Candide
or
Optimism
Translated from the German
of Dr. Ralph
with the additions that were found
in the pocket of the doctor
when he died in Minden
the year our Lord 1759.
Chapter 1
How Candide was raised in a beautiful chateau, and how he was driven from it
There was in Westphalia, in the chateau of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, a young boy to which nature had given the sweetest customs. His physiognomy announced his soul. He had a rather upright judgment, with the most simple mind; it is, I believe, for this reason he was named Candide. The ancient house servants suspected that he was the son of the baron’s sister and of a good and honest gentleman of the neighborhood, which this lady never wanted to marry because he had only been able to prove sixty and eleven quarterings, and that the rest of his genealogical tree had been lost by the injury of time.
The baron was one of the most powerful noblemen in Westphalia, since his chateau had a door and windows. His grand hall was even adorned with a tapestry. All the dogs in his barnyards composed a hunting pack when needed; his grooms were his whippers-in; the vicar of the village was his grand almoner. They all called him, “Monseigneur,” and they laughed when he told stories.
The baroness, who weighed around three hundred fifty pounds, by that attracted a very great consideration, and did the honors of the house with a dignity that rendered her still more respectable. Her daughter Cunégonde, aged seventeen years, was high in color, fresh, fat, appetizing. The son of the baron appeared in all worthy of his father. The tutor Pangloss was the oracle of the house, and the little Candide listened to his lessons with all the good faith of his age and his character.
Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonogology. He proved admirably that there is not an effect without a cause, and that, in the best of all possible worlds, the baron’s chateau was the most beautiful chateau and the madame the best of all possible baronesses.
“It is demonstrated,” he said, “that things cannot be otherwise: since, all was made for an end, all is necessarily for the best end. Remark well that noses have been made to carry glasses, thus we have glasses. The legs are visibly instituted to be hosed, and we have hose. Stones have been formed to be hewn, and from them chateaus to be made, thus Monseigneur has a very beautiful chateau; the greatest baron in the province must be the best housed; and, the pigs being made to be eaten, we eat pork all year: in consequence, those who have advanced that all is well have said nonsense; it is necessary to say that all is best.”
Candide listened attentively, and believed innocently; for he found Ms. Cunégonde extremely beautiful, though he never had the audacity to say it to her. He concluded that after the happiness of being born Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, the second degree of happiness was being Ms. Cunégonde; the third, seeing her every day; and the fourth, hearing Master Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the province, and in consequence of all the earth.
One day Cunégonde, walking near the chateau, in the little wood that one called a “park,” saw in the bushes Doctor Pangloss who was giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother’s chambermaid, a little brunette very jolly and docile. As Ms. Cunégonde had quite a disposition for the sciences, she observed, without breathing, the repeated experiments to which she was witness; she saw clearly the doctor’s sufficient reason, the effects and the causes, and returned from it entirely agitated, entirely pensive, and entirely filled with the desire to be knowledgeable, imagining that she could well be young Candide’s sufficient reason, who was able as well to be hers.
She came across Candide returning to the chateau, and blushed; Candide blushed as well; she said to him, “Good day,” in an interrupted voice, and Candide spoke to her without knowing what he was saying. The next day after dinner, as they left the table, Cunégonde and Candide found themselves behind a folding screen; Cunégonde let fall her handkerchief, Candide picked it up, she took him innocently by the hand, the young man innocently kissed the young lady with a vivacity, a sensibility, a grace entirely particular; their mouths met, their eyes were inflamed, their knees trembled, their hands wandered. Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh passed near the screen, and, seeing this cause and that effect, drove Candide from the chateau with great kicks to the derriere; Cunégonde fainted; she was slapped by the baroness once she was returned to herself, and all was consternated in the most beautiful and agreeable of all possible chateaus.
The Grass is Always Greener 