Summary: Chapter 1
. . . those who say everything is well are uttering mere stupidities; they should say everything is for the best.
Candide lives in the castle of the baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia. Candide is the illegitimate son of the baron’s sister. His mother refused to marry his father because his father’s family tree could only be traced through “seventy-one quarterings.” The castle’s tutor, Pangloss, teaches “metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology” and believes that this world is the “best of all possible worlds.” Candide listens to Pangloss with great attention and faith. Miss Cunégonde, the baron’s daughter, spies Pangloss and a maid, Paquette, engaged in a lesson in “experimental physics.” Seized with the desire for knowledge, she hurries to find Candide. They flirt and steal a kiss behind a screen. The baron catches them and banishes Candide.
Summary: Chapter 2
Candide wanders to the next town, where two men find him half-dead with hunger and fatigue. They give him money, feed him, and ask him to drink to the health of the king of the Bulgars. They then conscript him to serve in the Bulgar army, where Candide suffers abuse and hardship as he is indoctrinated into military life. When he decides to go for a walk one morning, four soldiers capture him and he is court-martialed as a deserter. He is given a choice between execution and running the gauntlet (being made to run between two lines of men who will strike him with weapons) thirty-six times. Candide tries to choose neither option by arguing that “the human will is free,” but his argument is unsuccessful. He finally chooses to run the gauntlet.
After running the gauntlet twice, Candide’s skin is nearly flayed from his body. The king of the Bulgars happens to pass by. Discovering that Candide is a metaphysician and “ignorant of the world,” the king pardons him. Candide’s wounds heal in time for him to serve in a war between the Bulgars and the Abares.
Summary: Chapter 3
The war results in unbelievable carnage, and Candide deserts at the first opportunity. In both kingdoms he sees burning villages full of butchered and dying civilians.
Candide escapes to Holland, where he comes upon a Protestant orator explaining the value of charity to a crowd of listeners. The orator asks Candide whether he supports “the good cause.” Remembering Pangloss’s teachings, Candide replies that “[t]here is no effect without a cause.” The orator asks if Candide believes that the Pope is the Antichrist. Candide explains that he does not know, but that in any case he is hungry and must eat. The orator curses Candide and the orator’s wife dumps human waste over Candide’s head. A kind Anabaptist, Jacques, takes Candide into his home and employs Candide in his rug factory. Jacques’s kindness revives Candide’s faith in Pangloss’s theory that everything is for the best in this world.
Summary: Chapter 4
Candide finds a deformed beggar in the street. The beggar is Pangloss. Pangloss tells Candide that the Bulgars attacked the baron’s castle and killed the baron, his wife, and his son, and raped and murdered Cunégonde. Pangloss explains that syphilis, which he contracted from Paquette, has ravaged his body. Still, he believes that syphilis is necessary in the best of worlds because the line of infection leads back to a man who traveled to the New World with Columbus. If Columbus had not traveled to the New World and brought syphilis back to Europe, then Europeans would also not have enjoyed New World wonders such as chocolate.
Jacques finds a doctor to cure Pangloss, who loses an eye and an ear to the syphilis. Jacques hires Pangloss as his bookkeeper and then takes Candide and Pangloss on a business trip to Lisbon. Jacques disagrees with Pangloss’s assertion that this is the best of worlds and claims that “men have somehow corrupted Nature.” God never gave men weapons, he claims, but men created them “in order to destroy themselves.”
Summary: Chapter 5
A furious storm overtakes Candide’s ship on its way to Lisbon. Jacques tries to save a sailor who has almost fallen overboard. He saves the sailor but falls overboard himself, and the sailor does nothing to help him. The ship sinks, and Pangloss, Candide, and the sailor are the only survivors. They reach shore and walk toward Lisbon.
Lisbon has just experienced a terrible earthquake and is in ruins. The sailor finds some money in the ruins and promptly gets drunk and pays a woman for sex. Meanwhile the groans of dying and buried victims rise from the ruins. Pangloss and Candide help the wounded, and Pangloss comforts the victims by telling them the earthquake is for the best. One of the officers of the Inquisition accuses Pangloss of heresy because an optimist cannot possibly believe in original sin. The fall and punishment of man, the Catholic Inquisitor claims, prove that everything is not for the best. Through some rather twisted logic, Pangloss attempts to defend his theory.
Summary: Chapter 6
The Portuguese authorities decide to burn a few people alive to prevent future earthquakes. They choose one man because he has married his godmother, and two others because they have refused to eat bacon (thus presumably revealing themselves to be Jewish). The authorities hang Pangloss for his opinions and publicly flog Candide for “listening with an air of approval.” When another earthquake occurs later the same day, Candide finds himself doubting that this is the best of all possible worlds.
Summary: Chapter 7
Just then an old woman approaches Candide, treats his wounds, gives him new clothes, and feeds him. After two days, she leads him to a house in the country to meet his real benefactor, Cunégonde.
Summary: Chapter 8
Cunégonde explains to Candide that the Bulgars have killed her family. After executing a soldier whom he found raping Cunégonde, a Bulgar captain took Cunégonde as his mistress and later sold her to a Jew, Don Issachar. After seeing her at Mass, the Grand Inquisitor wanted to buy her from Don Issachar; when Don Issachar refused, the Grand Inquisitor threatened him with auto-da-fé (burning alive). The two agreed to share Cunégonde; the Grand Inquisitor would have her four days a week, Don Issachar the other three. Cunégonde was present to see Pangloss hanged and Candide whipped, the horror of which made her doubt Pangloss’s teachings. Cunégonde told the old woman, her servant, to care for Candide and bring him to her.
Summary: Chapter 9
Don Issachar arrives to find Cunégonde and Candide alone together, and attacks Candide in a jealous rage. Candide kills Don Issachar with a sword given to him by the old woman. The Grand Inquisitor arrives to enjoy his allotted time with Cunégonde and is surprised to find Candide. Candide kills him. Cunégonde gathers her jewels and three horses from the stable and flees with Candide and the old woman. The Holy Brotherhood gives the Grand Inquisitor a grand burial, but throws Don Issachar’s body on a dunghill.
Summary: Chapter 10
A Franciscan friar steals Cunégonde’s jewels. Despite his agreement with Pangloss’s philosophy that “the fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all,” Candide nonetheless laments the loss. Candide and Cunégonde sell one horse and travel to Cadiz, where they find troops preparing to sail to the New World. Paraguayan Jesuit priests have incited an Indian tribe to rebel against the kings of Spain and Portugal. Candide demonstrates his military experience to the general, who promptly makes him a captain. Candide takes Cunégonde, the old woman, and the horses with him, and predicts that it is the New World that will prove to be the best of all possible worlds. But Cunégonde claims to have suffered so much that she has almost lost all hope. The old woman admonishes Cunégonde for complaining because Cunégonde has not suffered as much as she has.
Summary: Chapter 11
The old woman tells her story. It turns out that she is the daughter of Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina. She was raised in the midst of incredible wealth. At fourteen, already a stunning beauty, she was engaged to the prince of Massa Carrara. The two of them loved each another passionately. However, during the lavish wedding celebration, the prince’s mistress killed the prince with a poisoned drink, and the old woman and her mother set sail to mourn at their estate in Gaeta. On the way, pirates boarded the ship and the pope’s soldiers surrendered without a fight. The pirates examined every bodily orifice of their prisoners, searching for hidden jewels. They raped the women and sailed to Morocco to sell them as slaves.
A civil war was underway in Morocco, and the pirates were attacked. The old woman saw her mother and their maids of honor ripped apart by the men fighting over them. After the fray ended, the old woman climbed out from under a heap of dead bodies and crawled to rest under a tree. She awoke to find an Italian eunuch vainly attempting to rape her.
Summary: Chapter 12
A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more.
The old woman continues her story. Despite the eunuch’s attempt to rape her, she was delighted to encounter a countryman, and the eunuch carried her to a nearby cottage to care for her. They discovered that he had once served in her mother’s palace. The eunuch promised to take the old woman back to Italy, but then took her to Algiers and sold her to the prince as a concubine.
The plague swept through Algiers, killing the prince and the eunuch. The old woman was subsequently sold several times and ended up in the hands of a Muslim military commander. He took his seraglio with him when ordered to defend the city of Azov against the Russians. The Russians leveled the city, and only the commander’s fort was left standing. Desperate for food, the officers killed and ate two eunuchs. They planned to do the same with the women, but a “pious and sympathetic” religious leader persuaded them to merely cut one buttock from each woman for food. Eventually, the Russians killed all the officers.
The women were taken to Moscow. A nobleman took the old woman as his slave and beat her daily for two years. He was executed for “court intrigue,” and the old woman escaped. She worked as a servant in inns across Russia. She came close to suicide many times in her life, but never carried it out because she “loved life” too much. The old woman wonders why human nature makes people want to live even though life itself is so often a curse. She tells Candide and Cunégonde to ask each passenger on the ship to tell his story. She wagers that every single one has been upset to be alive.
Summary: Chapter 13
At the old woman’s urging, Candide and Cunégonde ask their fellow passengers about their experiences. They find that the old woman’s prediction is correct. When the ship docks at Buenos Aires, they visit the haughty, self-important governor, Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, who orders Candide to review his company. When Candide leaves, Don Fernando begs Cunégonde to marry him. The shrewd old woman advises Cunégonde to marry the governor, as marrying him could make both her and Candide’s fortune.
Meanwhile, a Portuguese official and police arrive in the city. It turns out that when the Franciscan who stole Cunégonde’s jewels tried to sell them, the jeweler recognized them as belonging to the Grand Inquisitor. Before he was hanged, the Franciscan described the three people from whom he stole the jewels—ostensibly the Grand Inquisitor’s murderers. The authorities sent the Portuguese official to capture these three. The old woman advises Cunégonde to remain in Buenos Aires, since Candide was responsible for the murder and the governor will not allow the authorities to do Cunégonde any harm. The old woman advises Candide to flee immediately.
Summary: Chapter 14
Candide’s new valet Cacambo is fond of his master and urges Candide to follow the old woman’s advice. Cacambo tells Candide not to worry about Cunégonde because God always takes care of women. Cacambo suggests that they fight on the side of the rebellious Paraguayan Jesuits. The two reach the rebel guard and ask to speak to the colonel, but the colonel orders their weapons and their horses seized. A sergeant tells Candide and Cacambo that the colonel does not have time to see them and that the Father Provincial hates Spaniards. He gives them three hours to get out of the province. Cacambo informs the sergeant that Candide is German. The colonel agrees to see him.
Candide and Cacambo are led to the colonel’s lavish pavilion. Their weapons and horses are returned. It turns out that the colonel is Cunégonde’s brother, now the baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Candide and the baron embrace one another in tearful joy. Candide reports that Cunégonde also survived the attack and that she is with the governor. While they wait for the Father Provincial, the colonel tells his story.
Summary: Chapter 15
When the Bulgars attacked the castle, the colonel was left unconscious and appeared dead. He was thrown into a cart full of corpses and taken to a Jesuit chapel for burial. A Jesuit sprinkling holy water on the bodies noticed the colonel’s eyes moving, and immediately made arrangements for the colonel’s care. After three weeks the colonel recovered completely. Being a “very pretty boy,” he earned the “tender friendship” of a highly regarded Jesuit and eventually became a Jesuit himself. He was sent to Paraguay, where he became a colonel as well as a priest.
The colonel hopes to bring Cunégonde to Paraguay. Candide says he wishes to do the same because he plans to marry her. This statement infuriates the colonel, as Candide is not of the nobility. Candide claims that he agrees with Pangloss’s statement that all men are equal, and reminds the colonel how much he has done for Cunégonde and how happily she agreed to marry him. The colonel slaps Candide with his sword, and Candide responds by running the colonel through with his own sword. Candide bursts into tears. Cacambo rushes into the room. He dresses Candide in the colonel’s habit, and they flee the pavilion.
Summary: Chapter 16
Candide and Cacambo end up in a strange country with no roads. They see two naked women running in a meadow pursued by two monkeys biting at their legs. Candide hopes he can rescue the women and gain their assistance, and so he kills the monkeys. However, instead of being grateful the women fall to the ground and weep over the dead monkeys. Cacambo informs Candide that the monkeys were the women’s lovers. Candide and Cacambo hide in a thicket where they fall asleep.
They awaken to find themselves bound and surrounded by a tribe of fierce natives known as Biglugs. The Biglugs rejoice, excited that they are going to get revenge on the Jesuits by eating one. Cacambo tells them in their language that Candide is not a Jesuit. He explains that Candide killed a Jesuit and wore the Jesuit habit to escape. He urges the Biglugs to take the habit to the border and ask the guards to confirm the story. The Biglugs do so and discover that Cacambo is telling the truth. They show Candide and Cacambo the greatest hospitality and accompany them to the edge of their territory. Candide affirms his faith in the perfection of the world.
Summary: Chapter 17
Cacambo and Candide continue to travel, but their horses die and their food runs out. They find an abandoned canoe and row down a river, hoping to find signs of civilization. After a day, their canoe smashes against some rocks.
Cacambo and Candide make their way to a village, where they find children playing with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. When the village schoolmaster calls the children, they leave the jewels on the ground. Candide tries to give the jewels to the schoolmaster, but the schoolmaster merely throws them back to the ground.
Cacambo and Candide visit the village inn, which looks like a European palace. The people inside speak Cacambo’s native language. Cacambo and Candide eat a grand meal and try to pay for it with two large gold pieces they picked up off the ground. The landlord laughs at them for trying to give him “pebbles.” Moreover, the government maintains all inns for free. Candide believes that this is the place in the world where everything is for the best.
Summary: Chapter 18
Cacambo and Candide go to see the village sage, a 172-year-old man. The sage explains that his people have vowed never to leave their kingdom, which is called Eldorado. High mountains surround the kingdom, so no outsiders can get in, making Eldorado safe from European conquests. They also have a God whom they thank every day for giving them what they need. No religious persecution occurs because everyone agrees about everything.
Cacambo and Candide visit the king. They embrace him according to customs explained by one of his servants, and such familiarity and equality of address with a monarch shocks them. Candide asks to see the courts and prisons and learns there are none. Rather, there are schools devoted to the sciences and philosophy.
After a month, Candide decides that he cannot stay in Eldorado as long as Cunégonde is not there. He decides to take as many Eldorado “pebbles” with him as he can. The king considers the plan foolish, but sets his architects to work building a machine to lift Candide, Cacambo, and 102 swift sheep loaded down with jewels out of the deep valley. Candide hopes to pay Don Fernando for Cunégonde and buy a kingdom for himself.
Summary: Chapter 19
Cacambo and Candide lose all but two sheep as they travel to Surinam, but the last two sheep still carry a sizable fortune. Cacambo and Candide meet a slave on the road who is missing a leg and a hand. The slave tells them that his own mother sold him to his cruel master, Vanderdendur. He tells them of the misery of slavery, and his words prompt Candide to renounce Pangloss’s optimism.
Candide sends Cacambo to retrieve Cunégonde and the old woman. Meanwhile, Candide tries to secure passage to Venice, and Vanderdendur offers his ship. When Candide readily agrees to Vanderdendur’s high price, Vanderdendur deduces that Candide’s sheep are carrying a fortune. Candide puts his sheep on board in advance, and Vanderdendur sails off without him, taking much of Candide’s fortune.
Candide, at great expense, tries but fails to obtain compensation through the legal system. He then books passage on a ship sailing for France and announces that he will pay passage plus a good sum of money to the most unhappy man in the province. Out of the crowd of applicants, Candide chooses a scholar who was robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and forsaken by his daughter.
Summary: Chapter 20
Candide still has a little money and a few jewels, and hopes to use what he has to recover Cunégonde. His love and remaining fortune momentarily renew his faith in Pangloss’s philosophy. Martin the scholar, on the other hand, maintains that God has abandoned the world because men kill and maim one another everywhere. En route to Bordeaux, Martin and Candide watch a battle between two ships. One ship sinks and its crew perishes. Candide finds his sheep in the water and realizes that the defeated ship belonged to Vanderdendur. Candide claims that there is some good in the world because Vanderdendur has met with just punishment, but Martin asks why Vanderdendur’s crew had to die with him.
Summary: Chapter 21
When the coast of France is in sight, Candide asks Martin if he has ever been to Paris. Martin says he has, and describes his previous encounters with the French and his disgust at what he calls their lack of manners. Candide asks Martin why the world was made, and Martin replies, “To make us mad.” Candide then asks Martin if he believes that men have always done evil things to one another. Martin replies with a question, asking Candide if hawks have always eaten pigeons. When Candide answers yes, Martin counters that if the rest of nature’s beasts do not change, then men do not either. Candide disagrees, claiming that men have free will.
Summary: Chapter 22
The ship arrives in France, and Candide buys a carriage so that he and Martin can continue to travel together. They decide to visit Paris, but Candide becomes ill upon arriving at their hotel. Candide wears a large diamond on his hand that attracts a great number of new friends, including two physicians, who force their services on him. The physicians only succeed in making Candide sicker. Candide and Martin meet an abbé of Perigord and play cards with him and his friends. The other players cheat, and Candide loses a great deal of money. The abbé takes Candide and Martin to visit the Marquise of Parolignac. While there, Candide argues with a philosopher about whether everything is for the best in this world. The philosopher states that the world is in a state of “unending warfare.” The Marquise seduces Candide and steals his jeweled rings.
By manipulating Candide, the abbé learns that Candide has not received a letter from Cunégonde. The next morning, Candide receives a letter signed “Cunégonde” with the news that she is ill in Paris and wishes him to visit her. Candide and Martin are conducted into a dark room. The maidservant explains that Candide may not view Cunégonde because light would be harmful to her. Candide gives diamonds and gold to the woman he believes to be Cunégonde. The abbé arrives with a squad of officers and orders Martin and Candide arrested as “suspicious strangers.” Candide bribes an officer with diamonds, and the officer lets them go. The officer’s brother, after being given more diamonds, puts Candide and Martin on a ship bound for England.
Summary: Chapter 23
When the ship is near shore, Martin and Candide witness the execution of an admiral. They learn that England executes admirals periodically to encourage the rest of the fleet to fight harder, and that this particular admiral was sentenced to death for failing to incite his men to get closer to the enemy during a battle with the French in Canada. Candide refuses to set foot in England and arranges for the captain of the ship to take him to Venice, where he is certain he will be reunited with Cunégonde.
—You see, said Candide to Martin, crime is punished sometimes; this scoundrel of a Dutch merchant has met the fate he deserved. —Yes, said Martin; but did the passengers aboard his ship have to perish too?
Summary: Chapter 24
When Candide fails to find Cunégonde and Cacambo after several months in Venice, he falls into despair. He begins to agree with Martin’s claim that the world is misery. Martin scolds Candide for trusting a valet with a fortune of millions, and repeats his argument that there is “little virtue and little happiness on the earth.”
On the street, Candide sees a pretty young woman and a young monk walking arm-in-arm with happy expressions on their faces. When he approaches them, he discovers that the girl is Paquette and the monk is named Brother Giroflée. Paquette, Pangloss’s old mistress, confirms Pangloss’s story that he caught syphilis from her. A surgeon took pity on Paquette and cured her, and in return she became the surgeon’s mistress. The surgeon’s jealous wife beat Paquette every day, but the surgeon tired of his wife and poisoned her while treating her for a common cold. His wife’s family sued him, so he fled. Paquette was sent to prison but the judge granted her freedom on the condition that she become his mistress. When the judge tired of Paquette he turned her out, and she resorted to prostitution. Brother Giroflée is one of her clients, and Paquette appears happy to please him. Giroflée’s parents have forced him into the monastery to increase his older brother’s fortune. Giroflée hates the monastery because it is rife with petty intrigue. Candide gives the two money to ease their sorrows.
Summary: Chapter 25
Candide visits Count Pococurante in Venice. The wealthy count has a marvelous collection of art and books, but he is unable to enjoy any of it. He finds the paintings of Raphael unpleasant and the works of Homer, Horace, and Milton tiresome. The count once pretended to appreciate these things in front of others, but is now unable to pretend, and scorns those who “admire everything in a well-known author.” The count’s brashness astonishes Candide, who has never been trained to judge for himself, but Martin finds the count’s remarks reasonable. Candide thinks the count must be a genius because nothing pleases him. Martin explains that there is “some pleasure in having no pleasure.”
Summary: Chapter 26
During Venice’s Carnival season, Candide and Martin are dining with six strangers in an inn when they encounter Cacambo, who is now the slave of one of the six strangers. Cacambo explains that Cunégonde is in Constantinople and offers to bring Candide to her. Summoned by his master, he is unable to say any more. Candide and Martin converse with their dinner companions and discover that each is a deposed king from a different corner of Europe. One of them, Theodore of Corsica, is the poorest and least fortunate, and the others each offer him twenty sequins. Candide gives him a diamond worth one hundred times that sum. The kings wonder about his identity and the sources of his generosity.
Summary: Chapter 27
On the way to Constantinople with Cacambo and his master, Candide and Martin learn that Cacambo bought Cunégonde and the old woman from Don Fernando, but that a pirate abducted them and sold them as slaves. Cunégonde has grown horribly ugly, but Candide resolves to love her anyway. Candide purchases Cacambo’s freedom. Upon arriving in Turkey, Candide recognizes two galley slaves as the baron and Pangloss. Candide also buys their freedom.
Summary: Chapter 28
While the group travels to rescue Cunégonde, the baron and Pangloss tell their stories. The baron bears no ill will toward Candide for stabbing him. After his wound healed, Spanish troops attacked him and sent him to jail in Buenos Aires. The baron eventually returned to Rome to serve his Jesuit order, but was caught bathing naked with a young Turkish man and sent to the galleys.
The executioner who was to hang Pangloss was inexperienced in hangings and made the noose badly, so Pangloss survived. A surgeon bought Pangloss’s body for dissection. Pangloss regained consciousness after being cut open, and the startled surgeon sewed him closed again. Pangloss then traveled to Constantinople. He entered a mosque and saw a pretty young woman drop her nosegay from her bosom. Pangloss picked it up and returned it to her bosom “with the most respectful attentions.” Her male companion thought he was taking too long with it, so he had Pangloss arrested. Pangloss was then whipped and sent to the galleys. However, he still believes that pre-established harmony is the “finest notion in the world.”
Summary: Chapter 29
Candide purchases the old woman, Cunégonde, and a small farm. Cunégonde reminds Candide of his promise to marry her. Though horrified by her ugliness, Candide does not dare refuse. However, the baron again declares that he will not live to see his sister marry beneath her rank.
Summary: Chapter 30
I should like to know which is worse, being raped a hundred times by negro pirates . . . or . . . just sitting here and doing nothing?
Pangloss draws up a formal treatise declaring that the baron has no rights over his sister. Martin is in favor of drowning the baron. Cacambo suggests that they return the baron to the galleys without telling Cunégonde, and that is the course they choose.
Cunégonde grows uglier and more disagreeable every day. Cacambo works in the garden of the small farm. He hates the work and curses his fate. Pangloss is unhappy because he has no chance of becoming an important figure in a German university. Martin is patient because he imagines that in any other situation he would be equally unhappy. They all debate philosophy while the misery of the world continues. Pangloss still maintains that everything is for the best but no longer truly believes it. Paquette and Giroflée arrive at the farm, having squandered the money Candide gave them. They are still unhappy, and Paquette is still a prostitute.
The group consults a famous dervish (Muslim holy man) about questions of good and evil. The dervish rebukes them for caring about such questions and shuts the door in their faces. Later, the group stops at a roadside farm. The farmer kindly invites them to a pleasant dinner. He only has a small farm, but he and his family work hard on it and live a tolerable existence.
Candide finds the farmer’s life appealing. He, Cunégonde, and his friends decide to follow it, and everyone is satisfied by hard work in the garden. Pangloss suggests to Candide once again that this is the best of possible worlds. Candide responds, “That is very well put . . . but we must cultivate our garden.”
. . . those who say everything is well are uttering mere stupidities; they should say everything is for the best.
Candide lives in the castle of the baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia. Candide is the illegitimate son of the baron’s sister. His mother refused to marry his father because his father’s family tree could only be traced through “seventy-one quarterings.” The castle’s tutor, Pangloss, teaches “metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology” and believes that this world is the “best of all possible worlds.” Candide listens to Pangloss with great attention and faith. Miss Cunégonde, the baron’s daughter, spies Pangloss and a maid, Paquette, engaged in a lesson in “experimental physics.” Seized with the desire for knowledge, she hurries to find Candide. They flirt and steal a kiss behind a screen. The baron catches them and banishes Candide.
Summary: Chapter 2
Candide wanders to the next town, where two men find him half-dead with hunger and fatigue. They give him money, feed him, and ask him to drink to the health of the king of the Bulgars. They then conscript him to serve in the Bulgar army, where Candide suffers abuse and hardship as he is indoctrinated into military life. When he decides to go for a walk one morning, four soldiers capture him and he is court-martialed as a deserter. He is given a choice between execution and running the gauntlet (being made to run between two lines of men who will strike him with weapons) thirty-six times. Candide tries to choose neither option by arguing that “the human will is free,” but his argument is unsuccessful. He finally chooses to run the gauntlet.
After running the gauntlet twice, Candide’s skin is nearly flayed from his body. The king of the Bulgars happens to pass by. Discovering that Candide is a metaphysician and “ignorant of the world,” the king pardons him. Candide’s wounds heal in time for him to serve in a war between the Bulgars and the Abares.
Summary: Chapter 3
The war results in unbelievable carnage, and Candide deserts at the first opportunity. In both kingdoms he sees burning villages full of butchered and dying civilians.
Candide escapes to Holland, where he comes upon a Protestant orator explaining the value of charity to a crowd of listeners. The orator asks Candide whether he supports “the good cause.” Remembering Pangloss’s teachings, Candide replies that “[t]here is no effect without a cause.” The orator asks if Candide believes that the Pope is the Antichrist. Candide explains that he does not know, but that in any case he is hungry and must eat. The orator curses Candide and the orator’s wife dumps human waste over Candide’s head. A kind Anabaptist, Jacques, takes Candide into his home and employs Candide in his rug factory. Jacques’s kindness revives Candide’s faith in Pangloss’s theory that everything is for the best in this world.
Summary: Chapter 4
Candide finds a deformed beggar in the street. The beggar is Pangloss. Pangloss tells Candide that the Bulgars attacked the baron’s castle and killed the baron, his wife, and his son, and raped and murdered Cunégonde. Pangloss explains that syphilis, which he contracted from Paquette, has ravaged his body. Still, he believes that syphilis is necessary in the best of worlds because the line of infection leads back to a man who traveled to the New World with Columbus. If Columbus had not traveled to the New World and brought syphilis back to Europe, then Europeans would also not have enjoyed New World wonders such as chocolate.
Jacques finds a doctor to cure Pangloss, who loses an eye and an ear to the syphilis. Jacques hires Pangloss as his bookkeeper and then takes Candide and Pangloss on a business trip to Lisbon. Jacques disagrees with Pangloss’s assertion that this is the best of worlds and claims that “men have somehow corrupted Nature.” God never gave men weapons, he claims, but men created them “in order to destroy themselves.”
Summary: Chapter 5
A furious storm overtakes Candide’s ship on its way to Lisbon. Jacques tries to save a sailor who has almost fallen overboard. He saves the sailor but falls overboard himself, and the sailor does nothing to help him. The ship sinks, and Pangloss, Candide, and the sailor are the only survivors. They reach shore and walk toward Lisbon.
Lisbon has just experienced a terrible earthquake and is in ruins. The sailor finds some money in the ruins and promptly gets drunk and pays a woman for sex. Meanwhile the groans of dying and buried victims rise from the ruins. Pangloss and Candide help the wounded, and Pangloss comforts the victims by telling them the earthquake is for the best. One of the officers of the Inquisition accuses Pangloss of heresy because an optimist cannot possibly believe in original sin. The fall and punishment of man, the Catholic Inquisitor claims, prove that everything is not for the best. Through some rather twisted logic, Pangloss attempts to defend his theory.
Summary: Chapter 6
The Portuguese authorities decide to burn a few people alive to prevent future earthquakes. They choose one man because he has married his godmother, and two others because they have refused to eat bacon (thus presumably revealing themselves to be Jewish). The authorities hang Pangloss for his opinions and publicly flog Candide for “listening with an air of approval.” When another earthquake occurs later the same day, Candide finds himself doubting that this is the best of all possible worlds.
Summary: Chapter 7
Just then an old woman approaches Candide, treats his wounds, gives him new clothes, and feeds him. After two days, she leads him to a house in the country to meet his real benefactor, Cunégonde.
Summary: Chapter 8
Cunégonde explains to Candide that the Bulgars have killed her family. After executing a soldier whom he found raping Cunégonde, a Bulgar captain took Cunégonde as his mistress and later sold her to a Jew, Don Issachar. After seeing her at Mass, the Grand Inquisitor wanted to buy her from Don Issachar; when Don Issachar refused, the Grand Inquisitor threatened him with auto-da-fé (burning alive). The two agreed to share Cunégonde; the Grand Inquisitor would have her four days a week, Don Issachar the other three. Cunégonde was present to see Pangloss hanged and Candide whipped, the horror of which made her doubt Pangloss’s teachings. Cunégonde told the old woman, her servant, to care for Candide and bring him to her.
Summary: Chapter 9
Don Issachar arrives to find Cunégonde and Candide alone together, and attacks Candide in a jealous rage. Candide kills Don Issachar with a sword given to him by the old woman. The Grand Inquisitor arrives to enjoy his allotted time with Cunégonde and is surprised to find Candide. Candide kills him. Cunégonde gathers her jewels and three horses from the stable and flees with Candide and the old woman. The Holy Brotherhood gives the Grand Inquisitor a grand burial, but throws Don Issachar’s body on a dunghill.
Summary: Chapter 10
A Franciscan friar steals Cunégonde’s jewels. Despite his agreement with Pangloss’s philosophy that “the fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all,” Candide nonetheless laments the loss. Candide and Cunégonde sell one horse and travel to Cadiz, where they find troops preparing to sail to the New World. Paraguayan Jesuit priests have incited an Indian tribe to rebel against the kings of Spain and Portugal. Candide demonstrates his military experience to the general, who promptly makes him a captain. Candide takes Cunégonde, the old woman, and the horses with him, and predicts that it is the New World that will prove to be the best of all possible worlds. But Cunégonde claims to have suffered so much that she has almost lost all hope. The old woman admonishes Cunégonde for complaining because Cunégonde has not suffered as much as she has.
Summary: Chapter 11
The old woman tells her story. It turns out that she is the daughter of Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina. She was raised in the midst of incredible wealth. At fourteen, already a stunning beauty, she was engaged to the prince of Massa Carrara. The two of them loved each another passionately. However, during the lavish wedding celebration, the prince’s mistress killed the prince with a poisoned drink, and the old woman and her mother set sail to mourn at their estate in Gaeta. On the way, pirates boarded the ship and the pope’s soldiers surrendered without a fight. The pirates examined every bodily orifice of their prisoners, searching for hidden jewels. They raped the women and sailed to Morocco to sell them as slaves.
A civil war was underway in Morocco, and the pirates were attacked. The old woman saw her mother and their maids of honor ripped apart by the men fighting over them. After the fray ended, the old woman climbed out from under a heap of dead bodies and crawled to rest under a tree. She awoke to find an Italian eunuch vainly attempting to rape her.
Summary: Chapter 12
A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more.
The old woman continues her story. Despite the eunuch’s attempt to rape her, she was delighted to encounter a countryman, and the eunuch carried her to a nearby cottage to care for her. They discovered that he had once served in her mother’s palace. The eunuch promised to take the old woman back to Italy, but then took her to Algiers and sold her to the prince as a concubine.
The plague swept through Algiers, killing the prince and the eunuch. The old woman was subsequently sold several times and ended up in the hands of a Muslim military commander. He took his seraglio with him when ordered to defend the city of Azov against the Russians. The Russians leveled the city, and only the commander’s fort was left standing. Desperate for food, the officers killed and ate two eunuchs. They planned to do the same with the women, but a “pious and sympathetic” religious leader persuaded them to merely cut one buttock from each woman for food. Eventually, the Russians killed all the officers.
The women were taken to Moscow. A nobleman took the old woman as his slave and beat her daily for two years. He was executed for “court intrigue,” and the old woman escaped. She worked as a servant in inns across Russia. She came close to suicide many times in her life, but never carried it out because she “loved life” too much. The old woman wonders why human nature makes people want to live even though life itself is so often a curse. She tells Candide and Cunégonde to ask each passenger on the ship to tell his story. She wagers that every single one has been upset to be alive.
Summary: Chapter 13
At the old woman’s urging, Candide and Cunégonde ask their fellow passengers about their experiences. They find that the old woman’s prediction is correct. When the ship docks at Buenos Aires, they visit the haughty, self-important governor, Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, who orders Candide to review his company. When Candide leaves, Don Fernando begs Cunégonde to marry him. The shrewd old woman advises Cunégonde to marry the governor, as marrying him could make both her and Candide’s fortune.
Meanwhile, a Portuguese official and police arrive in the city. It turns out that when the Franciscan who stole Cunégonde’s jewels tried to sell them, the jeweler recognized them as belonging to the Grand Inquisitor. Before he was hanged, the Franciscan described the three people from whom he stole the jewels—ostensibly the Grand Inquisitor’s murderers. The authorities sent the Portuguese official to capture these three. The old woman advises Cunégonde to remain in Buenos Aires, since Candide was responsible for the murder and the governor will not allow the authorities to do Cunégonde any harm. The old woman advises Candide to flee immediately.
Summary: Chapter 14
Candide’s new valet Cacambo is fond of his master and urges Candide to follow the old woman’s advice. Cacambo tells Candide not to worry about Cunégonde because God always takes care of women. Cacambo suggests that they fight on the side of the rebellious Paraguayan Jesuits. The two reach the rebel guard and ask to speak to the colonel, but the colonel orders their weapons and their horses seized. A sergeant tells Candide and Cacambo that the colonel does not have time to see them and that the Father Provincial hates Spaniards. He gives them three hours to get out of the province. Cacambo informs the sergeant that Candide is German. The colonel agrees to see him.
Candide and Cacambo are led to the colonel’s lavish pavilion. Their weapons and horses are returned. It turns out that the colonel is Cunégonde’s brother, now the baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Candide and the baron embrace one another in tearful joy. Candide reports that Cunégonde also survived the attack and that she is with the governor. While they wait for the Father Provincial, the colonel tells his story.
Summary: Chapter 15
When the Bulgars attacked the castle, the colonel was left unconscious and appeared dead. He was thrown into a cart full of corpses and taken to a Jesuit chapel for burial. A Jesuit sprinkling holy water on the bodies noticed the colonel’s eyes moving, and immediately made arrangements for the colonel’s care. After three weeks the colonel recovered completely. Being a “very pretty boy,” he earned the “tender friendship” of a highly regarded Jesuit and eventually became a Jesuit himself. He was sent to Paraguay, where he became a colonel as well as a priest.
The colonel hopes to bring Cunégonde to Paraguay. Candide says he wishes to do the same because he plans to marry her. This statement infuriates the colonel, as Candide is not of the nobility. Candide claims that he agrees with Pangloss’s statement that all men are equal, and reminds the colonel how much he has done for Cunégonde and how happily she agreed to marry him. The colonel slaps Candide with his sword, and Candide responds by running the colonel through with his own sword. Candide bursts into tears. Cacambo rushes into the room. He dresses Candide in the colonel’s habit, and they flee the pavilion.
Summary: Chapter 16
Candide and Cacambo end up in a strange country with no roads. They see two naked women running in a meadow pursued by two monkeys biting at their legs. Candide hopes he can rescue the women and gain their assistance, and so he kills the monkeys. However, instead of being grateful the women fall to the ground and weep over the dead monkeys. Cacambo informs Candide that the monkeys were the women’s lovers. Candide and Cacambo hide in a thicket where they fall asleep.
They awaken to find themselves bound and surrounded by a tribe of fierce natives known as Biglugs. The Biglugs rejoice, excited that they are going to get revenge on the Jesuits by eating one. Cacambo tells them in their language that Candide is not a Jesuit. He explains that Candide killed a Jesuit and wore the Jesuit habit to escape. He urges the Biglugs to take the habit to the border and ask the guards to confirm the story. The Biglugs do so and discover that Cacambo is telling the truth. They show Candide and Cacambo the greatest hospitality and accompany them to the edge of their territory. Candide affirms his faith in the perfection of the world.
Summary: Chapter 17
Cacambo and Candide continue to travel, but their horses die and their food runs out. They find an abandoned canoe and row down a river, hoping to find signs of civilization. After a day, their canoe smashes against some rocks.
Cacambo and Candide make their way to a village, where they find children playing with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. When the village schoolmaster calls the children, they leave the jewels on the ground. Candide tries to give the jewels to the schoolmaster, but the schoolmaster merely throws them back to the ground.
Cacambo and Candide visit the village inn, which looks like a European palace. The people inside speak Cacambo’s native language. Cacambo and Candide eat a grand meal and try to pay for it with two large gold pieces they picked up off the ground. The landlord laughs at them for trying to give him “pebbles.” Moreover, the government maintains all inns for free. Candide believes that this is the place in the world where everything is for the best.
Summary: Chapter 18
Cacambo and Candide go to see the village sage, a 172-year-old man. The sage explains that his people have vowed never to leave their kingdom, which is called Eldorado. High mountains surround the kingdom, so no outsiders can get in, making Eldorado safe from European conquests. They also have a God whom they thank every day for giving them what they need. No religious persecution occurs because everyone agrees about everything.
Cacambo and Candide visit the king. They embrace him according to customs explained by one of his servants, and such familiarity and equality of address with a monarch shocks them. Candide asks to see the courts and prisons and learns there are none. Rather, there are schools devoted to the sciences and philosophy.
After a month, Candide decides that he cannot stay in Eldorado as long as Cunégonde is not there. He decides to take as many Eldorado “pebbles” with him as he can. The king considers the plan foolish, but sets his architects to work building a machine to lift Candide, Cacambo, and 102 swift sheep loaded down with jewels out of the deep valley. Candide hopes to pay Don Fernando for Cunégonde and buy a kingdom for himself.
Summary: Chapter 19
Cacambo and Candide lose all but two sheep as they travel to Surinam, but the last two sheep still carry a sizable fortune. Cacambo and Candide meet a slave on the road who is missing a leg and a hand. The slave tells them that his own mother sold him to his cruel master, Vanderdendur. He tells them of the misery of slavery, and his words prompt Candide to renounce Pangloss’s optimism.
Candide sends Cacambo to retrieve Cunégonde and the old woman. Meanwhile, Candide tries to secure passage to Venice, and Vanderdendur offers his ship. When Candide readily agrees to Vanderdendur’s high price, Vanderdendur deduces that Candide’s sheep are carrying a fortune. Candide puts his sheep on board in advance, and Vanderdendur sails off without him, taking much of Candide’s fortune.
Candide, at great expense, tries but fails to obtain compensation through the legal system. He then books passage on a ship sailing for France and announces that he will pay passage plus a good sum of money to the most unhappy man in the province. Out of the crowd of applicants, Candide chooses a scholar who was robbed by his wife, beaten by his son, and forsaken by his daughter.
Summary: Chapter 20
Candide still has a little money and a few jewels, and hopes to use what he has to recover Cunégonde. His love and remaining fortune momentarily renew his faith in Pangloss’s philosophy. Martin the scholar, on the other hand, maintains that God has abandoned the world because men kill and maim one another everywhere. En route to Bordeaux, Martin and Candide watch a battle between two ships. One ship sinks and its crew perishes. Candide finds his sheep in the water and realizes that the defeated ship belonged to Vanderdendur. Candide claims that there is some good in the world because Vanderdendur has met with just punishment, but Martin asks why Vanderdendur’s crew had to die with him.
Summary: Chapter 21
When the coast of France is in sight, Candide asks Martin if he has ever been to Paris. Martin says he has, and describes his previous encounters with the French and his disgust at what he calls their lack of manners. Candide asks Martin why the world was made, and Martin replies, “To make us mad.” Candide then asks Martin if he believes that men have always done evil things to one another. Martin replies with a question, asking Candide if hawks have always eaten pigeons. When Candide answers yes, Martin counters that if the rest of nature’s beasts do not change, then men do not either. Candide disagrees, claiming that men have free will.
Summary: Chapter 22
The ship arrives in France, and Candide buys a carriage so that he and Martin can continue to travel together. They decide to visit Paris, but Candide becomes ill upon arriving at their hotel. Candide wears a large diamond on his hand that attracts a great number of new friends, including two physicians, who force their services on him. The physicians only succeed in making Candide sicker. Candide and Martin meet an abbé of Perigord and play cards with him and his friends. The other players cheat, and Candide loses a great deal of money. The abbé takes Candide and Martin to visit the Marquise of Parolignac. While there, Candide argues with a philosopher about whether everything is for the best in this world. The philosopher states that the world is in a state of “unending warfare.” The Marquise seduces Candide and steals his jeweled rings.
By manipulating Candide, the abbé learns that Candide has not received a letter from Cunégonde. The next morning, Candide receives a letter signed “Cunégonde” with the news that she is ill in Paris and wishes him to visit her. Candide and Martin are conducted into a dark room. The maidservant explains that Candide may not view Cunégonde because light would be harmful to her. Candide gives diamonds and gold to the woman he believes to be Cunégonde. The abbé arrives with a squad of officers and orders Martin and Candide arrested as “suspicious strangers.” Candide bribes an officer with diamonds, and the officer lets them go. The officer’s brother, after being given more diamonds, puts Candide and Martin on a ship bound for England.
Summary: Chapter 23
When the ship is near shore, Martin and Candide witness the execution of an admiral. They learn that England executes admirals periodically to encourage the rest of the fleet to fight harder, and that this particular admiral was sentenced to death for failing to incite his men to get closer to the enemy during a battle with the French in Canada. Candide refuses to set foot in England and arranges for the captain of the ship to take him to Venice, where he is certain he will be reunited with Cunégonde.
—You see, said Candide to Martin, crime is punished sometimes; this scoundrel of a Dutch merchant has met the fate he deserved. —Yes, said Martin; but did the passengers aboard his ship have to perish too?
Summary: Chapter 24
When Candide fails to find Cunégonde and Cacambo after several months in Venice, he falls into despair. He begins to agree with Martin’s claim that the world is misery. Martin scolds Candide for trusting a valet with a fortune of millions, and repeats his argument that there is “little virtue and little happiness on the earth.”
On the street, Candide sees a pretty young woman and a young monk walking arm-in-arm with happy expressions on their faces. When he approaches them, he discovers that the girl is Paquette and the monk is named Brother Giroflée. Paquette, Pangloss’s old mistress, confirms Pangloss’s story that he caught syphilis from her. A surgeon took pity on Paquette and cured her, and in return she became the surgeon’s mistress. The surgeon’s jealous wife beat Paquette every day, but the surgeon tired of his wife and poisoned her while treating her for a common cold. His wife’s family sued him, so he fled. Paquette was sent to prison but the judge granted her freedom on the condition that she become his mistress. When the judge tired of Paquette he turned her out, and she resorted to prostitution. Brother Giroflée is one of her clients, and Paquette appears happy to please him. Giroflée’s parents have forced him into the monastery to increase his older brother’s fortune. Giroflée hates the monastery because it is rife with petty intrigue. Candide gives the two money to ease their sorrows.
Summary: Chapter 25
Candide visits Count Pococurante in Venice. The wealthy count has a marvelous collection of art and books, but he is unable to enjoy any of it. He finds the paintings of Raphael unpleasant and the works of Homer, Horace, and Milton tiresome. The count once pretended to appreciate these things in front of others, but is now unable to pretend, and scorns those who “admire everything in a well-known author.” The count’s brashness astonishes Candide, who has never been trained to judge for himself, but Martin finds the count’s remarks reasonable. Candide thinks the count must be a genius because nothing pleases him. Martin explains that there is “some pleasure in having no pleasure.”
Summary: Chapter 26
During Venice’s Carnival season, Candide and Martin are dining with six strangers in an inn when they encounter Cacambo, who is now the slave of one of the six strangers. Cacambo explains that Cunégonde is in Constantinople and offers to bring Candide to her. Summoned by his master, he is unable to say any more. Candide and Martin converse with their dinner companions and discover that each is a deposed king from a different corner of Europe. One of them, Theodore of Corsica, is the poorest and least fortunate, and the others each offer him twenty sequins. Candide gives him a diamond worth one hundred times that sum. The kings wonder about his identity and the sources of his generosity.
Summary: Chapter 27
On the way to Constantinople with Cacambo and his master, Candide and Martin learn that Cacambo bought Cunégonde and the old woman from Don Fernando, but that a pirate abducted them and sold them as slaves. Cunégonde has grown horribly ugly, but Candide resolves to love her anyway. Candide purchases Cacambo’s freedom. Upon arriving in Turkey, Candide recognizes two galley slaves as the baron and Pangloss. Candide also buys their freedom.
Summary: Chapter 28
While the group travels to rescue Cunégonde, the baron and Pangloss tell their stories. The baron bears no ill will toward Candide for stabbing him. After his wound healed, Spanish troops attacked him and sent him to jail in Buenos Aires. The baron eventually returned to Rome to serve his Jesuit order, but was caught bathing naked with a young Turkish man and sent to the galleys.
The executioner who was to hang Pangloss was inexperienced in hangings and made the noose badly, so Pangloss survived. A surgeon bought Pangloss’s body for dissection. Pangloss regained consciousness after being cut open, and the startled surgeon sewed him closed again. Pangloss then traveled to Constantinople. He entered a mosque and saw a pretty young woman drop her nosegay from her bosom. Pangloss picked it up and returned it to her bosom “with the most respectful attentions.” Her male companion thought he was taking too long with it, so he had Pangloss arrested. Pangloss was then whipped and sent to the galleys. However, he still believes that pre-established harmony is the “finest notion in the world.”
Summary: Chapter 29
Candide purchases the old woman, Cunégonde, and a small farm. Cunégonde reminds Candide of his promise to marry her. Though horrified by her ugliness, Candide does not dare refuse. However, the baron again declares that he will not live to see his sister marry beneath her rank.
Summary: Chapter 30
I should like to know which is worse, being raped a hundred times by negro pirates . . . or . . . just sitting here and doing nothing?
Pangloss draws up a formal treatise declaring that the baron has no rights over his sister. Martin is in favor of drowning the baron. Cacambo suggests that they return the baron to the galleys without telling Cunégonde, and that is the course they choose.
Cunégonde grows uglier and more disagreeable every day. Cacambo works in the garden of the small farm. He hates the work and curses his fate. Pangloss is unhappy because he has no chance of becoming an important figure in a German university. Martin is patient because he imagines that in any other situation he would be equally unhappy. They all debate philosophy while the misery of the world continues. Pangloss still maintains that everything is for the best but no longer truly believes it. Paquette and Giroflée arrive at the farm, having squandered the money Candide gave them. They are still unhappy, and Paquette is still a prostitute.
The group consults a famous dervish (Muslim holy man) about questions of good and evil. The dervish rebukes them for caring about such questions and shuts the door in their faces. Later, the group stops at a roadside farm. The farmer kindly invites them to a pleasant dinner. He only has a small farm, but he and his family work hard on it and live a tolerable existence.
Candide finds the farmer’s life appealing. He, Cunégonde, and his friends decide to follow it, and everyone is satisfied by hard work in the garden. Pangloss suggests to Candide once again that this is the best of possible worlds. Candide responds, “That is very well put . . . but we must cultivate our garden.”
