Eurasian, Hindu, Muslim pr. - EDEN

CANDIDE MEETS CUNEGONDE 

"Who are you?" said Candide; "who has inspired you with so much goodness? What return can I make you?" 

The good woman made no answer.

"Come with me," she said, "and say nothing."

The old woman knocked at a little door, it opened, she led Candide up a staircase into a small apartment richly furnished. She left him on a brocaded sofa, shut the door and went away. Candide thought himself in a dream. 

The old woman returned very soon, supporting with difficulty a trembling woman of a majestic figure, brilliant with jewels, and covered with a veil.

"Take off that veil," said the old woman to Candide.

The young man approaches, he raises the veil with a timid hand. Oh! what a moment! what surprise! he believes he beholds Miss Cunegonde? he really sees her! it is herself! His strength fails him, he cannot utter a word, but drops at her feet. Cunegonde falls upon the sofa. The old woman supplies a smelling bottle; they come to themselves and recover their speech. As they began with questions and answers interchangeably interrupted with sighs, with tears, and cries, the old woman desired they would make less noise and then she left them to themselves. 

"What, is it you?" said Candide, "you live? I find you again in Portugal? then you have not been ravished? then they did not rip open your belly as Doctor Pangloss informed me?"

"Yes, they did," said the beautiful Cunegonde; "but those two accidents are not always mortal."

"But were your father and mother killed?"

"It is but too true," answered Cunegonde, in tears. 

(p. 24-25)

VOLTAIRE: CANDIDE, Simon & Schuster, New York 

Kishalay Sinha [G]

Eurasian, Hindu, Muslim pr.

Even down to the twenties of this century the Hindus hardly cultivated Eurasian prostitutes, professional or amateur. But with the growth of external Westernization among the Hindus, which has been increasing in the last forty years or so, the fashion of going to Eurasian prostitutes has also developed substantially, and it has to be admitted that there is an innate appropriateness in this. A Bengali in trousers was likely to look very incongruous in the arms of a traditional Bengali prostitute, who had a Bengali woman stamped all over herself; moreover, the man was also bound to feel uncomfortable. 

Secondly, the Hindu women in this profession tended to be homely. They would not go beyond certain limits. If, in addition, any of them came to develop some sort of affection for a regular customer, she showed a dangerous tendency to behave like a wife, and became capable of thinking that the most impassioned declaration of love was to say: 'Have a handful of rice before you go, for my sake!' In a certain District town in West Bengal the houses of ill-fame bore signboards: 'Dinner and bed for gentlemen who have to be in town overnight.'

Lastly, the cultivation of Eurasian prostitutes had a snob value, and to be able to command only Hindu women was looked upon as the sign of a third-rate rake's progress. 

(pages 294 - 297)

Written in a bantering, sarcastic style. - G 

Nirad C. Chaudhuri: THE CONTINENT OF CIRCE, Jaico Books, Jaico Publishing House (121, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Mumbai - 400001), ISBN: 81-7224-038-4; 350 pages, (13th Jaico impression: 2000) Rs. 145

Kishalay Sinha [G]

Eden 

Whatever may have happened in Eden, here in any case women did bring about the fall of man. (p. 229)

Nirad C. Chaudhuri: THE CONTINENT OF CIRCE, Jaico