“My dear master,” answered Cacambo, “Cunégonde washes dishes on the banks of the Propontis, in the service of a prince, who has very few dishes to wash; she is a slave in the family of an ancient sovereign named Ragotsky, to whom the Grand Turk allows three crowns a day in his exile. But what is worse still is, that she has lost her beauty and has become horribly ugly.”
“Well, handsome or ugly,” replied Candide, “I am a man of honour, and it is my duty to love her still. But how came she to be reduced to so abject a state with the five or six millions that you took to her?”
“Ah!” said Cacambo, “was I not to give two millions to Señor Don Fernando d’Ibaraa, y Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampourdos, y Souza, Governor of Buenos Aires, for permitting Miss Cunégonde to come away? And did not a corsair bravely rob us of all the rest? Did not this corsair carry us to Cape Matapan, to Milo, to Nicaria, to Samos, to Petra, to the Dardanelles, to Marmora, to Scutari? Cunégonde and the old woman serve the prince I now mentioned to you, and I am slave to the dethroned Sultan.”
“What a series of shocking calamities!” cried Candide. “But after all, I have some diamonds left; and I may easily pay Cunégonde’s ransom. Yet it is a pity that she is grown so ugly.”
Then, turning towards Martin: “Who do you think,” said he, “is most to be pitied—the Sultan Achmet, the Emperor Ivan, King Charles Edward, or I?”
“How should I know!” answered Martin. “I must see into your hearts to be able to tell.”
“Ah!” said Candide, “if Pangloss were here, he could tell.”
“I know not,” said Martin, “in what sort of scales your Pangloss would weigh the misfortunes of mankind and set a just estimate on their