Chapter XXV

The narrator introduces Pococurante, a wealthy sixty-year-old Venetian nobleman who receives Candide and Martin with polite indifference, establishing his character as someone who maintains outward propriety despite inward detachment.

Candide praises the beauty and grace of two young women serving chocolate, but Pococurante responds that he has grown weary of them along with all women, their coquetries, jealousies, and other qualities.

Pococurante dismisses even Raphael's masterworks as having dark colors and unrounded figures, claiming he only values pictures that show true imitation of nature and that he prizes his entire collection very little.

While Candide finds the concert delicious, Pococurante argues that music only amuses briefly and becomes tiresome, that opera is a corrupted monster with misplaced songs, and that he has renounced such entertainments.

Candide disputes Pococurante's opinion about music but does so discreetly, while Martin fully agrees with the Senator's critique.

When Candide praises a magnificently bound Homer, Pococurante rejects the work, citing repetitive battles, inactive gods, Helen's minimal role, and Troy's prolonged siege as sources of weariness, adding that even learned men admit the poem makes them fall asleep.

Pococurante concedes that some books of the Aeneid are excellent but condemns Virgil's characters as flat and disagreeable, preferring Tasso or even Ariosto.

Pococurante acknowledges that Horace offers practical maxims easily remembered through verse, but objects to his trivial content—the journey to Brundisium, a bad dinner, quarrels—and disdains his indelicate verses, declaring he reads only to please himself.

Candide, educated never to judge for himself, is surprised by Pococurante's independent critiques, while Martin finds good reasoning in his remarks.

Pococurante declares he never reads Cicero because the orator's cases are irrelevant to him and Cicero's philosophical skepticism teaches nothing he doesn't already know.

Martin points out volumes from the Academy of Sciences, but Pococurante dismisses them as containing only chimerical systems with nothing useful, not even practical instruction on making pins.

Pococurante claims to own three thousand dramatic works in various languages but finds only three dozen worth anything, and dismisses sermon collections and theological volumes as worthless.

Pococurante praises the freedom of English writers but argues that passion and party spirit corrupt the value of this precious liberty, contrasting it with Italian censorship under Dominican friars.

Pococurante launches a detailed attack on Milton as a barbarian who writes harsh commentary on Genesis, imitates the Greeks poorly, and produces grotesque imagery—demons as toads, cannons in heaven, the marriage of Sin and Death—calling the work obscure and disagreeable.

Candide is grieved by Pococurante's speech because he respects Homer and is fond of Milton, revealing his own literary preferences conflicting with the Senator's judgment.

Candide expresses to Martin his fear that Pococurante holds German poets in great contempt, to which Martin responds that such contempt would cause little harm.

Candide remarks to Martin that Pococurante is a superior man and great genius who cannot be pleased by anything, expressing admiration for what he perceives as intellectual sophistication.

When Candide praises the garden's beauties, Pococurante declares it all in bad taste and announces he will have it replanted with a nobler design.

Candide concludes to Martin that Pococurante is the happiest of mortals because he is above everything he possesses, a conclusion based on misunderstanding satisfaction through superiority.

Martin corrects Candide by pointing out that Pococurante is actually disgusted with all he possesses and invokes Plato's observation that stomachs that reject all food are not the best.

Candide asks whether there is pleasure in criticizing everything and pointing out faults, essentially defending Pococurante's critical stance.

Martin responds that Candide's defense amounts to saying there is pleasure in having no pleasure, exposing the contradiction in Pococurante's cynical stance.

Candide concludes that he will only be happy when reunited with his beloved Cunegonde, suggesting that personal love offers the happiness that worldly possessions cannot.

Martin responds that it is always well to hope, offering modest affirmation of Candide's outlook without endorsement.

The narrative describes how days and weeks pass while Candide awaits Cacambo's return, becoming so overwhelmed with grief that he neglects to wonder about Paquette and Friar Giroflee's absence.

Cacambo unexpectedly appears at the supper table and directs Candide to prepare for departure, revealing himself as a slave attending to a master and indicating that Cunegonde is in Constantinople.

Candide sits at table experiencing simultaneously joy at seeing Cacambo, astonishment at his slavery, hope for recovering Cunegonde, and confusion, while Martin observes the scenes with unconcern.

Through a series of servant announcements about 'Majesty' departing, the six strangers are revealed to be deposed rulers—Sultan Achmet III, Emperor Ivan, King Charles Edward, two Polish kings, and Theodore of Corsica—each explaining their downfall and exile to Venice.

Theodore of Corsica, the sixth king, recounts that despite being elected king with the title of Majesty, he has fallen lowest of all—from coining money to worthlessness, from two secretaries of state to no valet, from throne to straw jail in London.

The five greater kings listen to Theodore's speech with compassion and each give twenty sequins to buy him clothes and linen, demonstrating fellow-feeling among the fallen.

When Candide gives Theodore a diamond worth two thousand sequins, the five kings realize in astonishment that this private person has given a hundred times more than any of them.

As the company rises from table, four more Serene Highnesses arrive, also stripped of territories by war and visiting Venice for the Carnival, expanding the assembly of the fallen.

Despite the remarkable spectacle of deposed kings and princes, Candide pays them no regard, his thoughts entirely occupied with his voyage to Constantinople to find his beloved Cunegonde.