Chapter 8: The story of Cunegonde.

“I was in my bed, deep asleep, when a storm outside drove the Bulgares to our beautiful home of Thunder-ten-tronckh. They slit the throats of my father and brother, and cut my mother to pieces. One huge Bulgare, at least six feet tall, saw that I was unconscious and raped me. I woke up, coming to my senses, crying, struggling, biting, scratching . . . I wanted to take the eyes out of the cruel Bulgare, not realizing that all who came to my father’s house that night viewed my family as simple objects. The man stabbed me in the left flank, and I still have a scar.”

“Alas, I might like to see it,” said the naive Candide.

“You will,” said Cunegonde, “but shall we continue?” 

“Of course, continue,” said Candide.

Cunegonde therefore resumed her story: “A Bulgarian captain entered, and saw me covered in blood, but the soldier attacking me did not salute his superior. The captain was angry at how he had been treated, and killed the soldier on my body for being so disrespectful of authority.

“Then he bandaged me, and took me as a prisoner of war to his quarters. I was in charge of bleaching his shirts and making his food; he confessed as I stayed with him that he found me quite beautiful. I cannot deny the fact that he, himself, was not unattractive, with soft pale skin and a mind with a bit of philosophy and a bit of spirit. Still, he had clearly not been raised by Dr. Pangloss.

“After about three months, when the captain had lost much of his money, he had to part with me. He sold me to a Jew named Don Issachar, who trafficked throughout Holland and Portugal, and had a passionate love for women. He became quite attracted to me, but was unable to rape me. I fought him like I had the Bulgarian soldier. An honorable person such as myself could stand to be violated once, but no more. The Jew, in order to tame me, led me to this country house where we are now speaking. I had once believed that there was nothing on this earth as beautiful as Thunder-ten-tronckh, but this house has proven me wrong.

“Later on, the Grand Inquisitor noticed me one day at mass. He looked at me quite a lot, and told me that he had to disclose something quite secret. I was taken to his palace, and I told him of my noble birth; he asked me how far below my station it would be considered for me to belong to an Israelite. He proposed that Don Issachar could cede me to monseigneur. Don Issachar, who is a banker of the court and a man of credit, wanted nothing to do with it. The Inquisitor threatened him with an auto-da-fé. Finally my Jew, intimidated, concluded with the inquisitor an agreement which would suit them both, where they would have joint ownership over both myself and the Inquisitor’s house. The jew would own us on Mondays, Wednesdays, and the Sabbath, while the Inquisitor would have power on the other days of the week. This went on for six months. It wasn’t without quarrel; the men couldn’t agree on whether the time when days changed from Saturday to Sunday would be established according to the ancient law or the new one. Myself, I resisted both of them through this present day, and I think it may be for this reason that I have always been loved.

“Finally, in order to divert the plague and earthquakes, and to intimidate Don Issachar, the Inquisitor decided it was time to celebrate an auto-da-fé. He assured me that it was an honor to be invited to such an illustrious event. I was quite content; they served refreshments there for the women between the mass and the execution. However, I felt, in all honesty, seized with horror when I saw the burning of the two Jews and the honest Biscayan who had married his godmother. To my surprise, my horror, and my torment, when I looked more closely, in a San-Benito and under a miter I found a figure who resembled Pangloss! I rubbed my eyes, and looked more attentively, not believing what I was seeing. I saw him hanging, and I fainted. I came to my senses a bit later when I saw you stripped bare; the sight of you brought to me such feelings of consternation, of pain, of despair! I’ll tell you, in full truth, that your skin is more white, and of a rosy hue far more perfect than that of the Bulgarian captain. The sight of you renewed all the feelings that were weighing me down, devouring me. I cried, as you heard, ‘Stop, barbarians!’ until my voice went hoarse and my cries were useless. ‘How could such a thing happen,’ I said, ‘as finding amiable Candide and sage Pangloss in Lisbon, one to receive a hundred whip lashes, and the other to be hanged by order of the Inquisitor, of whom I am so beloved?’ Pangloss seemed to me cruelly mistaken, if he thought that such a thing was for the best.

“Agitated, distraught, sometimes feeling removed from myself, sometimes close to dying of weakness, I remembered in my head the massacres of my father, my mother, and my brother, the insolence of that horrid Bulgarian soldier, the stab wound he’d given me, my servitude of each awful person who’d come to control me, the hanging of Doctor Pangloss, the great anguish that enveloped me when I saw you in such pain, and of the kiss you’d given me behind the screen back at my home, the day when I thought I’d never see you again. I praise God, that you’ve come back to me through such trials. I told my old woman to care for you. She has executed my commission quite well, I see. It brings me indescribable joy to see you again and to hear you speak. You must be simply devoured by hunger, though. I am, too. Let’s begin dinner.”

They found themselves both a seat at the table, and, after eating, settled back on a good, comfortable sofa. They were still there when the signor Don Issachar, one of the masters of the house, arrived. It was the Sabbath day. He was coming to enjoy what he believed to be his by right, and express his tender love to Cunegonde. He was not at all pleased to see someone else speaking to her.

Translator’s Note: It is worth noting that Voltaire’s portrayal of a Jewish man is less than favorable, even if it is for a satirical work, and this is unfortunately rather common for the time. I, as a translator, do not support antisemitism, but I believe it is the duty of all historians to present the past as it actually was, not as we wish it was, as a form of respect to the people who endured such forms of injustice. It is also worth noting that people have sometimes viewed Voltaire’s presentation of the church and church figures such as the Inquisitor as a criticism against faith and religion. If you ever feel the need to read his letters and a greater body of his works, you will find that though Voltaire was personally a deist, the aspect of religion which he constantly opposed was church corruption, not Christ (A particularly strong explanation can be found in his Dictionnaire Philosophique, under the topic of religion, in which he expounds upon the idea that organized religion has been corrupted, but Christ’s teachings are not what’s at fault for this so much as human manipulation of the Bible).

In terms of translation choices, Cunegonde is written about during the agreement between Don Issachar and the Inquisitor with many of the same terms used for business exchanges of the time. I endeavored to maintain this technical, impersonal style of language, adapting it to English (e.g. “cede me,” “joint agreement”) business speech. The detail about a joint agreement was my own addition to the text, as direct translation failed to capture the meaning without some form of clarifying term. Cunegonde’s comment about Candide’s skin being more beautiful than the Bulgare soldier’s was taken word-for-word from the original text, so please note Voltaire’s efforts to highlight how normal the abuses of war can begin to feel when one is constantly subject to it. In the second to last paragraph, the comment about Cunegonde’s servitude captures a passage which includes a slightly longer list of insulting her captors and the menial jobs she’s had to perform to live. This long list felt overbearing in English, despite working fine in its French form, so I chose to shorten it with a generalization.