Candide. Вольтер

of my moidores and jewels?” exclaimed Miss Cunegund, all bathed in tears. “How shall we live? What shall we do? Where shall I find Inquisitors and Jews who can give me more?”

      “Alas!” said the old woman, “I have a shrewd suspicion of a reverend father cordelier, who lay last night in the same inn with us at Badajoz: God forbid I should condemn any one wrongfully, but he came into our room twice, and he set off in the morning long before us.”

      “Alas!” said Candide, “Pangloss has often demonstrated to me that the goods of this world are common to all men, and that every one has an equal right to the enjoyment of them; but, according to these principles, the cordelier ought to have left us enough to carry us to the end of our journey. Have you nothing at all left, my beautiful Cunegund?”

      “Not a sou,” replied she.

      “What is to be done then?” said Candide.

      “Sell one of the horses,” replied the old woman, “I will get behind my young lady though I have only one buttock to ride on, and we shall reach Cadiz, never fear.”

      In the same inn there was a Benedictine prior who bought the horse very cheap. Candide, Cunegund, and the old woman, after passing through Lucena, Chellas, and Lebrija, arrived at length at Cadiz. A fleet was then getting ready, and troops were assembling in order to reduce the reverend fathers, the Jesuits of Paraguay, who were accused of having excited one of the Indian tribes, in the neighbourhood of the town of the Holy Sacrament, to revolt against the Kings of Spain and Portugal. Candide, having been in the Bulgarian service, performed the military exercise of that nation before the general of this little army with so intrepid an air, and with such agility and expedition that he gave him the command of a company of foot. Being now made a captain, he embarked with Miss Cunegund, the old woman, two valets, and the two Andalusian horses which had belonged to the Grand Inquisitor of Portugal.

      During their voyage they amused themselves with many profound reasonings on poor Pangloss’s philosophy.

      “We are now going into another world,” said Candide, “and surely it must be there that everything is best; for I must confess that we have had some little reason to complain of what passes in ours, both as to the physical and moral part.”

      “Though I have a sincere love for you,” said Miss Cunegund, “yet I still shudder at the reflection of what I have seen and experienced.”

      “All will be well,” replied Candide, “the sea of this new world is already better than our European seas: it is smoother, and the winds blow more regularly.”

      “God grant it,” said Cunegund; “but I have met with such terrible treatment in this that I have almost lost all hopes of a better.”

      “What murmuring and complaining is here indeed!” cried the old woman. “If you had suffered half what I have done, there might be some reason for it.”

      Miss Cunegund could scarcely refrain from laughing at the good old woman, and thought it droll enough to pretend to a greater share of misfortunes than herself.

      “Alas! my good dame,” said she, “unless you have been ravished by two Bulgarians, have received two deep wounds in your belly, have seen two of your own castles demolished, and beheld two fathers and two mothers barbarously murdered before your eyes, and, to sum up all, have had two lovers whipped at an auto-da-fé, I cannot see how you could be more unfortunate than me. Add to this, though born a baroness and bearing seventy-two quarterings, I have been reduced to a cook-wench.”

      “Miss,” replied the old woman, “you do not know my family as yet; but if I were to show you my backside, you would not talk in this manner, but suspend your judgment.”

      This speech raised a high curiosity in Candide and Cunegund; and the old woman continued as follows.

      Chapter XI

      The History of the Old Woman

      “I have not always been blear-eyed. My nose did not always touch my chin, nor was I always a servant. You must know that I am the daughter of Pope Urban X, and of the Princess of Palestrina. Up to the age of fourteen I was brought up in a castle, compared with which all the castles of the German barons would not have been fit for stabling, and one of my robes would have bought half the province of Westphalia. I grew in beauty, in wit, and in every graceful accomplishment, in the midst of pleasures, homage, and the highest expectations. I already began to inspire the men with love: my breast began to take its right form; and such a breast! white, firm, and formed like that of Venus of Medici: my eyebrows were as black as jet; and as for my eyes, they darted flames, and eclipsed the lustre of the stars, as I was told by the poets of our part of the world. My maids, when they dressed and undressed me, used to fall into an ecstasy in viewing me before and behind: and all the men longed to be in their places.

      “I was contracted to a sovereign prince of Massa-Carrara. Such a prince! as handsome as myself, sweet-tempered, agreeable, of brilliant wit, and in love with me over head and ears. I loved him too, as our sex generally do for the first time, with transport and idolatry. The nuptials were prepared with surprising pomp and magnificence; the ceremony was attended with a succession of feasts, carousals, and burlesques: all Italy composed sonnets in my praise, though not one of them was tolerable. I was on the point of reaching the summit of bliss, when an old marchioness who had been mistress to the Prince my husband invited him to drink chocolate. In less than two hours after he returned from the visit he died of most terrible convulsions: but this is a mere trifle. My mother, in despair, and yet less afflicted than me, determined to absent herself for some time from so fatal a place. As she had a very fine estate in the neighbourhood of Gaeta, we embarked on board a galley which was gilded like the high altar of St. Peter’s at Rome. In our passage we were boarded by a Sallee corsair. Our men defended themselves like true Pope’s soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, laid down their arms and begged the corsair to give them absolution in articulo mortis

      Примечания

      1

      A kind of garment worn by the criminals of the Inquisition.