The first day of our two travelers was quite pleasant. They were encouraged by the idea of seeing themselves possessed of more treasures than Asia, Europe, and Africa could not gather. Candide, transported, wrote the name of Cunegonde on the trees. On the second day two of their sheep sank into marshes, and they sank with their charges; two other sheep died of fatigue a few days after; seven or eight then died of hunger in a desert; others fell at the end of a few days in precipices. At last, after a hundred days of march, they had only two sheep left. Candide said to Cacambo:
“My friend, you see how the riches of this world are perishable; there is nothing solid but the virtue and the happiness of seeing Miss Cunegonde again.“
“I admit it,” said Cacambo; “but we still have two sheep with more treasures than the King of Spain will ever have; and I see from a distance a city which I suspect is Surinam, belonging to the Dutch. We are at the end of our troubles and at the beginning of our happiness.“
On approaching the town, they met a negro lying on the ground, having only half his coat, that is to say, a pair of blue linen trousers; the poor man was missing the left leg and the right hand.
“Eh! my God!“ said Candide to him in Dutch, “what are you doing there, my friend, in the horrible state in which I see you?”
“I am waiting for my master, M. Vanderdendur, the famous merchant,” replied the negro.
“Is it M. Vanderdendur,” said Candide, “who treated you like that?”
“Yes, sir,” said the negro, “it is customary. We are given a canvas briefs for every garment twice a year. When we work on sweets, and the millstone catches our fingers, we are cut off by our hands: when we want to run away, we are cut off from the leg: I have found myself in both cases. It is at this price that you eat sugar in Europe. However, when my mother sold me ten crowns on the coast of Guinea, she said to me: ‘My dear child, bless our fetishes, adore them always, they will make you live happily; thou hast the honor of being a slave to our white lords, and thou hast made the fortune of thy father and thy mother.‘ Alas! I do not know if I made their fortune, but they did not make mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less unhappy than we are. The Dutch fetishes who have converted me tell me every Sunday that we are all children of Adam, white and black. I am not a genealogist; but if these preachers say true, we are all first cousins. Now you will admit that you can not make use with your parents in a more horrible way.“
“O Pangloss!“ cried Candide, “you had not guessed this abomination; it is done, it will be necessary that at the end I renounce to your optimism.“
“What is optimism?“ said Cacambo.
“Alas!“ said Candide, “it is the rage to maintain that all is well when it is ill;“ and he shed tears at his nigger; and, in tears, he entered Surinam.
The first thing they inquire of is if there is no ship to be sent to Buenos Ayres. The one to whom they spoke was just a Spanish boss who offered to make an honest deal with them. He called them to a cabaret. Candide and the faithful Cacambo went to wait there with their two sheep.
Candide, who had his heart on his sleeve, told the Spaniard all his adventures, and confessed to him that he wished to take away Miss Cunegonde.
“I will refrain to pass you at Buenos Ayres,” said the proprietor; “I should be hanged, and you too; the beautiful Cunegonde is the favorite mistress of my lord.“
It was a thunderbolt for Candide, he wept for a long time; finally he drew Cacambo aside.
“Here it is, my dear friend,” he said, “what you must do. We each have in our pockets five or six millions of diamonds, you are more clever than I; go to take Miss Cunegonde at Buenos Ayres. If the governor makes any difficulty, give him a million: if he does not surrender, give him two; thou hast not killed an inquisitor, neither shall thou distrust thee. I will equip another ship, I will wait for you at Venice; it is a free country, where there is nothing to fear from the Bulgarians, the Abares, the Jews, or the inquisitors.“
Cacambo applauded this wise resolution. He was in despair of parting with a good master who had become his intimate friend; but the pleasure of being useful outweighed the grief of leaving him. They embraced each other with tears: Candide advised him not to forget the good old woman. Cacambo left that very day: he was a very good man, this Cacambo.
Candide remained some time in Surinam, and waited until another patron wanted to take him to Italy and the two sheep that remained to him. He took servants, and bought all that was necessary for a long journey; finally, M. Vanderdendur, master of a large vessel, came to present himself to him.
“How much do you want,” he asked this man, “to take me to Venice, my people, my luggage, and the two sheep?”
The patron agreed to ten thousand piastres: Candide did not hesitate.
‘Oh! Oh!‘ said the prudent Vanderdendur to himself, ‘this stranger gives ten thousand piastres all at once! he must be rich.‘ Then, returning a moment later, he said that he could not leave for less than twenty thousand.
“Well! you will have them,” said Candide.
‘Yeah,‘ said for him the merchant in a low voice, ‘this man gives twenty thousand piastres as easily as ten thousand.‘ He returned again, and said that he could not take him to Venice less than thirty thousand piastres.
“You will have thirty thousand,“ replied Candide.
‘Oh! Oh!‘ said the Dutch merchant, ‘thirty thousand piastres cost nothing to this man; doubtless the two sheep carry immense treasures; let us not insist more: let us first pay the thirty thousand piastres, and then we shall see.‘ Candide, sold two small diamonds, the smallest of which was worth more than all the money the patron demanded. He paid for it in advance. The two sheep were embarked. Candide followed in a small boat to join the ship in the harbor; the patron takes his time, sets sail, starts; the wind favors it. Candide, distraught and stupefied, soon lost sight of him.
“Alas!” he cried, “here is a trick worthy of the Old World.” He returns to the shore, spoiled in grief; for, after all, he had lost enough to make the fortune of twenty monarchs.
He went to the Dutch judge; and as he was somewhat disturbed, he knocked roughly at the door; he enters, exposes his adventure, and cries a little louder than he should. The judge began by making him pay ten thousand piastres for the noise he had made; then he listened patiently, promised to examine his affair as soon as the merchant had returned, and had ten thousand piastres costs of the hearing.
This process succeeded in despairing Candide; he had indeed suffered misfortunes a thousand times more painful; but the cold blood of the judge, and that of the employer from whom he was stolen, lighted his bile, and plunged him into a deep melancholy. The wickedness of men presented itself to his mind in all its ugliness; it nourished itself only with sad ideas. At length a French vessel was about to leave for Bordeaux, as it had no sheep laden with diamonds to embark, rented a room from the ship at a fair price, and sent word to the town that he will pay for the passage, and will give two thousand piastres to an honest man who would make the journey with him, on condition that he should be the most disgusted with his condition, and the most unhappy of the province.
There appeared a crowd of pretenders, whom a fleet could not contain. Candide, wishing to choose between the most apparent, he distinguished a score of persons who seemed to him sociable, and who all pretended to deserve the preference. He assembled them in his tavern, and gave them to supper, on condition that each would take an oath to tell his story faithfully, promising to choose the one who seemed to him the most to be pitied and most displeased with his condition, and to give to the others some rewards.
The session lasted until four o’clock in the morning. Candide, listening to all their adventures, remembered what the old woman had told her when she went to Buenos Ayres, and the wager she had made, that there was nobody on board of the vessel to whom did not had arrived great misfortunes. He thought of Pangloss at every adventure he was told. ‘This Pangloss,‘ he said, ‘would be very much embarrassed to prove his system. I wish he were here.‘ Certainly if all goes well, it is in Eldorado, and not in the rest of the earth. At length he decided in favor of a poor scientist who had worked ten years for the booksellers in Amsterdam. He judged that there was no job in the world from which he should be more disgusted.
This savant, who was besides a good man, had been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and abandoned by his daughter, who had been carried off by a Portuguese. He had just been deprived of a small post from which he subsisted; and the preachers of Surinam persecuted him, because they took him for a Socinian. It must be admitted that the others were at least as unhappy as he was; but Candide hoped that the scientist would bore him during the journey. All his other rivals found that Candide was doing them a great injustice; but he appeased them by giving them one hundred piastres each.
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