Chapter 1 — Westphalia, the castle, the screen

Westphalia, the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh, distinguished as one of the most powerful lordships in the province by the fact that the castle has both a gate and windows. The household is the cast of a small comedy: a Baroness who weighs three hundred and fifty pounds; a daughter Cunégonde of seventeen, rosy and plump; an illegitimate nephew named Candide whose face is a true picture of his soul; and a tutor named Pangloss, the household's philosophical oracle. Pangloss is a professor of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology — Voltaire's invented word for the doctrine of Leibniz. He proves admirably that this is the best of all possible worlds. Noses were made to wear spectacles, therefore we have spectacles. Pigs were made to be eaten, therefore we have pork year-round.

Candide listens with the innocent trust of his age. He finds Cunégonde extraordinarily beautiful but never has the courage to say so. One day Cunégonde, walking in the wood the household calls a park, comes upon Pangloss and the Baroness's chambermaid in the bushes. Pangloss is giving the chambermaid a lesson, he explains, in experimental natural philosophy. Cunégonde watches breathlessly and returns to the castle filled with the desire to be learned.

The next day, leaving the dinner table, Candide and Cunégonde find themselves behind a screen. Cunégonde drops her handkerchief; Candide picks it up; she takes his hand; he kisses hers; their lips meet; their knees tremble. The Baron, passing the screen at exactly that moment, sees the cause and effect and drives Candide out with great kicks to the backside. Cunégonde faints. The Baroness boxes her ears. The chapter ends with the entire household in consternation in the most magnificent and most agreeable of all possible castles. The boy who has spent his entire short life inside the doctrine has just been kicked out of it.