Voltaire: Collected Romances: 20+ Novels, Short Stories, Satires & Fables (Illustrated Edition). Вольтер
Читать онлайн книгу.
from his lord removed!”
He had not gone quite twenty miles from Ispahan before five hundred horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, came up with him and his attendants and discharged a volley of firearms upon them. Candide imagined at first that this was intended to do him an honor; but the ball which broke his leg soon gave him to know what was going on. His people laid down their arms, and Candide, more dead than alive, was carried to a castle remote from any other dwelling. His baggage, camels, slaves, white and black eunuchs, with thirty-six women which the sophi had given him for his use, all became the prey of the conqueror. Our hero’s leg was cut off for fear of mortification, and care was taken of his life, that a more cruel death might be inflicted on him.
“O Pangloss! Pangloss! what would now become of your optimism if you saw me short of one leg in the hands of my cruelest enemies; just as I was entering upon the path of happiness, and was governor, or king, as one may say, of one of the most considerable provinces of the empire of ancient Media; when I had camels, slaves, black and white eunuchs, and thirty-six women for my own use, and of which I had not made any?” Thus Candide spoke as soon as he was able to speak.
But while he was thus bemoaning himself, everything was going for the best for him. The ministry, informed of the outrages committed against him, had detached a body of well-disciplined troops in pursuit of the mutineers, and the monk Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk took care to publish by means of others of his fraternity that Candide, being the work of the monks, was consequently the work of God. Such as had any knowledge of this atrocious attempt were so much the more ready to discover it, as the ministers of religion gave assurance on the part of Mahomet that every one who had eaten pork, drank wine, omitted bathing for any number of days together, or had conversed with women at the time of their impurity, against the express prohibitions of the Koran, should be, ipso facto, absolved, upon declaring what they knew concerning the conspiracy. They soon discovered the place of Candide’s confinement, which they broke open; and as it was a religious affair the party worsted were exterminated to a man, agreeably to custom in that case. Candide, marching over a heap of dead bodies, made his escape, triumphed over the greatest peril he had hitherto encountered, and with his attendants resumed the road to his government. He was received there as a favorite who had been honored with fifty blows of a lash on the soles of his feet in the presence of the king of kings.
CHAPTER V.
HOW CANDIDE BECAME A VERY GREAT MAN, AND YET WAS NOT CONTENTED.
The good of philosophy is its inspiring us with a love for our fellow-creatures. Paschal is almost the only philosopher who seems desirous to make us hate our neighbors. Luckily Candide had not read Paschal, and he loved the poor human race very cordially. This was soon perceived by the upright part of the people. They had always kept at a distance from the pretended legates of heaven, but made no scruple of visiting Candide and assisting him with their counsels. He made several wise regulations for the encouragement of agriculture, population, commerce, and the arts. He rewarded those who had made any useful experiments; and even encouraged such as had produced some essays on literature.
“When the people in my province are in general content,” said he with a charming candor, “possibly I shall be so myself.” Candide was a stranger to mankind; he saw himself torn to pieces in seditious libels and calumniated in a work entitled “The Friend to Mankind.” He found that while he was laboring to make people happy he had only made them ungrateful. “Ah,” cried Candide, “how hard it is to govern these beings without feathers, which vegetate on the earth! Why am I not still in Propontis, in the company of Master Pangloss, Miss Cunegund, the daughter of Pope Urban X., with only one cushion, Brother Giroflée, and the most luscious Pacquette!”
CHAPTER VI.
THE PLEASURES OF CANDIDE.
Candide, in the bitterness of his grief, wrote a very pathetic letter to the Reverend Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk. He painted to him in such lively colors the present state of his soul, that Ed-Ivan, greatly affected with it, obtained permission of the sophi that Candide should resign his employments. His majesty, in recompense of his services, granted him a very considerable pension. Eased from the weight of grandeur, our philosopher immediately sought after Pangloss’ optimism, in the pleasures of a private life. He till then had lived for the benefit of others, and seemed to have forgotten that he had a seraglio.
He now called it to remembrance with that emotion which the very name inspires. “Let everything be got ready,” said he to his first eunuch, “for my visiting my women.” “My lord,” answered the shrill-piped slave, “it is now that your excellency deserves the title of wise. The men for whom you have done so much were not worthy of employing your thoughts, but the women —” “That may be,” said Candide modestly.
At the bottom of a garden, where art had assisted nature to unfold her beauties, stood a small house of simple and elegant structure, very different from those which are to be seen in the suburbs of the finest city in Europe. Candide could not approach it without blushing; the air round this charming retreat diffused a delicious perfume; the flowers, amorously intermingled, seemed here to be guided by the instinct of pleasure, and preserved, for a long time, their various beauties. Here the rose never lost its lovely hue; the view of a rock, from which the waters precipitated themselves with a murmuring and confused noise, invited the soul of that soft melancholy which is ever the forerunner of pleasure. Candide entered trembling into a chamber, where taste and magnificence were united; his senses were drawn by a secret charm; he cast his eyes on young Telemachus, who breathed on the canvas in the midst of the nymphs of Calypso’s court. He next turned them to Diana, half-naked, flying into the arms of the tender Endymion; his agitation increased at the sight of a Venus, faithfully copied from that of Medici; his ears were struck with a divine harmony; a company of young Circassian females appeared, covered with their veils; they formed round him a sort of dance, agreeably designed, and more graceful than those trifling jigs that are performed on as trifling stages, after the representation of the death of Cæsar and Pompey.
At a signal given they threw off their veils and discovered faces full of expression, that lent new life to the diversion. These beauties studied the most seducing attitudes, without appearing to intend it; one expressed in her looks a passion without bounds; another a soft languor which waits for pleasures without seeking them; this fair one stooped and raised herself precipitately to disclose to view those enchanting charms which the fair sex display in such full scope at Paris; another threw aside a part of her cymar to show a form, which alone is capable of inflaming a mortal of any delicacy. The dance ceased and they remained in profound silence.
This pause recalled Candide to himself. The fire of love took possession of his breast; he darted the most ardent looks on all around him; imprinted warm kisses on lips as warm, and eyes that swam in liquid fire; he passed his hand over globes whiter than alabaster, whose palpitating motion repelled the touch; admired their proportion; perceived little vermilion protuberances like those rosebuds which only wait the genial rays of the sun to unfold them; he kissed them with rapture, and his lips for some time remained glued thereon.
Our philosopher next admired for a while a majestic figure of a fine and delicate shape. Burning with desires, he at length threw the handkerchief to a young person whose eyes he had observed to be always fixed upon him, and which seemed to say, “Teach me the meaning of a trouble I am ignorant of”; and who, blushing at the secret avowal, became a thousand times more charming. The eunuch then opened the door of a private chamber consecrated to the mysteries of love, into which the lovers entered; and the eunuch, addressing his master, said: “Here it is, my lord, you are going to be truly happy.” “Oh!” answered Candide, “I am in great hopes of it.”
The ceiling and walls of this little retreat were covered with mirrors; in the midst was placed a divan of black satin, on which Candide threw the young