How Candide Found His Old Master Pangloss, and What Happened to Them
Candide, yet more moved with compassion than with horror, gave to this shocking beggar the two florins which he had received from the honest Anabaptist James. The spectre looked at him very earnestly, dropped a few tears, and fell upon his neck. Candide recoiled in disgust.
“Alas!” said one wretch to the other, “do you no longer know your dear Pangloss?”
“What do I hear? You, my dear master! you in this terrible plight! What misfortune has happened to you? Why are you no longer in the most magnificent of castles? What has become of Miss Cunégonde, the pearl of girls, and nature’s masterpiece?”
“I am so weak that I cannot stand,” said Pangloss.
Upon which Candide carried him to the Anabaptist’s stable, and gave him a crust of bread. As soon as Pangloss had refreshed himself a little:
“Well,” said Candide, “Cunégonde?”
“She is dead,” replied the other.
Candide fainted at this word; his friend recalled his senses with a little bad vinegar which he found by chance in the stable. Candide reopened his eyes.
“Cunégonde is dead! Ah, best of worlds, where art thou? But of what illness did she die? Was it not for grief, upon seeing her father kick me out of his magnificent castle?”