"God be praised," said Candide, embracing Martin, "this is the place
where I am to behold my beloved Cunegund once again. I can confide
in Cacambo, like another self. All is well, all is very well, all is
well as possible."
CHAPTER 24
Of Pacquette and Friar Giroflee
Upon their arrival at Venice Candide went in search of Cacambo at
every inn and coffee-house, and among all the ladies of pleasure,
but could hear nothing of him. He sent every day to inquire what ships
were in, still no news of Cacambo.
"It is strange," said he to Martin, "very strange that I should have
time to sail from Surinam to Bordeaux; to travel thence to Paris, to
Dieppe, to Portsmouth; to sail along the coast of Portugal and
Spain, and up the Mediterranean to spend some months at Venice; and
that my lovely Cunegund should not have arrived. Instead of her, I
only met with a Parisian impostor, and a rascally abbe of Perigord.
Cunegund is actually dead, and I have nothing to do but follow her.
Alas! how much better would it have been for me to have remained in
the paradise of El Dorado than to have returned to this cursed Europe!
You are in the right, my dear Martin; you are certainly in the
right; all is misery and deceit."
He fell into a deep melancholy, and neither went to the opera then
in vogue, nor partook of any of the diversions of the Carnival; nay,
he even slighted the fair sex.
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