One morning Azora returned from a walk in a terrible passion, and uttering
the most violent exclamations. "What aileth thee," said he, "my dear
spouse? What is it that can thus have discomposed thee?"
"Alas," said she, "thou wouldst be as much enraged as I am hadst thou seen
what I have just beheld. I have been to comfort the young widow Cosrou,
who, within these two days, hath raised a tomb to her young husband, near
the rivulet that washes the skirts of this meadow. She vowed to heaven, in
the bitterness of her grief, to remain at this tomb while the water of the
rivulet should continue to run near it."--"Well," said Zadig, "she is an
excellent woman, and loved her husband with the most sincere affection."
"Ah," replied Azora, "didst thou but know in what she was employed when I
went to wait upon her!"
"In what, pray, beautiful Azora? Was she turning the course of the
rivulet?"
Azora broke out into such long invectives and loaded the young widow with
such bitter reproaches, that Zadig was far from being pleased with this
ostentation of virtue.
Zadig had a friend named Cador, one of those young men in whom his wife
discovered more probity and merit than in others. He made him his
confidant, and secured his fidelity as much as possible by a considerable
present. Azora, having passed two days with a friend in the country,
returned home on the third. The servants told her, with tears in their
eyes, that her husband died suddenly the night before; that they were
afraid to send her an account of this mournful event; and that they had
just been depositing his corpse in the tomb of his ancestors, at the end
of the garden.
She wept, she tore her hair, and swore she would follow him to the grave.
In the evening Cador begged leave to wait upon her, and joined his tears
with hers. Next day they wept less, and dined together. Cador told her
that his friend had left him the greatest part of his estate; and that he
should think himself extremely happy in sharing his fortune with her. The
lady wept, fell into a passion, and at last became more mild and gentle.
They sat longer at supper than at dinner. They now talked with greater
confidence. Azora praised the deceased; but owned that he had many
failings from which Cador was free.
During supper Cador complained of a violent pain in his side. The lady,
greatly concerned, and eager to serve him, caused all kinds of essences to
be brought, with which she anointed him, to try if some of them might not
possibly ease him of his pain. She lamented that the great Hermes was not
still in Babylon. She even condescended to touch the side in which Cador
felt such exquisite pain.
"Art thou subject to this cruel disorder?" said she to him with a
compassionate air.
"It sometimes brings me," replied Cador, "to the brink of the grave; and
there is but one remedy that can give me relief, and that is to apply to
my side the nose of a man who is lately dead."
"A strange remedy, indeed!" said Azora.
"Not more strange," replied he, "than the sachels of Arnon against the
apoplexy." This reason, added to the great merit of the young man, at last
determined the lady.
"After all," says she, "when my husband shall cross the bridge Tchinavar,
in his journey to the other world, the angel Asrael will not refuse him a
passage because his nose is a little shorter in the second life than it
was in the first." She then took a razor, went to her husband's tomb,
bedewed it with her tears, and drew near to cut off the nose of Zadig,
whom she found extended at full length in the tomb. Zadig arose, holding
his nose with one hand, and, putting back the razor with the other,
"Madam," said he, "don't exclaim so violently against young Cosrou; the
project of cutting off my nose is equal to that of turning the course of a
rivulet." Zadig found by experience that the first month of marriage, as
it is written in the book of Zend, is the moon of honey, and that the
second is the moon of wormwood. He was some time after obliged to
repudiate Azora, who became too difficult to be pleased; and he then
sought for happiness in the study of nature. "No man," said he, "can be
happier than a philosopher who reads in this great book which God hath
placed before our eyes. The truths he discovers are his own; he nourishes
and exalts his soul; he lives in peace; he fears nothing from men; and his
tender spouse will not come to cut off his nose."
Possessed of these ideas he retired to a country house on the banks of the
Euphrates. There he did not employ himself in calculating how many inches
of water flow in a second of time under the arches of a bridge, or whether
there fell a cube line of rain in the month of the Mouse more than in the
month of the Sheep. He never dreamed of making silk of cobwebs, or
porcelain of broken bottles; but he chiefly studied the properties of
plants and animals; and soon acquired a sagacity that made him discover a
thousand differences where other men see nothing but uniformity.
One day, as he was walking near a little wood, he saw one of the queen's
eunuchs running toward him, followed by several officers, who appeared to
be in great perplexity, and who ran to and fro like men distracted,
eagerly searching for something they had lost of great value. "Young man,"
said the first eunuch, "hast thou seen the queen's dog?" "It is a female,"
replied Zadig. "Thou art in the right," returned the first eunuch. "It is
a very small she spaniel," added Zadig; "she has lately whelped; she limps
on the left forefoot, and has very long ears." "Thou hast seen her," said
the first eunuch, quite out of breath. "No," replied Zadig, "I have not
seen her, nor did I so much as know that the queen had a dog."
Exactly at the same time, by one of the common freaks of fortune, the
finest horse in the king's stable had escaped from the jockey in the
plains of Babylon. The principal huntsman and all the other officers ran
after him with as much eagerness and anxiety as the first eunuch had done
after the spaniel. The principal huntsman addressed himself to Zadig, and
asked him if he had not seen the king's horse passing by. "He is the
fleetest horse in the king's stable," replied Zadig; "he is five feet
high, with very small hoofs, and a tail three feet and a half in length;
the studs on his bit are gold of twenty-three carats, and his shoes are
silver of eleven pennyweights." "What way did he take? where is he?"
demanded the chief huntsman. "I have not seen him," replied Zadig, "and
never heard talk of him before."
The principal huntsman and the first eunuch never doubted but that Zadig
had stolen the king's horse and the queen's spaniel. They therefore had
him conducted before the assembly of the grand desterham, who condemned
him to the knout, and to spend the rest of his days in Siberia. Hardly was
the sentence passed when the horse and the spaniel were both found. The
judges were reduced to the disagreeable necessity of reversing their
sentence; but they condemned Zadig to pay four hundred ounces of gold for
having said that he had not seen what he had seen. This fine he was
obliged to pay; after which he was permitted to plead his cause before the
counsel of the grand desterham, when he spoke to the following effect:
"Ye stars of justice, abyss of sciences, mirrors of truth, who have the
weight of lead, the hardness of iron, the splendor of the diamond, and
many properties of gold: Since I am permitted to speak before this august
assembly, I swear to you by Oramades that I have never seen the queen's
respectable spaniel, nor the sacred horse of the king of kings. The truth
of the matter was as follows: I was walking toward the little wood, where
I afterwards met the venerable eunuch, and the most illustrious chief
huntsman. I observed on the sand the traces of an animal, and could easily
perceive them to be those of a little dog. The light and long furrows
impressed on little eminences of sand between the marks of the paws
plainly discovered that it was a female, whose dugs were hanging down, and
that therefore she must have whelped a few days before. Other traces of a
different kind, that always appeared to have gently brushed the surface of
the sand near the marks of the forefeet, showed me that she had very long
ears; and as I remarked that there was always a slighter impression made
on the sand by one foot than the other three, I found that the spaniel of
our august queen was a little lame, if I may be allowed the expression.
"With regard to the horse of the king of kings, you will be pleased to
know that, walking in the lanes of this wood, I observed the marks of a
horse's shoes, all at equal distances. This must be a horse, said I to
myself, that gallops excellently. The dust on the trees in the road that
was but seven feet wide was a little brushed off, at the distance of three
feet and a half from the middle of the road. This horse, said I, has a
tail three feet and a half long, which being whisked to the right and
left, has swept away the dust. I observed under the trees that formed an
arbor five feet in height, that the leaves of the branches were newly
fallen; from whence I inferred that the horse had touched them, and that
he must therefore be five feet high. As to his bit, it must be gold of
twenty-three carats, for he had rubbed its bosses against a stone which I
knew to be a touchstone, and which I have tried. In a word, from the marks
made by his shoes on flints of another kind, I concluded that he was shod
with silver eleven deniers fine."
All the judges admired Zadig for his acute and profound discernment. The
news of this speech was carried even to the king and queen. Nothing was
talked of but Zadig in the antechambers, the chambers, and the cabinet;
and though many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burned as
a sorcerer, the king ordered his officers to restore him the four hundred
ounces of gold which he had been obliged to pay. The register, the
attorneys, and bailiffs went to his house with great formality, to carry
him back his four hundred ounces. They only retained three hundred and
ninety-eight of them to defray the expenses of justice; and their servants
demanded their fees.
Zadig saw how extremely dangerous it sometimes is to appear too knowing,
and therefore resolved that on the next occasion of the like nature he
would not tell what he had seen.
Such an opportunity soon offered. A prisoner of state made his escape, and
passed under the window of Zadig's house. Zadig was examined and made no
answer. But it was proved that he had looked at the prisoner from this
window. For this crime he was condemned to pay five hundred ounces of
gold; and, according to the polite custom of Babylon, he thanked his
judges for their indulgence.
"Great God!" said he to himself, "what a misfortune it is to walk in a
wood through which the queen's spaniel or the king's horse has passed! how
dangerous to look out at a window! and how difficult to be happy in this
life!"