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Updated: May 16, 2025
It is natural to imagine that after so many disasters Candide married, and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the prudent Cacambo, and the old woman, having besides brought so many diamonds from the country of the ancient Incas, must have led a very happy life.
Said Candide to Cacambo: "My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Cunegonde once more." "I grant all you say," said Cacambo, "but we have still two sheep remaining, with more treasure than the King of Spain will ever have; and I see a town which I take to be Surinam, belonging to the Dutch.
The conversation was long: it turned chiefly on their form of government, their manners, their women, their public entertainments, and the arts. At length Candide, having always had a taste for metaphysics, made Cacambo ask whether there was any religion in that country. The old man reddened a little. "How then," said he, "can you doubt it? Do you take us for ungrateful wretches?"
"One card makes up for another," he added coldly. "I double," said the Hetman. Cacambo and Aguida followed his example. On our side, we were more careful. The manicure especially would not risk more than twenty francs at a time. "I demand that the cards be evened up," said Koukou imperturbably. "This fellow is unbearable," grumbled the count. "There, are you satisfied?"
"Oh, Pangloss!" cried Candide, "thou hadst not guessed at this abomination; it is the end. I must at last renounce thy optimism." "What is this optimism?" said Cacambo. "Alas!" said Candide, "it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong." Looking at the negro, he shed tears, and weeping, he entered Surinam.
Everything is right, may be, but I declare it is very hard to have lost Miss Cunegonde and to be put upon a spit by Oreillons." Cacambo never lost his head. "Do not despair," said he to the disconsolate Candide, "I understand a little of the jargon of these people, I will speak to them."
One evening that Candide and Martin were going to sit down to supper with some foreigners who lodged in the same inn, a man whose complexion was as black as soot, came behind Candide, and taking him by the arm, said: "Get yourself ready to go along with us; do not fail." Upon this he turned round and saw Cacambo! Nothing but the sight of Cunegonde could have astonished and delighted him more.
Cacambo, who had been in a great many scrapes in his lifetime, did not lose his head; he took the Baron's Jesuit habit, put it on Candide, gave him the square cap, and made him mount on horseback. All this was done in the twinkling of an eye.
This speech was agreeable to Cacambo; mankind are so fond of roving, of making a figure in their own country, and of boasting of what they have seen in their travels, that the two happy ones resolved to be no longer so, but to ask his Majesty's leave to quit the country. "You are foolish," said the King.
Cacambo explained the King's bon-mots to Candide, and notwithstanding they were translated they still appeared to be bon-mots. Of all the things that surprised Candide this was not the least. They spent a month in this hospitable place.
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