Cunegund, with her eyes uplifted to heaven, shed tears when he related the death of the good Anabaptist James, and of Pangloss; after which she thus related her adventures to Candide, who lost not one syllable she uttered, and seemed to devour her with his eyes all the time she was speaking. CHAPTER VIII. The History of Cunegund. "I was in bed and fast asleep when it pleased heaven to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh, where they murdered my father and brother, and cut my mother in pieces. A tall Bulgarian soldier, six feet high, perceiving that I had fainted away at this sight, attempted to ravish me. The operation brought me to my senses. I cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I would have torn the tall Bulgarian's eyes out, not knowing that what had happened at my father' s castle was a customary thing. The brutal soldier, enraged at my resistance, gave me a cut in the left groin with his hanger, the mark of which I still carry." "Methinks I long to see it," said Candide, with all imaginable simplicity. "You shall,'' said Cunegund; "but let me proceed." "Pray do," replied Candide. She continued: "A Bulgarian captain came in, and saw me weltering in my blood, and the soldier still as busy as if no one had been present. The officer, enraged at the fellow's want of respect to him, killed him with one stroke of his sabre. This captain took care of me, had me cured, and carried me prisoner of war to his quarters. I washed what little linen he was master of, and dressed his victuals. He was very fond of me, that was certain; neither can I deny that he was well-made, and had a white soft skin; but he was very stupid, and knew nothing of philosophy. It might plainly be perceived that he had not been educated under Doctor Pangloss. In three months' time, having gamed away all his money, and being grown tired of me, he sold me to a Jew named Don Issachar, who traded to Holland and Portugal, and was passionately fond of women. |
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