Chapter 4: How Candide reunited with his old master of philosophy, Dr. Pangloss, and what had happened to the man.

Candide, filled with horror and compassion for this poor soul, gave to the man the two florins which had been received from the anabaptist Jack. The beggar, shedding an abundance of tears, staggered up to embrace Candide. Startled, Candide staggered back.

 “Alas,” the beggar said, “from one miserable man to another, do you not recognize me, your dear Dr. Pangloss?”

Candide was shocked. “What do I hear?” he said. “You, my dear master? You, in this horrible state! What horror has come to you? Why are you not in the most beautiful of households?

“Not only that,” he continued, “but what has happened to Cunegonde, the pearl of women, the masterpiece of nature?”

“I can’t take it anymore,” said Pangloss, not responding to the inquiries.

Therefore, Candide led the old master to the table of the anabaptist, where he ate a bit of bread, and Pangloss finally reported, “Well! You inquired about Cunegonde? She is dead.” 

Candide was distraught by this message, fainting, but finally reviving himself in order to exclaim, “Cunegonde is dead! Ah, the worst of worlds, is that where we are? By what malady did she die? Was it the sight of my banishment from her father’s house?”

“No,” said Pangloss, “she was captured by the Bulgarian soldiers, and violated; they broke the head of the dear baron, who had tried to protect her, and sliced the baroness into pieces. My poor pupil, her sister got the same treatment! And of the chateau, it no longer claims walls of stone, nor a barn, nor sheep, ducks, or even trees! However, we will be well-venged, for the Abares have done much damage to the leading Bulgare in a neighboring barony.”

            Hearing this report, Candide once again fainted, but came around in time. He said all that he could say on the nature of such a tragedy, concluding that there must have been a good reason for it to occur.

             “Alas,” said Pangloss, “such is the nature of love. Love, the consolation of humankind, the conservator of the universe, the soul of all that is sensible. Oh, tender love!”

            “Alas,” said Candide, “I know this love, this sovereign of hearts, this soul of souls, and it was never worth even dirt to me. How can a good thing such as love, produce such an abominable effect?”

Pangloss responded in such terms: “Oh, my dear Candide! You knew Paquette, the pretty follower of our baron? I found in her arms the delicacies of paradise, which no torment of hell could ever take away; she has become ill, and is likely dead. Paquette caught such an illness from a Franciscan friar, who had it from an old countess, who had it from a cavalry captain, who had it from a marquise, who had it from a page, who had it from a Jesuit, who claimed direct descendence from a companion of Christopher Columbus.”

“Oh, Pangloss,” Candide cried, “What a strange genealogy! Do you think it was the devil’s doing?”

“Not at all. You see, the point of it all,” explained wise Pangloss, “is that such experience must be of indescribable value in this best of all worlds, a necessary ingredient, for if Columbus had never been trapped on an American island where his crew discovered such a cruel malady, we would not have chocolate and cochineals. We must observe, my dear boy, that it is in our continent alone where such a malady has spread to so many. The Turks, Indians, Persians, Chinese, Siamese, Japanese . . . they do not know of such a thing as the syphilis which afflicts myself and so many others on our continent. Yet, there must be sufficient reason for this. In Europe, we have made great discoveries among our fellow men, we have great armies filled with honorable men, we decide the destinies of entire states! Rest assured, when 30,000 men fight in battle against enemies of equal number, there are about 20,000 with syphilis on each side. Therefore, it must be for the best.”

Candide embraced this logical reasoning, calling it a thoroughly admirable statistic. “Yet,” he noted, “you still need to be cured.”

“How?” asked Pangloss. “I haven’t a single sou, my friend, and in all the extent of this globe one cannot be bled for healing, nor take a bath, without paying, so we would need someone to finance my healing.”

This last statement gave Candide a purpose. He would hurry to Jacques the anabaptist, tell him of the situation, and the good man would not hesitate to help dear Pangloss.

Pangloss, with a cure such as money could buy, lost neither ear nor eye. He wrote well, and knew an abundance of mathematics, so Jacques made the old doctor a bookkeeper. After two months, Jacques was obligated to go to Lisbon for an affair of commerce, and brought with him the two philosophers. Pangloss attempted to teach Jacques how everything was good and for the best, but Jacques was skeptical of this clearly correct and logical philosophy. 

“It appears,” Jacques said, “that men have corrupted nature, not born as wolves but developing themselves into such creatures of fierceness. God did not give them cannons or bayonets, but men made them anyhow as instruments of their own destruction. Bankruptcy is hardly pleasant, either, and that is also a corruption of nature.”

The doctor, though, claimed that all such things were indispensable, and that bad things still worked toward the general good. As the sun set, winds blew from all corners of the world, and the trio’s boat was assailed by a most miserable tempest. It was for the best, Candide believed, and soon Lisbon came into his view. However, they were not yet ashore.

Translator’s Note: One of the most interesting lines in this chapter is, “Il faut bien, disait-il, que les hommes aient un peu corrompu la nature, car ils ne sont point nés loups, et ils sont devenus loups. Dieu ne leur a donné ni canons de vingt-quatre, ni baïonnettes, et ils se sont fait des baïonnettes et des canons pour se détruire.” This is where Jacques is talking about men corrupting themselves into wolves. I had to restructure it slightly, further clarifying details about the nature of men corrupting themselves, in order to maintain the feel of the prose.