Zadig/L'Ingénu, Page 3

  Zadig saw how dangerous it sometimes is to be too clever, and he determined on the next occasion to say nothing of what he had seen.

  The occasion soon arrived. A prisoner of state escaped, and passed by Zadig’s window. Zadig was questioned and made no reply. But he was proved to have been looking out of his window, and was condemned for this crime to pay five hundred ounces of gold. He thanked the judges for their clemency, as the custom is in Babylon.

  ‘Good Heavens,’ he said to himself. ‘What trouble a man can get into if he takes a walk in a wood after the Queen’s bitch and the King’s horse have passed by! How dangerous it is to sit at a window, and how difficult to be happy in this life!’

  CHAPTER 4

  GREEN EYES

  ZADIG decided to seek consolation for the buffets of fortune in philosophy and friendship. He owned an elegant house on the outskirts of Babylon, and there he gathered together the choicest products of art, and all the pleasures in which a gentleman might indulge. In the morning his library was open to scholars, and in the evening he welcomed to his table the best society in Babylon. But he soon learned what dangerous men scholars are. A great controversy arose about one of the laws of Zoroaster, which forbids the eating of griffins. Why proscribe the griffin, said one party, if the creature does not exist? But it must exist, said the rest, since Zoroaster does not wish it to be eaten! Zadig determined to reconcile the two parties, so he said:

  ‘If griffins do exist, we mustn’t eat them. If they don’t, we certainly can’t eat them. Thus either way we shall obey Zoroaster.’

  One scholar, who had written thirteen volumes on the properties of the griffin, and who was an important theologian as well, hastened to report Zadig to an Archimage called Yebor, who, besides being the most stupid of the Chaldeans, was also the most fanatical. This man would have had Zadig brought to the stake for the greater glory of the Sun, while he intoned with relish appropriate passages from the liturgy of Zoroaster. Zadig’s friend Cador – a friend is worth more than a hundred priests – called upon Yebor, and said to the old man:

  ‘Long live the Sun and the griffins; but think twice before you punish Zadig. He is a saint. He keeps griffins in his courtyard and does not eat them; his accuser is a heretic, who is so bold as to maintain that rabbits have cloven feet and are not unclean!’

  ‘In that case,’ said Yebor, shaking his bald head, ‘Zadig must be brought to the stake for dangerous thoughts on griffins, and the other man for slander on rabbits.’

  Cador hushed the matter up with the help of one of the maids of honour by whom he had had a child and who had great influence in the College of Mages. No one was brought to the stake, at which several of the Reverend Doctors murmured and predicted the downfall of Babylon; but Zadig exclaimed :

  ‘On what does happiness depend! I am at the mercy of everything in this world, even of creatures which don’t exist!’

  He cursed the whole tribe of scholars and decided to live only in high society.

  He invited to his house the most worthy men and the most agreeable ladies in Babylon. His supper parties, which were often preceded by a concert, were extremely elegant and were enlivened by delightful talk. He had managed to prohibit any parade of wit at his table, for that is the surest way of missing the mark and of spoiling the most brilliant conversation. Vanity played no part in his choice of friends or of food, for in everything he preferred solid worth to mere show. That was how he earned real respect, though he never aspired to it.

  Opposite his house there lived a certain Arimazes, whose coarse features betrayed a wicked disposition. He was consumed with rancour and puffed up with pride; but what was worst of all, he was an insufferable bore. Because he had had no success in society, he took his revenge by railing at it. Rich as he was, there were few toadies who would sit at his table. The sound of carriages entering Zadig’s drive of an evening was a source of irritation to him, and the sound of Zadig’s praises annoyed him even more. He sometimes went to Zadig’s parties and sat down to table uninvited: on such occasions he spoiled the mirth of the company as the Harpies are said to have tainted the food they touched. On one occasion he decided to give a party in honour of a certain lady; but she, instead of accepting his invitation, went to have supper with Zadig. On another occasion when he and Zadig were talking together in the Palace, a Minister came up and invited Zadig to supper but did not include Arimazes. The most bitter hatred often has no greater foundation. Arimazes, whose nickname in Babylon was Green Eyes, determined to ruin Zadig, because he was called Zadig the Happy. Opportunities for making mischief are found a hundred times a day, but the chance of doing a good turn comes but once a year; so it is written in the book of Zoroaster.

  Green Eyes went to call upon Zadig, whom he found walking in his garden with two friends and a lady, making gallant remarks to them simply for the pleasure that it gave him. The conversation turned upon the war against the vassal Prince of Hyrcania, which the King had just brought to a happy conclusion. Zadig, who had distinguished himself in the campaign, gave high praise to the King, and even higher to the lady. Taking a notebook from his pocket, he wrote on it four lines of verse which he had composed on the spot, and handed it to his beautiful guest to read. His friends begged him to allow them to see the verses; but modesty, or rather self-respect, forbade. He knew, of course, that impromptu verses have no value except for those in whose honour they are written. He tore in half the leaf of the notebook on which he had been writing, and threw the two pieces into a large rosebush where it was useless to look for them. Just then a shower of rain drove the company back to the house. Green Eyes stayed behind in the garden, and searched until he discovered one piece of the paper. It had been so torn that each half line of verse made sense, and even scanned; but by a still stranger chance these half lines formed a quatrain which greatly libelled the King. It read as follows:

  By most abandoned riot

  Confirmed upon the throne,

  In times of public quiet

  He is the foe alone.

  Green Eyes was happy for the first time in his life. He held in his hand something to ruin an upright and popular man. Exulting in his cruel triumph, he sent the lampoon, written in Zadig’s hand, to the King himself; and Zadig, his two friends, and the lady were all thrown into prison. The case was soon over without being properly heard. When Zadig was summoned to receive his sentence, Green Eyes accosted him and taunted him with writing bad verses. Zadig did not pride himself on being a good poet; but he was in despair at being condemned for treason, and at seeing the beautiful lady and his two friends imprisoned for a crime which he had not committed. He was not allowed to produce evidence, because his notebook was evidence enough. That was the law of Babylon. He was sent to execution through a crowd of spectators, of whom none dared to show pity for him, and who were gathered to see both how he bore himself and whether he made a good end. His family alone were grieved, because they could inherit nothing from a condemned criminal. Three-quarters of his estate was confiscated to the King, and the remaining quarter was assigned to Green Eyes.

  Just as he was preparing for death, the King’s parrot flew from the royal balcony and perched on a rosebush in Zadig’s garden. A peach had been carried by the wind from a neighbouring tree, and had fallen on a piece of writing paper, to which it had stuck. The bird picked up the peach and the paper, and deposited them on the knees of its royal master. The Prince had the curiosity to read what was written on the paper. It made no sense, yet it seemed to be the ends of verses. He loved poetry, and there is always a resource for princes who love verse: the parrot’s adventures set him musing. The Queen remerabered what had been written on Zadig’s piece of paper, and had it brought. The two pieces were put together. They fitted exactly, and these were the verses as Zadig had written them:

  By most abandoned riot the land has been distressed;

  Confirmed upon the throne, the king has now no peer.

  In times of public quiet Love only makes unrest; />
  He is the foe alone whom now we need to fear.

  The King immediately ordered Zadig to be brought before him, and directed that the beautiful lady and the two friends should be released from prison. Zadig prostrated himself at the feet of the King and Queen, and most humbly begged pardon for having composed such bad verses. He spoke so gracefully, and with such wit and good sense, that the King and Queen determined to see more of him. He came again, and gave even greater satisfaction. For unjustly accusing him, Green Eyes was made to hand over to Zadig his whole estate; but Zadig gave it back to him, and Green Eyes’ only pleasure was that he had not lost it. The King’s regard for Zadig grew from day to day. He shared all his pleasures with him, and consulted him in all his affairs. The Queen treated him from that time with a degree of kindness which could have been dangerous to her, to the King her royal husband, to Zadig, and to the kingdom. And as for Zadig, he began to think that it was not so difficult to be happy after all.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE CONTEST IN GENEROSITY

  THE time drew near for the celebration of a great festival which took place every five years. It was the custom in Babylon at the end of the fifth year to make a solemn proclamation declaring which citizen had performed the most generous deed. The nobles and the mages were judges. The chief satrap and governor of the city publicly announced the most splendid deeds which had taken place under his rule. These were put to the vote, and the King pronounced judgement. People came to witness this ceremony from all corners of the earth. The victor received from the monarch’s hands a golden cup set with jewels, and the King addressed him in these words : ‘Receive the reward of generosity, and may the Gods give me many subjects like you!’

  When this memorable day arrived, the King ascended his throne, surrounded by the nobles, the mages, and the delegates of all nations who had assembled to witness a contest where glory was to be achieved not by swiftness of horses, or by strength of body, but by virtue alone. The chief satrap loudly proclaimed those deeds deserving the inestimable prize. He did not mention Zadig’s magnanimity in giving back Green Eyes the whole of his fortune, for that was not considered to be sufficiently noteworthy.

  He first presented a judge who had passed sentence against a plaintiff by an error for which he was in no way responsible. To make amends, he had then given him all his property, though it was of the same value as that which the plaintiff had lost.

  He next produced a young man who had married his mistress to a friend. He was devoted to the lady, but his friend was dying of love for her. And he had paid her dowry too.

  Next he presented a soldier who had shown an even greater example of generosity in the Hyrcanian war. The enemy had attempted to seize his mistress, and he was defending her, when news reached him that not far away some other Hyrcanians had seized his mother. He left his mistress in tears, and rushed to his mother’s assistance; but when he was able to return to his loved one, he found her dying. He was about to kill himself, but his mother declared that she had no one else to look after her, and he found the courage to go on living.

  The judges were inclined towards the soldier, but the King intervened and said:

  ‘His was certainly a noble action, and so were those of the others. But they do not give me any surprise; whereas yesterday a deed of Zadig’s did surprise me. A few days ago I dismissed Coreb, my chief minister and favourite. I bitterly complained about his behaviour, and all my courtiers assured me that I had treated him too mildly : indeed they vied with each other in maligning him. I asked Zadig what he thought of Coreb, and he had the courage to speak well of him. I can recall examples in history of men who have paid for a mistake with their whole estate, who have given their mistresses away, who have preferred their mothers to the objects of their affection; but I have never read of a courtier supporting a disgraced minister who had put his Sovereign in a rage. I award twenty thousand pieces of gold to those whose generous deeds have just been recited, but I award the cup to Zadig.’

  ‘Sire,’ said he to the King, ‘it is your Majesty alone who deserves the cup, for your deed is quite unprecedented! You are a King, and yet you were in no way angry with your slave, when he opposed you in your wrath.’

  The King’s praises were in everyone’s mouth, and so were Zadig’s. The judge who had given up his estate, the lover who had married his mistress to his friend, the soldier who had preferred his mother’s safety to his mistress’s, all received their awards at the King’s hand and saw their names inscribed in the Roll of Generosity. Zadig had the cup, and the King gained the reputation of being a good Prince, though he did not long retain it. The day was solemnized by festivities which lasted longer than the law provided for, and the memory of it is still preserved in Asia. Zadig remarked : ‘Now at last I am happy’; but he was mistaken.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE MINISTER

  THE King had lost his Chief Minister, and chose Zadig. to fill his place. The beautiful ladies of Babylon unanimously applauded his choice, for since the foundation of the Empire there had never been a Minister so young. The courtiers were angry to a man; Green Eyes broke a blood vessel, and his nose swelled to extraordinary proportions. When Zadig had expressed his thanks to the King and Queen, he went to thank the parrot too.

  ‘Beautiful bird,’ said he, ‘it is you who have saved my life, you who have made me Chief Minister. The Queen’s bitch and the King’s horse had done me grievous injury; but you have been my benefactor. On such threads as these hang the destinies of men! But,’ he added, ‘such strange good fortune, perhaps, will soon vanish away.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the parrot.

  Zadig was surprised at this reply; but as a natural philosopher he did not believe that parrots were prophets. His mind was soon at rest, and he began to discharge his new duties to the best of his ability.

  He made everyone feel the sacred authority of the law without making the weight of his own dignity felt. He never thwarted the decisions of the Privy Council, and each Vizier was free to express his opinion without displeasing him. When he tried a case, it was not he who gave judgement but the law. Yet when the law was too severe, he relaxed it; and when no law existed, his decision might have been taken for that of Zoroaster.

  It is from Zadig that nations have derived the great principle that it is better to risk acquitting a criminal than to condemn an innocent man. He believed that laws were made as much to protect the King’s subjects as to deter them from crime. His principal talent was in diffusing those truths which everyone tries to conceal, and from his first days in office he put this great talent into use. A famous Babylonian merchant had died in India. He had divided his estate between his two sons, after arranging for their sister’s marriage, and had left a sum of thirty thousand pieces of gold to whichever of his two sons was deemed to love him best. The elder built a tomb for his father; the younger used part of his legacy to increase his sister’s dowry. Everyone said: ‘It is the elder son who loves his father best : the younger son prefers his sister. So the thirty thousand pieces of gold should belong to the elder.’

  Zadig summoned them both to see him, one after the other. He said to the elder son :

  ‘Your father is not dead after all. He has recovered from his illness, and is returning to Babylon.’

  ‘Thank God!’ exclaimed the young man. ‘But I have spent a lot of money on that tomb.’

  Zadig then said the same thing to the younger son.

  ‘Thank God!’ he replied. ‘I am going to return all the money to my father. But I hope he will let my sister keep what I have given her.’

  ‘You shall give nothing back,’ said Zadig. ‘The thirty thousand pieces are yours. It is you who love your father best.’

  A rich young woman who had made a promise of marriage to two mages had been receiving instruction for a few months from each of them, and found herself with child. Both mages wished to marry her.

  ‘I shall take as my husband,’ she said, ‘the one who has put me in the posit
ion of presenting the Empire with a subject.’

  ‘Mine is the good work,’ said one of the mages.

  ‘The honour is mine,’ said the other.

  ‘Very well,’ she replied. ‘I shall recognize as the child’s father whichever of you can give him the better education.’

  She gave birth to a son; and since each of the mages wanted to educate him, the case was brought before Zadig. He summoned the two mages, and said to the first:

  ‘What will you teach your pupil?’

  ‘I will teach him,’ said the Doctor, ‘the eight parts of Rhetoric, Dialectics, Astrology, and Demonology. I shall explain to him what is meant by Substance and Accidence, Abstract and Concrete, Monads and Pre-established Harmony.’

  ‘I,’ said the second mage, ‘shall try to give him a sense of justice and make him worthy of having friends.’

  At which Zadig declared :

  ‘Whether or not you are his father, you shall marry his mother.’

  CHAPTER 7

  DISPUTES AND AUDIENCE

  THUS every day he gave proof of his subtle wit and bountiful nature. He was generally admired; he was even loved. In fact he was regarded as the most fortunate of men. The whole empire resounded with his name. Not a woman but made eyes at him, not a man but commended his decisions; the learned regarded him as their oracle, and the priests even declared that he knew more than old Yebor the Archimage. There was no more risk of being had up for dangerous talk about griffins, since people believed only what to him seemed credible.