Page:Voltaire (Hamley).djvu/194

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CANDIDE.
175

ordered as the two armies. The trumpets, the fifes, the hautboys, the drums, the cannon, formed a harmony such as is not to be met with out of hell. The artillery first tumbled over nearly six thousand on each side; then the musketry rid the best of worlds of about nine or ten thousand other rascals who infested its surface. The bayonet was the sufficient reason of the death of several thousand more. The total might amount to about thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery."

"At last, while the two kings caused the 'Te deum' to be sung, each in his camp," Candide found the opportunity of running away. He meets a beggar all covered with sores, the end of his nose corroded, his mouth on one side, his teeth black, tormented with a violent cough, and spitting out a tooth at each paroxysm. The phantom looks fixedly at him, and then leaps on his neck: "'Alas!' said this wretch to the other, 'don't you recognise your dear Pangloss?'" The philosopher recounts the misfortunes which have brought him into this condition, but is none the less persuaded that they were all for the best, and that this is the best of all possible worlds. He gets cured, and "only lost one eye and one ear." They are shipwrecked near Lisbon—all perish except the two adventurers and the greatest rascal in the ship; and they come to land just in time to see the city destroyed by an earthquake:—

"Some falling stones had hurt Candide: he was stretched in the street covered with rubbish. He called to Pangloss—'Oh, get me a little wine and oil—I am a dead man. 'This earthquake is nothing new,' said Pangloss: 'the city of Lima experienced similar shocks last year—like causes, like effects: there is certainly a train of sulphur underground from Lima to Lisbon.' 'Nothing more likely,' said Candide; 'but, for