by Voltaire
He threw all these detestable productions on the fire, and went out for an evening stroll. He was introduced to an old scholar who had not come to swell the ranks of the parasites at dinner. This scholar always avoided the crowd; was acquainted with mankind, made use of what he knew, and expressed himself with discretion. Babouc spoke with distress of what he had read and seen.
‘You have been reading contemptible dross,’ said this wise scholar, ‘but in all ages and countries and genres, the bad abounds and the good is rare. You received the dregs of pedantry into your house, because in all professions those who are least worthy to appear thrust themselves forward with the greatest impudence. The truly wise keep their own company, in retired tranquillity; among us there are still men and books worthy of your attention.’ While he was speaking, they were joined by another scholar; the conversation was so pleasant and instructive, so elevated above prejudice and so expressive of virtue, that Babouc confessed he had never heard its like. ‘Such men’, he murmured to himself, ‘the angel Ithuriel will not dare to touch, or he lacks all mercy.’
Though reconciled to men of letters, Babouc was still angry with the rest of this nation. ‘You are a stranger,’ remarked his judicious companion, ‘so abuses crowd before your eyes, and the good which is hidden and is sometimes even the fruit of those abuses escapes you.’ He then learnt that among men of letters were some who were not envious, and that there were even virtuous men among the mages. He finally understood that these large corporations, which seemed to be preparing a common ruin for themselves by their rivalries, were after all beneficial institutions; that each order of mages acted as a curb on its rivals; that if these rivals differed in some of their opinions they nevertheless all taught the same morality, educated the people and lived in submission to the laws, rather as tutors watch over the son of the house while the master watches over the tutors. Babouc frequented more of them, and discovered marvellous souls. He even learnt that among the lunatics who wanted to make war on the Lama of Tibet there had been some great men. In the end he formed the view that the morals of Persepolis might well resemble its buildings, some of which had seemed pitiful while others had filled him with admiration.
CHAPTER X
He said to his learned friend: ‘I can see clearly that these mages, whom I had thought so dangerous, are in fact most useful, especially when a wise government prevents them from becoming too important; but you will at least admit that your young magistrates, who purchase the title of judges as soon as they learn to ride a horse, must parade the most ridiculous impertinence in the courts as well as the grossest injustice. It would surely be better to confer these offices freely upon the elderly jurists who have spent their lives in weighing the scales of the law.’
The man of letters replied: ‘You saw our army before you came to Persepolis; you know that our young officers fight very well, despite having purchased their commissions; perhaps you will see that our young magistrates do not judge poorly, despite having purchased the right to judge.’
The next day he brought Babouc to the high court, where an important sentence was to be passed. The case was familiar to everyone. All the elderly lawyers who discussed it vacillated in their opinions; they cited a hundred precedents, not one of which went to the root of the question; they looked at the case from a hundred angles, none of which was the true one. The judges came to a decision in less time than the lawyers spent dithering; their judgement was nearly unanimous; it was a sound judgement because they followed the light of reason, whereas the lawyers pronounced foolishly because they had merely consulted their books.
Babouc concluded that abuses often have their advantages. On the same day he saw how the wealth of financiers, which had so disgusted him, could have excellent effects; for the Emperor needed money, and with their aid he found more in one hour than he could have raised in six months by the usual means. Babouc saw that these fat clouds, swollen with the dew of the earth, gave back in rain what they had received. Moreover, the children of these new men, often better educated than the progeny of older families, were sometimes far more able: for nothing prevents a man from being a good judge, a brave warrior or an adroit statesman, if he has had a clever father.
CHAPTER XI
Little by little Babouc became more forgiving towards the avidity of the financiers, who are at bottom no greedier than other men, and who are necessary to society. He excused the madness of those who ruin themselves to become judges and military officers, a madness which produces great magistrates and heroes. He excused the envy of men of letters, among whose number there were individuals who enlightened the world; he grew reconciled to ambitious and scheming mages, among whom great virtues even outnumbered petty vices; but he still found much to complain of, above all in the intrigues of the ladies. The inevitable miseries consequent upon their behaviour filled him with anxiety and dread.
Since he wished to become familiar with all conditions of men, he called upon a minister of state; but along the way he trembled continually lest some woman should be murdered before his eyes by her husband. Arriving at the statesman’s house he waited for two hours in the antechamber before being announced, and two more hours thereafter. During this interval he resolved to recommend this minister and his insolent lackeys to the particular attention of the angel Ithuriel. The antechamber was filled with ladies of all ranks, mages of all colours, judges, merchants, officers and pedants, all of them complaining about the minister. The miser and the usurer said: ‘No doubt, this man is fleecing the provinces.’ A capricious character reproached him with being unpredictable. A sybarite said: ‘He thinks of nothing but pleasure.’ An intriguer flattered himself that he would soon see the minister brought down by a conspiracy; the women were hoping that he would soon be replaced by a younger man.
Babouc listened to their talk; he could not help saying: ‘Now here is a fortunate man: he has all his enemies in his antechamber; his power crushes those who envy him; he sees his detesters prostrate at his feet.’ At last he entered, and Babouc saw a little old man bowed with the weight of years and business, but still lively and full of intelligence.
He liked Babouc and Babouc thought him a person of worth. The conversation became animated. The minister confessed that he was a very unhappy man; that he was thought to be rich but was in fact poor; that people imagined him all-powerful but he was always being thwarted; that almost everyone to whom he had granted a favour had proved ungrateful, and that during forty years of constant exertion he had scarcely known a moment of consolation. Babouc was moved, and thought that if this man had erred and the angel Ithuriel wished to punish him, the way to do so was not to exterminate him but to leave him in harness.
CHAPTER XII
During their conversation the beautiful lady at whose house Babouc had dined suddenly entered the room. Her eyes and forehead showed signs of pain and anger. She burst into reproaches against the minister; she wept; she complained bitterly that her husband had been refused a position to which by birth he was entitled to aspire, and which his services and his wounds merited; she expressed herself so forcefully, complained so gracefully, countered objections so skilfully, and marshalled her arguments so eloquently, that when she left the room she had made her husband’s fortune.
Babouc shook hands with her. ‘Is it possible, madame,’ he said, ‘that you can have given yourself all this trouble for a man whom you do not love, and from whom you have everything to fear?’ ‘A man I do not love!’ she cried. ‘My husband is the best friend I have in the world, for whom I would sacrifice everything except my lover; and who would do anything for me, except leave his mistress. I should like you to meet her; she is a charming woman, full of wit, of the most agreeable nature; we are supping together this evening, with my husband and my little mage; come and share our joy.’
The lady took Babouc home with her. The husband, who arrived late and in the depths of despair, greeted his wife with transports of elation and gratitude; he embraced in turn his wife, hi
s mistress, the little mage and Babouc. Concord, gaiety, wit and every social grace suffused the supper. ‘Let me explain to you’, said the hostess to Babouc, ‘that those women who are sometimes referred to as unvirtuous almost always have the merit of possessing a virtuous man. To convince you, come and dine with me tomorrow at the house of the beautiful Teone. She is regularly torn to pieces by a few old vestal virgins but she does more good than all of them put together. She would not commit the smallest injustice to further her interests, however great; she gives her lover nothing but generous advice; she is concerned only for his good name; he would blush before her if he missed any occasion for doing what is right, since nothing encourages virtuous deeds more than to have as witness and judge of one’s conduct a mistress whose esteem one wishes to deserve.’
Babouc kept the appointment. What he found was a house in which all the pleasures reigned, and were reigned over by Teone. She knew how to speak to everyone in their own language, and her natural ways put others at ease; she gave pleasure almost inadvertently, was as amiable as she was benevolent, and – which augmented the value of her other qualities – she was beautiful.
Babouc, for all that he was a Scythian and the envoy of a genie, realized that if he remained any longer in Persepolis he would forget Ithuriel for Teone. He had grown attached to this city whose inhabitants were civilized, gentle and benevolent, even if they were frivolous, scandal-mongering and full of vanity. He feared for the destruction of Persepolis; he was even fearful of the account he was going to render.
He gave his account in the following way. He commissioned the best metal-founder in the city to make a statuette composed of every metal, and from clays and stones, both the most precious and the most worthless. He presented it to Ithuriel, saying: ‘Will you break this lovely statuette, because it is not all gold and diamonds?’ Ithuriel guessed his meaning; he resolved not even to think of destroying Persepolis, and to leave the world as it is: ‘For if everything is not perfect,’ said he, ‘everything is tolerable.’
So Persepolis was allowed to stand, and Babouc was far from put out – unlike Jonah, who lost his temper when Nineveh was not destroyed. But when a man has spent three days in the belly of a whale he is not as well-disposed as when he has been to the opera, to the theatre, and has dined in excellent company.
Memnon
Or Human Wisdom
One day Memnon conceived the senseless project of becoming perfectly wise. There is hardly a man through whose head such folly has not occasionally passed. Memnon said to himself: ‘To be very wise, and consequently very happy, one has only to be without passions; and nothing is easier, as everyone knows. First of all, I shall never fall in love with a woman; when I see a perfect beauty, I shall say to myself: “Some day those cheeks will be wrinkled, those beautiful eyes will be red-rimmed; those round breasts will become flat and drooping, that lovely head will be bald.” Thus I have only to see her now with the same eyes as I shall see her then, and assuredly her head will no longer turn mine.
‘In the second place, I shall always be sober; however much I may be tempted by good living, delicious wines, and the seductions of society, I have only to picture the consequences of excess – a heavy head, a churning stomach, the loss of faculties, health and time – to remind myself to eat no more than my needs; my health will always be regular, my ideas always clear and luminous. It is all so easy that there is no merit in achieving it.
‘Next,’ said Memnon, ‘I must give some thought to my income; my desires are moderate; my fortune is solidly invested with the Receiver-General of the Finances of Nineveh; I have enough to live independently, and this is the greatest fortune of all. I shall never endure the cruel necessity of paying court to anyone; I shall envy no one and no one will envy me. All this too is very easy. I have friends’, he went on, ‘whom I shall keep, since they will have no reason to quarrel with me. I shall never be out of temper with them nor they with me; no difficulty there either.’
Having thus made his little blueprint of wisdom in his room, Memnon looked out of the window. He saw two women strolling beneath the plane-trees near his house. One was old and seemed not to be thinking about anything; the other was young and pretty, and seemed to be deep in thought. She sighed, she wept, and was all the more beautiful as a result. Our philosopher was touched, not by the lady’s beauty (he was quite sure he was no longer subject to such weakness), but by her affliction. He went down; he approached the young Ninevite with the idea of consoling her with his wisdom. This exquisite creature described to him, in the most artless and touching manner, all the wrongs done to her by an uncle she did not possess, and the artifices by which he had deprived her of a fortune she had never owned, along with all she had to fear from his violence. ‘You seem to be a gentleman of such good counsel’, she said, ‘that if you would be kind enough to come home with me and examine my affairs, I am certain that you would rescue me from these cruel difficulties.’ Memnon had no hesitation in following her, to examine her affairs with wisdom and to give her good counsel.
The afflicted lady took him to a perfumed room and politely bade him join her on a large sofa, where they sat facing each other with their legs crossed. The lady spoke with lowered eyes, from which an occasional tear dropped, and when she raised them they always met the gaze of the wise Memnon. Her words were full of a tenderness which redoubled each time they looked at each other. Memnon took her affairs very much to heart, and felt with each passing moment an increasing desire to oblige so virtuous and unfortunate a creature. Little by little, in the warmth of conversation, they ceased to be facing each other. Their legs were no longer crossed. Memnon was advising her so closely, and giving such tender counsels, that neither of them could talk of business and no longer knew where they were.
At this point the uncle arrived, as you might expect: he was armed from head to foot, and the first thing he said, naturally, was that he would kill both his niece and the wise Memnon; and his last word on the subject was that he might be forgiving in return for a large sum of money. Memnon was obliged to hand over all he had with him. In those days a man was lucky to get off so cheaply; America had not yet been discovered, and afflicted ladies were not nearly so dangerous as they are today.1
Ashamed and despairing, Memnon returned home; here he found a note inviting him to sup with some intimate friends. ‘If I stay at home’, he said, ‘my mind will dwell upon my unlucky adventure, I shall eat nothing, and I shall fall ill. Better to go and enjoy a frugal meal with my intimate friends. In the pleasure of their company I shall forget the folly of this morning.’ So off he went to the gathering. His friends found him a little low in spirits. They made him drink to dispel his sorrow. A little wine taken in moderation is a cure for both body and soul. Thus reflected the wise Memnon; and he got drunk. After dinner a game of cards was proposed. A regular game or two among friends is an honest pastime. He played; he lost the contents of his purse and four times as much against his bond. The game led to a dispute; it grew warm; one of his intimate friends flung a dice-cup at his head and knocked out an eye. The wise Memnon was carried home drunk, moneyless, and short of one eye.
He slept off some of the wine; his head clearer now, he sent his valet for money to the Receiver-General of the Finances of Nineveh, in order to pay off his intimate friends; he was informed that his debtor had that very morning become a defrauding bankrupt, to the distress of a hundred families. Memnon in a rage went to court with a plaster over his eye and a petition in hand, to ask justice of the King against the bankrupt. In the salon he encountered several ladies all wearing, with an air of ease, hoops twenty-four feet in circumference. One of them, knowing Memnon slightly, looked at him askance and remarked: ‘Horrors!’ Another, who knew him better, said: ‘Good evening, Monsieur Memnon, how delightful to see you, but by the way, why have you lost an eye, Monsieur Memnon?’ and she passed on without waiting for his reply. Memnon hid himself in a corner and waited for the moment when he could throw himself at the monarch�
��s feet. The moment arrived. He kissed the ground three times and presented his petition. His Most Gracious Majesty received it very favourably and handed it to one of his satraps to give him an account of it. The satrap took Memnon aside and said to him haughtily and with a bitter sneer: ‘You are a one-eyed buffoon to address yourself to the King rather than to me, and still more of a buffoon to dare to ask for justice against an honest bankrupt, whom I honour with my protection and who is the nephew of one of the chambermaids of my mistress. Give up this affair, my friend, if you wish to keep your other eye.’
Memnon, having that morning renounced women, the excesses of the table, gambling, all quarrels, and in particular the court, before night had been deceived and robbed by a fair lady, had got drunk, gambled, quarrelled, lost an eye and been to court where he had been laughed at.
Paralysed with astonishment and distracted with grief, he returned home with death in his heart. He tried to enter his house; there he found the bailiffs removing his furniture on behalf of his creditors. He stood under a plane-tree almost in a swoon; here he saw the fair lady of this morning out strolling with her dear uncle, who both burst into laughter at the sight of Memnon with his plaster. Night fell; Memnon lay down on some straw near the wall of his own house. He had an attack of fever, overcome by which he fell asleep, and a celestial spirit appeared to him in a dream.
The spirit was resplendent with light. He had six beautiful wings, but no feet, nor head nor tail, and resembled nothing at all. ‘Who are you?’ said Memnon. ‘Your good angel,’ replied the other. ‘In which case give me back my eye, my health, my property, my wisdom,’ said Memnon, and told him how he had lost them all in one day. ‘Adventures like that never happen in the world where I live,’ said the spirit. ‘And what world do you live in?’ said the afflicted man. ‘My country’, he said, ‘is five hundred million leagues from the sun, on a little star near Sirius, which you can see from here ‘Happy star!’ said Memnon; ‘– You mean to say that where you come from there are no she-devils to deceive a poor man, no intimate friends who win his money and poke out his eye, no bankrupts, no satraps who mock him while refusing him justice?’ ‘No,’ said the inhabitant of the star, ‘nothing of the kind. We are never deceived by women, because we have no women; we never over-indulge at table, because we do not eat; we have no bankrupts, because we have neither gold nor silver; we cannot have our eyes poked out, because our bodies are not like yours; and satraps never do us an injustice, because on our little star everyone is equal.’
