On catching sight of its father, the boy ran up and made a great fuss of him, as small children do, whereupon the father took him in his arms, and, with tears flowing down his cheeks as though he were snatching him up from the grave, he began to rain kisses on the child and thank his neighbour for saving his life.
Friar Rinaldo’s companion had meanwhile taught the pretty little maidservant not merely one Lord’s Prayer but possibly as many as four, and had presented her with a white linen purse that had been given to him by a nun, thus making her his devotee. When he heard the simpleton calling to his wife at the door of her bedroom, he quietly went and stood in a place from which he could see and hear all that was going on; and on finding that everything was proceeding so smoothly, he came downstairs, entered the bedroom, and said:
‘I’ve recited all four of those prayers that you asked me to say, Friar Rinaldo.’
‘Brother,’ said Friar Rinaldo, ‘you’ve done an excellent job and I admire your stamina. I personally managed to recite only two before my neighbour turned up. But through our combined efforts the Lord God has granted our request, and the child is cured.’
Then the simpleton called for choice wines and sweetmeats, and regaled his neighbour and the other friar with exactly the sort of pick-me-up they needed, after which he accompanied them to the door and bade them a grateful farewell. And without any delay he had the waxen image made, and sent it to be hung with the others in front of the statue of Saint Ambrose, but not the one from Milan.2
FOURTH STORY
Tofano locks his wife out of the house one night, and his wife, having pleaded with him in vain to let her in, pretends to throw herself down a well, into which she hurls an enormous stone. Tofano emerges from the house and rushes to the well, whereupon she steals inside, bolts the door on her husband, and rains abuse upon him at the top of her voice.
No sooner did the king perceive that Elissa’s story was at an end, than he turned towards Lauretta, indicating that he wanted her to speak next; and without hesitation she began as follows:
O Love, how manifold and mighty are your powers! How wise your counsels, how keen your insights! What philosopher, what artist could ever have conjured up all the arguments, all the subterfuges, all the explanations that you offer spontaneously to those who nail their colours to your mast? Every other doctrine is assuredly behindhand in comparison with yours, as may clearly be seen from the cases already brought to our notice. And to these, fond ladies, I shall now add yet another, by telling you of the expedient adopted by a woman of no great intelligence, who to my way of thinking could only have been motivated by Love.
In the city of Arezzo,1 then, there once lived a man of means, Tofano by name, who, having taken to wife a woman of very great beauty, called Monna Ghita, promptly grew jealous of her without any reason. On perceiving how jealous he was, the lady took offence and repeatedly asked him to explain the reason, but since he could only reply in vague and illogical terms, she resolved to make him suffer in good earnest from the ill which hitherto he had feared without cause.
Having observed that a certain young man, a very agreeable sort of fellow to her way of thinking, was casting amorous glances in her direction, she secretly began to cultivate his acquaintance. And when she and the young man had carried the affair to the point where it only remained to translate words into deeds, she once again took the initiative and devised a way of doing it. She had already discovered that one of her husband’s bad habits was a fondness for drink, and so she began not only to commend him for it, but to encourage him deliberately whenever she had the chance. With a little practice, she quickly acquired the knack of persuading him to drink himself into a stupor almost as often as she chose, and once she saw that he was blind drunk, she put him to bed and forgathered with her lover. This soon became a regular habit of theirs, and they met together in perfect safety. Indeed, the lady came to rely so completely on the fellow’s talent for drinking himself unconscious that she made bold, not only to admit her lover to the premises, but on occasion to go and spend a goodly part of the night with him at his own house, which was no great distance away.
The amorous lady had been doing this for quite some time when her unfortunate husband happened to notice that although she encouraged him to drink, she herself never drank at all, which made him suspect (as was indeed the case) that his wife was making him drunk so that she could do as she pleased when he was asleep. In order to prove whether this was so, he returned home one evening, having refrained from drinking for the whole day, and pretended to be as drunk as a lord, scarcely able to speak or stand on his feet. Being taken in by all this, and concluding that he would sleep like a log without imbibing any more liquor, his wife quickly put him to bed, then left the house and made her way, as on previous occasions, to the house of her lover, where she stayed for half the night.
Hearing no sound from his wife, Tofano got up, went and bolted the door from the inside, and stationed himself at the window so that he would see her coming back and let her know that he had tumbled to her mischief; and there he remained until she returned. Great indeed was the woman’s distress when she came home to find that she was locked out, and she began to apply all her strength in an effort to force the door open.
Tofano put up with this for a while, then he said:
‘You’re wasting your energies, woman. You can’t possibly get in. Go back to wherever it is that you’ve been until this hour of the night, and rest assured that you won’t return to this house till I’ve made an example of you in front of your kinsfolk and neighbours.’
Then his wife began to plead with him for the love of God to let her in, saying that she had not been doing anything wrong, as he supposed, but simply keeping vigil with a neighbour of hers, who could neither sleep the whole night because it was too long, nor keep vigil in the house by herself.
Her pleas were totally unavailing, for the silly ass was clearly determined that all the Aretines should learn about his dishonour, of which none of them had so far heard anything. And when she saw that it was no use pleading with him, the woman resorted to threats, and said:
‘If you don’t let me in, I shall make you the sorriest man on earth.’
To which Tofano replied:
‘And how are you going to do that?’
The lady had all her wits about her, for Love was her counsellor, and she replied:
‘Rather than face the dishonour which in spite of my innocence you threaten me with, I shall hurl myself into this well, and when they find me dead inside it, they will all think that it was you who threw me into it when you were drunk; and so either you will have to run away, lose everything you possess, and live in exile, or you will have your head chopped off for murdering your wife, which in effect is what you will have done.’
Having made up his stupid mind, Tofano was not affected in the slightest by these words, and so his wife said:
‘Now look here, I won’t let you torment me any longer: may God forgive you, I’ll leave my distaff here, and you can put it back where it belongs.’
The night was so dark that you could scarcely see your hand in front of your face, and having uttered these words, the woman groped her way towards the well, picked up an enormous stone that was lying beside it, and with a cry of ‘God forgive me!’ she dropped it into the depths. The stone struck the water with a tremendous thump, and when Tofano heard this he was firmly convinced that she had thrown herself in. So he seized the pail and its rope, rushed headlong from the house, and ran to the well to assist her. His wife was lying in wait near the front door, and as soon as she saw him running to the well, she stepped inside the house, bolted the door, and went to the window, where she stood and shouted:
‘You should water down your wine when you’re drinking it, and not in the middle of the night.’
When he heard her voice, Tofano saw that he had been outwitted and made his way back to the house. And on finding that he couldn’t open the door, he ordered her to let him
in.
Whereas previously she had addressed him in little more than a whisper, his wife now began to shout almost at the top of her voice, saying:
‘By the cross of God, you loathsome sot, you’re not going to come in here tonight. I will not tolerate this conduct of yours any longer. It’s time I showed people the sort of man you are and the hours you keep.’
Being very angry, Tofano too began to shout, pouring out a stream of abuse, so that the neighbours, men and women alike, hearing all this racket, got up out of bed and appeared at their windows, demanding to know what was going on.
The woman’s eyes filled with tears, and she said: ‘It’s this villain of a man, who returns home drunk of an evening, or else he falls asleep in some tavern or other and then comes back at this hour. I’ve put up with it for God knows how long and remonstrated with him until I was blue in the face. But I can’t put up with it any longer, and so I’ve decided to take him down a peg or two by locking him out, to see whether he will mend his ways.’
Tofano on the other hand, like the fool that he was, explained precisely what had happened, and came out with a whole lot of threats and abuse, whereupon his wife spoke up again, saying to the neighbours:
‘You see the sort of man he is! What would you say if I were in the street and he was in the house, instead of the other way round? In God’s faith I’ve no doubt you would believe what he was saying. So you can see what a crafty fellow he is. He accuses me of doing the very thing that he appears to have done himself. He thought he could frighten me by dropping something or other down the well; but I wish to God that he really had thrown himself in, and drowned himself at the same time, so that all the wine he’s been drinking would have been well and truly diluted.’
The neighbours, men and women alike, all began to scold Tofano, putting the blame on him alone and reviling him for slandering his poor wife; and in brief, they created such an uproar that it eventually reached the ears of the woman’s kinsfolk.
Her kinsfolk hurried to the scene, and having listened to the accounts of several of the neighbours, they took hold of Tofano and hammered him till he was black and blue. They then went into the house, collected all the woman’s belongings, and took her back with them, threatening Tofano with worse to follow.
Seeing what a sorry plight he had landed himself in on account of his jealousy, Tofano, since he was really very fond of his wife, persuaded certain friends of his to intercede on his behalf with the lady’s kinsfolk, with whom he succeeded in making his peace and arranging for her to come back to him. And not only did he promise her that he would never be jealous again, but he gave her permission to amuse herself to her heart’s content, provided she was sensible enough not to let him catch her out. So, like the stupid peasant, he first was mad and then was pleasant. Long live love, therefore, and a plague on all skinflints!
FIFTH STORY
A jealous husband disguises himself as a priest and confesses his wife, by whom he is given to understand that she loves a priest who comes to her every night. And whilst the husband is secretly keeping watch for him at the front door, the wife admits her lover by way of the roof and passes the time in his arms.
Thus Lauretta brought her tale to an end, and after everyone had commended the lady for treating her reprobate husband as he deserved, the king, not wanting to waste any time, turned to Fiammetta and graciously entrusted her with the telling of the next story; and she therefore began, as follows:
Illustrious ladies, I too am prompted, after listening to the previous tale, to tell you about a jealous husband, for in my estimation they deserve all the suffering their wives may inflict upon them, especially when they are jealous without reason. And if the lawgivers had taken all things into account, I consider that in this respect the punishment they prescribed for wives should have been no different from that which they prescribe for the person who attacks another in self-defence. For no young wife is safe against the machinations of a jealous husband, who will stop at nothing to destroy her.
After being cooped up for the whole week looking after the house and the family, like everyone else she yearns on Sundays for peace and comfort, and wants to enjoy herself a little, just as farm-labourers do, or the workers in the towns, or the magistrates on the bench; just as God did, in fact, when on the seventh day He rested from all His labours. And indeed, it is laid down in both canon and civil law, which aim to promote the glory of God and the common good of the people, that working days should be distinguished from days of rest. But jealous husbands will have none of this: on the contrary, when other women are enjoying their day of rest, their own wives are more wretched and miserable than ever, for they are kept more securely under lock and key; and only those poor creatures who have had to put up with this sort of treatment can describe how exhausting it all is. To sum up, therefore, no matter what a wife may do to a husband who is jealous without cause, she is surely to be commended rather than condemned.
But turning now to the story, there once lived in Rimini a very rich merchant and landowner, who, having married an exceedingly beautiful woman, became inordinately jealous of her. He had no other reason for this except that, because he loved her a great deal and thought her very beautiful and knew that she did everything she could to please him, he concluded that every other man must feel the same about her, and also that she would take just as much trouble to please other men as she did in pleasing her husband. And in his jealousy he kept such a constant watch upon her and guarded her so closely, that I doubt whether many of those condemned to death are guarded by their gaolers with the same degree of vigilance.
It wasn’t just a question of her not being able to attend a party or a wedding, or go to church, or step outside her door for a single moment: he wouldn’t even allow her to stand at the window or cast so much as a solitary glance outside the house. Her life thus became a complete misery, and her suffering was all the more difficult to bear in that she had done nothing to deserve it.
For her own amusement, finding herself persecuted so unfairly by her husband, the lady cast about her to see whether she could find any way of supplying him with a just and proper motive for his jealousy. Not being allowed to stand at the window, she was unable to offer signs of encouragement to any potential suitor who might be passing her way. But knowing there was a handsome and agreeable young man in the house next door, she calculated that if she could find a crack in the wall separating their two houses, she could keep on peering through it until an opportunity arose of speaking to the youth and offering him her love if he was prepared to accept it, after which, provided they could find some way of doing it, they could come together once in a while. And in this way she could keep body and soul together until her husband came to his senses.
So when her husband was not at home, she went from room to room carefully inspecting the wall, until eventually, in a very remote part of the house, she came across a place where it was cracked. She peered through to the other side, and although she could not make very much out, she could see enough to realize that it was a bedroom, and she said to herself: ‘If this turned out to be the bedroom of Filippo’ (the name of the youth next door) ‘there wouldn’t be much left for me to do.’ So she got one of her maidservants, who was feeling rather sorry for her, to keep watch whenever there was nobody about, and discovered that it was indeed the young man’s bedroom, and that he slept there all by himself. By paying regular visits to the crack in the wall, and dropping tiny pieces of stone and straw through the opening whenever she could hear the young man on the other side, she eventually succeeded in getting him to come and investigate. Then she called to him in a low whisper, and the young man, recognizing her voice, replied; whereupon, since there was no likelihood of her being disturbed, she briefly told him what she had in mind. Overjoyed, the young man proceeded to widen the hole on his own side of the wall, which he did in such a way that nobody would notice, and from then on they would very often talk to each other there and touch one another’s hand
s, though it was impossible to do more on account of the strict watch maintained by the jealous husband.
Now, seeing that Christmas was approaching, the lady told her husband that she would like, with his permission, to attend church on Christmas morning and go to confession and Holy Communion like any other Christian.
‘And what sins have you committed,’ said the jealous husband, ‘that you want to go to confession?’
‘Oh, really!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you think I’m a saint, just because you keep me locked up? You know very well that I have my sins just as other people do, but I’m not going to reveal them to you, because you’re not a priest.’
Her words made the husband suspicious, and he decided to try and find out what these sins were. So he granted her request, but told her that she could only go to their own chapel and not to any of the other churches. Moreover, she was to go there early in the morning, and be confessed, either by their own chaplain or by the priest whom the chaplain allotted to her, and not by anybody else, after which she was to come straight back to the house. The lady had a shrewd suspicion that it was some sort of trap, but asked no questions and replied that she would do as he wished.
On the morning of Christmas Day, the lady got up at dawn, and as soon as she was neatly dressed she went to the church her husband had specified. Meanwhile he too had risen and made his way to the same church, arriving there before she did. And having explained to the chaplain what he was proposing to do, he disguised himself in the robes of a priest, with a large hood that came down over his cheeks, like the ones that are often worn by priests; this he pulled forward a little, so as to conceal his features, then he seated himself in one of the pews.
Tales From the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 75