Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
shoulder, now I begin to remember it. I do not much mind the beard: I
grow used to it already: but indeed I liked better to stroke and pat
the smooth laughing cheek, with my arm across the neck behind. It is
very pleasant even so. Am I not grown? I can put the whole length of
my finger between your lips.
_Count._ And now, will not _you_ come, Wilhelm?
_Wilhelm._ I am too tall and too heavy: she is but a child.
[_Whispers._] Yet I think, papa, I am hardly so much of a man but you
may kiss me over again ... if you will not let her see it.
_Countess._ My dears! why do not you go to your supper?
_Annabella._ Because he has come to show us what Turks are like.
_Wilhelm._ Do not be angry with her. Do not look down, papa!
_Count._ Blessings on you both, sweet children!
_Wilhelm._ We may go now.
_Countess._ And now, Ludolph, come to the table, and tell me all your
sufferings.
_Count._ The worst begin here.
_Countess._ Ungrateful Ludolph!
_Count._ I am he: that is my name in full.
_Countess._ You have then ceased to love me?
_Count._ Worse; if worse can be: I have ceased to deserve your love.
_Countess._ No: Ludolph hath spoken falsely for once; but Ludolph is
not false.
_Count._ I have forfeited all I ever could boast of, your affection
and my own esteem. Away with caresses! Repulse me, abjure me; hate,
and never pardon me. Let the abject heart lie untorn by one remorse.
Forgiveness would split and shiver what slavery but abased.
_Countess._ Again you embrace me; and yet tell me never to pardon you!
O inconsiderate man! O idle deviser of impossible things!
But you have not introduced to me those who purchased your freedom, or
who achieved it by their valour.
_Count._ Mercy! O God!
_Countess._ Are they dead? Was the plague abroad.
_Count._ I will not dissemble ... such was never my intention ... that
my deliverance was brought about by means of----
_Countess._ Say it at once ... a lady.
_Count._ It was.
_Countess._ She fled with you.
_Count._ She did.
_Countess._ And have you left her, sir?
_Count._ Alas! alas! I have not; and never can.
_Countess._ Now come to my arms, brave, honourable Ludolph! Did I not
say thou couldst not be ungrateful? Where, where is she who has given
me back my husband?
_Count._ Dare I utter it! in this house.
_Countess._ Call the children.
_Count._ No; they must not affront her: they must not even stare at
her: other eyes, not theirs, must stab me to the heart.
_Countess._ They shall bless her; we will all. Bring her in.
[_Zaida is led in by the Count._]
_Countess._ We three have stood silent long enough: and much there
may be on which we will for ever keep silence. But, sweet young
creature! can I refuse my protection, or my love, to the preserver of
my husband? Can I think it a crime, or even a folly, to have pitied
the brave and the unfortunate? to have pressed (but alas! that it ever
should have been so here!) a generous heart to a tender one?
Why do you begin to weep?
_Zaida._ Under your kindness, O lady, lie the sources of these tears.
But why has he left us? He might help me to say many things which I
want to say.
_Countess._ Did he never tell you he was married?
_Zaida._ He did indeed.
_Countess._ That he had children?
_Zaida._ It comforted me a little to hear it.
_Countess._ Why? prithee why?
_Zaida._ When I was in grief at the certainty of holding but the
second place in his bosom, I thought I could at least go and play with
them, and win perhaps their love.
_Countess._ According to our religion, a man must have only one wife.
_Zaida._ That troubled me again. But the dispenser of your religion,
who binds and unbinds, does for sequins or services what our Prophet
does purely through kindness.
_Countess._ We can love but one.
_Zaida._ We indeed can love only one: but men have large hearts.
_Countess._ Unhappy girl!
_Zaida._ The very happiest in the world.
_Countess._ Ah! inexperienced creature!
_Zaida._ The happier for that perhaps.
_Countess._ But the sin!
_Zaida._ Where sin is, there must be sorrow: and I, my sweet sister,
feel none whatever. Even when tears fall from my eyes, they fall only
to cool my breast: I would not have one the fewer: they all are for
him: whatever he does, whatever he causes, is dear to me.
_Countess._ [_Aside._] This is too much. I could hardly endure to have
him so beloved by another, even at the extremity of the earth. [_To
Zaida._] You would not lead him into perdition?
_Zaida._ I have led him (Allah be praised!) to his wife and children.
It was for those I left my father. He whom we love might have stayed
with me at home: but there he would have been only half happy, even
had he been free. I could not often let him see me through the
lattice; I was too afraid; and I dared only once let fall the
water-melon; it made such a noise in dropping and rolling on the
terrace: but, another day, when I had pared it nicely, and had swathed
it up well among vine-leaves, dipped in sugar and sherbet, I was quite
happy. I leaped and danced to have been so ingenious. I wonder what
creature could have found and eaten it. I wish he were here, that I
might ask him if he knew.
_Countess._ He quite forgot home then!
_Zaida._ When we could speak together at all, he spoke perpetually of
those whom the calamity of war had separated from him.
_Countess._ It appears that you could comfort him in his distress, and
did it willingly.
_Zaida._ It is delightful to kiss the eye-lashes of the beloved: is it
not? but never so delightful as when fresh tears are on them.
_Countess._ And even this too? you did this?
_Zaida._ Fifty times.
_Countess._ Insupportable!
He often then spoke about me?
_Zaida._ As sure as ever we met: for he knew I loved him the better
when I heard him speak so fondly.
_Countess._ [_To herself._] Is this possible? It may be ... of the
absent, the unknown, the unfeared, the unsuspected.
_Zaida._ We shall now be so happy, all three.
_Countess._ How can we all live together?
_Zaida._ Now he is here, is there no bond of union?
_Countess._ Of union? of union? [_Aside_.] Slavery is a frightful
thing! slavery for life, too! And she released him from it. What then?
Impossible! impossible! [_To Zaida._] We are rich....
_Zaida._ I am glad to hear it. Nothing anywhere goes on well without
riches.
_Countess._ We can provide for you amply....
_Zaida._ Our husband....
_Countess._ _Our!... husband!..._
_Zaida._ Yes, yes; I know he is yours too; and you, being the elder
and having children, are lady above all. He can tell you how little I
want: a bath, a slave, a dish of pilau, one jonquil every morning, as
usual; nothing more. But he must swear that he has kissed it first.
No, he need not swear it; I may always see him do it, now.
_Countess._ [_Aside._] She agonizes me. [_To Zaida._] Will you never
be induced to return to your own country? Could not Ludolph persuade
you?
_Zaida._ He who could once persuade me anything, may now command me
everything: when he says I must go, I go. But he knows what awaits me.
_Countess._ No, child! he never shall say it.
_Zaida._ Thanks, lady! eternal thanks! The breaking of his word would
break my heart; and better _that_ break first. Let the command come
from you, and not from him.
_Countess._ [_Calling aloud._] Ludolph! Ludolph! hither! Kiss the hand
I present to you, and never forget it is the hand of a preserver.
THE PENTAMERON;
OR,
INTERVIEWS OF MESSER GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
AND MESSER FRANCESCO PETRARCA
WHEN
SAID MESSER GIOVANNI LAY INFIRM AT HIS VILLETTA
HARD BY CERTALDO;
AFTER WHICH THEY SAW NOT EACH OTHER ON OUR SIDE
OF PARADISE.
FIRST DAY'S INTERVIEW
_Boccaccio._ Who is he that entered, and now steps so silently and
softly, yet with a foot so heavy it shakes my curtains?
Frate Biagio! can it possibly be you?
No more physic for me, nor masses neither, at present.
Assunta! Assuntina! who is it?
_Assunta._ I cannot say, Signor Padrone! he puts his finger in the
dimple of his chin, and smiles to make me hold my tongue.
_Boccaccio._ Fra Biagio! are you come from Samminiato for this? You
need not put your finger there. We want no secrets. The girl knows her
duty and does her business. I have slept well, and wake better.
[_Raising himself up a little._]
Why? who are you? It makes my eyes ache to look aslant over the
sheets; and I cannot get to sit quite upright so conveniently; and I
must not have the window-shutters opened, they tell me.
_Petrarca._ Dear Giovanni! have you then been very unwell?
_Boccaccio._ O that sweet voice! and this fat friendly hand of thine,
Francesco!
Thou hast distilled all the pleasantest flowers, and all the
wholesomest herbs of spring, into my breast already.
What showers we have had this April, ay! How could you come along such
roads? If the devil were my labourer, I would make him work upon these
of Certaldo. He would have little time and little itch for mischief
ere he had finished them, but would gladly fan himself with an
Agnus-castus, and go to sleep all through the carnival.
_Petrarca._ Let us cease to talk both of the labour and the labourer.
You have then been dangerously ill?
_Boccaccio._ I do not know: they told me I was: and truly a man might
be unwell enough, who has twenty masses said for him, and fain sigh
when he thinks what he has paid for them. As I hope to be saved, they
cost me a lira each. Assunta is a good market-girl in eggs, and
mutton, and cow-heel; but I would not allow her to argue and haggle
about the masses. Indeed she knows best whether they were not fairly
worth all that was asked for them, although I could have bought a
winter cloak for less money. However, we do not want both at the same
time. I did not want the cloak: I wanted _them_, it seems. And yet I
begin to think God would have had mercy on me, if I had begged it of
him myself in my own house. What think you?
_Petrarca._ I think he might.
_Boccaccio._ Particularly if I offered him the sacrifice on which I
wrote to you.
_Petrarca._ That letter has brought me hither.
_Boccaccio._ You do then insist on my fulfilling my promise, the
moment I can leave my bed. I am ready and willing.
_Petrarca._ Promise! none was made. You only told me that, if it
pleased God to restore you to your health again, you are ready to
acknowledge His mercy by the holocaust of your _Decameron_. What proof
have you that God would exact it? If you could destroy the _Inferno_
of Dante, would you?
_Boccaccio._ Not I, upon my life! I would not promise to burn a copy
of it on the condition of a recovery for twenty years.
_Petrarca._ You are the only author who would not rather demolish
another's work than his own; especially if he thought it better: a
thought which seldom goes beyond suspicion.
_Boccaccio._ I am not jealous of any one: I think admiration
pleasanter. Moreover, Dante and I did not come forward at the same
time, nor take the same walks. His flames are too fierce for you and
me: we had trouble enough with milder. I never felt any high
gratification in hearing of people being damned; and much less would I
toss them into the fire myself. I might indeed have put a nettle under
the nose of the learned judge in Florence, when he banished you and
your family; but I hardly think I could have voted for more than a
scourging to the foulest and fiercest of the party.
_Petrarca._ Be as compassionate, be as amiably irresolute, toward your
own _Novelle_, which have injured no friend of yours, and deserve more
affection.
_Boccaccio._ Francesco! no character I ever knew, ever heard of, or
ever feigned, deserves the same affection as you do; the tenderest