Candide: A Dual-Language Book

VOLTAIRE

Candide

A Dual-Language Book

TRANSLATED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION,

BY SHANE WELLER

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

New York

Copyright © 1993 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

This Dover edition, first published in 1993, contains the complete and unabridged original French text of Candide, reprinted from a standard edition, together with a complete new English translation and new introduction by Shane Weller, both prepared specially for the present edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Voltaire, 1694–1778.

[Candide. English   French]

Candide : a dual-language book / Voltaire; English version by Shane Weller.

     p. cm.

English and French.

ISBN 0-486-27625-2

I. Weller, Shane. II. Title.

PQ2082.C3E5 1993

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

27625209

www.doverpublications.com

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPITRE PREMIER    COMMENT CANDIDE FUT ÉLEVÉ DANS UN BEAU CHÂTEAU, ET COMMENT IL FUT CHASSÉ D’ICELUI

CHAPITRE I    HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY RESIDENCE, AND HOW HE WAS DRIVEN FROM IT

CHAPITRE II    CE QUE DEVINT CANDIDE PARMI LES BULGARES

CHAPTER II    WHAT HAPPENED TO CANDIDE AMONG THE BULGARIANS

CHAPITRE III    COMMENT CANDIDE SE SAUVA D’ENTRE LES BULGARES, ET CE QU’IL DEVINT

CHAPTER III    HOW CANDIDE ESCAPED FROM THE BULGARIANS, AND WHAT BECAME OF HIM

CHAPITRE IV    COMMENT CANDIDE RENCONTRA SON ANCIEN MAÎTRE DE PHILOSOPHIE, LE DOCTEUR PANGLOSS, ET CE QUI EN ADVINT

CHAPTER IV    HOW CANDIDE CAME ACROSS HIS FORMER PHILOSOPHY MASTER, DOCTOR PANGLOSS, AND WHAT ENSUED

CHAPITRE V    TEMPÉTE, NAUFRAGE, TREMBLEMENT DE TERRE, ET CE QUI ADVINT DU DOCTEUR PANGLOSS, DE CANDIDE, ET DE L’ANABAPTISTE JACQUES

CHAPTER V    TEMPEST, SHIPWRECK, EARTHQUAKE, AND WHAT HAPPENED TO DOCTOR PANGLOSS, CANDIDE AND THE ANABAPTIST JACQUES

CHAPITRE VI    COMMENT ON FIT UN BEL AUTO-DA-FÉ POUR EMPÉCHER LES TREMBLEMENTS DE TERRE, ET COMMENT CANDIDE FUT FESSÉ

CHAPTER VI    HOW A FINE AUTO-DA-FÉ WAS HELD TO PREVENT EARTHQUAKES, AND HOW CANDIDE WAS FLOGGED ON THE BACKSIDE

CHAPITRE VII    COMMENT UNE VIEILLE PRIT SOIN DE CANDIDE ET COMMENT IL RETROUVA CE QU’IL AIMAIT

CHAPTER VII    HOW AN OLD WOMAN TOOK CARE OF CANDIDE AND HOW HE RECOVERED WHAT HE LOVED

CHAPITRE VIII    HISTOIRE DE CUNÉGONDE

CHAPTER VIII    CUNÉGONDE’S STORY

CHAPITRE IX    CE QUI ADVINT DE CUNÉGONDE, DE CANDIDE, DU GRAND INQUISITEUR ET D’UN JUIF

CHAPTER IX    WHAT HAPPENED TO CUNÉGONDE, CANDIDE, THE GRAND INQUISITOR AND A JEW

CHAPITRE X    DANS QUELLE DÉTRESSE CANDIDE, CUNÉGONDE ET LA VIEILLE ARRIVENT Â CADIX, ET DE LEUR EMBARQUEMENT

CHAPTER X    IN WHAT DISTRESS CANDIDE, CUNÉGONDE AND THE OLD WOMAN ARRIVED AT CADIZ, AND OF THEIR EMBARKATION

CHAPITRE XI    HISTOIRE DE LA VIEILLE

CHAPTER XI    THE OLD WOMAN’S STORY

CHAPITRE XII    SUITE DES MALHEURS DE LA VIEILLE

CHAPTER XII    CONTINUATION OF THE OLD WOMAN’S MISFORTUNES

CHAPITRE XIII    COMMENT CANDIDE FUT OBLIGÉ DE SE SÉPARER DE LA BELLE CUNÉGONDE ET DE LA VIEILLE

CHAPTER XIII    HOW CANDIDE WAS OBLIGED TO PART COMPANY WITH THE BEAUTIFUL CUNÉGONDE AND THE OLD WOMAN

CHAPITRE XIV    COMMENT CANDIDE ET CACAMBO FURENT REÇUS CHEZ LES JÉSUITES DU PARAGUAY

CHAPTER XIV    HOW CANDIDE AND CACAMBO WERE RECEIVED BY THE JESUITS OF PARAGUAY

CHAPITRE XV    COMMENT CANDIDE TUA LE FRÈRE DE SA CHÈRE CUNÉGONDE

CHAPTER XV    HOW CANDIDE KILLED HIS BELOVED CUNÉGONDE’S BROTHER

CHAPITRE XVI    CE QUI ADVINT AUX DEUX VOYAGEURS AVEC DEUX FILLES, DEUX SINGES ET LES SAUVAGES NOMMÉS OREILLONS

CHAPTER XVI    WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TWO TRAVELERS WITH TWO GIRLS, TWO MONKEYS AND THE SAVAGES CALLED THE OREILLONS

CHAPITRE XVII    ARRIVÉE DE CANDIDE ET DE SON VALET AU PAYS D’ELDORADO, ET CE QU’ILS Y VIRENT

CHAPTER XVII    ARRIVAL OF CANDIDE AND HIS VALET IN THE LAND OF ELDORADO, AND WHAT THEY SAW THERE

CHAPITRE XVIII    CE QU’ILS VIRENT DANS LE PAYS D’ELDORADO

CHAPTER XVIII    WHAT THEY SAW IN THE LAND OF ELDORADO

CHAPITRE XIX    CE QUI LEUR ARRIVA À SURINAM, ET COMMENT CANDIDE FIT CONNAISSANCE AVEC MARTIN

CHAPTER XIX    WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM AT SURINAM, AND HOW CANDIDE MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF MARTIN

CHAPITRE XX    CE QUI ARRIVA SUR MER À CANDIDE ET À MARTIN

CHAPTER XX    WHAT HAPPENED TO CANDIDE AND MARTIN AT SEA

CHAPITRE XXI    CANDIDE ET MARTIN APPROCHENT DES CÔTES DE FRANCE ET RAISONNENT

CHAPTER XXI    CANDIDE AND MARTIN APPROACH THE FRENCH COAST AND CONTINUE TO REASON WITH ONE ANOTHER

CHAPITRE XXII    CE QUI ARRIVA EN FRANCE À CANDIDE ET À MARTIN

CHAPTER XXII    WHAT HAPPENED TO CANDIDE AND MARTIN IN FRANCE

CHAPITRE XXIII    CANDIDE ET MARTIN VONT SUR LES CÔTES D’ANGLETERRE; CE QU’ILS Y VOIENT

CHAPTER XXIII    CANDIDE AND MARTIN TRAVEL TO THE ENGLISH COAST; WHAT THEY SEE THERE

CHAPITRE XXIV    DE PAQUETTE ET DE FRÈRE GIROFLÉE

CHAPTER XXIV    OF PAQUETTE AND BROTHER GIROFLÉE

CHAPITRE XXV    VISITE CHEZ LE SEIGNEUR POCOCURANTÉ, NOBLE VÉNITIEN

CHAPTER XXV    VISIT TO LORD POCOCURANTE, VENETIAN NOBLEMAN

CHAPITRE XXVI    D’UN SOUPER QUE CANDIDE ET MARTIN FIRENT AVEC SIX ÉTRANGERS, ET QUI ILS ÉTAIENT

CHAPTER XXVI    OF A SUPPER THAT CANDIDE AND MARTIN ATE WITH SIX FOREIGNERS, AND WHO THEY WERE

CHAPITRE XXVII    VOYAGE DE CANDIDE À CONSTANTINOPLE

CHAPTER XXVII    CANDIDE’S VOYAGE TO CONSTANTINOPLE

CHAPITRE XXVIII    CE QUI ARRIVA À CANDIDE, À CUNÉGONDE, À PANGLOSS, À MARTIN, ETC.

CHAPTER XXVIII    WHAT HAPPENED TO CANDIDE, CUNÉGONDE, PANGLOSS, MARTIN, ETC.

CHAPITRE XXIX    COMMENT CANDIDE RETROUVA CUNÉGONDE ET LA VIEILLE

CHAPTER XXIX    HOW CANDIDE FOUND CUNÉGONDE AND THE OLD WOMAN AGAIN

CHAPITRE XXX    CONCLUSION

CHAPTER XXX    CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

In a literary career spanning the years of the Regency and the reign of Louis XV, François-Marie Arouet, dit Voltaire (1694–1778), produced a vast body of work ranging from the early verse tragedies and epic poetry to the later historiography and philosophy. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1746 and certainly has a claim to being the preeminent French man of letters of his generation. It is somewhat surprising, then, given his enormous literary output and standing, that today Voltaire’s reputation rests almost entirely—with the notable exception of the Lettres philosophiques (1734) and the correspondence—on the philosophical contes of his final creative phase, among which Candide ou l’optimisme (1759) is now the most highly regarded.

Indeed, that Voltaire’s reputation has not been impaired by posterity’s disregard for so much of his work, that an enduring reputation could be founded on a story like Candide, requires some explanation. For the conte is a lightweight genre, one of the slightest forms of prose narrative. Without the status of the nouvelle or the roman, it resembles a short story but with the specific purpose of relating an anecdote or adventure primarily for amusement. The closest English equivalent to the conte would be the tale. Moreover, Candide itself is a strange combination of the ideological and the personal. On the one hand, it is an impassioned and frequently scathing response to contemporary historical events (the Seven Years’ War), natural catastrophes (the Lisbon earthquake of 1755), religious sectarianism and philosophical trends, all of which might seem to have little but antiquarian interest today. On the other hand, the story is a tissue of more or less disguised references to the author’s own personal troubles: his financial concerns and private animosities such as the quarrels with Frederick the Great and the head of the Berlin Academy of Science, Maupertuis; the critic Elie Fréron; and a host of forgotten writers. Seemingly most damaging of all to the work’s merit is the convincing argument that in satirizing the philosophical optimism of Leibniz’s Théodicée (1710), Voltaire simplifies, even fails to grasp, the arguments against which he rails. It is now generally accepted that in Candide Voltaire characterizes and caricatures philosophical optimism—the belief that the universe is organized according to a preestablished harmonious plan—in a form and a vocabulary that did not belong to Leibniz at all, but to Christian Wolff, the popularizer of Leibniz, and the English writers Bolingbroke and Alexander Pope.

How, then, can the enduring popularity and importance of Candide be accounted for? The tale is undoubtedly a good yarn, if at the same time a parody of that form. The plot takes the reader across continents, through numerous adventures (the French word aventure appears time and again in the story), and contains several tales within tales. Yet, for all the trappings of a tale, Candide is primarily a vehicle for ideas. It is by no means a psychological drama or a mere action adventure. The education of the hero bears little resemblance to the kind of education to be found later in the Bildungsroman. The work’s main theme, that this is clearly not the best of all possible worlds, is not so much developed as merely reiterated. In accordance with this thematic simplicity, the story has a simple structure. Cast from an earthly paradise (the country residence of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh), the young Candide is subjected to a deliberately ridiculous concatenation of horrors in the corrupt world. He endures war, or rather sheer carnage, the Lisbon earthquake and the Inquisition. At the center of the story is the peaceful, instructive interlude in Eldorado, a kind of paradise regained, although one that cannot be permanent. Thrown back into the world, though this time by choice, Candide does not suffer any further hardships of the kind that pepper the first half of the book. Rather, he experiences the appalling tedium of life. (Voltaire is one of the first French writers to depict in fiction the distinctly modern psychological condition of boredom.) The final paradise of the small farm in Turkey, based in part on Voltaire’s own estate at Ferney, is a place where, though things are by no means ideal, illusions about the nature of human existence have been recognized for what they are and a pragmatic and reasoned attempt is made to create a tolerable life through cooperative labor. This final world is limited in its aspirations and expectations. It is, however, free from the kind of fanaticism, religious or secular, that prevails throughout the rest of the world that Candide creates.

The work is, then, a fable in which Voltaire argues for an enlightened attitude toward both religious and secular institutions, for a stripping away of all illusory forms of understanding, justification and consolation. It advocates a world view grounded in and chastened by the experience of a harsh, unaccommodating reality. The reiterated exhortation that one must travel before forming judgments is essentially a rebuttal of any philosophy that is not based upon empirical, verifiable data.

On the most general level, what accounts for the enduring success of Candide is that, despite the drastic simplifications, even misrepresentations, of the arguments of others, the satire addresses in the most direct and uncompromising way an issue that has remained as pertinent and as unresolved as it was in 1758: the origin and place of evil in the world, and how a world view based on reason can account for, if not neutralize, irrationality. Candide reveals a Voltaire deeply suspicious of the implications of the traditional Christian doctrine of the fall and the Leibnizian contention that evil is only evil when surveyed from the partial, erring human perspective. Both doctrines, according to Voltaire, result in the wholly unacceptable attitude toward life expressed most succinctly in Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man (1733–34):

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction which thou canst not see;

All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good;

And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,

One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. [I, 289–294]

This is a doctrine to which Voltaire adamantly refuses his consent because it leaves no place for human progress, moral or technical.

For the most part, the reader does not require any real familiarity with Leibniz or, for that matter, with the historical and biographical material underlying the story to appreciate Candide’s message or enjoy its wit. Although the present edition does provide rudimentary explanations for historical and biographical allusions in the text, it should be borne in mind that the measure of Voltaire’s success in Candide is to have created a work that achieves its ends independently of the historical, philosophical and biographical material out of which it was generated. By no means presupposing a sophisticated acquaintance with specific philosophical arguments, it calls only for an awareness of the human predicament, with which the most unphilosophical mind might sympathize. The success or failure of Candide as a comic fable with a serious moral purpose depends finally on whether or not Voltaire’s manner of holding horror up for ridicule enables one to master that horror.

Although a vehicle for serious ideas, the work has a distinctly comic-book form that goes beyond the usual demands of satirical writing. In this respect there is no kinship between Voltaire and, for example, Swift. That no real attempt is made in Candide to create characters with any psychological depth or to develop complex themes is suggested even by the characters’ names. Nothing stands in the way of translating into English many of the proper names Voltaire assigns to his characters. Indeed, the characters might more accurately be described as ciphers for various positions that can be taken toward existence. These positions range from outright optimism (Pangloss) to thoroughgoing pessimism (Martin). The name of the eponymous hero of the conte translates to the English candid, with all the connotations that word has in English. The young Candide sets out on his adventures as a naïf, unacquainted with moral evil (mal moral) and physical evil or hardship (mal physique). He is unsullied by experience, he is innocent and artless. Voltaire never quite equates this naivety with stupidity or insanity. Rather, it is the state in which the mind exists while still in an earthly paradise, sheltered from experience. And, for the most part, although Voltaire’s hero passes through the most inconceivable series of calamities during his adventures, he remains unscathed by them, true to his name. He is much like a cardboard cutout that keeps popping up against all the odds. The Candide at the end of the tale is chastened, perhaps, wiser to the extent that he is more practical. He is no longer given to the superlatives (Voltaire’s linguistic register for idealism) that come one on top of another throughout the text. The representative of untempered philosophical optimism, which is depicted as sheer moral blindness, is Candide’s tutor, Pangloss. This name compounds the Greek pan (all) and glossa (tongue). Not only does this compound suggest, ironically, as the story shows, universal knowledge, it also clearly implies logorrhea and, in effect, an immoral proclivity for words and arguments when what is required is rational action. Among the other translatable proper names is that of the Venetian senator, Pococurante (little caring, caring for little). He is a critic ad nauseam of all Western aesthetic culture.

Much of Voltaire’s wit is directed against absurdities and unwarranted pretensions reflected in language. In particular, he delights in ridiculing the German language. In part, this is no doubt because it was the language of Frederick the Great, from whom he was alienated by 1758. But Voltaire is also playing up to a popular view of the time that the German language was barbarous. Thus, his baron is Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, and the only named Westphalian town is Waldberghoff-Trarbk-Dikdorff. These are less names than garbled masses of guttural consonants and top-heavy compounds.

On a stylistic level, Candide certainly demonstrates Voltaire’s epigrammatic wit at its most acerbic and concentrated. The prose is clear and deliberate, shifting repeatedly between the past and historical present tenses,¹ omitting connectives, moving with the rhythm of a series of one-liners delivered with the consummate artistry of an accomplished stand-up comedian. The overall pace of the story is dictated by shifts between extended narrative monologue and snappy dialogue. Vocabulary and syntactical forms are fairly limited.

The textual history of Candide does require brief mention. The story was originally published in January 1759 as an anonymous French translation from the German of a certain Doctor Ralph. The original 1759 text was somewhat shorter than the version reprinted here. In 1761 Voltaire interpolated an extended passage (which he described as the additions found in the doctor’s pocket when he died) in Chapter XXII. This interpolation was an extension of the section describing Candide’s residence in Paris and included an attack on the critic Elie Fréron and the description of Candide’s visit to the theater and to the home of the Marquise de Parolignac. A few other short interpolations by Voltaire in Chapter XXVI are generally omitted from modern editions of Candide on the ground that they give rise to inconsistencies with the 1759 text. These brief passages have, following the common editorial practice, been omitted here.

I would like to thank Stanley Appelbaum for his valuable suggestions in the preparation of this translation.

__________________

¹ The historical presents, unusual in modern English narrative, are translated as simple pasts in the English translation used in this volume.

CANDIDE

CANDIDE

OU

L’OPTIMISME

Traduit de l’Allemand

DE MR LE DOCTEUR RALPH

Avec les additions qu’on a trouvées

dans la poche du docteur,

lorsqu’il mourut à Minden,

l’an de grâce 1759.

CHAPITRE PREMIER

COMMENT CANDIDE FUT ÉLEVÉ DANS UN BEAU CHÂTEAU, ET COMMENT IL FUT CHASSÉ D’ICELUI

Il y avait en Westphalie, dans le château de monsieur le baron de Thunder-ten-tronckh, un jeune garçon à qui la nature avait donné les mœurs les plus douces. Sa physionomie annonçait son âme. Il avait le jugement assez droit, avec l’esprit le plus simple; c’est, je crois, pour cette raison qu’on le nommait Candide. Les anciens domestiques de la maison soupçonnaient qu’il était fils de la sœur de M. le baron et d’un bon et honnête gentilhomme du voisinage, que cette demoiselle ne voulut jamais épouser parce qu’il n’avait pu prouver que soixante et onze quartiers, et que le reste de son arbre généalogique avait été perdu par l’injure du temps.

M. le baron était un des plus puissants seigneurs de la Westphalie, car son château avait une porte et des fenêtres. Sa grande salle même était ornée d’une tapisserie. Tous les chiens de ses basses-cours composaient une meute dans le besoin; ses palefreniers étaient ses piqueurs; le vicaire du village était son grand aumônier. Ils l’appelaient tous Monseigneur, et ils riaient quand il faisait des contes.

Mme la baronne, qui pesait environ trois cent cinquante livres, s’attirait par là une très grande considération, et faisait les honneurs de la maison avec une dignité qui la rendait encore plus respectable.

CANDIDE

OR

OPTIMISM

Translated from the German

OF DOCTOR RALPH

With the additions that were found

in the doctor’s pocket

when he died at Minden

in the year of our Lord 1759.

CHAPTER I

HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY RESIDENCE, AND HOW HE WAS DRIVEN FROM IT

There lived in Westphalia, in the country residence of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, a young lad whom nature had granted the sweetest of dispositions. His soul was revealed in his countenance. He had fairly sound judgment and the most artless mind; it is, I believe, for this reason that he was named Candide. The old servants of the household suspected that he was the son of the baron’s sister by a good-natured and respectable gentleman of the neighborhood, whom that lady refused ever to marry because he had only been able to give proof of seventy-one heraldic quarterings, the rest of his genealogical tree having been lost through the ravages of time.

The baron was one of the most powerful noblemen in Westphalia, for his country residence had a door and windows. His great hall was even adorned with a tapestry. All the dogs from his farmyards constituted a hunting pack when necessary; his grooms served as his whippers-in; the village curate was his grand almoner. They all addressed him as My Lord, and they laughed when he told stories.

The baroness, who weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, acquired on that account a very high esteem, and did the honors of the household with a dignity that made her still more

Sa fille Cunégonde, âgée de dix-sept ans, était haute en couleur, fraîche, grasse, appétissante. Le fils du baron paraissait en tout digne de son père. Le précepteur Pangloss était l’oracle de la maison, et le petit Candide écoutait ses leçons avec toute la bonne foi de son âge et de son caractère.

Pangloss enseignait la métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie. Il prouvait admirablement qu’il n’y a point d’effet sans cause, et que, dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles, le château de monseigneur le baron était le