Chapter 16
candide and his valet had got beyond the barrier before it was known in the camp that the german jesuit was dead the wary cacambo had taken care to fill his wallet with bread chocolate bacon fruit and a few bottles of wine with their andalusian horses they penetrated into an unknown country where they perceived no beaten track at length they came to a beautiful meadow intersected with purling rills here our two adventurers fed their horses cacambo proposed to his master to take some food and he set him an example how can you ask me to eat ham said candide after killing the barren sun and being doomed never more to see the beautiful cunegonda what will it avail me to spin out my wretched days and drag them far from her in remorse and despair and what will the journal of trevaux say while he was thus lamenting his fate he went on eating the sun went down the two wanderers heard some little cries which seemed to be uttered by women they did not know whether they were cries of pain or joy
but they started up precipitately with that inquietude and alarm which every little thing inspires in an unknown country the noise was made by two naked girls who tripped along the mead while two monkeys were pursuing them and biting their buttocks candide was moved with pity he had learned to fire a gun in the bulgarian service and he was so clever at it that he could hit a filbert in a hedge without touching a leaf of the tree he took up his double-barrelled spanish fusel let it off and killed the two monkeys god be praised my dear cacambo i have rescued those two poor creatures from a most perilous situation if i have committed a sin in killing an inquisitor and a jesuit i have made ample amends by saving the lives of these girls perhaps they are young ladies of family and this adventure may procure us great advantages in this country he was continuing but stopped short when he saw the two girls tenderly embracing the monkeys bathing their bodies in tears and rending the air with the most dismal lamentations little did i expect to see such good nature said he at length to cacambo who made answer
master you have done a fine thing now you have slain the sweethearts of those two young ladies the sweethearts is it possible you are jesting cacambo i can never believe it dear master replied cacambo you are surprised at everything why should you think it so strange that in some countries there are monkeys which insinuate themselves into the good graces of the ladies they are a fourth part human as i am a fourth part spaniard alas replied candide i remember to have heard master pangloss say that formerly such accidents used to happen that these mixtures were productive of centaurs fauns and satyrs and that many of the ancients had seen such monsters but i looked upon the whole as fabulous you ought now to be convinced said cacambo that it is the truth and you see what use is made of those creatures by persons that have not had a proper education all i fear is that those ladies will play us some ugly trick these sound reflections induced candide to leave the meadow and to plunge into a wood he supped there with cacambo and after cursing the portuguese inquisitor the governor of buenos ayres and the baron they fell asleep en masse
on awakening they felt that they could not move for during the night the orylons who inhabited that country and to whom the ladies had denounced them had bound them with cords made of the bark of trees they were encompassed by fifty naked orillons armed with bows and arrows with clubs and flint hatchets some were making a large cauldron boil others were preparing spits and all cried a jesuit a jesuit we shall be revenged we shall have excellent cheer let us eat the jesuit let us eat him up i told you my dear master cried cacambo sadly that those two girls would play us some ugly trick candide seeing the cauldron in the spits cried we are certainly going to be either roasted or boiled ah what would master pangloss say were he to see how pure nature is formed everything is right may be but i declare it is very hard to have lost miss cunegonda and to be put on a spit by o'rylons cacambo never lost his head do not despair said he to the disconsolate candide i understand a little of the jargon of these people i will speak to them
be sure said candide to represent to them how frightfully inhuman it is to cook men and how very unchristian gentlemen said cacambo you reckon you are to-day going to feast upon a jesuit it is all very well nothing is more unjust than thus to treat your enemies indeed the law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbor and such is the practice all over the world if we do not accustom ourselves to eating them it is because we have better fare but you have not the same resources as we certainly it is much better to devour your enemies than to resign to the crows and rooks the fruits of your victory but gentlemen surely you would not choose to eat your friends you believe that you are going to spit a jesuit and he is your defender it is the enemy of your enemies that you are going to roast as for myself i was born in your country this gentleman is my master and far from being a jesuit he has just killed one whose spoils he wears and thence comes your mistake
to convince you of the truth of what i say take his habit and carry it to the first barrier of the jesuit kingdom and inform yourselves whether my master did not kill a jesuit officer it will not take you long and you can always eat us if you find that i have lied to you but i have told the truth you are too well acquainted with the principles of public law humanity and justice not to pardon us the o'rylons found this speech very reasonable they deputed two of their principal people with all expedition to inquire into the truth of the matter these executed their commission like men of sense and soon returned with good news the o'rylons untied their prisoners showed them all sorts of civilities offered them girls gave them refreshment and reconducted them to the confines of their territories proclaiming with great joy he is no jesuit he is no jesuit candide could not help being surprised at the cause of his deliverance what people said he what men what manners
if i had not been so lucky as to run miss cunegonda's brother through the body i should have been devoured without redemption but after all pure nature is good since these people instead of feasting upon my flesh have shown me a thousand civilities when then i was not a jesuit candide by voltaire read by ted de lorme in fort mill south carolina during january two thousand seven
