Chapter 7: Disputes and Audiences
Original French
Les disputes et les audiences.
C'est ainsi que Zadig montrait tous les jours la subtilité de son génie et la bonté de son âme; on l'admirait, et cependant on l'aimait. Il passait pour le plus fortuné de tous les hommes, tout l'empire était rempli de son nom; toutes les femmes le lorgnaient; tous les citoyens célébraient sa justice; les savants le regardaient comme leur oracle; les prêtres même avouaient qu'il en savait plus que le vieux archimage Yébor. On était bien loin alors de lui faire des procès sur les griffons; on ne croyait que ce qui lui semblait croyable.
Il y avait une grande querelle dans Babylone qui durait depuis quinze cents années, et qui partageait l'empire en deux sectes opiniâtres: l'une prétendait qu'il ne fallait jamais entrer dans le temple de Mithra que du pied gauche; l'autre avait cette coutume en abomination, et n'entrait jamais que du pied droit. On attendait le jour de la fête solennelle du feu sacré pour savoir quelle secte serait favorisée par Zadig. L'univers avait les yeux sur ses deux pieds, et toute la ville était en agitation et en suspens. Zadig entra dans le temple en sautant à pieds joints, et il prouva ensuite, par un discours éloquent, que le Dieu du ciel et de la terre, qui n'a acception de personne, ne fait pas plus de cas de la jambe gauche que de la jambe droite. L'Envieux et sa femme prétendirent que dans son discours il n'y avait pas assez de figures, qu'il n'avait pas fait assez danser les montagnes et les collines. Il est sec et sans génie, disaient-ils; on ne voit chez lui ni la mer s'enfuir, ni les étoiles tomber, ni le soleil se fondre comme de la cire; il n'a point le bon style oriental. Zadig se contentait d'avoir le style de la raison. Tout le monde fut pour lui, non pas parcequ'il était dans le bon chemin, non pas parcequ'il était raisonnable, non pas parcequ'il était aimable, mais parcequ'il était premier vizir.
Il termina aussi heureusement le grand procès entre les mages blancs et les mages noirs. Les blancs soutenaient que c'était une impiété de se tourner, en priant Dieu, vers l'orient d'hiver; les noirs assuraient que Dieu avait en horreur les prières des hommes qui se tournaient vers le couchant d'été. Zadig ordonna qu'on se tournât comme on voudrait.
Il trouva ainsi le secret d'expédier le matin les affaires particulières et les générales: le reste du jour il s'occupait des embellissements de Babylone: il fesait représenter des tragédies où l'on pleurait, et des comédies où l'on riait; ce qui était passé de mode depuis long-temps, et ce qu'il fit renaître parcequ'il avait du goût. Il ne prétendait pas en savoir plus que les artistes; il les récompensait par des bienfaits et des distinctions, et n'était point jaloux en secret de leurs talents. Le soir il amusait beaucoup le roi, et surtout la reine. Le roi disait: Le grand ministre! la reine disait: L'aimable ministre! et tous deux ajoutaient: C'eût été grand dommage qu'il eût été pendu.
Jamais homme en place ne fut obligé de donner tant d'audiences aux dames. La plupart venaient lui parler des affaires qu'elles n'avaient point, pour en avoir une avec lui. La femme de l'Envieux s'y présenta des premières; elle lui jura par Mithra, par le Zenda-Vesta, et par le feu sacré, qu'elle avait détesté la conduite de son mari; elle lui confia ensuite que ce mari était un jaloux, un brutal; elle lui fit entendre que les dieux le punissaient, en lui refusant les précieux effets de ce feu sacré par lequel seul l'homme est semblable aux immortels: elle finit par laisser tomber sa jarretière; Zadig la ramassa avec sa politesse ordinaire; mais il ne la rattacha point au genou de la dame; et cette petite faute, si c'en est une, fut la cause des plus horribles infortunes. Zadig n'y pensa pas, et la femme de l'Envieux y pensa beaucoup.
D'autres dames se présentaient tous les jours. Les annales secrètes de Babylone prétendent qu'il succomba une fois, mais qu'il fut tout étonné de jouir sans volupté, et d'embrasser son amante avec distraction. Celle à qui il donna, sans presque s'en apercevoir, des marques de sa protection, était une femme de chambre de la reine Astarté. Cette tendre Babylonienne se disait à elle-même pour se consoler: Il faut que cet homme-là ait prodigieusement d'affaires dans la tête, puisqu'il y songe encore même en fesant l'amour. Il échappa à Zadig, dans les instants où plusieurs personnes ne disent mot, et où d'autres ne prononcent que des paroles sacrées, de s'écrier tout d'un coup. La reine! La Babylonienne crut qu'enfin il était revenu à lui dans un bon moment, et qu'il lui disait: Ma reine. Mais Zadig, toujours très distrait, prononça le nom d'Astarté. La dame, qui dans ces heureuses circonstances interprétait tout à son avantage, s'imagina que cela voulait dire: Vous êtes plus belle que la reine Astarté. Elle sortit du sérail de Zadig avec de très beaux présents. Elle alla conter son aventure à l'Envieuse, qui était son amie intime; celle-ci fut cruellement piquée de la préférence. Il n'a pas daigné seulement, dit-elle, me rattacher cette jarretière que voici, et dont je ne veux plus me servir. Oh! oh! dit la fortunée à l'Envieuse, vous portez les mêmes jarretières que la reine! Vous les prenez donc chez la même feseuse? L'Envieuse rêva profondément, ne répondit rien, et alla consulter son mari l'Envieux.
Cependant Zadig s'apercevait qu'il avait toujours des distractions quand il donnait des audiences, et quand il jugeait: il ne savait à quoi les attribuer; c'était là sa seule peine.
Il eut un songe: il lui semblait qu'il était couché d'abord sur des herbes sèches, parmi lesquelles il y en avait quelques unes de piquantes qui l'incommodaient; et qu'ensuite il reposait mollement sur un lit de roses, dont il sortait un serpent qui le blessait au coeur de sa langue acérée et envenimée. Hélas! disait-il, j'ai été long-temps couché sur ces herbes sèches et piquantes, je suis maintenant sur le lit de roses; mais quel sera le serpent?
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from Voltaire’s French in Beuchot’s 1829 edition: Approbation, dedicatory epistle and all twenty-one chapters, including The Dance and Blue Eyes. Voltaire’s notes are retained; later editors’ notes are omitted. Source-language review is recorded with the source witness.
Disputes and Audiences.
In this way Zadig showed the subtlety of his genius and the goodness of his soul every day. He was admired, and yet he was loved. He was thought the most fortunate of men; the whole empire rang with his name. Every woman cast looks at him; every citizen celebrated his justice; scholars regarded him as their oracle; even priests admitted he knew more than old Yébor the arch-magus. There was no question now of prosecuting him over griffins: people believed only what he found believable.
A great quarrel had lasted in Babylon for fifteen hundred years, dividing the empire into two obstinate sects. One held that the temple of Mithra must always be entered left foot first; the other abhorred the custom and always entered with the right. People awaited the solemn festival of the sacred fire to learn which sect Zadig would favor. The universe had its eyes on his two feet; the whole city was in a fever of suspense. Zadig entered the temple by jumping with both feet together, and then proved in an eloquent speech that the God of heaven and earth, who shows no partiality to persons, values the left leg no more than the right. The Envious Man and his wife maintained that his speech had too few figures, that he had not made the mountains and hills dance enough. “He is dry and has no genius,” they said. “In his speeches you see no sea fleeing, no stars falling, no sun melting like wax. He has none of the proper Oriental style.” Zadig was content with the style of reason. Everyone supported him, not because he was on the right path, not because he was reasonable, not because he was charming, but because he was first vizier.
He settled the great lawsuit between the white magi and the black magi just as successfully. The whites maintained it was impious to turn toward the winter sunrise when praying to God; the blacks asserted that God abhorred the prayers of men who turned toward the summer sunset. Zadig ordered everyone to face whichever way they pleased.
Thus he discovered the secret of dispatching both private and public affairs in the morning. The rest of the day he devoted to embellishing Babylon. He had tragedies performed at which people wept, and comedies at which they laughed—things long out of fashion, which he revived because he had taste. He did not pretend to know more than artists; he rewarded them with gifts and honors, and felt no secret envy of their talents. In the evening he greatly entertained the king, and the queen above all. The king said, “What a great minister!” The queen said, “What a charming minister!” And both added, “It would have been a great pity if he had been hanged.”
No man in office was ever obliged to grant so many audiences to ladies. Most came to discuss affairs they did not have, in order to have one with him. The Envious Man's wife was among the first to present herself. She swore by Mithra, by the Zend-Avesta, and by the sacred fire that she had detested her husband's conduct. She then confided that this husband was a jealous brute; she hinted that the gods were punishing him by denying him the precious effects of that sacred fire through which alone man resembles the immortals. She ended by letting her garter fall. Zadig picked it up with his usual courtesy, but did not fasten it around the lady's knee; and this little fault, if a fault it was, caused the most dreadful misfortunes. Zadig gave it no thought, and the Envious Man's wife thought of it a great deal.
Other ladies presented themselves every day. The secret annals of Babylon maintain that once he yielded, but was astonished to enjoy without pleasure and to embrace his mistress absentmindedly. The woman to whom, almost without noticing it, he gave tokens of his protection was a chambermaid of Queen Astarté. This tender Babylonian consoled herself by thinking, “The man must have a prodigious number of affairs on his mind, since he goes on thinking of them even while making love.” At one of those moments when many people say nothing and others utter only sacred words, Zadig suddenly let slip a cry: “The queen!” The Babylonian thought he had at last come to himself at a happy moment, and was saying, “My queen.” But Zadig, still deeply distracted, pronounced the name of Astarté. The lady, who in these happy circumstances interpreted everything in her own favor, imagined this meant, “You are more beautiful than Queen Astarté.” She left Zadig's apartments with very handsome presents, and went to tell her adventure to the Envious Man's wife, her intimate friend. The latter was cruelly stung by this preference. “He did not even deign,” she said, “to fasten this garter for me—the very one here, which I no longer wish to wear.” “Oh, oh!” the fortunate lady said to the envious one. “You wear the same garters as the queen! You must buy them from the same maker?” The Envious Man's wife pondered deeply, said nothing, and went to consult her husband.
Meanwhile Zadig noticed that his mind was always wandering when he gave audiences or judged cases. He did not know what to attribute it to; this was his only trouble.
He had a dream. He seemed first to be lying on dry grass, some of it prickly enough to trouble him; then he lay softly on a bed of roses, from which a serpent emerged and wounded his heart with its sharp, poisoned tongue. “Alas!” he said. “I lay a long time on that dry, prickly grass; now I am on the bed of roses. But what will the serpent be?”
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the French, in separate source-only translation tasks, not from the Musean edition or a published English translation. Same complete scope and author’s notes; later editors’ notes are omitted. Source-language review is recorded with the source witness.
Disputes and Audiences.
In this way, Zadig showed the sharpness of his mind and the goodness of his heart every day. People admired him, yet they loved him too. He was thought to be the luckiest man alive. His name was known throughout the empire. All the women eyed him. All the citizens praised his fairness. Scholars looked to him for answers as if he were an oracle. Even the priests admitted that he knew more than the old high priest Yébor. No one was thinking of putting him on trial over griffins now. People believed only what he found believable.
A great quarrel had been going on in Babylon for fifteen hundred years. It divided the empire into two stubborn religious groups. One insisted that people must always enter the temple of Mithra left foot first. The other hated this custom and always entered right foot first. Everyone waited for the solemn festival of the sacred fire to see which group Zadig would favor. The whole world had its eyes on his two feet. The entire city was agitated and waiting anxiously. Zadig entered the temple by jumping with both feet together. Then he gave an eloquent speech proving that the God of heaven and earth, who shows no favoritism, cares no more about the left leg than the right. The Envious Man and his wife claimed that his speech had too few figures of speech and that he had not made the mountains and hills dance enough. "He's dry and has no imagination," they said. "In his speeches, you don't see the sea running away, the stars falling, or the sun melting like wax. He doesn't have the proper Eastern style." Zadig was content to use a reasonable style. Everyone supported him—not because he was on the right path, not because he was reasonable, not because he was likable, but because he was prime minister.
He settled the great lawsuit between the white priests and the black priests just as successfully. The white priests insisted it was wicked to face the winter sunrise when praying to God. The black priests declared that God hated the prayers of people who faced the summer sunset. Zadig ordered that everyone could face whichever way they pleased.
In this way, he found the secret of finishing both private and public business in the morning. He spent the rest of the day making Babylon more beautiful. He had tragedies staged that made people cry and comedies that made them laugh. This had long been out of fashion, and he revived it because he had good taste. He did not claim to know more than the artists. He rewarded them with gifts and honors and felt no secret jealousy of their talents. In the evenings he greatly entertained the king, and especially the queen. The king said, "What a great minister!" The queen said, "What a charming minister!" Both added, "It would have been such a shame if he'd been hanged."
No man in office had ever been obliged to grant so many private meetings to women. Most came to discuss business they didn't have, in hopes of having an affair with him. The Envious Man's wife was among the first to appear. She swore by Mithra, the Zend-Avesta, and the sacred fire that she had hated her husband's conduct. Then she confided that her husband was a jealous brute. She hinted that the gods were punishing him by denying him the precious effects of that sacred fire through which alone a man resembles the immortals. She ended by letting her garter fall. Zadig picked it up with his usual politeness, but he did not fasten it back around her knee. This small mistake, if it was one, caused the most terrible misfortunes. Zadig gave it no thought, but the Envious Man's wife thought about it a great deal.
Other women appeared every day. The secret histories of Babylon claim that he gave in once, but was amazed to find himself having sex without pleasure and embracing his lover absentmindedly. The woman to whom he gave signs of his favor, almost without noticing it, was a chambermaid to Queen Astarté. This affectionate Babylonian told herself for comfort, "This man must have an enormous amount of business on his mind, since he keeps thinking about it even while making love." At a moment when some people say nothing and others say only sacred words, Zadig suddenly let out a cry: "The queen!" The Babylonian thought he had finally come to his senses at a good moment and was calling her "My queen." But Zadig, still very distracted, said Astarté's name. In these happy circumstances, the woman took everything in her own favor. She imagined he meant, "You're more beautiful than Queen Astarté." She left Zadig's harem with some very fine gifts. She went to tell her story to the Envious Woman, who was a close friend. The Envious Woman was deeply stung that he had preferred someone else. "He didn't even bother," she said, "to fasten this garter back on me. Here it is. I don't want to wear it anymore." "Oh! Oh!" the lucky woman told the Envious Woman. "You wear the same garters as the queen! Do you get them from the same maker?" The Envious Woman thought hard, said nothing, and went to consult her husband, the Envious Man.
Meanwhile, Zadig noticed that he was always distracted when he granted meetings and heard cases. He did not know what caused it. This was his only worry.
He had a dream. He seemed to be lying first on dry grass, with a few prickly blades that made him uncomfortable. Then he rested comfortably on a bed of roses. A snake came out of it and wounded his heart with its sharp, poisoned tongue. "Oh!" he said. "I've spent a long time lying on that dry, prickly grass. Now I'm on the bed of roses. But what will the snake be?"
About this section
Chapter 7: Disputes and Audiences is part of Zadig, or Destiny by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 9 of 23 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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