Candide Chapter 7

"How an Old Woman Took Care of Candide and How He Regained That Which he Loved"

Candide follows the old woman to a shack. He stays there alone for a few days. The old woman returns periodically to feed him and rub ointment on his wounds. One night she takes Candide to a house in the country. She leaves him sitting on a sofa in a room. Candide theorizes to himself that life is a series of dreams, and that he is having a good dream right now.

The old woman returns with a magnificent lady hidden behind a veil, and she orders Candide to remove the veil. At first Candide thinks she looks like Cunégonde. And it is Cunégonde. Candide and Cunégonde faint. The old woman revives them, and leaves them to be alone. Candide concludes that Cunégonde was not really raped and disemboweled, as Pangloss had reported. Cunégonde, not at all trifled by this graphic reminder, confirms Pangloss's story, but she adds that death does not necessarily follow rape and disembowelment.

Candide is baffled. Cunégonde wants to know what happened to Candide since he kissed her. Her bluntness is comical when she reminds him that the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh kicked him several times in the buttocks. Candide gathers his strength and tells her everything. Cunégonde cries when she hears what happened to Pangloss and Jacques the Anabaptist. Then she tells her story. Candide listens attentively and stares at her with lust.