Candide | Page 5

indebted for it to an old countess, who
had it of a captain of horse, who had it of a marchioness, who had it of
a page, the page had it of a Jesuit, who, during his novitiate, had it in a
direct line 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 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 contaminates the

source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is
evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had
neither chocolate nor cochineal. It is also to be observed, that, even to
the present time, in this continent of ours, this malady, like our
religious controversies, is peculiar to ourselves. 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 making prodigious havoc
among us, especially in those armies composed of well disciplined
hirelings, who determine the fate of nations; for we may safely affirm,
that, when an army of thirty thousand men engages another equal in
size, there are about twenty thousand infected with syphilis on each
side."
"Very surprising, indeed," said Candide, "but you must get cured."
"Lord help me, how can I?" said Pangloss. "My dear friend, I have not
a penny in the world; and you know one cannot be bled or have an
enema without money."
This last speech had its effect on Candide; he flew to the charitable
Anabaptist, James; he flung himself at his feet, and gave him so
striking a picture of the miserable condition of his friend that the good
man without any further hesitation agreed to take Dr. Pangloss into his
house, and to pay for his cure. The cure was effected with only the loss
of one eye and an ear. As be wrote a good hand, and understood
accounts tolerably well, the Anabaptist made him his bookkeeper. At
the expiration of two months, being obliged by some mercantile affairs
to go to Lisbon he took the two philosophers with him in the same ship;
Pangloss, during the course of the voyage, explained to him how
everything was so constituted that it could not be better. James did not
quite agree with him on this point.
"Men," said he "must, in some things, have deviated from their original
innocence; for they were not born wolves, and yet they worry one
another like those beasts of prey. God never gave them twenty-four
pounders nor bayonets, and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to
destroy one another. To this account I might add not only bankruptcies,

but the law which seizes on the effects of bankrupts, only to cheat the
creditors."
"All this was indispensably necessary," replied the one-eyed doctor,
"for private misfortunes are public benefits; so that the more private
misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good."
While he was arguing in this manner, the sky was overcast, the winds
blew from the four quarters of the compass, and the ship was assailed
by a most terrible tempest, within sight of the port of Lisbon.

CHAPTER 5
A Tempest, a Shipwreck, an Earthquake, and What Else Befell Dr.
Pangloss, Candide, and James, the Anabaptist
One half of the passengers, weakened and half-dead with the
inconceivable anxiety and sickness which the rolling of a vessel at sea
occasions through the whole human frame, were lost to all sense of the
danger that surrounded them. The others made loud outcries, or betook
themselves to their prayers; the sails were blown into shreds, and the
masts were brought by the board. The vessel was a total wreck.
Everyone was busily employed, but nobody could be either heard or
obeyed. The Anabaptist, being upon deck, lent a helping hand as well
as the rest, when a brutish sailor gave him a blow and laid him
speechless; but, not withstanding, with the violence of the blow the tar
himself tumbled headforemost overboard, and fell upon a piece of the
broken mast, which he immediately grasped.
Honest James, forgetting the injury he had so lately received from him,
flew to his assistance, and, with great difficulty, hauled him in again,
but, not withstanding, in the attempt, was, by a sudden jerk of the ship,
thrown overboard himself, in sight of the very fellow whom he had
risked his life to save