Mrs Rosie and the Priest

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  ‘I can’t think,’ he said in an even more intimidating voice than before, ‘why I’m stopping myself from coming down there and giving you such a thrashing you won’t ever move again. An irritating drunk of a donkey, that’s what you must be, not letting anyone round here get any sleep tonight.’

  With that he turned back inside and bolted the window.

  Some of the neighbours knew what sort of a man he was and whispered a few fearful words of advice to Andreuccio.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ they said, ‘go away, good man, don’t get yourself murdered down there. Go away for your own good.’

  Being already terrified by the ruffian’s voice and appearance, Andreuccio saw every reason for accepting this advice, which he felt was motivated by simple goodwill. He was now as dejected as anyone could be and despaired of recovering his money. He set off towards the part of the city he had come from following the servant-girl earlier that day, aiming to get back to his inn, but with no idea of the way. Then, since the stench he could smell coming from him was disgusting, he decided to go towards the sea in order to wash himself down. But he turned leftwards and headed up a street called the Ruga Catalana, or Catalan Way. This was taking him to the higher part of the city, when he happened to see in front two figures coming towards him with a lantern. He was afraid they might be part of the official watch, or else just up to no good. He noticed an open building nearby and quietly crept in to try to avoid them. But it was as if they had been directed precisely to that spot. They too entered the building. One was carrying various tools round his neck, which he unloaded, and the two of them began looking the tools over and commenting on them.

  At a certain point in their conversation, one of them said, ‘What can it be? I can smell the worst stink I’ve ever smelt.’ And then, lifting up the lantern a bit, they saw the miserable Andreuccio.

  ‘Who’s that there?’ they asked, astounded.

  When Andreuccio said nothing, they came over to him with the light and asked him what he was doing there in such a repulsive state. Andreuccio told them the whole story of what had happened to him. They guessed where it could have been and said to each other, ‘It must have all happened at that villain Buttafuoco’s.’

  ‘My good lad,’ said one of them, turning to Andreuccio, ‘you might have lost your money, but you have plenty reason for praising the Lord that you happened to have that fall and then couldn’t get back into the house. If you hadn’t fallen, you can be sure that you’d have been murdered as soon as you dropped off to sleep, and then you’d have lost your life as well as your money. But what’s the point of crying over it at this stage? You’ve as much chance of getting a penny back as of picking stars from the sky. You’re likely to end up dead if that villain hears you’ve been blabbing away.’

  Then, after some conferring together, they put a proposal to him.

  ‘Look, we feel sorry for you,’ they said. ‘So, if you want to join us in a certain project we are en route to perform, we are of the definite opinion that your share of the profits will amount to much more than what you have lost.’

  Andreuccio, in his desperate state, replied that he was ready and willing.

  That day had seen the burial of a certain Archbishop of Naples called Messer Filippo Minutolo. He had been buried in elaborate finery with a ruby ring on his finger worth over five-hundred gold florins. The two of them had in mind to detach it. They explained the scheme to Andreuccio, who let greed override good sense, and the three of them set off.

  Andreuccio was still giving off a strong smell as they proceeded towards the cathedral.

  ‘Can’t we find a way,’ said one of the two at a certain point, ‘for this companion of ours to have a wash somewhere to stop him stinking so horribly?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the other, ‘we’re near to a well now. It’s always had a pulley and a big bucket. Let’s go over and give him a quick wash.’

  When they reached the well, they found the rope was there but the bucket had been removed. So they decided to tie Andreuccio to the rope and lower him into the well. Once at the bottom, he would wash himself, and then, when he had done, he would give the rope a shake and they would pull him up.

  So they moved into action and lowered Andreuccio into the well. But it so happened that some of the night watch were feeling thirsty because of the heat and also because they had been chasing after someone. They were coming towards the well to get a drink when the other two saw them, and at once took to their heels, without any of the company coming after water seeing them. Down in the well, Andreuccio, having finished washing, shook the rope a few times. The thirsty watchmen, who had now unstrapped their bucklers, their weapons and their surcoats, began pulling on the rope, believing that it was attached to a big bucketful of water.

  As soon as Andreuccio saw he was near the rim of the well, he let go of the rope and grabbed hold of the rim in his hands. The sight was enough to terrify the watchmen, who immediately, without a word, let go of the rope and ran off as fast as they could. Andreuccio was profoundly startled. If he had not kept a firm hold, he would have fallen back into the well and perhaps have hurt himself badly, or even finished up dead. Once he was finally out of the well, he found the abandoned weaponry, which he knew his companions had not been carrying, and was even more amazed. Nervous, unclear what was going on, bemoaning his misfortune, he decided to take himself off without touching anything and wandered away with no idea of where he was heading. He was going along like this when he bumped into his two companions, who were coming back to pull him up out of the well. They were astonished and asked him who had actually done that. Andreuccio replied that he did not know, but gave them a full account of what had occurred and of what he had found by the well.

  His companions realized what had happened and explained, laughing, why they had run away and who the people were who had pulled him up. Then, without wasting any more words since it was already midnight, they all went off to the cathedral. They got in quite easily and reached the tomb, which was marble and very large. They used their irons to lift the cover, which was enormously heavy, raising it just enough for a single man to get inside, and then they propped it up.

  When this was done, one of them asked, ‘Who’s going to go inside?’

  ‘Not me,’ said the other.

  ‘Nor me either,’ said the first. ‘But let Andreuccio go in.’

  ‘I’m not doing that,’ said Andreuccio.

  Both of them turned on him.

  ‘What do you mean you won’t go in?’ they said. ‘By God, if you don’t go in, we’ll give you a bashing round the head with one of these iron poles and that’ll be the end of you.’

  This put the wind up Andreuccio. He went inside, thinking to himself as he did so, ‘These two are making me enter the tomb in order to trick me. When I’ve passed them everything and am getting myself out again, they’ll be off and I’ll be left with nothing.’

  He decided first and foremost to pocket his own share. He remembered the precious ring he had heard them discussing and, as soon as he was in the tomb, he took it off the Archbishop’s finger and put it on his own. Then he passed them the crozier, the mitre and the gloves and stripped the body down to the shirt, passing them each item, saying that was all there was. They protested that the ring must be somewhere and told him to look everywhere. He replied that he couldn’t find it and pretended to go on looking, keeping them waiting for some time. But they were as canny as he was. They continued telling him to keep looking and then, picking their moment, they pulled away the prop supporting the lid of the tomb and ran off, leaving Andreuccio enclosed within. Anyone can guess how Andreuccio felt when he heard the lid fall.

  He tried many times to push up the lid with his head and shoulders, but his efforts were useless. He was so overcome with the anguish of it all that he passed out, collapsing on the Archbishop’s dead body. And anyone who had seen the two of them would have had difficulty deciding which was the more lifeless, the Archbishop or Andreucci
o. When he came to his senses, he broke into a flood of tears, foreseeing that he could not avoid one of two ends. If no one came to open the tomb, he was doomed to die of hunger and the stink among the worms from the corpse. Or else, if people came and found him inside the tomb, he would be hung as a thief.

  With these bleakly distressing thoughts going round in his head, he heard movement in the church and many people talking. They were, he gathered, going to do what he and his companions had already done. This sharply increased his terror. But when they had opened the tomb and propped up the lid, they began to argue about who should go inside, which none of them wanted to do. At last, after much dispute, a priest said, ‘What are you frightened of? Do you think he’s going to eat you? The dead don’t eat people. I’ll be the one to go in.’ With this he leaned over the edge of the tomb, turned his head outwards and swung his legs inside in order to lower himself down. Andreuccio saw what was going on, jumped up and seized the priest by one of his legs and made as if to pull him down inside. When the priest felt himself being pulled, he let out an enormous shriek and scrambled out of the tomb as fast as he could. This terrified the rest of them. Leaving the tomb open, they took off as if they were being chased by a hundred thousand devils.

  Seeing them go, Andreuccio clambered out of the tomb, happier than he could have hoped, and left the church by the way he had come in. It was almost daylight as he walked off, trusting to luck, with the ring on his finger. But he reached the seafront and finished up somehow at his inn, where he discovered that the merchants he had come with and the innkeeper had been worrying about him all night. He told them what had happened to him and they all opined that he should take the innkeeper’s advice and leave Naples immediately. He quickly did so and returned to Perugia, with his funds now invested in a ring, after having set out to do some horse-trading.

  Ricciardo da Chinzica loses his wife

  There was once a judge in Pisa with more brains than muscle called Messer Ricciardo da Chinzica, who may have thought that what worked well with his studies would satisfy a wife too. Being very rich, he was able to devote considerable time and effort to searching for a good-looking young lady to marry, whereas, if he had been able to give himself the sort of professional counsel he gave to others, good looks and youth were just what he should have run away from. And he managed it: Ser Lotto Gualandi gave him one of his daughters in marriage. She was called Bartolommea and she was one of the best-looking and most fanciable girls in Pisa, though admittedly there aren’t many there who don’t look like hairy spiders. The judge took her home with great razzmatazz, and the marriage-feast was magnificent.

  When he finally geared himself up for the actual consummation, he just about brought it off. But being scrawny, wizened and not exactly spunky, next morning he had to have a glass of fortified wine, some sweet biscuits and other pick-me-ups before he could re-enter the world of the living. The experience gave the judge a better idea of his capabilities than he had had before, and he began teaching his wife a calendar of saints’ days of the kind that schoolboys pore over looking for holidays which might have been made in Ravenna. As he now showed her, there wasn’t a day that wasn’t a saint’s day, or rather every day had a multitude of them. Reverence for these demanded, as he demonstrated on various grounds, that man and woman should abstain from acts of congress. Then he threw in fasts, the four Ember days, evening vigils for the Apostles and hundreds of other saints, Fridays, Saturdays, the Lord’s Day, the whole of Lent, certain phases of the moon and endless other special cases, no doubt assuming that the breaks from court-work he enjoyed from time to time applied just as much to women in bed. So this was how he managed things for a long time, with his wife becoming seriously depressed from being given at best a monthly treat, while he always kept a watchful eye on her just in case someone else gave her lessons about working days like the ones he had given her about saints’ days.

  Since the next summer was very hot, Messer Ricciardo found himself wanting to go off to a beautiful property he had near Monte Nero, where he could relax and enjoy the air for a few days. With him he took his lovely wife. To give her some entertainment while they were there, one day he organized a fishing trip. The two of them sailed out on small boats to watch the spectacle, he on one with the fishermen, she on the other with some ladies. They were so captivated that they drifted several miles along the coast almost without realizing it. But while they were gazing in rapt attention, a sloop suddenly came on the scene, belonging to Paganino da Mare, a celebrated corsair of the time. Once it sighted the boats, it set a course straight for them. They were unable to get away fast enough and Paganino caught up with the boat with the ladies in it. As soon as he laid eyes on Messer Ricciardo’s beautiful wife, he stopped wanting any other booty, and whisked her into his sloop under the eyes of her husband, who was now on shore, and sailed away.

  It doesn’t take much to imagine how upset the judge was by the sight, given that he was so jealous he was fearful of the very air she breathed. In Pisa and elsewhere, he started fruitlessly complaining about the criminal behaviour of corsairs, but without discovering who had carried off his wife, or where they had taken her.

  When Paganino took in how beautiful she was, he felt that he was on to a good thing. Not having a wife, he thought he might hang on to her permanently and began gently soothing her tears, which were copious. He had long ago thrown away saints’ calendars and forgotten all about feast-days and holidays. That night he consoled her with some action, on the grounds that words had not helped much during the day. His consolations were so effective that the judge and his rules had gone entirely out of her head before they reached Monaco, and she began to have the time of her life with Paganino. And once he had got her there, he not only consoled her day and night, but honoured her as his wife.

  After a while Messer Ricciardo got wind of the whereabouts of his good lady. Ardently desiring to do something and believing that no one else could manage to do what needed to be done, he made up his mind to go and get her himself, being prepared to pay out any amount of money to recover her. So he set to sea and sailed to Monaco. Once there he caught sight of his wife, and she caught sight of him, as she reported back to Paganino that evening, also informing him what his intentions were. When Messer Ricciardo saw Paganino the next morning, he went up to him and quickly started an easy, friendly conversation with him, while Paganino pretended all the while not to recognize him and waited for him to get to the point. When he judged the moment had arrived, deploying his best abilities in the most ingratiating way possible, Messer Ricciardo disclosed the reason why he had come to Monaco, begging Paganino to take as much money as he wanted and give him back the lady.

  ‘Sir,’ replied Paganino with a cheerful expression on his face, ‘you are very welcome here. My reply in brief is as follows: it is true I have a young woman in my house, though I don’t know whether she’s your wife or someone else’s. I don’t know anything about her except what I’ve gathered from her during her stay with me. If you are her husband as you say, I’ll take you to her since you seem to me a likeable gentleman and I’m sure she’ll recognize you very well. If she says that the situation is as you say and wishes to go away with you, then, since I do love a likeable man such as you, you can give me the amount you yourself decide on for a ransom. But if the situation should be different, it would be indecent for you to try to take her from me, since I’ve got youth on my side and can hold a woman in my arms as well as any man, particularly one who is more attractive than any other girl I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘She certainly is my wife,’ said Messer Ricciardo, ‘as you’ll soon see if you take me to where she is. She’ll fling her arms round my neck straight away. So I won’t ask for the terms to be different from those you’ve thought up yourself.’

  ‘Let’s go then,’ said Paganino.

  So they walked off to Paganino’s house and went into a reception-room, from where Paganino sent for her. She appeared from a chamber properly and neatly d
ressed and went over where Messer Ricciardo was waiting with Paganino. There she addressed only the sort of remarks to Messer Ricciardo that she might have made to any other stranger who had come with Paganino to his house. The judge, who was expecting to be given a rapturous welcome, was amazed.

  ‘Could it be,’ he began to wonder, ‘that depression and my protracted sufferings ever since I lost her have altered me so much that she doesn’t recognize me?’

  ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘taking you fishing has cost me dear. No one has suffered as much as I have since I lost you, and here you are seeming not to recognize me, given the unfriendly way you’re talking. Can’t you see that I’m your Messer Ricciardo, who’s come here to pay whatever sum is demanded by this fine gentleman in whose house we find ourselves, so that I can have you back and take you away from here? He’s being kind enough to restore you to me for a sum of my own choosing.’

  The lady turned to him and gave him a faint smile.

  ‘Are you addressing me, sir?’ she asked. ‘You should check you’ve not mistaken me for somebody else. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t recall ever seeing you before.’

  ‘It’s you who should check what you’re saying,’ said Messer Ricciardo. ‘Look at me properly. If you’re willing to do a little serious recalling, you’re bound to see that I’m your very own Ricciardo da Chinzica.’

  ‘Sir, you’ll forgive me,’ said the lady, ‘but it’s not as right and proper as you imagine for me to give you a lengthy looking-over. All the same, I’ve looked at you enough to know that I’ve never seen you before.’

  Messer Ricciardo imagined that she was acting in this way out of fear of Paganino and did not want to admit to knowing him in his presence. So, after a few moments, he asked Paganino if he would be so kind as to let him speak with the lady alone in her chamber. Paganino said that he was happy to do so, on condition that he didn’t start kissing her against her will. Then he told the lady to go with him into the chamber, listen to what he wanted to say and give him whatever reply she felt like.