Summary: Chapter 11
The old woman tells her story. It turns out that she is
the daughter of Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina. She
was raised in the midst of incredible wealth. At fourteen, already
a stunning beauty, she was engaged to the prince of Massa Carrara.
The two of them loved each another passionately. However, during
the lavish wedding celebration, the prince’s mistress killed the
prince with a poisoned drink, and the old woman and her mother set
sail to mourn at their estate in Gaeta. On the way, pirates boarded
the ship and the pope’s soldiers surrendered without a fight. The
pirates examined every bodily orifice of their prisoners, searching
for hidden jewels. They raped the women and sailed to Morocco to
sell them as slaves.
A civil war was underway in Morocco, and the pirates
were attacked. The old woman saw her mother and their maids of honor ripped
apart by the men fighting over them. After the fray ended, the old
woman climbed out from under a heap of dead bodies and crawled to
rest under a tree. She awoke to find an Italian eunuch vainly attempting
to rape her.
Summary: Chapter 12
A hundred times I wanted to kill myself,
but always I loved life more.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
The old woman continues her story. Despite the eunuch’s
attempt to rape her, she was delighted to encounter a countryman,
and the eunuch carried her to a nearby cottage to care for her.
They discovered that he had once served in her mother’s palace.
The eunuch promised to take the old woman back to Italy, but then
took her to Algiers and sold her to the prince as a concubine.
The plague swept through Algiers, killing the prince and
the eunuch. The old woman was subsequently sold several times and ended
up in the hands of a Muslim military commander. He took his seraglio
with him when ordered to defend the city of Azov against the Russians.
The Russians leveled the city, and only the commander’s fort was
left standing. Desperate for food, the officers killed and ate two
eunuchs. They planned to do the same with the women, but a “pious
and sympathetic” religious leader persuaded them to merely cut one
buttock from each woman for food. Eventually, the Russians killed
all the officers.
The women were taken to Moscow. A nobleman took the old woman
as his slave and beat her daily for two years. He was executed for
“court intrigue,” and the old woman escaped. She worked as a servant
in inns across Russia. She came close to suicide many times in her
life, but never carried it out because she “loved life” too much.
The old woman wonders why human nature makes people want to live
even though life itself is so often a curse. She tells Candide and
Cunégonde to ask each passenger on the ship to tell his story. She
wagers that every single one has been upset to be alive.
Summary: Chapter 13
At the old woman’s urging, Candide and Cunégonde ask their
fellow passengers about their experiences. They find that the old woman’s
prediction is correct. When the ship docks at Buenos Aires, they
visit the haughty, self-important governor, Don Fernando d’Ibaraa
y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, who orders Candide
to review his company. When Candide leaves, Don Fernando begs Cunégonde
to marry him. The shrewd old woman advises Cunégonde to marry the
governor, as marrying him could make both her and Candide’s fortune.
