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双语·老实人 第四章 老实人怎样遇到从前的哲学老师邦葛罗斯博士,和以后的遭遇

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2022年05月12日

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Chapter 4 How Candide Found His Old Master Pangloss Again and What Happened to Him

The next day, as Candide was walking out, he met a beggar all covered with scabs, his eyes sunk in his head, the end of his nose eaten off, his mouth drawn on one side, his teeth as black as a cloak, snuffing and coughing most violently, and every time he attempted to spit out dropped a tooth.

Candide, divided between compassion and horror, but giving way to the former, bestowed on this shocking figure the two florins which the honest Anabaptist, James, had just before given to him. The specter looked at him very earnestly, shed tears and threw his arms about his neck.Candide started back aghast.

“Alas!”said the one wretch to the other,“don't you know dear Pangloss?”

“What do I hear?Is it you, my dear master!You I behold in this piteous plight?What dreadful misfortune has befallen you?What has made you leave the most magnifcent and delightful of all castles?What has become of Miss Cunegund, the mirror of young ladies, and Nature's masterpiece?”

“Oh, Lord!”cried Pangloss,“I am so weak I cannot stand,”upon which Candide instantly led him to the Anabaptist's stable, and procured him something to eat.

As soon as Pangloss had a little refreshed himself, Candide began to repeat his inquiries concerning Miss Cunegund.

“She is dead,”replied the other.

“Dead!”cried Candide, and immediately fainted away;his friend restored him by the help of a little bad vinegar, which he found by chance in the stable.

Candide opened his eyes, and again repeated:“Dead!Is Miss Cunegund dead?Ah, where is the best of worlds now?But of what illness did she die?Was it of grief on seeing her father kick me out of his magnifcent castle?”

“No,”replied Pangloss,“her body was ripped open by the Bulgarian soldiers, after they had subjected her to as much cruelty as a damsel could survive;they knocked the Baron, her father, on the head for attempting to defend her;My Lady, her mother, was cut in pieces;my poor pupil was served just in the same manner as his sister;and as for the castle, they have not left one stone upon another;they have destroyed all the ducks, and sheep, the barns, and the trees;but we have had our revenge, for the Abares have done the very same thing in a neighboring barony, which belonged to a Bulgarian lord.”

At hearing this, Candide fainted away a second time, but, not withstanding, having come to himself again, he said all that it became him to say;he inquired into the cause and effect, as well as into the suffcing reason that had reduced Pangloss to so miserable a condition.

“Alas,”replied the preceptor,“it was love;love, the comfort of the human species;love, the preserver of the universe;the soul of all sensible beings;love!Tender love!”

“Alas,”cried Candide,“I have had some knowledge of love myself, this sovereign of hearts, this soul of souls;yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. But how could this beautiful cause produce in you so hideous an effect?”

Pangloss made answer in these terms:

“O my dear Candide, you must remember Pacquette, that pretty wench, who waited on our noble Baroness;in her arms I tasted the pleasures of Paradise, which produced these Hell torments with which you see me devoured. She was infected with an ailment, and perhaps has since died of it;she received this present of a learned Franciscan, who derived it from the fountainhead;he was indebted for it to an old countess, who had it of a captain of horse, who had it of a marchioness, who had it of a page, the page had it of a Jesuit, who, during his novitiate, had it in a direct line from one of the fellow adventurers of Christopher Columbus;for my part I shall give it to nobody, I am a dying man.”

“O sage Pangloss,”cried Candide,“what a strange genealogy is this!Is not the devil the root of it?”

“Not at all,”replied the great man,“it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds;for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal. It is also to be observed, that, even to the present time, in this continent of ours, this malady, like our religious controversies, is peculiar to ourselves.The Turks, the Indians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Siamese, and the Japanese are entirely unacquainted with it;but there is a suffcing reason for them to know it in a few centuries.In the meantime, it is making prodigious havoc among us, especially in those armies composed of well disciplined hirelings, who determine the fate of nations;for we may safely affrm, that, when an army of thirty thousand men engages another equal in size, there are about twenty thousand infected with syphilis on each side.”

“Very surprising, indeed,”said Candide,“but you must get cured.”

“Lord help me, how can I?”said Pangloss.“My dear friend, I have not a penny in the world;and you know one cannot be bled or have an enema without money.”

This last speech had its effect on Candide;he few to the charitable Anabaptist, James;he fung himself at his feet, and gave him so striking a picture of the miserable condition of his friend that the good man without any further hesitation agreed to take Dr. Pangloss into his house, and to pay for his cure.The cure was effected with only the loss of one eye and an ear.As he wrote a good hand, and understood accounts tolerably well, the Anabaptist made him his bookkeeper.At the expiration of two months, being obliged by some mercantile affairs to go to Lisbon he took the two philosophers with him in the same ship;Pangloss, during the course of the voyage, explained to him how everything was so constituted that it could not be better.James did not quite agree with him on this point.

“Men,”said he“must, in some things, have deviated from their original innocence;for they were not born wolves, and yet they worry one another like those beasts of prey. God never gave them twenty-four pounders nor bayonets, and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another.To this account I might add not only bankruptcies, but the law which seizes on the effects of bankrupts, only to cheat the creditors.”

“All this was indispensably necessary,”replied the one-eyed doctor,“for private misfortunes are public benefits;so that the more private misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good.”

While he was arguing in this manner, the sky was overcast, the winds blew from the four quarters of the compass, and the ship was assailed by a most terrible tempest, within sight of the port of Lisbon.

第四章 老实人怎样遇到从前的哲学老师邦葛罗斯博士,和以后的遭遇

第二天,他在街上闲逛,遇到一个花子,身上长着脓包,两眼无光,鼻尖烂了一截,嘴歪在半边,牙齿乌黑,说话逼紧着喉咙,咳得厉害,呛一阵就掉一颗牙。

老实人一见之下,怜悯胜过了厌恶,把好心的雅各送的两个弗洛冷给了可怕的花子。那鬼一样的家伙定睛瞧着他,落着眼泪,向他的脖子直扑过来。老实人吓得后退不迭。

“唉!”那个可怜虫向这个可怜虫说道,“你认不得你亲爱的邦葛罗斯了吗?”

“什么!亲爱的老师,是你?你会落到这般悲惨的田地?你碰上了什么倒霉事呀?干么不住在最美的宫堡里了?居内贡小姐,那女中之宝,天地的杰作,又怎么了呢?”

邦葛罗斯说道:“我支持不住了。”老实人便带他上雅各家的马房,给他一些面包。

等到邦葛罗斯有了力气,老实人又问:“那么居内贡呢?”

“她死了。”

老实人一听这话就晕了过去。马房里恰好有些坏醋,邦葛罗斯拿来把老实人救醒了。

他睁开眼叫道:“居内贡死了!啊,最美好的世界到哪里去了?她害什么病死的?莫非因为看到我被她令尊大人一边踢,一边赶出了美丽的宫堡吗?”

邦葛罗斯答道:“不是的;保加利亚兵先把她蹂躏得不像样了,又一刀戳进她肚子;男爵上前救护,被乱兵砍了脑袋;男爵夫人被人分尸,割作几块;我可怜的学生和他妹妹的遭遇完全一样;宫堡变了平地,连一所谷仓、一头羊、一只鸭子、一棵树都不留了;可是人家代我们报了仇,阿伐尔人对近边一个保加利亚男爵的府第也如法炮制。”

听了这番话,老实人又昏迷了一阵;等到醒来,把该说的话说完了,便追问是什么因,什么果,什么根据,把邦葛罗斯弄成这副可怜的形景。

邦葛罗斯答道:“唉,那是爱情啊;是那安慰人类,保存世界,为一切有情人的灵魂的、甜蜜的爱情啊。”

老实人也道:“噢!爱情,这个心灵的主宰,灵魂的灵魂,我也领教过了。所得的酬报不过是一个亲吻,还有屁股上挨了一二十下。这样一件美事,怎会在你身上产生这样丑恶的后果呢?”

于是邦葛罗斯说了下面一席话:

“噢,亲爱的老实人!咱们庄严的男爵夫人有个俊俏的侍女,叫作巴该德,你不是认识的吗?我在她怀中尝到的乐趣,赛过登天一般;乐趣产生的苦难却像堕入地狱一样,使我浑身上下受着毒刑。巴该德也害着这个病,说不定已经死了。巴该德的那件礼物,是一个芳济会神父送的;他非常博学,把源流考证出来了:他的病是得之于一个老伯爵夫人,老伯爵夫人得之于一个骑兵上尉,骑兵上尉得之于一个侯爵夫人,侯爵夫人得之于一个侍从,侍从得之于一个耶稣会神父,耶稣会神父当修士的时候,直接得之于哥伦布的一个同伴。至于我,我不会再传给别人了,我眼看要送命的了。”

老实人嚷道:“噢,邦葛罗斯!这段家谱可离奇透了!祸根不都在魔鬼身上吗?”

“不是的,”那位大人物回答,“在十全十美的世界上,这是无可避免的事,必不可少的要素。固然这病不但毒害生殖的本源,往往还阻止生殖,和自然界的大目标是相反的;但要是哥伦布没有在美洲一座岛上染到这个病,我们哪会有巧克力,哪会有做胭脂用的胭脂虫颜料?还得注意一点:至此为止,这病和宗教方面的争论一样,是本洲独有的。土耳其人、印度人、波斯人、中国人、暹罗人、日本人都还没见识过;可是有个必然之理,不出几百年,他们也会领教的。目前这病在我们中间进步神速,尤其在大军之中,在文雅、安分、操纵各国命运的佣兵所组成的大军之中;倘有三万人和员额相等的敌军作战,每一方面必有两万人身长毒疮。”

老实人道:“这真是妙不可言。不过你总得医啊。”

邦葛罗斯回答:“我怎么能医?朋友,我没有钱呀。不付钱,或是没有别人代付钱,你走遍地球也不能放一次血[6]、洗一个澡。”

听到最后几句,老实人打定了主意;他去跪在好心的雅各面前,把朋友落难的情形说得那么动人,雅各竟毫不迟疑,招留了邦葛罗斯博士,出钱给他治病。治疗的结果,邦葛罗斯只损失了一只眼睛和一只耳朵。他笔下很了得,又精通算术。雅各派他当账房。过了两月,雅各为了生意上的事要到里斯本去,把两位哲学家带在船上。邦葛罗斯一路向他解释,世界上一切都好得无以复加。雅各不同意。

他说:“无论如何,人的本性多少是变坏了,他们生下来不是狼,却变了狼。上帝没有给他们二十四磅的大炮[7],也没有给他们刺刀;他们却造了刺刀大炮互相毁灭。多少起的破产,和法院攫取破产人财产、侵害债权人利益的事,我可以立一本清账。”

独眼博士回答道:“这些都是应有之事,个人的苦难造成全体的幸福;个人的苦难越多,全体越幸福。”

他们正在这么讨论,忽然天昏地黑,狂风四起,就在望得见里斯本港口的地方,他们的船遇到了最可怕的飓风。

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