“Sir,” said this man, “if I were in Your Majesty’s place, I would never vex myself about a poor silly girl. Feed her on bread and water till she comes to her senses; and if she still refuses you, let her die in torment, as a warning to your other subjects should they venture to dispute your will. You will be disgraced should you suffer yourself to be conquered by a simple girl.”
“But,” said Prince Chéri, “shall I not be disgraced if I harm a creature so perfectly innocent?”
“No one is innocent who disputes Your Majesty’s authority,” said the courtier, bowing; “and it is better to commit an injustice than allow it to be supposed you can ever be contradicted with impunity.”
This touched Chéri on his weak point—his good impulses faded. He resolved once more to ask Zelia if she would marry him, and, if she again refused, to sell her as a slave. Arrived at the cell in which she was confined, what was his astonishment to find her gone! He knew not whom to accuse, for he had kept the key in his pocket the whole time. At last, the foster-brother suggested that the escape of Zelia might have been contrived by an old man, Suliman by name, the Prince’s former tutor, who was the only one who now ventured to blame him for anything that he did. Chéri sent immediately, and ordered his old friend to be brought to him, loaded heavily with irons.
Then, full of fury, he went and shut himself up in his own chamber, where he went raging to and fro, till startled by a noise like a clap of thunder. The Fairy Candide stood before him.
“Prince,” said she, in a severe voice, “I promised your father to give you good counsels, and to punish you if you refused to follow them. My counsels were forgotten, my punishments despised. Under the figure of a man, you have been no better than the beasts you chase: like a lion in fury, a wolf in gluttony, a serpent in revenge, and a bull in brutality. Take, therefore, in your new form the likeness of all these animals.”
Scarcely had Prince Chéri heard these words, than to his horror he found himself transformed into what the Fairy had named. He was a creature with the head of a lion, the horns of a bull, the feet of a wolf, and the tail of a serpent. At the same time he felt himself transported to a distant forest, where, standing on the bank of a stream, he saw reflected in the water his own frightful shape, and heard a voice saying:—
“Look at thyself, and know thy soul has become a thousand times uglier even than thy body.”
Chéri recognized the voice of Candide, and in his rage would have sprung upon her and devoured her; but he saw nothing, and the same voice said behind him:—
“Cease thy feeble fury, and learn to conquer thy pride by being in submission to thine own subjects.”