is satirising the extreme fantasies of the Utopian novel.)
Chapter 18
An elder explains to Cacambo that they are Incas who have remained cut off from the greed of other nations by the inaccessible mountains that surround them.
Candide gets Cacambo to ask if they have a religion. He is told: they worship their God from morning to night. There is one God only. Every man is a priest of God.
Religion: The people of the perfect state of El Dorado share the same deistic principles of religion as Voltaire
Candide is amazed that they don't have intolerant monks as in the west quarrelling and burning.
Page 102 - Quoi. Vous n'avez point de moines qui enseignent, qui disputent, qui gouvernent, qui cabalent, et qui font brûler les gens qui ne sont pas de leur avis?
The old man replies :
Il faudrait que nous fussions fous, dit le vieillard; nous sommes tous ici du même avis
Religion : The Eldoradans do not experience the murderous disputes caused by people of religion in the western world
Page 102 - il est certain qu'il faut voyager.
Style : Candide’s effusive words of astonishment end in this comic trite cliché.
The old man sends them to the king’s palace. Received in this splendid building, Cacambo asks what the ceremony is for greeting the king - do they put their hands on their heads or their behinds - do they lick the dust of the hall. The reply is that they kiss the king on both cheeks. With this comic exaggeration, Voltaire is mocking European court ritual
Candide discovers there are no courts of law or prisons either.(Voltaire hated lawyers and had served two sentences in the Bastille)
There is a big palace for the study of mathematics and physics (N.B. the interests of educated men of the 18th Century Enlightenment.)
.
Page 103 Ce qui le surprit davantage, et qui lui fit le plus de plaisir, ce fut le palais des sciences, dans lequel il vit une galerie de deux mille pas, toute pleine d'instruments de mathématique et de physique.
At dinner Candide was surprised to find that the king was a real wit (N.B. Louis XV was noted for his lack of wit).
Candide wished to return to see Cunégonde and both he and Cacambo wished to take jewels to Europe where they think they will be rich and admired.
The King thinks them unwise -- but will not force them to stay. (Perhaps Voltaire is making a critical reference to Frederick the Great who had caused him great distress by detaining him in Prussia). The king arranges for machines to be made to hoist them over the mountains.
They take 2 llamas to ride and 100 others loaded with jewels and supplies.
There is a sense that Candide got bored in this land where everything was given to you without effort and this links with a lesson learnt in the final lesson of the book.
Çhapter l9
At the start of their journey they were delighted with their treasure and Candide wrote Cunégonde's name on the trees. (N.B. Candide is very sentimental. Love is the main driving force of his life).
After two days their llamas began to die and out of the 100 they had only two left. Boundless hope is followed by abrupt disaster
Candide says only love lasts:-
- Page 106 - Mon ami, vous voyez comme les richesses de ce monde sont périssables; il n'y a rien de solide que la vertu et le bonheur de revoir mademoiselle Cunégonde.
Cacambo says they have still more treasures than the king of Spain and sees that they are approaching Surinam in Dutch Guiana.
Near the town they come across a black man with his left leg and his right hand cut off. He confirms that his master the Dutch trader Vanderdendur had done it to him.
Page 106 - On nous donne un caleçon de toile pour tout vêtement deux fois l'année. Quand nous travaillons aux sucreries, et que la meule nous attrape le doigt, on nous coupe la main; quand nous voulons nous enfuir on nous coupe la jambe; je me suis trouvé dans les deux cas.
The horrors of slavery
When his parents in Guinea sold him into slavery, they had promised him happiness, yet he is more miserable than a dog, the monkeys or the parrots. Yet in their churches the Dutch pastors teach them that men of all colours are all children of Adam.
Page 106
les fétiches (ministres) hollandais qui m'ont converti me disent tous les dimanches que nous sommes tous enfants d'Adam, blancs et noirs. Je ne suis pas généalogiste; mais si ces precheurs disent vrai, nous sommes tous cousins issus de germain. Or vous m'avouerez qu'on ne peut pas en user avec ses parents d'une manière plus horrible
On seeing the evils of slavery Candide rejects Pangloss's optimism. He describes Optimism as madness to Cacambo. Candide is compassionate. Shocked by slavery, Candide momentarily rejects the teachings of Optimism
Page 107 - c'est la rage de soutenir que tout est bien quand on est mal. Et il versait des larmes en regardant son nègre, et en pleurant, il entra dans Surinam.
At Surinam Candide learns that Cunégonde is the governor’s favourite mistress. He sends Cacambo to Buenos Aires to get Cunégonde, bribing the governor if need be - Candide is still a wanted man and cannot go. He will charter a boat to Venice where he will be safe.
Candide arranged for the Dutch trader Vanderdendur to take him to Italy - but naively he revealed his wealth, by agreeing to any figure the merchant suggested. The two llamas were embarked on the ship. Candide followed in a rowing boat but the ship sailed without him.
Candide is victim of a massive act of dishonesty, perpetrated by the Dutch merchant
Frantically Candide went to a Dutch judge, who began by fining him for knocking too loudly at the door. He said he would look into the matter when the merchant returned and charged 30,000 piastres for the audience.
Page 108 Il se transporte chez le juge hollandais; et, comme il était un peu troublé, il frappe rudement à la porte; il entre, expose son aventure, et crie un peu plus haut qu'il ne convenait. Le juge commença par lui faire payer dix mille piastres pour le bruit qu'il avait fait; ensuite il l'écouta patiemment, lui promit d'examiner son affaire sitôt que le marchand serait revenu, et se fit) payer dix mille autres piastres pour les frais de l'audience.
Voltaire’s contempt for the expensive ineffectiveness of lawyers
Candide plunges into the blackest melancholy.
Page 109- La méchanceté des hommes se présentait à son esprit dans toute sa laideur, il ne se nourrissait que d'idées tristes.
A moment of complete despair for Candide
Candide booked a modest berth on a French boat going to Bordeaux and offered to pay the passage of any gentleman provided he was the unhappiest man in the province, most disgusted with his condition. He is overwhelmed with applicants. The unhappiness of the human condition
Page 109
Il se présenta une foule de prétendants qu'une flotte n'aurait pu contenir.
Narrowing them down to twenty, Candide listens to their stories, which he feels disprove the system of Pangloss.
Page 109- Il songeait à Pangloss à chaque aventure qu'on lui contait. Ce Pangloss, disait-il, serait bien embarrassé à démontrer son système.
He finally chose an old man of learning, Martin, who had been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, deserted by his daughter - abducted by a Portuguese, persecuted by the Dutch Pastor as a Socinien (i.e. a person who says Christ was a man not a God. This is another example of religious intolerance).
Chapter 20
Had Candide and the old man of learning had to sail from Surinam to Japan via the Cape of Good Hope they would still have had further experiences to relate about the moral and physical evil of the world.
Candide has one hope remaining: Cunégonde.
Page 110 - Cependant Candide avait un grand avantage sur Martin, c'est qu'il espérait toujours revoir mademoiselle Cunégonde.
Candide, still inspired by love, turns again to Optimism in moments of physical contentment
Especially at the end of a good meal, Candide still inclined towards Pangloss's Optimism.
Martin says that he is not a Socinian but a Manichean. (Manicheans believed that there were two conflicting powers in the world - light and darkness - and the existence of the powers of darkness accounted for the evil and suffering in the world. Manichaeism was declared a heresy by the Catholic Church and was suppressed with great violence - but its ideas may be seen incorporated in some of the Church's beliefs).
Martin says that only the existence of the devil could account for the evil of the world:
(1) The hostility between men - between neighbouring towns - between families.
(2) The class hatred - the weak detest their masters - the masters despise their serfs.
(3) War - one million trained murderers roaming Europe.
Je n'ai guère vu de ville qui ne désirât la ruine de la ville voisine point de famille qui ne voulût exterminer quelque autre famille. Partout les faibles ont en exécration les puissants devant lesquels ils rampent, et les puissants les traitent comme des troupeaux dont on vend la laine et la chair. Un million d'assassins enrégimentés, courant d'un bout de l'Europe à l'autre, exerce le meurtre et le brigandage avec discipline pour gagner son pain, parce qu'il n'a pas de métier plus honnête;
(4) The jealousies and anxieties of men at peace.
Page 111 - dans les villes qui paraissent jouir de la paix, et ou les arts fleurissent, les hommes sont dévorés de plus d'envie, de soins et d'inquiétudes qu'une ville assiégée n'éprouve de fléaux. Les chagrins secrets sont encore plus cruels que les
misères publiques. En un mot, j'en ai tant vu et tant éprouvé que je suis manichéen.
Martin’s total pessimism
Just as Candide is asserting there is some good in the world they see a sea battle. One ship is sunk and the ship’s company, about a hundred standing on the deck, put up a terrible scream before they are swallowed up.
The ship which is sunk is the Dutch pirate - Vanderdendur who had robbed Candide. Candide regains one of his llamas. Candide concludes that the wicked are punished sometimes. Martin objects that if God had punished the wicked, mustn’t it have been the devil who drowned the innocent passengers? Chapter 20 page 112:
«Vous voyez, dit Candide à Martin, que le crime est puni quelquefois; ce coquin de patron hollandais a eu le sort qu'il méritait.
« Oui, dit Martin; mais fallait-il que les passagers qui étaient sur son vaisseau périssent aussi? Dieu a puni ce fripon, le diable a noyé les autres.»
After fifteen days’ argument they are no further advanced than the first, but at least there is consolation in exchanging ideas. Page 112 - Ils disputèrent quinze jours de suite, et au bout de quinze jours ils étaient aussi avancés que le premier. Mais enfin ils parlaient, ils se communiquaient des idées, ils se consolaient.
The futility of metaphysical speculation but intellectual debate between friends has its consolations.
Chapter 21
As they approach France, Martin makes a scathing attack on the French. Half are mad, some are too crafty, some quite nice and quite stupid, some witty.
Their occupations are
- 1) Love
- 2) Slander
- 3) Saying stupid things.
Paris is a place where the throng seek pleasure without finding it. Martin was robbed there and thrown in prison for suspected robbery.
Page 113 - Je connus la canaille écrivante, la canaille cabalante, et la canaille convulsionnaire. Style -A comic list
(N.B. The Jansenist zealots used to go into convulsions when performing miracles).
When Candide asks Martin he was astonished to see the love the girls felt for the monkeys and whether he thinks men have always had the same character faults they show today,
Page114
N'êtes-vous pas bien étonné, continua Candide, de l'amour que ces deux filles du pays des Oreillons avaient pour ces deux singes, et dont je vous ai conté l'aventure?
Martin has a totally negative view of human behaviour
— Point du tout, dit Martin; je ne vois pas ce que cette passion a d'étrange: j'ai tant vu de choses extraordinaires qu'il n’y a plus rien d’extraordinaire
Page 114 - Croyez-vous, dit Candide, que les hommes se soient toujours mutuellement massacrés comme ils font aujourd’hui? qu'ils aient toujours été menteurs, fourbes, perfides, ingrats, brigands, faibles, volages lâches, envieux, gourmands, ivrognes avares, ambitieux, sanguinaires, calomniateurs, débauchés, fanatiques, hypocrites et sots. Voltaire’s style is usually economical but here he uses a barrage of words
Martin says these are the permanent characteristics of men:
Croyez-vous, dit Martin, que les éperviers aient toujours mangé des pigeons quand ils en ont trouvé? ……..si les éperviers ont toujours eu le même caractère, pourquoi voulez-vous que les hommes aient changé le leur?
The two of them argue philosophy during the whole voyage.
Chapter 22
Having arrived in Bordeaux, Candide sees all the travellers going to Paris and is curious to see the city for himself.
In Paris Candide is taken slightly ill and being rich is surrounded by doctors, friends and devout ladies. With the help of this treatment, the illness becomes serious. Voltaire’s use of irony
Martin recognised what kind of friends they were. Page 115:
Martin disait « Je me souviens d'avoir été malade aussi à Paris dans mon premier voyage; j'étais fort pauvre aussi n'eussé-je ni amis, ni dévotes, ni médecins, et je me guéris.
A local asked Candide to sign a document to prove that he was not a Jansenist so that he could have the last rites and Christian burial. Candide refused and Martin threw the man out.
Religious Intolerance: Jansenism was a reform movement within the French Catholic church , forcibly suppressed in the18th century
Candide recovered. He had a lot of company. Gambled heavily and always lost.
One of the hangers-on is a little priest from the Périgord.
Parmi ceux qui lui faisaient les honneurs de la ville, il y avait un petit abbé périgourdin l'un de ces gens empressés; toujours alertes, toujours serviables et effrontés, caressants, accommodants, qui guettent les étrangers à leur passage, leur content l’histoire scandaleuse de la ville, et leur offrent des plaisirs à tout prix.
Another corrupt man of religion
He takes them to the opera. Candide is moved by the play but the professional theatre critic at his side argues that he has no right to be. Page 116:
Un des raisonneurs qui étaient à ses côtés lui dit dans un entr'acte: «Vous avez grand tort de pleurer, cette actrice est fort mauvaise; l'acteur qui joue avec elle est plus mauvais acteur encore; la pièce est encore plus mauvaise que les acteurs;
Later, page 117, the priest explains that this man is a failed writer who now denigrates the work of all others out of envy :
This critic:
gagne sa vie à dire du mal de toutes les pièces et de tous les livres ; il hait quiconque réussit, …….c’est un de ces serpents de la 1ittérature, qui se nourrissent de fange et de venin ;
(Voltaire was greatly angered by destructive criticism in drama and the arts .)
Candide is attracted by the leading actress who reminds him of Cunégonde and wishes to meet her. He asks what the etiquette is. The Priest says in Paris a beautiful actress has respect when she's alive and is thrown on the dunghill when she's dead.
(N.B. Adrienne Lecouvreur 1692-1730 a famous Racinian actress and friend of Voltaire had been refused a Christian burial).
The Priest takes them to the house of a noble lady, a marchioness, where a game of cards is taking place (Voltaire shows his dislike of the grim solemnity and tedium of card playing).
They go to dinner and converse. One of the guests, a critic, talks about the arts.
(Voltaire uses the words of this man to defend himself against what he sees as the pedantic reasoning of two theologians who have attacked him and his fellow Philosophes. It is an episode which he inserted only in later editions.)
The critic also outlines his ideas of drama. (In this, Voltaire is also defending, without saying so, one of his own plays).
When the hostess tells Candide that this man who is so expert in the arts has written one play which was a disastrous failure and one book of which not one copy sold, Candide is impressed.
Page 120 - il se connaît parfaitement en tragédies et en livres, et il a fait une tragédie sifflée, et un livre dont on n'a jamais vu hors de la boutique de son libraire qu'un exemplaire, qu'il m'a dédié. Le grand homme: dit Candide, c'est un autre Pangloss.
There are several layers of irony in Candide’s naïve admiration.
Candide asks the man if he believes everything is at its best. The man replies that everything is awry: No-one knows what is his rank, his responsibility what he should be doing. Only when they are at supper does the succession of quarrels that fills their lives stop.
Jansenists against Jesuits.
Parliamentarians against Churchmen.
Literary men against Literary men.
Courtiers against Courtiers.
Financiers against the people
Wives against husbands
Relatives against relatives.
He concludes therefore-
Page 120 - c'est une guerre éternelle.
Strife in public and domestic life.
The marchioness shamelessly seduces Candide and successfully wheedles his diamond rings from him. Bawdy episode: The immoral society ladies of Paris
Candide tells the little priest about Cunégonde and the priest slyly finds out if Candide has ever had a letter from Cunégonde. When it is clear that he hasn’t Candide receives a letter supposedly from Cunégonde saying she is lying sick in Paris.
Candide finds the supposed Cunégonde in bed. The servant says there must be no light, he mustn't open the bed curtain, and she must not speak. The girl puts an arm out of the bed curtain which Candide kisses and covers with diamonds. He leaves a sack of gold. Immediately, the little priest arrives with a policeman and a gang of men and they have Candide and Martin arrested as suspicious strangers. They are thrown into a dungeon.
Another act of fraud and deception
On the advice of Martin, Candide avoids taking a chance on the doubtful processes of law. Recognising that the priest and the police officer were dishonest rogues, he offered them bribes for their release. The officer of the law replied;
Page 123 - Ah, Monsieur, lui dit l’homme au bâton d'ivoire, eussiez-vous commis tous les crimes imaginables, vous êtes le plus honnête homme du monde. Trois diamants chacun de trois mille pistoles! Monsieur: je me ferais tuer pour vous.
How the law is corrupted by money
Candide asks why they are arresting foreigners and is told with comic indirectness that it is because a man from Artois has tried to assassinate the King.
(Artois was indeed the birthplace of a man called Damiens, who attempted to assassinate Louis XV in 1757. This failed attempt on the king’s life was followed by mass arrests including a lot of foreigners.)
Candide is shocked and wishes to leave this savage country.
Having bought the co-operation of the brother of the officer of the law, who lived in Normandy - Candide and Martin got away from France by on a boat destined for Portsmouth.
Chapter 23
As they approach Portsmouth, they ares hocked to witness the cold-bloodied, ceremonial execution of Admiral Byng, on the quarterdeck of his ship. (1757 - Historical Event: The execution of Admiral Byng for his failure to engage the enemy fleet. Voltaire had tried to intervene to save him)
Page 124 - En causant ainsi ils abordèrent a Portsmouth; une multitude de peuple couvrait le rivage, et regardait attentivement un assez gros homme qui était à genoux, les yeux bandés, sur le tillac d'un des vaisseaux de la flotte; quatre soldats, postés vis-à-vis de cet homme, lui tirèrent chacun trois balles dans le crâne, le plus paisiblement du monde; et toute 1'assemblée s'en retourna extrêmement satisfaite.
Style : effective, concise description of events.
To Candide's objection that Byng was not further away from the French admiral than the French admiral was from him, comes the immortal reply
Page 125 - mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.
An ironical phrase of Voltaire that is now universally known and used.
Candide is so shocked he pays the captain to sail to Venice, where everything will be well for him with Cunégonde.
Chapter 24
Candide despairs when he finds that Cacambo has not arrived in Venice with Cunégonde. He falls into a dark melancholy, believing that Martin’s permanent pessimism is correct. A new pessimistic low for Candide
Martin is convinced that Cacambo has betrayed him. There is no virtue or happiness on earth, except perhaps in El Dorado - where no-one can go.
(N.B. El Dorado does not offer a realistic alternative).
Candide sees happiness existing in a young monk with a girl on his arm. Both seem in love and happy. Page 126
Je n'ai trouvé jusqu'à présent dans toute la terre habitable, excepté dans Eldorado, que des infortunés; mais pour cette fille et ce théatin, je gage que ce sont des créatures très heureuses.
Martin bets otherwise.
They invite the couple to dinner. The girl reveals herself to be Paquette who had been Pangloss's mistress.
A fourth incredible recognition scene in this book.
She tells how her father confessor, a Franciscan, had given her the pox which she had passed on to Pangloss.
She had left the palace shortly after Candide had had the kicks up the backside.(Comic refrain)
A doctor had cured her and made her his mistress. He was ugly and his wife beat her until he gave his wife a remedy for a cold which killed her in two hours. Pessimistic view of Love and Marriage
She was arrested for murder but cleared on becoming the Judge’s mistress.
Page 128 Mon innocence ne m'aurait pas sauvée si je n'avais été un peu jolie. Le juge m'élargit, à condition qu'il succéderait au médecin.
The picture of sexual corruption
He soon found some-one to replace her and she became a prostitute again.
Page 128,- et obligée de continuer ce métier abominable qui vous paraît si plaisant à vous autres hommes, et qui n'est pour nous qu'un abîme de misère.
She describes its degradation and the final end; a terrible old age, a hospital - a dungheap. The misery of prostitution
Martin has won half the bet. Paquette’s joy with the monk was all pretence. Page 128
Ah! Monsieur, répondit Paquette, c'est encore là une des misères du métier. J'ai été hier volée et battue par un officier, et il faut aujourd’hui que je paraisse de bonne humeur pour plaire a un moine.
The monk describes how he hates monastic life. His parents forced him, the younger brother, into the church to avoid dividing the family inheritance. Discord rules in the convent and all the monks are ready to smash their heads against the dormitory wall:
Page 129 - La jalousie, la discorde, la rage, habitent dans le couvent.
Religion The unchristian realities of monastic life.
Candide pays up to Martin and gives Paquette and Brother Giroflée a little fortune each. Martin predicts money will make them unhappier still. Martin believes that happiness is not assured by material wealth
Candide suggests they visit Senator Pococurante (literally little care) who is supposed not to have known sorrow.
Chapter 25
They find the 60 year old Italian Lord in his luxurious palace.
He is polite but unenthusiastic.
Candide praises the beauty of his serving girls. The senator says he sleeps with them sometimes but he is growing weary of their quarrels and their moods.
Candide praises his art collection, He dismisses them. He only likes natural art and he cannot find any.
He wearies of the music he has played, He can't stand Italian opera.
In literature he finds Homer repetitious. He enjoys only three books of Virgil’s Aeniad. He sees value in the Maxims of Horace but in little else of his work.
Martin finds these criticisms reasonable.
(N.B. Pococurante expresses many of the views of Voltaire)
He dismisses the works of Cicero.
He dismisses theoretical science as useless.
Page 133 - si un seul des auteurs de ces fatras avait inventé seulement l'art de faire des épingles; mais il n'y a dans tous ces livres que de vains systèmes, et pas une seule chose utile.
Of the 3,000 plays he has he finds less than 3 dozen good ones.
The many volumes of sermons have very little value and theology none.
He has many books in English and admires the freedom of expression in England in contrast with Italy, where the Dominicans suppress ideas. Admiration for the freedom of thought in England, compared with the suppression of freedom of thought by the Catholic church there in Italy
Page 133 - Dans toute notre Italie, on n'écrit que ce qu'on ne pense pas; ceux qui habitent la patrie des Césars et des Antonins n'osent avoir une idée sans la permission d'un Jacobin. (N.B. a Jacobin is a Dominican monk).
Yet he deplores the bitter party politics of England.
Pococurante regards Milton as obscure, bizarre and disgusting.
Pococurante doesn't like his garden which is too affected.
Candide, leaving, says they have met a man who is above everything he possesses. But Martin has a different verdict:
Page 135-
Quand les deux curieux eurent pris congé de Son Excellence: «Or çà, dit Candide à Martin, vous conviendrez que voilà le plus heureux de tous les hommes, car il est au-dessus de tout ce qu'il possède.
« Ne voyez-vous pas, dit Martin, qu'il est dégoûté de tout ce qu'il possède? Platon a dit, il y a longtemps, que les meilleurs estomacs ne sont pas ceux qui rebutent tous les aliments.
At least Candide will be happy when Cunégonde returns.
Chapter 25 - C'est toujours bien fait d'espérer, dit Martin
Paquette and Giroflée have left without thanking Candide.
Pococurante has everything: Wealth, access to the gems of culture, even the opportunity to study the modern sciences and is totally blasé. This chapter shows that wealth alone does not bring contentment
Chapter 26
One day at the inn a man with a black face takes Candide by the arm. It is Cacambo. He tells Candide that Cunégonde is in Constantinople and he is a slave to one of the men at the inn.
At table Candide finds 6 strangers. After the meal the servants of each man come to them and all address their masters as "Your Majesty." Candide thinks it is a mascarade but each man speaks in turn.
(1) Cacambo's master is Achmet III, the dethroned Grand Sultan.
(2) Ivan, the Czar of Russia - dethroned at birth,
(3) Charles-Edward, the Young Pretender to the British throne.
(4) August III, King of Poland - driven out by Frederick the Great.
(5) King Stanislas of Poland.
(6) Theodore, King of Corsica.
Style the repetitive refrain, ironically applied in turn for men who had nothing to celebrate.
Page 137 - et je suis venu passer le carnaval à Venise.
The Kings make a gift to the poverty stricken King of Corsica, but Candide donates a diamond worth100 times as much as each of theirs. Voltaire accentuates the message repeated in the final paragraph. :
Page 138 - Dans l'instant qu'on sortait de table, il arriva dans la même hôtellerie quatre altesses sérénissimes qui avaient aussi perdu leurs Etats par le sort de la guerre, et qui venaient passer le reste du carnaval à Venise.
But Candide thinks only of Cunégonde.
Chapter 27
They take a boat to Constantinople with Cacambo and his master his miserable Highness!
Candide feels Pangloss' teachings are true: everything is right. Candide’s Optimism returns - briefly
He tells Martin:
Page 138 «Voilà pourtant six rois détrônés avec qui nous avons soupé! et encore dans ces six rois il y en a un à qui j'ai fait l'aumône. Peut-être y a-t-il beaucoup d'autres princes plus infortunés. Pour moi, je n'ai perdu que cent moutons, et je vole dans les bras de Cunégonde.
Cacambo tells Candide that Cunégonde is now a slave for the Hungarian Prince Ragotski, washing dishes and she has become horribly ugly.
Cacambo tells how he paid the Governor in Buenos Aires for Cunégonde. How a pirate took them across the world until he left them as slaves.
Candide will buy Cunégonde's freedom but regrets that she is ugly. He wonders now, whether he is not more to be pitied than the Kings they have just met.
On arrival at the Black Sea, Candide buys Cacambo's freedom and then takes a galley to Constantinople.
On the galley were two slaves who rowed badly and got themselves constantly whipped. Candide thinks they resemble Pangloss and Cunégonde's brother. At the mention of their names they leap up and confirm who they are. The fifth incredible recognition scene in this book.
Candide asks the galley master how much he requires in order to free the two:
Page 141 - combien voulez-vous d'argent pour la rançon de monsieur de Thunder-ten-tronckh, un des premiers barons de l'empire, et de monsieur Pangloss, le plus profond métaphysicien d'Allemagne?
A sentimental reunion takes place. Candide pays their ransom. Pangloss throws himself at Candide's feet in gratitude. The brother gives a nod of thanks and promises to repay him. Arrogance of the nobility
Page 141 Il paya incontinent la rançon du baron et de Pangloss. Celui-ci se jeta aux pieds de son libérateur, et les baigna de larmes; l'autre le remercia par un signe de tête, et lui promit de lui rendre cet argent à la première occasion.
Chapter 28
The Baron tells his story first. He had been cured of the wound, and then captured by the Spanish.
Afterwards he was appointed as chaplain to the ambassador of France in Constantinople. He had not been there a week when he went bathing in the nude with a young Muslim boy.Sexual morals of a Jesuit
Page 142 Je fus nommé pour aller servir d'aumônier à Constantinople auprès de monsieur l'ambassadeur de France. Il n'y avait pas huit jours que j'étais entré en fonction, quand je trouvai sur le soir un jeune icoglan très bien fait. Il faisait fort chaud: le jeune homme voulut se baigner; je pris cette occasion de me baigner aussi. Je ne savais pas que ce fût un crime capital pour un chrétien d'être trouvé tout nu avec un jeune musulman.
He was caught, caned on the sole of his feet 100 times and sent to the galley.
Pangloss tells his story. He explains why they hanged him. It was raining so hard they couldn't light a fire and hanging was the best they could do. After he had been hanged a surgeon bought his body and started to dissect him. He made a cut from his navel to his clavicle and this woke Pangloss up. The executioner of the high works of the Holy Inquisition was marvellous at burning people but very inexperienced at hanging.
Comedy. The exaggerated detail of the sufferings of Pangloss the Optimist
The Portuguese surgeon/barber was terrified but finally he and his wife looked after Pangloss. In two weeks he had recovered. Eventually he went to Constantinople. One day he took it into his head to go into a mosque. There was a pretty girl praying with her bosom uncovered, and a bouquet of flowers between her breasts. When she dropped them Pangloss replaced them for her. (Humour Pangloss irrelevantly names the six flowers in the bouquet). He took so long doing this that the priest called for help. Bawdy humour
The lechery of Pangloss- told indirectly. NB Voltaire attributes Pangloss with the sexual appetites that he believed Rousseau to have
Pangloss was sentenced to 100 strokes on the sole of his feet and to row in the galleys, (N.B. the comic parallel with the Baron's punishment).
Pangloss found himself chained next to the Baron. Voltaire piles on the comic improbability with a description of the galley crew.
Comedy of exaggeration and incongruity
Page 144 - Il y avait dans cette galère quatre jeunes gens de Marseille, cinq prêtres napolitains, et deux moines de Corfou, qui nous dirent que de pareilles aventures arrivaient tous les jours.
Candide asked Pangloss whether after his experiences he still thought things happened for the best. Page 144:
Eh bien! mon cher Pangloss, lui dit Candide, quand vous avez été pendu, disséqué, roué de coups, et que vous avez ramé aux galères, avez-vous toujours pensé que tout allait le mieux du monde ?
Pangloss replied that as a philosopher it was not proper for him to change his point of view - Leibnitz could not be wrong. Page 144 -.
« Je suis toujours de mon premier sentiment, répondit Pangloss; car enfin je suis philosophe: il ne me convient pas de me dédire, Leibnitz ne pouvant pas avoir tort, et l'harmonie préétablie étant d 'ailleurs la plus belle chose du monde, aussi bien que le plein et la matière subtile.»
Stubbornness of some academics
Chapter 29
While they were discussing their experiences in the light of the theories of Optimism, they came to the shores of Lake Propontide where Cunégonde was hanging out the washing. She is now weather-beaten-wrinkled - her bosom wizened - her eyes bloodshot. Romantic illusions: Beauty fades. Candide’s hopes are crushed.
Page 145
Le baron pâlit à cette vue. Le tendre amant Candide, en voyant sa belle Cunégonde rembrunie, les yeux éraillés, la gorge sèche, les joues ridées, les bras rouges et écaillés, récula trois pas, saisi d'horreur et avança ensuite par bon procédé. Elle embrassa et Candide et son frère; on embrassa la vieille: Candide les racheta toutes deux.
Candide, shocked, kisses her purely out of courtesy. He pays her ransom and the old woman’s to free them from slavery.
Candide decides to buy a little farm in Constantinople. (Voltaire had been struck by the similarity between the view from Constantinople and the view from his house of refuge in Lausanne).
Cunégonde not knowing she is ugly expects absolutely Candide to marry her. Not daring to refuse, Candide notifies the Baron of the marriage. He refuses - his sister can only marry a baron of the Empire. Arrogance of the German nobility.
Chapter 30
Conclusion
Candide decides to marry Cunégonde - although he has no wish to- because she is pressing him and he wishes to affront the insolence of the Baron.
They all discuss how to get rid of the Baron, and accept Cacambo's scheme of putting him back on the galleys to send him to the Jesuit father general in Rome.
Candide did not find happiness after his marriage. Money usurers cheated him of his fortune. His wife became shrewish, the old woman infirm and ill tempered. Cacambo was overworked in the garden. Pangloss despaired not to be shining in a German university. Martin was stoical, convinced that things were better nowhere else.
They argued metaphysics and ethics.
They saw Turkish statesmen come and go as governments fell.
When they did not argue they were so bored that the old woman said:
Page 147 - Je voudrais savoir lequel est le pire, ou d'être violée cent fois par des pirates nègres, d'avoir une fesse coupée, de passer par les baguettes chez les Bulgares, d'être fouetté et pendu dans un auto-da-fé, d'être disséqué, de ramer en galère, d'éprouver enfin toutes les misères par lesquelles nous avons tous passé, ou bien de rester ici à ne rien faire? C'est une grande question», dit Candide.The trials of boredom and a life without challenge.
Martin concludes that one either lives in convulsions and anxiety or in lethargy and boredom.
Page 147
Ce discours fit naître de nouvelles réflexions, et Martin surtout conclut que l'homme était né pour vivre dans les convulsions de l'inquiétude, ou dans la léthargie de l'ennui.
Pangloss said having once affirmed that everything went marvellously he still maintained it and didn't believe a word of it.
Paquette and Giroflee turn up having squandered their money and been reduced to poverty - Giroflée has become a Muslim - Paquette had become a prostitute again.
Candide goes to consult a dervish to understand what life is about. This Muslim cleric is the most famous philosopher in Turkey.
Pangloss is the spokesman and asks the question:
Page 148
Pangloss porta la parole, et lui dit:
« Maître, nous venons vous prier de nous dire pourquoi un aussi étrange animal que l'homme a été formé?
« De quoi te mêles-tu? lui dit le derviche; est-ce là ton affaire?
Candide asks him about the evil in the world.
« Mais, mon révérend père, dit Candide, il y a horriblement de mal sur la terre.
The Dervish replies by asking what does God care about man.
« Qu'importe, dit le derviche, qu'il y ait du mal ou du bien? …..
Does a great King sending a vessel to Egypt worry whether the mice in the hold are comfortable? God is indifferent to human suffering, says the Derviche
Pangloss asks what they should do. The Dervish replies "Shut up."
148 - Que faut-il donc faire? dit Pangloss. Te taire, dit le derviche. Man should suffer in silence
When Pangloss starts to talk metaphysics the Dervish shuts the door in his face.
« Je me flattais, dit Pangloss, de raisonner un peu avec vous des effets et des causes, du meilleur des mondes possibles, de l'origine du mal, de la nature de l'âme, et de l'harmonie préétablie.»
Le derviche, à ces mots, leur ferma la porte au nez.
Metaphysical speculation is not the business of humans says the derviche
On the way back they hear of another bloody palace revolution in Constantinople. They ask an old man taking the air in his orange grove about it. He replies that he does not inquire what goes on in Constantinople, but is content to send there the fruit he grows. Page 148/9
J'ignore absolument l'aventure dont vous me parlez ; je présume qu'en général ceux qui se mêlent des affaires publiques périssent quelquefois misérablement, et qu'ils le méritent; mais je ne m'informe jamais de ce qu'on fait à Constantinople; je me contente d'y envoyer vendre les fruits du jardin que je cultive.».
They are advised not to expose themselves to the dangers of public life
He receives them with good hospitality. Candide says he must have a fine property.
The Turk replies he has only twenty acres for himself and his family - work takes away three great vices: boredom - vice - need.
Page 149:
Je n'ai que vingt arpents, répondit le Turc- je les cultive avec mes enfants; le travail éloigne de nous trois grands maux, l'ennui, le vice, et le besoin.»
The modest requirements for a contented way of life. The virtues of hard work
Candide is impressed by the lifestyle of the old man and says it is superior to that of the six deposed kings whom they recently me in Venice.
Pangloss agrees that grandeur is dangerous and lists pretentiously the sufferings of great men of history. Style; Pangloss’s long list of historical precedents; his verbosity contrasts with the concise style of the book
Candide cuts him short and states the new principle for their life.
Page 145 - Je sais aussi, dit Candide, qu'il faut cultiver notre jardin.
Martin elaborates the previous principle Page 150 –
Travaillons sans raisonner, dit Martin; c'est le seul moyen de rendre la vie supportable.
From then on each one of them worked and their farm had a good yield. Cunégonde baked, Paquette embroidered, the old woman did the laundry, and the monk worked as a carpenter and even became a decent fellow.
Sometimes Pangloss would start to prove that all the misfortunes of their lives were linked in accordance with the Optimist theory of the chain of events in such a way that that they could finally eat citrons and nuts in Turkey. Page 150: Pangloss summarises the events of the book, to prove that they show the very opposite of what a rational person would judge them to show.
Pangloss disait quelquefois à Candide:Tous les événements sont enchaînés dans le meilleur des mondes possibles: car enfin si vous n'aviez pas été chassé d'un beau château à grands coups de pied dans le derrière pour l'amour de mademoiselle Cunégonde, si vous n'aviez pas été mis à l'Inquisition, si vous n'aviez pas couru l'Amérique à pied, si vous n'aviez pas donné un bon coup d'épée au baron, si vous n'aviez pas perdu tous vos moutons du bon pays d'Eldorado vous ne mangeriez pas ici des cédrats confits et des pistaches.
Candide no longer had patience for this:
Page 150 - Cela est bien dit, répondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin. The famous moral that ends the book
THE END