ce the duties of hospitality. Be surprised
at nothing, but follow me."

Zadig knew not as yet whether he was in company with the most foolish or
the most prudent of mankind; but the hermit spoke with such an ascendancy,
that Zadig, who was moreover bound by his oath, could not refuse to follow
him.

In the evening they arrived at a house built with equal elegance and
simplicity, where nothing savored either of prodigality or avarice. The
master of it was a philosopher, who had retired from the world, and who
cultivated in peace the study of virtue and wisdom, without any of that
rigid and morose severity so commonly to be found in men of his character.
He had chosen to build this country house, in which he received strangers
with a generosity free from ostentation. He went himself to meet the two
travelers, whom he led into a commodious apartment, where he desired them
to repose themselves a little. Soon after he came and invited them to a
decent and well-ordered repast during which he spoke with great judgment
of the last revolutions in Babylon. He seemed to be strongly attached to
the queen, and wished that Zadig had appeared in the lists to dispute the
crown. "But the people," added he, "do not deserve to have such a king as
Zadig."

Zadig blushed, and felt his griefs redoubled. They agreed, in the course
of the conversation, that the things of this world did not always answer
the wishes of the wise. The hermit still maintained that the ways of
Providence were inscrutable; and that men were in the wrong to judge of a
whole, of which they understood but the smallest part.

They talked of passions. "Ah," said Zadig, "how fatal are their effects!"

"They are in the winds," replied the hermit, "that swell the sails of the
ship; it is true, they sometimes sink her, but without them she could not
sail at all. The bile makes us sick and choleric; but without bile we
could not live. Everything in this world is dangerous, and yet everything
is necessary."

The conversation turned on pleasure; and the hermit proved that it was a
present bestowed by the Deity. "For," said he, "man cannot give himself
either sensations or ideas; he receives all; and pain and pleasure proceed
from a foreign cause as well as his being."

Zadig was surprised to see a man, who had been guilty of such extravagant
actions, capable of reasoning with so much judgment and propriety. At
last, after a conversation equally entertaining and instructiv