"
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
sufficing 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.
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