Candide turns around one evening while dining in a tavern to lay his eyes upon Cacambo. Initially ecstatic at the thought that Miss Cunégonde accompanies him, he is once again disappointed to learn that Miss Cunégonde is in Constantinople, and worse, Cacambo has fallen back into the servitude of Sultan Achmet. Six strangersall of them former kings each dethroned in the most turbulent and miserable circumstancesrecount the stories of their respective political fall from power. They have all come to divert themselves at the Carnival at Venice.
Cacambo makes arrangements for Candide to sail to Constantinople aboard the Turkish ship of his master. He informs Candide that Miss Cunégonde has become the slave of Ragotsky, a Transylvanian prince, and has turned horribly ugly. Candide is undeterred in his love, though he regrets the deterioration of her beauty. Once they reach Bosphorus, Candide pays to liberate Cacambo, then searches for Miss Cunégonde in Propontis. They examine a row of slaves, two of whom closely resemble Pangloss and the Baron. At the mention of their names, the two men rise up in exclamatory shouts. After introductions to Martin and Cacambo, they set out to find Miss Cunégonde at the home of Ragotsky.
First, the Baron forgives Candide for the near-mortal injury inflicted upon him and describes how he was imprisoned in Buenos Ayres and again in Rome for bathing with young Turk. Pangloss recounts how the hanging was botched due to the incompetence of the executioner. Later he is imprisoned and tortured for entering a mosque and replacing a fallen bouquet of flowers in the bosom of a young womana chivalrous act that draws the ire of the presiding imam. Despite his experience, Pangloss sticks to his belief in optimistic determinism.
Candide, Martin, Cacambo, Pangloss and the Baron find Miss Cunégonde and the Old Woman in Propontis. Candide gasps at her ugliness, but keeps his promise to marry her. When he informs the Baron of his intention, the Baron again refuses to allow the union, despite Miss Cunégonde's entreaties.
Incensed by the refusal, Candide decides with Martin and the Old Woman to send the Baron back into slavery and legally consummate the marriage without his consent. After so many misfortunes, they finally expect an era of happiness, but instead quickly lapse into idleness. Martin concludes that "man was bound either to live in convulsions of misery or in the lethargy of boredom." Paquette and Friar Giroflée arrive at the farm one day, having spent the fortune given to them by Candide, in a state of extreme misery. This new adventure makes them reflect on the nature of evil in the world. After receiving news of the assassination of two vizirs at Constantinople, Candide concludes that hard work is the "only way of rendering life bearable." "We must cultivate our garden," he says. And so all members of the household put their talents to use and finally enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Analysis:
The round-robin testimonial of the six kings is a strange interlude in Candide. On the one hand, it points to the democratizing effects of misery and adversity, as former kings and heads of state now find themselves destitute and penniless; on the other, it is unclear whether we are to take seriously the sympathetic response shown to their respective tales of hardship. Clearly, Voltaire does not believe in the social entitlement and privilege that nobility automatically confers on certain individuals. The political power of the six kings is hence, in a certain sense, illegitimate in the first place, and their "downfall" not really a downfall at all.
Despite the enormity of evidence to the contrary, Pangloss insists on the ultimately redemptive value of suffering and an optimistic analysis of the causes and effects to which each of the characters has been subject. It is easy to forget that the force behind the skillful coordination of fates and intersection of destinies has been none other than the author himself. The extraordinary narrative craft displayed by Voltaire raises the question of whether authorial control has in essence substituted for providential design in Candide. Voltaire scholars frequently debate the relative importance of Candide's literary and philosophical qualities. In reality, the two work in perfect conjunction with one another, since the narrative organization of Candide turns out to be integral to the work's rumination on cause and effect, divine intervention and the consequences of human behavior.
The harmony found in communal life would seem to confirm the very philosophy that Voltaire has been mocking throughout, since it counterbalances and implicitly justifies all of the trials and tribulations experienced by Miss Cunégonde and the others. Candide, on the other hand, refuses to see the fortuitous conclusion as a sign of optimism. The philosophical emphasis shifts decisively away from providential design toward a more pragmatic understanding of human behavior as a determinant of fate. In doing so, Voltaire goes to the other extreme by detaching the individual from any consideration of larger historical forces that necessarily influence and circumscribe his/her destiny.
