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master—you I behold in this piteous plight? What dreadful misfortune has befallen you? What has made you leave the most magnificent and delightful of all castles? What has become of Miss Cunégonde, the mirror of young ladies, and Nature’s masterpiece?” “Oh, Lord!” cried Pangloss, “I am so weak I cannot stand”; upon which Candide instantly led him to the Anabaptist’s stable, and found him something to eat. As soon as Pangloss had refreshed himself a little Candide began to repeat his inquiries concerning Miss Cunégonde. “She is dead,” replied the other. “Dead!” cried Candide, and immediately fainted. His friend recovered him by the help of a little bad vinegar, which he found by chance in the stable. Candide opened his eyes, and again repeated: “Dead! Is Miss Cunégonde dead? Ah, what has become of the best of worlds now? But how did she die? Was it for grief upon seeing her father kick me out of his magnificent castle?” “No,” replied Pangloss. “Her body was ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers after they had ravished her as much as it was possible for damsel to be ravished. They smashed her father’s head for attempting to defend her; my lady her mother was cut in pieces; my poor pupil was served just in the same manner as his sister; and as for the castle they have not left one stone upon another. They have destroyed all the ducks and the sheep, the barns and the trees; we have had our revenge, for the Abares have done the very same thing in a neighbouring barony, which belonged to a Bulgarian lord.”
    At hearing this, Candide fainted a second time, but, having come to himself again, he said all that was appropriate to the occasion. He asked about the cause and effect, as well as about the sufficing reason , that had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a condition. “Alas,” replied the tutor, “it was love; love, the comfort of the human species; love, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sensible beings; love, tender love!” “Alas,” replied Candide, “I have had some knowledge of love myself, this sovereign of hearts, this soul of souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks in the rear. But how could this beautiful cause produce in you so hideous an effect?”
    Pangloss replied as follows: “Oh, my dear Candide, you must remember Pacquette, that pretty wench who waited on our noble baroness; in her arms I tasted the pleasures of paradise, which produced these hell-torments with which you see me devoured. She was infected with disease, i and perhaps is since dead of it. She received this present of a learned cordelier, who traced it back to its source. He was indebted for it to an old countess, who caught it from a captain of cavalry, who caught it from a marchioness, who caught it from a page, the page received it from a Jesuit, who during his noviciate got it directly from one of the fellow adventurers of Christopher Columbus. For my part, I shall give it to nobody. I am a dying man.”
    “O sage Pangloss,” cried Candide, “what a strange genealogy is this. Is not the devil at the root of it?” “Not at all,” replied the great man; “it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which is evidently opposite to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal. j It is also to be observed that, even to the present time, in this continent of ours,
     

    THE BULGARS LEAVING THUNDER-TEN-TRONCKH CASTLE

this malady. like our religious controversies, has been confined to us. The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, and the Japanese are entirely unacquainted with it; but there is a sufficing reason for them to know it in a few centuries. In the meantime it is creating prodigious havoc among us, especially in those armies composed of well-disciplined hirelings, k who determine the fate of nations; for we