XIX

What happened to them at Surinam,^ay and how Candide got to know Martin

Our travellers’ first day’s journey was very pleasant; they were elated with the prospect of possessing more riches than were to be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa together. Candide, in an amorous mood, cut the name of Miss Cunégonde on almost every tree he came to. The second day, two of their sheep sank in a swamp, and were swallowed up, with their loads; two more died of fatigue; some few days afterward seven or eight perished with hunger in a desert; and others, at different times, tumbled down precipices, or were otherwise lost; so that, after travelling about a hundred days, they had only two sheep left of the hundred and two they brought with them from El Dorado. Candide said to Cacambo: “You see, my dear friend, how fleeting the riches of this world are; there is nothing solid but virtue.” “Very true,” said Cacambo ; “but we still have two sheep remaining, with more treasure than the King of Spain will ever have; and I see a town at a distance, which I take to be Surinam, a town belonging to the Dutch. We are now at the end of our troubles, and at the beginning of happiness.”

As they approached the town, they saw a negro stretched on the ground with only half of his outfit, which was a kind of linen frock, for the poor man had lost his left leg and his right hand. “Good God,” said Candide in Dutch; “what are you doing in this horrible condition?” “I am waiting for my master, Mynheer^az Vanderdendur, the famous trader,” answered the negro. “Was it Mynheer Vanderdendur who used you in this cruel manner?” “Yes, sir,” said the negro; “it is the custom here. They give us a linen garment twice a year, and that is all. When we work in the sugar factory, and the mill happens to snatch off a finger, they instantly chop off our hand; and when we attempt to run away they cut off a leg.^ba Both these things have happened to me; and it is at this cost that you eat sugar in Europe;^bb and yet when my mother sold me for ten Patagonian crowns on the coast of Guinea, she said to me: ‘My dear child, bless our fetishes; adore them for ever; they will make you happy; you have the honour to be a slave to our lords the whites, by which you will make the fortune of your parents. Alas! I don’t know if I have made their fortunes; but they have not made mine. Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less wretched than I. The Dutch fetishists who converted me tell me every Sunday that the blacks and whites are all children of one father, whom they call Adam. I’m no genealogist; but if what these preachers say is true, we are all second cousins; and you must admit that no one could treat his own relations in a more horrible manner.”

“O Pangloss!” cried out Candide, “such horrid doings never entered your imagination. Here is an end of the matter; I find myself, after all, obliged to renounce your optimism.” “Optimism,” said Cacambo, “what is that?” “Alas!” replied Candide, “it is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst”; and so saying, he turned his eyes towards the poor negro, and shed a flood of tears; and in this weeping mood he entered the town of Surinam.

Immediately upon their arrival our travellers asked if there was any ship in the harbour which could be sent to Buenos Ayres. The person they asked happened to be the master of a Spanish boat, who offered to make a fair bargain with them and arranged for them to meet at a café. Candide and his faithful Cacambo went to wait for him there, taking with them their two sheep.

Candide, who was all frankness and sincerity, gave an ingenious retelling of his adventures to the Spaniard, and he confessed that he wanted to recapture Miss Cunégonde from the Governor of Buenos Ayres. “Oh, oh!” said the shipmaster, “if that is the case get someone else to carry you to Buenos Ayres; for my part, I wash my hands of the affair. I would be hanged and so would you. The fair Cunégonde is the Governor’s favourite mistress.” These words were like a clap of thunder to Candide; he wept bitterly for a long time, and taking Cacambo aside, he said: ”I’ll tell you, my dear friend, what you must do. We each have in our pockets five or six millions in diamonds; you are cleverer at these matters than I; you must go to Buenos Ayres and bring back Miss Cunégonde. If the Governor gives you any difficulty, give him a million; if he holds out, give him two; you have not killed an Inquisitor, no one will suspect you: I’ll outfit another ship and go to Venice, where I will wait for you. Venice is a free country, where we will have nothing to fear from Bulgarians, Abares, Jews, or Inquisitors.” Cacambo greatly applauded this wise plan. He was in despair at the thought of parting with so good a master, who treated him more like an intimate friend than a servant; but the pleasure of being able to do him a service soon got the better of his sorrow. They embraced each other amid a flood of tears. Candide urged him not to forget the old woman. Cacambo set out the same day. This Cacambo was a very honest fellow.

Candide continued some days longer at Surinam, waiting for any captain to carry him and his two remaining sheep to Italy. He hired domestics, and purchased many things necessary for the long voyage ; finally, Mynheer Vanderdendur, skipper of a large Dutch vessel, came and offered his service. “What will you charge,” said Candide, “to carry me, my servants, my baggage, and these two sheep you see here, directly to Venice?” The skipper asked for ten thousand piastres; and Candide agreed to his demand without hesitation.

“Ho, ho!” said the cunning Vanderdendur to himself, “this stranger must be very rich; he agrees to give me ten thousand piastres without hesitation.” Returning a little while later, he told Candide that, upon second consideration he could not undertake the voyage for less than twenty thousand. “Very well, you shall have them,” said Candide.

“Well!” said the skipper to himself, “this man agrees to pay twenty thousand piastres with as much ease as ten.” So he went back again to say that he will not carry him to Venice for less than thirty thousand piastres. “Then you shall have thirty thousand,” said Candide.

“Ah ha!” said the Dutchman once more to himself, “thirty thousand piastres mean nothing to this man. Those sheep must certainly be laden with an immense treasure. I’ll stop here and ask no more; but make him pay up front the thirty thousand piastres, and then we’ll see.” Candide sold two small diamonds, the least of which was worth more than all the skipper asked. He paid him in advance; the two sheep were put on board, and Candide followed in a small boat to join the vessel at its anchorage. The skipper took his opportunity, hoisted sail, and put out to sea with a favourable wind. Candide, confounded and amazed, soon lost sight of the ship. “Alas!” said he, “this is a trick worthy of our old world!” He returned back to the shore overwhelmed with grief; and indeed he had lost what would have made the fortune of twenty monarchs.

Immediately upon his landing he applied to the Dutch magistrate. Because he was feeling troubled, he thundered at the door, went in, made his case, and talked a little louder than was necessary. The magistrate began by fining him ten thousand piastres for making such a racket, and then listened very patiently to what he had to say; promised to look into the affair on the skipper’s return; and ordered him to pay ten thousand piastres more for the fees of the court.

This treatment completed Candide’s despair. It is true he had suffered misfortunes a thousand times more grievous; but the cool insolence of the judge and the villainy of the skipper raised his anger and threw him into a deep melancholy. The villainy of mankind presented itself to his mind in all its deformity, and his mind dwelt only on gloomy thoughts. After some time, hearing that the captain of a French ship was ready to set sail for Bordeaux, as he had no more sheep loaded with diamonds to put on board, he took a cabin at a fair price; and made it known in the town that he would pay the passage and board of any honest man who would keep him company during the voyage, besides making him a present of ten thousand piastres, on condition that such person must be the most disgusted with his own condition, and the most unhappy in the whole province.

This drew such a crowd of candidates that a large fleet could not have contained them. Candide, willing to choose among those who appeared most likely to answer his intention, selected twenty, who seemed to him the most companionable, and who all pretended to be more miserable than all the others. He invited them to his inn, and promised to treat them to supper, on condition that every man would swear to tell his own history; declaring at the same time that he would select that person who appeared to him the most deserving of compassion and the most truly dissatisfied with his condition of life, and that he would distribute various gifts among the rest.

This extraordinary assembly continued sitting till four in the morning. Candide, while he was listening to their adventures, recalled what the old woman had said to him during their voyage to Buenos Ayres, and the bet she had made that there was not a person on board the ship who had not met with some great misfortunes. Every story he heard made him think of Pangloss. “My old master,” said he, “would be hard pressed to prove his system. If only he were here! Certainly, if everything is for the best, it is in El Dorado, and not in the other parts of the world.” Finally he selected a poor scholar, who had worked ten years for the booksellers at Amsterdam. He decided that no employment could be more detestable.

This scholar, who was in fact a very honest man, had been robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and forsaken by his daughter, who had run away with a Portuguese. He had also been fired from the little job on which he existed, and he was persecuted by the clergy of Surinam, who took him for a Socinian.¹⁹ It must be acknowledged that the other competitors were at least as wretched as he. But Candide hoped that the company of a man of letters would relieve the tediousness of the voyage. All the other candidates complained that Candide had done them great injustice, but he pacified them with a present of a hundred piastres to each.