Chapter 5: Tempest, Shipwreck, Earthquake, and what became of Candide, Pangloss, and the Anabaptist Jacques

Half of the ship’s passengers weakened, expiring in the midst of the inconceivable agonies which rocked the vessel and brought contrary senses into one’s nerves and bodily humors. These passengers, while they still lived, did not have the strength to worry about the storm’s danger. The other half of the passengers cried up to the heavens desperate prayers; the ship’s sail tore, the mast broke, and the whole vessel was cracked half open. Though they worked as well as they could, nobody was able to understand orders or command others in time to save the ship.

Jacques helped a bit, but was knocked down by an angry sailor. The blow which the man distributed had such power behind it that it knocked the sailor himself off-balance, and the man fell head first off of the ship’s deck. Good Jacques ran to the seaman’s aid, throwing himself into the sea, potentially a way to perish. Candide approached the side of the deck, saw his benefactor reappear above the waves, and then poor Jacques was swallowed up by the sea. He wanted to dive in after his friend, but Pangloss prevented such action, saying that the harbor of Lisbon must have been made specifically so that such a man could drown in it. Such an event, tragedy though it may seem, was all for the best. 

As if to prove such a point, the boat finally broke apart. Everyone perished, save Candide, Pangloss, and the raging sailor who had attacked the Anabaptist. The rascal swam happily to shore, and Candide and Pangloss clung to a plank until they reached dry land. Once they had recovered somewhat from their ideal, they headed to the city. With the money they had left, they hoped to buy some food once the storm ended. They had barely set foot into the city, though, when they began to weep for the fate of Jacques, their benefactor. As they cried, the earth trembled beneath them, and the sea was struck into a fury capable of breaking the ships anchored at harbor. Whirlwinds of cinder and flame covered the Lisbon streets; homes became roofs upon broken foundations, and the foundations then disappeared beneath the destruction. Thirty thousand inhabitants of every age and sex were crushed under the ruins. The sailor laughed, “There’ll be something for the taking here.”

“What could possibly be a sufficient reason for this calamity?” Pangloss cried.

“It’s the end of the world!” cried Candide.

The sailor ran through the debris, checking the dead for their money, soon getting drunk but eventually corking his wine in order to buy pleasure from the first willing girl he encountered among the houses and dead. Pangloss pulled the sailor away as he walked.

“My friend,” Pangloss said, “this is awful. You have no sense of reason, you have spent your time foolishly.” 

The sailor scoffed. “I was born in Batavia. I took up my cross four times for four voyages to Japan! You have met a man with universal reason!”

Some fragments of rock hit Candide, for he was still struggling through the destruction. He said to Pangloss, “Alas! Give me some wine and oil; I’m dying.”

“That earthquake was nothing new,” Pangloss said, rebuking his pupil. “A similar thing happened in Lima, in the Americas, only last year. Same causes, same effects. There is clearly some kind of sulfur trail under the earth from Lima to Lisbon.”

“Nothing is more probable,” agreed Candide, “but please, may I have some wine and oil?”

“How probable?” asked Pangloss. “Has it not been shown to us?”

Candide fainted.

Pangloss sighed, and brought him a bit of water from a neighboring fountain.

The next day, having found some provisions within the ruined city as they slipped through its rubble, the party regained some strength. Then, they worked like many others to help the residents of Lisbon who had escaped death. Some citizens, rescued by them, gave our heroes a kind dinner in the midst of disaster. Everyone watered their bread with their tears, but Pangloss consoled them, assuring them all that things were as they were meant to be. 

“Indeed,” he said, “all this is for the best, for if there is, say, a volcano in Lisbon, it cannot be anywhere else. One danger can only strike one place at a time, so all this is for the greater good.”

A dark little man at the dinner party, who was a familiar of the Inquisition, politely said, “It appears that this doctor does not believe in original sin, for if all is for the best, there must have never been any fall nor punishment for it.”

“Oh, I humbly beg pardon, Your Excellence,” Pangloss responded respectfully, “for the fall of man and its curse were certainly necessary in this best of all possible worlds.”

“Do you not believe in liberty?” asked the familiar.

“Oh, excuse me, Your Excellence,” Pangloss began, “but liberty is an absolute necessity. We have free will, after all . . .” 

Pangloss was still in the middle of this phrase when the familiar signaled one of his servants to bring a bottle of wine, from Porto or Oporto. He was such an attentive man, was he not?

Translator’s Note: The Lisbon earthquake was an extremely traumatic event for Voltaire, even though he wasn’t an eyewitness. Hearing other philosopher’s Leibnitzian proclamations that the earthquake must’ve happened for good reason and all be for the best enraged him. Voltaire believed that sometimes, suffering is just hard, and though good can come from it, there’s nothing inherently good about it. “Candide” was his response to the events of this chapter and the reactions people had to them.