CANDIDE AND MARTIN SUP WITH SIX SHARPERS. WHO
THEY WERE
One evening as Candide, with his attendant Martin, was going to sit down to
supper with some foreigners who lodged in the same inn where they had
taken up their quarters, a man with a face the color of soot came behind
him, and taking him by the arm, said, "Hold yourself in readiness to go
along with us; be sure you do not fail."
Upon this, turning about to see from whom these words came, he beheld
Cacambo. Nothing but the sight of Miss Cunegonde could have given him
greater joy and surprise. He was almost beside himself, and embraced this
dear friend.
"Cunegonde!" said he, "Cunegonde is come with you doubtless! Where,
where is she? Carry me to her this instant, that I may die with joy in her
presence."
"Cunegonde is not here", answered Cacambo; "she is in Constantinople."
"Good heavens! in Constantinople! but no matter if she were in China, I
would fly thither. Quick, quick, dear Cacambo, let us be gone."
"Soft and fair", said Cacambo, "stay till you have supped. I cannot at
present stay to say anything more to you; I am a slave, and my master waits
for me; I must go and attend him at table: but mum! say not a word, only get
your supper, and hold yourself in readiness."
Candide, divided between joy and grief, charmed to have thus met with his
faithful agent again, and surprised to hear he was a slave, his heart
palpitating, his senses confused, but full of the hopes of recovering his dear
Cunegonde, sat down to table with Martin, who beheld all these scenes with
great unconcern, and with six strangers, who had come to spend the
Carnival at Venice.
Cacambo waited at table upon one of those strangers. When supper was
nearly over, he drew near to his master, and whispered in his ear:
"Sire, Your Majesty may go when you please; the ship is ready"; and so
saying he left the room.
The guests, surprised at what they had heard, looked at each other without
speaking a word; when another servant drawing near to his master, in like
manner said, "Sire, Your Majesty's post-chaise is at Padua, and the bark is
ready." The master made him a sign, and he instantly withdrew.
The company all stared at each other again, and the general astonishment
was increased. A third servant then approached another of the strangers,
and said, "Sire, if Your Majesty will be advised by me, you will not make any
longer stay in this place; I will go and get everything ready"; and instantly
disappeared.
Candide and Martin then took it for granted that this was some of the
diversions of the Carnival, and that these were characters in masquerade.
Then a fourth domestic said to the fourth stranger, "Your Majesty may set
off when you please"; saying which, he went away like the rest. A fifth valet
said the same to a fifth master. But the sixth domestic spoke in a different
style to the person on whom he waited, and who sat near to Candide.
"Troth, sir", said he, "they will trust Your Majesty no longer, nor myself
neither; and we may both of us chance to be sent to jail this very night; and
therefore I shall take care of myself, and so adieu."
The servants being all gone, the six strangers, with Candide and Martin,
remained in a profound silence. At length Candide broke it by saying:
"Gentlemen, this is a very singular joke upon my word; how came you all to
be kings? For my part I own frankly, that neither my friend Martin here, nor
myself, have any claim to royalty."
Cacambo's master then began, with great gravity, to deliver himself thus in
Italian:
"I am not joking in the least, my name is Achmet III. I was Grand Sultan for
many years; I dethroned my brother, my nephew dethroned me, my viziers
lost their heads, and I am condemned to end my days in the old seraglio.
My nephew, the Grand Sultan Mahomet, gives me permission to travel
sometimes for my health, and I am come to spend the Carnival at Venice."
A young man who sat by Achmet, spoke next, and said:
"My name is Ivan. I was once Emperor of all the Russians, but was
dethroned in my cradle. My parents were confined, and I was brought up in
a prison, yet I am sometimes allowed to travel, though always with persons
to keep a guard over me, and I come to spend the Carnival at Venice."
The third said:
"I am Charles Edward, King of England; my father has renounced his right
to the throne in my favor. I have fought in defense of my rights, and near a
thousand of my friends have had their hearts taken out of their bodies alive
and thrown in their faces. I have myself been confined in a prison. I am
going to Rome to visit the King, my father, who was dethroned as well as
myself; and my grandfather and I have come to spend the Carnival at
Venice."
The fourth spoke thus:
"I am the King of Poland; the fortune of war has stripped me of my
hereditary dominions. My father experienced the same vicissitudes of fate. I
resign myself to the will of Providence, in the same manner as Sultan
Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, and King Charles Edward, whom God long
preserve; and I have come to spend the Carnival at Venice."
The fifth said:
"I am King of Poland also. I have twice lost my kingdom; but Providence has
given me other dominions, where I have done more good than all the
Sarmatian kings put together were ever able to do on the banks of the
Vistula; I resign myself likewise to Providence; and have come to spend the
Carnival at Venice."
It now came to the sixth monarch's turn to speak. "Gentlemen", said he, "I
am not so great a prince as the rest of you, it is true, but I am, however, a
crowned head. I am Theodore, elected King of Corsica. I have had the title
of Majesty, and am now hardly treated with common civility. I have coined
money, and am not now worth a single ducat. I have had two secretaries,
and am now without a valet. I was once seated on a throne, and since that
have lain upon a truss of straw, in a common jail in London, and I very
much fear I shall meet with the same fate here in Venice, where I came, like
Your Majesties, to divert myself at the Carnival."
The other five Kings listened to this speech with great attention; it excited
their compassion; each of them made the unhappy Theodore a present of
twenty sequins, and Candide gave him a diamond, worth just a hundred
times that sum.
"Who can this private person be", said the five Kings to one another, "who
is able to give, and has actually given, a hundred times as much as any of
us?"
Just as they rose from table, in came four Serene Highnesses, who had
also been stripped of their territories by the fortune of war, and had come to
spend the remainder of the Carnival at Venice. Candide took no manner of
notice of them; for his thoughts were wholly employed on his voyage to
Constantinople, where he intended to go in search of his lovely Miss
Cunegonde.