The landlord, calling himself ignorant, sends them to an old man retired from Court, the most learned and communicative person in the kingdom. Candide now walks as second character behind his valet. The house is very plain: a door of silver, ceilings of gold, an antechamber only encrusted with rubies and emeralds. The old man receives them on a sofa stuffed with humming-birds' feathers and has liqueurs served in diamond goblets. He is a hundred and seventy-two. His father, Master of the Horse, saw the revolutions of Peru. This kingdom is the ancient country of the Incas, who left it to conquer another part of the world and were destroyed by the Spaniards. The princes who remained ordained, with the nation's consent, that no inhabitant should quit the little kingdom. That law has preserved their innocence and happiness. The Spaniards have a confused notion of the place and call it El Dorado. Walter Raleigh came near a hundred years ago. Inaccessible rocks have sheltered them from European nations, who have an inconceivable passion for the pebbles and dirt of the land and would murder them to the last man for it.
Candide, always fond of metaphysics, has Cacambo ask about religion. The old man reddens: can they take the country for ungrateful wretches? There are not two gods, nor three, nor four. They do not pray to ask; they have nothing to ask; they return thanks without ceasing. All are priests. The King and the heads of families sing canticles every morning with five or six thousand musicians. Candide asks for monks who teach, dispute, govern, cabal, and burn those not of their opinion. We must be mad if that were the case, says the old man; here we are all of one opinion, and we know not what you mean by monks. Candide is in raptures. This is vastly different from Westphalia. Had Pangloss seen El Dorado he would no longer have called Thunder-ten-Tronckh the finest castle on earth. It is evident that one must travel. A coach and six sheep carry them to Court. Twenty damsels of the guard bathe them and dress them in humming-bird down. Cacambo asks how to pay obeisance: knees, stomachs, hands, dust. The custom is to embrace the King and kiss him on each cheek. There are no courts of justice, no lawsuits, no prisons. What surprises Candide most is the palace of sciences, a gallery two thousand feet long of instruments for mathematics and physics. At supper the King's wit still works in translation.
They spend a month. Candide owns the castle of his birth is nothing beside this, but Cunegonde is not here, and Cacambo will have some mistress in Europe. If they abide they will only be upon a footing with the rest. If they return with twelve sheep laden with pebbles they will be richer than all the kings in Europe, fear no Inquisitors, and recover Cunegonde. Mankind is fond of roving, of making a figure at home, and of boasting of travels. The two happy ones resolve to be no longer so. The King calls them foolish. His kingdom is small, but a person comfortably settled should abide. He has not the right to detain strangers. All men are free. Going will be hard: the river cannot be ascended, the mountains are ten thousand feet high. Engineers will build a machine. Subjects have vowed never to quit and are too wise to break the vow. Candide asks only for sheep laden with provisions, pebbles, and the earth of the country. The King laughs: he cannot conceive what pleasure Europeans find in yellow clay; take as much as you like. Three thousand mathematicians finish the hoist in fifteen days. Two red sheep to ride, twenty for food, thirty for curiosities, fifty for gold and stones. The King embraces them. Candide has no aim but to present the sheep to Cunegonde. Now, he says, they can pay the Governor of Buenos Ayres if she can be ransomed. Let us journey toward Cayenne, embark, and afterwards see what kingdom we shall be able to purchase.
