He found that, while he was labouring to make people happy, he had only made them ungrateful. "Ah," cried Candide, "how hard it is to govern these beings without feathers, which vegetate on the earth! Why am I not still in Propontis, in the company of Master Pangloss, Miss Cunegund, the daughter of Pope Urban X. with only one buttock, brother Giroflee, and the most luscious Pacquette?" CHAPTER VI. The Pleasures of Candide. CANDIDE, in the bitterness of his grief, wrote a very pathetic letter to the Rev. Ed-Ivan-Baal-Denk. He painted to him in such lively colours the present state of his soul, that Ed-Ivan, greatly affected with it, obtained permission of the Sophi that Candide should resign his employments. His majesty, in recompense of his services, granted him a very considerable pension. Eased from the weight of grandeur, our philosopher immediately sought after Pangloss's optimism in the pleasures of a private life. He till then had lived for the benefit of others, and seemed to have forgotten that he had a seraglio. He now called it to remembrance with that emotion which the very name inspires. "Let everything be got ready," says he to his first eunuch, "for my visiting my women." "My lord," answered the shrill-piped slave, "it is now that your excellency deserves the title of wise. The men for whom you have done so much were not worthy of employing your thoughts; but the women--" "That may be," said Candide modestly. At the bottom of a garden, where art had assisted nature to unfold her beauties, stood a small house, of simple and elegant structure, and by that means alone very different from those which are to be seen in the suburbs of the finest city in Europe. |
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