WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR TWO TRAVELERS WITH
TWO GIRLS, TWO MONKEYS, AND THE SAVAGES,
CALLED OREILLONS
Candide and his valet had already passed the frontiers before it was known
that the German Jesuit was dead. The wary Cacambo had taken care to fill
his wallet with bread, chocolate, some ham, some fruit, and a few bottles of
wine. They penetrated with their Andalusian horses into a strange country,
where they could discover no beaten path. At length a beautiful meadow,
intersected with purling rills, opened to their view. Cacambo proposed to his
master to take some nourishment, and he set him an example.
"How can you desire me to feast upon ham, when I have killed the Baron's
son and am doomed never more to see the beautiful Cunegonde? What will
it avail me to prolong a wretched life that must be spent far from her in
remorse and despair? And then what will the journal of Trevoux say?" was
Candide's reply.
While he was making these reflections he still continued eating. The sun
was now on the point of setting when the ears of our two wanderers were
assailed with cries which seemed to be uttered by a female voice. They
could not tell whether these were cries of grief or of joy; however, they
instantly started up, full of that inquietude and apprehension which a strange
place naturally inspires. The cries proceeded from two young women who
were tripping disrobed along the mead, while two monkeys followed close at
their heels biting at their limbs. Candide was touched with compassion; he
had learned to shoot while he was among the Bulgarians, and he could hit a
filbert in a hedge without touching a leaf. Accordingly he took up his
double-barrelled Spanish gun, pulled the trigger, and laid the two monkeys
lifeless on the ground.
"God be praised, my dear Cacambo, I have rescued two poor girls from a
most perilous situation; if I have committed a sin in killing an Inquisitor and a
Jesuit, I have made ample amends by saving the lives of these two
distressed damsels. Who knows but they may be young ladies of a good
family, and that the assistance I have been so happy to give them may
procure us great advantage in this country?"
He was about to continue when he felt himself struck speechless at seeing
the two girls embracing the dead bodies of the monkeys in the tenderest
manner, bathing their wounds with their tears, and rending the air with the
most doleful lamentations.
"Really", said he to Cacambo, "I should not have expected to see such a
prodigious share of good nature."
"Master", replied the knowing valet, "you have made a precious piece of
work of it; do you know that you have killed the lovers of these two ladies?"
"Their lovers! Cacambo, you are jesting! It cannot be! I can never believe
it."
"Dear sir", replied Cacambo, "you are surprised at everything. Why should
you think it so strange that there should be a country where monkeys
insinuate themselves into the good graces of the ladies? They are the fourth
part of a man as I am the fourth part of a Spaniard."
"Alas!" replied Candide, "I remember to have heard my master Pangloss
say that such accidents as these frequently came to pass in former times,
and that these commixtures are productive of centaurs, fauns, and satyrs;
and that many of the ancients had seen such monsters; but I looked upon
the whole as fabulous."
"Now you are convinced", said Cacambo, "that it is very true, and you see
what use is made of those creatures by persons who have not had a proper
education; all I am afraid of is that these same ladies may play us some
ugly trick."
These judicious reflections operated so far on Candide as to make him quit
the meadow and strike into a thicket. There he and Cacambo supped, and
after heartily cursing the Grand Inquisitor, the Governor of Buenos Ayres,
and the Baron, they fell asleep on the ground. When they awoke they were
surprised to find that they could not move; the reason was that the Oreillons
who inhabit that country, and to whom the ladies had given information of
these two strangers, had bound them with cords made of the bark of trees.
They saw themselves surrounded by fifty naked Oreillons armed with bows
and arrows, clubs, and hatchets of flint; some were making a fire under a
large cauldron; and others were preparing spits, crying out one and all, "A
Jesuit! a Jesuit! we shall be revenged; we shall have excellent cheer; let us
eat this Jesuit; let us eat him up."
"I told you, master", cried Cacambo, mournfully, "that these two wenches
would play us some scurvy trick."
Candide, seeing the cauldron and the spits, cried out, "I suppose they are
going either to boil or roast us. Ah! what would Pangloss say if he were to
see how pure nature is formed? Everything is right; it may be so; but I must
confess it is something hard to be bereft of dear Miss Cunegonde, and to
be spitted like a rabbit by these barbarous Oreillons."
Cacambo, who never lost his presence of mind in distress, said to the
disconsolate Candide, "Do not despair; I understand a little of the jargon of
these people; I will speak to them."
"Ay, pray do", said Candide, "and be sure you make them sensible of the
horrid barbarity of boiling and roasting human creatures, and how little of
Christianity there is in such practices."
"Gentlemen", said Cacambo, "you think perhaps you are going to feast
upon a Jesuit; if so, it is mighty well; nothing can be more agreeable to
justice than thus to treat your enemies. Indeed the law of nature teaches us
to kill our neighbor, and accordingly we find this practiced all over the world;
and if we do not indulge ourselves in eating human flesh, it is because we
have much better fare; but for your parts, who have not such resources as
we, it is certainly much better judged to feast upon your enemies than to
throw their bodies to the fowls of the air; and thus lose all the fruits of your
victory.
"But surely, gentlemen, you would not choose to eat your friends. You
imagine you are going to roast a Jesuit, whereas my master is your friend,
your defender, and you are going to spit the very man who has been
destroying your enemies; as to myself, I am your countryman; this
gentleman is my master, and so far from being a Jesuit, give me leave to tell
you he has very lately killed one of that order, whose spoils he now wears,
and which have probably occasioned your mistake. To convince you of the
truth of what I say, take the habit he has on and carry it to the first barrier of
the Jesuits' kingdom, and inquire whether my master did not kill one of their
officers. There will be little or no time lost by this, and you may still reserve
our bodies in your power to feast on if you should find what we have told
you to be false. But, on the contrary, if you find it to be true, I am
persuaded you are too well acquainted with the principles of the laws of
society, humanity, and justice, not to use us courteously, and suffer us to
depart unhurt."
This speech appeared very reasonable to the Oreillons; they deputed two of
their people with all expedition to inquire into the truth of this affair, who
acquitted themselves of their commission like men of sense, and soon
returned with good tidings for our distressed adventurers. Upon this they
were loosed, and those who were so lately going to roast and boil them now
showed them all sorts of civilities, offered them girls, gave them
refreshments, and reconducted them to the confines of their country, crying
before them all the way, in token of joy, "He is no Jesuit! he is no Jesuit!"
Candide could not help admiring the cause of his deliverance. "What men!
what manners!" cried he. "If I had not fortunately run my sword up to the hilt
in the body of Miss Cunegonde's brother, I should have certainly been
eaten alive. But, after all, pure nature is an excellent thing; since these
people, instead of eating me, showed me a thousand civilities as soon as
they knew was not a Jesuit."