Candide — Chapter 24 in Spanish
By Voltaire
De Paqueta y del hermano Girofleo Of Pacquette and Friar Giroflée
Luego que llegó á Venecia, se echó á buscar á Cacambo en todas las posadas, en todos los cafés, y en casa de todas las mozas de vida alegre; pero no le fué posible dar con él. Upon their arrival at Venice, he went in search of Cacambo at every inn and coffee-house, and among all the ladies of pleasure; but could hear nothing of him. Todos los dias iba á informarse de todos los navíos y barcos, y nadie sabia de Cacambo. He sent every day to inquire of every ship and every vessel that came in: still no news of Cacambo.
"¡Es extraño!" le decía á Martin, "¡muy extraño! “It is strange!” said he to Martin, “very strange! ¡Con que he tenido yo lugar, le decía á Martin, para pasar de Surinam á Burdeos, para ir de Burdeos á Paris, de Paris á Diepe, de Diepeá Portsmúa, para costear á Portugal y á España, para atravesar todo el Mediterráneo, y pasar algunos meses en Venecia, y aun no ha llegado la hermosa Cunegunda, y en su lugar he topado una buscona y un abate! that I should have had time to sail from Surinam to Bordeaux; to travel from thence to Paris, to Dieppe, to Portsmouth; to sail along the coast of Portugal and Spain, and up the Mediterranean, to spend some months in Venice; and that my lovely Cunegund should not have arrived. En su lugar solo encontré á una impostora parisiense y á un bribón abate del Perigord. Instead of her, I only met with a Parisian impostor, and a rascally Abbé of Périgord. Sin duda es muerta Cunegunda, y á mi no me queda mas remedio que morir. Cunegund is actually dead, and I have nothing to do but to follow her. ¡Ay! Alas! ¡Ha, quanto mas hubiera valido quedarme en aquel paraiso terrenal del Dorado, que volver á esta maldita Europa! how much better would it have been for me to have remained in the paradise of El Dorado than to have returned to this cursed Europe! Razon tiene vm., amado Martin; todo es mera ilusion y calamidad. You are in the right, my dear Martin; you are certainly in the right; all is misery and deceit.”
Acometióle una negra melancolía, y no fué ni á la ópera á la moda, ni á las demas diversiones del carnaval, ni hubo dama que le causara la mas leve tentacion. He fell into a deep melancholy, and neither went to the opera in vogue, nor partook of any of the diversions of the Carnival; not a woman caused him even a moment’s temptation.