CANDIDE AND MARTIN PAY A VISIT TO SEIGNOR
POCOCURANTE, A NOBLE VENETIAN
Candide and his friend Martin went in a gondola on the Brenta, and arrived
at the palace of the noble Pococurante. The gardens were laid out in
elegant taste, and adorned with fine marble statues; his palace was built
after the most approved rules of architecture. The master of the house, who
was a man of affairs, and very rich, received our two travelers with great
politeness, but without much ceremony, which somewhat disconcerted
Candide, but was not at all displeasing to Martin.
As soon as they were seated, two very pretty girls, neatly dressed, brought
in chocolate, which was extremely well prepared. Candide could not help
praising their beauty and graceful carriage.
"The creatures are all right", said the senator; "I amuse myself with them
sometimes, for I am heartily tired of the women of the town, their coquetry,
their jealousy, their quarrels, their humors, their meannesses, their pride,
and their folly; I am weary of making sonnets, or of paying for sonnets to be
made on them; but after all, these two girls begin to grow very indifferent to
me."
After having refreshed himself, Candide walked into a large gallery, where
he was struck with the sight of a fine collection of paintings.
"Pray", said Candide, "by what master are the two first of these?"
"They are by Raphael", answered the senator. "I gave a great deal of
money for them seven years ago, purely out of curiosity, as they were said
to be the finest pieces in Italy; but I cannot say they please me: the coloring
is dark and heavy; the figures do not swell nor come out enough; and the
drapery is bad. In short, notwithstanding the encomiums lavished upon
them, they are not, in my opinion, a true representation of nature. I approve
of no paintings save those wherein I think I behold nature itself; and there
are few, if any, of that kind to be met with. I have what is called a fine
collection, but I take no manner of delight in it."
While dinner was being prepared Pococurante ordered a concert. Candide
praised the music to the skies.
"This noise", said the noble Venetian, "may amuse one for a little time, but if
it were to last above half an hour, it would grow tiresome to everybody,
though perhaps no one would care to own it. Music has become the art of
executing what is difficult; now, whatever is difficult cannot be long pleasing.
"I believe I might take more pleasure in an opera, if they had not made such
a monster of that species of dramatic entertainment as perfectly shocks me;
and I am amazed how people can bear to see wretched tragedies set to
music; where the scenes are contrived for no other purpose than to lug in,
as it were by the ears, three or four ridiculous songs, to give a favorite
actress an opportunity of exhibiting her pipe. Let who will die away in
raptures at the trills of a eunuch quavering the majestic part of Caesar or
Cato, and strutting in a foolish manner upon the stage, but for my part I
have long ago renounced these paltry entertainments, which constitute the
glory of modern Italy, and are so dearly purchased by crowned heads."
Candide opposed these sentiments; but he did it in a discreet manner; as
for Martin, he was entirely of the old senator's opinion.
Dinner being served they sat down to table, and, after a hearty repast,
returned to the library. Candide, observing Homer richly bound,
commended the noble Venetian's taste.
"This", said he, "is a book that was once the delight of the great Pangloss,
the best philosopher in Germany."
"Homer is no favorite of mine", answered Pococurante, coolly, "I was made
to believe once that I took a pleasure in reading him; but his continual
repetitions of battles have all such a resemblance with each other; his gods
that are forever in haste and bustle, without ever doing anything; his Helen,
who is the cause of the war, and yet hardly acts in the whole performance;
his Troy, that holds out so long, without being taken: in short, all these things
together make the poem very insipid to me. I have asked some learned
men, whether they are not in reality as much tired as myself with reading
this poet: those who spoke ingenuously, assured me that he had made them
fall asleep, and yet that they could not well avoid giving him a place in their
libraries; but that it was merely as they would do an antique, or those rusty
medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of no manner of use in
commerce."
"But your excellency does not surely form the same opinion of Virgil?" said
Candide.
"Why, I grant", replied Pococurante, "that the second, third, fourth, and
sixth books of his Aeneid, are excellent; but as for his pious Aeneas, his
strong Cloanthus, his friendly Achates, his boy Ascanius, his silly king
Latinus, his ill-bred Amata, his insipid Lavinia, and some other characters
much in the same strain, I think there cannot in nature be anything more flat
and disagreeable. I must confess I prefer Tasso far beyond him; nay, even
that sleepy taleteller Ariosto."
"May I take the liberty to ask if you do not experience great pleasure from
reading Horace?" said Candide.
"There are maxims in this writer", replied Pococurante, "whence a man of
the world may reap some benefit; and the short measure of the verse makes
them more easily to be retained in the memory. But I see nothing
extraordinary in his journey to Brundusium, and his account of his had
dinner; nor in his dirty, low quarrel between one Rupillius, whose words, as
he expresses it, were full of poisonous filth; and another, whose language
was dipped in vinegar. His indelicate verses against old women and witches
have frequently given me great offense: nor can I discover the great merit of
his telling his friend Maecenas, that if he will but rank him in the class of
lyric poets, his lofty head shall touch the stars. Ignorant readers are apt to
judge a writer by his reputation. For my part, I read only to please myself. I
like nothing but what makes for my purpose."
Candide, who had been brought up with a notion of never making use of his
own judgment, was astonished at what he heard; but Martin found there was
a good deal of reason in the senator's remarks.
"Oh! here is a Tully", said Candide; "this great man I fancy you are never
tired of reading?"
"Indeed I never read him at all", replied Pococurante. "What is it to me
whether he pleads for Rabirius or Cluentius? I try causes enough myself. I
had once some liking for his philosophical works; but when I found he
doubted everything, I thought I knew as much as himself, and had no need
of a guide to learn ignorance."
"Ha!" cried Martin, "here are fourscore volumes of the memoirs of the
Academy of Sciences; perhaps there may be something curious and
valuable in this collection."
"Yes", answered Pococurante, "so there might if any one of these compilers
of this rubbish had only invented the art of pin-making; but all these volumes
are filled with mere chimerical systems, without one single article conductive
to real utility."
"I see a prodigious number of plays", said Candide, "in Italian, Spanish,
and French."
"Yes", replied the Venetian, "there are I think three thousand, and not three
dozen of them good for anything. As to those huge volumes of divinity, and
those enormous collections of sermons, they are not all together worth one
single page in Seneca; and I fancy you will readily believe that neither
myself, nor anyone else, ever looks into them."
Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English books, said to the
senator, "I fancy that a republican must be highly delighted with those
books, which are most of them written with a noble spirit of freedom."
"It is noble to write as we think", said Pococurante; "it is the privilege of
humanity. Throughout Italy we write only what we do not think; and the
present inhabitants of the country of the Caesars and Antonines dare not
acquire a single idea without the permission of a Dominican father. I should
be enamored of the spirit of the English nation, did it not utterly frustrate the
good effects it would produce by passion and the spirit of party."
Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not think that author a
great man.
"Who?" said Pococurante sharply; "that barbarian who writes a tedious
commentary in ten books of rumbling verse, on the first chapter of Genesis?
that slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who disfigures the creation, by making
the Messiah take a pair of compasses from Heaven's armory to plan the
world; whereas Moses represented the Diety as producing the whole
universe by his fiat? Can I think you have any esteem for a writer who has
spoiled Tasso's Hell and the Devil; who transforms Lucifer sometimes into a
toad, and at others into a pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over
again a hundred times; who metamorphoses him into a school-divine; and
who, by an absurdly serious imitation of Ariosto's comic invention of
firearms, represents the devils and angels cannonading each other in
Heaven? Neither I nor any other Italian can possibly take pleasure in such
melancholy reveries; but the marriage of Sin and Death, and snakes issuing
from the womb of the former, are enough to make any person sick that is
not lost to all sense of delicacy. This obscene, whimsical, and disagreeable
poem met with the neglect it deserved at its first publication; and I only treat
the author now as he was treated in his own country by his
contemporaries."
Candide was sensibly grieved at this speech, as he had a great respect for
Homer, and was fond of Milton.
"Alas!" said he softly to Martin, "I am afraid this man holds our German
poets in great contempt."
"There would be no such great harm in that", said Martin.
"O what a surprising man!" said Candide, still to himself; "what a prodigious
genius is this Pococurante! nothing can please him."
After finishing their survey of the library, they went down into the garden,
when Candide commended the several beauties that offered themselves to
his view.
"I know nothing upon earth laid out in such had taste", said Pococurante;
"everything about it is childish and trifling; but I shall have another laid out
tomorrow upon a nobler plan."
As soon as our two travelers had taken leave of His Excellency, Candide
said to Martin, "Well, I hope you will own that this man is the happiest of all
mortals, for he is above everything he possesses."
"But do not you see", answered Martin, "that he likewise dislikes everything
he possesses? It was an observation of Plato, long since, that those are not
the best stomachs that reject, without distinction, all sorts of aliments."
"True", said Candide, "but still there must certainly be a pleasure in
criticising everything, and in perceiving faults where others think they see
beauties."
"That is", replied Martin, "there is a pleasure in having no pleasure."
"Well, well", said Candide, "I find that I shall be the only happy man at last,
when I am blessed with the sight of my dear Cunegonde."
"It is good to hope", said Martin.
In the meanwhile, days and weeks passed away, and no news of Cacambo.
Candide was so overwhelmed with grief, that he did not reflect on the
behavior of Pacquette and Friar Giroflee, who never stayed to return him
thanks for the presents he had so generously made them.