第 十九 章 · 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.

XX