'There is an estimable woman for you!' said Zadig; 'she sincerely loved her husband.'
'Ah!' replied Azora, 'if you only knew what she was doing when I visited her!'
'Well, what? sweet Azora!'
'She was laboring to turn the course of the stream!' Azora was so vehement in her condemnation of the young widow's conduct, and overwhelmed her with so many hard names, that Zadig was displeased with so great a parade of virtue.
He had a friend named Cador, who was one of those young men whom his wife thought better behaved and more moral than most others. He made him his confidant, and promised him a large sum if his plan succeeded.
When Azora, who had been passing a day or two at the house of a relation, returned to town, the servants in tears announced to her that her husband had died suddenly the night before, and had been buried that morning in the tomb of his ancestors at the bottom of the garden. She raved, tore her hair, and called the gods to witness that she would not survive him.
That evening Cador asked permission to see her, and they wept together. The next day they shed fewer tears, and dined together. Cador informed her that his friend had left him the greater part of his property, and hinted that it would be his greatest happiness to share it with her. The lady wept, grew angry, but allowed herself to be appeased. The conversation became more confidential. Azora praised the defunct, but confessed that he had many faults from which Cador was exempt.
In the midst of the supper, Cador complained of a violent pain in his liver. The anxious lady rang for her essences, thinking that perhaps one among them might be good for the liver-complaint. She regretted deeply that the great Hermes was no longer at Babylon; she even deigned to touch the side where Cador experienced such intense pain. 'Are you subject to this cruel complaint?' said she, compassionately. 'It sometimes nearly kills me,' replied Cador, 'and there is only one remedy which soothes it, and that is to apply on my side the nose of a man who died the day before.'
'That is a strange remedy!' said Azora.
'Not so strange,' he answered, 'as Dr. Arnoult's apoplexy-bags.'[5]