Candide

WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM AT SURINAM AND HOW CANDIDE GOT ACQUAINTED WITH
MARTIN.

Our travellers spent the first day very agreeably. They were delighted
with possessing more treasure than all Asia, Europe, and Africa could
scrape together. Candide, in his raptures, cut Cunegonde's name on the
trees. The second day two of their sheep plunged into a morass, where
they and their burdens were lost; two more died of fatigue a few days
after; seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others
subsequently fell down precipices. At length, after travelling a hundred
days, only two sheep remained. Said Candide to Cacambo:

"My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there
is nothing solid but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Cunegonde once
more."

"I grant all you say," said Cacambo, "but we have still two sheep
remaining, with more treasure than the King of Spain will ever have; and
I see a town which I take to be Surinam, belonging to the Dutch. We are
at the end of all our troubles, and at the beginning of happiness."

As they drew near the town, they saw a negro stretched upon the ground,
with only one moiety of his clothes, that is, of his blue linen drawers;
the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand.

"Good God!" said Candide in Dutch, "what art thou doing there, friend,
in that shocking condition?"

"I am waiting for my master, Mynheer Vanderdendur, the famous merchant,"
answered the negro.

"Was it Mynheer Vanderdendur," said Candide, "that treated thee thus?"

"Yes, sir," said the negro, "it is the custom. They give us a pair of
linen drawers for our whole garment twice a year. When we work at the
sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the
hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases
have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe.
Yet when my mother sold me for ten patagons[20] on the coast of Guinea,
she said to me: 'My dear child, bless our fetiches, adore them for ever;
they will make thee live happily; thou hast the honour of being the
slave of our lords, the whites, which is making the fortune of thy
father and mother.' Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes;
this I know, that they have not made mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots
are a thousand times less wretched than I. The Dutch fetiches, who have
converted me, declare every Sunday that we are all of us children of
Adam--blacks as well as whites. I am not a genealogist, but if these
preachers tell truth, we are all second cousins. Now, you must agree,
that it is impossible to treat one's relations in a more barbarous
manner."

"Oh, Pangloss!" cried Candide, "thou hadst not guessed at this
abomination; it is the end. I must at last renounce thy optimism."

"What is this optimism?" said Cacambo.

"Alas!" said Candide, "it is the madness of maintaining that everything
is right when it is wrong."

Looking at the negro, he shed tears, and weeping, he entered Surinam.

The first thing they inquired after was whether there was a vessel in
the harbour which could be sent to Buenos Ayres. The person to whom they
applied was a Spanish sea-captain, who offered to agree with them upon
reasonable terms. He appointed to meet them at a public-house, whither
Candide and the faithful Cacambo went with their two sheep, and awaited
his coming.

Candide, who had his heart upon his lips, told the Spaniard all his
adventures, and avowed that he intended to elope with Miss Cunegonde.

"Then I will take good care not to carry you to Buenos Ayres," said the
seaman. "I should be hanged, and so would you. The fair Cunegonde is my
lord's favourite mistress."

This was a thunderclap for Candide: he wept for a long while. At last he
drew Cacambo aside.

"Here, my dear friend," said he to him, "this thou must do. We have,
each of us in his pocket, five or six millions in diamonds; you are more
clever than I; you must go and bring Miss Cunegonde from Buenos Ayres.
If the Governor makes any difficulty, give him a million; if he will not
relinquish her, give him two; as you have not killed an Inquisitor, they
will have no suspicion of you; I'll get another ship, and go and wait
for you at Venice; that's a free country, where there is no danger
either from Bulgarians, Abares, Jews, or Inquisitors."

Cacambo applauded this wise resolution. He despaired at parting from so
good a master, who had become his intimate friend; but the pleasure of
serving him prevailed over the pain of leaving him. They embraced with
tears; Candide charged him not to forget the good old woman. Cacambo
set out that very same day. This Cacambo was a very honest fellow.

Candide stayed some time longer in Surinam, waiting for another captain
to carry him and the two remaining sheep to Italy. After he had hired
domestics, and purchased everything necessary for a long voyage, Mynheer
Vanderdendur, captain of a large vessel, came and offered his services.

"How much will you charge," said he to this man, "to carry me straight
to Venice--me, my servants, my baggage, and these two sheep?"

The skipper asked ten thousand piastres. Candide did not hesitate.

"Oh! oh!" said the prudent Vanderdendur to himself, "this stranger gives
ten thousand piastres unhesitatingly! He must be very rich."

Returning a little while after, he let him know that upon second
consideration, he could not undertake the voyage for less than twenty
thousand piastres.

"Well, you shall have them," said Candide.

"Ay!" said the skipper to himself, "this man agrees to pay twenty
thousand piastres with as much ease as ten."

He went back to him again, and declared that he could not carry him to
Venice for less than thirty thousand piastres.

"Then you shall have thirty thousand," replied Candide.

"Oh! oh!" said the Dutch skipper once more to himself, "thirty thousand
piastres are a trifle to this man; surely these sheep must be laden with
an immense treasure; let us say no more about it. First of all, let him
pay down the thirty thousand piastres; then we shall see."

Candide sold two small diamonds, the least of which was worth more than
what the skipper asked for his freight. He paid him in advance. The two
sheep were put on board. Candide followed in a little boat to join the
vessel in the roads. The skipper seized his opportunity, set sail, and
put out to sea, the wind favouring him. Candide, dismayed and stupefied,
soon lost sight of the vessel.

"Alas!" said he, "this is a trick worthy of the old world!"

He put back, overwhelmed with sorrow, for indeed he had lost sufficient
to make the fortune of twenty monarchs. He waited upon the Dutch
magistrate, and in his distress he knocked over loudly at the door. He
entered and told his adventure, raising his voice with unnecessary
vehemence. The magistrate began by fining him ten thousand piastres for
making a noise; then he listened patiently, promised to examine into his
affair at the skipper's return, and ordered him to pay ten thousand
piastres for the expense of the hearing.

This drove Candide to despair; he had, indeed, endured misfortunes a
thousand times worse; the coolness of the magistrate and of the skipper
who had robbed him, roused his choler and flung him into a deep
melancholy. The villainy of mankind presented itself before his
imagination in all its deformity, and his mind was filled with gloomy
ideas. At length hearing that a French vessel was ready to set sail for
Bordeaux, as he had no sheep laden with diamonds to take along with him
he hired a cabin at the usual price. He made it known in the town that
he would pay the passage and board and give two thousand piastres to any
honest man who would make the voyage with him, upon condition that this
man was the most dissatisfied with his state, and the most unfortunate
in the whole province.

Such a crowd of candidates presented themselves that a fleet of ships
could hardly have held them. Candide being desirous of selecting from
among the best, marked out about one-twentieth of them who seemed to be
sociable men, and who all pretended to merit his preference. He
assembled them at his inn, and gave them a supper on condition that each
took an oath to relate his history faithfully, promising to choose him
who appeared to be most justly discontented with his state, and to
bestow some presents upon the rest.

They sat until four o'clock in the morning. Candide, in listening to all
their adventures, was reminded of what the old woman had said to him in
their voyage to Buenos Ayres, and of her wager that there was not a
person on board the ship but had met with very great misfortunes. He
dreamed of Pangloss at every adventure told to him.

"This Pangloss," said he, "would be puzzled to demonstrate his system. I
wish that he were here. Certainly, if all things are good, it is in El
Dorado and not in the rest of the world."

At length he made choice of a poor man of letters, who had worked ten
years for the booksellers of Amsterdam. He judged that there was not in
the whole world a trade which could disgust one more.

This philosopher was an honest man; but he had been robbed by his wife,
beaten by his son, and abandoned by his daughter who got a Portuguese to
run away with her. He had just been deprived of a small employment, on
which he subsisted; and he was persecuted by the preachers of Surinam,
who took him for a Socinian. We must allow that the others were at least
as wretched as he; but Candide hoped that the philosopher would
entertain him during the voyage. All the other candidates complained
that Candide had done them great injustice; but he appeased them by
giving one hundred piastres to each.