"At length to turn aside the scourge of earthquakes, and to
intimidate Don Issachar, My Lord Inquisitor was pleased to celebrate
an auto-da-fe. He did me the honor to invite me to the ceremony. I had
a very good seat; and refreshments of all kinds were offered the
ladies between Mass and the execution. I was dreadfully shocked at the
burning of the two Jews, and the honest Biscayan who married his
godmother; but how great was my surprise, my consternation, and
concern, when I beheld a figure so like Pangloss, dressed in a
sanbenito and mitre! I rubbed my eyes, I looked at him attentively.
I saw him hanged, and I fainted away: scarce had I recovered my
senses, when I saw you stripped of clothing; this was the height of
horror, grief, and despair. I must confess to you for a truth, that
your skin is whiter and more blooming than that of the Bulgarian
captain. This spectacle worked me up to a pitch of distraction. I
screamed out, and would have said, 'Hold, barbarians!' but my voice
failed me; and indeed my cries would have signified nothing. After you
had been severely whipped, I said to myself, 'How is it possible
that the lovely Candide and the sage Pangloss should be at Lisbon, the
one to receive a hundred lashes, and the other to be hanged by order
of My Lord Inquisitor, of whom I am so great a favorite? Pangloss
deceived me most cruelly, in saying that everything is for the best.
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