Micromegas and Other Short Fictions (Penguin ed.)

by Voltaire

  SOPHRONIE: The little sense I have I owe to the education given me by my mother. She did not raise me in a convent, for it was not in a convent that I was destined to spend my life. I pity those girls whose mothers entrust their early youth to nuns, just as they have entrusted the care of their early infancy to unrelated wet-nurses. I hear that in these convents, as in most institutions where the young are raised, one learns scarcely anything except what one needs to forget for the rest of one’s life; our early prime is buried beneath stupidities. You leave your prison, only to be promised to a stranger who comes to spy at you through the grille; whoever he is, you regard him as your liberator and, if he be a monkey, you think yourself all too fortunate; you give yourself to him without knowing him; you live with him without loving him. It is a transaction to which you are not party, and soon afterwards both parties repent.

  My mother thought me capable of thinking for myself, and of choosing a spouse for myself when the time comes. Had I been born to earn my own livelihood, she would have taught me to succeed in those occupations appropriate to my sex; however, born to live in society, she instructed me early on in everything that concerns society; she formed my mind by making me fear the pitfalls of pure wit; she took me to all those choice theatrical spectacles which are capable of forming taste without corrupting morals, where the dangers of passion are displayed even more than its charms, where propriety reigns, where one learns to think and to express oneself. Tragedy has often seemed to me the school of the soul, comedy the school of the proprieties. I would go so far as to say that these lessons, which are regarded as mere amusements, have been more useful to me than books. Finally, my mother always treated me as a thinking being whose spirit needed to be cultivated, not as a puppet to be fitted out, shown off, and put back in its box immediately afterwards.

  Wives, Submit Yourselves to

  Your Husbands

  The Abbé de Châteauneuf1 told me one day, talking about Madame la Maréchale de Grancey, that she had been a very imperious woman; despite which, she had possessed remarkable qualities. Her greatest pride consisted in respecting herself, in doing nothing at which she might have cause to blush in secret; she never lowered herself to telling lies. She preferred to confess a dangerous truth than resort to easy dissimulation, maintaining that dissimulation was always a sign of cowardice. Her life was marked by a thousand generous deeds, but when praised for them she felt insulted; she used to say: ‘So you think that such actions cost me an effort?’ Her lovers adored her, her friends treasured her, and her husband respected her.

  She dissipated her first forty years in that circle of amusements which for women count as the serious pursuits, having read nothing besides the letters she received, and having thought of nothing except the gossip of the day, the follies of her neighbours and the interests of her heart. At length, seeing herself reach the age when, as they say, women who have both beauty and wit pass from one throne to the other, she conceived a desire to read. She began with the tragedies of Racine, and was astonished to discover an even greater pleasure in reading them than she had felt in seeing them performed: the good taste inculcated in her mind by reading showed her that this man spoke only of things which were true and important; that his words were always in their right place; that he was noble and unaffected, without declamation, without anything forced, without any striving after effect; that his plots, like his thoughts, were all founded on nature. She rediscovered in her reading the history of her emotions and the picture of her life.

  She was persuaded to read Montaigne:2 she was charmed to find a man who seemed to converse with her alone, and who doubted everything. Then she was handed the Lives of Plutarch:3 she asked why he had written only the history of great men, not of great women.

  One day the Abbé de Châteauneuf found her in a state of high indignation. ‘What is the trouble, madame?’ said he. ‘I opened by chance’, she replied, ‘a book which was lying about in my study; it is, I believe, some collection of letters, in which I came across these words: “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands.”4 I threw the book away.’

  ‘What, Madame? Do you not know that these are the Epistles of St Paul?’

  ‘I do not care who wrote them; the author is very ill-bred. My husband, Monsieur le Maréchal, has never written to me in such a style; I am persuaded that your St Paul was a very difficult man to live with. Was he married?’

  ‘Yes, Madame.’

  ‘Then his wife must surely have been a submissive creature: had I been the wife of such a man, I would have made him see a thing or two. Submit yourselves indeed! Now, had he contented himself with saying: “Be gentle, complaisant, attentive, thrifty”, I should have said: there’s a man who understands life. But why submit yourselves, may I ask? When I married Monsieur de Grancey, we promised to be faithful to each other: I have not kept my vows too punctiliously, nor he his; but neither of us ever promised obedience. Are we women slaves, then? Is it not enough that a man, having married me, has the right to give me a nine-months’ illness, which is sometimes fatal? Is it not enough that I should bring forth with great pain a child who may appear in court against me when he comes of age? Is it not enough that I should be subjected every month to inconveniences which are most distasteful to a woman of quality, and that, to crown it all, the omission of just one of these monthly maladies may cause my death? Is not all this enough, without someone coming along and saying to me: Obey!

  ‘No, nature has certainly said nothing of the kind; she has given us organs which differ from those of men; but, in making us necessary to each other, she has never pretended that our union should be a state of slavery. I can remember well what Molière said: “All power is on the side of the beard.”5 But that is a quaint reason, surely, for foisting a master on to me! What! because a man’s chin is covered with an ugly rough skin which he is obliged to shave closely, whereas my chin was born smooth, it follows that I should humbly submit to him? I know perfectly well that men generally have muscles which are stronger than ours, and aim punches better than we do: indeed, I fear this may be all there is to their superiority.

  ‘They claim moreover that their minds are better organized, and, in consequence, boast that they are more capable of governing; but I could show you queens who are worth many a king. I heard a few days ago of a German princess6 who rises at five in the morning to work for the well-being of her subjects, directs the affairs of state, answers all letters, encourages all the arts, and dispenses benefits as numerous as her own abilities. Her courage equals her knowledge, because she was not brought up in a convent by idiots who teach us what we do not need to know, and leave us in ignorance of what we do need to know. For my part, had I a state to govern, I think I should be bold enough to follow her example.’

  The Abbé de Cháteauneuf, who was a very polite man, took care not to contradict Madame la Maréchale.

  ‘By the way,’ said she, ‘is it true that Mohammed despised us so much that he maintained we were not worthy to enter Paradise, and should not be allowed beyond its gates?’ – ‘In that case’, said the Abbé, ‘the men would always stay near the door. But comfort yourself; there is not one word of truth in all that they say here about the Muslim faith. Our ignorant and wicked monks have thoroughly deceived us, as my brother, who was ambassador at the Porte7 for twelve years, has testified.’

  ‘What! Is it not true, sir, that Mohammed invented the custom of plurality of wives in order to have more control over the men? Is it not true that women are slaves in Turkey, and are forbidden to pray to God in the mosque?’ – ‘Not a word of truth in any of it, Madame. Mohammed, far from inventing polygamy, suppressed or restrained it. The wise Solomon had seven hundred wives. Mohammed reduced this number to just four. Ladies may go to Paradise, just the same as gentlemen; and, without doubt, they will make love there, though in a fashion different from how it is performed down here; for you must allow that we know love but very imperfectly in this world.’

  ‘Alas, you are right,’
said the Maréchale; ‘mankind is truly of little account! But tell me, did your Mohammed not order wives to submit themselves to their husbands?’

  ‘No, Madame; that is nowhere to be found in the Koran.’

  ‘Then why are women slaves in Turkey?’

  ‘They are by no means slaves; they have property; they can make wills; they are able to request a divorce on occasion; they have their times for going to the mosque – and to their rendezvous: one sees them in the streets with their veils over their noses, just as you used to wear your mask some years ago. It is true that they are not to be seen at the opera or the theatre, but that is because these do not exist. Can you doubt that, were there ever to be an opera house in Constantinople – the homeland of Orpheus – the ladies of Turkey would not fill the front boxes?’

  ‘Wives, submit to your husbands!’ said the Maréchale between her teeth. ‘This Paul was a perfect savage.’

  ‘He was a little hard,’ replied the Abbé, ‘and he greatly liked to be master: he looked down on St Peter, who was really quite a good fellow. Besides, we must not take all that he said too literally. He has been reproached with having a strong leaning towards the Jansenists.’

  ‘I suspected all along that he was a heretic,’ said the Maréchale; and she continued with her toilet.

  Dialogue between the

  Cock and the Hen

  COCK: Good Lord, my dear hen, you do look sad: what’s wrong?

  HEN: Dear friend, better ask what’s not wrong with me. An awful servant took me on her knees, stuck a long needle up my backside, grabbed hold of my womb, rolled it around the needle, tore it out and gave it to her cat to eat. So now I can’t receive the attentions of my favourite Chanticleer or lay an egg.

  COCK: Alas! my dear, I’ve lost more than you. What they did to me was twice as cruel; you and I will no longer get any comfort in this world. They’ve neutered both of us. The only thing that consoles me in my desperate state is that the other day, near my hen-house, I heard two Italian priests saying that they’d suffered the same terrible fate, so they could sing to the Pope with a purer voice. According to them, men started out circumcising their fellow-men and ended up castrating them. They were cursing their fate and the human race.

  HEN: What! you mean to say that they’ve taken away the best thing about us just so we could have a purer voice?

  COCK: Alas! my poor hen, it’s worse than that; it’s to fatten us up and make our flesh more tender.

  HEN: So… when we’re fatter, will they be any better off?

  COCK: Yes: because they’re planning to eat us.

  HEN: Eat us! oh, the brutes!

  COCK: It’s what they do. They lock us up for a few days, force us to swallow a mash of their own making, put our eyes out to keep our minds from wandering. Then, when the feast day arrives, they tear out our feathers, cut our throats, and roast us. We are carried in and put in front of them on a large silver platter. They all say what they think of us – it’s our funeral oration. Someone says we smell of nuts, someone else how wonderful our flesh tastes. They praise our thighs, our arms, our rumps, and then our tale is told once and for all in this poor world.

  HEN: What appalling villains! I feel faint. Oh no! they’ll tear my eyes out, and cut my throat! I’ll be roasted and eaten! Won’t these ruffians suffer any remorse?

  COCK: No, my dear. The two priests I told you about were saying that men don’t ever have any remorse for things that they’re accustomed to doing.

  HEN: What a horrible race! I bet that even as they’re eating us they start laughing and telling jokes, just as though there were nothing wrong.

  COCK: You’re right. But it might help a bit to know that these animals, who have two feet just like us but are much inferior since they have no feathers, have acted exactly the same way with their own kind times without number. I gathered from my two priests that the Greek and Christian emperors always took care to put out the eyes of their brothers and cousins; there was even, in our own country, a man named Debonair who had his nephew Bernard’s eyes torn out. As for the matter of roasting human beings, there’s nothing more common. My priests said that more than 20,000 people had been roasted for holding views that a cockerel would find it hard to explain and which I don’t care about anyway.

  HEN: So, I suppose they roasted them to eat them.

  COCK: I’m not too sure. But I do recall very clearly being told that in lots of countries men have from time to time eaten one another.

  HEN: Never mind about that. It’s a good thing if the members of such a perverted species eat one another; then we can be shot of them. But what about me? I’m peaceable, I’ve never done any wrong, I’ve even fed these monsters by giving them eggs. Am I to be castrated, blinded, have my throat cut and be roasted? Are we treated like that in the rest of the world?

  COCK: The two priests said No. They were sure that in a country called India, much bigger, more beautiful, more fertile than ours, men have a sacred law that for thousands of centuries now has forbidden them to eat us. One Pythagoras,1 who had travelled amongst these just nations, introduced this humane law into Europe, and it was followed by all his disciples. These good priests were reading Porphyry2 the Pythagorean, who wrote a fine book against roasting spits.

  This Porphyry – what a good, divine man he was! With so much wisdom, forcefulness, tender respect for God he shows us that we are both the allies of men and related to them. God gave us, he says, the same organs, feelings, memory, the same mysterious germ of understanding that evolves in us to the point decreed by eternal law, which neither they nor we can ever infringe. Indeed, my dearest hen, wouldn’t it be an insult to God to say that we have senses but cannot feel, a brain but cannot think? That fantasy, worthy of some madman they call Descartes,3 wouldn’t it be the height of ridicule and a worthless excuse for acting barbarously?

  So the great philosophers of antiquity never roasted us on the spit. They made efforts to learn our language and to find out about the faculties we have that are so superior to human ones. We were as safe with them as in the Golden Age. Wise men don’t kill animals, says Porphyry; only barbarians and priests kill and eat them. He wrote this marvellous book to convert a disciple who had become Christian out of sheer greediness.

  HEN: Well then… did they put up altars to this great man who taught virtue to humans and saved animals?

  COCK: No. He was detested by the Christians, the ones who eat us, and they still execrate his memory today. They call him a heathen and say his virtues weren’t genuine, since he was a pagan.

  HEN: What dreadful prejudices come from greediness! The other day, in this barn affair near our hen-house, I heard a man speaking; others were standing around saying nothing. He was holding forth that ‘God had made a pact with us and these other animals called men; God had forbidden them to feed on our flesh and blood.’ How then can they include in this stringent ban the right to consume our limbs when boiled or roasted? When they cut our throats, a lot of blood must still be left in our veins, and this must still be mixed in with our flesh. So they are visibly disobeying God by eating us. And also, isn’t it a sacrilege to kill and eat creatures with whom God has made a pact? It would be a peculiar treaty indeed where the only clause is to deliver us up to die. Either our creator didn’t make a pact with us, or it’s a crime to kill and cook us. There’s no middle way.

  COCK: That isn’t the only contradiction to be found amongst these barbarians, our undying enemies. They’ve been long since the object of criticism, because they never agree on anything. They make laws, only to break them; worse, they break them with a clear conscience. They have thought up scores of subterfuges, dozens of false arguments to justify their wrongdoing. They only apply their minds to excuse their injustices; they only use words to cover up their thoughts. Just imagine, in this little country of ours, it is forbidden to eat us two days a week. But they manage to find a way round that law. What’s more, though on the surface it appears to help us, it is in fact barbarous. Peop
le are commanded to eat fish those two days, so they hunt down their victims in the seas and rivers. They devour fish which each cost them more than a hundred cockerels, and they call that fasting and self-mortification. In short, I don’t think you can imagine a race both more absurd and more odious, more outrageous and bloodthirsty.

  HEN: Oh, heavens! Don’t I see that dreadful kitchen boy with his big knife?

  COCK: This is it, my dear, our last hour has come; let us commend our souls to God.

  HEN: If only I could give the rascal who is going to eat me a bout of indigestion that would kill him! But the weak can only take their revenge on the strong by making futile wishes, and the strong just laugh.

  COCK: Ahhh! they’ve got me by the throat. Let us pardon our enemies.

  HEN: I can’t; they’ve grabbed me, they’re carrying me off. Farewell, my dear Chanticleer.

  COCK: Farewell, for all eternity, my dearest hen.

  Conversation between Lucían, Erasmus and Rabelais, in the Elysian Fields

  Some time ago, in the Elysian fields, Lucian1 made the acquaintance of Erasmus,2 despite his repugnance for everything that emanated from the German borders. He did not believe that an ancient Greek should abase himself by speaking to a Batavian, but since the shade of this particular Batavian struck him as worthy company, they had the following conversation together.