Arriving in a beautiful meadow, he there saw several women, who were
searching for something with great application. He took the liberty to
approach one of them, and to ask if he might have the honor to assist them
in their search. "Take care that thou dost not," replied the Syrian; "what
we are searching for can be touched only by women."
"Strange," said Zadig, "may I presume to ask thee what it is that women
only are permitted to touch?"
"It is a basilisk," said she.
"A basilisk, madam! and for what purpose, pray, dost thou seek for a
basilisk?"
"It is for our lord and master Ogul, whose cattle thou seest on the bank
of that river at the end of the meadow. We are his most humble slaves. The
lord Ogul is sick. His physician hath ordered him to eat a basilisk,
stewed in rose water; and as it is a very rare animal, and can only be
taken by women, the lord Ogul hath promised to choose for his well-beloved
wife the woman that shall bring him a basilisk; let me go on in my search;
for thou seest what I shall lose if I am prevented by my companions."
Zadig left her and the other Assyrians to search for their basilisk, and
continued to walk in the meadow; when coming to the brink of a small
rivulet, he found another lady lying on the grass, and who was not
searching for anything. Her person worried to be majestic; but her face
was covered with a veil. She was inclined toward the rivulet, and profound
sighs proceeded from her mouth. In her hand she held a small rod with
which she was tracing characters on the fine sand that lay between the
turf and the brook. Zadig had the curiosity to examine what this woman was
writing. He drew near; he saw the letter Z, then an A; he was astonished;
then appeared a D; he started. But never was surprise equal to his when he
saw the last letters of his name.
He stood for some time immovable. At last, breaking silence with a
faltering voice: "O generous lady! pardon a stranger, an unfortunate man,
for presuming to ask thee by what surprising adventure I here find the name
of Zadig traced out by thy divine hand!"
At this voice and these words, the lady lifted up the veil with a
trembling hand, looked at Zadig, sent forth a cry of tenderness, surprise
and joy, and sinking under the various emotions which at once assaulted
her soul, fell speechless into his arms. It was Astarte herself; it was
the Queen of Babylon; it was she whom Zadig adored, and whom he had
reproached himself for adoring; it was she whose misfortunes he had so
deeply lamented, and for whose fate he had been so anxiously concerned.
He was for a moment deprived of the use of his senses, when he had fixed
his eyes on those of Astarte, which now began to open again with a languor
mixed with confusion and tenderness: "O ye immortal powers!" cried he,
"who preside over the fates of weak mortals, do ye indeed restore Astarte
to me! at what a time, in what a place, and in what a condition do I again
behold her!" He fell on his knees before Astarte and laid his face in the
dust at her feet. The Queen of Babylon raised him up, and made him sit by
her side on the brink of the rivulet. She frequently wiped her eyes, from
which the tears continued to flow afresh. She twenty times resumed her
discourse, which her sighs as often interrupted; she asked by what strange
accident they were brought together, and suddenly prevented his answers by
other questions; she waived the account of her own misfortunes, and
desired to be informed of those of Zadig.
At last, both of them having a little composed the tumult of their souls,
Zadig acquainted her in a few words by what adventure he was brought into
that meadow. "But, O unhappy and respectable queen! by what means do I
find thee in this lonely place, clothed in the habit of a slave, and
accompanied by other female slaves, who are searching for a basilisk,
which, by order of the physician, is to be stewed in rose water?"
"While they are searching for their basilisk," said the fair Astarte, "I
will inform thee of all I have suffered, for which Heaven has sufficiently
recompensed me by restoring thee to my sight. Thou knowest that the king,
my husband, was vexed to see thee the most amiable of mankind; and that
for this reason he one night resolved to strangle thee and poison me. Thou
knowest how Heaven permitted my little mute to inform me of the orders of
his sublime majesty. Hardly had the faithful Cador advised thee to depart,
in obedience to my command, when he ventured to enter my apartment at
midnight by a secret passage. He carried me off and conducted me to the
temple of Oromazes, where the mage his brother shut me up in that huge
statue whose base reaches to the foundation of the temple and whose top
rises to the summit of the dome. I was there buried in a manner; but was
saved by the mage; and supplied with all the necessaries of life. At break
of day his majesty's apothecary entered my chamber with a potion composed
of a mixture of henbane, opium, hemlock, black hellebore, and aconite; and
another officer went to thine with a bowstring of blue silk. Neither of us
was to be found. Cador, the better to deceive the king, pretended to come
and accuse us both. He said that thou hadst taken the road to the Indies,
and I that to Memphis, on which the king's guards were immediately
dispatched in pursuit of us both.
"The couriers who pursued me did not know me. I had hardly ever shown my
face to any but thee, and to thee only in the presence and by the order of
my husband. They conducted themselves in the pursuit by the description
that had been given them of my person. On the frontiers of Egypt they met
with a woman of the same stature with me, and possessed perhaps of greater
charms. She was weeping and wandering. They made no doubt but that this
woman was the Queen of Babylon and accordingly brought her to Moabdar.
Their mistake at first threw the king into a violent passion; but having
viewed this woman more attentively, he found her extremely handsome and
was comforted. She was called Missouf. I have since been informed that
this name in the Egyptian language signifies the capricious fair one. She
was so in reality; but she had as much cunning as caprice. She pleased
Moabdar and gained such an ascendancy over him as to make him choose her
for his wife. Her character then began to appear in its true colors. She
gave herself up, without scruple, to all the freaks of a wanton
imagination. She would have obliged the chief of the magi, who was old and
gouty, to dance before her; and on his refusal, she persecuted him with
the most unrelenting cruelty. She ordered her master of the horse to make
her a pie of sweetmeats. In vain did he represent that he was not a
pastry-cook; he was obliged to make it, and lost his place, because it was
baked a little too hard. The post of master of the horse she gave to her
dwarf, and that of chancellor to her page. In this manner did she govern
Babylon. Everybody regretted the loss of me. The king, who till the moment
of his resolving to poison me and strangle thee had been a tolerably good
kind of man, seemed now to have drowned all his virtues in his immoderate
fondness for this capricious fair one. He came to the temple on the great
day of the feast held in honor of the sacred fire. I saw him implore the
gods in behalf of Missouf, at the feet of the statue in which I was
inclosed. I raised my voice, I cried out, 'The gods reject the prayers of
a king who is now become a tyrant, and who attempted to murder a
reasonable wife, in order to marry a woman remarkable for nothing but her
folly and extravagance.' At these words Moabdar was confounded and his
head became disordered. The oracle I had pronounced, and the tyranny of
Missouf, conspired to deprive him of his judgment, and in a few days his
reason entirely forsook him.
"Moabdar's madness, which seemed to be the judgment of Heaven, was the
signal to a revolt. The people rose and ran to arms; and Babylon, which
had been so long immersed in idleness and effeminacy, became the theater
of a bloody civil war. I was taken from the heart of my statue and placed
at the head of a party. Cador flew to Memphis to bring thee back to
Babylon. The Prince of Hircania, informed of these fatal events, returned
with his army and made a third party in Chaldea. He attacked the king, who
fled before him with his capricious Egyptian. Moabdar died pierced with
wounds. I myself had the misfortune to be taken by a party of Hircanians,
who conducted me to their prince's tent, at the very moment that Missouf
was brought before him. Thou wilt doubtless be pleased to hear that the
prince thought me beautiful; but thou wilt be sorry to be informed that he
designed me for his seraglio. He told me, with a blunt and resolute air,
that as soon as he had finished a military expedition, which he was just
going to undertake, he would come to me. Judge how great must have been my
grief. My ties with Moabdar were already dissolved; I might have been the
wife of Zadig; and I was fallen into the hands of a barbarian. I answered
him with all the pride which my high rank and noble sentiment could
inspire. I had always heard it affirmed that Heaven stamped on persons of
my condition a mark of grandeur, which, with a single word or glance,
could reduce to the lowliness of the most profound respect those rash and
forward persons who presume to deviate from the rules of politeness. I
spoke like a queen, but was treated like a maidservant. The Hircanian,
without even deigning to speak to me, told his black eunuch that I was
impertinent, but that he thought me handsome. He ordered him to take care
of me, and to put me under the regimen of favorites, that so my complexion
being improved, I might be the more worthy of his favors when he should be
at leisure to honor me with them, I told him that rather than submit to
his desires I would put an end to my life. He replied, with a smile, that
women, he believed, were not, so bloodthirsty, and that he was accustomed
to such violent expressions; and then left me with the air of a man who
had just put another parrot into his aviary. What a state for the first
queen of the universe, and, what is more, for a heart devoted to Zadig!"
At these words Zadig threw himself at her feet and bathed them with his
tears. Astarte raised him with great tenderness and thus continued her
story: "I now saw myself in the power of a barbarian and rival to the
foolish woman with whom I was confined. She gave me an account of her
adventures in Egypt. From the description she gave me of your person, from
the time, from the dromedary on which you were mounted, and from every
other circumstance, I inferred that Zadig was the man who had fought for
her. I doubted not but that you were at Memphis, and, therefore, resolved
to repair thither. Beautiful Missouf, said I, thou art more handsome than
I, and will please the Prince of Hircania much better. Assist me in
contriving the means of my escape; thou wilt then reign alone; thou wilt
at once make me happy and rid thyself of a rival. Missouf concerted with
me the means of my flight; and I departed secretly with a female Egyptian
slave.
"As I approached the frontiers of Arabia, a famous robber, named Arbogad,
seized me and sold me to some merchants, who brought me to this castle,
where Lord Ogul resides. He bought me without knowing who I was. He is a
voluptuary, ambitious of nothing but good living, and thinks that God sent
him into the world for no other purpose than to sit at table. He is so
extremely corpulent that he is always in danger of suffocation. His
physician, who has but little credit with him when he has a good
digestion, governs him with a despotic sway when he has eaten too much. He
has persuaded him that a basilisk stewed in rose water will effect a
complete cure. The Lord Ogul hath promised his hand to the female slave
that brings him a basilisk. Thou seest that I leave them to vie with each
other in meriting this honor; and never was I less desirous of finding the
basilisk than since Heaven hath restored thee to my sight."
This account was succeeded by a long conversation between Astarte and
Zadig, consisting of everything that their long-suppressed sentiments,
their great sufferings, and their mutual love could inspire in hearts the
most noble and tender; and the genii who preside over love carried their
words to the sphere of Venus.
The woman returned to Ogul without having found the basilisk. Zadig was
introduced to this mighty lord and spoke to him in the following terms:
"May immortal health descend from heaven to bless all thy days! I am a
physician; at the first report of thy indisposition I flew to thy castle
and have now brought thee a basilisk stewed in rose water. Not that I
pretend to marry thee. All I ask is the liberty of a Babylonian slave, who
hath been in thy possession for a few days; and, if I should not be so
happy as to cure thee, magnificent Lord Ogul, I consent to remain a slave
in her place."
The proposal was accepted. Astarte set out for Babylon with Zadig's
servant, promising, immediately upon her arrival, to send a courier to
inform him of all that had happened. Their parting was as tender as their
meeting. The moment of meeting and that of parting are the two greatest
epochs of life, as sayeth the great book of Zend. Zadig loved the queen
with as much ardor as he professed; and the queen loved him more than she
thought proper to acknowledge.
Meanwhile Zadig spoke thus to Ogul: "My lord, my basilisk is not to be
eaten; all its virtues must enter through thy pores. I have inclosed it in
a little ball, blown up and covered with a fine skin. Thou must strike
this ball with all thy might and I must strike it back for a considerable
time; and by observing this regimen for a few days thou wilt see the
effects of my art." The first day Ogul was out of breath and thought he
should have died with fatigue. The second he was less fatigued, slept
better. In eight days he recovered all the strength, all the health, all
the agility and cheerfulness of his most agreeable years.
"Thou hast played at ball, and thou hast been temperate," said Zadig;
"know that there is no such thing in nature as a basilisk; that temperance
and exercise are the two great preservatives of health; and that the art
of reconciling intemperance and health is as chimerical as the
philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, or the theology of the magi."
Ogul's first physician, observing how dangerous this man might prove to
the medical art, formed a design, in conjunction with the apothecary, to
send Zadig to search for a basilisk in the other world. Thus, having
suffered such a long train of calamities on account of his good actions,
he was now upon the point of losing his life for curing a gluttonous lord.
He was invited to an excellent dinner and was to have been poisoned in the
second course, but, during the first, he happily received a courier from
the fair Astarte. "When one is beloved by a beautiful woman," says the
great Zoroaster, "he hath always the good fortune to extricate himself out
of every kind of difficulty and danger."