Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Candide
    Candide
    Candide
    Ebook166 pages2 hours

    Candide

    By Voltaire

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Voltaire's Candide is political satire that has endured for centuries. Required reading in many high school AP courses and college English courses, Candide tells the story of a starry-eyed young man who struggles to reunite with his lost love. Eschewing mystical optimism for a more philosophy, Candide and his companions finally retire together, embracing a simple life on a small farm.
    This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it.

    Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes



    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXist Publishing
    Release dateMar 10, 2015
    ISBN9781623958053
    Author

    Voltaire

    François-Marie Arouet (1694 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works.He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.

    Read more from Voltaire

    Related to Candide

    Related ebooks

    Satire For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Women’s Prize For Fiction 2021 Longlist: The Inspiring Books To Read

      Mar 17, 2021

      Reading a truly remarkable novel can be a wonderful way to pass the time – transporting you far and wide, putting you in other people’s shoes and sparking emotion. If your reading list is in a fallow period, the announcement of the Women’s Prize for

      6 min read

    • Article

      The NEW GOLDEN AGE

      Dec 16, 2021

      The NEW GOLDEN AGE
      7 min read

    • Article

      My Early Life

      Jan 28, 2018

      It is hard to believe that, in a life rich with writings and crowned with the 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature, Churchill wrote so little autobiography. In a year in which he has been so present cinematically (two feature films—Churchill and Darkest H

      5 min read

    • Article

      Senior Sleuths Step In To Solve The Crime In ‘The Thursday Murder Club’

      Sep 22, 2020

      With wry British humor, and a cast of intrepid retirees, Richard Osman’s delightful mystery caper offers surprising depth.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Royal Reads

      Sep 9, 2020

      The Duchess of Cornwell has shared some of her favourite recent reads to inspire book lovers and promote reading. Her Royal Highness is an avid reader and patron of several literary organisations. Gothic horror meets psychological realism. A crime t

      1 min read

    • Article

      Worth the Wait

      Jun 13, 2017

      Worth the Wait
      13 min read

    • Article

      A Literary Land

      Oct 5, 2018

      A Literary Land
      4 min read

    • Article

      Healing Stage

      Oct 16, 2022

      Healing Stage
      5 min read

    • Article

      In Your Dreams

      Mar 25, 2022

      In Your Dreams
      9 min read

    • Article

      Poet Of The Extreme

      Sep 1, 2021

      Poet Of The Extreme
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hello, Grim Reaper

      Dec 15, 2021

      She was a babe. A fully paid-up, card-carrying babe. There was absolutely no doubt about it, and she was heading straight for me. She was almost sprinting towards me across the recently reimagined lobby of Claridge’s. She looked up, her scarlet-anoin

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Wisdom Of Voltaire

      Sep 7, 2022

      YEARS ago, in a happy London interlude, we lived in Covent Garden, above Rules. Over the pavement opposite, fixed to the brickwork at the back of the Vaudeville Theatre, a plaque stated that Voltaire had lived in Maiden Lane. It was 1728, and he was

      2 min read

    • Article

      I Used To Be Cool

      Dec 11, 2024

      LAST week, I showed South African friends around London. Tim and David, father and son, had come to celebrate David’s 18th birthday by watching Liverpool play Man City at Anfield. It was the first time either of them had been to Europe and David had

      2 min read

    • Article

      Reginald’s Party

      Jul 10, 2022

      For the fourth time that evening, Reginald smoothed his moustache in the mirror. It was perfect. Was it? Just a touch here… Now it was perfect. Soon his guests would arrive—only a few this evening, a small coterie from the Mayfair Club, on whom he co

      27 min read

    • Article

      Same As The Old Boss

      Dec 8, 2023

      Same As The Old Boss
      4 min read

    • Article

      Notes From The Isles

      Aug 18, 2023

      My brother-in-law, David, a widower for three years, was still at school when my parents-in-law bought this dear old farmhouse in 1952, and he shares my love of the Highlands despite living in England and having spent a nomadic life as a diplomat. Re

      4 min read

    • Article

      Where Wise Men Find Beauty

      Dec 27, 2019

      ONE thousand years ago, when the Byzantines ruled high, wide and imperial at Constantinople, the pagan Prince Vladimir of the Rus sent envoys to each of the lands that bordered his own, with instructions to investigate their religious arrangements an

      2 min read

    • Article

      Campomanes And The Scots

      Dec 12, 2020

      Campomanes And The Scots
      4 min read

    • Article

      Magnets: Carried through time, lovers seek their purpose.

      Feb 6, 2014

      Moon Colony B, 2213 Former Ponzi-schemer Mary Pillar digs through a trashcan. It smells like rotten eggs and milk. She is elderly and homeless, living in an alley between two eco-efficient skyscrapers. Dust particles dance around her. She has lost ev

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Sweet Smell Of Success

      Apr 27, 2023

      A DECADE OR MORE AGO I MADE my annual pilgrimage to the second floor at Fortnum & Mason and the Creed counter in its perfume department. That journey was (and is) always made with an admixture of pleasurable anticipation of some pampering and preenin

      2 min read

    • Article

      Stranger Than Fiction

      Apr 12, 2024

      Stranger Than Fiction
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Candide

    4/5

    3,542 ratings124 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Hilarious! Ever since reading The Baroque Cycle (or at least the first two books and the first half of the third one) I've loved this historical period, and it's clear Stephenson wrote it with Candide in mind. It's silly, clever, and risqué, and you can read it in an afternoon.
    • 3/5
      Classic modern fable exploring the once popular philosophy of 'everything now is exactly as it should be and for the best' with comedic results.
    • 4/5
      Absolutely hilarious, and extremely easy to read as well.
    • 4/5
      I saw this at the Guthrie Theater in the late 80s and it was great; the story still holds up.
    • 3/5
      Very enjoyable, especially for a philosophical stint. Definitely a book I will want to read several times over to digest, but for an initial reading it was fairly light.
    • 4/5
      Very funny. Cynical. This edition was a please to read. Not great realistic storytelling but that wasn't the point of it, now was it.
    • 4/5
      The great master of satire. The thing I love about Voltaire is that he just honestly couldn't help himself. He was wealthy and liked, and he just couldn't stop from commenting in a not particularly nice way about the people and events of the day.
    • 3/5
      Interesting satire - wonderful narration.
    • 5/5
      Loved it!!! Can't believe how something written more than 250 years ago is so relavent to today's society. Voltaire is brilliant and his satirical, cutting humor - spot on!!
    • 5/5
      For most of my life I have been quoting and cracking wise: "All is for the best in this most perfect of all perfect worlds", a statement whose essential truth is its irony. But until now I'd never read Voltaire's Candide, the source for Dr. Pangloss' sincerely delivered (by the character) but ironically presented (by the author) wisdom. And I'd never known just how vast a survey of 18th century cruelty Voltaire conducted while expressing his ironic untruth and rebutting it.

      There are many lovely surprises in this 1759 philosophical romance. The first is the delightful entry it give us into the world of the 18th century itself - its fantasies, politics, stereotypes and lusts. We experience empire in the old and new worlds, common prejudices, and the tapestry of mid-18th century European and American political and social realities. We get a little tour of Voltaire's known world, and an imaginary depiction of the New World too.

      Second, Voltaire writes of an age of astonishing brutality - rape, torture, stabbings, auto de fe - the bodies and the suffering are piled as high in this book as any tale of a Soviet Gulag or the Holocaust. An age so experienced understandably raised the most profound questions of good and evil.

      Third, this book is delightfully sexual, not in a modern pornographic sense, but in an inimitably 18th century way. It reminds us that lust as much as love is a universal human experience, across the ages. Yet, in the 18th century as portrayed by Voltaire sex is a cruel mistress and master. It has its delights... but the images of punishment for sexual transgressions and of whoredom, disease, rape and the cruelty of lost female beauty are presented unflinchingly. This is the sexual world as it was, and it too is a world of violence and loss.

      This is also a romance, that both mocks affection and yet depends upon it, sees its absurdity and yet valorizes it. Candide's love for Cunegonde is basically ridiculous, as is Candide himself and as is the philosopher Pangloss for whom he professes admiration. Yet it is the ground of his being as a character, and drives the whole story forward. He is a romantic fool. In the end, Martin and a humble Turk farmer, provide the answer to Candide and Pangloss's insipid optimism, as illustrated in the quotes below. But I'm not sure that Voltaire completely repudiates Candide's love for Cunegonde.

      This is a comedy on many levels. Candide's endless ability to find new money, to land on his feet, to acquire new traveling companions, are all so silly that they hardly need to be remarked upon. The silliness is just good fun, creating situations in which Voltaire explores ideas against the background of evil and cruelty.

      It is also of course, specifically, a sex comedy, using the readers prurient interest in matters connubial and concupiscencial to discuss deep philosophical questions. It is reassuring that sex sells, and has been selling since at least the mid-18th century. But is there some deeper connection between sex and the meaning of life, sex and optimism, sex and pessimism, that is plumbed here?

      I was moved to think of Kohelet's (Ecclesiastes') questions after I put this down. To what extent are Candide's and King Solomon's wisdom aligned? "The end of the matter, everything having been heard, fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the entire man." This is essentially a Jewish version of "labor in your garden", the garden at issue being the garden of mitzvot, n'est-ce pas? At the very least we can say that both share an attitude of age ripened wisdom, and a certain rejoicing in a clarifying pessimism.

      There is however a curious meta-Panglossian sense that in the author's hands, nothing can go wrong, no dungeon will be unescaped, no death will be permanent, and all will ultimately be for the best. And in the end, Candide and his companions are safely delivered, together with the reader, to the wisdom of working the garden.



      Notable Quotable

      "'Tis demonstrated," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise; for, since everything is made for an end, everything is necessarily for the best end. Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visible instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all the year round; consequently, those who have asserted that all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that it is for the best."

      ~

      "One day when Cunegonde was walking near the castle, in a little wood which was called the Park, she observed Doctor Pangloss in the bushes, giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother's waiting-maid, a very pretty and docile brunette. Mademoiselle Cunegonde had a great inclination for science and watched breathlessly the reiterated experiments she witnessed; she observed clearly the Doctor's sufficient reason, the effects and the causes, and returned home very much excited, pensive, filled with the desire of learning, reflecting that she might be the sufficient reason of young Candide and he might be hers."

      ~

      "You are very hard," said Candide. "That's because I have lived, " said Martin.

      ~

      "Music nowadays is merely the art of executing difficulties and in the end that which is only difficult ceases to please." (Pococurante)

      ~

      "Oh! what a superior man!" said Candide under his breath "What a great genius this Pococurante is! Nothing can please him."

      ~

      "I should like to know which is worse... to endure all the miseries through which we have passed, or to remain here doing nothing?" (The Old Woman)

      ~

      "... Martin especially concluded that man was born to live in the convulsions of distress or in the lethargy of boredom. Candide did not agree, but he asserted nothing. Pangloss confessed that he and always suffered horribly; but , having once maintained that everything was for the best, he had continued to maintain it without believing it."

      ~

      "I have only twenty acres, " replied the Turk. "I cultivate them with my children; and work keeps at bay three great villains: boredom, vice and need."

      ~

      "Let us work without arguing, said Martin; "'tis the only way to make life endurable."

      ~

      Said the widow:

      "I have been a hundred times upon the point of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a burden of which we wish to be eased? to detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? In a word, to caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?"
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed delving into the theological wanderings of this 17th century philosopher; the backgrounds and criticisms also helped to give the book more depth and context. It was thrilling for me to "get to know" a writer so bold and unflinching in his views, who lived 400 years before I was even born. Candide was delightful--a tease for the brain as well as a story for the soul. I'd recommend.
    • 5/5
      Voltaire is a famous philosopher of the Enlightenment, and Candide his most famous work. It's very short, a satiric send-up of Leibniz's theory of optimism through Candide's mentor Dr. Pangloss, who believes we live in "the best of all possible worlds" even in the face of increasingly insane disasters. I thought particularly funny the "genealogy of syphilis" where Pangloss traces the lineage of his infection back in a "direct line from one of Christopher Columbus's shipmates." I also rather loved the iconoclastic and grumpy twitting of classics by Pococurante. I might not agree with his lambasting of Homer and Virgil (though I thought he was dead on about Milton) but I agreed with his principle that "Ignorant readers are apt to judge a writer by his reputation. For my part, I read only to please myself. I like nothing but what makes for my purpose." The story wasn't what I expected from the introduction calling this one of Voltaire's "fables of reason" meant to elucidate philosophy. This wasn't at all dry or inaccessible and was quite fun with lots of lines I'd be tempted to quote if there weren't so many that were wise, witty and striking. This short satire reminded me quite a bit of Swift's Gulliver's Travel only with less bathroom humor and more good-natured.
    • 4/5
      A voluntary read, I quickly discovered why this book is considered a classic. The cynicism was quaintly balanced with a bit of humor. The prose and plot have been unforgettable.
    • 3/5
      It is a rather depressing book, but it is interesting, and it will raise a multitude of questions in your head.
    • 4/5
      Frank McLynn's work 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World mentioned a good deal about Voltaire, as did Leo Dramrosch's Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. This is my first Voltaire and I was surprised by how small the novella is relative to its historical impact. This has led me to purchase Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful and to take up Tristram Shandy again. Candide and Tristram Shandy were, of course, both published in 1759 so the linkages with my earlier reading are apparent, if unintended. If anything I have gained from Candide confirmation of the idea of tending one's own garden, not to mention a burning desire to remove all further naivety from my very being.
    • 4/5
      Great satire right on par with Johnathan Swift in Gullivers Travels.
    • 5/5
      I have been trying to read more of the classics for years and when I saw the cover of "Candide" I knew that this was the next classic read for me. I laughed so much during this book. Often times the older books are very dry and proper that it is a bore to read. Voltaire told it how he saw it.
    • 5/5
      This short work is the finest example of a sustained literary assault on a philosophical idea; in this case, the idea of Optimism put forth by Leibniz. It was inspired in part by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake that claimed up to 100,000 lives, a disaster that did not fit well in the Leibnizian Optimistic View that this was the best of all possible worlds. Candide is a short, precise and very focused attack on this attitude. As such, it is a masterpiece of world satire along with other notable works like Gulliver's Travels and Huckleberry Finn.
    • 5/5
      Very funny book. Candide travels the world finding injustice everywhere he goes. It's a fast and easy read.
    • 4/5
      Aside from the book itself falling apart shortly after I bought it (gotta love penquin classics), it was a wonderful story. Rich with lessons for all of us, it is required reading...
    • 2/5
      Too much rape and calamity.
    • 4/5
      Voltaire - this is the first work I've read from him. I was thinking it was going to be heavily intellectual - and it had some deep themes, but they were at the same time, very obvious. Overall, the pleasant surprise was just how funny he is - I hadn't been aware.
    • 4/5
      A portuguese translation of the famous text Candide, ou l'optimiste, by Voltaire. A really delightful and funny reading with helpful annotations by the portuguese historian Rui Tavares, who also translated the text.
    • 5/5
      I took up reading so many other things at the same time, it took me longer to get through it than it should have. Otherwise, it’s a short read. Certainly a thought provoking one. It’s satirical and (in a good way) cynical. This may be the best possible world, but that would be to confuse everything as inherently good or “planned” in the human sense.
    • 4/5
      Entertaining, satirical, short. Feels like a 100-page YouTube comment troll. We should all be so fortunate as to accidentally kill someone and then find out they're still alive.
    • 4/5
      Voltaire obviously took a dim view of the value of human life.

      The story follows the globe-trotting misadventures of a naive commoner, Candide, and his quest to marry the beautiful Cunegunde, who is the daughter of a Baron. His compatriots include the philosophers Pangloss ("We live in the best of all possible worlds! Everything is for the good!") and Martin ("Everybody is miserable and always will be"), the faithful sidekick, Cacambo, and the one-buttocked old woman (How did she lose a buttock? Read the book!) .

      The characters endure the worst suffering the world has to offer: war, the Inquisition, people being mutilated, eaten, burned alive, hanged, sold into prostitution and galley slavery, con men, thieves, you name it. Yet somehow they convince themselves that life is worth living. Candide at one point finds himself in the mythical South American paradise El Dorado, yet leaves because he is troubled by dissatisfaction. He feels, in order to be happy, the need to lord his newfound wealth over others less fortunate.

      The characters end the story on a farm, seeking a moderate contentment through hard work which keeps them from thinking overmuch about their condition. Reading this book makes me feel pretty good, actually. As pessimistic as I sometimes am, I find much more satisfaction in life than Voltaire seems to.
    • 3/5
      Voltaire wrote this under a pseudonym as a satyrical critique to the popular philosophy of the day whereby we live in the best possilble world. It reads as a (rather long) series of atrocities and misfortunes that happen to just about every person Candice encounters during his rather curious adventures.
      An interesting read in it's historical and philosophical context, but rather tough read without it.
    • 3/5
      A very thoughtful and socially relevant critique of certain philosophies. Bitingly funny at times, and quietly tragic at others, it is easy to see why it has become a classic. However, it doesn't seem to me to present any alternatives to what it criticizes - as much as the Leibniz-style optimism is unfounded and dangerous, it gave me a bit of an empty feeling when I was finished. If you deconstruct the fallacies of one or another worldview, you had better have your own worldview ready to bring forward. Candide is essentially a negative novel, it dismembers what is bad or false rather than affirming or promoting what is good or true. It is like an Anti-War rally rather than a Peace rally. While I think it was essential of Voltaire that he fight the forces of Absolute monarchy and rationalism, this is not a novel to build a society on.
    • 4/5
      "Candide" is a black comedy whose punchlines usually involve the innocent narrator being ruthlessly whipped for no good reason whatsoever. Still, the book has a remarkably evolved worldview given its age, playing as a broad satire and loose mockery of preconceived notions of virtue, morality, faith and justice. Filled with dated allusions to current events, the book is still an enjoyable romp of a read, especially at a lightweight 90 pages.
    • 2/5
      Should be renamed Job. Geez, what else was supposed to happen to this guy? And everyone in his life kept getting killed and then turning up again. Not my cup of tea even as a satire.

    Book preview

    Candide - Voltaire

    CANDIDE

    1 HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A MAGNIFICENT CASTLE, AND HOW HE WAS EXPELLED THENCE.

    In a castle of Westphalia, belonging to the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth, whom nature had endowed with the most gentle manners. His countenance was a true picture of his soul. He combined a true judgment with simplicity of spirit, which was the reason, I apprehend, of his being called Candide. The old servants of the family suspected him to have been the son of the 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 farm-yards 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 honours of the house with a dignity that commanded still greater respect. Her daughter Cunegonde was seventeen years of age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump, and desirable. The Baron's son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father. The Preceptor Pangloss was the oracle of the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character.

    Pangloss was professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. 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.

    Candide listened attentively and believed innocently; for he thought Miss Cunegonde 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-ten-Tronckh, the second degree of happiness was to be Miss Cunegonde, the third that of seeing her every day, and the fourth that of hearing Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the whole province, and consequently of the whole world.

    One day Cunegonde, 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 chamber-maid, a little brown wench, very pretty and very docile. As Miss Cunegonde had a great disposition for the sciences, she breathlessly observed the repeated experiments of which she was a witness; she clearly perceived the force of the Doctor's reasons, the effects, and the causes; she turned back greatly flurried, quite pensive, and filled with the desire to be learned; dreaming that she might well be a sufficient reason for young Candide, and he for her.

    She met Candide on reaching the castle and blushed; Candide blushed also; she wished him good morrow in a faltering tone, and Candide spoke to her without knowing what he said. The next day after dinner, as they went from table, Cunegonde and Candide found themselves behind a screen; Cunegonde let fall her handkerchief, Candide 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 Thunder-ten-Tronckh passed near the screen and beholding this cause and effect chased Candide from the castle with great kicks on the backside; Cunegonde 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.

    2 WHAT BECAME OF CANDIDE AMONG THE BULGARIANS.

    Candide, driven from terrestrial paradise, walked a long while without knowing where, weeping, raising his eyes to heaven, turning them often towards the most magnificent of castles which imprisoned the purest of noble young ladies. He lay down to sleep without supper, in the middle of a field between two furrows. The snow fell in large flakes. Next day Candide, all benumbed, dragged himself towards the neighbouring town which was called Waldberghofftrarbk-dikdorff, having no money, dying of hunger and fatigue, he stopped sorrowfully at the door of an inn. Two men dressed in blue observed him.

    Comrade, said one, here is a well-built young fellow, and of proper height.

    They went up to Candide and very civilly invited him to dinner.

    Gentlemen, replied Candide, with a most engaging modesty, you do me great honour, but I have not wherewithal to pay my share.

    Oh, sir, said one of the blues to him, people of your appearance and of your merit never pay anything: are you not five feet five inches high?

    Yes, sir, that is my height, answered he, making a low bow.

    Come, sir, seat yourself; not only will we pay your reckoning, but we will never suffer such a man as you to want money; men are only born to assist one another.

    You are right, said Candide; this is what I was always taught by 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 Cunegonde.

    No, said one of the gentlemen, we ask you if you do not deeply love the King of the Bulgarians?

    Not at all, said he; for I have never seen him.

    What! he is the best of kings, and we must drink his health.

    Oh! very willingly, gentlemen, and he drank.

    That is enough, they tell him. Now you are the help, the support, the defender, the hero of the Bulgarians. Your fortune is made, and your glory is assured.

    Instantly they fettered him, and carried him away to the regiment. There he was made to wheel about to the right, and to the left, to draw his rammer, to return his rammer, to present, to fire, to march, and they gave him thirty blows with a cudgel. The next day he did his exercise a little less badly, and he received but twenty blows. The day following they gave him only ten, and he was regarded by his comrades as a prodigy.

    Candide, all stupefied, could not yet very well realise how he was a hero. He resolved one fine day in spring to go for a walk, marching straight before him, believing that it was a privilege of the human as well as of the animal species to make use of their legs as they pleased. He had advanced two leagues when he was overtaken by four others, heroes of six feet, who bound him and carried him to a dungeon. He was asked which he would like the best, to be whipped six-and-thirty times through all the regiment, or to receive at once twelve balls of lead in his brain. He vainly said that human will is free, and that he chose neither the one nor the other. He was forced to make a choice; he determined, in virtue of that gift of God called liberty, to run the gauntlet six-and-thirty times. He bore this twice. The regiment was composed of two thousand men; that composed for him four thousand strokes, which laid bare all his muscles and nerves, from the nape of his neck quite down to his rump. As they were going to proceed to a third whipping, Candide, able to bear no more, begged as a favour that they would be so good as to shoot him. He obtained this favour; 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 Candide that he was a young metaphysician, extremely ignorant of the things of this world, and he accorded him his pardon with a clemency which will bring him praise in all the journals, and throughout all ages.

    An able surgeon cured Candide in three weeks by means of emollients taught by Dioscorides. He had already a little skin, and was able to march when the King of the Bulgarians gave battle to the King of the Abares.

    3 HOW CANDIDE MADE HIS ESCAPE FROM THE BULGARIANS, AND WHAT AFTERWARDS BECAME OF HIM.

    There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard. The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each side; the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.

    At length, while the two kings were causing Te Deum to be sung each in his own camp, Candide resolved to go and reason elsewhere on effects and causes. He passed over heaps of dead and dying, and first reached a neighbouring village; it was in cinders, it was an Abare village which the Bulgarians had burnt according to the laws of war. Here, old men covered with wounds, beheld their wives, hugging their children to their bloody breasts, massacred before their faces; there, their daughters, disembowelled and breathing their last after having satisfied the natural wants of Bulgarian heroes; while others, half burnt in the flames, begged to be despatched. The earth was strewed with brains, arms, and legs.

    Candide fled quickly to another village; it belonged to the Bulgarians; and the Abarian heroes had treated it in the same way. Candide, 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 Cunegonde always in his heart. His provisions failed him when he arrived in Holland; but having heard that everybody was rich in that country, and that they were Christians, he did not doubt but he should meet with the same treatment from them as he had met with in the Baron's castle, before Miss Cunegonde'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, where he should be taught to get a living.

    The next he addressed was a man who had

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1