On arriving at the church, the lady asked to speak to the chaplain. So the chaplain came, and when she told him that she wanted to be confessed, he said he was too busy, but would send her one of his fellow priests. He then went away, and sent the jealous husband, unfortunately for him, to hear her confession. The husband walked solemnly up to her, and although the light was not very good and he had pulled the hood well down over his eyes, she knew immediately who it was, and said to herself: ‘God be praised, the fellow’s turned from a jealous husband into a priest; but never mind, I’ll see that he gets what he’s looking for.’ And pretending not to recognize him, she seated herself at his feet.1
Master Jealous had stuffed a few bits of gravel in his mouth so as to impede his speech and prevent his wife from recognizing his voice, and he thought that his disguise was so perfect in all other respects that she was bound to be taken in by it.
But to come now to the confession, among the things which the lady told him, having first of all pointed out that she was married, was that she had fallen in love with a priest, who came to her every night and slept with her.
When he heard this, the jealous husband felt as though a knife had been driven into his heart; and but for the fact that he was eager to know more about it, he would have abandoned the confession there and then, and taken himself off. However, he stood his ground, and said to her:
‘What’s this I hear? Doesn’t your husband sleep with you?’
‘Oh yes, Father,’ she replied.
‘In that case,’ said the husband, ‘how can the priest sleep with you as well?’
‘Father,’ said the lady, ‘it’s a mystery to me how the priest manages to do it, but there isn’t a door in the house that is so securely locked that it doesn’t spring open the moment he touches it. He tells me that before opening the door of my bedroom, he recites a certain formula that sends my husband straight off to sleep, and as soon as he hears him snoring, he opens the door, comes into the bedroom, and lies down at my side. And the system never fails.’
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘this is an evil business, and you must put a stop to it at all costs.’
‘Father,’ said the lady, ‘I don’t think I could ever do that, for I love him too dearly.’
‘Then I cannot give you absolution,’ he said.
‘I am sorry about that,’ said the lady. ‘But I didn’t come here to tell lies, and if I thought I could do as you are asking, I should tell you so.’
‘I am truly sorry for you, madam,’ he said, ‘for I see that your soul will be lost if this is allowed to continue. But I will do you a favour, and go to the trouble of saying certain special prayers to God on your behalf, which may possibly assist you. I shall send one of my seminarists to call on you, and you are to tell him whether or not my prayers have had any effect. And if they achieve their object, we can go on from there.’
‘Oh, Father,’ she said, ‘don’t send anyone to the house, because if my husband were to hear about it, he is so madly jealous that nothing in the world could dissuade him from believing that some great evil was afoot, and he’d be impossible to live with for a whole year.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said, ‘for I shall make sure that everything is so discreetly arranged that you won’t hear a word out of him.’
‘If you can manage to do that,’ said the lady, ‘then I have no objection.’ And after reciting the Confiteor and receiving her penance, she got up from where she was kneeling at his feet and went off to listen to the mass.
Fuming with rage, the luckless husband went away, abandoned his priestly disguise, and returned home, determined to find a way of catching this priest and his wife together, so that he could bring the pair of them to book. When his wife came back from the church, she saw from the expression on her husband’s face that she had spoilt his Christmas for him; but he tried as best he could to conceal what he had done and what he thought he had discovered.
After breakfast, having made up his mind to spend the following night lying in wait near the front door to see whether the priest would turn up, he said to his wife:
‘I have to go out to supper this evening, and I won’t be back till the morning, so take good care to lock the front door, the landing door, and the bedroom door, and go to bed when you feel like it.’
‘Very well,’ said the lady.
As soon as she had the chance, she went to the hole in the wall and gave the usual signal, which Filippo no sooner heard than he came to the spot. She then gave him an account of what she had done that morning, and told him what her husband had said to her after breakfast, then she said:
‘I’m certain he won’t leave the house: he’s just going to keep watch at the front door. So climb up on to the roof tonight and find your way in here, so that we can be together.’
The young man was delighted with this turn of events, and said:
‘My lady, leave everything to me.’
As soon as it was dark, the jealous husband crept into hiding, armed to the teeth, in one of the rooms on the ground floor, and his wife, having locked all the doors, in particular the one on the landing so that her husband could not come up, bided her time in her room. When the coast was clear, the young man picked his way carefully over the roof from his own room to hers, and they got into bed, where they had a blissful time and a merry one together until dawn next morning, when he returned to his own house.
The husband, supperless, aching all over, and freezing to death, waited practically the whole night beside the front door with his weapons at the ready, to see whether the priest would turn up; and just before daybreak, being unable to keep his eyes open any longer, he dropped off to sleep in the ground-floor room.
A little before tierce2 he woke up to find the front door already unlocked, and pretending that he had just arrived home he went upstairs and had his breakfast. Shortly after breakfast he sent a young servant to his wife, disguised as the seminarist of the priest who had confessed her, to ask her whether ‘that certain person’ had called upon her again.
His wife, who recognized the messenger very easily, replied that he had failed to call for once, and that if he continued to absent himself she might very well forget all about him, although she would be sorry if this were to happen.
What more remains to be said? For night after night, the jealous husband lay in wait for the priest, and his wife lay in bed with her lover, till eventually, being unable to contain himself any longer, he flew into a tearing rage and demanded to know what his wife had said to the priest on the morning she had gone to confession. She told him that his question was neither fair nor proper, and refused to answer it, whereupon he exclaimed:
‘Loathsome woman, whether you like it or not I know exactly what you said to him, and I absolutely insist on knowing the name of this priest with whom you’re so infatuated and who uses magic spells to sleep with you every night, otherwise I shall slit your gullet.’
His wife told him it was untrue that she was infatuated with a priest.
‘What!’ he cried. ‘Isn’t that what you said to the priest who confessed you?’
‘As a matter of fact I did,’ said his wife. ‘But I can’t imagine how you came to be so well informed. You must have been eavesdropping.’
‘Never mind about that,’ said her husband. ‘Just tell me who this priest is, and be quick about it.’
His wife began to smile, and said:
‘It’s an edifying sight, I must say, when a there woman leads an intelligent man by the nose, as though she were leading a ram by its horns to the slaughter. Not that you are all that intelligent, nor ever have been since the day you allowed the evil spirit of jealousy to enter your heart, without any obvious reason. And the more thickheaded and stupid you are, the lesser my achievement.
‘Do you suppose, dear husband, that my eyes are as defective as your reasoning? Because if so, you’re greatly mistaken. I recognized my confessor from the moment I set eyes on him, I knew perfectly well it was you. I
was determined to let you have what you were looking for, and I succeeded. But if you were as clever as you imagine, you would never have resorted to that sort of trick for discovering the secrets of your good little wife; nor would you have become a prey to idle suspicion, for you would have realized that she was confessing the truth to you without having sinned in the least.
‘I told you I was in love with a priest: but is it not a fact that you, whom I am misguided enough to love, had turned into a priest? I told you he could open any door in the house when he wanted to come and sleep with me: but which of the doors in your own house has ever prevented you from coming to me, no matter where I happened to be? I told you the priest slept with me every night: but haven’t you always slept with me? And as you know very well, every time you sent that seminarist of yours to me, you had slept elsewhere, and so I sent you word that the priest had not been with me. How could anybody, other than a man who had allowed himself to be blinded by his jealousy, have been witless enough not to understand all this? But in your case, what do you do? You spin me some yarn every evening about going out to supper and staying the night with friends, then hang about the house keeping an allnight vigil at the front door.
‘Isn’t it time that you took yourself in hand, started behaving like a man again, and stopped allowing yourself to be made such a fool of by someone who knows you as well as I do? Leave off keeping such a strict watch over me, because I swear to God that if I were to set my heart on making you a cuckold, I should have my fling and you’d be none the wiser.’
And so it was that the jealous wretch, having thought himself very clever in ferreting out his wife’s secret, saw that he had made an ass of himself. Without saying anything by way of reply, he began to look upon his wife as a model of intelligence and virtue. And just as he had worn the mantle of the jealous husband when it was unnecessary, he cast it off completely now that his need for it was paramount. So his clever little wife, having, as it were, acquired a licence to enjoy herself, no longer admitted her lover by way of the roof as though he were some kind of cat, but showed him in at the front door. And from that day forth, by proceeding with caution, she spent many an entertaining and delightful hour in his arms.
SIXTH STORY
Whilst she is entertaining Leonetto, Madonna Isabella is visited by Messer Lambertuccio, who has fallen in love with her. Her husband returning unexpectedly, she sends Messer Lambertuccio running forth from the house with a dagger in his hand, and Leonetto is taken home a little later on by her husband.
Fiammetta’s story was marvellously pleasing to the whole company, and everyone declared that the wife had taught the stupid man a salutary lesson. But now that this tale was concluded, the king enjoined Pampinea to tell the next, and she began:
Many are those who naïvely maintain that Love impairs the intellect1 and that anyone falling in love is more or less turned into a fool. This, it seems to me, is a ridiculous assertion, as is amply proved by the stories we have heard so far, as well as by the one I now propose to relate.
In our fair city, where the good things of life are to be found in great abundance, there once lived a gently bred and exceedingly beautiful young woman, who was married to a nobleman of great worthiness and excellence. But just as it frequently happens that people grow tired of always eating the same food, and desire a change of diet, so this lady, being somewhat dissatisfied with her husband, fell in love with a young man called Leonetto, who, albeit his origins were humble, was extremely agreeable and accomplished. He too fell in love with her, and since it is unusual, as you know, for nothing to ensue when both of the parties are agreed, not much time elapsed before they consummated their love.
Now, because she was such a charming and beautiful woman, it happened that a gentleman called Messer Lambertuccio fell desperately in love with her, but as she thought him very tiresome and disagreeable, she could not be persuaded to love him on any account. The fellow kept pestering her with a stream of messages, however, and when these failed to have any effect, being a man of considerable influence, he threatened to ruin her if she refused to yield. Hence the lady was filled with fear and trembling, and knowing the sort of man he was, she brought herself to do his bidding. But having gone to stay, as we Florentines are apt to do in the summer, at her beautiful country villa, the lady, whose name was Madonna Isabella, sent word to Leonetto that he was to come and keep her company, since her husband had ridden off that morning, saying that he would be away for the next few days. Leonetto was overjoyed, and made his way to the villa post-haste.
Meanwhile, Messer Lambertuccio, hearing that the lady’s husband was not at home, saddled his horse, rode unaccompanied to the villa, and knocked at the door.
The lady’s maid, seeing who it was, immediately went to warn her mistress, who was in her bedroom with Leonetto, and having called her forth, she said:
‘Messer Lambertuccio is downstairs, ma’am, and he’s all alone.’
The lady was aggrieved beyond measure to hear of Lambertuccio’s arrival, but as she was so afraid of him, she asked Leonetto if he would mind concealing himself for a while behind the curtains of the bed until such time as he should take his leave of her.
Leonetto, being no less terrified of the man than she was herself, hid behind the bed, and she told her maid to go and let Messer Lambertuccio in. This she did, and having ridden into the courtyard, he dismounted, tethered his palfrey to a ring, and came up the stairs. The lady came to meet him, smiling, at the head of the stairs, and having bidden him a cheerful welcome she asked him the nature of his business.
He embraced and kissed her, and said:
‘My dearest, I heard that your husband was away, so I’ve come to keep you company for a while.’ And without further preliminaries, they went into the bedroom, and Messer Lambertuccio, having locked the door, proceeded to bend her to his pleasure.
But whilst he was thus tarrying with the lady, to her utter amazement her husband happened to return. No sooner did the maid espy him approaching the villa, than she ran at once to her mistress’s bedroom and said:
‘It’s the master, he’s coming back, ma’am. He’ll be down there in the yard by now, I should think.’
Finding herself with two men in the house, and knowing it was impossible to conceal the second because his horse was standing in the yard, the lady thought her hour had come. However, with extraordinary presence of mind she leapt out of bed and said to Messer Lambertuccio:
‘Sir, if you love me in the slightest degree, and wish to save my life, do as I shall tell you. Take out your dagger, wave it about in your hand, and charge down the stairs like a madman, breathing fire and slaughter, and shouting: “I vow to God I’ll catch up with him yet!” If my husband should try to stop you or ask you any questions, keep repeating these same words. And when you reach your horse, leap into the saddle and ride away without stopping for an instant.’
Messer Lambertuccio willingly agreed to do it, and having drawn his dagger, his face all flushed from his recent exertions, as well as from his anger at the husband’s return, he carried out the lady’s instructions to the letter. The husband, having already dismounted, was puzzling over the palfrey in the courtyard, and was just about to mount the stairs, when he saw Lambertuccio descending. And being taken aback by his words and the wild expression on his face, he said:
‘What is the meaning of this, sir?’
But Messer Lambertuccio, having inserted his foot in the stirrup and vaulted into the saddle, uttered not a word, except: ‘I swear to God I’ll get him, wherever he may be!’ And away he rode.
On mounting the staircase, the nobleman found his wife at the top, looking all distressed and terrified, and he said to her:
‘What is going on? What has got into Messer Lambertuccio? For whom are these threats of his intended?’
Retreating towards the bedroom so that Leonetto would overhear, the lady replied:
‘Oh husband, I’ve never had such a fright in all my life. Some young man
or other came running into the house, with Messer Lambertuccio in pursuit, brandishing a dagger. He burst into my room, the door of which happened to be open, and trembling from head to foot, he said: “Madam, for God’s sake save me from being killed and expiring in your arms” I stood up, and I was just about to ask him who he was and what it was all about when Messer Lambertuccio came charging up the stairs, shouting: “Blackguard, where are you?” I stood in the doorway to prevent him coming any further, and when he saw that I didn’t want him to enter the room, he had the decency not to insist. And after a long rigmarole, he went rushing off down the stairs, as you saw for yourself.’
‘You did the right thing, my dear,’ said the husband. ‘It would have been a very serious matter for us if anyone had been murdered under our own roof. And it was highly improper of Messer Lambertuccio to pursue a man who had taken refuge within these walls.’
He then asked what had become of the young man, and his wife replied:
‘I have no idea where he can have hidden himself.’
So her husband called out:
‘Where are you? Come on out, you’re quite safe.’
Having overheard everything, Leonetto emerged from his hiding place with an expression of terror all over his features, which was not very surprising considering that he had indeed been frightened out of his wits, and the husband said to him:
‘What is your business with Messer Lambertuccio?’
‘Sir,’ replied the young man, ‘I have no business with him whatsoever, and that is why I firmly believe that he is out of his mind, or that he mistook me for somebody else, for no sooner did he see me, a little way down the road, than he drew his dagger and said: “Say your prayers, you blackguard” Without stopping to ask him the reason, I took to my heels and ran in here, where thanks to God and to this kind lady, I escaped from his clutches.’
Then the nobleman said:
Tales From the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 76